Holy shit Oregon is ranked number 2! Im just hoping things hold up so we get a title shot. But we have some tough teams left.
Ok, I'm going to have to hear a rationale for this because my first thought after watching 'bama lose was 'this is awesome, but now Oregon can back door into the title game and we're all going to sit back and watch (insert undefeated team) hang 48 points on them.' Everyone in the conference other than Washington St? Yes sir, Washington and UCLA would really give Ohio St and Oklahoma a run for their money. If the pac 10 is superior to the SEC, then why haven't they been in the title game since '05, let alone win one? I haven't seen anyone in that conference play decent defense this year, and the only reason I see Oregon making the title game is because their schedule is the easiest. Arizona's the only tough team left on their schedule, and while beating Iowa was impressive, that was still a very fluky game. I get that this is hard to debate since there's just not enough inter-conference play, but the pac 10 stands above the rest? Really? I'm calling it now, the pac 10 will get slaughtered in the bowl games, just like last year.
I hate listening to this argument. It's all based off people's biases. Whenever a team in the SEC loses to a lower ranked team the media is all over the SEC's collective nuts for how deep and tough the conference is. When a top Pac-10 team loses to a lower ranked team it magically shows that they aren't that good. Also, going by national championships does not show top to bottom talent, it just shows top. The Pac-10 was not the best conference when SC was winning national championships. I do think that the SEC and the Pac-10 are the two best conferences, and right now I think the SEC is still a little better, but it pains me to say it just because of how annoying the people who talk shit about how good the conference is all day.
First off, let me state, I will argue that the PAC-10 is best top to bottom, but I'm by no means stating that they are unequivocally. Both the SEC and, to a lesser extent, the Big 10 can make a similar claim. The days of the PAC-10 being USC and the PAC-9 passed 2 years ago so try not to let that cloud your judgement. Conveniently you forget the year before last when the PAC-10 was undefeated in bowl games. The top teams in the SEC are quite good, but the bottom teams are also pretty much godawful. As for the defense issue, SEC teams are allowing about 3 points less per game than PAC-10 teams (yes that includes the awfulness of washington state too). On the other hand, PAC-10 teams are averaging around 3 points per game more than SEC teams. If you play worse offenses, your defenses tend to look better. SEC has a habit of scheduling plenty of patsies, but looking at the schedules this year, both conferences are about equal in that regard. SEC teams play 8 conference games each year (excluding the championship), whereas PAC-10 teams play a full round robin, which is going to hurt their stats/records in comparison. Take our Washington State and the bottom SEC team and those stat disparities are going to go further in favor of the PAC-10. I guess we'll have to wait until the end of the year and see how the bowl records shake out to know for sure. Granted, there's a hell of a lot wrong with the college football system right now in my opinion. The BCS should have died a fiery death years ago. All it does is encourage teams to schedule more patsies and take the easy route because any loss effectively kills your chances for the championship. That said, I'm also not so sure the SEC wins as many championships over the past few years if there's a playoff. I sure as hell bet there's some teams that would've put up a hell of a performance in a playoff. But the NCAA is apparently more interested in keeping the status quo and cashflows the same than they are crowning a real champion.
No offense, but you seem to only believe they're the best conference because you're a homer. First question: If the pac ten is the best conference then why do they have only 3 ranked teams? And only one of those higher than 17? I'll give you a hint, it's not because no one else recognizes how talented the teams are. Secondly, that's nice that they did great in the bowl games two years ago, but you're claiming they are the best conference right now... so last year's bowl games are a lot more relevant. This has nothing to do with conveniently forgetting. I'm sorry, but the raw numbers on points allowed/points scored per game aren't that useful when comparing conferences. They play completely different schedules, statistical comparisons are marginally useful at best. Also, think about this for a second. If the majority of games are against other teams within their conference, then how could it possibly helpful to compare conferences based on this? You know they score a lot of points in the WAC too. Does that mean their conference has great offenses? Ok, this is just getting stupid now. I'll agree with the second part though. I disagree with this, but first I want to say let's be real for a second. Having a few really good teams in your conference counts more than having a few bad teams. The big ten isn't a bad conference just because they have Minnesota and Indiana. The bottom teams in the SEC are Tennessee, Ole Miss, and Kentucky. These are not 'godawful' teams. Besides, when pretty much everyone else in the conference would be favored over all pac ten teams except Oregon, it doesn't matter if these teams are 'godawful'.
My bad, I forgot Oregon St snuck in at 24, being 3-2. 4 ranked teams. That doesn't really change much, but I'll just throw it out there.
90% of the polls in college football is where you start. Was Texas really a top 10 team? Hell no, but they got to start that high because of where they ended last year, which is kind of silly when there's a lot of turnover. Anyways, I'll just wait until bowl season I guess.
I figure I might as well come back here and stir some stuff up. I'm pretty happy with the Iowa win over Michigan today. The defense let up and had some lapses in the 4th quarter, and if that continues, Iowa won't be competing for the Big Ten championship this season. I'm going to hold off on getting worried though because Iowa was up pretty big, and the defense went too conservative. I don't think that will be a continuing problem as I think the coaches will use this as a wake up call to the defense. However, I do kind of want to rub it in that Robinson is not the savior the Michigan fans were touting him, at least not yet this season. The hit that he took that knocked him out of the game didn't seem like much, so it'll be interesting to hear what was actually wrong. Unless he can put on some muscle, I just don't know if he can be a successful Big Ten QB for an entire season. He seems to get hurt too easily to hold up for a season. On other games, I can't believe Nebraska got beat by Texas. Nebraska's offense had been looking fantastic, and then the go and crap the bed against Texas. I thought if there was one game they'd get up for, it'd be the Texas game this season. I still don't know if I believe Auburn is as good as their record would indicate, but if they keep improving, I could believe it by the end of the season. Finally, this Ohio State - Wisconsin game is getting pretty interesting, 21-18 in the 4th. It looked like Wisconsin was gonna put a hurting on Ohio State, but I'll give State the credit for being resilient and at least making it a game.
Point taken. Point so, so taken. 1) Forcier needs to play more 2) Rich Rod...I am no longer as staunch a supporter of him as I was the past two seasons. It's getting fucking old watching the team make the same screwups week after week after week after week after week.
Jesus christ, even if the Bucks had pulled the comeback off, it was clear they are not even close to a #1 team. Maybe just a top 5. Special teams, can't stop a running game, Pryor throws every pass low. Seriously, I didn't see Posey make a catch that he had an opportunity to run afterwards. Also Dane Sanzenbacher has ridiculously good hands.
If he doesn't throw it low, it sails over his receiver out of bounds. He's going to get Sanzenbacher killed one of these days. With those passes he's just begging for a linebacker or safety to take his receiver's head off. USC looked great today for once. Defense showed up and the offense moved the ball well. Get a bye next week followed by Oregon at home the week after, lets see if we can fuck up their season since it's not like we can play for anything else this year and next year.
Actually with OSU and Nebraska falling today, if USC beats Oregon that would leave only Boise State and TCU still standing of the current top five. I don't know about you, but playing for a Boise State/TCU #1/#2 finish is about as fine a fuck you to the BCS and NCAA as I can imagine USC pulling off.
Crap, Hawaii beat Reno 27-21. I was hoping when Reno beats Boise State they would still be undefeated, ranked and I could start my chant that Colin Kaepernick should be the Heisman Trophy winner for 2010. Now when Reno beats Boise State people will just be saying that Boise was overhyped. As I see it, Hawaii is much better than people have thought, I still think Reno should be ranked, and Colin is just going to have to settle for being the best college quarterback in the nation. Tell me that I am full of shit only after you watch him play. It is nice to see teams west of the Mississipi at the top of the standings.
Seriously people, can we chill out on the rampant homerism? Reno probably won't beat Boise St. While it could happen, you're already talking like it's a sure thing. Kaepernick isn't even close to the best QB in the nation. Not even in his own conference. *Cough* Kellen Moore. And go badgers. Best win a very, very long time.
Its a sad day for all the other Big Ten teams. Brewster was a terrible coach, and the Minnesota program is a giant mess. My only hope is that the Minnesota AD bungles the hiring of the next coach just as badly as having chosen Brewster in the first place. As an Iowa fan, I like having the Gopher pinata on the schedule every season, but if they could make a decent hire up there, the program could be decent. Really, if you compare Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, there's no reason why Minnesota should be so terrible when Wisconsin and Iowa are good on a pretty consistent basis. Frankly Minnesota should probably be the best among the 3, its the only program (of the 3) in a major city, but it still has all the big farm boys to recruit from for the lines, and it should be better situated among the 3 to get players from the Texas/Florida/etc. areas given the relative ease of travel and the metropolitan attraction of Minneapolis. After the Ohio State - Wisconsin game, I'm thinking the Big Ten could be a wide open race this season. I'm hoping that Ohio State's run of championships finally ends this season. If Iowa can win out, they'll be champs, but this week starts up a really difficult stretch. Iowa has Wisconsin this week, then Michigan State, and those are the 2 games I'm most worried about this year. While of course Ohio State will be a tough game, I think Iowa matches up with them as well as, if not better than Wisconsin did last night. Wisconsin is coming off a huge win, so hopefully this will be a trap week for them. If so, the Michigan State - Iowa game could be the deciding game for the Big Ten championship this year. Those games are always close, hard fought battles, and this year it could be the biggest and best game of the season.
It had to be them, but this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnJX2FiW-ik" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnJX2FiW-ik</a> How do you lose when that's your pregame ritual? As the Spartans move to 7-0 I'm left with the lingering nervousness of a national championship contender; it's completely ridiculous to consider ourselves in the hunt, but they're talking about it, and we're undefeated, and we've got a pretty cake schedule the rest of the way (sans Iowa), now the expectations are so high that every week is a playoff. Take it from me, we're not used to that at Michigan State. I feel like Penn State in 2008 when they won game after game and their national title hopes were dashed on a last second field goal in Kinnick stadium - that's gotta suck. And then only to get throttled in the Rose Bowl by USC, which'll probably happen to us at the hands of Oregon. Who the Gods destroy or whatever, they first make certain. How serious of a contender is LSU? Was being on the hot seat that much a motivating factor for Les Miles? And more on the MSU front, both Auburn and LSU play each other next week as #4 and #6 while we play NU in Evanston which could move us to the fringe of the top five. Insane. Never happened in East Lansing.
It's interesting you think that the rest of our season is a cake walk...I think next weekend will be pretty tough. NW lost to the Boilermakers at home by a field goal chalking that up to their only loss of the season so far; granted they have had a pretty simple schedule this season so far. In my mind, NW will be a very close game coming down to the final couple minutes. And if Iowa loses to Wisconsin next weekend, we play them at home after a tough loss, so it will also be a very good game ending in the final couple minutes. After those two, then yeah, cake. I'm not gonna get my hopes up this season, because let's face it, MSU's track record at this point in the season isn't very good. BUT, this could be their breakout year which would be absolutely awesome and I want nothing more than for that to be true. I'll strap on my Green and White for the game and cheer my stupid little head off when we win though, and it will definitely be worth it.
Ryan Mallett may have lost a lot of money Saturday. Did anyone else see his backup, Tyler Wilson, tear it up against Auburn? It was just one game, but Petrino has to be thinking how things may be better with Mallett on the bench. Wilson has some serious skills.