What Have We Learned Going Into Week 6?

twinkie13

In transit, arriving late.
I only learned a bit as I only saw a bit but here it is:

It is Brandon Harris time in Baton Rouge....ride or die, whatever happens, but it cannot be denied any longer


TAMU can be hit in the mouth and I am sure everyone is lining up to get on Messy St....but careful there?
 
Dabo is now 21-9 as a lined favorite in Death Valley

I know the line got up to Clemson -15.5 and so those were losers but the vast majority of people who bet Clemson won

I expect it to go to 22-9 next week as NCSU will likely have a tough time recovering

I will say that Dabo/Chad Morris still make some questionable decisions. They put in Stoudt the backup QB for a drive in the first half last night with Clemson up 17-0. That made zero sense and sent the message that the staff felt like the game was in hand. The defense played like they believed the game was over the rest of the way as well
 
In regards to Kansas coach .... I think the main reason you have to go another direction is that the one, THE ONE, thing that you would have expected from Charlie was to be able to recruit QB's and develop them. Cozart is a special kind of awful that only comes around to a "bcs" program a few times a decade .... Reggie Ball and Cody Green laugh at this kid. So if that is what Charlie is bringing to the table then you have to let him go. Again, the sad part was the revolt against the previous fat guy who was doing a hell of a job at that program and who was a great coach for them. Going to have to find an up and comer because there wont be a rush for anyone to take that job.
 
If Texas does not start going aggressive they will lose all the offensive recruits in that state to schools who play modern football. Receivers/qb's are going to go to TAMU, Baylor, TTech, OU, Houston etc etc .... where they can actually make plays. Not sure they can make Baylor a big enough favorite this week.
 
I think I am done blaming QB's at Virginia Tech. You can go back a lot years and think that the QB underperforms but I think Thomas was better than his college career showed and I think Brewer is better than what he has shown ... you could go back to Tyrod and Glennon1 too. That output against an atrocious defense that Idaho and Purdue could move the ball on was hard to watch.
 
Spot on with all your thoughts CC.

Regarding KU, you make the great point about Mangino. He obviously had his warts, but he had Kansas in the Orange Bowl and ranked in the top 5. Think about that. You could make a laundry list of programs who forget who they are because of fleeting success. Purdue got tired of Joe Tiller...how's that working out for them? They think that if one guy can resurrect them, someone else can do it too, and even better. How's that decision working out now for Kansas? I realize there was a revolt, but they were all too happy to find a reason to give MM his walking papers.
 
Washington defense is pretty good, the punter is FANTASTIC and the offense is very challenged right now. QB play is spotty at best which is what is holding them back. If they get some QB play they would give teams trouble. They were outplayed by a lot more than the scoreboard again this week .. which has happened for them every week. Mysterious fake punt attempt by Petersen when game was tied 4th qtr and Wash was near midfield. He could have pinned Stanford back.

As for Stanford ... they have taken a step backward. The receiving options outside of Montgomery just don't have play making ability. The scheme is good, the oline is still decent ( though not as good as recent past ) but they don't have special playmaking going on and Hogan has played pretty bad. Granted USC and Washington are good defenses but he doesn't look nearly as dynamic as he has previously. They will be a good back when they can just maul the other team because they will be hard to score on but it is going to be tough to lay a ton of pts with this offense against teams that can stop the run at all ... just don't have a way to separate if the opponent takes Montgomery away.
 
I learned FSU Can spot a team a 17 point lead on the road and STILL win by more than 2tds. 49-17 FSU after 1st Qtr. In fact 10 of NcSt's 17 came on TOs inside FSU's 30.
 
Spot on with all your thoughts CC.

Regarding KU, you make the great point about Mangino. He obviously had his warts, but he had Kansas in the Orange Bowl and ranked in the top 5. Think about that. You could make a laundry list of programs who forget who they are because of fleeting success. Purdue got tired of Joe Tiller...how's that working out for them? They think that if one guy can resurrect them, someone else can do it too, and even better. How's that decision working out now for Kansas? I realize there was a revolt, but they were all too happy to find a reason to give MM his walking papers.

Pretty much says it all. Some of these schools have expectations set way too high. If you can maintain a quality program for a decade or so then maybe you can have that season every now and then where you are competing for big bowls or playoff spots. But thinking you are going to skyrocket to the top and stay there is just not going to happen. For instance, I think Boise State is starting their decline. They got a lot of good players over a span of time and were good ... but you cant expect that program to maintain a long duration of success at that level. One has to wonder if the broncos were using the same practices as their tennis program was in recruiting as well ....
 
rightfully so

what a disaster that was

I do not think I have ever seen such a decline.....NE TO ND TO BOOTED from KU

Fatman is still getting paid from ND and now KU. Rolling off to the sunset with dolla billz falling from his fat pockets
 
I learned FSU Can spot a team a 17 point lead on the road and STILL win by more than 2tds. 49-17 FSU after 1st Qtr. In fact 10 of NcSt's 17 came on TOs inside FSU's 30.

Hard to find the loss on their schedule. incidentally, I keep seeing these espn guys banging the drum on FSU underperformance and leaving hem out of their top four for playoffs. Their FBS Wins are over Clemson, okie lite, and ncsu who are a combined 9-1 in non-fsu games. Last I saw they were defending champs. Don't get me wrong, I am cheering against Winston (though I think suspending a young guy for screaming bad words would make for good five on five football if it was enforced everywhere) but in order to be the man you should have to beat the man.

Defense does look a notch or two lesser than last year though.
 
Pretty much says it all. Some of these schools have expectations set way too high. If you can maintain a quality program for a decade or so then maybe you can have that season every now and then where you are competing for big bowls or playoff spots. But thinking you are going to skyrocket to the top and stay there is just not going to happen. For instance, I think Boise State is starting their decline. They got a lot of good players over a span of time and were good ... but you cant expect that program to maintain a long duration of success at that level. One has to wonder if the broncos were using the same practices as their tennis program was in recruiting as well ....

You two are hitting very close to home with this discussion. Ute fans were starting to rumble a bit over Kyle Whittingham last year and after our conservative pussy-like play calling trying to protect a lead last night the rumbling is becoming more an earthquake. He isn't living up to expectations but be careful what you wish for because Utah could get a worse coach as his replacement.

If Utah doesn't go bowling this year(which is very possible considering how poor our QB play has been against real FBS defenses) I think they need to fire Whittingham....only if they have talked to Jim McElwain and made sure that he is on board. What he's doing at CSU is quite impressive.
 
If Texas does not start going aggressive they will lose all the offensive recruits in that state to schools who play modern football. Receivers/qb's are going to go to TAMU, Baylor, TTech, OU, Houston etc etc .... where they can actually make plays. Not sure they can make Baylor a big enough favorite this week.

To your point, Strong will have to make a decision re: Watson as OC. There are 350-400 kids in Texas who get D-1 scholarships each year, so there is plenty of talent to go around. But with the amount of 7 on 7 that is centered in the state of Texas, which feeds into developed QBs and uptempo offenses, I can't imagine Watson will be here long unlesss he changes philosophies.

No one should get hung up on Swoopes. He is still a TE in my mind and just filling in the gap right now. Jerrod Heard is a special player but needs to shirt this year.

And no, they cannot makes the Baylor line big enough. Among other things, their d-line will murder our o-line.
 
You two are hitting very close to home with this discussion. Ute fans were starting to rumble a bit over Kyle Whittingham last year and after our conservative pussy-like play calling trying to protect a lead last night the rumbling is becoming more an earthquake. He isn't living up to expectations but be careful what you wish for because Utah could get a worse coach as his replacement.

If Utah doesn't go bowling this year(which is very possible considering how poor our QB play has been against real FBS defenses) I think they need to fire Whittingham....only if they have talked to Jim McElwain and made sure that he is on board. What he's doing at CSU is quite impressive.

If Whittingham got fired, he'd be an upgrade for probably more than half of the Big Ten.
 
If Whittingham got fired, he'd be an upgrade for probably more than half of the Big Ten.

True, and his coaching style would fit perfectly in that conference. I'm not sure he's got what it takes for the style of play in the PAC 12, you can't try to sit on leads in that conference.....you need to keep doing what got you the damn lead in the first place.
 
Hopefully lesson learned there, Utes.

Speaking of coaches and lesson learning .... there is a situation that repeatedly shows up that coaches blow week in and week out and I have been waiting for someone to get burned by it and I got to see it last night.

I was watching the Miami Fl hosting Duke game with a rather large investment. There is a running clock near midfield with under a minute to go and fourth down for Duke. HC Golden for Miami does not take a timeout to force the punt. Duke throws a hail mary which fails. I mentioned how moronic this was by the Miami coaching staff in the ingame..... I had no idea it would happen in a game a couple hours later ...

but usc had fourth down near midfield and a running clock with under a minute to go and one of my favorite coaches ( or st ) failed to call timeout. USC got a hail mary and it was caught for a TD.

You have to call timeout and force the punt ....

and incidentally, you shouldn't field the punt.
 
Gurley best RB in CFB

Winston is as good as he is immature.....impressive

Cal will destroy UW in two weeks.......GOY for me
 
TAMU can be hit in the mouth and I am sure everyone is lining up to get on Messy St....but careful there?

I may be one of them. I'll be interested to see what the line is.

Do you think having played Arky the previous week will help or hurt Texas A&M heading into this game, or do you think it's a non-factor???
 
If Texas does not start going aggressive they will lose all the offensive recruits in that state to schools who play modern football. Receivers/qb's are going to go to TAMU, Baylor, TTech, OU, Houston etc etc .... where they can actually make plays. Not sure they can make Baylor a big enough favorite this week.

Well, look on the bright side. We can all "Max Bet" the Kansas State game again this season.
 
Boise State is starting their decline.

I think their decline has as much to do with a shift in conferences as anything, something I vocally predicted at the time. Yes, they don't have anything resembling Kellen Moore at the QB position, but it's a totally different dynamic when you have to get up for teams on a weekly basis. Their annual road schedule in the WAC was WAC. Peterson saw the writing on the wall
 
our conservative pussy-like play calling trying to protect a lead

Unfortunately this has become an epidemic among football coaches at all levels. You see coaches lose games week after week playing not to lose at the end of ball games. At some point you would think that it would occur to some of these coaches that perhaps playing to win may actually be a legitimate strategy that's worth a shot. Nick Saban is one of the worst practitioner's of this failed strategy.
 
Hopefully lesson learned there, Utes.

Speaking of coaches and lesson learning .... there is a situation that repeatedly shows up that coaches blow week in and week out and I have been waiting for someone to get burned by it and I got to see it last night.

I was watching the Miami Fl hosting Duke game with a rather large investment. There is a running clock near midfield with under a minute to go and fourth down for Duke. HC Golden for Miami does not take a timeout to force the punt. Duke throws a hail mary which fails. I mentioned how moronic this was by the Miami coaching staff in the ingame..... I had no idea it would happen in a game a couple hours later ...

but usc had fourth down near midfield and a running clock with under a minute to go and one of my favorite coaches ( or st ) failed to call timeout. USC got a hail mary and it was caught for a TD.

You have to call timeout and force the punt ....

and incidentally, you shouldn't field the punt.

I have noticed the same thing, but that feeds into the larger issue of the rampant poor clock management by coaches in general. Again, Nick Saban is one of the worst offenders when it comes to managing the end of the half and game (See the end of the 1st half and game of the 2012 SEC Championship game). How many times do we see coaches let 10-20 seconds run off the clock in obvious time out situations? Clock management among the coaching ranks in general is very poor. Do teams need to add a clock management specialist to their staffs?
 
When SEC Eastern Division teams play one of their counterparts, take the points. Don't think about it, just take the points.
 
patrick towles took a step back. he fumbled and threw a pick 6. both were unforced. totally careless. he missed countless open targets and locked into someone way too soon. i assumed this was a bad game and he'll be fine. this was the first time he played anything like this but it's worth noting in case it becomes a pattern. uk's defense was very good. vandy's adjustments were to continue doing what hasn't worked and so way to go mason hahaha. anyone who had a uk ticket deserved better

check out the boise boxscore. hold onto the ball already. yards were 467-335 but they lost the to battle 7-2. hedrick was lost

louisvile outgained wake 421 to 100. careless with the football though. and petrino caged bonaffon to the pocket which makes zero sense
 
Big Brett can be added to the list of coaches that prevented his team from winning.

I'll take the "hit the Ags in the mouth" statement and raise you a "half time adjustment".
I haven't seen the Ags make a half adjustment since RC was DC. They will be susceptible to play action vs. a good running team, but was pleasantly surprised with the change at half.
And this was a game I had checked off and ran out of swear words when I could see Kenny was off.

We may have the greatest system in the world coming up vs. MSU this week.
VK knows what I mean.
 
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Starting to wonder if I should have learned to take ga southern at open every time .. looks like they are going to take the money again
 
patrick towles took a step back. he fumbled and threw a pick 6. both were unforced. totally careless. he missed countless open targets and locked into someone way too soon. i assumed this was a bad game and he'll be fine. this was the first time he played anything like this but it's worth noting in case it becomes a pattern. uk's defense was very good. vandy's adjustments were to continue doing what hasn't worked and so way to go mason hahaha. anyone who had a uk ticket deserved better

No shit on the latter. The 2H playcalling by UK was abysmal. Beyond abysmal.
 
Starting to wonder if I should have learned to take ga southern at open every time .. looks like they are going to take the money again

I jumped on it immediately @-16.5. NMSU can't defend the run, so I think GSU has their way with them.
 
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A couple things:

I'm still not sold on UCLA. the ASU game turned into a sick joke for ASU bettors. Hundley looked pretty good on offense for most of the game, but ASU handed them several scores which made it look worse than it was. 627 yards to a backup QB making his first start, prior to that almost 500 to a Memphis team that just mustered 120 yards vs Ole Miss. They are a decent squad but these people saying they are final 4 contenders are out of their minds. At some point, that horseshoe shoved up their collective rectums is going to fall out.

Bowling Green has played 3 road games. In those games, they've given up 2,102 yards. U Mass racked up 638 yards yesterday, and somebody named Blake Froenhepfel threw for 589 yards a week after Wisconsin broke a Big ten rushing record against them. They're at home this week, so it doesn't apply, but holy hell have they been bad on defense on the road.

In my opinion, you can't handicap for defensive/ST TDs, and you can't handicap for 75+ yard TD passes. For 90% of FBS, when those happen, it's more a random event than anything else. The ball got tipped, someone fell down, etc. FIU scored 4 TDs on Saturday(vs UAB) in what had to be the biggest surprise of the weekend. All 4 were 75+yard passes or defensive scores. If you take away the 2 long passes, FIU had 137 total yards. Their defense appears to be legit, but this is still a putrid offense.
 
Who could have asked more out of GSU heading out of the Southern Conference and into the Sun Belt? Paging App State; Take notes.


Hoke has sealed his fate, Brandon should be leading the way out the door.
 
Auburn's offense is not quite right (and with banged up starting linebackers) and they post a -9 on them? Good luck with that. LSU always gives them hell and it will be no different this time around. Bo Wallace has a better chance of being president in 2016 than he does of beating Bama.
 
Notre Dame can now turn the ball over 5 times and still cover the spread against mediocre teams. Shows how far they have come since the Charlie era. Now they play a Stanford team that actually has some muscle up front....we'll see how they they do against the big boys.
 
Auburn's offense is not quite right (and with banged up starting linebackers) and they post a -9 on them? Good luck with that. LSU always gives them hell and it will be no different this time around. Bo Wallace has a better chance of being president in 2016 than he does of beating Bama.

:rofl:

I needed this this AM
 
Auburn's offense is not quite right (and with banged up starting linebackers) and they post a -9 on them? Good luck with that. LSU always gives them hell and it will be no different this time around. Bo Wallace has a better chance of being president in 2016 than he does of beating Bama.

I was going to mention it in the SEC thread, and still will, but you are right about AU. I think it is mostly the weight of expectation, but I also think Gus is trying to outsmart everyone rather than do what works
 
I was going to mention it in the SEC thread, and still will, but you are right about AU. I think it is mostly the weight of expectation, but I also think Gus is trying to outsmart everyone rather than do what works

i lean more towards jumbling the offensive line and no Prosch. That man cleared the way and made everything look easy. I do agree with the expectations and Gus comments for the most part. We shall see, it's that time of year now.
 
Maryland after getting gouged on defense the previous two weeks vs. WVU and Syracuse, played very well against Indiana on Saturday and only allowed 332 total yards. The defensive line got good pressure on Sudfeld the entire game and LB Cole Farrand had a big day with 19 tackles. Coleman's ydg. came mostly after the game was out of hand for the Hoosiers. Terps have lost both starters Quinton Jefferson (DE)and Alvin Hill (CB) knee injuries for the year and QB C.J. Brown sprained his non throwing left wrist on the first series in 2H and sat the rest of the game. He is ? for OSU and they haven't hung a number on the game yet due to his status. If Brown can't go Caleb Rowe will get the start. Rowe is very good in the passing game (has best arm on team) but doesn't bring the option dimension and running ability that Brown does.
 
i lean more towards jumbling the offensive line and no Prosch. That man cleared the way and made everything look easy. I do agree with the expectations and Gus comments for the most part. We shall see, it's that time of year now.

That's part of it. Last season Auburn could run power left with Tre Mason running behind Greg Robinson with Jay Prosch leading the way, and no one was able to consistently stop it. This season all three pieces to Malzahn's bread and butter play are gone. That has seriously diminished the effectiveness of their power running attack as we have seen the last two weeks. That is forcing Marshall to throw a lot more, and Auburn has always struggled when Marshall has been forced to throw.

Last season Auburn did not have a great overall defense, but they did have a great defensive line that got a tremendous amount of push. They are still talented along the defensive line, but the losses of defensive ends Dee Ford and Carl Lawson has definitely degraded their effectiveness when compared to last season.

I, like many people, think LSU will give Auburn all they can handle this Saturday. That's not to say I don't have concerns about my LSU wager because I most certainly do. Starting true freshman QB Keith Jennings in a hostile SEC venue is chief among them. My second main concern is how undisciplined LSU's defense has played thus far. Undisciplined play on the defensive side of the ball is not a formula for success when facing a Gus Malzahn coached offense.
 
Who could have asked more out of GSU heading out of the Southern Conference and into the Sun Belt? Paging App State; Take notes.


Hoke has sealed his fate, Brandon should be leading the way out the door.

yea, but App state has been a mess since the fired Jerry Moore about three years ago. Awful timing on the move up and to get rid of a coach who made your program.
 
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