Well I was glued to the TV yesterday and saw some really good games. Weather here was cold and windy so golf was out for me at least! 1. Congrats to Coach Gus and Auburn, what an amazing season and just when I thought Missouri had them where they wanted after taking the lead for the last time, Coach Gus smoked them. That offense is just amazing to watch and everybody aknowledged that Missouri is a good defense. They kept talking about how the 3 man front that Missouri was running was being eaten alive by Auburn. But Missouri refused to get out of it, I wonder why they were so determined to stay in that front? I haven't watched them that much so I don't know if that is their base defense and they don't have the personnel to go to another defense or what. But Auburn just chewed it up. In fact there really wasn't a lot of good defense being played by either team, as evidenced by the combined score of over a hundred points. From a fan perspective a great game to watch. 2. Congrats to Coach Dantonio and Michigan State. I really didn't give those guys a chance against the Buckeyes. I know they have improved a lot since we played them in Sept, but I didn't think they'd improved that much. They were solid in the 4th Qtr and deserved the win, that was no fluke. I think I saw Dantonio smile finally when they got the ball back after stopping OSU on it's last 4th down try. Mich State never gets the talent that Michigan, or Ohio State or even Notre Dame gets if you are counting recruiting rankings. But Dantonio always puts together a solid team that is tough to beat. He's been there 7 years now so if he hasn't stolen the recruiting mojo from UM by now he never will so likely he'll still have to take a mostly 3 star and some 4 star players against all the 4 and 5 star players at Ohio and Michigan. I sort of find it odd because in Texas the Aggies who were consistently outrecruited over the last 15 years by Texas have taken that mojo back and are doing quite well in Texas and nationally, not sure why Dantonio hasn't been able to do that at Michigan State. But he's a hell of a coach. I wonder if he'll start to be on some short lists for bigger jobs? 3. Congrats to OU and Bob Stoops. That was one hell of a game as well, he had to use 3 QB's to beat OK State, but he did. The last one, Blake Bell, made a beautiful throw to clinch the game. I really thought that the last OK State TD Drive was the game clincher and that there wasn't enough time for OU to drive the field and score a TD, FG wouldn't have done it. But OK State went to a prevent defense and let them drive the field easily and in nothing flat they had their backs to the wall and OU had plenty of time to take it's shots to the endzone. I don't understand why teams decided to play soft and let the opponent march down the field and hope they'll eat up enough clock. Tough loss, again, for OSU. They lost last year in OT. They had more talent than OU, but Stoops used a punt return and trick FG to stay in the game. I don't really care for Stoops myself but the man can coach. 4. Congrats to Art Briles and Baylor. They hammered the Longhorns in the 2nd half of the game, beat us handily. The match up at QB favored them so much that we really never had a chance. The Longhorn Nation now waits to see what will happen with Mack Brown. There will be tremendous disappointment if he comes back next year. But one thing is for sure that the AD is either going to have to force Mack to retire or fire him outright if he wants a new coach. And he needs to do it this week so that we can get on about the business of getting a new coach, no way can they let this drag on and wait till after the Bowl game. In fact what they need to do is keep Mack and his staff through the bowl game, but hire the new coach who can then focus on hiring his staff and getting ready to take over after the bowl game. Current staff can keep in close contact with the recruits so that we don't lose anybody if possible. 5. Congrats to the Rice Owls and Coach David Bailiff for their first conf title since 1957. They dominated Marshall yesterday and will go to Memphis for the Liberty Bowl vs Miss State. I hope they don't lose Bailiff to another school that can afford to pay more, Rice is not exactly a destination job. 6. Didn't see any of Stanford/ASU but Stanford apparently steamrolled them and are going to the Rose Bowl. Should be a very good matchup with Michigan State. 7. Didn't see Fresno State/Utah State or the Rutgers/USF games. I did watch the BGSU vs NIU game though on Friday night. While I'm not anti-Jordan Lynch or NIU I'm glad we won't see those guys in a BCS Bowl game. They just aren't deserving. The proposed line ups that I'm seeing are much more interesting without them. 8. Didn't watch any of the FSU/Duke game. It turned out just like I figured it would. Certainly been an interesting season, nobody thought that Auburn or Missouri would have the years that they had and Jameis Winston, like Johnny Football the year before just exploded on to the scene. For all of the worrying we had about undefeated teams being left out of the NC game...only 1 team was undefeated in the end. Nov takes care of a lot of those worries. Will we have a bowl contest?
Well MSU fans showed their class last night but rioting and setting fires in East Lansing. :evil: http://www.woodtv.com/news/michigan/rioting-in-east-lansing-after-msu-beats-osu#.UqRwLqpdzG0.twitter
Interesting to wonder who the "committee would pick for the final 4 if there was one this year? FSU is a lock, so is Auburn, I guess you'd include Alabama as well...what about the 4th? Baylor, Stanford, Mich State ..that is where the rubber meets the road.
Supposedly Major Applewhite has 24-48 hours to accept or decline Will Muschamps offer of OCoord at Florida. He should take it.
I would have Michigan State as the 4th team and I would have Alabama as the favorite to win it all. You didn't mention the UCF SMU game, there were only about 1,000 fans in the stands. Apparently the ice storm kept the fans from getting to the stadium and free admission was even offered. There was a rumor on GatorCountry that Applewhite was going to be offered the OC job at Florida. There were more people negative than positive about that hire especially after yesterdays game. Terry, what is your opinion of Applewhite as a coordinator?
Major has a minor resume'. He was an OCoord for 1 year at 'Bama but supposedly Saban really looked at his OL coach for the game plan, then he moved to Rice for 1 year and then to Syracuse for 1 year and at Texas he's never been the guy..last year he was a co-coord with Harsin but you saw how that worked and this year he is also a co-Coord and our offense is nothing to write home about. But then maybe Will saw something he liked in Major when they worked together at Texas.
He seemed to be in over his head when he was at Alabama. We don't hear from the asst coaches much at Alabama but he moved on from here pretty quickly. I kind of figured that maybe he didn't want to work as hard as Saban expected.
One thing about Applewhite is that he was very young, 28, when he was at Alabma and is still in his early 30's. Seems he has moved up pretty quickly. Right now I am not sure it is true about the offer from Muschamp. Muschamp can't afford to have another poor offensive year, if so I think he is gone. The word is that we will run an up tempo offense next year. After those comments from Terry and kp I think I am hoping it is not Applewhite. Thanks
I watched a lot of Missouri this year (maybe 6 games) and I have never seen them use that 3 man front except for long down situations. I think Verne and Gary are idiots, but Gary had a strong point about that 3 man front. Missou used a 4 man front that generated a ton of pressure from the perimeter with their 2 rush ends. By going to the 3 man front, that effectively negated that and relegated them to DL type positions. They just aren't those kind of guys, they are pass rushers. If you watch what Stanford does to Oregon each year, it's something that Missou (and the rest of the SEC) should try using. They turn those rush ends loose to hit whatever the hell they find in the backfield. Auburn essentially runs 4 running plays out of several different formations. Oregon does something similar, but slightly different. Either way, the Bama way almost worked.. almost. I think a lot of that had to do with their talent and not the scheme though. I like Stanford's approach better. It's a very basic approach to assignment football. You have 3 and sometimes 4 backs. The rush ends will simply eliminate 2 of them. If they find the ball to chase the play, all the better... but they will eliminate 2 of them, and they hit the QB all the time. That leaves the DL and MLBs to read the play. Don't ever follow the guards in this offense because that's just what they want you to do. You will give up yards. You will give up 1st downs. However, if you play assignment football in the secondary and use those ends to eliminate the big plays on the perimeter, you tend to slow that offense down eventually. Missou's 3 man front was just gashed all day long. Washington State outgained Auburn 464-394. Wazzu lost because of 3 turnovers and aided by a questionable TD down the sidelines for Auburn. Wazzu ran a 4 man front all day at them. Hell Wazzu 28 1st downs to Auburn's 16. Auburn lost to LSU because of poorly timed turnovers, otherwise that game was fairly statistically even. Still, that 4 man front held them to a little over 200 yards rushing. Miss State lost with 10 seconds left on the clock to Auburn. They committed everyone to stopping the run and held Auburn to 120 yards rushing total. What burned them was Auburn threw for 339, which can only be explained by no one playing pass defense for Miss State. The Tigers can be had. I have no idea what Missou was doing.
Awww no ****! This really happened at Auburn...? :lol: So.... it sounds like you agree that FSU will beat Auburn with relative ease..... especially in the second half.
Gawd I hope so, I'm holding my nose to root for FSU but the SEC Hegemony must be broken. OK I guess technically FSU is now our conference brother, so that makes it OK!
I feel your pain, Terry. Even though my nephew and niece are FSU alums, it's not easy to cheer for FSU or to speak of them as our conference brothers. :roll:
You know in basketball I never really got the brotherhood feelings for all the Big East teams, esp Syracuse. I liked it when the Big East got so many more tourney spots than the other conferences and I wanted them to do well so we'd dominate the Sweet 16 and above..but I never really could get myself worked up to root for all of them. Some of them I did, like St. Johns, Marquette, etc but Jim Boeheim and the "Cuse and UConn I had a hard time swallowing and rooting for them!
Brethren of the ACC, we are blessed by your participation, love and support of all teams in our conference. No matter the pain involved in this worthy endeavor, down deep we know there's a Hokie trotting, a Hurricane blowing and a Seminole stabbing the spear in your heart of hearts.... 8) 8) 8) 8)