Wow, big weekend and big games. 1. No bigger game or upset than South Carolina over Alabama. I think that we forgot that the 'bama defense is still a pretty young defense. It to me was the perfect storm, clearly Spurrier has his best team and he had Alabama after a couple of very big games with UF and Ark and we all know that each one of those games takes it toll on the emotions of a team. I don't want to take anything away from USC by implying that Alabama had nothing left in the tank, but as I said it was a perfect storm. All you have to do is go back a couple of weeks when it looked like So. Car was going to beat Auburn, then Cam Newton got hot and our hero of this weekend...Stephen Garcia made critical mistakes that resulted in Spurrier sitting him and putting in a freshman who then threw 2 picks. Then they go home have the weekend off last week to get ready for the big game. I've seen So.Car games at night and those fans are as hopped up as any anywhere, get an early lead and they are sky high and you know the place was deafening. Perfect Storm. 2. The Hat beats the Gators. I did watch that game and for a fan with no dog in the fight that was a helluva game. I am impressed with all the talent that LSU has on their team, they are stacked. It looks to me that the Gators are still not settled into their new offense, they have lots of talent as well, but it's not a smooth running machine on offense yet, might not get their this year at least not to the level they were the last 3 years. 3. Denard Robinson has an average game. He still got 300 yds of total offense, but he threw 3 ints and the Mich defense gave up a ton of yards and points. I'm guessing that next week will be about as bad for UM as this weekend with an excellent Iowa team coming to town. Mark May said that losing will not hurt Denard Robinsons Heisman campaign because he is the most exciting player in America. He is an extremely exciting player no doubt, but losing will hurt him. There are other QB's out there who are also exciting and will steal the spotlight from him if they keep winning and he loses. I'm thinking the kid at Oregon, I'm thinking Cam Newton, I'm thinking Pryor at OSU, I'm thinking Andrew Luck at Stanford, Taylor Martinez at Neb to name a few. Nope losing will hurt him, esp if he turns the ball over or only puts up big numbers not insane numbers. 4. Huskers dominate Kansas State, right now the Huskers are really riding high. Their defense looks like the blackshirts of old, their QB T-Magic looks like he's a better Eric Crouch than Eric Crouch. He's got the redemption game coming up this weekend. The hated Longhorns, the team that has never lost a game in Lincoln, the Longhorns who stole the B12 championship from them last year, the Longhorns who I think many Neb fans believe to be at the root of all that is wrong with the B12 and why they could no longer stand being part of the conference. Oh yeah this is the biggest game in Lincoln in a long time, a lot of wrongs can be righted not with just a simple win, but with a punishing win. That's not too much pressure on a freshman QB is it!! :twisted: :twisted: 5. TCU and Boise State both had big and easy wins this weekend. But they were against opponents that human pollsters aren't impressed. So they will have to be satisfied with treading water and hoping to stay undefeated and bide their time till (they hope) the number of undefeated teams leaves them alone at the top. TCU does have some attractive games that will give them some points. Air Force almost, should have, beat OU at Norman and Utah is undefeated and looking very strong. Boise will have to make do with Nevada, sure maybe Fresno State is as good as Indiana but they won't get credit for it. 6. Ohio State, now that their opponents have to worry not just about him running the ball but also throwing it over the top of their defenses Ohio State is likely to be the favorite in all remaining games. @Wisconsin and @Iowa look to be the only teams with a prayer of beating them. They don't have to play Michigan State this year. Wisconsin has already been beaten by MSU a team without the star power of OSU, so I'm not convinced that they really have much of a chance vs OSU. But that's why they play the games. 7. Oregon, I see their starting QB Darron Thomas didn't finish the game due to a shoulder injury. I hope it was just one of those things where he'll be sore and since they have an off week before playing UCLA in 2 weeks he'll be 100%. I just would hate to see him be Dennis Dixon part deux. 8. Pac 10 in general it looks like maybe they will end up knocking each other off. USC nearly took out Stanford yesterday. Oregon State did take out Arizona and WTF CAL cleaned UCLA's clock. USC offense looks like they will cause a lot of people problems, defense not so much. I could see the Pac10 with a bunch of 2 loss teams and maybe somebody will catch Oregon and knock them off. 9. B12...did we play this weekend? I see the Aggies continued their largesse towards their opponents. If they ever start holding on to the football they might be an excellent team. I wonder if Sherman will consider Tannehill at QB, I'm no expert but several of my family who are Aggie experts say that Jerrod Johnson is throwing the ball very badly and maybe hasn't recovered from off season shoulder surgery. 10. Irish. Man another game that was a win, but has left the ND Nation arguing over what this win means. It seems to all distill down to that dropped ball by Ragone, there are those who say that the fact that Kelly chose to throw instead of run is a signal he doesn't know much about coaching at the end of games and running the clock and forcing your opponent to use their timeouts. Then there are those who say the play was their for a 1st down but the TE just dropped the ball. No doubt though that our defense is making strides even if the offense is only taking baby steps. Western Michigan game if it is not a huge win, with lots of offense both running and passing will leave the Irish fans needing pyschoactive pharmaceuticals or lots of Guinness. Right now those fans who most likely didn't want Kelly in the first place are down on his game management and offense. Those who were happy to have him are saying baby steps, baby steps. 11. Big East. Right now the Big East only has 1 ranked team that is WVA and it looks to me that it is not beyond the realm of possibilty that they will finish the season with no ranked teams yet a guaranteed BCS bid. And people complain about the ND deal with the BCS!!
8) re: Texas vs. Nebraska The Lhorns are in a heap of trouble. They couldn't stop UCLA's running game and the Bruins have nothing like Taylor Martinez. He's the recruit who got away from them and now he figures to run for about 5,000 yards against Texas. re: Boise Boise State beat Toledo 57-14 after Toledo beat Purdue 31-20... re: Cal Nobody out here understands Cal-Berkeley either. They're pretty good most years and they've put a lot of players into the NFL, but they haven't won an outright conference title since 1958. It just doesn't seem to be a priority up there. I have a friend who played football for the Golden Bears in the 1970s and I asked him about that experience. He said that nobody paid any attention to him or the other players and the students mostly just smoked dope and talked about music. According to my pal, most of the Berkeley students didn't even know that the school had a football team... re: Irish I suggest that we beat the living, drooling, crap out of Western Michigan to make ourselves feel better...
Like I said on the last Gator - LSU topic we didn't get back to my daughters house until about 2am then left first thing yesterday morning for home and got her last night and I have to leave this morning for school. We are only making the trip to games 2 times this year. Any how I didn't get to see other games because of the timing. I thought when Alabama lost we were back in the thick of things, then the Gators lose. I think the Gators are one of 6 teams still in competition in the SEC but probably not as good as at least half of them. We still have S. Carolina on our schedule but at home. I have Oregon as the best in the country with Ohio State second and Nebraska 3rd. Those three along with Oklahoma will be ahead of Boise State and/or TCU if they win out. If however there is only one unbeaten among them then Boise State or TCU may make the final. Wouldn't it be interesting if all 4 of those teams lose at least one game and Boise and TCU go unbeaten. Would they both make the BCS Championship game?
A lot of football to be played yet, so I am not tooting our horn too early. Is it me or the time machine? Heck half of the season is already over. Any team that is undefeated at seasons end has to have some measure of luck and events have to fall in place. Injuries play a big part as well as schedule. Much more parity in football now.
Alot of football to be played to be sure.... the LSU/UF game was a helluva game. LSU always has as athletic and physical a defensive front as there is anywhere....if you ask me, I am of the belief that their biggest weaknesses are not the talent on the field, imho. I am not ready to believe that TP is anywhere close to 100%. Not once was there a designed run called for him, not once did he roll-out and not once did he take off downfield in the rare times he got pressure. Anybody familiar with TP's game knows that that isn't TP....he was either feeling sub-par or JT had tight reins on or both, but there was zero chance that he was tucking and running Saturday. Abundance of caution with Wisky coming up or he's truly hurtingy, I don't know, but I am concerned....that said, it's now become clear that he and his receiving corps - including the backs - can beat you from the pocket as well.....I think we might have seen the last of defenses loading the box and many are suggesting we are a "pass first" offense! :shock: In any event, I have no doubt that the kid if necessary will sell out to make a play -v- Wisky....let's hope he doesn't have to, but it will be a war. Not getting all the love for the Ducks -v- the Buckeyes.....we saw that movie in the Rose Bowl and we know how it ended. The differences between the two teams since then would seem to favor us imho....but I don't get a vote and right now it's irrelevant....just win baby.
This game has no upside. If we smoke them as we should it carries no weight. If they stay close or, god forbid, upset us then it is a HUGE setback. It's a scrimmage.
It's a good week to rest Rudolph. It should be a good week to get some game time for Rees. Who knows we might even see Kamara.
George I do think there is some upside, but only if we do as JO'Co said...beat the living drooling crap out of them. Just a few weeks ago the entire B10, it seemed, played the MAC...they beat the living drooling crap out of them...well except for Purdue. If we do beat them badly, like Ohio State or Michigan did their MAC opponents, then for 1 week Irish fans will rest somewhat easy. Nobody will claim we've arrived but we won't have to agonize over a win that has no style points. That's the upside. As you said though, god forbid that the game actually be competitive there will be hell to pay a complete melt down would ensue. I don't even want to think about the nuclear option.
No doubt we are backs against the wall with the Huskers. The hope is that with 2 weeks to prepare that the Longhorn defense will be ready and disciplined enough to handle Martinez. With that sort of offense you have to have speed on defense to match the speed on offense and I do think we have as much speed on defense as anybody in the country, but do we have the discipline to stay in our lanes, to play our assignments. That's not exactly a triple option attack like a service academy or Ga.Tech but you still have to stay disciplined or he's by you and gone. As for our offense nobody knows what the solution is, we have talent based on HS ratings but it's not HS anymore. Our QB was the #1 QB in his recruiting class, he was groomed to be a QB by his NFL dad. But he's no longer in HS and he's showing that he is a rookie. None of our RB's or WR's have stepped up to be go to guys. So we have what we have. I fully expect to be a big underdog but I have to hope that our defense can force Martinez into errors, if we can't it'll be a long day.
Terry, I think the secret is that your defense plays contain and your secondary is on their own. Make Martinez beat you with his arm. That means he will have time to throw so if he gets hot passing you are in trouble. This seemed to be the only way to stop Tebow and Martinez is like a very fast Tebow.
I would agree kp, that is essentially what Mich State did to Denard Robinson shut him down running the ball and make him throw. He threw 3 picks. I don't think Martinez is a great passer, he has a very odd motion, so I'd take my chances with him as a thrower.
Pac10, USC and UCLA. questions for resident 12Pac guys. 1. Norm Chow was the evil genius behind the Pete Carrol offense, so good that Pete was afraid he was getting as much if not more credit for the awesomeness that was becoming USC football. So what happened when he moved back into town with Slick Rick and UCLA. So far I'm not seeing anything like what he did at USC, granted he doesn't have USC level talent, but it's not like UCLA has no talent. I wonder if he and Slick Rick are a bad fit. 2. USC. As much as I want USC to be bad enough that even the lowly Irish can beat them this year, so far even in their losses I'm seeing a lot of offense. I fear their offense. Now their defense has not been good, which is suprising since Carrol never had a bad recruiting class after his first year, he was always in the top 3 always had more 5* kids than anybody so I'm suprised to see the defense not be great this year. And it's too early for probation to have hurt them, sure they lost some kids to transfers but from what I read they were not starters and speculation is that with reductions Kiffin wanted dead weight out of there so he could bring in some more top talent this fall when he can still recruit a normal size class. Not to mention people have been saying Monte is the one of the all-time best DCoords.
:idea: re: Norm Chow and UCLA He hasn't had the same level of QB that he had at USC or BYU. My family knows both UCLA QBs (Prince and Brehaut) through summer passing leagues and Los Osos High School and while they're good kids, I've never heard anyone call either of them a "great" quarterback. USC has actually had better QBs transfer out in the last three years than the Bruins currently have on campus...
Wow....even the one team that won... ND....only won by a point over MSU 20-19. Bettors take notice! In any event recall that I have been predicting that Bama would find SC very tough sledding and the Gamescocks presented what I thought was the best chance for an SEC upset over the cruising Tide. That 3 game stretch of Arkansas, UF and SC was too much to ask of any college football team. How would Boise, Nebraska, Ohio State, Oregon et al. fare over such a stretch is the question to ask. Also.....I believe my preseason favorites to play for the BCS title were Nebraska and OSU......and I still like that pairing unless OSU doesn't get there because of SOS. I think the Harris voters will lower their ranking of Boise before they let that happen though.
Kp....others may think it's a breeze to run the gauntlet of three that Bama has just run. You and I know different. Boise....Oregon...Nebraska....OSU....all good teams. Not one would survive all three games just played by Alabama and especially with SouCar having two weeks to prepare at the end of the string.
:roll: Of course not.....they couldn't possibly....how could they? Husker, I know you count your blessings every day that Dr. Tom ducked the murderous SEC where the Huskers would simply dissolve into mediocrity in the face of supremacy and instead opted for the easy way out by joining the Big 10...... :lol:
BT....your team is very good and your schedule sucks. Which is why you and all Buckeye fans will be biting your BCS nails every BCS poll until the very end. There are some serious schedule issues with regard to BCS SOS when Sagarin has your schedule at #115. You had better hope that Michigan keeps winning and that the Bucks win with some style. Otherwise there are several unbeaten teams out there that Harris voters might start to consider more strongly and that starts with Nebraska if they clobber Texas and then beat OU in the Big 12 Title game.