Weekly Affirmation from CFN.com
Zemek's Weekly Affirmation - 2006
By
Matt Zemek
CollegeFootballNews.com
Posted Nov 6, 2006
Point number one: The Big East game of the year was a failure. Point two: no one outside the Big East, with the sole exception of Ohio State, is succeeding. It should make all college football fans pause for a quiet moment of reflection.
By Matthew Zemek
The ballyhooed battle between West Virginia and Louisville was--to put it plainly--a poorly-played game. There's just no getting around (or over, or under, or through) that reality. The number of fumbles, really stupid personal fouls, and inept defensive plays (memo to West Virginia linebackers: you might want to respect Louisville's passing game more than its Michael Bush-less running attack, especially if you want to shut down big plays) was too great to consider 'Eers-Cards a well-played game. Was the Big East primetime feast an entertaining game? Heck, yes. Did the two teams show considerable guts and gallantry? Absolutely. Did the game make for great television--despite ESPN's infuriating insistence on multiple celebrity interviews inside the broadcast booth? Yes, it did... in the end. (Question: why can't Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit be allowed by their bosses to do a football game--or a football preview show, for that matter--without any corporate intrusions or other horrible manifestations of brain-dead executive decision making that limit their journalistic freedom?) But none of those realities mean the game was played at a high level.
In most January bowl games--the games West Virginia and Louisville were shooting for on Thursday night--mistakes litter the gridiron. These mounds of miscues are mostly the result of a five- or six-week break and the rust that accumulates during that period of time. In a regular-season atmosphere, however, with only eleven days in between games (twelve for West Virginia, who played Connecticut on a Friday nearly two weeks before playing Louisville), supreme sloppiness should not emerge. But for the first 36 minutes of 'Eers-Cards, the top teams in the Big East displayed a nervous, flop sweat-filled, fumbling and stumbling brand of football that elite teams should not reveal on a high-stakes occasion. This game produced the bizarre and the brutal: stacks of dead-ball personal foul penalties, one after the other; three fumbles in a span of less than two minutes; and at least three separate instances in which Louisville ball carriers, running in the open field for touchdowns (or at least, for huge gains inside the West Virginia 10), fell flat on their faces. Louisville did win, but its roster--with the sole exception of Brian Brohm--was dominated by nerves. The Mountaineers, though, were felled by the ol' adrenaline to an even greater degree. In the end, the difference in this game was clear: West Virginia made the more damaging kinds of mistakes. While the Cards dropped passes, committed penalties, and stumbled on the ground in the first half, the Mountaineers fumbled balls and shanked punts in the second half. Turnovers are worth more than penalties, and second-half mistakes loom larger than first-half failures. As a result, Louisville got more cheap points and more second-half momentum. Once the first-half nerves wore off, Louisville elevated its game while West Virginia dug itself a hole that proved to be much too deep. Mistakes--not excellence--defined this game. As such, it wasn't played with notable distinction or quality. One can understand why lots of national college football fans are trying (not succeeding, but trying) to laugh the Big East off the stage.
But this is where the trajectory of the conversation takes a sharp turn.
Those who want to make fun of the Big East after the mistake festival in Louisville should look at their own conferences and teams. Except for the people of Columbus, Ohio--and even their team (albeit on just one isolated and decidedly rare occasion) didn't play great this past weekend--no one has any right to paint Louisville (or West Virginia, for that matter) in a particularly negative light.
Want to rip Bobby Petrino's Cards or Rich Rodriguez's Mountaineers for all the mistakes (and bad defense) they displayed on Thursday? Well, then: what about Michigan's escape--yes, escape--against Ball State? What about Florida beating Vanderbilt--an improved but still deficient team--by only six points? What about Auburn not being able to ring up a huge number on Arkansas State (yes, I know players are being rested for bigger battles, but still... it's Arkansas State...)? What about LSU continuing to make mistakes, despite a level of talent that exceeds what Louisville and West Virginia bring to the table? What about Wisconsin playing uninspiring football, even while winning? If you want to bash the depth of the Big East because Pittsburgh lost at South Florida, well, you also have to knock the depth of the Big Ten after Iowa's embarrassing home loss to Northwestern. Similarly, you have to shoot down the staying power of the SEC after Alabama's and Georgia's newsworthy losses on Saturday.
If you've been reading this column all year, you know what's been said: if the Big East isn't great shakes (which is true), the conference is hardly alone. All leagues are showing the same tendencies, the same inclinations toward mediocrity that didn't exist several seasons ago in this sport. If you think the Big East has bad football, has the rest of the country produced an appreciably better product? That question simply cannot be answered in the affirmative. Michigan's wins over Iowa and Wisconsin look less impressive with each week, as the Hawkeyes and Badgers slog through their schedules (Wisconsin has simply been more successful at pulling through under adverse circumstances). The SEC's top teams have markedly inconsistent offenses, independent of the good defenses that league has to offer. When the fourth-ranked team in America (Florida) puts its fans through the mental meat-grinder in the fourth quarter each week, you know that high-level football isn't on display. The Big XII is another picture of inconsistency, as its second-best team--Oklahoma--is set for a huge year... in 2007. The Northern Division champion (almost certainly Nebraska) will be saddled with at least three losses, possibly four. The ACC is laughably bad, a conference that actually has generated separation from every other BCS league... at the bottom, that is. The only conference that has yet to show its full and true colors is the Pac-10, but that's only because the league's biggest games have been backloaded in 2006. Up til now, Cal and USC have wobbled on multiple occasions, while Oregon has been the biggest yo-yo of an outfit in all of college football this year. Washington State, upon gaining third place in the league and a No. 25 national ranking, showed the world how stable and mature a program it is by losing at home to a very mediocre Arizona club.
If you want good football, clear points of differentiation among top teams, and a well-defined pecking order among the six BCS conferences, we're sorry: this just isn't your year. Moreover, it's been pretty much the same story the previous few seasons as well. If you want to rip Louisville, West Virginia and the rest of the Big East, you had better be willing to criticize your team or conference for its own manifest and major shortcomings. Ohio State fans get the only free pass in this whole discussion, for the sluggish win at Illinois was not representative of a typical Buckeye effort this season.
So with that out of the way, let's now focus on the teams chasing Ohio State for a berth in Glendale. What emerges is a series of matchups that, quite frankly, would be more entertaining than an eventual national title game.
Michigan, Florida, and the newly-triumphant Louisville Cardinals are now front and center in the chase for a ticket to the Desert Southwest on January 8. Naturally, these three programs want to hear the mariachi bands and soak up the rays in the Valley of the Sun, but from a football lover's standpoint, it would be more attractive to see them play each other... and not Ohio State.
Michigan and Florida would make for a very interesting football game. Both of these teams rely on defense first, and they both have veteran quarterbacks who, while being respected team leaders, are nevertheless beset by inconsistencies. What would ultimately make a Wolverine-Gator showdown so special is the fact that these two teams--with similar philosophies on the surface--flesh out their goals and desires in noticeably different ways. Michigan runs the ball in the classic smashmouth style familiar to the Big Ten and its Upper Midwest slobberknocker heritage. Florida tries to run the ball with an element of surprise, a greater reliance on angled blocking, and the more frequent use of wideouts... not to mention a quarterback shuffle. Even while some folks would view this hypothetical matchup as a battle of like-minded teams, it would still be--in many respects--a contrast of largely opposed styles. That makes for a fascinating football study.
But if you want contrasts in styles on a football field, Louisville would satisfy your craving to a much larger degree, and this is where the discussion gets particularly interesting.
It's pretty undeniable that in a battle of defenses, Michigan and Florida would swamp Louisville, hands down. There's absolutely no question that Louisville's defense would put the Cards at a huge disadvantage against Michigan or Florida. The physicality of a Big Ten or SEC front line would challenge Bobby Petrino's team and tax the extent of its manpower. Louisville's offense--which had virtually unlimited freedom against West Virginia's swiss cheese defense--would get punched in the mouth on some occasions by the defenses residing in Ann Arbor and Gainesville. If Michigan and Florida were to play Louisville, those old-money schools would know where their advantage would exist: up front, in the trenches, and especially on defense.
This point of comparison--however striking it may be--does not mean, though, that Louisville would not be able to compete with Michigan or Florida. Anything but.
While the Wolverines and Gators have the superior defenses, Louisville possesses something that's lacking at almost all of the 119 programs who have played Division I-A football this season: truly elite quarterbacking. Not just good, decent or competent field generalship, but awesome, off-the-charts excellence under center. This is where the Cards (and, had they won, the Mountaineers of West Virginia) could make a very loud argument about their credentials as a team worthy of playing for a national championship.
Given the fact that so much mediocre college football is being played in the United States this year, it's more than a little significant if a team has a quarterback with broad shoulders who can carry the load while making game-changing plays. Brian Brohm is one of those few signal callers who can make a huge difference in a game. Knock the West Virginia defense all you want (you should--just not too much), but Brohm made noticeably good plays against the Mountaineers. In a high-stakes game, Brohm came up with unusually exceptional displays of quality at football's most pressure-packed position. Brohm's footwork is better than Troy Smith's...not in terms of pure running ability, of course, but in terms of moving around in the pocket and sensing pressure. Against West Virginia, Brohm regularly made those slight and instantaneous baby steps that enabled him to get squared up for his throws, which were consistently on target. While Smith is a master of making something out of a broken play, and spinning out of pressure with his superb athleticism and speed, Brohm--much more of an old-school quarterback--has the best pocket presence of any signal caller in America. He rarely if ever left the pocket against the Mountaineers, but even when his protective cup was on the brink of caving, Brohm re-aligned his feet with short but telling movements to prepare his whole body for the specific throw he needed to make in a given situation. And on the few occasions when a West Virginia pass rusher got to him, Brohm was sometimes able to use his upper-body strength to shrug off the pursuit and then calmly fire a dart to one of his able (though sometimes wrong-footed) pass catchers. Brohm put on a clinic, and even if he had to face a defense of Michigan's or Florida's quality, the Louisville quarterback would make his share of plays. Brohm's defense would endanger his team's chances in a hypothetical matchup against the Wolverines or Gators. Brohm's own abilities would enable Louisville to play those two teams on very even terms.
If Louisville played Michigan or Florida, the contrast in styles would be delicious. In either matchup, you'd have a world-class quarterback against an elite defense. You'd have Bobby Petrino's blackboard mastery against the speed and power of the English Majors or Florida's ballhawking outfit. Cards-Wolverines and Cards-Gators are two matchups that would be much more intriguing and revealing than any matchup involving Ohio State. This isn't a knock on the Buckeyes; actually, it's just the opposite. Ohio State has too much balance, talent and quarterbacking quality--all of the ingredients we've been discussing here--to suffer in a comparison with Louisville, Michigan or Florida. It's the No. 2, 3 and 4 teams in America who would play the best and most entertaining games in college football this season. But since we have the BCS, none of those matchups are likely to happen.
If you think that elite Big East quarterbacking begins and ends with Brian Brohm, however, you're sadly mistaken. Part of this week's column simply has to give special recognition to the losing quarterback in the West Virginia-Louisville game. Even in defeat, Mountaineer signal caller Pat White showed that he belongs in the same conversation as his Big East counterpart, not to mention Mr. Smith in Columbus.
Here's what you have to understand if you're skeptical of the Big East and find yourself particularly inclined to rip the quality of that league's defenses: along with Brohm, Pat White is one of those rare quarterbacks who doesn't come along every year. Along with Smith and Brohm--and ahead of Brady Quinn--White is one of the three truly elite quarterbacks in the country. Quinn and two Colts--Brennan and McCoy--are a shade below the elite tier, which is reserved only for the most dynamic field generals in the United States. Pat White belongs in that select football trinity, along with his counterparts from Ohio State and Louisville.
While Smith is the ultimate hybrid quarterback--a player who can stand back and fire in old-school fashion, but then bust loose on improv plays with equal effectiveness--his Big East brethren stand on the opposite sides of the divide. Brohm, as mentioned above, is a classic quarterback cut from traditional cloth. Pat White, on the other hand, is a one-man tornado who brings a little bit of three college football legends--Mike Vick, Tommie Frazier and Jamelle Holieway--to the gridiron whenever he straps on the pads. White's unique combination of skills only reinforces the point that quarterbacks like him don't come along every Autumn. Yes, Louisville's defense--along with others in the Big East--has marked deficiencies, but Pat White is so good that he'd be able to undress elite defenses as well. Just ask Georgia about the events of January 2 in Atlanta.
The quarterback White comes closest to imitating is Michael Vick. Vick had sick speed and a rifle lefty arm. White, who throws fewer deep balls than the Hokie superstar unleashed in his Blacksburg career, hasn't had his arm showcased to a similar degree. In terms of pure speed, however, White is every bit the blur that Vick was. He's a similarly superb specimen who could run with Vick all day.
But before you think White is all specimen and little substance, think again. Like Frazier, the gritty and resourceful uber-warrior who could take hits and absorb contact, White possesses more than a little toughness. When Steve Slaton left Thursday night's Louisville game due to an injury, White--in a very revealing display of his poise and willpower--managed to carry the WVU offense on his back. The Mountaineers might have moved the ball more slowly, but they still weren't stopped, and they still rang up points. White's accomplishments without his trusty backfield mate proved to be a revelation... at least for this columnist. White's not just the driver of a high-octane offense, a roaring Ferrari of an outfit. No, with Slaton out, White had the gumption and composure needed to steer a beaten but reliable pickup truck to paydirt. White isn't just a pretty face with the blinding speed. He has Frazier's uncanny ability to take punches and still prevail.
Finally, White also merits a legitimate comparison with Holieway, regarded by many as the greatest in a long line of decorated wishbone quarterbacks at Oklahoma in the Barry Switzer halcyon days. In Rich Rodriguez's system, which--one should know--validated its credentials on Thursday night against Louisville (by showing skeptics that no, the 'Eers did not need to pass the ball more in the pre-Louisville portion of their schedule), White needs to make the same quick reads and employ the same slick ballhandling that Holieway used in the mid-1980s with the Sooners. Once again, White's ability to excel without Slaton in the fold offers convincing proof of his greatness as a masterful Mountaineer unlike any other. Even when hamstrung, this dandy from Daphne, Ala., can excel in ways few quarterbacks can. His ability to consistently move his offense even without Steve Slaton indicated that, much like Holieway roughly 20 years ago, Pat White possesses the craftiness and ballhandling ability that can keep a defense guessing, even when it knows whose hands will be touching the pigskin on virtually every snap. Much as Holieway couldn't be stopped by defenses who keyed on him, White--the nerve center of the West Virginia offense--consistently runs wild even though opposing defenses and coordinators exhaust all their intellectual and creative powers in the attempt to render him impotent. That's true dominance.
If there's a neat and tidy way of encapsulating Pat White's signature brilliance on a football field, it can be found in this simple statement: plainly put, Pat White breaks all the rules. He doesn't need to throw often to throw well--which flies in the face of conventional football wisdom (and Brian Brohm's season, which needed some rusty tuneups against Cincinnati and Syracuse before the breakout return to point-producing potency against West Virginia). He doesn't need a running back to be effective as a runner. He doesn't have to throw deep to make a huge impact on a game. He doesn't have to stay close to the line of scrimmage to run for a first down (against Louisville, he was 20 yards behind the line on a play when he easily--easily!--coasted to a first down on a 3rd and 6 scramble). Whatever the proverbial "book" says about quarterbacking can be thrown out the window when Pat White is involved. The West Virginia sensation--along with Brian Brohm and Troy Smith--is one of the three quarterbacks who stand above every other signal caller in college football. White alone is a huge reason why the Mountaineers--like the Cardinals--could hold their own in a big game against Michigan, Florida, or other top ten teams not called the Buckeyes.
In other news, a brief survey of this past Saturday's games brought to mind a very simple truth that is frequently forgotten in our collective attempts to make sense of the college football world: while players must make plays and coaches have to know their stuff, the bounce of the ball can trump everything else.
Look at life through the eyes of Arkansas head coach Houston Nutt in order to gain fresh appreciation for this unpredictable but undeniable part of the sport. Nutt knows all about bad bounces... in his very first season at the helm, a bad bounce involving a Clint Stoerner fumble at Tennessee derailed his team's chances of winning an SEC title and making a BCS bowl game. In subsequent years, crazy pigskin rolls, spins and spirals--usually involving a gifted but volatile quarterback named Matt Jones--put Nutt on rollercoaster rides that screamed for Maalox. Last season, with a lot of inexperience under center, Nutt coached far better than his team's 4-7 record would ever indicate. Arkansas lost four of its seven games by a combined total of 15 points; with just one better bounce, or one improved instinctual play by any of his green and untested players in each of those four games, the trajectory of the Hogs' season--and the nature of all the opinions attached to it--would have been profoundly different. Nutt has escaped the hot seat this year, but the unpredictable bounces of the ball had a lot to do with his lack of job security entering the 2006 campaign.
Last season, the Hogs--despite a weak passing game--still ran the ball extremely well, a testament to Nutt's ability to teach the running game. They're doing the same things this year, but now, the ball is bouncing in Houston Nutt's favor, and suddenly, the once-embattled coach isn't so embattled anymore. Nine times out of ten (okay, maybe eight), fragile bang-bang plays are breaking in Arkansas' direction. Saturday against South Carolina, the Hogs built a 20-point lead because every significant mano-a-mano battle for a jump ball or any vigorously contested pass went to the Razorbacks. And after one of the few occasions when Arkansas didn't win a 50-50 ball--a play in which Hog receiver Marcus Monk couldn't hang onto a pass in the end zone--Houston Nutt's team managed to score a touchdown on a 3rd and goal delay draw from the 15-yard line. It was that kind of a night for the Hogs until Carolina mounted a late charge. However, the deficit--and the odds--were too great for the Gamecocks to overcome. Lots of fragile bounces--the same bounces Houston Nutt has been lacking over the past several years--finally enabled Arkansas fans to say, "Houston, we have no problems." Amazing what a college football soap opera--"As the Pigskin Turns"--can do for the fortunes of a team, a coach, and a fan base.
South Carolina, meanwhile, is experiencing the negative side of this cruel and fickle dynamic.
Much as Houston Nutt wasn't a deficient teacher of the running game last year--even though he lacked fortuitous bounces of the ball--so it also is that Steve Spurrier hasn't lost his ability to teach quarterbacks in 2006. What he's done with Syvelle Newton stands as a typical example of Spurrier's legendary ability to "coach 'em up real good." Moreover, the Carolina coach had backup quarterback Blake Mitchell ready to come off the bench and excel in ways that exceeded anything Mitchell produced last season. But for all of Spurrier's skills as a developer of quarterbacks, his team isn't winning the way it did last season. For two straight weeks, the Gamecocks have allowed crucial touchdowns because members of their secondary have had interceptions clang off their fingers in the end zone, only to land in the mitts of opposing receivers. Despite top-shelf play calling from Spurrier, Carolina backs and receivers have committed huge blunders in all of their losses (Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee, Arkansas). In almost all of these cases, the mistakes had nothing to do with execution and everything to do with nerves and a general lack of patient concentration. Gamecock players--on both sides of the ball--have been in position to make plays all year, and that's a function of largely sound coaching. The ball, though, is bouncing off fingers instead of resting in breadbaskets. Carolina coaches can yell at their players until they're blue in the face, but at some point, the resurgence of the Gamecock program will simply come down to fending off the nerves and doing the little things that defend against the dangers of the big, bad bounce of the ball. Last season, South Carolina played very poorly but beat an Arkansas team that outrushed the Gamecocks by a 4-to-1 margin. This time around, the Roosters displayed exponentially greater playmaking capabilities, but fell short against the Razorbacks because they didn't finish a seemingly countless number of 50-50 plays that were waiting to be made. Sometimes, the bounce of the ball--and the simple but very underrated ability to guard against it--can make all the difference between a great year and a bad one. That needs to be kept in mind in a world where coaches come under such withering and regular scrutiny for reasons much more complex than the bounces taken by a ball with a very weird shape.
Want to know who else has been victimized (or helped) by the bounce of the ball this season? Well, just ask all the teams--and they are many--who suffered (or prospered) because of horrible instant replay review decisions. Ask Boston College about the kindness of the pigskin in the Eagles' crucial loss to Wake Forest. Consult LSU about the nature of the bad bounces and football flutterings that jeopardized the Tigers' prospects in Tennessee. Tell Rich Brooks that the bounce of the ball has nothing to do with Kentucky's stellar season. Tell Mark Richt that the rolls of the laced leather object have nothing to do with the downward spiral of Georgia's 2006 campaign. Sure, it's absolutely true that great teams will overcome bad luck, but in the college football world, there's only one great team, and that's the one in Columbus, Ohio. For everyone else, the fickle forces of fate and fortune have had a lot to do with the trajectories of seasons and the reputations of coaches. Teaching can overcome some mistakes, but in a game played by 20-year-olds, funky and freaky football follies will unavoidably affect whole games and seasons. That's just the way it is, and in some cases, those kinds of realities need to be accounted for when a coach's job performance is discussed.
In closing, a few quick hitters for this week.
It's the second week of November, and the two biggest games relative to the national title picture will be played in Piscataway, N.J., and Bloomington, Ind. No, that's not a misprint.
Florida is one win away from completing its SEC regular-season slate with just one loss, an accomplishment that--earlier in the year--seemed to suggest a clear path to the SEC Championship Game without any other obstacles. But now that Xavier Lee is calling the shots as Florida State's quarterback, the Noles have rediscovered what it's like to actually, you know, SCORE POINTS. Florida's trip to Tallahassee has suddenly become a perilous proposition.
Want proof that wins and losses aren't always reflective of real coaching quality? Look at the LSU-Tennessee game. Yes, the Tigers got the shaft on a(nother) botched replay review in the second quarter, but still... Tennessee made a lot fewer mistakes with a backup quarterback than LSU committed with a veteran signal caller and a number of returning starters. Phil Fulmer's staff also displayed game and clock management that were vastly superior to the continuously messy (non-)methods of Les Miles and his braintrust. Major kudos to JaMarcus Russell for overcoming mistakes and coming through under pressure, but the Bayou Bengal staff has Miles to go before anyone can say it's clearly on the right track.
Michigan looked ahead to Ohio State this past Saturday--we all know that. But what might have escaped your attention is that Indiana looked ahead to Michigan this past Saturday. Any team that allows 63 points to Minnesota is simply not concentrating at all. Expect the Hoosiers to give Michigan a battle for at least one half on Saturday. With good bounces of the ball in key situations, things could get interesting for a little while... but probably not 60 minutes.
No one should even dare to suggest that USC is somehow "back" after the Trojans' demolition of Stanford on Saturday (shame on you, Lee Corso). Saturday night's upcoming game against Oregon (please watch it if you care about being a fair evaluator of college football teams; the game starts at 10:15 p.m. in the Eastern United States) begins the season in earnest for Pete Carroll's team. The next four weeks, not the "walking bye week" known as a Stanford game, will determine just how good USC really is.
