It never makes sense. Auburn blew out a team and Cam Newton didn't rush for 1 yard. Alabama blew out a top ten SEC team and didn't have a 100 yard rusher or a 100 yard passer. Stanford is claimed to have one of the top 5 head coaches in football, yet they let a 21-3 lead slip to a 10-42 finish. And finally, Michigan State needs a last second trick to defeat a mediocre Notre Dame team but doesn't need a head coach to blow out a solid top 12 Wisconsin team.
Auburn...
- Biggest win of the year if you ask me. Name the last game that Auburn won without any real trouble on any side of the ball. Arkansas State? 26 points and miles of passing yards beg to differ. Auburn, without Cam's running ability, was able to control this game from the first second.
- Now with the proven ability to blow out lesser opponents and win big games home and away, I think Auburn has legitimate claim to be not only a top 10 team, but a team that has a real shot at winning the SEC championship. Forget just the West - the East looks like it won't put up any real competition this year.
- What's even more impressive about this win? The fact that true freshmen like Jake Holland were able to play most of the game and still hold LA Monroe to 3 points. The fact that those young guys were still able to cause turnovers and make big plays and look like they could at least fill in for a few seconds against teams like Arkansas and LSU.
- You have to love what's going on at Auburn right now. If things keep going the way they should, we should get an easy W against Kentucky and head into a CBS spotlighted showdown with Arkansas.
Alabama...
- Forget that you know the outcome of last night's game. You ask me what happened and all I give you are these stats:
1. McElroy went 11/17 for 84 yards and no touchdowns.
2. Ingram went 12 for 47 yards and two touchdowns.
3. T. Richardson went 10 for 63 and no touchdowns.
4. Julio Jones had 4 catches for 19 yards including a couple of drops.
- You're shocked that Alabama lost, right?
- Wrong. Alabama was able to not only beat this Florida team - not only crush this Florida team - but able to solidify itself as the #1 team in the country. As if there was ever any question.
- What makes this win so significant? The defense was redonkulous. Sure, Florida was handing out Christmas presents all night, but it takes good players to capitalize on those mistakes. The other significant stat in this game comes from the line of scrimmage. Besides a center that can't snap a football, the Florida offensive line is loaded with guys dubbed as NFL locks. Alabama's front 4 was bullrushing them into the backfield all night.
- A scary stat for the future of the SEC - all three interceptions were caught by teenagers.
- I wish I could say that this is the week Alabama gets tested, but this just feels like the start of a big run for Alabama. They're a loaded team that's getting healthy at just the right time. I don't think South Carolina's defense poses enough of a threat to shut down Alabama's offense and lord knows South Carolina can commit turnovers when the pressure is on. But then again, I said Alabama would blow out Arkansas and Florida would push the Tide until the very end with a good chance at leaving Tuscaloosa with a victory. And I'm in last place on the Battle for the Crown......
Florida...
- Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote, "Haha you suck!"
- Haha, you suck!
- And you do. Your offense is atrocious. No identity. No leadership. Nothing. No running game. No passing game. You have a couple of guys with speed that can break away for a big play against the little guys like Kentucky and South Florida. Other than that? Nothing.
- And there's no excuse. If I'm a Florida fan, after the Urban Meyer retires/unretires shenanigans of last year, I'm wondering about the future of the program. Something's not right on the sideline of Florida.
- Let's be honest. Florida still has more "5 star high school/NFL potential" talent on the sideline than Alabama does. I recognize every player on Florida's roster because they were the guys highly recruited by everybody. They were the guys with the countless articles on Rivals. But Florida after 5 weeks reminds me more of LSU than Alabama.
Speaking of LSU...
- If I'm an LSU fan, I don't leave the stadium. I sit in my seat and demand that Les Miles be hanged at the 50 yard line. I sit there with 90k other people and lock myself into my seat and explain to the police that there's no way they can remove this many people from the stadium; therefore, it would be easiest to just bring Les out and let us all stone him.
- 20 seconds. 20 seconds at the end of a ball game could potentially be four plays. Get out of bounds. Throw it into the back of the endzone. 20 seconds. 20 seconds inside the ten should be a sure-fire victory against an outmatched Tennessee team.
- If I'm the ref, I'm not counting the Tennessee defenders. Who the hell cares? I mean, honestly, after that debacle, do you really think it's Tennessee that's committing the biggest penalty? LSU was a disgrace to college football. High school coaches would know how to handle that situation better than Les Miles. If I'm the ref, I'm later explaining that I made a bad call and missed the 13 men on the field knowing in the back of my mind that I sacrificed for the sake of college football.
- If you're an LSU player, what do you think going into Sunday's practice? Who do you trust? When Les Miles says, "Now, look guys, you have to fill the cut back on these trap plays," do you know for sure if he's even talking about the LSU defense? I bet if you switched the 2010 game film with the 2005 game film of the LSU-Tennessee game, Les wouldn't figure it out.
- As for the actual game, I think LSU is in for a world of hurt. They have zero offense. It's subzero. Crowton has been at LSU for a few years now, and he sucks. There's no other way around it. He's a horrible offensive coordinator. Les Miles can try to bumble his way through a press conference explaining how they have too much talent and too many packages to get their personnel on the field or whatever - the fact is that LSU sucks on offense.
Tennessee...
- Auburn doesn't play Tennessee for a while, so this is my second favorite team in the SEC. I felt awful for Derek Dooley. I felt awful for those players who played their asses off. I felt terrible for Matt Simms, who went from boy to man in that football game.
- LSU's last second offensive confusion was so confusing that it confused the Tennessee defense. Isn't that a penalty? "Five yard penalty on LSU for being too damn confusing and stupid for anyone to understand how to handle it." Penalty declined and Tennessee wins.
- 50% of Tennessee's roster yesterday was RS freshmen or true freshmen. That's pretty amazing.
Oregon...
- Tremendous speed. That's all I could think about when watching this team. They're really exciting to watch. Every player on that roster is insanely fast. Now, as for size? I think they get pushed around against an Alabama or Ohio State.
Stanford...
- Andrew Luck will be a great NFL quarterback.
USC...
- Still think Lane Kiffin is just as good as Pete Carroll? Still think NCAA sanctions won't hurt?
Oklahoma-Texas...
- Does anyone really care about the Red River Shootout? I just couldn't get into it. Texas put up a good fight at the end - so I hear - but from the first minute, it looked like Oklahoma had dominance in this game.
- And where does this leave us regarding Oklahoma? Can Texas A&M beat them? What about Oklahoma State? Maybe? I doubt it. Nebraska's not on the schedule until the Big 12 championship game. Looks like ole Bob Stoops may sneak his way into the BCS championship talks.
- No, I don't think they deserve it.
Boise State...
- Only 59 points against Little Sisters of the Poor Polytechnic Institute? No chance at the BCS title. Bunch of scrubs....
Georgia...
- Mark Richt has never been more fired. He got AJ Greene back. He kept losing.
- Colorado, if we can put this lightly, is one of the more dysfunctional programs in the country. Dan Hawkins has a job only because Colorado is waiting to join the Pac 10 before bringing in new blood. Georgia's defense, lead by a new coordinator from the Dallas Cowboys, couldn't shut down an offense that has had serious turmoil over the last few years.
- This is worse than Auburn 2008. I know it won't happen, but I could really see Georgia only winning one more game this year. At most 4 wins. I don't think Georgia can win at Kentucky. They won't score on Florida. They won't be Auburn at Auburn. They won't beat Georgia Tech. Peace out Mark Richt.
Ole Miss...
- Could they grow into the spoiler of the SEC? When Jack St beat Ole Miss, I laughed, chuckled, then grumbled because I know that Houston Nutt is a crazy person and Ole Miss has SEC talent on the field. They could very well be a dangerous team in the SEC not because they have a chance to win the West, but because they could shock a team like Alabama, Auburn, or Arkansas.
Denard Robinson...
- I don't care if he gets hurt. I don't care if Michigan loses from here on out. This guy is what the Heisman Trophy should be rewarding. A do it all/MVP of a team. A player that is the heart and soul of a team. You can remove Mark Ingram and still have Alabama at #1. You can take away Terrell Pryor and still expect Ohio State to skate through the Big 10 schedule. You can get rid of Landry Jones and still watch Oklahoma put together a good season. Denard Robinson is the best MVP out there.
Final Thought...
- Expect the unexpected. We can't always be right regarding college football. I can't pick the right teams to win. Things happen that you can't explain. You write down your thoughts about one team and realize those thoughts contradict the thoughts about another team. That's the beauty of college football. It's not a robotic sport that can be predicted much like the NFL or NBA. There's going to be moments where a team filled with high school players like Tennessee can nearly beat a team laden with NFL potential like LSU. And when you can't explain what just happened, you can sound like a blubbering idiot like Les Miles in his press conference or Townhallsavoy in his Thoughts posts and still come away not looking too bad.
8 Replies
1103 Views