I dislike bye dates and yesterday was no exception. Some great football yesterday while my Buckeye were idle. Michigan State's win on the last play fo the game was unbelievable. Oklahoma losing to TCU at home another big upset. USC dominating Notre Dame at home in South Bend has to be difficult to swallow for all of you Notre Dame fans. LSU, Alabama and Boise State win handily to remain in the hunt for a National Championship. There is so much parity in football any more that upsets are becoming the norm, rather than the exception. Still makes for some great games, when you do not have a dog in the fight.
I've got a feeling that the next two weeks are going to be very interesting around the deep south. Should be lots of smack flying between Louisiana and Alabama. Mississippi will get caught in the crossfire.
Sparty! Wow..... TT! Wow....gotta love college football Not sure what Wisky's loss is gonna mean when they head to Columbus next week, but I glad we had a week to coach up the youngsters in preparation. Congrats Coach D....I thought Sparty was gonna pull a Sparty again but I think Coach D is slowly changing the culture up there......
Buckeye Terry, Pretty much my thoughts on Wisconsin as well. I am confident they will be bent out of shape and really come at us. What will be will be, but there is always hope!
Between the Brewers and this, I think some of my Badger co-workers are either going to be on suicide watch this week or dealing with it by shifting focus on the Packers. What a kick in the gonads that loss was for Bucky. They rally from two touchdown in the 4th quarter with Wilson and Ball making great plays and then die on a Hail Mary pass. Wisky will regroup but this team had a legitimate shot to get into the BCS championship game and that opportunity is not one that will come often for Wisconisn. I think D'A has changed the culture, BT, although next year will be tough as he will lose Cousins and all of his star wide-outs this year. He has now beaten OSU. Michigan, and Wisconsin in a row which is hellava accomplishment. He goes to Lincoln this Saturday which may prove to be a trap game for them as the team might be running on fumes after playing in three highly charged games in a row with a physical Nebraska team waiting for them in Lincoln.
Wisconsin and Oklahoma both go down to leave the unbeatens: LSU/Alabama Oklahoma St. Stanford BSU Clemson Kansas St. Houston LSU/Alabama and Stanford are most likely AQers to finish the season undefeated and making it to the BCS CG. I'm just not buying into KSU or OSU at this point. Both have big games yet to prove me wrong, both against each other and against OU. Houston is a non-player at this point. Clemson ALWAYS seems to find one to fumble the game to, but they are a tough, talented group this year. If there are no other undefeateds, does BSU get the dream shot? Clemson - can you believe how young this really good team is? It's likely they'll be even better NEXT year, after all their freshmen have a year of starting under their belts. Scary.
Last year D'Antonio got the miraculous "fake" FG in an OT win at E. Lansing over ND, that propelled them to an excellent season. Now in E.Lansing again they are in a tight game and get a miraculous "Hail Mary" TD for the win. I thnk somebody up there must like Coach D'Antonio! I really thought that Wisc would just abuse them to tell you the truth, I know everybody is saying how great the MSU Defense is but I figured, sure but they have made their bones against a relatively weak non-conf schedule, with their only loss to a decidely (I'm sorry to say) average ND team and a Mich team that has no offense beyond what Denard Robinson can generate. Seriously I figured MSU simply had no chance against Wisc. If the Irish could conjure up 31 points on them, then I figured Wisc would put 50 on them. The OU/Tech game sort of warms the cockles of my heart! ....OU SUCKS! Big Game Bob is a fraud! I kind of wish it had been somebody else besides the Dirt bags from Lubbock. I hope this isn't Tubberville finally turning the corner though! I"ve never been sold on Landry Jones, he's good but not great and he has incredible recievers. Doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath with Luck. Stanford/Washington that was a game that was supposed to be a good game. The UW QB has numbers similar to Oliver Luck, the UW coach is a former USC coach which of course means he's good. But they just tore UW a new one. No contest. Sets up a really big showdown with USC. Ga.Tech and Paul Johnson. Wow talk about a team that is suddenly going south. Miami just handled them, only a few weeks ago they were rolling for 400, 500, 600 yds mostly rushing. Miami held them to 200yds total, stoned the triple option. I think that there is a ceiling for Ga.Tech and that offense, when you play it enough and have time to prepare and have athletes who will play disciplined you can stone it. Johnson is a good coach, but that offense which is beautiful when it's working is also limiting. Clemson will manhandle them next week. Speaking of Clemson, wow...now that is a dynamic offense. Those of you who think Spread Offenses are for pussies won't agree but when you have a QB like Taj Boyd and some good recievers and one special recieve like Sammy Watkins it's like TecmoBowl. You just can't stop it. It's different than the old Pirates offense but it's the same, fast paced, comes at your relentlessly, forces you into mistakes and bingo TD. I don't know if Clemson has the defense to be a BCS champion but they have the offense. Kansas State another win, of course it was against Kansas who barely put up any resistance. But still props to Bill Synder....things will get a little tougher for him with the games coming up, including 1 with Texas which ufortuneately I fear they will win. Still tough finishing schedule. Don't expect them to be undefeated. OK.State another win, another big offensive day, but like Clemson they do not have a big time defense. I would not be surprised if they lost one of Tech, Baylor or KState before they get to OU. They will be in shootouts most likely with all those teams, I don't think they can win them all. Longhorns, Bye week. Hopefully the staff put it to good use in getting more offense knowledge pumped into David Ash, fortuneately coming out of the Bye week we have Kansas so that is almost anothe Bye. Hopefully the Longhorns use it wisely and really get Ash prepped and he has a big confidence building game vs Kansas. Irish....Looking like Champs Sports Bowl vs ACC team. Boise State: They had a lot of trouble with Air Force, the final score did not indicate how close a game this was for them. While I wouldn't have been surprised if they had blown them out, Irish with a much less developed QB in Rees vs Kellen Moore and Boise with a well established offensive system. Air Force gave them a cheap TD with an ill advised and poorly executed fake punt, but late in the 4th qtr it was a 7 point game. I think this might have been the first time BSU has played a service academy and this is sometimes what you get, they posses the ball so long that you don't get as many opportunities with the ball as you are used to getting. I think that probably was more the reason the game was closer than expected that BSU is over rated.
I know this... I don't want to be anyone on Wiscy or Oklahoma's schedule for the remainder of the regular season. They're going to be pissed. Don't buy into the Texas Tech win. This is known as the 'Tubberville Tease' that he did to Auburn fans for years. He's always good for the big win once a year that he can point to that justifies him keeping his job. They had every break go their way, they were out playing OU and still Tubesteak almost gave them back the game with his 4th down failed conversion and fake FG.
Not completely surprised by Colorado, Dan Hawkins ran that program into a very deep ditch. But are you surprised at Utah? They played some Pac12 schools recently with success and of course had some BCS bowl wins. I do think the Utah coach is a good coach.
More talk about B12 expansion. B12 is supposedly going to move fast if and when Missouri goes to the SEC. They are targeting 2 Big East schools, West Virginia and Louisville, supposedly. Both of which will be tough on the Big East to lose. The Big East is trying desperately to hang on and has a big expansion planned but can't go forward unless they can offer stability to the incoming teams. If they lose Louisivlle and WVa then I don't see how they can survive. This is bad news for ND.
Why is nobody talking about Clemson's youth? Does nobody realize how young they are across the board? Here's their 2-deep: QB SO-FR (Tajh Boyd) RB JR-FR-FR-SO (Andre Ellington-DJ Howard) WR #1 JR-FR-SR (Jaron Brown-Charone Peake) WR #2 SO-SO-FR (Deandre Hopkins-Bryce McNeal) WR #3 FR-FR (Sammy Watkins-Adam Humphries) TE JR-SR-SO (Dwayne Allen-Drew Taylor) OT #1 SR-SO OT #2 SR-FR-JR OG #1 SO-SR-FR OG #2 SR-FR C JR-SR-FR DE #1 JR-SR DE #2 SR-FR-FR DT #1 SR-FR-FR-FR DT #2 SR-SO-FR LB #1 SO-SO LB #2 JR-FR-FR LB #3 JR-FR-SO CB #1 SR-FR-FR CB #2 JR-SO-SO S #1 JR-JR-FR S #2 JR-FR-SR In the ACC, how do they NOT improve next year?? 15 of 22 starters are likely back next year. 33 of 44 2-deep return. And they're 8-0 this year? With wins over Auburn, FSU, and Virginia Tech in consecutive weeks this year. A showdown with their second SEC team in South Carolina is shaping up to really help their schedule, with GT, WF, and NC State their remaining opponents.
That is a pretty impressive depth chart Kes, but I have a hard time thinking of Clemson as being a Nat'l Champ contender. But they certainly could be, they have some good games coming up and finish with SEC foe So.Carolina. If they win the ACC and beat So.Carolina to finish undefeated, they will pass Boise in the BCS polls, whether that is fair or not it will happen.
Terry, for your reading pleasure, you may want to download John Bacon's "Three and Out" which was released today. Bacon is a well respected writer who was embedded in M's football program during RR's three years. Based on exceprts from what I've read and reviews done by those who got an advance copy of the book, this book is going to cause heads to explode in Fort Schembechler, the Detroit Free Press, and in the University's administration.
Bobda, here's the funny part...so I go to Amazon to see about that Book...sure enough it's for sale and in fact they say they have 3 used copies already!!
Kes, I talk sports in too many places. I need to post here more often. I've been talking about Clemson's run despite their youth.. I like Dabo... still, they are Clemson. They will have a tough test against Georgia Tech who has played piss poor the past two weeks. Clemson's defense has given up yards and points. Tech has the ability to get the ball and sit on it for 8 minutes at a clip.
Big news on the Gator front. We didn't lose this week, Georgia up Sat. We are headed down to Florida Friday and will stay there for two games, Georgia and Vandy.
Don't get me wrong Terry, I'm not putting them in the BCS CG. In fact, they may not be in the Top 10 (Alabama, LSU, OU, OkSU, Stanford, Oregon, KSU, Ark, MSU, WI, PSU may all be better) but they sure look impressive for such a young team. Yes, Corey, you do! Of course I can't be the one to say that since I seem to disappear for years at a time (although I'm always lurking, just not taking the time to post). Clemson's strength is not their defense, that's for sure. But with that dynamic offense they don't usually have to rely on it. At some point it will likely come up and bite them, but I don't think GT is the team to do it.