Lost. Lost in the last 1:37 because our defense can't stop the no-huddle offense. Why is it that Mich State can't close a close game?
What I love about this is that Kiffin had so little faith in his offense that he let almost a minute roll off the clock and tried a 49-yarder instead of trying to get closer. Then the line gets completely dominated. There were two other guys that would have blocked it if Cody missed it.
Georgia Tech breaks a 19 year curse by winning in Charlottesville for this first time since 1990 when they won a share of the National Championship. I'm so glad Paul Johnson is our coach. Not only did Tech win, they did it in domination fashion. No emotional let down following the Virginia Tech game. The rest of the schedule is ridiculously soft: Vanderbilt who lost to Army Wake Forest who just lost to Navy An improving Duke team, but still fucking Duke. A Georgia team suffering a major down year. If the D keeps improving like they've done so for the past two weeks then there isn't any reason why Tech can't go 11-1.
New rankings are out. http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings The stage is set for a lot of confusion and bitching at the end. There's potential for 2 undefeated BCS conference teams to be shut out. Since one is from the Big 10, who's been a big opponent of the playoff system (along with the Pac 10) due to their Rose Bowl TV contract, could that mark a change on the horizon? Perhaps it wouldn't be immediate, but the contract expires in 2014. Seeing their own teams shunned by the BCS system instead of succeeding with it like Ohio St did could at least make the Big 10 a little more open to discussing and examining a playoff system.
Oh Leach, you affable rascal you. Initial press conference after lost to TAMU http://everythinglubbock.com/content/fulltext/?cid=42992 The thing I'm shocked about most is the number of fatties TTU's football team is boning. Follow up to that interview: http://collegesportsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/10/leach-stands-by-girlfriends-quote.html
I will throw my two cents in here, as I have seen the Bearcats play twice games this year (Fresno St. & Louisville) in person at Nippert Stadium. They certainly have a high potent offense that has scored at will this year regardless of which QB is in there (Pike or Collaros) however when they stuggled, was evident at South Florida game where USF defenders were constantly in the backfield harrassing Pike. (ultimately knocking him out of the game) Collaros (is more of running QB) which took advantage of the USF aggressivness and ran up the middle in his first series for 70+ yards. Key to beating UC, don't give them the time to sit back and pick you apart which is why they will struggle against stronger teams. (ie: West VA and Pitt) Don't get me wrong, I'm a UC graduate and it's nice to see the team do well however I'm not buying that Cincy is getting screwed by the BCS argument. My stance is let them face the rest of the schedule (which they should be favored in their last 5 games) and THEN see where everyone ends up. If UC goes undefeated and gets jumped by a 1 loss team then is time to start bitching. History serves that West Virginia was in the same position a few years back with Pat White and laid an egg on the last game of the season (which is the same situtation UC is in playing Pitt on Dec 5th). Go 'Cats
The entire SEC is overrated. All this talk about how SEC teams play great defense is wrong. They just don't know how to play offense. I am, however, encouraged by Tennessee's defensive success as of late. I think Lane Kiffin will eventually prove to be a great hire. I think the SEC and Big 12 should play more non-conference games early on. LSU and Texas A&M had a good home and home thing going for a while. I'd love to see Texas/Bama or Texas/Gators but you know that'll never happen regularly. It has nothing to do with luck. It has to do with overall talent and coaching. Mack Brown and Will Muschamp coached a brilliant game - their halftime adjustments stopped OU dead in their tracks, allowing just one touchdown to that really talented TE. Texas absolutely dominated Oklahoma in the 2nd half of that game, which is when they are won and lost. Even shooting themselves in the foot the way they did, Oklahoma never really had a chance. Furthermore, Texas would annihilate Florida, Bama, and LSU head to head. When Colt doesn't have any time to check his reads, he does make bonehead throws. But when he has protection, there is no better player in college football. The Heisman should be McCoy with Shipley coming in 2nd. Did I mention that I'm a huge Texas homer? And Sam Bradford isn't fragile at all, he's a real gamer to even attempt playing after getting his shoulder separated the way he did. I hate Bob Stoops and OU (Why? I'm from Texas. I don't need a logical reason) but I hope Bradford has a great NFL career. Bradford's the real deal. Disclaimer - I graduated from Baylor. Feel free to mock the green and gold, but I bleed burnt orange.
There's some truth to this, but I still think they're the two best teams in the country. It's the NCAA so we can't really load our analysis on how they stack up against common opponents vs teams like Texas and Iowa. However, for every unconvincing win Bama/Florida has had I can easily apply a similar scenario for Texas. Using Florida as an example, my thinking is that they are about equal At QB, maybe Texas has a slight edge at receiver, but Florida's got the better defense and rushing attack. Maybe Florida wouldn't dominate them, but if they meet in the title game they'll be favored. I bolded the parts that are blatant and shameless Texas homerism. Firstly, the notion that Texas dominated Oklahoma in the second half is a little far fetched. They outscored them 3-0. With Bradford out of the game. You can see why I think they probably would have lost if he hadn't gone down. And again, I have to remind you that there was at least 3 dropped inteceptions from Mccoy. The notion that he's leading the heisman race at this point is ridiculous. Shipley's ahead of him, and so is Ingram and Keenum. He's already matched his interception total from last year and isn't on pace to match any of his positive stats. As an aside - being so sure they would annihilate those SEC teams just makes you seem naive.
Am I the only one completely unimpressed with Clausen and Notre Dame? I think it's ridiculous that people are putting Clausen among the top Heisman candidates. I can think of at least ten other players I would give it to over him. Not to mention, Notre Dames could have very easily been 2-5 or 1-6.
I think you're letting your own, probably deserved, hatred of Notre Dame and Clausen cloud your judgment. Have you seen his stats? His worse game so far has been against Boston College where he only passed for 200+ yards, 2tds, and no ints. He is the reason why Notre Dame still has a pulse and Charlie Weiss still has a job. Clausen is like Christian Ponder this year, good quarterbacks with good receivers and a decent o-line. It's too bad their defenses blow. Besides, I don't think anyone deserves the Heisman this year. Except for maybe Mark Ingram, kid's a stud.
After the 3rd interception of the 3rd quarter, I was sure Iowa was on the way to the first loss of the season. Then the 4th interception was thrown, and I was calling for Stanzi to be benched. Then all of a sudden the 4th quarter started and the team started playing like there was some urgency to the game and that they realized the could lose the game. The 2 TD throws by Stanzi were nothing special, it was more the talent and speed of the receivers that created the scores. However, the big difference between the 4th quarter and the 3rd quarter was the play calling. O'Keefe (the offensive coordinator) finally remembered that Stanzi is a poor pocket passer, but that when he is on the move, he has good touch to receivers that are out in front of him. Hopefully that 4th quarter will serve as a valuable lesson to what the offense is capable of when the calls go to the strength of the players, and the team will use it as a blueprint for what to do for an entire game from here on out. The struggles aside, Iowa being 9-0 is awesome, I'm just hoping the right breaks can happen and they can be playing in Pasadena in January.
A little from Column A, a little from Column B? I think the key has been how (shockingly) bad USC's defense has been the past two weeks. A very average Oregon State team shredded them on offense as well and, if OSU's defense hadn't been even worse that USC's, would have won the game. It caught up to USC this week. That said, Oregon looked impressive and absolutely could have hung 60+ on USC if they deserved to. The question is now, how good is Oregon really? Huge win for the Ducks, but this is not (and has not been all season) your typical USC team of the past decade. Oregon looks to be the class of the Pac 10 and should win out, but I don't think we'll really have a good idea of how good they are until the bowl game because the rest of the conference just isn't as good.
It also raises questions about how good Boise St is. Their stock should be rising, especially with Oregon beating USC, but with so many other undefeated teams they aren't even in the top five. I'm wondering if it was Oregon just struggling earlier in the year or Boise St really can hang with any other team in the country. I think Oregon might be the better team and their offense was just out sync in that first game, but Boise St belongs above them unless they lose. This could be a complete reversal of what we had a couple years ago when every title contender lost as soon as they rose to the top. We could have three or four bowl games featuring undefeated teams. Until they lose who can really say one belongs over another? All the BCS can do is try to match those who are in the best conferences. For fun I'll just propose a scenario. An eight team playoff with the first round losers playing in separete bowl games against the other teams losing in the first round. Then after the semi-finals you have a game for 3rd and of course, one for the title. The side bowls for the less respected teams could continue as normal, and really, are people going to care more or less about those bowl games than they do now? I don't think a playoff for the top eight teams would affect them too much. What could really hurt is that the first round losers wouldn't have the same kind of excitement for their bowls games as the rose bowl, sugar bowl, etc. I think the extra games and hype surrounding the playoffs would more than make up for it though.
I don't understand why they are so hesitant to go to a playoff system, either, unless they are worried that the final could not be a dream matchup. I'd rather watch Bama - Florida for the national championship this year than just for the SEC championship, and bottom line, one of them is getting knocked out of contention on December 5th. It's not like a playoff system is unheard of: They do it for basketball with 64 teams, and even people who know jackshit about college basketball take the time to fill out brackets and get into the whole March Madness thing. Most bowl games are worthless and useless, anyway, so why not go with a playoff system and fill the pointless bowl games with teams #9 - #25 or however many they do?
I do not think a bowl playoff system will work. If you say only the top eight teams get in, then the next eight teams will yell that they belong. How do you make the cutoff when you have more than eight conferences? Can you imagine the outrage if a WAC or Mountain West team made the playoffs and an ACC, Big East or SEC team does not? College basketball had a 16 team playoff for decades. You had to win your conference to make the playoffs. Someone had the silly idea that the second place teams in the conferences should get a chance to go so they expanded to 32 teams, then to 64 teams. Now I feel College basketball's regular season is worthless. Who cares who wins your conference? If you are hot at the end of the season you will go to the big dance. I would rather see it go back to the old days and have certain bowls tied to certain conferences. Let the conference championships be what the teams want to win. In those few times that the top two teams meet in a bowl game it will make that all the more special because it does not happen every year. Lastly, Boise State cannot find any team who wants to play them in 2010. They have been turned down by ten teams so far. How about some SEC, Big East, Big Ten, Big Twelve, ACC team step up?
Ah yes, it is about that time of year to start (deservedly) bitching about the BCS system and raise the cry for a playoff. And I hope there are multiple undefeated teams: Florida or Bama, Texas, Iowa, Cincy, Boise, and TCU. That would be awesome if all 6 of these ended the season undefeated and obviously only 2 could go to the Champ Game. I have posted before my idea for the playoff that would not kill the prestige of the traditional major 4 bowl games, and now that there is an additional game just for the Championship, this would completely work: A 6 team playoff system. Use the 4 majors (Rose, Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar). Top 2 teams get a bye and the other 4 play in two of the majors. Next week, top 2 play winners in the other two. Next week, championship game. Start the thing in early or mid-december and the whole thing can be wrapped up on New Years day. I don't see how this would generate a shit-storm of money. Rotate which bowls are week 1 and week 2 games. Only group that may get fucked are the major conferences if they lose the guarantee bids. I suppose it could also hurt with alumni planning on which games to go to, but I suspect that tix will sell just as fast, and that does not seem to hurt alumni from going to the sweet 16, elite 8, and final 4. As far as the 7 and 8 ranked teams whining about how computers or polls locked them out of the playoffs, fuck em. They would have been no better in the current system.
I could have sworn Virginia Tech and Boise State have a home-home in the near future. I really feel for Boise since BCS teams are seeing what happened to Oregon who are a cupcake away from having a shot at the championship. As for the playoffs discussion: I think the problem is there are too many teams in d-1 football. Here's my completely unrealistic scenario: I'd drop the mid majors into a new division and trim the remaining BCS conferences down to ten teams playing a round robin similar to the Pac-10. Notre Dame could go to the Big East and move Boston College back to get the BE to 10. Boise State, Houston, Fresno State, Utah, BYU, and TCU can form the core of a revamped MWC . Then have some teams from the Big 12/ Big Tenleven join, I'm thinking Baylor, Iowa State, Northwestern, and Texas A&M. That would be a legitimate conference. Arkansas switches from the SEC to the Big 12 to get it to 10 teams again. Drop Vanderbilt and Duke and the SEC and the ACC are down to 10. Now we'd have the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Pac 10, SEC, Big 10, and MWC champions plus a wildcard for a 8 team playoff. A team would play at most 3 games in the post season which is only 1 more than the current conference championship game + bowl setup. Determining the wildcard is up in the air as going by BCS rankings would lead to a lot of bitching by the next ranked team.