CFB Week 8 (10/16-10/18) News and Picks
- Thread starter RJ Esq
- Start date
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Thanks, dude. Drinking Gatorade right now and will get some Mexican food in a second.
frankiegotti
Power Boat Enthusiast
I am wondering what the line next week on texas is going to be, but on anything less than 10, i'll probably hit it. Will Muschamp really has the defense peaking in the biggest games, which is more than I can say about Oklahoma.
There WR's corp, is deep and fast, not florida fast but amongst the best in the big 12. Mizzou clearly has flaws and when things don't go good for chase daniel he just throws the ball where ever, which is a good possibility against this great horn defense.
I still need to do research how UT does ATS the week after playing OU.
There WR's corp, is deep and fast, not florida fast but amongst the best in the big 12. Mizzou clearly has flaws and when things don't go good for chase daniel he just throws the ball where ever, which is a good possibility against this great horn defense.
I still need to do research how UT does ATS the week after playing OU.
frankiegotti
Power Boat Enthusiast
You better start heading for the shitter now.:shake:
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Already cleared room for the food and Mexican food doesn't do that. Big myth.
frankiegotti
Power Boat Enthusiast
Well your a better man than me b/c when I have mexican I am hanging around at home for a couple hours maybe it is the type of mexican food i eat. I am not sure, all I know is no one is safe after I eat mexican, lol. :cheers:
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Shooting Pointe Blank: Texas Tech
from Corn Nation by Blankman
Let me officially state for the record: …DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMNNN… Do Texas teams just play hot potato with this “dangle the carrot” in front of Nebraska’s face or what? On the bright side, I was wrong, WAY wrong in how I thought things would go down. Yes, I fully admit it. I thought we were going to get torn apart like wheat through a thresher, but interestingly enough the Keys to the Game were oddly appropriate.
1.) K.I.S.S. – Shawn Watson did in fact keep it simple. Short little outs to let big-bodied, physical receivers make plays. Mixing up the pass with a well-blocked run game. Played Marlon Lucky well as both a runner and receiver let alone Mr. Helu and when it came to D? Well, things broke down admittedly but when you’re working against a team like Graham and Crabtree, you’re giving up yards.
That said there were some guys on the field who really stepped up due to injury (Tyler Wortman and Matt Holt are just two examples) and Nebraska ended up winning the fourth quarter 21-7. Going into overtime I had a feeling that it would probably at least go to two and honestly it’s a shame that it didn’t. That was a loss, but it was a damn fine game and as much as it sucks to be on the losing end it was exciting to watch and I hope the Raiders enjoyed the game itself as much as the win. Good on ya, boys and girls.
2.) Discipline – The key to the game that 41% of 71 voters felt was the most important…well it was the most important and may have very well cost Nebraska the game. Suh seems to have a slight issue with the personal foul bug now and again but if there’s a true agitator for me when it comes to penalties, it’s the offensive line. I know that they’re better than what we’ve been shown and I know they can be COACHED to not do what they’re doing. Forget that, though.
If they continue to give up penalties in games, how about a little bit of reinforcement in practice? Stair running, push ups, make them push your truck back and forth down the street, but do something, Coach Cotton, because you’re making a potentially very good line cost Nebraska some very large chunks of yardage.
3.) Belief – When “Crab” jolted for six, I thought “here we go again”, but NO! Just when it looked as if Missouri had switched uniforms and Jeremy Maclin had transferred immediately violating a number of NCAA rules Nebraska came back and fought hard going in 17-7 at the break. The thing is I truly believed that the game was winnable seeing what I saw. It’s obvious that they, too, felt this way. This was a team fired up, ready to go into a Top 10 team’s digs and kick them in the mouth before leaving and it turns out they almost did after scoring 21 points in the final quarter to take it to OT.
Problem was, like I said, I felt it was going to have to go into multiples for Nebraska to win because I didn’t think they could keep Tech out of the end zone at least the first time. I think NU could’ve won by three, but Joe made his most unfortunate throw of the entire game and it was game over, man.
In Summary: Sucks, but I’ll tell you what: If the team we all saw plays the way they did and continues to improve even Oklahoma looks beatable. Note Sooners I said “beatable” not “they will be beaten”, “we’re going to beat them”, “Boomer Sooner isn’t going to be played 50 times”, but beatable. Hey, plus side, Bob and Brent won’t have to pull punches!
Before the TRUE rivalry is renewed however, we tangle with the RetroClones in a road game that this NU team should win. It will probably be a dogfight and Arnaud needs to be careful because without Phillip Bates who just up and quit the team behind him, there’s a big hole if he goes down.
Good week, Huskers. Beat ISU.
from Corn Nation by Blankman
Let me officially state for the record: …DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMNNN… Do Texas teams just play hot potato with this “dangle the carrot” in front of Nebraska’s face or what? On the bright side, I was wrong, WAY wrong in how I thought things would go down. Yes, I fully admit it. I thought we were going to get torn apart like wheat through a thresher, but interestingly enough the Keys to the Game were oddly appropriate.
1.) K.I.S.S. – Shawn Watson did in fact keep it simple. Short little outs to let big-bodied, physical receivers make plays. Mixing up the pass with a well-blocked run game. Played Marlon Lucky well as both a runner and receiver let alone Mr. Helu and when it came to D? Well, things broke down admittedly but when you’re working against a team like Graham and Crabtree, you’re giving up yards.
That said there were some guys on the field who really stepped up due to injury (Tyler Wortman and Matt Holt are just two examples) and Nebraska ended up winning the fourth quarter 21-7. Going into overtime I had a feeling that it would probably at least go to two and honestly it’s a shame that it didn’t. That was a loss, but it was a damn fine game and as much as it sucks to be on the losing end it was exciting to watch and I hope the Raiders enjoyed the game itself as much as the win. Good on ya, boys and girls.
2.) Discipline – The key to the game that 41% of 71 voters felt was the most important…well it was the most important and may have very well cost Nebraska the game. Suh seems to have a slight issue with the personal foul bug now and again but if there’s a true agitator for me when it comes to penalties, it’s the offensive line. I know that they’re better than what we’ve been shown and I know they can be COACHED to not do what they’re doing. Forget that, though.
If they continue to give up penalties in games, how about a little bit of reinforcement in practice? Stair running, push ups, make them push your truck back and forth down the street, but do something, Coach Cotton, because you’re making a potentially very good line cost Nebraska some very large chunks of yardage.
3.) Belief – When “Crab” jolted for six, I thought “here we go again”, but NO! Just when it looked as if Missouri had switched uniforms and Jeremy Maclin had transferred immediately violating a number of NCAA rules Nebraska came back and fought hard going in 17-7 at the break. The thing is I truly believed that the game was winnable seeing what I saw. It’s obvious that they, too, felt this way. This was a team fired up, ready to go into a Top 10 team’s digs and kick them in the mouth before leaving and it turns out they almost did after scoring 21 points in the final quarter to take it to OT.
Problem was, like I said, I felt it was going to have to go into multiples for Nebraska to win because I didn’t think they could keep Tech out of the end zone at least the first time. I think NU could’ve won by three, but Joe made his most unfortunate throw of the entire game and it was game over, man.
In Summary: Sucks, but I’ll tell you what: If the team we all saw plays the way they did and continues to improve even Oklahoma looks beatable. Note Sooners I said “beatable” not “they will be beaten”, “we’re going to beat them”, “Boomer Sooner isn’t going to be played 50 times”, but beatable. Hey, plus side, Bob and Brent won’t have to pull punches!
Before the TRUE rivalry is renewed however, we tangle with the RetroClones in a road game that this NU team should win. It will probably be a dogfight and Arnaud needs to be careful because without Phillip Bates who just up and quit the team behind him, there’s a big hole if he goes down.
Good week, Huskers. Beat ISU.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Sunday Hangover: Who Wants No. 1?
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: General CFB Insanity
Miss any of Saturday's action? Get the storylines and implications every Sunday morning with a shot of humor, two of vermouth and a pot full of what's suspected to be either coffee or the pureed remnants of Oklahoma's defense.
Step aside Big 12 vs. SEC, BCS format vs. playoffs, and "your bail bondsman or mine?" college football has a new hot-button debate.
Alabama or Texas? Who should be No. 1?
It's what an older generation might've called the $64,000 question, and, what, adjusted for the dollar's tumble, is probably still an expensive enough proposition to fill half your gas tank or pick up the tip on a Michael Phelps and John Daly table for two.
But here's a better question: Who wants to be No. 1?College football's upset streak started in Week 5 with Oregon State's Thursday night stunner over then-No. 1 Southern Cal and has stopped about as often as Bobby Bowden checks his e-mail. Since then, No. 1-ranked teams are 1-2 while top-five teams are a middling 7-6. Thus far, being near the top of the polls has done nothing but spark Maalox sales and get your team an early start on BCS dream crushing.
Take over the No. 1 mantle and you'll get a bull's eye on your back even Dick Cheney couldn't miss and an EZ pass to wait-till-next-year.
But Texas made its play for the top spot Saturday in a game in which the scoreboard operator probably logged enough overtime to bail out a bank or two, slugging back and forth with the Sooners until only the Longhorns' bank of the Red River was still cheering.
"Usually in a college game like this," head coach Mack Brown said, "somebody gives up."
That wasn't happening even if the Earth shook at Texas State Fair or someone held up the Sooners with every weapon in Tank Johnson's arsenal.
So the Longhorns finished them off with as strong a fourth quarter as any team has played this season. (Conventional wisdom says everyone on the field puts their pants on one leg at a time, but with the hurting Texas put on the Oklahoma defense in the final stanza, you'd be forgiven for concluding that the Sooner defense must wear some sort of kilt.) The offense marched down the field while Oklahoma's Sam Bradford was scrambling like Phil Fulmer dodging a summons.
Meanwhile, Alabama watched it all unfold from the comfort of the bye week.
So which team should inherit the most dangerous chunk of real estate in college football?
The answer is so clear even a Big 12 replay official should be able to see it from Sarah Palin's house.
Hook 'em Horns.
It's not that the Tide didn't play in Week 7. Getting ahead without doing anything is what we here like to call the American Dream. And Alabama's resurgence through six games is both earlier than expected and better than advertised.
But it's nowhere as impressive as the wins Texas has racked up.
The Tide beat a Georgia team that's been shaky even in its best moments and only turned in a truly spectacular half against the 'Dawgs; Georgia outscored Alabama 30-10 in the second half. Meanwhile, the formerly No. 9 Clemson Tigers have staged a collapse Lehman Brothers would be proud of, adding losses to Wake Forest and Maryland to go with the Alabama clobbering.
While Texas has confidently racked up win after win, Alabama has played out the axiom that you coach a different team every week. Thus far, Saban has led two Bear Bryant Alabamas and two that might make make Vince Lombardi re-consider his career choice on his best days.
Around their high profile wins, the Tide has strung together a series of wins that won't exactly knock your crimson socks off. An uninspired effort against Tulane seemed like a one-time event until Kentucky held the Tide to 10 offensive points.
The Longhorns, meanwhile, are majoring in consistency, and unlike Vince Young on a Wonderlic, they're acing it. They scored 52 points in three of their first four wins and have scored between 38 and 45 points in their other three. An impressive road win over Colorado last week hinted at Texas' potential, a Texas-sized statement at the State Fair was the icing on the fried Twinkie.
Through five games, Mack Brown's team prided itself on remaining outside of he mainstream chatter. Flying under the radar now would be like sneaking the Death Star past NORAD.
But whichever team takes the top ranking should strap itself in for a bumpy ride.
For the Longhorns, beating Oklahoma is like winning the first stage of the Tour de France only to be told you'll have to race the rest on a tricycle.
They've taken down the Sooners, but formerly No. 3 Missouri awaits. And so does the Oklahoma State team that toppled the Tigers in Columbia. Then there's Texas Tech's air assault, Baylor's standout freshman quarterback Robert Griffin, then last year's Orange Bowl champ Kansas and finally Texas A&M in what could be one heck of a trap game.
Then there's the matter of the Big 12 title game, almost certainly a make-or-break proposition for the BCS title game.
And while the Longhorns have reveled in the fact that their high-talent, low-star power lineup probably couldn't get picked out of a lineup even if they were wearing Texas uniforms and tackling the guy next to them, their impact players could fit comfortably in the back seat of a Hummer with room to spare for a helmet or two.
The Longhorns' passing game relies almost entirely on Quan Cosby and Evan Sharpley. The duo accounts for 54.2 percent of Texas' receptions and 62 percent of receiving yardage, both numbers easily the highest among the Big 12's top-nine passing offenses. Tailback Chris Ogbayanna has developed into a third passing threat, but managed just 24 yards against Oklahoma and has just 271 on the season, 65 of which came in a single play against Colorado. And unfortunately for the Longhorns, JerMichael Finley replacment Blain Irby is injured.
And the ground game that became the top storyline of the Red River rivalry is still a work in progress itself. Ogbonnaya netted minus-three yards in the first half against Oklahoma and more than doubled his entire season's output in the second half. The eventual return of Foswhitt Whitaker may help lift some of the burden off Ogbonnaya and quarterback Colt McCoy, and if the Longhorns imposed their will so thoroughly on Oklahoma's defense, it's hard to believe anyone else will have an easier time with the 'Horns.
But in this season of upsets, the only thing riskier than facing Texas is betting on the ranked team against the field.
For Alabama the problem continues to be depth as in Lindsey Lohan's political musings might be deeper than some points of the Tide's roster. While Saban has drastically increased the talent level in Tuscaloosa, Alabama is still at risk for a collapse like last season in the grind of the SEC schedule. And quarterback John Parker Wilson has been what Barack Obama might call erratic. The three-year starter has oscillated from a Rolex accurate 13-of-16 against Georgia and 22-of-25 against Clemson to seven-of-17 against Kentucky and 11-of-23 against Tulane.
So savor the time on top, Texas and Alabama. Just don't be surprised if there's not enough time to kick your shoes off and enjoy the view.
One of you will be No. 1. If you're brave enough to take it. [SIZE=+1]
The Big 16[/SIZE]
Find out who the nation's top teams are each week as we rank the best 16 and set up something heretofore unheard of in college football, a play...wait for it...off. At season's end, the top 16 will compete in two brackets -- the Fairburn, Ga. division, ancestral home of Hangover mancrush Eric Berry, and the erstwhile Fort Myers, Fla. division, ancestral home of the pizza bagel.
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: General CFB Insanity
Step aside Big 12 vs. SEC, BCS format vs. playoffs, and "your bail bondsman or mine?" college football has a new hot-button debate.
Alabama or Texas? Who should be No. 1?
It's what an older generation might've called the $64,000 question, and, what, adjusted for the dollar's tumble, is probably still an expensive enough proposition to fill half your gas tank or pick up the tip on a Michael Phelps and John Daly table for two.
But here's a better question: Who wants to be No. 1?College football's upset streak started in Week 5 with Oregon State's Thursday night stunner over then-No. 1 Southern Cal and has stopped about as often as Bobby Bowden checks his e-mail. Since then, No. 1-ranked teams are 1-2 while top-five teams are a middling 7-6. Thus far, being near the top of the polls has done nothing but spark Maalox sales and get your team an early start on BCS dream crushing.
Take over the No. 1 mantle and you'll get a bull's eye on your back even Dick Cheney couldn't miss and an EZ pass to wait-till-next-year.
But Texas made its play for the top spot Saturday in a game in which the scoreboard operator probably logged enough overtime to bail out a bank or two, slugging back and forth with the Sooners until only the Longhorns' bank of the Red River was still cheering.
"Usually in a college game like this," head coach Mack Brown said, "somebody gives up."
That wasn't happening even if the Earth shook at Texas State Fair or someone held up the Sooners with every weapon in Tank Johnson's arsenal.
So the Longhorns finished them off with as strong a fourth quarter as any team has played this season. (Conventional wisdom says everyone on the field puts their pants on one leg at a time, but with the hurting Texas put on the Oklahoma defense in the final stanza, you'd be forgiven for concluding that the Sooner defense must wear some sort of kilt.) The offense marched down the field while Oklahoma's Sam Bradford was scrambling like Phil Fulmer dodging a summons.
Meanwhile, Alabama watched it all unfold from the comfort of the bye week.
So which team should inherit the most dangerous chunk of real estate in college football?
The answer is so clear even a Big 12 replay official should be able to see it from Sarah Palin's house.
Hook 'em Horns.
It's not that the Tide didn't play in Week 7. Getting ahead without doing anything is what we here like to call the American Dream. And Alabama's resurgence through six games is both earlier than expected and better than advertised.
But it's nowhere as impressive as the wins Texas has racked up.
The Tide beat a Georgia team that's been shaky even in its best moments and only turned in a truly spectacular half against the 'Dawgs; Georgia outscored Alabama 30-10 in the second half. Meanwhile, the formerly No. 9 Clemson Tigers have staged a collapse Lehman Brothers would be proud of, adding losses to Wake Forest and Maryland to go with the Alabama clobbering.
While Texas has confidently racked up win after win, Alabama has played out the axiom that you coach a different team every week. Thus far, Saban has led two Bear Bryant Alabamas and two that might make make Vince Lombardi re-consider his career choice on his best days.
Around their high profile wins, the Tide has strung together a series of wins that won't exactly knock your crimson socks off. An uninspired effort against Tulane seemed like a one-time event until Kentucky held the Tide to 10 offensive points.
The Longhorns, meanwhile, are majoring in consistency, and unlike Vince Young on a Wonderlic, they're acing it. They scored 52 points in three of their first four wins and have scored between 38 and 45 points in their other three. An impressive road win over Colorado last week hinted at Texas' potential, a Texas-sized statement at the State Fair was the icing on the fried Twinkie.
Through five games, Mack Brown's team prided itself on remaining outside of he mainstream chatter. Flying under the radar now would be like sneaking the Death Star past NORAD.
But whichever team takes the top ranking should strap itself in for a bumpy ride.
For the Longhorns, beating Oklahoma is like winning the first stage of the Tour de France only to be told you'll have to race the rest on a tricycle.
They've taken down the Sooners, but formerly No. 3 Missouri awaits. And so does the Oklahoma State team that toppled the Tigers in Columbia. Then there's Texas Tech's air assault, Baylor's standout freshman quarterback Robert Griffin, then last year's Orange Bowl champ Kansas and finally Texas A&M in what could be one heck of a trap game.
Then there's the matter of the Big 12 title game, almost certainly a make-or-break proposition for the BCS title game.
And while the Longhorns have reveled in the fact that their high-talent, low-star power lineup probably couldn't get picked out of a lineup even if they were wearing Texas uniforms and tackling the guy next to them, their impact players could fit comfortably in the back seat of a Hummer with room to spare for a helmet or two.
The Longhorns' passing game relies almost entirely on Quan Cosby and Evan Sharpley. The duo accounts for 54.2 percent of Texas' receptions and 62 percent of receiving yardage, both numbers easily the highest among the Big 12's top-nine passing offenses. Tailback Chris Ogbayanna has developed into a third passing threat, but managed just 24 yards against Oklahoma and has just 271 on the season, 65 of which came in a single play against Colorado. And unfortunately for the Longhorns, JerMichael Finley replacment Blain Irby is injured.
And the ground game that became the top storyline of the Red River rivalry is still a work in progress itself. Ogbonnaya netted minus-three yards in the first half against Oklahoma and more than doubled his entire season's output in the second half. The eventual return of Foswhitt Whitaker may help lift some of the burden off Ogbonnaya and quarterback Colt McCoy, and if the Longhorns imposed their will so thoroughly on Oklahoma's defense, it's hard to believe anyone else will have an easier time with the 'Horns.
But in this season of upsets, the only thing riskier than facing Texas is betting on the ranked team against the field.
For Alabama the problem continues to be depth as in Lindsey Lohan's political musings might be deeper than some points of the Tide's roster. While Saban has drastically increased the talent level in Tuscaloosa, Alabama is still at risk for a collapse like last season in the grind of the SEC schedule. And quarterback John Parker Wilson has been what Barack Obama might call erratic. The three-year starter has oscillated from a Rolex accurate 13-of-16 against Georgia and 22-of-25 against Clemson to seven-of-17 against Kentucky and 11-of-23 against Tulane.
So savor the time on top, Texas and Alabama. Just don't be surprised if there's not enough time to kick your shoes off and enjoy the view.
One of you will be No. 1. If you're brave enough to take it. [SIZE=+1]
The Big 16[/SIZE]
Find out who the nation's top teams are each week as we rank the best 16 and set up something heretofore unheard of in college football, a play...wait for it...off. At season's end, the top 16 will compete in two brackets -- the Fairburn, Ga. division, ancestral home of Hangover mancrush Eric Berry, and the erstwhile Fort Myers, Fla. division, ancestral home of the pizza bagel.
- 1. Texas Longhorns: The Hangover gladly admits its past errors in underrating the Longhorns. Still, it's hard not to notice Sam Bradford's 378 yards and five touchdowns and a pass defense now ranked 109th in yardage allowed.
- 2. Alabama Crimson Tide: The Tide has a favorable schedule coming up, with only a road trip to Death Valley for Saban Bowl II standing out as a possible upset. The remainder of the Tide's opponents are 12-16 against FCS schools this season.
- 3. Penn State Nittany Lions: Joe Paterno's team doesn't have a marquee win like Texas or Alabama, which is the risk of scheduling Coastal Carolina, Oregon State, Temple and Syracuse as non-conference opponents.
- 4. Texas Tech Red Raiders: The Red Raiders work overtime to knock off Nebraska after blowing a 24-10 third-quarter lead, but have now topped the 100-yard rushing mark in every game this season. That's practically a Navy moment for a team that averaged just 59 yards a game last year.
- 5. Oklahoma Sooners: Even with the loss, the Sooners proved they're a top-five caliber team. But running back DeMarco Murray still isn't up to speed after offseason surgery.
- 6. Florida Gators: With enough talent to make the Lions look good, it always seemed like a matter of time until the Gators figured out exactly how the puzzle pieces fit together. LSU just ran into a whole lot of angry.
- 7. USC Trojans: The Trojans committed five second-half turnovers and still shut out Arizona State, underscoring just how good their defense is and how much they still need to figure out on Mark Sanchez's unit.
- 8. Georgia Bulldogs: The Bulldogs laid a statistical whitewash on the Vols, even if it didn't quite feel that way. Matt Stafford threw for a career high 310 yards, the Bulldogs more than doubled the Vols in yardage, and Georgia held Tennessee to just over 17 minutes in time of possession.
- 9. Oklahoma State:
Mike Gundy is a man. He's 41-years-old, and after leading his team to a surprisingly low-scoring 23-21 win over Missouri, he's the mid-point favorite for Big 12 coach of the year honors. - 10. Brigham Young Cougars: The Cougars' offense gets the headlines, but it's the BYU defense that gets the win this week in an ugly 21-3 affair against New Mexico.
- 11. Missouri Tigers: Chase Daniel might've cracked 400 yards passing if it weren't for a controversial late interception (he finished with 390 yards), but the loss to Oklahoma State puts a heckuva dent in his Heisman candidacy.
- 12.LSU Tigers: Watch out Tiger Woods, the Detroit Tigers and legendary hockey enforcer David "Tiger" Williams, it's a terrible week to be a feline. All five FBS Tiger teams (LSU, Auburn, Memphis, Clemson and Missouri) went down this week, but none more spectacularly than LSU, who gave up just 17 fewer points to Florida (51) than it had allowed all season prior to Saturday (68).
- 13. Ohio State Buckeyes: The Buckeyes didn't manage a single offensive touchdown against Big Ten also-ran Purdue, which is an ominous sign with Penn State on the schedule in two weeks.
- 14. Kansas: Quarterback Todd Reesing and converted quarterback-turned-wide receiver Kerry Meier have done their job to keep the offense rolling, but the Jayhawks just don't have the same bite on defense as the unit that led the nation in turnover margin last year.
- 15. Utah: Another win and another week closer to the most important 'Holy War' of all time.
- 16. Michigan State: Javon Ringer cracks the 1,000-yard mark halfway through the season and could only make a better case for the Heisman if he painted himself bronze and worked on his stiff-arm.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
It might seem strange to Cody Hawkins now, but benching his son hurts Dan Hawkins even more
from Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo! Sports by Matt Hinton
Cody Hawkins is the coach's son, so you'd think, you know, he can do whatever he wants:
The Buffs' offensive woes go well beyond Cody Hawkins, who'll almost certainly return to the lineup against Kansas State -- redshirt freshman Matt Ballenger didn't lead a scoring drive, was "equally ineffective" and "threw several passes that lacked much velocity." Saturday's loss was Colorado's third straight, and the Jayhawks' the third straight defense to hold CU under 300 total yards and under four yards per snap (for some comparison, only one team, Central Florida, is averaging less than four yards per snap for the season). The Buffs are currently dead last in the Big 12 in rushing offense, passing offense, pass efficiency offense, total offense and scoring offense, next-to-last in offensive giveaways and tenth in sacks allowed.
The good news is that Kansas State comes to Boulder next week, and the Wildcats are to defense what Colorado is to offense. The bad news -- and this is the case for basically the rest of the season in the high-octane Big 12 -- is that the Wildcats are one of the six Big 12 teams in the top eight nationally in scoring offense, and if the Buffs' offense can't scratch up the firepower to hang with KSU (which put up 47 in a blowout win over CU last year in Manhattan, and 44 Saturday at Texas A&M), it's going to be a long, long second half, no matter where Li'l Hawk is sitting.
from Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo! Sports by Matt Hinton
Cody Hawkins is the coach's son, so you'd think, you know, he can do whatever he wants:
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LD2q87y6tF8&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Among the few items not included on the list of "anything he wants," however, are going 8 of 22 with two first half interceptions and taking a sack for a safety in an eventual 30-14 loss. Even Dan Hawkins can't truck that kind of insolent futility, and so Li'l Hawk found himself benched by his dad for the second week in a row as Kansas' lead mounted Saturday.
The good news is that Kansas State comes to Boulder next week, and the Wildcats are to defense what Colorado is to offense. The bad news -- and this is the case for basically the rest of the season in the high-octane Big 12 -- is that the Wildcats are one of the six Big 12 teams in the top eight nationally in scoring offense, and if the Buffs' offense can't scratch up the firepower to hang with KSU (which put up 47 in a blowout win over CU last year in Manhattan, and 44 Saturday at Texas A&M), it's going to be a long, long second half, no matter where Li'l Hawk is sitting.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Things Are Heating Up in the SEC
from The Wiz of Odds by Jay Christensen
Auburn's Tommy Tuberville and Tennessee's Phillip Fulmer could soon be joining millions of Americans on the unemployment line. Let's start with Kevin Scarbinsky of the Birmingham News, who writes this about Auburn's 25-22 home loss to Arkansas:
"For the third time in its last four visits, Tuberville's home-state team walked into his house and made itself at home. To make matters worse, Tuberville's one-time would-be successor, running an offense that resembled an F-18 compared to Auburn's paper airplane, demonstrated what the Jetgate gang saw in Petrino in the first place.
"It's impossible to see Tuberville's future clearly as 4-3 Auburn sinks slowly in the West, but history proves it's not premature to question it.
"At the moment, it's just a hunch, but I smell jet fuel."
As for Fulmer, the situation has gone from bad to worse. His team managed all of one rushing yard in a 26-14 loss at Georgia. Ron Higgins of the Memphis Commercial Appeal sends this dagger in the direction of Knoxville:
"So here's a question for Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton and all the Vols' deep-pocket boosters. How long does this mess have to go on before you realize that Phillip Fulmer isn't going to raise this sunken ship from the bottom of the SEC East?"
Higgins adds: "It's becoming increasingly clear that the school needs to offer Fulmer his $6 million buyout, but he didn't sound after Saturday's game as if quitting is in his vocabulary."
from The Wiz of Odds by Jay Christensen
Auburn's Tommy Tuberville and Tennessee's Phillip Fulmer could soon be joining millions of Americans on the unemployment line. Let's start with Kevin Scarbinsky of the Birmingham News, who writes this about Auburn's 25-22 home loss to Arkansas:
"For the third time in its last four visits, Tuberville's home-state team walked into his house and made itself at home. To make matters worse, Tuberville's one-time would-be successor, running an offense that resembled an F-18 compared to Auburn's paper airplane, demonstrated what the Jetgate gang saw in Petrino in the first place.
"It's impossible to see Tuberville's future clearly as 4-3 Auburn sinks slowly in the West, but history proves it's not premature to question it.
"At the moment, it's just a hunch, but I smell jet fuel."
As for Fulmer, the situation has gone from bad to worse. His team managed all of one rushing yard in a 26-14 loss at Georgia. Ron Higgins of the Memphis Commercial Appeal sends this dagger in the direction of Knoxville:
"So here's a question for Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton and all the Vols' deep-pocket boosters. How long does this mess have to go on before you realize that Phillip Fulmer isn't going to raise this sunken ship from the bottom of the SEC East?"
Higgins adds: "It's becoming increasingly clear that the school needs to offer Fulmer his $6 million buyout, but he didn't sound after Saturday's game as if quitting is in his vocabulary."
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
The Alphabetical: College Football, Week 7
from The Sporting Blog
Each Sunday during college football season, Spencer Hall offers a letter-by-letter analysis of Saturday’s college football games.
A is for Alabama. Teams at the top of the polls continue to rise and fall like so many lottery balls in a tumbler: Missouri and Oklahoma both fall this week, leaving voters with Penn State, Texas, and Alabama as the serious BCS conference choices for the No. 1 slot. Voters, being the nitpicky perfectionists that they are, likely will put Alabama first because the Tide made no mistakes this week in a flawless performance against the bye. Voters reward perfection, and Alabama had plenty of it thanks to being perfectly idle.
B is for Baleful. Definition: "Deadly or pernicious in influence." This is the proper descriptor for the Oklahoma State defense, which served as national heroes Saturday night by playing several levels above their pay grade in alternating coverages, showing new blitzes and flummoxing Chase Daniel and the Mizzou Tigers in a 28-25 upset in Columbia.
Even in defeat, Daniel remained telepathically bonded with his receivers. In fact, he only failed to complete one pass in the second half, though three of his "completions" went the other way as interceptions. Mizzou also had, in the second week of October, its first three-and-out of the season. Don't worry. It happens to everyone, Tigers.
C is for Colt. The game of the year thus far was Oklahoma-Texas, where you, the viewer, were battered in legitimate hype, rolled in a savory dough of first-half heroics, then deep-fried in a hot oil of Longhorn intensity.
Colt McCoy's icy management of the Texas offense was magnificent, but it would have been impossible without Jordan Shipley. The senior receiver had 11 catches for 112 yards, a TD, and a 96-yard kickoff return to keep Texas counterpunching until the defense could catch up to the offense . . . which, thanks to Oklahoma's complete lack of a run game, it eventually did.
Let's divert this back to McCoy, though. Where McCoy would have forced a ball in the past, he largely didn't; and where he wouldn't have taken a chance in coverage before, he did, threading balls through Oklahoma's zone patiently and with pinpoint accuracy.
D is for Dropoff. Wisconsin's 48-7 hammering at the hands of Penn State was its worst loss since 1989. At 3-3, the delayed post-Alvarez dropoff watch has officially begun for the Badgers.
E is for Egregiously Bad Officiating. This is just a short list of the atrocious calls seen Saturday: Anything and everything called in the Red River Rivalry, including both Oklahoma's first touchdown and most especially the "incomplete" pick of Colt McCoy in the end zone; the mass confusion at the end of the Notre Dame/UNC game; numerous calls in the UGA/Tennessee game; and the LSU/Florida crew's holding-friendly no-calls for both sides in the Swamp.
It was a good day for myopia, cataracts, astigmatisms, and whatever other visual impairments you want to claim caused the particularly noticeable ineptitude on the part of zebras around the country.
F is for Fury. Florida played like someone had its families tied up in a dark basement somewhere, especially the offensive line, which took a new wide-split, Texas Tech look and blew up the nation's consensus No. 1 defensive line for 265 rushing yards. Read that again: LSU's ballyhooed defensive line was gashed for 265 yards rushing.
G is for Gardner-Webb. Credit where credit is due: Georgia Tech took the opportunity of playing a Division I-AA opponent to empty its bench and coast. Gardner-Webb came for blood and a D-I scalp. Only a blocked field-goal attempt kept Georgia Tech from going to overtime with the Gardner-Webb Bulldogs, a team that held the Yellow Jackets to nine first downs and could have scuttled much of the momentum Paul Johnson has cobbled together at the North Avenue Trade School.
I is for Impotence, Continued. Firing Tony Franklin solved everything! Auburn tallied 193 yards, 11 first downs and three interceptions in losing 25-22 to a smoking, derelict Arkansas team. Tommy Tuberville is in real vocational jeopardy for the first time since 2003.
J is for Jimmeh! The college football commentariat has plenty of stock material to use when laughing at Jimmy Clausen: He’s the 142nd Clausen to play quarterback in college, he wore a pinky ring to his announcement to attend Notre Dame, he has a funny haircut, HARHARHARHAR etc.
His team lost Saturday, yes, but Clausen had a phenomenal game as Charlie Weis put the onus on him to win or lose almost singlehandedly against a resilient UNC team. As unfair as this may have been, the sophomore very nearly succeeded: 31-for-48, 383 yards, two TDs, two picks.
K is for Kettlebell, the prehistoric Russian weights Brian Orakpo throws around with the greatest of ease in the Texas weight room. The Longhorns defensive end flat-out embarrassed future first-rounder Phil Loadholt on numerous occasions in the Texas-OU game. Stats elucidating said embarrassment: six tackles, four for loss, a forced fumble and two sacks. Russian hard men are nodding in your direction and singing great patriotic songs, Brian.
L is for Lacking. Oklahoma’s rushing yards against Texas: 46.
M is for Missing. As in Rashard Mendenhall. The glaring lack of a consistent running game ate up the Illini against Minnesota. QB Juice Williams racked up huge yards through the air but the offense could not move the chains in the same steady, tempo-controlling way the 2007 Rose Bowl team did.
Williams and Sam Bradford had similar Saturdays: strategically overburdened due to deficient run games, spectacularly productive nonetheless, and ultimately guilty of key turnovers that crippled their teams’ chances of victory.
N is for No-huddle, No Problem. The single best hire in college football this past offseason was Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, whose brilliant game plan hinged on stopping any and all running by Oklahoma, harassing Sam Bradford, and letting the QB have his yards but not without being hit or throwing into zones where defenders were waiting to crush receivers after the catch. The strategy slowed the bleeding enough to let Texas catch up, and in the end wore down Bradford enough to make the difference.
O is for Overplus. An extreme excess, as in the overheated hype surrounding the superb Big 12, which after two weeks of conference play has now initiated the same sequence everyone else kicked a half-month ago: Teams are returning each other to the pack with conference losses and real competition. The Big 12 is superb, but the run on it as the pre-eminent conference in the land was irrational exuberance at its finest.
P is for Proton Gun. Jeff Demps, in addition to splitting safeties on option runs with Olympian speed, played another role for Florida: wedge buster. Demps knifed through on special teams to harry fellow mighty-mite speedster Trindon Holliday on kick returns. Demps as the wedge buster is a bit like the physics behind a proton gun: a very small object fired at high speed exploding things much larger than it in shocking fashion.
Q is for Quan. Texas wide receiver Quan Cosby makes finding the right word for Q this week easy.
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ppv0UJDizCk&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Nine catches and 122 yards are cromulent enough, but the Steve Smith impression Cosby put on with his nasty blocking can't get enough commentary. His snarling attitude was infectious; combined with the slamming play of the defense, the Longhorns seemed to grow visibly larger as the game went on, getting bigger and nastier into the fourth quarter.
R is for Ragin', Indeed. Prepare your eyeballs. Put on blast goggles if needed. Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajun wide receiver Jason Chery's stat line from ULL's 59-30 victory: 339 total yards on eight touches. From the Lafayette Daily Advertiser:
S is for ‘Stutz’ as in My Daddy. The Stutz, a.k.a. Tom Amstutz, head coach of Toledo, succeeded where 42 other MAC teams had failed in beating Michigan 13-10. He did it thanks to a slew of Michigan mistakes and a Herculean performance from Rockets wide receiver Nick Moore, who caught 20 passes for 162 yards. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me 20 times, YOUR HEAD ASPLODE.
T is for Tommy Boy. Clemson fans, you’re riding along with Tommy Bowden in a car. You’re Chris Farley; Tommy Bowden’s David Spade in the passenger seat. You sing “Eres Tu” together--in Spanish! Just like in the movie. It’s a moment, it really is. You’ve had such good times together. Then, in a scene not included in the movie, you shove Tommy Bowden out of the car while it’s moving at 70 mph, leaving him rolling and bouncing off the pavement in the dark, lonely middle of nowhere. Coming soon to a theater near you!
U is for Uncrossed, Legs. Mike Leach was so moved by the Red Raiders’ victory over Nebraska he was forced to quote Sharon Stone.
V is for Vaunted (Allegedly). As in unbeatable Oklahoma, which lost; LSU’s defensive line, which dissolved in the Swamp; Chase Daniel’s unstoppable Heisman campaign, which blew a tire and flipped off a cliff against Oklahoma State; Texas Tech’s offense, which was bound to the bench by Nebraska’s time-swallowing offense; Clemson’s “must-have” mentality, which fizzled into resignation against Wake Forest; Arizona’s status as a dark horse in the PAC-10, dimmed after a correctly called Corso Upset Special at the hands of Stanford.
W is for Wasted. As in, the opportunity extended to Vanderbilt to build on its undefeated record in the SEC. The 'Dores got Croom’d by Mississippi State, which for all I know may be back to the “race to 17 points” formula that got it to a bowl game last year: asphyxiating defense, a few points on offense, repeat until someone gets it to seventeen points. Total yardage for Vanderbilt: 107. The market correction on Vandy as a legitimate Top 25 team begins . . . yesterday, actually.
X is for Xiphoid Process. Anatomy time! From Wikipedia, so you know it must be true:
The xiphoid process, also known as the xiphisternum, is a small cartilaginous extension to the lower part of the sternum which is usually ossified in the adult human.
Good, good. Now you know what we mean when we suggest that Knowshon Moreno should get his xiphoid process and everything else above the waist checked out by medical professionals:
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Kk7Oj8wmRLQ&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Tennessee still lost to Georgia, but the point remains: Eric Berry is death on two legs.
Y is for Yellow Card. Colt McCoy narrowly avoided receiving a yellow card for simulation by, for lack of a better word, flopping on contact with Oklahoma defenders. McCoy drew two damaging late-hit penalties, taking advantage of officials' reticence to allow so much as a stiff breeze to brush the hair of a quarterback out of place. Look for further floppage in games to come that will leave even the Italian national soccer team writhing with shame.
Z is for Zoinks! Matt Hayes reported the strangest concoction from the Texas State Fair’s assortment of fried evil: the spam quesadilla, which surely indicates that the Dallas Department of Public Health casts a lazy, unseeing eye over the whole heart-exploding smorgasbord surrounding the Red River Rivalry.
Spencer Hall, a.k.a. Orson Swindle, writes and edits the college football blog Every Day Should Be Saturday and is a frequent contributor to Sporting News.
from The Sporting Blog
Each Sunday during college football season, Spencer Hall offers a letter-by-letter analysis of Saturday’s college football games.
A is for Alabama. Teams at the top of the polls continue to rise and fall like so many lottery balls in a tumbler: Missouri and Oklahoma both fall this week, leaving voters with Penn State, Texas, and Alabama as the serious BCS conference choices for the No. 1 slot. Voters, being the nitpicky perfectionists that they are, likely will put Alabama first because the Tide made no mistakes this week in a flawless performance against the bye. Voters reward perfection, and Alabama had plenty of it thanks to being perfectly idle.
B is for Baleful. Definition: "Deadly or pernicious in influence." This is the proper descriptor for the Oklahoma State defense, which served as national heroes Saturday night by playing several levels above their pay grade in alternating coverages, showing new blitzes and flummoxing Chase Daniel and the Mizzou Tigers in a 28-25 upset in Columbia.
Even in defeat, Daniel remained telepathically bonded with his receivers. In fact, he only failed to complete one pass in the second half, though three of his "completions" went the other way as interceptions. Mizzou also had, in the second week of October, its first three-and-out of the season. Don't worry. It happens to everyone, Tigers.
C is for Colt. The game of the year thus far was Oklahoma-Texas, where you, the viewer, were battered in legitimate hype, rolled in a savory dough of first-half heroics, then deep-fried in a hot oil of Longhorn intensity.
Let's divert this back to McCoy, though. Where McCoy would have forced a ball in the past, he largely didn't; and where he wouldn't have taken a chance in coverage before, he did, threading balls through Oklahoma's zone patiently and with pinpoint accuracy.
D is for Dropoff. Wisconsin's 48-7 hammering at the hands of Penn State was its worst loss since 1989. At 3-3, the delayed post-Alvarez dropoff watch has officially begun for the Badgers.
E is for Egregiously Bad Officiating. This is just a short list of the atrocious calls seen Saturday: Anything and everything called in the Red River Rivalry, including both Oklahoma's first touchdown and most especially the "incomplete" pick of Colt McCoy in the end zone; the mass confusion at the end of the Notre Dame/UNC game; numerous calls in the UGA/Tennessee game; and the LSU/Florida crew's holding-friendly no-calls for both sides in the Swamp.
It was a good day for myopia, cataracts, astigmatisms, and whatever other visual impairments you want to claim caused the particularly noticeable ineptitude on the part of zebras around the country.
F is for Fury. Florida played like someone had its families tied up in a dark basement somewhere, especially the offensive line, which took a new wide-split, Texas Tech look and blew up the nation's consensus No. 1 defensive line for 265 rushing yards. Read that again: LSU's ballyhooed defensive line was gashed for 265 yards rushing.
I is for Impotence, Continued. Firing Tony Franklin solved everything! Auburn tallied 193 yards, 11 first downs and three interceptions in losing 25-22 to a smoking, derelict Arkansas team. Tommy Tuberville is in real vocational jeopardy for the first time since 2003.
J is for Jimmeh! The college football commentariat has plenty of stock material to use when laughing at Jimmy Clausen: He’s the 142nd Clausen to play quarterback in college, he wore a pinky ring to his announcement to attend Notre Dame, he has a funny haircut, HARHARHARHAR etc.
His team lost Saturday, yes, but Clausen had a phenomenal game as Charlie Weis put the onus on him to win or lose almost singlehandedly against a resilient UNC team. As unfair as this may have been, the sophomore very nearly succeeded: 31-for-48, 383 yards, two TDs, two picks.
K is for Kettlebell, the prehistoric Russian weights Brian Orakpo throws around with the greatest of ease in the Texas weight room. The Longhorns defensive end flat-out embarrassed future first-rounder Phil Loadholt on numerous occasions in the Texas-OU game. Stats elucidating said embarrassment: six tackles, four for loss, a forced fumble and two sacks. Russian hard men are nodding in your direction and singing great patriotic songs, Brian.
L is for Lacking. Oklahoma’s rushing yards against Texas: 46.
M is for Missing. As in Rashard Mendenhall. The glaring lack of a consistent running game ate up the Illini against Minnesota. QB Juice Williams racked up huge yards through the air but the offense could not move the chains in the same steady, tempo-controlling way the 2007 Rose Bowl team did.
Williams and Sam Bradford had similar Saturdays: strategically overburdened due to deficient run games, spectacularly productive nonetheless, and ultimately guilty of key turnovers that crippled their teams’ chances of victory.
N is for No-huddle, No Problem. The single best hire in college football this past offseason was Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, whose brilliant game plan hinged on stopping any and all running by Oklahoma, harassing Sam Bradford, and letting the QB have his yards but not without being hit or throwing into zones where defenders were waiting to crush receivers after the catch. The strategy slowed the bleeding enough to let Texas catch up, and in the end wore down Bradford enough to make the difference.
O is for Overplus. An extreme excess, as in the overheated hype surrounding the superb Big 12, which after two weeks of conference play has now initiated the same sequence everyone else kicked a half-month ago: Teams are returning each other to the pack with conference losses and real competition. The Big 12 is superb, but the run on it as the pre-eminent conference in the land was irrational exuberance at its finest.
P is for Proton Gun. Jeff Demps, in addition to splitting safeties on option runs with Olympian speed, played another role for Florida: wedge buster. Demps knifed through on special teams to harry fellow mighty-mite speedster Trindon Holliday on kick returns. Demps as the wedge buster is a bit like the physics behind a proton gun: a very small object fired at high speed exploding things much larger than it in shocking fashion.
Q is for Quan. Texas wide receiver Quan Cosby makes finding the right word for Q this week easy.
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ppv0UJDizCk&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Nine catches and 122 yards are cromulent enough, but the Steve Smith impression Cosby put on with his nasty blocking can't get enough commentary. His snarling attitude was infectious; combined with the slamming play of the defense, the Longhorns seemed to grow visibly larger as the game went on, getting bigger and nastier into the fourth quarter.
R is for Ragin', Indeed. Prepare your eyeballs. Put on blast goggles if needed. Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajun wide receiver Jason Chery's stat line from ULL's 59-30 victory: 339 total yards on eight touches. From the Lafayette Daily Advertiser:
The Cajuns (3-3 overall, 2-0 Sun Belt) set the program's modern-day scoring record as Chery finished with 339 all-purpose yards on eight touches. That included two kickoff returns for 131 yards, three receptions for 123 yards and three rushes for 85 yards. He scored on a 97-yard kickoff return, an 81-yard run and catches of 17, 49 and 57 yards, respectively.
Ragin' doesn't quite cover that. S is for ‘Stutz’ as in My Daddy. The Stutz, a.k.a. Tom Amstutz, head coach of Toledo, succeeded where 42 other MAC teams had failed in beating Michigan 13-10. He did it thanks to a slew of Michigan mistakes and a Herculean performance from Rockets wide receiver Nick Moore, who caught 20 passes for 162 yards. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me 20 times, YOUR HEAD ASPLODE.
T is for Tommy Boy. Clemson fans, you’re riding along with Tommy Bowden in a car. You’re Chris Farley; Tommy Bowden’s David Spade in the passenger seat. You sing “Eres Tu” together--in Spanish! Just like in the movie. It’s a moment, it really is. You’ve had such good times together. Then, in a scene not included in the movie, you shove Tommy Bowden out of the car while it’s moving at 70 mph, leaving him rolling and bouncing off the pavement in the dark, lonely middle of nowhere. Coming soon to a theater near you!
U is for Uncrossed, Legs. Mike Leach was so moved by the Red Raiders’ victory over Nebraska he was forced to quote Sharon Stone.
"It's like Sharon Stone said one time after a movie she did. She said, 'No guts, no glory,' " Leach said.
I can only assume he’s referring to her daring and visionary work in Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol. Graham Harrell only went 20-of-25 for 284 yards against the stubborn Huskers, who held the ball for 40:12 but still lost in overtime when Joe Ganz threw a game ending pick on Nebraska’s first possession. V is for Vaunted (Allegedly). As in unbeatable Oklahoma, which lost; LSU’s defensive line, which dissolved in the Swamp; Chase Daniel’s unstoppable Heisman campaign, which blew a tire and flipped off a cliff against Oklahoma State; Texas Tech’s offense, which was bound to the bench by Nebraska’s time-swallowing offense; Clemson’s “must-have” mentality, which fizzled into resignation against Wake Forest; Arizona’s status as a dark horse in the PAC-10, dimmed after a correctly called Corso Upset Special at the hands of Stanford.
W is for Wasted. As in, the opportunity extended to Vanderbilt to build on its undefeated record in the SEC. The 'Dores got Croom’d by Mississippi State, which for all I know may be back to the “race to 17 points” formula that got it to a bowl game last year: asphyxiating defense, a few points on offense, repeat until someone gets it to seventeen points. Total yardage for Vanderbilt: 107. The market correction on Vandy as a legitimate Top 25 team begins . . . yesterday, actually.
X is for Xiphoid Process. Anatomy time! From Wikipedia, so you know it must be true:
The xiphoid process, also known as the xiphisternum, is a small cartilaginous extension to the lower part of the sternum which is usually ossified in the adult human.
Good, good. Now you know what we mean when we suggest that Knowshon Moreno should get his xiphoid process and everything else above the waist checked out by medical professionals:
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Kk7Oj8wmRLQ&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Tennessee still lost to Georgia, but the point remains: Eric Berry is death on two legs.
Y is for Yellow Card. Colt McCoy narrowly avoided receiving a yellow card for simulation by, for lack of a better word, flopping on contact with Oklahoma defenders. McCoy drew two damaging late-hit penalties, taking advantage of officials' reticence to allow so much as a stiff breeze to brush the hair of a quarterback out of place. Look for further floppage in games to come that will leave even the Italian national soccer team writhing with shame.
Z is for Zoinks! Matt Hayes reported the strangest concoction from the Texas State Fair’s assortment of fried evil: the spam quesadilla, which surely indicates that the Dallas Department of Public Health casts a lazy, unseeing eye over the whole heart-exploding smorgasbord surrounding the Red River Rivalry.
Spencer Hall, a.k.a. Orson Swindle, writes and edits the college football blog Every Day Should Be Saturday and is a frequent contributor to Sporting News.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
The Alphabetical: College Football, Week 7
from The Sporting Blog
Each Sunday during college football season, Spencer Hall offers a letter-by-letter analysis of Saturday’s college football games.
A is for Alabama. Teams at the top of the polls continue to rise and fall like so many lottery balls in a tumbler: Missouri and Oklahoma both fall this week, leaving voters with Penn State, Texas, and Alabama as the serious BCS conference choices for the No. 1 slot. Voters, being the nitpicky perfectionists that they are, likely will put Alabama first because the Tide made no mistakes this week in a flawless performance against the bye. Voters reward perfection, and Alabama had plenty of it thanks to being perfectly idle.
B is for Baleful. Definition: "Deadly or pernicious in influence." This is the proper descriptor for the Oklahoma State defense, which served as national heroes Saturday night by playing several levels above their pay grade in alternating coverages, showing new blitzes and flummoxing Chase Daniel and the Mizzou Tigers in a 28-25 upset in Columbia.
Even in defeat, Daniel remained telepathically bonded with his receivers. In fact, he only failed to complete one pass in the second half, though three of his "completions" went the other way as interceptions. Mizzou also had, in the second week of October, its first three-and-out of the season. Don't worry. It happens to everyone, Tigers.
C is for Colt. The game of the year thus far was Oklahoma-Texas, where you, the viewer, were battered in legitimate hype, rolled in a savory dough of first-half heroics, then deep-fried in a hot oil of Longhorn intensity.
Colt McCoy's icy management of the Texas offense was magnificent, but it would have been impossible without Jordan Shipley. The senior receiver had 11 catches for 112 yards, a TD, and a 96-yard kickoff return to keep Texas counterpunching until the defense could catch up to the offense . . . which, thanks to Oklahoma's complete lack of a run game, it eventually did.
Let's divert this back to McCoy, though. Where McCoy would have forced a ball in the past, he largely didn't; and where he wouldn't have taken a chance in coverage before, he did, threading balls through Oklahoma's zone patiently and with pinpoint accuracy.
D is for Dropoff. Wisconsin's 48-7 hammering at the hands of Penn State was its worst loss since 1989. At 3-3, the delayed post-Alvarez dropoff watch has officially begun for the Badgers.
E is for Egregiously Bad Officiating. This is just a short list of the atrocious calls seen Saturday: Anything and everything called in the Red River Rivalry, including both Oklahoma's first touchdown and most especially the "incomplete" pick of Colt McCoy in the end zone; the mass confusion at the end of the Notre Dame/UNC game; numerous calls in the UGA/Tennessee game; and the LSU/Florida crew's holding-friendly no-calls for both sides in the Swamp.
It was a good day for myopia, cataracts, astigmatisms, and whatever other visual impairments you want to claim caused the particularly noticeable ineptitude on the part of zebras around the country.
F is for Fury. Florida played like someone had its families tied up in a dark basement somewhere, especially the offensive line, which took a new wide-split, Texas Tech look and blew up the nation's consensus No. 1 defensive line for 265 rushing yards. Read that again: LSU's ballyhooed defensive line was gashed for 265 yards rushing.
G is for Gardner-Webb. Credit where credit is due: Georgia Tech took the opportunity of playing a Division I-AA opponent to empty its bench and coast. Gardner-Webb came for blood and a D-I scalp. Only a blocked field-goal attempt kept Georgia Tech from going to overtime with the Gardner-Webb Bulldogs, a team that held the Yellow Jackets to nine first downs and could have scuttled much of the momentum Paul Johnson has cobbled together at the North Avenue Trade School.
I is for Impotence, Continued. Firing Tony Franklin solved everything! Auburn tallied 193 yards, 11 first downs and three interceptions in losing 25-22 to a smoking, derelict Arkansas team. Tommy Tuberville is in real vocational jeopardy for the first time since 2003.
J is for Jimmeh! The college football commentariat has plenty of stock material to use when laughing at Jimmy Clausen: He’s the 142nd Clausen to play quarterback in college, he wore a pinky ring to his announcement to attend Notre Dame, he has a funny haircut, HARHARHARHAR etc.
His team lost Saturday, yes, but Clausen had a phenomenal game as Charlie Weis put the onus on him to win or lose almost singlehandedly against a resilient UNC team. As unfair as this may have been, the sophomore very nearly succeeded: 31-for-48, 383 yards, two TDs, two picks.
K is for Kettlebell, the prehistoric Russian weights Brian Orakpo throws around with the greatest of ease in the Texas weight room. The Longhorns defensive end flat-out embarrassed future first-rounder Phil Loadholt on numerous occasions in the Texas-OU game. Stats elucidating said embarrassment: six tackles, four for loss, a forced fumble and two sacks. Russian hard men are nodding in your direction and singing great patriotic songs, Brian.
L is for Lacking. Oklahoma’s rushing yards against Texas: 46.
M is for Missing. As in Rashard Mendenhall. The glaring lack of a consistent running game ate up the Illini against Minnesota. QB Juice Williams racked up huge yards through the air but the offense could not move the chains in the same steady, tempo-controlling way the 2007 Rose Bowl team did.
Williams and Sam Bradford had similar Saturdays: strategically overburdened due to deficient run games, spectacularly productive nonetheless, and ultimately guilty of key turnovers that crippled their teams’ chances of victory.
N is for No-huddle, No Problem. The single best hire in college football this past offseason was Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, whose brilliant game plan hinged on stopping any and all running by Oklahoma, harassing Sam Bradford, and letting the QB have his yards but not without being hit or throwing into zones where defenders were waiting to crush receivers after the catch. The strategy slowed the bleeding enough to let Texas catch up, and in the end wore down Bradford enough to make the difference.
O is for Overplus. An extreme excess, as in the overheated hype surrounding the superb Big 12, which after two weeks of conference play has now initiated the same sequence everyone else kicked a half-month ago: Teams are returning each other to the pack with conference losses and real competition. The Big 12 is superb, but the run on it as the pre-eminent conference in the land was irrational exuberance at its finest.
P is for Proton Gun. Jeff Demps, in addition to splitting safeties on option runs with Olympian speed, played another role for Florida: wedge buster. Demps knifed through on special teams to harry fellow mighty-mite speedster Trindon Holliday on kick returns. Demps as the wedge buster is a bit like the physics behind a proton gun: a very small object fired at high speed exploding things much larger than it in shocking fashion.
Q is for Quan. Texas wide receiver Quan Cosby makes finding the right word for Q this week easy.
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ppv0UJDizCk&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Nine catches and 122 yards are cromulent enough, but the Steve Smith impression Cosby put on with his nasty blocking can't get enough commentary. His snarling attitude was infectious; combined with the slamming play of the defense, the Longhorns seemed to grow visibly larger as the game went on, getting bigger and nastier into the fourth quarter.
R is for Ragin', Indeed. Prepare your eyeballs. Put on blast goggles if needed. Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajun wide receiver Jason Chery's stat line from ULL's 59-30 victory: 339 total yards on eight touches. From the Lafayette Daily Advertiser:
S is for ‘Stutz’ as in My Daddy. The Stutz, a.k.a. Tom Amstutz, head coach of Toledo, succeeded where 42 other MAC teams had failed in beating Michigan 13-10. He did it thanks to a slew of Michigan mistakes and a Herculean performance from Rockets wide receiver Nick Moore, who caught 20 passes for 162 yards. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me 20 times, YOUR HEAD ASPLODE.
T is for Tommy Boy. Clemson fans, you’re riding along with Tommy Bowden in a car. You’re Chris Farley; Tommy Bowden’s David Spade in the passenger seat. You sing “Eres Tu” together--in Spanish! Just like in the movie. It’s a moment, it really is. You’ve had such good times together. Then, in a scene not included in the movie, you shove Tommy Bowden out of the car while it’s moving at 70 mph, leaving him rolling and bouncing off the pavement in the dark, lonely middle of nowhere. Coming soon to a theater near you!
U is for Uncrossed, Legs. Mike Leach was so moved by the Red Raiders’ victory over Nebraska he was forced to quote Sharon Stone.
V is for Vaunted (Allegedly). As in unbeatable Oklahoma, which lost; LSU’s defensive line, which dissolved in the Swamp; Chase Daniel’s unstoppable Heisman campaign, which blew a tire and flipped off a cliff against Oklahoma State; Texas Tech’s offense, which was bound to the bench by Nebraska’s time-swallowing offense; Clemson’s “must-have” mentality, which fizzled into resignation against Wake Forest; Arizona’s status as a dark horse in the PAC-10, dimmed after a correctly called Corso Upset Special at the hands of Stanford.
W is for Wasted. As in, the opportunity extended to Vanderbilt to build on its undefeated record in the SEC. The 'Dores got Croom’d by Mississippi State, which for all I know may be back to the “race to 17 points” formula that got it to a bowl game last year: asphyxiating defense, a few points on offense, repeat until someone gets it to seventeen points. Total yardage for Vanderbilt: 107. The market correction on Vandy as a legitimate Top 25 team begins . . . yesterday, actually.
X is for Xiphoid Process. Anatomy time! From Wikipedia, so you know it must be true:
The xiphoid process, also known as the xiphisternum, is a small cartilaginous extension to the lower part of the sternum which is usually ossified in the adult human.
Good, good. Now you know what we mean when we suggest that Knowshon Moreno should get his xiphoid process and everything else above the waist checked out by medical professionals:
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Tennessee still lost to Georgia, but the point remains: Eric Berry is death on two legs.
Y is for Yellow Card. Colt McCoy narrowly avoided receiving a yellow card for simulation by, for lack of a better word, flopping on contact with Oklahoma defenders. McCoy drew two damaging late-hit penalties, taking advantage of officials' reticence to allow so much as a stiff breeze to brush the hair of a quarterback out of place. Look for further floppage in games to come that will leave even the Italian national soccer team writhing with shame.
Z is for Zoinks! Matt Hayes reported the strangest concoction from the Texas State Fair’s assortment of fried evil: the spam quesadilla, which surely indicates that the Dallas Department of Public Health casts a lazy, unseeing eye over the whole heart-exploding smorgasbord surrounding the Red River Rivalry.
Spencer Hall, a.k.a. Orson Swindle, writes and edits the college football blog Every Day Should Be Saturday and is a frequent contributor to Sporting News.
from The Sporting Blog
Each Sunday during college football season, Spencer Hall offers a letter-by-letter analysis of Saturday’s college football games.
A is for Alabama. Teams at the top of the polls continue to rise and fall like so many lottery balls in a tumbler: Missouri and Oklahoma both fall this week, leaving voters with Penn State, Texas, and Alabama as the serious BCS conference choices for the No. 1 slot. Voters, being the nitpicky perfectionists that they are, likely will put Alabama first because the Tide made no mistakes this week in a flawless performance against the bye. Voters reward perfection, and Alabama had plenty of it thanks to being perfectly idle.
B is for Baleful. Definition: "Deadly or pernicious in influence." This is the proper descriptor for the Oklahoma State defense, which served as national heroes Saturday night by playing several levels above their pay grade in alternating coverages, showing new blitzes and flummoxing Chase Daniel and the Mizzou Tigers in a 28-25 upset in Columbia.
Even in defeat, Daniel remained telepathically bonded with his receivers. In fact, he only failed to complete one pass in the second half, though three of his "completions" went the other way as interceptions. Mizzou also had, in the second week of October, its first three-and-out of the season. Don't worry. It happens to everyone, Tigers.
C is for Colt. The game of the year thus far was Oklahoma-Texas, where you, the viewer, were battered in legitimate hype, rolled in a savory dough of first-half heroics, then deep-fried in a hot oil of Longhorn intensity.
Let's divert this back to McCoy, though. Where McCoy would have forced a ball in the past, he largely didn't; and where he wouldn't have taken a chance in coverage before, he did, threading balls through Oklahoma's zone patiently and with pinpoint accuracy.
D is for Dropoff. Wisconsin's 48-7 hammering at the hands of Penn State was its worst loss since 1989. At 3-3, the delayed post-Alvarez dropoff watch has officially begun for the Badgers.
E is for Egregiously Bad Officiating. This is just a short list of the atrocious calls seen Saturday: Anything and everything called in the Red River Rivalry, including both Oklahoma's first touchdown and most especially the "incomplete" pick of Colt McCoy in the end zone; the mass confusion at the end of the Notre Dame/UNC game; numerous calls in the UGA/Tennessee game; and the LSU/Florida crew's holding-friendly no-calls for both sides in the Swamp.
It was a good day for myopia, cataracts, astigmatisms, and whatever other visual impairments you want to claim caused the particularly noticeable ineptitude on the part of zebras around the country.
F is for Fury. Florida played like someone had its families tied up in a dark basement somewhere, especially the offensive line, which took a new wide-split, Texas Tech look and blew up the nation's consensus No. 1 defensive line for 265 rushing yards. Read that again: LSU's ballyhooed defensive line was gashed for 265 yards rushing.
I is for Impotence, Continued. Firing Tony Franklin solved everything! Auburn tallied 193 yards, 11 first downs and three interceptions in losing 25-22 to a smoking, derelict Arkansas team. Tommy Tuberville is in real vocational jeopardy for the first time since 2003.
J is for Jimmeh! The college football commentariat has plenty of stock material to use when laughing at Jimmy Clausen: He’s the 142nd Clausen to play quarterback in college, he wore a pinky ring to his announcement to attend Notre Dame, he has a funny haircut, HARHARHARHAR etc.
His team lost Saturday, yes, but Clausen had a phenomenal game as Charlie Weis put the onus on him to win or lose almost singlehandedly against a resilient UNC team. As unfair as this may have been, the sophomore very nearly succeeded: 31-for-48, 383 yards, two TDs, two picks.
K is for Kettlebell, the prehistoric Russian weights Brian Orakpo throws around with the greatest of ease in the Texas weight room. The Longhorns defensive end flat-out embarrassed future first-rounder Phil Loadholt on numerous occasions in the Texas-OU game. Stats elucidating said embarrassment: six tackles, four for loss, a forced fumble and two sacks. Russian hard men are nodding in your direction and singing great patriotic songs, Brian.
L is for Lacking. Oklahoma’s rushing yards against Texas: 46.
M is for Missing. As in Rashard Mendenhall. The glaring lack of a consistent running game ate up the Illini against Minnesota. QB Juice Williams racked up huge yards through the air but the offense could not move the chains in the same steady, tempo-controlling way the 2007 Rose Bowl team did.
Williams and Sam Bradford had similar Saturdays: strategically overburdened due to deficient run games, spectacularly productive nonetheless, and ultimately guilty of key turnovers that crippled their teams’ chances of victory.
N is for No-huddle, No Problem. The single best hire in college football this past offseason was Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, whose brilliant game plan hinged on stopping any and all running by Oklahoma, harassing Sam Bradford, and letting the QB have his yards but not without being hit or throwing into zones where defenders were waiting to crush receivers after the catch. The strategy slowed the bleeding enough to let Texas catch up, and in the end wore down Bradford enough to make the difference.
O is for Overplus. An extreme excess, as in the overheated hype surrounding the superb Big 12, which after two weeks of conference play has now initiated the same sequence everyone else kicked a half-month ago: Teams are returning each other to the pack with conference losses and real competition. The Big 12 is superb, but the run on it as the pre-eminent conference in the land was irrational exuberance at its finest.
P is for Proton Gun. Jeff Demps, in addition to splitting safeties on option runs with Olympian speed, played another role for Florida: wedge buster. Demps knifed through on special teams to harry fellow mighty-mite speedster Trindon Holliday on kick returns. Demps as the wedge buster is a bit like the physics behind a proton gun: a very small object fired at high speed exploding things much larger than it in shocking fashion.
Q is for Quan. Texas wide receiver Quan Cosby makes finding the right word for Q this week easy.
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Nine catches and 122 yards are cromulent enough, but the Steve Smith impression Cosby put on with his nasty blocking can't get enough commentary. His snarling attitude was infectious; combined with the slamming play of the defense, the Longhorns seemed to grow visibly larger as the game went on, getting bigger and nastier into the fourth quarter.
R is for Ragin', Indeed. Prepare your eyeballs. Put on blast goggles if needed. Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajun wide receiver Jason Chery's stat line from ULL's 59-30 victory: 339 total yards on eight touches. From the Lafayette Daily Advertiser:
The Cajuns (3-3 overall, 2-0 Sun Belt) set the program's modern-day scoring record as Chery finished with 339 all-purpose yards on eight touches. That included two kickoff returns for 131 yards, three receptions for 123 yards and three rushes for 85 yards. He scored on a 97-yard kickoff return, an 81-yard run and catches of 17, 49 and 57 yards, respectively.
Ragin' doesn't quite cover that. S is for ‘Stutz’ as in My Daddy. The Stutz, a.k.a. Tom Amstutz, head coach of Toledo, succeeded where 42 other MAC teams had failed in beating Michigan 13-10. He did it thanks to a slew of Michigan mistakes and a Herculean performance from Rockets wide receiver Nick Moore, who caught 20 passes for 162 yards. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me 20 times, YOUR HEAD ASPLODE.
T is for Tommy Boy. Clemson fans, you’re riding along with Tommy Bowden in a car. You’re Chris Farley; Tommy Bowden’s David Spade in the passenger seat. You sing “Eres Tu” together--in Spanish! Just like in the movie. It’s a moment, it really is. You’ve had such good times together. Then, in a scene not included in the movie, you shove Tommy Bowden out of the car while it’s moving at 70 mph, leaving him rolling and bouncing off the pavement in the dark, lonely middle of nowhere. Coming soon to a theater near you!
U is for Uncrossed, Legs. Mike Leach was so moved by the Red Raiders’ victory over Nebraska he was forced to quote Sharon Stone.
"It's like Sharon Stone said one time after a movie she did. She said, 'No guts, no glory,' " Leach said.
I can only assume he’s referring to her daring and visionary work in Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol. Graham Harrell only went 20-of-25 for 284 yards against the stubborn Huskers, who held the ball for 40:12 but still lost in overtime when Joe Ganz threw a game ending pick on Nebraska’s first possession. V is for Vaunted (Allegedly). As in unbeatable Oklahoma, which lost; LSU’s defensive line, which dissolved in the Swamp; Chase Daniel’s unstoppable Heisman campaign, which blew a tire and flipped off a cliff against Oklahoma State; Texas Tech’s offense, which was bound to the bench by Nebraska’s time-swallowing offense; Clemson’s “must-have” mentality, which fizzled into resignation against Wake Forest; Arizona’s status as a dark horse in the PAC-10, dimmed after a correctly called Corso Upset Special at the hands of Stanford.
W is for Wasted. As in, the opportunity extended to Vanderbilt to build on its undefeated record in the SEC. The 'Dores got Croom’d by Mississippi State, which for all I know may be back to the “race to 17 points” formula that got it to a bowl game last year: asphyxiating defense, a few points on offense, repeat until someone gets it to seventeen points. Total yardage for Vanderbilt: 107. The market correction on Vandy as a legitimate Top 25 team begins . . . yesterday, actually.
X is for Xiphoid Process. Anatomy time! From Wikipedia, so you know it must be true:
The xiphoid process, also known as the xiphisternum, is a small cartilaginous extension to the lower part of the sternum which is usually ossified in the adult human.
Good, good. Now you know what we mean when we suggest that Knowshon Moreno should get his xiphoid process and everything else above the waist checked out by medical professionals:
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Kk7Oj8wmRLQ&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Tennessee still lost to Georgia, but the point remains: Eric Berry is death on two legs.
Y is for Yellow Card. Colt McCoy narrowly avoided receiving a yellow card for simulation by, for lack of a better word, flopping on contact with Oklahoma defenders. McCoy drew two damaging late-hit penalties, taking advantage of officials' reticence to allow so much as a stiff breeze to brush the hair of a quarterback out of place. Look for further floppage in games to come that will leave even the Italian national soccer team writhing with shame.
Z is for Zoinks! Matt Hayes reported the strangest concoction from the Texas State Fair’s assortment of fried evil: the spam quesadilla, which surely indicates that the Dallas Department of Public Health casts a lazy, unseeing eye over the whole heart-exploding smorgasbord surrounding the Red River Rivalry.
Spencer Hall, a.k.a. Orson Swindle, writes and edits the college football blog Every Day Should Be Saturday and is a frequent contributor to Sporting News.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
GA Tech Almost Chokes on Their Cupcake
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Georgia Tech, ACC
Three weeks ago the Jackets put a hurtin' on SEC opponent Mississippi State. Last week, coming off of a bye, they thumped Duke. Yesterday, in what must have been the ugliest game of football of the weekend, Tech needed a missed field goal to win it in regulation.
It was all they could do to beat the "Runnin' Bulldogs" of Gardner-Webb.
As a bit of background, Gardner-Webb came into the game 2-3, having beaten Austin Pea and some school called Tusculum. Their three losses have been to powerhouses Tennessee Tech, Sam Houston State, and Charleston Southern.
Granted, Tech was starting 3rd-string Quarterback Calvin Booker, but a BCS team should be able to start the scout team quarterback and still handle a teams from the bottom half of the Big South Conference. The Jackets' offensive woes were summed up aptly by the Georgia Tech Sports blog:
There's a reason Nesbitt is #1 and Shaw is #2. They can run the system. Calvin Booker, bless his heart, did his best as the starter, but he just looks slow as molasses running the triple option. Plays just develop so slowly. Combine that with a swiss cheese O-Line and it makes for a long day. Calvin had a poor day throwing the ball as well, except for a short screen pass on a scramble to Jonathan Dwyer who managed to take it to the house for a 79 yard TD.
That one play, the 79-yard touchdown pass, accounted for well over a third of Tech's total offense for the day, which came in just under 200 yards. The Jackets and the Bullodogs both averaged a pathetic 1.7 yards a carry on the ground. Georgia tech completed only 3 passes on the day.
In short, though it doesn't say so in the record books, Georgia Tech really ought to have picked up a loss yesterday.
This week Paul Johnson's team travels to Death Valley to take on the Clemson Tigers who have been playing some pretty ugly football of there own for the past couple of weeks. One has to imagine that the lead-up to the game will be reminiscent of a South Park episode: which one of these teams will manage to give the game away best?
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Georgia Tech, ACC
It was all they could do to beat the "Runnin' Bulldogs" of Gardner-Webb.
As a bit of background, Gardner-Webb came into the game 2-3, having beaten Austin Pea and some school called Tusculum. Their three losses have been to powerhouses Tennessee Tech, Sam Houston State, and Charleston Southern.
Granted, Tech was starting 3rd-string Quarterback Calvin Booker, but a BCS team should be able to start the scout team quarterback and still handle a teams from the bottom half of the Big South Conference. The Jackets' offensive woes were summed up aptly by the Georgia Tech Sports blog:
There's a reason Nesbitt is #1 and Shaw is #2. They can run the system. Calvin Booker, bless his heart, did his best as the starter, but he just looks slow as molasses running the triple option. Plays just develop so slowly. Combine that with a swiss cheese O-Line and it makes for a long day. Calvin had a poor day throwing the ball as well, except for a short screen pass on a scramble to Jonathan Dwyer who managed to take it to the house for a 79 yard TD.
That one play, the 79-yard touchdown pass, accounted for well over a third of Tech's total offense for the day, which came in just under 200 yards. The Jackets and the Bullodogs both averaged a pathetic 1.7 yards a carry on the ground. Georgia tech completed only 3 passes on the day.
In short, though it doesn't say so in the record books, Georgia Tech really ought to have picked up a loss yesterday.
This week Paul Johnson's team travels to Death Valley to take on the Clemson Tigers who have been playing some pretty ugly football of there own for the past couple of weeks. One has to imagine that the lead-up to the game will be reminiscent of a South Park episode: which one of these teams will manage to give the game away best?
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
THE WEEKEND IN STOLEN VIDEO
from Every Day Should Be Saturday by Orson Swindle
We’re typing this on our brother-in-law’s couch in Gainesville, hoarse, dirty, and gnawing our way through the last dregs of 134.6 grams of sunflower seeds consumed over the course of the weekend. In other words: completely and totally and blissfully happy to be so. Hurry’s the word, though, since we have to get back to Atlanta to tend our prize Hound of the Baskervilles and get Leron his “produce” on time.
The best moments of stolen video follow. Enjoy.
Why do people who are fast with video upload and capture have shitty taste in music? Are these genes linked? Is this a topic worthy of study–HOLY SHIT JEFF DEMPS IS FAST.
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4oyU_JgxR-Y&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Quan Cosby knocked pudding pops and loud, colorful sweaters out of him.
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ppv0UJDizCk&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Postscript: Real men own up to their bets, and do so publicly.
Eric Berry is Johnny Greenwood playing guitar in a Nickelback cover band.
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Derrick Williams looks even faster when shot in high-definition video.
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Auburn fans have been infected by the offense and the sickness it carries and judging by this it is a neuromuscular disorder with neurological symptoms.
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Tom Amstutz gets emotional and it is brought to you as only the dignity and skill of local news can bring it.
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from Every Day Should Be Saturday by Orson Swindle
We’re typing this on our brother-in-law’s couch in Gainesville, hoarse, dirty, and gnawing our way through the last dregs of 134.6 grams of sunflower seeds consumed over the course of the weekend. In other words: completely and totally and blissfully happy to be so. Hurry’s the word, though, since we have to get back to Atlanta to tend our prize Hound of the Baskervilles and get Leron his “produce” on time.
The best moments of stolen video follow. Enjoy.
Why do people who are fast with video upload and capture have shitty taste in music? Are these genes linked? Is this a topic worthy of study–HOLY SHIT JEFF DEMPS IS FAST.
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4oyU_JgxR-Y&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Quan Cosby knocked pudding pops and loud, colorful sweaters out of him.
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ppv0UJDizCk&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Postscript: Real men own up to their bets, and do so publicly.
Eric Berry is Johnny Greenwood playing guitar in a Nickelback cover band.
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Kk7Oj8wmRLQ&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Derrick Williams looks even faster when shot in high-definition video.
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zp2458F39d4&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Auburn fans have been infected by the offense and the sickness it carries and judging by this it is a neuromuscular disorder with neurological symptoms.
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dhWcWBq8iXM&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Tom Amstutz gets emotional and it is brought to you as only the dignity and skill of local news can bring it.
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/l6OLzp58EBY&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout
Aztec4Life
Montezuma Mesa Survivor
Congrats on the big win for your Horns RJ!
:cheers:
:cheers:
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Thanks, dude. Still recovering. I was an obnoxious asshole yesterday and will need to apologize to a lot of people.
I mean, moreso than usual after a day of heavy drinking.
Aztec4Life
Montezuma Mesa Survivor
opcorn:
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Last time I was at GameDay was when #2 Texas played #7 TT in Austin in October 2005. After the shellacking we gave them in that game and USC's struggle against ND, we were voted #1....for a week.
Hoping for similar good things to happen this weekend too.
Haven't been back to Texas in almost 2 years and haven't been to the stadium since the 2006 Aggy game. I'm fired up.
***********
ESPN to bring 'College GameDay' to Austin for Mizzou game
from Bevo Beat
ESPN’s “College GameDay” should just change its name to the “Texas Longhorn Report.” For the second consecutive week, the ESPN pregame show will air from a Longhorns game.
“GameDay” will broadcast Saturday morning from the Forty Acres, hours before the primetime ABC clash between Texas and Missouri. The show always draws thousands of clever-sign-waving fans to see Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and Chris Fowler do their thing (even though those attending can’t really see those guys do much of anything).
No announcement on the location for the set has been made yet (the Myers Stadium soccer field has been used in the past). But ESPN’s CollegeGameDay.com Web site makes it clear that it’ll be in Austin one week after originating from Dallas.
Hoping for similar good things to happen this weekend too.
Haven't been back to Texas in almost 2 years and haven't been to the stadium since the 2006 Aggy game. I'm fired up.
***********
ESPN to bring 'College GameDay' to Austin for Mizzou game
from Bevo Beat
ESPN’s “College GameDay” should just change its name to the “Texas Longhorn Report.” For the second consecutive week, the ESPN pregame show will air from a Longhorns game.
“GameDay” will broadcast Saturday morning from the Forty Acres, hours before the primetime ABC clash between Texas and Missouri. The show always draws thousands of clever-sign-waving fans to see Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and Chris Fowler do their thing (even though those attending can’t really see those guys do much of anything).
No announcement on the location for the set has been made yet (the Myers Stadium soccer field has been used in the past). But ESPN’s CollegeGameDay.com Web site makes it clear that it’ll be in Austin one week after originating from Dallas.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Badgers Barf Big-Time; Bielema Bemoans Badness; Band Back; Backers Behave Badly
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Wisconsin, Big 10
These are unsteady days here in Wisconsin. The Badgers are on a three-game skid which includes a loss to Michigan that grows less explicable every week. The Brewers made the playoffs for the first time since the early years of the Reagan administration, only to get blown out by the Phillies. Worst of all, last week Aaron Rodgers got hurt on the same day Brett Favre threw for six touchdowns.
The Badgers are a team in disarray. A month ago they were a consensus top-ten team and people were praising them for a gutty win over Fresno State. A month ago nearly everyone thought that Bret Bielema's team was the only thing standing between Ohio State and the Big Ten title. A month ago, everybody was wrong about the Badgers.
Blame is like fruitcake: Somehow, it always seems like there's more than enough to go around. This week's designated hate sink is woebegone quarterback Allan Evridge. He was beyond dreadful last night. His first touchdown run as a Badger (he started his career at Kansas State, where Bielema used to coach) was nullified by his passing statistics: 2 of 10 for 50 yards. One touchdown. One interception. No wonder the UW faithful cheered backup Dustin Sherer when he came in halfway through the third quarter.
Sherer was better, completing more than 50 percent of his passes. The Badgers, however, could not find the end zone. Will there be a quarterback controversy in Madison? Bielema has all but conceded the point:
"Well I think the quarterback has to play a lot better in certain situations," [Bielema] said. "Whoever that's going to be will be determined by what our coaches see off the film and how they handle the week."
Sounds like the job has gone from being Evridge's to lose to being Sherer's to win. This, however, may not be the best week for the Badgers to make wholesale changes. Bielema will lead his team into the legendary pink locker room of Kinnick Stadium for a matchup with his alma mater, the University of Iowa. The Hawkeyes were left for dead by everyone (including me) just a week ago after a third-straight heartbreaking loss. Yesterday somebody stuck a quarter into their backs as they ran buckwild against the Hoosiers, 45-9. Kirk Ferentz even showed his seldom-seen mean streak. Think the Kinnick faithful aren't going to be craving blood?
The Badgers' bowl hopes are now in serious doubt. Their schedule is seriously front-loaded, though, and they've played what are likely their three toughest games. They've lost all three, however, and if they fall to 0-4 in the conference next weekend, it'll be time to remember that basketball season is coming.
If there was a bright spot for the Badgers yesterday, the only thing it could be is the return of the Wisconsin band from their one-game suspension. Even so, 76 fans wound up getting bounced from Camp Randall for a variety of offenses. That's not good, but during last week's Ohio State game, 86 fans were ejected. So there's at least one thing about Wisconsin football that's improving.
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Wisconsin, Big 10
The Badgers are a team in disarray. A month ago they were a consensus top-ten team and people were praising them for a gutty win over Fresno State. A month ago nearly everyone thought that Bret Bielema's team was the only thing standing between Ohio State and the Big Ten title. A month ago, everybody was wrong about the Badgers.
Blame is like fruitcake: Somehow, it always seems like there's more than enough to go around. This week's designated hate sink is woebegone quarterback Allan Evridge. He was beyond dreadful last night. His first touchdown run as a Badger (he started his career at Kansas State, where Bielema used to coach) was nullified by his passing statistics: 2 of 10 for 50 yards. One touchdown. One interception. No wonder the UW faithful cheered backup Dustin Sherer when he came in halfway through the third quarter.
Sherer was better, completing more than 50 percent of his passes. The Badgers, however, could not find the end zone. Will there be a quarterback controversy in Madison? Bielema has all but conceded the point:
"Well I think the quarterback has to play a lot better in certain situations," [Bielema] said. "Whoever that's going to be will be determined by what our coaches see off the film and how they handle the week."
Sounds like the job has gone from being Evridge's to lose to being Sherer's to win. This, however, may not be the best week for the Badgers to make wholesale changes. Bielema will lead his team into the legendary pink locker room of Kinnick Stadium for a matchup with his alma mater, the University of Iowa. The Hawkeyes were left for dead by everyone (including me) just a week ago after a third-straight heartbreaking loss. Yesterday somebody stuck a quarter into their backs as they ran buckwild against the Hoosiers, 45-9. Kirk Ferentz even showed his seldom-seen mean streak. Think the Kinnick faithful aren't going to be craving blood?
The Badgers' bowl hopes are now in serious doubt. Their schedule is seriously front-loaded, though, and they've played what are likely their three toughest games. They've lost all three, however, and if they fall to 0-4 in the conference next weekend, it'll be time to remember that basketball season is coming.
If there was a bright spot for the Badgers yesterday, the only thing it could be is the return of the Wisconsin band from their one-game suspension. Even so, 76 fans wound up getting bounced from Camp Randall for a variety of offenses. That's not good, but during last week's Ohio State game, 86 fans were ejected. So there's at least one thing about Wisconsin football that's improving.
Aztec4Life
Montezuma Mesa Survivor
I know I don't always comment, but I love reading your thread every week RJ.
I'm happy for Amstutz...one of my favorite coaches.
I'm happy for Amstutz...one of my favorite coaches.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Utes shut down Wyoming
from Block U by JazzyUte
The wind wasn't the only thing that blew through Laramie Saturday afternoon...
Ha! I always wanted to start out a story like that...
Anyway, the Utes walked to victory over the Cowboys this weekend, defeating them 40-7 and improving to 7-0 on the season. And while there is much to gripe about, mostly on the offensive side of the ball, there were some positives.
Firstly, this was a trap game. The Utes were coming off an emotionally exhausting win last Thursday over Oregon State and were facing a team that probably still remembered last year's wild events. Add in the fact Joe Glenn essentially needed a win to have any hopes of keeping his job and you've got the makings for a perfect upset. Utah did not allow that to happen, however.
Maybe it was because the Cowboys are just a really bad team, or maybe the team has finally figured out how to get past letdown games, regardless, Utah won and did so in blowout fashion and without any injuries. You can't really ask for more than that, right?
Defensively, Utah played well. That isn't a surprise, since they've had a damn good defense the entire season. Of course, a lot of that had to do with the fact Wyoming's offense was just pathetic. Entering the game, the Cowboys were averaging eight points a game and Utah held them below that...by a point. The Utes also held them to 252 total yards on the day and a big bulk of that came in the final quarter against Utah scrubs. In fact, the Cowboys could never mount a sustained drive until the end and even then, their lone touchdown catch was shown to have happened out of bounds. But we won't complain about that.
Not surprisingly, Wyoming couldn't get much done through the air. Karsten Sween was 8 of 18 for 52 yards and threw three interceptions. Though the quarterback to lead Wyoming on its lone scoring drive was Chris Stutzriem, so maybe they can throw him in there as starter next week since they've lined up just about everyone under center this year.
Wyoming did do a bit better on the ground, running for 184 yards, with Devin Moore leading the way for 106, but that's about it. The Cowboys turned the ball over five times, which has been the story of the season for Wyoming.
Utah's good defensive effort really helped compensate for a pretty poor offensive performance. And that's where things get less positive.
The only thing consistent about Utah's offense this season is its inability to really put a dominant effort out there on the football field. Maybe we fans just need to concede the offense just isn't that explosive and will only make the plays when they need to be made, but that's about it. Saturday, Utah's offense didn't move much, even on the ground and against Wyoming's pretty poor defense, this has to be a mild concern.
Of course, the Utes didn't turn the ball over once on offense, so they are moving in the right direction there. Maybe it's small steps, though you've got to wonder how much of the gameplan was to play it conservative because of the possible adverse weather conditions, since I'm not sure the players played all that bad, especially Brian Johnson, who went 10 of 19 and threw for 110 yards.
Believe it or not, Corbin Louks was Utah's leading rusher, going for 50. He was followed by Matt Asiata with 37. The team managed 123 yards on the ground, which is less than I expected, since the Cowboys have one of the worst rush defenses in the country, but oh well.
The bottom line is this: The Utes are 7-0 and it doesn't matter how they win, just as long as they continue to win. Kyle Whittingham admits Utah isn't playing their best ball and hopefully now that we're in the second half of the season they will. If they do, this team is going to be scary good. If they don't, well we just have to hope they continue finding ways to win.
from Block U by JazzyUte
The wind wasn't the only thing that blew through Laramie Saturday afternoon...
Ha! I always wanted to start out a story like that...
Anyway, the Utes walked to victory over the Cowboys this weekend, defeating them 40-7 and improving to 7-0 on the season. And while there is much to gripe about, mostly on the offensive side of the ball, there were some positives.
Firstly, this was a trap game. The Utes were coming off an emotionally exhausting win last Thursday over Oregon State and were facing a team that probably still remembered last year's wild events. Add in the fact Joe Glenn essentially needed a win to have any hopes of keeping his job and you've got the makings for a perfect upset. Utah did not allow that to happen, however.
Maybe it was because the Cowboys are just a really bad team, or maybe the team has finally figured out how to get past letdown games, regardless, Utah won and did so in blowout fashion and without any injuries. You can't really ask for more than that, right?
Defensively, Utah played well. That isn't a surprise, since they've had a damn good defense the entire season. Of course, a lot of that had to do with the fact Wyoming's offense was just pathetic. Entering the game, the Cowboys were averaging eight points a game and Utah held them below that...by a point. The Utes also held them to 252 total yards on the day and a big bulk of that came in the final quarter against Utah scrubs. In fact, the Cowboys could never mount a sustained drive until the end and even then, their lone touchdown catch was shown to have happened out of bounds. But we won't complain about that.
Not surprisingly, Wyoming couldn't get much done through the air. Karsten Sween was 8 of 18 for 52 yards and threw three interceptions. Though the quarterback to lead Wyoming on its lone scoring drive was Chris Stutzriem, so maybe they can throw him in there as starter next week since they've lined up just about everyone under center this year.
Wyoming did do a bit better on the ground, running for 184 yards, with Devin Moore leading the way for 106, but that's about it. The Cowboys turned the ball over five times, which has been the story of the season for Wyoming.
Utah's good defensive effort really helped compensate for a pretty poor offensive performance. And that's where things get less positive.
The only thing consistent about Utah's offense this season is its inability to really put a dominant effort out there on the football field. Maybe we fans just need to concede the offense just isn't that explosive and will only make the plays when they need to be made, but that's about it. Saturday, Utah's offense didn't move much, even on the ground and against Wyoming's pretty poor defense, this has to be a mild concern.
Of course, the Utes didn't turn the ball over once on offense, so they are moving in the right direction there. Maybe it's small steps, though you've got to wonder how much of the gameplan was to play it conservative because of the possible adverse weather conditions, since I'm not sure the players played all that bad, especially Brian Johnson, who went 10 of 19 and threw for 110 yards.
Believe it or not, Corbin Louks was Utah's leading rusher, going for 50. He was followed by Matt Asiata with 37. The team managed 123 yards on the ground, which is less than I expected, since the Cowboys have one of the worst rush defenses in the country, but oh well.
The bottom line is this: The Utes are 7-0 and it doesn't matter how they win, just as long as they continue to win. Kyle Whittingham admits Utah isn't playing their best ball and hopefully now that we're in the second half of the season they will. If they do, this team is going to be scary good. If they don't, well we just have to hope they continue finding ways to win.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Rutgers Sees No Need to Panic
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Rutgers, Big East
Sure they are off to a 1-5 start. Sure, the prior week Coach Greg Schiano admitted he wasn't doing a very good job of coaching the team. Plus he has concluded that the talent on the team appears to have been "overestimated" by himself and others. Sure the Scarlet Knights managed another painful loss.
So what. Apparently being on the verge looking like the Rutgers they were pre-2005 is not a reason to make any significant changes to the depth chart.
Additional bonus for Rutgers. They won't have to worry about another program coming to try and poach Greg Schiano away this season. At least that means they won't have to give him another new contract and raise.
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from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Rutgers, Big East
So what. Apparently being on the verge looking like the Rutgers they were pre-2005 is not a reason to make any significant changes to the depth chart.
"To me, that's really not part of the decision-making," Schiano said during his weekly day-after teleconference Sunday. "You do what you think is best to win the game that you're playing that week. Whether you're 1-5 or 5-1, to me, doesn't come into play. A lot of people worked really hard to give us an opportunity to do this."
They worked hard to have an opportunity to be winless against 1-A teams? All will work itself out. Just stay the course. It's about stability. On the bright side, after six games the Scarlet Knights have cracked 100 points scored. Why would anyone think changes need to be made?
Additional bonus for Rutgers. They won't have to worry about another program coming to try and poach Greg Schiano away this season. At least that means they won't have to give him another new contract and raise.
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Underdog Money Lines Wk 8
from underdogsofwar.com by TheGarfather
YTD: 11-18, +22.75 units
Week 7: 3-4, +16.50 units
My best Saturday ever! I can’t recall ever doing more than about 11 or 12 units before. You usually only hit a 9:1 once per season so to get it along with a 7:1 and a better than 4:1 in the same day is fantastic. Not a good dog day in the big picture, interestingly enough. Only 10 won (out of 51 games that is a very mediocre 19.6%), but the good sign was that only 2 were less than 2:1. Virginia and Minnesota were the only two dogs to lead at the half and at the end of the game.
Nothing “unfair” happened this week. Those that should have won did and the other four were close aside from Iowa State and all would have covered, but turnovers are part of the game and you can’t expect to win if you are giving it away. -7 in turnovers this week. My teams are now -16 in turnovers making it quite clear that my expectations were way off. Let’s see if we can end the season with a margin not worse than -30.
In a week this good did I make any mistakes? Yes. Stanford - although it was third in queue - was part of my “next three plays” so theoretically I played a little bit too tight.
Week 8 watch list: NCSU (although I don’t like it as much as I thought I would), TCU, Memphis, Duke, Purdue, MiaOH, WMU, Miss State, EMU, USM, Navy, Missouri, UVA, Toledo, UAB, Arkansas, Idaho (Black Listed still, technically), Baylor, Army, SC, UTEP, NMSU, SMU, UNLV, Stanford, Arkansas State, and FIU.
Cliff’s Notes Version, more info in the replies:
Official Recommendations (0): none yet
Prospective Selections (0): none yet
from underdogsofwar.com by TheGarfather
YTD: 11-18, +22.75 units
Week 7: 3-4, +16.50 units
My best Saturday ever! I can’t recall ever doing more than about 11 or 12 units before. You usually only hit a 9:1 once per season so to get it along with a 7:1 and a better than 4:1 in the same day is fantastic. Not a good dog day in the big picture, interestingly enough. Only 10 won (out of 51 games that is a very mediocre 19.6%), but the good sign was that only 2 were less than 2:1. Virginia and Minnesota were the only two dogs to lead at the half and at the end of the game.
Nothing “unfair” happened this week. Those that should have won did and the other four were close aside from Iowa State and all would have covered, but turnovers are part of the game and you can’t expect to win if you are giving it away. -7 in turnovers this week. My teams are now -16 in turnovers making it quite clear that my expectations were way off. Let’s see if we can end the season with a margin not worse than -30.
In a week this good did I make any mistakes? Yes. Stanford - although it was third in queue - was part of my “next three plays” so theoretically I played a little bit too tight.
Week 8 watch list: NCSU (although I don’t like it as much as I thought I would), TCU, Memphis, Duke, Purdue, MiaOH, WMU, Miss State, EMU, USM, Navy, Missouri, UVA, Toledo, UAB, Arkansas, Idaho (Black Listed still, technically), Baylor, Army, SC, UTEP, NMSU, SMU, UNLV, Stanford, Arkansas State, and FIU.
Cliff’s Notes Version, more info in the replies:
Official Recommendations (0): none yet
Prospective Selections (0): none yet
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Big 12 Football Report, v 1.7
from Burnt Orange Nation by PB @ BON
The week in Big XII football.
THE RUNDOWN
At first glance, one would be hard pressed to tell from the box score what the hell happened in Lubbock: The Red Raiders ran the ball well (23 attempts, 137 yards, 6.0 ypc) and passed the ball well (20-25, 284 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT), totaling 48 offensive plays for 421 yards, at 8.8 yards per play. And yet they only managed 31 points in regulation? How in the hell did... Wait. 48 offensive plays?
In one of the most bizarre statistical games in recent memory, Texas Tech utterly blitzkrieged the Nebraska defense when they had the ball, but the Red Raiders defense simply could not get the Cornhuskers off the field. Nebraska ran 80 plays to Tech's 48, possessing the football for an astounding 40:12 to TTU's 19:48. And so it was that a regulation period featuring 3 punts and 0 turnovers wound up a box score oddity, with Nebraska scoring on each of its final three drives to get the game to overtime, which Tech sealed on an interception.
Baylor 38 Iowa State 31 [Box / Recap / Blog Coverage]
The only intelligent thing Bob Davie said all night during the Missouri-OSU broadcast was that "Baylor freshman Robert Griffin is going to be a star." Even there, though, he slightly missed the mark: Griffin already is a star. The phenom completed 21 of his 24 pass attempts Saturday for 278 yards, including 2 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. Just... awesome. Even with A&M's putrid play, the Big XII South is the best division in college football, thanks in part to Baylor's relevance behind Robert Griffin.
Kansas 30 Colorado 14 [Box / Recap / Blog Coverage]
The Jayhawks still can't rush the football with any consistency, but Todd Reesing continues to do his superhero act while the underrated defense forces teams to sustain drives. We'll see if this team deserves any consideration beyond "Challenger To Missouri In The North" when they travel to Norman this Saturday.
Kansas State 44 Texas A&M 30 [Box / Recap / Blog Coverage]
Ladies and gentlemen... The Mike Sherman Era! On the bright side, Jerrod Johnson had a 400+ yard day passing the ball (adjust 150 yards for KSU), so that's nice to see if you're a Fightin' Farmer, but... yeah--it's grim. They should hire Beergut, which would at the very least liven up the press conferences.
Good news foor KSU fans: Freeman can still light up foul defenses. The 'Cats still desperately need a defense, though.
WEEK 7 AWARDS
BEST WIN: TEXAS, OVER OKLAHOMA Oklahoma State's win was arguably more shocking, but it's Texas which sits at #1 in the polls after their victory, so the nod here goes to the Longhorns.
WORST LOSS: MISSOURI, TO OKLAHOMA STATE Part of the Tigers' schedule advantage lay in their drawing OSU at home. Whoops.
TOP PERFORMER, OFFENSE (TEAM): NEBRASKA If the Cornhuskers don't chew up 8 minutes with each offensive drive, Tech scores 50+ points. What an oddity.
BUM STEER, OFFENSE (TEAM): IOWA STATE The Big XII North is, relatively speaking, pretty sad compared to the big, bad South.
TOP PERFORMER, OFFENSE (INDIVIDUAL): JORDAN SHIPLEY, TEXAS Kudos to Greg Davis and Ship for moving Texas' shifty wide receiver to the tight end spot where he could work the soft belly in the middle of the OU defense. That kickoff return was awful purty, as well.
BUM STEER, OFFENSE (INDIVIDUAL): CODY HAWKINS, COLORADO 8-22 for 90 yards, with 2 picks? Really? Dad probably wants to hate son. This is problematic.
PB'S POWER RANKINGS
Last ranking in parentheses.
1. Texas (3) - The scary thing about Texas is how much better this team is going to be in mid-November than it is now, in mid-October.
2. Oklahoma (1) - Their overrated on both lines, but the offense is good enough to run the table from here out...
3. Oklahoma State (5) - Mike Gundy was impressive on Saturday night. I had no idea.
4. Texas Tech (4) - So... what's your upside, Tech? We haven't seen it, yet.
5. Missouri (2) - Tony Temple is badly missed.
6. Kansas (8) - I'll reserve further judgment until I see how they play in Norman on Saturday.
7. Nebraska (6) - For a transition year, it's an interesting little team.
8. Baylor (9) - RO-BERT GRI-FFIN! [clap clap clap-clap-clap]
9. Kansas State (10) - They can thrash teams with no defense, but we've seen little beyond that.
10. Colorado (7) - Yikes. This team's going to struggle to be competitive with almost everyone else in the conference.
11. Texas A&M (11) - Texas A&M: The New Baylor!
12. Iowa State (12) - Q: How do you recruit to Ames, Iowa? A: Wait, no. Another question: Gene, why did you take this job?
from Burnt Orange Nation by PB @ BON
The week in Big XII football.
THE RUNDOWN
- Texas 45 Oklahoma 35 [Box / Recap / Blog Coverage]
Texas' 45 points tied for the most ever scored by the Longhorns in the series, matching the 2005 national title winning squad. And the last time Texas defeated a #1 ranked team in the regular season? That would be 1963, when the 'Horns took down Oklahoma 28-7 en route to Darrell Royal's first national title. Time to celebrate? No! But... still, you might be as surprised as I was to discover that 10 of the 20 teams ranked in the top two of the initial BCS standings went on to play in the Title Game:
<table align="center" border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"> <tbody> <tr> <td>YEAR</td> <td>BCS WEEK 1</td> <td>BCS TITLE GAME</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2007</td> <td>(1) Ohio State, (2) South Florida</td> <td>(1) Ohio State, (2) LSU</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2006</td> <td>(1) Ohio State, (2) USC</td> <td>(1) Ohio State, (2) Florida</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2005</td> <td>(1) USC, (2) Texas</td> <td>(1) USC, (2) Texas</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2004</td> <td>(1) USC, (2) Miami</td> <td>(1) USC, (2) Oklahoma</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2003</td> <td>(1) Oklahoma, (2) Miami</td> <td>(1) Oklahoma, (2) LSU</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2002</td> <td>(1) Oklahoma, (2) Miami</td> <td>(1) Miami, (2) Ohio State</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2001</td> <td>(1) Oklahoma, (2) Nebraska</td> <td>(1) Miami, (2) Nebraska</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2000</td> <td>(1) Nebraska, (2) Oklahoma</td> <td>(1) Oklahoma, (2) Florida State</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1999</td> <td>(1) Florida State, (2) Penn State</td> <td>(1) Florida State, (2) Virginia Tech</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1998</td> <td>(1) UCLA, (2) Ohio State</td> <td>(1) Tennessee, (2) Florida State
</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>
Still, Longhorns fans would be wise to keep things in perspective: We're still a week away from the release of the first BCS Standings, with an exceptionally dangerous Missouri team coming to Austin Saturday night. Win that one and Texas fans can start to evaluate the odds of making the national title game. Until then, Texas is just the latest team with a big red "#1" target on its back. The Tigers will come gunning. - Oklahoma State 28 Missouri 23 [Box / Recap / Blog Coverage]
The difference in this game was Missouri's inability to run the football: Though they entered the game averaging nearly 5.9 yards per carry, the Tigers (after adjusting for sacks) managed just 81 yards rushing on 16 carries. Consider that Chase Daniel picked up 63 of those yards on 5 rushes and Mizzou's rushers picked up just 18 yards on 11 attempts. In that regard the Tigers have simply proven themselves to be the North Division's version of Texas Tech when Mike Leach forgets (or is unable to establish) the running game: Without a credible rushing presence, Daniel took to the air 52 freaking times, and though he completed 39 of those attempts for 390 yards, 3 of his completions went to the wrong team.
Contrast that with Oklahoma State, which saw its theretofore unstoppable rushing game nearly halved in production (4.7 yards per attempt), but hammered away nonetheless, amassing 200 yards on 42 attempts. If Missouri did a nice job of keeping the Cowboys from running wild, Mike Gundy's commitment to the rush paid off most impressively: Kendall Hunter broke one long (68 yards) for a score, and OSU's final two scores came off beautiful play action pass plays that freed WR Damian Davis wide open or in single coverage where he could use his 6-5 height to go get the ball.
I was a bit surprised watching the game by how impressive Mike Gundy's game plan was. He coached a near-perfect game.
At first glance, one would be hard pressed to tell from the box score what the hell happened in Lubbock: The Red Raiders ran the ball well (23 attempts, 137 yards, 6.0 ypc) and passed the ball well (20-25, 284 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT), totaling 48 offensive plays for 421 yards, at 8.8 yards per play. And yet they only managed 31 points in regulation? How in the hell did... Wait. 48 offensive plays?
In one of the most bizarre statistical games in recent memory, Texas Tech utterly blitzkrieged the Nebraska defense when they had the ball, but the Red Raiders defense simply could not get the Cornhuskers off the field. Nebraska ran 80 plays to Tech's 48, possessing the football for an astounding 40:12 to TTU's 19:48. And so it was that a regulation period featuring 3 punts and 0 turnovers wound up a box score oddity, with Nebraska scoring on each of its final three drives to get the game to overtime, which Tech sealed on an interception.
Baylor 38 Iowa State 31 [Box / Recap / Blog Coverage]
The only intelligent thing Bob Davie said all night during the Missouri-OSU broadcast was that "Baylor freshman Robert Griffin is going to be a star." Even there, though, he slightly missed the mark: Griffin already is a star. The phenom completed 21 of his 24 pass attempts Saturday for 278 yards, including 2 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. Just... awesome. Even with A&M's putrid play, the Big XII South is the best division in college football, thanks in part to Baylor's relevance behind Robert Griffin.
Kansas 30 Colorado 14 [Box / Recap / Blog Coverage]
The Jayhawks still can't rush the football with any consistency, but Todd Reesing continues to do his superhero act while the underrated defense forces teams to sustain drives. We'll see if this team deserves any consideration beyond "Challenger To Missouri In The North" when they travel to Norman this Saturday.
Kansas State 44 Texas A&M 30 [Box / Recap / Blog Coverage]
Ladies and gentlemen... The Mike Sherman Era! On the bright side, Jerrod Johnson had a 400+ yard day passing the ball (adjust 150 yards for KSU), so that's nice to see if you're a Fightin' Farmer, but... yeah--it's grim. They should hire Beergut, which would at the very least liven up the press conferences.
Good news foor KSU fans: Freeman can still light up foul defenses. The 'Cats still desperately need a defense, though.
WEEK 7 AWARDS
BEST WIN: TEXAS, OVER OKLAHOMA Oklahoma State's win was arguably more shocking, but it's Texas which sits at #1 in the polls after their victory, so the nod here goes to the Longhorns.
WORST LOSS: MISSOURI, TO OKLAHOMA STATE Part of the Tigers' schedule advantage lay in their drawing OSU at home. Whoops.
TOP PERFORMER, OFFENSE (TEAM): NEBRASKA If the Cornhuskers don't chew up 8 minutes with each offensive drive, Tech scores 50+ points. What an oddity.
BUM STEER, OFFENSE (TEAM): IOWA STATE The Big XII North is, relatively speaking, pretty sad compared to the big, bad South.
TOP PERFORMER, OFFENSE (INDIVIDUAL): JORDAN SHIPLEY, TEXAS Kudos to Greg Davis and Ship for moving Texas' shifty wide receiver to the tight end spot where he could work the soft belly in the middle of the OU defense. That kickoff return was awful purty, as well.
BUM STEER, OFFENSE (INDIVIDUAL): CODY HAWKINS, COLORADO 8-22 for 90 yards, with 2 picks? Really? Dad probably wants to hate son. This is problematic.
PB'S POWER RANKINGS
Last ranking in parentheses.
1. Texas (3) - The scary thing about Texas is how much better this team is going to be in mid-November than it is now, in mid-October.
2. Oklahoma (1) - Their overrated on both lines, but the offense is good enough to run the table from here out...
3. Oklahoma State (5) - Mike Gundy was impressive on Saturday night. I had no idea.
4. Texas Tech (4) - So... what's your upside, Tech? We haven't seen it, yet.
5. Missouri (2) - Tony Temple is badly missed.
6. Kansas (8) - I'll reserve further judgment until I see how they play in Norman on Saturday.
7. Nebraska (6) - For a transition year, it's an interesting little team.
8. Baylor (9) - RO-BERT GRI-FFIN! [clap clap clap-clap-clap]
9. Kansas State (10) - They can thrash teams with no defense, but we've seen little beyond that.
10. Colorado (7) - Yikes. This team's going to struggle to be competitive with almost everyone else in the conference.
11. Texas A&M (11) - Texas A&M: The New Baylor!
12. Iowa State (12) - Q: How do you recruit to Ames, Iowa? A: Wait, no. Another question: Gene, why did you take this job?
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
<table><tbody><tr><td colspan="3" class="storytitle">5 Thoughts - It's The Polls, Stupid </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="primaryimage" valign="top">
USC QB Mark Sanchez
</td> <td width="3" nowrap="nowrap">
</td> <td valign="top"> <table bgcolor="#f5f5f5" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" width="60%"> <tbody><tr valign="top"> <td valign="middle" nowrap="nowrap">By Staff
CollegeFootballNews.com
Posted Oct 13, 2008
</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">
</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
It's all about the polls, and they need to be under more scrutiny. Why? Ranked fourth, USC and Mark Sanchez are in a perfect position to slip into the national title game. Minnesota's turnaround, Texas rebounding, bad rules, and more in this week's 5 Thoughts.
</td></tr> <tr> <td colspan="3">
5 Thoughts ... Oct. 12
Five Thoughts: 2007 Thoughts | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4
- Week 5 | Week 6
However, No Bailout Plan Is Needed
[FONT=verdana, arial, sans serif][SIZE=-2]By Pete Fiutak [/SIZE][/FONT]
1. The problem isn’t the greed, the incompetence, or the life-altering, catastrophic errors; the problem is the lack of oversight. The system needs to be torn down and built back up correctly so we won’t have to go through this mess anymore, but at the very least, there must be a far better system of checks and balances.
Wall Street? Whatever. The poll system needs to be better. Far, far, better.
I write this every year about this time, just before the BCS kicks in, and every year about this time the polling gets worse and worse. Considering millions of dollars, once-in-a-lifetime dreams, and the national championship are all on the line thanks, we need more than the whims of coaches and Harris pollsters who know next to nothing about anyone but the teams they coach/cover.
Oh sure, Texas, Alabama and Penn State might appear to have the inside track to the national championship, and if two of those three finish unbeaten it’ll all be cut-and-dry, but you know, just like those three do, that it’s not a question of if, but when the bubble bursts.
This has nothing to do with how good the teams are, throw in Oklahoma State, and these are the most impressive teams in America over the first half of the year, but the national title chase is going to get more bizarre before it gets clearer.
Penn State has to go to Ohio State, Alabama has to play at LSU, and if everything works out, the SEC title game, and Texas has to deal with Missouri, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Kansas, along with a Big 12 title game. Of course, as Ole Miss showed against Florida, and Oregon State displayed against USC, the losses could come out of left-field, too. And then there’s the flat-out choke factor, like West Virginia vs. Pitt last year when everything was on the line.
And all this wackiness will mean the rankings are more important than ever, and remember, the polls (the Coaches’ and Harris, NOT the AP ... ESPN is misleading the world on this) will basically determine the national title matchup. The computer formulas in the BCS equation are basically around for show. If the pollsters don’t want someone in (like Georgia last year or Michigan two years ago), they’ll make that happen. Remember, the No. 1 team at the end of the 2007 regular season, according to the computers, was Virginia Tech. On the deserve factor, it should’ve been LSU vs. the Hokies for the national title.
So now it’s vital to really take a hard, hard look at the polls each week. For some bizarre reason, USC is ranked fourth, because losing at Oregon State is less offensive than Oklahoma losing to Texas, the current No. 1 team in America. Theoretically, Oklahoma could be No. 2. Florida obliterated LSU, but the loss to Ole Miss means the Gators are worse than Texas Tech, a team that has beaten absolutely no one and needed overtime to beat a bad Nebraska? BYU, who has really beaten nobody, is ranked ahead of an Oklahoma State team that just beat Missouri in Columbia? LSU is 14<sup>th</sup>. Name the person in America who’d take BYU, Ohio State or Utah over the defending national champions on a neutral field next week. Meanwhile Michigan State is ranked ahead of a Cal (the Bears beat the Spartans), Kansas is ahead of South Florida (the Bulls beat the Jayhawks), and some coach somewhere gave Miami a No. 25 vote.
Of course everything will shake out over the next several weeks, and we might be saved from the gross incompetence with two BCS league teams finishing unbeaten, but there’s a better chance that we’re going to have yet another unsatisfying conclusion to the season.
But How? Vince Young Is A Titan?
[FONT=verdana, arial, sans serif][SIZE=-2]By [/FONT][/SIZE] Richard Cirminiello[FONT=verdana, arial, sans serif][SIZE=-2] [/FONT][/SIZE]
2. The hands-down biggest winner of Week 7 was the Texas Longhorns, which staked their claim to the No. 1 ranking with an unexpected win over top-rated Oklahoma. A close runner-up was every one-loss team in the country with aspirations of still playing for a national championship. That means you, USC. And you, Florida. And Ohio State, Georgia, LSU, and Missouri.
Until Colt McCoy, Jordan Shipley, and the rest of the ‘Horns delivered the unlikely in Dallas, Oklahoma looked to be the most probable team to run the table. The offense was unstoppable. The defense was better than expected. The schedule had fewer landmines than other unbeaten teams. None of that matters now. The Sooners are flawed, just like so many other schools with lofty expectations. Here’s the kicker: Texas’ stay among the unbeaten teams has a shelf life. I realize this is the worst possible time to bring it up, but the schedule is brutal, including games with Missouri, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech in successive weeks. That’s downright unfair, and likely to produce a loss long before the Big 12 Championship game.
The maximum number of unbeaten BCS schools has shrunk to three with half a season still left to go: Penn State, Alabama, and the Big 12 champ. Because of how well Texas played Saturday afternoon, that last entry is a little less likely to get to the finish line without a blemish. And that’s sweet music to every head coach of a school that’s looking to get back into the national title chase.
Ski-U-Mah ...
By Richard Cirminiello
3. One of the best stories in the country that absolutely no one is talking is Minnesota, whose days as a Big Ten whipping boy may be over for a long time.
Just a year after bottoming out at 1-11, second-year head coach Tim Brewster has the Golden Gophers bowl eligible with five games left to be played. None of those games, by the way, are against Penn State or Ohio State. Nine wins are within reach, a ridiculous notion just two months ago.
Ever the optimist, Brewster saw this day coming, even if he had no company. His positive approach has always resonated with recruits, and it’s clearly reached his players. Minnesota upset Illinois in Champaign Saturday, the most vivid sign yet that the program is turning the corner and on the brink of a much brighter days. They’re running the ball with freshman DeLeon Eskridge, creating a ton of turnovers, and getting more confident with each passing week. Are the Gophers about to end their 47-year Rose Bowl drought? Unlikely, but the fact that they’re in the discussion in mid-October is a credit to what Brewster and his staff are doing.
Minnesota is winning football games and less than a year away from debuting a beautiful open-air stadium, TCF Bank, in downtown. Yeah, it’s going to get even easier over the next couple of years for Brewster to attract quality players to his campus.
No, Gordon Riese Still Isn't Off The Hook
By Matthew Zemek
4. After all the crazy, consequential and controversial incidents from the past weekend's games, a few emphatic (and angry) suggestions for the people who make and enforce college football's rules:
1) If a player catches a kickoff when standing out of bounds (LSU-Florida), but the flight of the kicked ball doesn't break the plane of the boundary/sideline, the kicking team should not be penalized for an out-of-bounds kickoff. Penalize the kick returner (and his team, not the kicking team) for stepping out of bounds. How this rule ever existed is beyond belief. Change it promptly.
2) Stop allowing Hollywood punters to seduce refs into throwing phantom roughing flags (Texas-Oklahoma). Enable a punter to be flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct if he takes a dive the way Mike Knall did for the Sooners against the Longhorns. This has been going on far too long in college football... remember, it affected the outcome of the 1999 BCS title game, the Fiesta Bowl between Florida State and Tennessee. Anyone remember David Leaverton and an official named Gordon Riese?
3) After the inexcusable lapses in the Texas-Oklahoma game, fire any replay booth crew that refuses to review important plays (or misses the calls to an unacceptably large degree) before the next snap. What happened in Dallas was and is embarrassing. Crack down on replay reviewers who refuse to even attempt to do their jobs. You can accept a divergent opinion or conclusion on a replay review; what no fan, coach or player can accept, however, is a refusal to review a play in the first place.
4) If a player catches a ball and gets one foot on the ground, it's a catch. Period. All this nonsense about making a football move is making it very hard for officials and replay people to determine catches. Worse, it penalizes players who make good plays, on offense and defense. Oklahoma intercepted Texas in the end zone, but not according to these rule interpretations. North Carolina receiver Brooks Foster made what should have been a game-sealing reception against Notre Dame, but not according to current rule interpretations. An Oklahoma State receiver caught a pass and then fumbled against Missouri Saturday night (in the first quarter, but still...), but not according to these current rule interpretations. Why do college football's rules--including the allowance of a force-out by defenses (which prevented an easy completion for Wake Forest in Thursday's game against Clemson)--make it so darn difficult for receivers and defenders to make legal catches? If you get smoked, you get smoked. If you pick off a pass, you darn sure earned that turnover. If you fumble, you fumble.
All of these asinine rule interpretations and provisions are preventing games from being decided by the players on the field, in moments of both success and failure. Simplify these rules, just like the tax code---for the sanity of everyone, and for the health of a sport that didn't look good after several sorry sequences on Saturday.
Yeah, He'll Make Sure He Can Stand On The Sidelines For That One
By Steve Silverman [FONT=verdana, arial, sans serif][SIZE=-2] [/FONT][/SIZE]
5. I know, I am supposed to be enamored with Texas because they played such a great game in the antiquated Cotton Bowl and got by a spectacular Oklahoma team. I’m not. Not with the struggles on defense against the Sooners and with Missouri, Oklahoma State, at Texas Tech, Baylor (fine, maybe not Baylor), at Kansas and Texas A&M still to deal with.
My attention is on Penn State. This team just went on the road and destroyed a very solid Wisconsin team. The Badgers are only 3-3, but they had a late collapse against Michigan and a last-second loss to Ohio State before the Nittany Lions came calling. The Badgers were down, but Penn State knocked them out cold. This Nittany Lion team has it all with Daryll Clark on offense, Lydell Sargeant on defense and Derrick Williams on special teams. But watch out. It Texas and Alabama go unbeaten, Penn State will be shut out of the national title game. C'mon, who doesn't want to see JoePa on the biggest of stages one more time?
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USC QB Mark Sanchez
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CollegeFootballNews.com
Posted Oct 13, 2008
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It's all about the polls, and they need to be under more scrutiny. Why? Ranked fourth, USC and Mark Sanchez are in a perfect position to slip into the national title game. Minnesota's turnaround, Texas rebounding, bad rules, and more in this week's 5 Thoughts.
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5 Thoughts ... Oct. 12
Five Thoughts: 2007 Thoughts | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4
- Week 5 | Week 6
However, No Bailout Plan Is Needed
[FONT=verdana, arial, sans serif][SIZE=-2]By Pete Fiutak [/SIZE][/FONT]
1. The problem isn’t the greed, the incompetence, or the life-altering, catastrophic errors; the problem is the lack of oversight. The system needs to be torn down and built back up correctly so we won’t have to go through this mess anymore, but at the very least, there must be a far better system of checks and balances.
Wall Street? Whatever. The poll system needs to be better. Far, far, better.
I write this every year about this time, just before the BCS kicks in, and every year about this time the polling gets worse and worse. Considering millions of dollars, once-in-a-lifetime dreams, and the national championship are all on the line thanks, we need more than the whims of coaches and Harris pollsters who know next to nothing about anyone but the teams they coach/cover.
Oh sure, Texas, Alabama and Penn State might appear to have the inside track to the national championship, and if two of those three finish unbeaten it’ll all be cut-and-dry, but you know, just like those three do, that it’s not a question of if, but when the bubble bursts.
This has nothing to do with how good the teams are, throw in Oklahoma State, and these are the most impressive teams in America over the first half of the year, but the national title chase is going to get more bizarre before it gets clearer.
Penn State has to go to Ohio State, Alabama has to play at LSU, and if everything works out, the SEC title game, and Texas has to deal with Missouri, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Kansas, along with a Big 12 title game. Of course, as Ole Miss showed against Florida, and Oregon State displayed against USC, the losses could come out of left-field, too. And then there’s the flat-out choke factor, like West Virginia vs. Pitt last year when everything was on the line.
And all this wackiness will mean the rankings are more important than ever, and remember, the polls (the Coaches’ and Harris, NOT the AP ... ESPN is misleading the world on this) will basically determine the national title matchup. The computer formulas in the BCS equation are basically around for show. If the pollsters don’t want someone in (like Georgia last year or Michigan two years ago), they’ll make that happen. Remember, the No. 1 team at the end of the 2007 regular season, according to the computers, was Virginia Tech. On the deserve factor, it should’ve been LSU vs. the Hokies for the national title.
So now it’s vital to really take a hard, hard look at the polls each week. For some bizarre reason, USC is ranked fourth, because losing at Oregon State is less offensive than Oklahoma losing to Texas, the current No. 1 team in America. Theoretically, Oklahoma could be No. 2. Florida obliterated LSU, but the loss to Ole Miss means the Gators are worse than Texas Tech, a team that has beaten absolutely no one and needed overtime to beat a bad Nebraska? BYU, who has really beaten nobody, is ranked ahead of an Oklahoma State team that just beat Missouri in Columbia? LSU is 14<sup>th</sup>. Name the person in America who’d take BYU, Ohio State or Utah over the defending national champions on a neutral field next week. Meanwhile Michigan State is ranked ahead of a Cal (the Bears beat the Spartans), Kansas is ahead of South Florida (the Bulls beat the Jayhawks), and some coach somewhere gave Miami a No. 25 vote.
Of course everything will shake out over the next several weeks, and we might be saved from the gross incompetence with two BCS league teams finishing unbeaten, but there’s a better chance that we’re going to have yet another unsatisfying conclusion to the season.
But How? Vince Young Is A Titan?
[FONT=verdana, arial, sans serif][SIZE=-2]By [/FONT][/SIZE] Richard Cirminiello[FONT=verdana, arial, sans serif][SIZE=-2] [/FONT][/SIZE]
2. The hands-down biggest winner of Week 7 was the Texas Longhorns, which staked their claim to the No. 1 ranking with an unexpected win over top-rated Oklahoma. A close runner-up was every one-loss team in the country with aspirations of still playing for a national championship. That means you, USC. And you, Florida. And Ohio State, Georgia, LSU, and Missouri.
Until Colt McCoy, Jordan Shipley, and the rest of the ‘Horns delivered the unlikely in Dallas, Oklahoma looked to be the most probable team to run the table. The offense was unstoppable. The defense was better than expected. The schedule had fewer landmines than other unbeaten teams. None of that matters now. The Sooners are flawed, just like so many other schools with lofty expectations. Here’s the kicker: Texas’ stay among the unbeaten teams has a shelf life. I realize this is the worst possible time to bring it up, but the schedule is brutal, including games with Missouri, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech in successive weeks. That’s downright unfair, and likely to produce a loss long before the Big 12 Championship game.
The maximum number of unbeaten BCS schools has shrunk to three with half a season still left to go: Penn State, Alabama, and the Big 12 champ. Because of how well Texas played Saturday afternoon, that last entry is a little less likely to get to the finish line without a blemish. And that’s sweet music to every head coach of a school that’s looking to get back into the national title chase.
Ski-U-Mah ...
By Richard Cirminiello
3. One of the best stories in the country that absolutely no one is talking is Minnesota, whose days as a Big Ten whipping boy may be over for a long time.
Just a year after bottoming out at 1-11, second-year head coach Tim Brewster has the Golden Gophers bowl eligible with five games left to be played. None of those games, by the way, are against Penn State or Ohio State. Nine wins are within reach, a ridiculous notion just two months ago.
Ever the optimist, Brewster saw this day coming, even if he had no company. His positive approach has always resonated with recruits, and it’s clearly reached his players. Minnesota upset Illinois in Champaign Saturday, the most vivid sign yet that the program is turning the corner and on the brink of a much brighter days. They’re running the ball with freshman DeLeon Eskridge, creating a ton of turnovers, and getting more confident with each passing week. Are the Gophers about to end their 47-year Rose Bowl drought? Unlikely, but the fact that they’re in the discussion in mid-October is a credit to what Brewster and his staff are doing.
Minnesota is winning football games and less than a year away from debuting a beautiful open-air stadium, TCF Bank, in downtown. Yeah, it’s going to get even easier over the next couple of years for Brewster to attract quality players to his campus.
No, Gordon Riese Still Isn't Off The Hook
By Matthew Zemek
4. After all the crazy, consequential and controversial incidents from the past weekend's games, a few emphatic (and angry) suggestions for the people who make and enforce college football's rules:
1) If a player catches a kickoff when standing out of bounds (LSU-Florida), but the flight of the kicked ball doesn't break the plane of the boundary/sideline, the kicking team should not be penalized for an out-of-bounds kickoff. Penalize the kick returner (and his team, not the kicking team) for stepping out of bounds. How this rule ever existed is beyond belief. Change it promptly.
2) Stop allowing Hollywood punters to seduce refs into throwing phantom roughing flags (Texas-Oklahoma). Enable a punter to be flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct if he takes a dive the way Mike Knall did for the Sooners against the Longhorns. This has been going on far too long in college football... remember, it affected the outcome of the 1999 BCS title game, the Fiesta Bowl between Florida State and Tennessee. Anyone remember David Leaverton and an official named Gordon Riese?
3) After the inexcusable lapses in the Texas-Oklahoma game, fire any replay booth crew that refuses to review important plays (or misses the calls to an unacceptably large degree) before the next snap. What happened in Dallas was and is embarrassing. Crack down on replay reviewers who refuse to even attempt to do their jobs. You can accept a divergent opinion or conclusion on a replay review; what no fan, coach or player can accept, however, is a refusal to review a play in the first place.
4) If a player catches a ball and gets one foot on the ground, it's a catch. Period. All this nonsense about making a football move is making it very hard for officials and replay people to determine catches. Worse, it penalizes players who make good plays, on offense and defense. Oklahoma intercepted Texas in the end zone, but not according to these rule interpretations. North Carolina receiver Brooks Foster made what should have been a game-sealing reception against Notre Dame, but not according to current rule interpretations. An Oklahoma State receiver caught a pass and then fumbled against Missouri Saturday night (in the first quarter, but still...), but not according to these current rule interpretations. Why do college football's rules--including the allowance of a force-out by defenses (which prevented an easy completion for Wake Forest in Thursday's game against Clemson)--make it so darn difficult for receivers and defenders to make legal catches? If you get smoked, you get smoked. If you pick off a pass, you darn sure earned that turnover. If you fumble, you fumble.
All of these asinine rule interpretations and provisions are preventing games from being decided by the players on the field, in moments of both success and failure. Simplify these rules, just like the tax code---for the sanity of everyone, and for the health of a sport that didn't look good after several sorry sequences on Saturday.
Yeah, He'll Make Sure He Can Stand On The Sidelines For That One
By Steve Silverman [FONT=verdana, arial, sans serif][SIZE=-2] [/FONT][/SIZE]
5. I know, I am supposed to be enamored with Texas because they played such a great game in the antiquated Cotton Bowl and got by a spectacular Oklahoma team. I’m not. Not with the struggles on defense against the Sooners and with Missouri, Oklahoma State, at Texas Tech, Baylor (fine, maybe not Baylor), at Kansas and Texas A&M still to deal with.
My attention is on Penn State. This team just went on the road and destroyed a very solid Wisconsin team. The Badgers are only 3-3, but they had a late collapse against Michigan and a last-second loss to Ohio State before the Nittany Lions came calling. The Badgers were down, but Penn State knocked them out cold. This Nittany Lion team has it all with Daryll Clark on offense, Lydell Sargeant on defense and Derrick Williams on special teams. But watch out. It Texas and Alabama go unbeaten, Penn State will be shut out of the national title game. C'mon, who doesn't want to see JoePa on the biggest of stages one more time?
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RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Significance of Florida's Rout of LSU
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Florida, LSU, SEC
On Saturday, Florida systematically dismantled LSU's vaunted defense, winning 51-21 in the Swamp. It was one of the best victories of the Urban Meyer era, and unarguably Les Miles' worst loss since taking over the Bayou in 2005.
The USA Today pollsters responded by driving Florida up to 7th in the overall standings while the AP poll was even more impressed, ranking the Gators just behind 4-1 Oklahoma at 5th.
So what's the significance of it all? Why was this win in particular such a tilting point for Florida's season? How is it that a team which lost to unranked Ole Miss two weeks ago is now back in the national title picture?
The answer might be found in the stats. Florida managed 475 total yards of offense, of which only 210 came through the air. Most of the remaining 265 came from two running backs who are starting to show they bring their own star power to an offense riddled with larger-than-life players. Jeff Demps ran for 129 yards and a touchdown, averaging a ludicrous 12.9 YPC average while Chris Rainey put up 66 yards on only 11 carries. These impressive numbers were earned against what many believed was the SEC's best defense.
When a team can run the ball that effectively, they're going to be hard to beat.
Add in Tim Tebow's efficient distribution of the ball to playmakers all over the field and the usual fantastic special teams play that Meyer's squad is known for, and the Gators are starting to look very much like the complete package. That kind of multi-faceted balance is what wins championships, and by scoring at will against a talented group of Bayou Bengals, the Gators seem to have announced that they are the team everyone expected them to be in the pre-season.
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Florida, LSU, SEC
The USA Today pollsters responded by driving Florida up to 7th in the overall standings while the AP poll was even more impressed, ranking the Gators just behind 4-1 Oklahoma at 5th.
So what's the significance of it all? Why was this win in particular such a tilting point for Florida's season? How is it that a team which lost to unranked Ole Miss two weeks ago is now back in the national title picture?
The answer might be found in the stats. Florida managed 475 total yards of offense, of which only 210 came through the air. Most of the remaining 265 came from two running backs who are starting to show they bring their own star power to an offense riddled with larger-than-life players. Jeff Demps ran for 129 yards and a touchdown, averaging a ludicrous 12.9 YPC average while Chris Rainey put up 66 yards on only 11 carries. These impressive numbers were earned against what many believed was the SEC's best defense.
When a team can run the ball that effectively, they're going to be hard to beat.
Add in Tim Tebow's efficient distribution of the ball to playmakers all over the field and the usual fantastic special teams play that Meyer's squad is known for, and the Gators are starting to look very much like the complete package. That kind of multi-faceted balance is what wins championships, and by scoring at will against a talented group of Bayou Bengals, the Gators seem to have announced that they are the team everyone expected them to be in the pre-season.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Bowden Out at Clemson
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Clemson, ACC, NCAA FB Coaching
Well, so much for Tommy Bowden hanging on until the end of the season. While there is no official word, the Clemson recruiting sites first reported that Bowden was out. Now ESPN.com has "sources" saying the same thing.
The guess is that the big boosters just couldn't take it anymore and agreed to help with the huge buyout. It also gives Athletic Director Terry Don Phillips a head start on officially searching for a new head coach. Considering Syracuse, Washington and other programs look to be making moves, this is probably a very smart move.
While there will be plenty -- especially in the coaching ranks -- who will decry a mid-season firing, there's no denying the results of getting a head start. Just look at how well it worked out for North Carolina and Florida.
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Clemson, ACC, NCAA FB Coaching
Clemson fired football coach Tommy Bowden on Monday, four days after the Tigers lost to Wake Forest and fell to 3-3, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.
Bowden informed his assistant coaches of his firing this morning. Assistant head coach/wide receivers coach Dabo Swinney has been named the team's interim coach for the final six regular season games and potential bowl game.
Looks like the weekend rumors panned out, just as it seemed that Bowden was safe for the season. Bowden informed his assistant coaches of his firing this morning. Assistant head coach/wide receivers coach Dabo Swinney has been named the team's interim coach for the final six regular season games and potential bowl game.
The guess is that the big boosters just couldn't take it anymore and agreed to help with the huge buyout. It also gives Athletic Director Terry Don Phillips a head start on officially searching for a new head coach. Considering Syracuse, Washington and other programs look to be making moves, this is probably a very smart move.
While there will be plenty -- especially in the coaching ranks -- who will decry a mid-season firing, there's no denying the results of getting a head start. Just look at how well it worked out for North Carolina and Florida.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Tommy Bowden Still Clemson's Head Coach (Maybe) -- Harper Gets Scapegoated
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Clemson, ACC, NCAA FB Coaching, NCAA FB Rumors
BIG UPDATE (12:05): According to the Clemson Rivals.com and Scout.com sites, Tommy Bowden is out and the wide receivers coach Dabo Swinney will take over for the interim.
This photo of Tommy Bowden is a perennial favorite, and fits so well after almost every Clemson mind-blowing, mistake-filled, low intensity loss.
The rumors were hot and heavy in the aftermath of Clemson's dismal performance against Wake Forest, that Tommy Bowden's tenure at Clemson would be abruptly terminated. In the alternative, if not Bowden, offensive coordinator Rob Spence would be thrown overboard, since the Clemson athletic director has gone on the record plenty of times, stating he won't evaluate the coach's performance until the end of the season.
Well Bowden and Spence survived the weekend. Instead, it was quarterback Cullin Harper who was blamed for the problems. He was benched, and redshirt freshman Willy Korn gets to start on Saturday versus Georgia Tech.
This was predicted last month, when Clemson didn't waste anytime tanking the season and crushing Clemson fans' expectations. Bowden handled the decision to bench Harper like a high schooler dumping a girlfriend/boyfriend -- he text messaged (or left a voice mail).
Considering the dismal performance of the Clemson offensive line, to date, it shouldn't be a big surprise that Harper has struggled. The one good thing about Korn, is that he is more of a scrambler. Something that may help a little.
Bowden's termination seems to be predicted every year, but he keeps managing to do just enough and shift the blame to survive. That probably won't work this year, but that $4 million buyout might.
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Clemson, ACC, NCAA FB Coaching, NCAA FB Rumors
This photo of Tommy Bowden is a perennial favorite, and fits so well after almost every Clemson mind-blowing, mistake-filled, low intensity loss.
The rumors were hot and heavy in the aftermath of Clemson's dismal performance against Wake Forest, that Tommy Bowden's tenure at Clemson would be abruptly terminated. In the alternative, if not Bowden, offensive coordinator Rob Spence would be thrown overboard, since the Clemson athletic director has gone on the record plenty of times, stating he won't evaluate the coach's performance until the end of the season.
Well Bowden and Spence survived the weekend. Instead, it was quarterback Cullin Harper who was blamed for the problems. He was benched, and redshirt freshman Willy Korn gets to start on Saturday versus Georgia Tech.
This was predicted last month, when Clemson didn't waste anytime tanking the season and crushing Clemson fans' expectations. Bowden handled the decision to bench Harper like a high schooler dumping a girlfriend/boyfriend -- he text messaged (or left a voice mail).
Considering the dismal performance of the Clemson offensive line, to date, it shouldn't be a big surprise that Harper has struggled. The one good thing about Korn, is that he is more of a scrambler. Something that may help a little.
Bowden's termination seems to be predicted every year, but he keeps managing to do just enough and shift the blame to survive. That probably won't work this year, but that $4 million buyout might.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
The heads are rolling early: Tommy Bowden fired at Clemson
from Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo! Sports by Matt Hinton
Clemson's Rivals site says Tommy Bowden is done ($) as the Tigers' coach. Assistants have been informed this morning; receivers coach Dabo Swinney is your interim boss.
The timing is just getting a head start on the inevitable: Clemson has six games to play, but at 3-3 and 1-2 in the ACC -- with a bogged-down offense, ugly losses to Atlantic rivals Wake Forest and Maryland that virtually end any hope of recovering for a division title, and the horrific, ambition-crushing blowout against Alabama -- this season of high hopes has been circling the drain from the moment it kicked off. Bowden needed this one; this was the year everything was in place for the Tigers in terms of talent, schedule and expectations. This was supposed to be the culmination of the Bowden era, and really, it was, all too perfectly: he barely made it halfway through.
UPDATE: A free link from Rivals, and check out the comments at The State for all you need to know about the local reaction. And sorry to link to another pay board, but the headlines reveal all human desires: bring them the bloody sideburns of Will Muschamp!
from Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo! Sports by Matt Hinton
The timing is just getting a head start on the inevitable: Clemson has six games to play, but at 3-3 and 1-2 in the ACC -- with a bogged-down offense, ugly losses to Atlantic rivals Wake Forest and Maryland that virtually end any hope of recovering for a division title, and the horrific, ambition-crushing blowout against Alabama -- this season of high hopes has been circling the drain from the moment it kicked off. Bowden needed this one; this was the year everything was in place for the Tigers in terms of talent, schedule and expectations. This was supposed to be the culmination of the Bowden era, and really, it was, all too perfectly: he barely made it halfway through.
UPDATE: A free link from Rivals, and check out the comments at The State for all you need to know about the local reaction. And sorry to link to another pay board, but the headlines reveal all human desires: bring them the bloody sideburns of Will Muschamp!
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
When Lou Holtz has your back, you never have to sweat
from Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo! Sports by Matt Hinton
With his lisp, nine-year-old-boy haircut, unhinged guffaw and all around cootishness, it’s easy to think of Lou Holtz these days as your crazy but harmless uncle, or the beloved town “doctor” you pray your mom finally allows you to stop visiting before your first hernia check. Even Lou’s famous fake pep talks are exercises in easygoing senility given an unusually wide berth, and don’t remind you at all of the real Coach Lou, who ceaselessly ranted and raved in very non-genial fashion, pulled players by their facemask for eye-to-eye beratings, put referees in headlocks, left the New York Jets after less than a full season, was repeatedly accused of ignoring injured players, publicly branded a player a ‘quitter’ in a bestselling book, oversaw a highly publicized steroid scandal at Notre Dame, and left South Carolina with three years probation. Before he was Dr. Lou or Uncle Lou, Holtz was an angry, ornery old devil. This is the Lou that came out late Saturday, when he was called on to argue in favor of Tim Tebow over Colt McCoy in one of College GameDay Final’s elaborate odes to nothingness. You only think Holtz is acting like he doesn’t realize he’s on air on most of the time -- it’s a different story when he really doesn’t know the cameras are rolling (mild language warning):
from Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo! Sports by Matt Hinton
With his lisp, nine-year-old-boy haircut, unhinged guffaw and all around cootishness, it’s easy to think of Lou Holtz these days as your crazy but harmless uncle, or the beloved town “doctor” you pray your mom finally allows you to stop visiting before your first hernia check. Even Lou’s famous fake pep talks are exercises in easygoing senility given an unusually wide berth, and don’t remind you at all of the real Coach Lou, who ceaselessly ranted and raved in very non-genial fashion, pulled players by their facemask for eye-to-eye beratings, put referees in headlocks, left the New York Jets after less than a full season, was repeatedly accused of ignoring injured players, publicly branded a player a ‘quitter’ in a bestselling book, oversaw a highly publicized steroid scandal at Notre Dame, and left South Carolina with three years probation. Before he was Dr. Lou or Uncle Lou, Holtz was an angry, ornery old devil. This is the Lou that came out late Saturday, when he was called on to argue in favor of Tim Tebow over Colt McCoy in one of College GameDay Final’s elaborate odes to nothingness. You only think Holtz is acting like he doesn’t realize he’s on air on most of the time -- it’s a different story when he really doesn’t know the cameras are rolling (mild language warning):
<em> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AoRC8LHBinI&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344">Popout</em>
Give him this: Lou’s still a competitor. When he has a job to do, he’s stopping at nothing -- including basic civility on national television -- to see it's done. This was the secret to his coaching success: you may not like him, but when the chips are down and the cameras are off, you want Lou Holtz in your corner. Because the man comes out swinging.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Mack's message: OU is done. Get over it.
from Bevo Beat
Mack Brown has never the lost week after an Oklahoma game. The last such Longhorn loss came in 1997 under coach John Mackovic against, ahem, Missouri.
Brown said he told his team Sunday that “the Oklahoma game was the end of the first half of the season. It’s over. Bury it. Take this one for what it’s worth. It’s a very important game. It’s one our fans want to win. But if you lose the next one, it makes that game less important.”
Brown said that despite Saturday’s win and the resulting No. 1 ranking, his team has room for improvement. Giving up too many yards after contact was an area for improvement he cited.
“To win a game like this and see so many things that we can correct on each side of the ball will help us,” Brown said.
from Bevo Beat
Mack Brown has never the lost week after an Oklahoma game. The last such Longhorn loss came in 1997 under coach John Mackovic against, ahem, Missouri.
Brown said he told his team Sunday that “the Oklahoma game was the end of the first half of the season. It’s over. Bury it. Take this one for what it’s worth. It’s a very important game. It’s one our fans want to win. But if you lose the next one, it makes that game less important.”
Brown said that despite Saturday’s win and the resulting No. 1 ranking, his team has room for improvement. Giving up too many yards after contact was an area for improvement he cited.
“To win a game like this and see so many things that we can correct on each side of the ball will help us,” Brown said.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Texas-Oklahoma State set for 2:30 p.m. start
from Bevo Beat
ABC has picked up the television rights for Texas’ game vs. Oklahoma State on Oct. 25. Kickoff will be at 2:30 p.m. in Royal-Memorial Stadium.
from Bevo Beat
ABC has picked up the television rights for Texas’ game vs. Oklahoma State on Oct. 25. Kickoff will be at 2:30 p.m. in Royal-Memorial Stadium.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
PUDDING POPS, FULL OF VITAMIN DAMN
from Every Day Should Be Saturday by Orson Swindle
Lendy Holmes: Man, that shit smells good. After the game I’m gonna have to go over there and have some of that. They fry everything over there: sno-balls, bacon, beef, bacon, bacon-fried bacon, cell phones, trenchcoats, truth, pig heads, ballpoint pens. I don’t even know if I’d even eat a batter-fried cell phone, but if I had to eat a cell phone, that’s how I’d do it.
Hey, play’s coming this way. Shit. Shipley? I thought these guys all played for Iowa. Maybe he’s just a black dude covered in white shoe polish. That’s gotta be it. I gotta get over here and tackle this dude, just one sec—
Quan Cosby: PUDDING POPS, MOTHERFUCKER!!!
Lendy Holmes: (sees batter-covered cellphones circling above him in the azure Dallas sky.)
from Every Day Should Be Saturday by Orson Swindle
Lendy Holmes: Man, that shit smells good. After the game I’m gonna have to go over there and have some of that. They fry everything over there: sno-balls, bacon, beef, bacon, bacon-fried bacon, cell phones, trenchcoats, truth, pig heads, ballpoint pens. I don’t even know if I’d even eat a batter-fried cell phone, but if I had to eat a cell phone, that’s how I’d do it.
Hey, play’s coming this way. Shit. Shipley? I thought these guys all played for Iowa. Maybe he’s just a black dude covered in white shoe polish. That’s gotta be it. I gotta get over here and tackle this dude, just one sec—
Quan Cosby: PUDDING POPS, MOTHERFUCKER!!!
Lendy Holmes: (sees batter-covered cellphones circling above him in the azure Dallas sky.)
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Rudy Carpenter, literally on his last good leg
from Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo! Sports by Matt Hinton
Rudy Carpenter’s been around a long time now. He’s a tough kid -- given Arizona State’s offensive line and his tendency for hanging on to the ball just a little longer than his doctor recommends, he has to be. Saturday was Rudy’s 37th consecutive start since coming on as a redshirt freshman in 2005, a run that included the highest passer rating in the country as a redshirt freshman; the popular coup that deposed recently-appointed starter Sam Keller at the start of the 2006 season and probably contributed to Dirk Koetter’s firing at the end of the year; at least half a season hampered by a broken wrist that Carpenter apparently kept under wraps, so to speak (which also didn’t help Koetter’s cause); a memorable bloody lip, courtesy a brutal Thanksgiving beating at the hands of USC; and an epic junior sack total that hasn’t improved much through the first half of this year. You can’t say he hasn’t taken his lumps. But there’s gutting it out through some pain, and then there’s playing on a broken ankle. It’s not quite as inspiring as it initially sounds:
from Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo! Sports by Matt Hinton
Carpenter walked into the post-game press conference with a boot on his ankle. Later, two sources said the ankle is broken, and that ASU is calling it a sprain because it’s a nonweight bearing bone.
Whatever the extent of the injury, it clearly hampered Carpenter. He was 11 of 20 for 126 yards, with one interception that was returned for a touchdown. It was the first time since 2006 that Carpenter failed to throw a touchdown pass.
Although Erickson said Carpenter “looked ready to roll,” it appeared Carpenter was favoring the ankle. He threw off his back foot on several occasions rather than planting his left foot then throwing. Most notably, he underthrew wide-open receiver Chris McGaha on ASU’s first play, turning what might have been a touchdown into a 39-yard gain.
“I know I didn’t have as much as I needed to on a lot of my throws,” Carpenter said.
As the game wore on and he absorbed more hits, Carpenter’s ankle worsened. He finally left the game midway through the third quarter after a vicious hit by USC linebacker Rey Maualuga.
“I couldn’t even really walk that well,” Carpenter said.
True, in light of his usual punishment, it’s probably not very easy to tell the difference between Carpenter’s “moving normally” and his “noticeably limping.” The Arizona Republic suggests Rudy will start again off ASU’s upcoming bye week, even though, at 2-4 and 0-2 in the Pac-10, there’s not much to play for beyond the sake of playing. That shouldn’t be worth it for a guy who can barely limp off the field with a cracked bone in his ankle, but for someone with Carpenter’s tenacity and/or masochism, they might have to strap him down. Seriously, double up the restraints: the human body – even Rudy Carpenter’s -- can only take so much.Whatever the extent of the injury, it clearly hampered Carpenter. He was 11 of 20 for 126 yards, with one interception that was returned for a touchdown. It was the first time since 2006 that Carpenter failed to throw a touchdown pass.
Although Erickson said Carpenter “looked ready to roll,” it appeared Carpenter was favoring the ankle. He threw off his back foot on several occasions rather than planting his left foot then throwing. Most notably, he underthrew wide-open receiver Chris McGaha on ASU’s first play, turning what might have been a touchdown into a 39-yard gain.
“I know I didn’t have as much as I needed to on a lot of my throws,” Carpenter said.
As the game wore on and he absorbed more hits, Carpenter’s ankle worsened. He finally left the game midway through the third quarter after a vicious hit by USC linebacker Rey Maualuga.
“I couldn’t even really walk that well,” Carpenter said.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Texas' game-plan wrinkles surprised a fellow coch
from Bevo Beat
Just as Texas gets an angry Missouri team this week, Kansas will have to deal with Oklahoma a week after the Sooners lost their No. 1 ranking to the Longhorns. Jayhawks coach Mark Mangino was asked Monday whether he saw “anything magical” in the Longhorns’ game plan that he could employ to also knock off the Sooners.
“They were well-coached, and that had a good plan,” Mangino replied. “It’s nothing magical. It’s called execution. It’s called making good plays. … I thought Texas put a lot of new things on the field they had not showed. A lot. It’s a little unusual, when you watch Texas over the years and then you see their game plan with regard to last week’s game.”
from Bevo Beat
Just as Texas gets an angry Missouri team this week, Kansas will have to deal with Oklahoma a week after the Sooners lost their No. 1 ranking to the Longhorns. Jayhawks coach Mark Mangino was asked Monday whether he saw “anything magical” in the Longhorns’ game plan that he could employ to also knock off the Sooners.
“They were well-coached, and that had a good plan,” Mangino replied. “It’s nothing magical. It’s called execution. It’s called making good plays. … I thought Texas put a lot of new things on the field they had not showed. A lot. It’s a little unusual, when you watch Texas over the years and then you see their game plan with regard to last week’s game.”
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
What Lies Ahead for the Top 3
from In The Bleachers College Football Blog by Brian Sakowski
As of now, there are three teams out in front of the race to the BCS Championship. Texas is currently ranked #1, and deservedly so after beating Oklahoma on Saturday, with Alabama #2, and Penn State #3. It is pretty safe to say that if these teams run the table, they will be in the Championship game, and another safe bet is that at least one of these teams will lose before the end of the year.
Texas
In their remaining 6 games, their opponents have a combined record of 27-9. If there should be any ties with three teams at the top, Texas will win all ties with the strength of their schedule. The next few weeks include Missouri, Oklahoma State, at Texas Tech, and two weeks after the Red Raiders, at Kansas. This doesn’t even include the Big 12 Championship game. If Texas can somehow run the table, they WILL be in the championship game, but I think out of these 3 teams, their chances of doing that are the slimmest.
Alabama
The Crimson Tide have 6 remaining games in which their opponents combined record is 19-17. We are finding out that teams like Tennessee, Auburn, and LSU are not as good as we thought. Also, their early season victory against Clemson does not hold the luster it once did. I think out of these 3 teams, Alabama still has something to prove even with that victory over Georgia. I know I will tick off a lot of SEC fans, but overall the SEC does not have the strength it had in previous years which might help Alabama run the table. But we also know that anything can happened, and to be undefeated the Tide will have to beat either Florida, Georgia, or Vanderbilt in the SEC Title game.
Penn State
The Nittany Lions are a bit of a surprise this year because it was thought that the Buckeyes were to be the class of the Big Ten, with everyone else fighting for second. Their remaining schedule has games at home against Michigan, at Ohio State (where they haven’t won in Columbus since the 1970s), at Iowa, and home against Michigan State. Those teams (plus Indiana) combine for a record of 20-13. The Lions have the luxury of knowing that if they run the regular season table, they don’t have a Big Ten title game to worry about, but that could also hurt them if there are more than 2 teams with an undefeated record. I know every Nittany Lion fan points towards the Ohio State game, but don’t look past Michigan State who beat them last year.
The probably of even 1 of these teams finishing undefeated is less than 50%, but as of now these three teams are leading the pack. As I said, I think Texas has the toughest task ahead, and I’d place Alabama second with Penn State having the easiest road. Mainly because they are already 7-0, a game more than the Longhorns and Tide, and don’t have to worry about a Conference Championship game.
from In The Bleachers College Football Blog by Brian Sakowski
As of now, there are three teams out in front of the race to the BCS Championship. Texas is currently ranked #1, and deservedly so after beating Oklahoma on Saturday, with Alabama #2, and Penn State #3. It is pretty safe to say that if these teams run the table, they will be in the Championship game, and another safe bet is that at least one of these teams will lose before the end of the year.
Texas
In their remaining 6 games, their opponents have a combined record of 27-9. If there should be any ties with three teams at the top, Texas will win all ties with the strength of their schedule. The next few weeks include Missouri, Oklahoma State, at Texas Tech, and two weeks after the Red Raiders, at Kansas. This doesn’t even include the Big 12 Championship game. If Texas can somehow run the table, they WILL be in the championship game, but I think out of these 3 teams, their chances of doing that are the slimmest.
Alabama
The Crimson Tide have 6 remaining games in which their opponents combined record is 19-17. We are finding out that teams like Tennessee, Auburn, and LSU are not as good as we thought. Also, their early season victory against Clemson does not hold the luster it once did. I think out of these 3 teams, Alabama still has something to prove even with that victory over Georgia. I know I will tick off a lot of SEC fans, but overall the SEC does not have the strength it had in previous years which might help Alabama run the table. But we also know that anything can happened, and to be undefeated the Tide will have to beat either Florida, Georgia, or Vanderbilt in the SEC Title game.
Penn State
The Nittany Lions are a bit of a surprise this year because it was thought that the Buckeyes were to be the class of the Big Ten, with everyone else fighting for second. Their remaining schedule has games at home against Michigan, at Ohio State (where they haven’t won in Columbus since the 1970s), at Iowa, and home against Michigan State. Those teams (plus Indiana) combine for a record of 20-13. The Lions have the luxury of knowing that if they run the regular season table, they don’t have a Big Ten title game to worry about, but that could also hurt them if there are more than 2 teams with an undefeated record. I know every Nittany Lion fan points towards the Ohio State game, but don’t look past Michigan State who beat them last year.
The probably of even 1 of these teams finishing undefeated is less than 50%, but as of now these three teams are leading the pack. As I said, I think Texas has the toughest task ahead, and I’d place Alabama second with Penn State having the easiest road. Mainly because they are already 7-0, a game more than the Longhorns and Tide, and don’t have to worry about a Conference Championship game.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
So I ask again... is Michigan's bowl streak in jeopardy?
from Fanblogs.com by Kevin Donahue
Back in July, I raised the question - is Michigan's bowl streak in jeopardy?
Fast forward three months and CBS Sportsline is catching up to our little chat from July.
@ #3 Penn State
#20 MICHIGAN STATE
@ Purdue
@ Minnesota (unranked but getting votes)
Northwestern
@ #12 Ohio State
Now... I'm not the smartest football mind in the room, but I don't see four wins. Anybody?
So... I ask you again... is Michigan's bowl streak in jeopardy?
from Fanblogs.com by Kevin Donahue
Back in July, I raised the question - is Michigan's bowl streak in jeopardy?
Michigan holds the current mark for the consecutive bowl game appearances with 33 straight bowl games. (The Husker fans in the crowd would be upset if I didn't mention that the record is held by Nebraska at 35 straight bowl games.) ...
So... from the looks of things, the streak should be safe, but it's not a certainty by any means. Michigan has a lot of talent, but no one can accurately predict just how quickly the team will gel. A couple of turnovers or breakdowns could turn a game I perceive to be a W into a loss.
If UM fails to make a bowl game this season -- which is certainly a possibility -- then the streak would likely pass to Florida State, who has an active streak of 26 straight bowl games.
So... while Rich Rod is trying to set a course for the future, he better watch his six. I know RR doesn't want to be the coach that snapped the streak.
We all kind of had a laugh & a chuckle, deciding it was best to have a little faith in Rich Rodriguez. So... from the looks of things, the streak should be safe, but it's not a certainty by any means. Michigan has a lot of talent, but no one can accurately predict just how quickly the team will gel. A couple of turnovers or breakdowns could turn a game I perceive to be a W into a loss.
If UM fails to make a bowl game this season -- which is certainly a possibility -- then the streak would likely pass to Florida State, who has an active streak of 26 straight bowl games.
So... while Rich Rod is trying to set a course for the future, he better watch his six. I know RR doesn't want to be the coach that snapped the streak.
Fast forward three months and CBS Sportsline is catching up to our little chat from July.
Rich Rodriguez's debut season in Ann Arbor started shaky with a loss to Utah, looked worse after blowout losses at Notre Dame and to Illinois before sinking to new lows on Saturday because of a 13-10 loss to little-regarded Toledo (2-4). Michigan (2-4) has its worst six-game record since 1967 -- two seasons before Bo Schembechler took over -- and its streak of playing in 33 consecutive bowls is looking as if it's due to end.
"We can't go anywhere but up -- obviously," cornerback Morgan Trent said.
Well, the Wolverines could continue to tumble. Michigan plays at No. 3 Penn State on Saturday and hosts No. 20 Michigan State next, hoping to avoid a fourth loss this season at home.
Michigan needs four more wins to be bowl eligible. Let's look:"We can't go anywhere but up -- obviously," cornerback Morgan Trent said.
Well, the Wolverines could continue to tumble. Michigan plays at No. 3 Penn State on Saturday and hosts No. 20 Michigan State next, hoping to avoid a fourth loss this season at home.
@ #3 Penn State
#20 MICHIGAN STATE
@ Purdue
@ Minnesota (unranked but getting votes)
Northwestern
@ #12 Ohio State
Now... I'm not the smartest football mind in the room, but I don't see four wins. Anybody?
So... I ask you again... is Michigan's bowl streak in jeopardy?
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Football News Is Breaking All Over the Place: Tommy Bowden Fired; Romo Out
from The Sporting Blog
There’s nothing like some super exciting breaking news to fuel the cycle on a sluggish Monday. First up, the news out of Clemson is that Tommy Bowden has been fired. This means he’s gone from “mostly dead,” as he was on Friday, to “Al Davis dead” today, as you can see on our updated Tommy Bowden Dead Index chart below:
There are no details yet of how the firing went down, but it probably was similar to the manner in which Spencer described it in The Alphabetical yesterday:
When you combine the way Dallas has played the last three games with this Romo injury, it would appear as if the Cowboys are on a downhill trajectory.
PS. I also didn't even mention the breaking news out of Ashburn, VA: The Skins are benching their inept rookie punter ... finally. This is only a big deal to Redskins fans such as myself. Or for those of you who have Durant Brooks as your fantasy punter.
from The Sporting Blog
There’s nothing like some super exciting breaking news to fuel the cycle on a sluggish Monday. First up, the news out of Clemson is that Tommy Bowden has been fired. This means he’s gone from “mostly dead,” as he was on Friday, to “Al Davis dead” today, as you can see on our updated Tommy Bowden Dead Index chart below:
There are no details yet of how the firing went down, but it probably was similar to the manner in which Spencer described it in The Alphabetical yesterday:
Clemson fans, you’re riding along with Tommy Bowden in a car. You’re Chris Farley; Tommy Bowden’s David Spade in the passenger seat. You sing “Eres Tu” together -- in Spanish! Just like in the movie. It’s a moment, it really is. You’ve had such good times together. Then, in a scene not included in the movie, you shove Tommy Bowden out of the car while it’s moving at 70 mph, leaving him rolling and bouncing off the pavement in the dark, lonely middle of nowhere. Coming soon to a theater near you!
Taking over for Bowden is Dabo Swinney. The second bit of news is from the professional version of football, where we’ve learned that Tony Romo will be out four weeks with a broken pinkie on his throwing hand. The loss hurts extra bad for the Cowboys because a) Brad Johnson is their back-up, b) this means Romo will almost certainly be out for the team’s HUGE game at the Giants in three weeks, and could also miss their game at Washington in five weeks. When you combine the way Dallas has played the last three games with this Romo injury, it would appear as if the Cowboys are on a downhill trajectory.
PS. I also didn't even mention the breaking news out of Ashburn, VA: The Skins are benching their inept rookie punter ... finally. This is only a big deal to Redskins fans such as myself. Or for those of you who have Durant Brooks as your fantasy punter.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Chiles continues to work as running back now
from Bevo Beat
John Chiles’ appearance as a running back against Oklahoma wasn’t a fluke, Texas offensive coordinator Greg Davis said Monday.
Chiles began working with the Texas running backs on the Tuesday before the OU game. He’ll continue to practice with the running backs, while also working as the No. 2 quarterback.
Davis said that Sherrod Harris is also getting reps in practice at backup quarterback. When asked who would come into a game if Colt McCoy were injured, Davis was unequivocal. “John would be the first guy,” he said.
from Bevo Beat
John Chiles’ appearance as a running back against Oklahoma wasn’t a fluke, Texas offensive coordinator Greg Davis said Monday.
Chiles began working with the Texas running backs on the Tuesday before the OU game. He’ll continue to practice with the running backs, while also working as the No. 2 quarterback.
Davis said that Sherrod Harris is also getting reps in practice at backup quarterback. When asked who would come into a game if Colt McCoy were injured, Davis was unequivocal. “John would be the first guy,” he said.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
One Net Rushing Yard Not Enough for Tennessee
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Georgia, Tennessee, SEC
For want of a yard...
Oh, wait. That's not exactly the way it works in this case.
Georgia's 26-14 win over 2-4 Tennessee didn't exactly grab the attention of college football fans. After all, given the trainwreck of the 2008 Tennessee Volunteers, everyone expected Georgia to win. Unsurprisingly, they did. Handily, more or less. Nothing to see here.
But if you did watch, or care about Tennessee football, one stat has to jump out at you.
Tennessee. Rushed. For. One. Net. Yard.
One stinking yard.
Georgia's players said they had the film room thank.
Tennessee has always prided themselves on their power running game, but their ground attack has been notably anemic these past few seasons. Their performance against Georgia set new historic lows.
With Nick Stephens in and learning at quarterback, the Vol offense must, must find a way to reestablish the running game. They might want to start by eliminating their obvious tells.
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Georgia, Tennessee, SEC
Oh, wait. That's not exactly the way it works in this case.
Georgia's 26-14 win over 2-4 Tennessee didn't exactly grab the attention of college football fans. After all, given the trainwreck of the 2008 Tennessee Volunteers, everyone expected Georgia to win. Unsurprisingly, they did. Handily, more or less. Nothing to see here.
But if you did watch, or care about Tennessee football, one stat has to jump out at you.
Tennessee. Rushed. For. One. Net. Yard.
One stinking yard.
Georgia's players said they had the film room thank.
Georgia defensive end Demarcus Dobbs said he knew which way Tennessee was going to run the ball "80 percent of the time" based on alignments and formations the team studied in video sessions.
"Watching film was a huge part (of stopping the run)," Dobbs said. "We did some thorough video sessions and watched film and picked up on a couple of traits that gave away what they were going to do."
Dobbs said the Bulldogs noticed whether Tennessee lined up its fullback inside or outside and if the tight end moved to the backfield. He also said the alignment of tackles Chris Scott and Ramon Foster tipped off the direction of the run.
Er... yeah, that could have something to do with it."Watching film was a huge part (of stopping the run)," Dobbs said. "We did some thorough video sessions and watched film and picked up on a couple of traits that gave away what they were going to do."
Dobbs said the Bulldogs noticed whether Tennessee lined up its fullback inside or outside and if the tight end moved to the backfield. He also said the alignment of tackles Chris Scott and Ramon Foster tipped off the direction of the run.
Tennessee has always prided themselves on their power running game, but their ground attack has been notably anemic these past few seasons. Their performance against Georgia set new historic lows.
With Nick Stephens in and learning at quarterback, the Vol offense must, must find a way to reestablish the running game. They might want to start by eliminating their obvious tells.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Cullen Harper Thinks Tommy Bowden Got What He Deserved
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Clemson, ACC, NCAA FB Coaching, NCAA FB Media Watch
Watching ESPN's First Take this morning, while reporting the news that Tommy Bowden had been fired by Clemson, a quote from Cullen Harper was reported saying that, "Bowden got what he deserved."
In the aftermath of the loss to Wake Forest last week, Bowden announced that Harper would not be the starter this week. Basically throwing Harper under the bus. So naturally, Harper wants nothing to do with Bowden.
from The FanHouse - NCAAfootball
Filed under: Clemson, ACC, NCAA FB Coaching, NCAA FB Media Watch
In the aftermath of the loss to Wake Forest last week, Bowden announced that Harper would not be the starter this week. Basically throwing Harper under the bus. So naturally, Harper wants nothing to do with Bowden.
"Friends that were with Harper say that Tommy was calling his phone nonstop after the announcement and that Cullen ignored him," reads another Tigertown text we received yesterday. "The players are with Cullen. They are pissed (Bowden) is trying to put the blame on them."
Not hard to agree with Harper. He's more than proved that when he has a whisper of a chance to throw the ball, that he is capable of making things happen. The young offensive line has let him and the fine stable of running backs down this year. This is something that only the coaches could fix, and they didn't. Note to coaches with star offensive players and poor offensive production, don't throw your players under the bus. Karma is a cruel mistress.
RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
The Spread Is Dead
from mgoblog by Brian
The always-incorrect Gary Danielson:
from mgoblog by Brian
The always-incorrect Gary Danielson:
"I said it before the season -- and I was out there by myself -- I think we've seen the spread has peaked, like the wishbone did in the mid-70s," Danielson said Thursday.
The top ten teams in total offense so far, spread teams in bold:
- Tulsa
- Texas Tech
- Missouri
- Houston
- Louisiana Lafayette
- Oklahoma
- Nevada (pistol variety)
- Oklahoma State
- Penn State
- Illinois
