1. Top game of the day was the Miami/OU game. Very impressive win for the Canes and troubling loss for OU. Even with Bradford coming back you have to wonder if the other offensive parts are up to OU standards. I see another couple of losses for OU. I think Texas should beat them and they will lose another game somewhere. 2. How good is Iowa really? Can they just not focus against teams like No.Iowa and Ark. St? That win against a good PSU team was legit. The game vs UM at home will tell us a lot about how good this Iowa team really is though, as will road games vs Wiscy and MSU. 3. LSU another how good is this team, team. They just find ways to win. That horrible call by the ref against UGA for unsportsmanlike put them in terrific field position and they took adavantage. But it never should have happened. This rule desperately needs to be changed/clarified. 4. USC? Defense seems to be typical USC, but offense still seems to struggle somewhat. They will be favored in the rest of their games but they do have some tough ones coming up in ND, Oregon, Oregon State and can you believe it Stanford. 5. Stanford...has Jim Harbaugh done it? Transformed Stanford into a tough nasty team? Maybe they are 3-0 and sitting on top of the PAC10. How did they lose to Wake Forrest? 6. Irish...another frantic finish win. I guess we'll find out in 2 weeks if our offense is really good when an extremely tough USC defense comes to town. This win, unlike our loss to UM where many Irish fans felt that the Irish were screwed by B10 refs, was helped by the refs tight calls went our way missed calls went our way, even bad calls that didn't go our way didn't seem to matter. Jimmy Clausen. 7. Cinderalla down. Houston which had knocked off 2 B12 teams in Ok State and Texas Tech was defeated by UTEP 58-41...yes the same UTEP that the previous week was hammered by Texas 64-7. There was BCS bowl talk in Houston, Case Keenum for Heisman talk....oh well. 8. Michigan - Tough loss for them, but I doubt if UM fans are too down since Forcier again made a big comeback in the 4th Qtr. He looked totally exhausted in the last drive and did it on sheer guts, probably didn't have the energy left for the OT. I grudgingly like this kid. 9. Ohio State - Sort of another routine win for the Buckeyes, nobody is really looking at them, which I'm sure is fine with Tressel. He's no doubt content to continue to develope the team and get ready for Wiscy at home next week. They are quietly ranked #9 and have enough big games ahead (PSU, Iowa, UM) to give them poll power to move up...who knows how high they can move, certainly top 5 is not out of the question. Who is this Saine guy? BT assured us that there was no Beanie on the team, was he sandbagging us? 10. Auburn? Tubesteak had made a mess of the Auburn offense, but Gus Malahazan seems to have figured it all out and nobody really doubted that Chizick can coach defense...Auburn suprisingly 5-0 but they have Ark, LSU, UGA, and of course Bama so they could still come way down to earth. 11. Alabama....continues to look good, Bama/UF rematch in SECCG seems likely at this point. Better QB this year, running game still tough, defense still tough. 12. BCS busters...TCU got by a scrappy SMU and Boise played a really bad 1AA UC Davis team beat them of course. Boise the odds on favorite to go undefeated here, TCU has several tough games ahead and I doubt they go undefeated. Probably only 1 BCS Bowl team from non BCS conferences this year. 13. Looking ahead ....Big Game of the Week is Fla at LSU for so many reasons. Will Tim Tebow be back, will he play well, what if he takes another blow to the head, can LSU continue to just find a way to win, will LSU find it's lost offense. I think UF wins this game even if Tebow doesn't play because that UF defense is going to shutdown the LsU offense.
Terry, The running back Saine is a speedster and has not been healthy in his first two years. I admit he looked awsome against Indiana. He also has excellent hands as a receiver coming out of the backfield.
Coaches Poll. 1. Florida (57) 4-0 1,473 1 2. Texas (1) 4-0 1,408 2 3. Alabama (1) 5-0 1,366 3 4. LSU 5-0 1,273 4 5. Virginia Tech 4-1 1,141 6 6. Boise State 5-0 1,133 5 7. Southern California 4-1 1,123 7 8. Ohio State 4-1 1,072 9 9. TCU 4-0 965 10 10. Cincinnati 5-0 937 11 11. Miami (Fla.) 3-1 750 21t 12. Penn State 4-1 713 13 13. Oklahoma State 3-1 702 12 14. Iowa 5-0 655 17 15. Kansas 4-0 616 16 16. Mississippi 3-1 460 18 17. Oregon 4-1 433 25 18. Missouri 4-0 386 23 19. Auburn 5-0 369 NR 20. Brigham Young 4-1 353 21t 21. Oklahoma 2-2 346 8 22. Nebraska 3-1 329 24 23. Georgia Tech 4-1 278 NR 24. South Florida 5-0 220 NR 25. Wisconsin 5-0 156 NR Dropped out No. 14 Georgia (3-2, lost to No. 4 LSU 20-13), No. 15 Houston (3-1, lost to Texas-El Paso 58-41), No. 19 California (3-2, lost to No. 7 Southern California 30-3), No. 20 Michigan (4-1, lost to Michigan State 26-20 OT). Others receiving votes Georgia (3-2) 148; South Carolina (4-1) 128; Notre Dame (4-1) 57; Houston (3-1) 52; Stanford (4-1) 43; Michigan (4-1) 33; Utah (3-1) 31; Boston College (4-1) 15; Pittsburgh (4-1) 6; Arizona (3-1) 2; Arkansas (2-2) 1; Central Michigan (4-1) 1; West Virginia (3-1) 1. Week 5 Coaches Poll
Those polls are hot garbage. (imho) I finally got around to watching Stanford Wake Forest last night. I had a friend who recorded it to disk send it to me. How Stanford lost that game is even more of a mystery to me now. Stanford opened up dominating the game, they controlled the game but never really put it away.. and then Wake Forest completes a few passes, next thing you know there's 1 second left and Wake is taking a QB sneak into the end zone to steal the game. Watching their struggles against Wake though, it really makes me wonder if we don't need to start using Crist more in certain situations. Stanford had no answer for the QB keep on the option.
This penalty should NOT be called in the 4th quarter of any game unless the scoring gap is 35 points or greater at the time of the infraction. That way it would deter players from a team clearly running away from their hapless opponent from rubbing it in but otherwise it never should have any significance of any sort in close games.
Good past, Terry. This week's game in Columbus between Wisky v Ohio could be interesting. Wisconsin usually plays the Buckeyes tough and so far has been the biggest surprise in the B10. Last year, they were killed by horrible QB play and lacked the discipline of past Badger teams of the Alverez era. Thus year, they seemed to have cured their discipline problems, Tolzien has been surprisingly good at QB, and John Clay runs with the power of Ron Dayne but is more elusive. Their overall talent level does not compare with the Buckeyes but, again, despite the disparity in talent, Wisconsin's record against Tressel-coached teams is probably the best in the B10 with the possible exception of Penn State. My guess is that the Bucks will will but I would not be shocked if Wisconsin pulls off an upset.
The game with Wisky is always a tough, physicscal ball game. Last years version in Madtown required TP to lead his team the length of the field in the closing minutes for the win. Obviously we are happy to have them in C'bus. We lost one of our starting DT -v- the Hoosiers, a big loss with the monsters of Madtown coming in leading way for a big strong running back....we have alot of depth on the DL, but you can't have too much for this ballgame. Re: Beanie -v- Brandon Saine - I'd be happy to swap the Cardinals even up to have Beanie back in the fold. Saine is a very serviceable back, doing a good job, but I don't believe he's capable of taking over a game and dominating it like Beanie.....I'd love to see him prove me wrong.