Don, I know exactly how you feel. You can make sloppy plays against some teams and it doesn't cost you but you will pay dearly in the toughest games coming up.
I watched the end of the Mich State/Mich game. MSU tried to give it to Michigan with terrible play calling when they had the ball and could have run out the clock or left UM with virtually no time. Also once they did punt, their LB hit the UM kid so far out of bounds that it put UM into a position that they could have the shot at endzone Hail Mary. I have seen that Wilton Speight is likely done for the season. O'Korn doesn't look like he's the QB who can lead them to a lot of wins. UM will have to do it with defense controlling the game. Harbaugh has recruited so well in his time at UM, I am surprised that he doesn't have a wunderkid QB on the roster and is going with O'Korn.
The loss by OU is helpful to the Irish, assuming we can get to 11-1 and that's a big assumption. I think the B12 is going to probably end up with a 2 loss champion. West Virginia, OU, OKState, Texas, KState, TCU are all going to knock each other off. If the Irish can somehow get to 11-1, that would mean beating 2 of the top Pac12 teams possibly even the Pac12 champion, although right now Wash and Washington State look like the top 2 teams.
I'm back! Moral victories suck... I wanted to win. But... the Tide did what they do. Keep the pressure on until you make mistakes. We made several costly ones. You don't often recover from 3 turnovers against a normal team.. you never do against #1. However... the kids stayed in the fight, and never gave up. They even got the first turnover surrendered by Bama this season (and should have had the second, but dropped the INT). Mond played about as well as a freshman could with an inconsistent OL in front of him. Mazzone was his usual east/west self. Not a good strategy against a fast aggressive defense. Our defense did their job, we just didn't have enough points in us to get the W. Congrats to Kyle. There are only a handful of teams that can beat the Tide... right now we're not quite one of them. But we're working on it!
Last week's line in the LSU-Fla game moved so much in LSU's favor from early in the week I was suspicious when the calls by the refs seemed to keep going LSU's way.... in particular a horrendous pass interference call that greatly aided an LSU touchdown. Ultimately though it was mostly about the Gator's mediocrity than it was about suspicious bad calls. Now this week: "Following a loss to LSU on Saturday, Florida will enter next Saturday's contest as a favorite in Las Vegas against Texas A&M. According to VegasInsider.com, Florida opens as a 5.5-point favorite over Texas A&M. The Gators will host the Aggies, who went toe-to-toe with No. 1 Alabama for four quarters on Saturday, at 7 p.m. ET in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The line is a bit surprising and could move quite a bit before gametime. Last week's LSU line, for instance, moved between Florida -6.5 and LSU -2 during the week." Wow... Scott you had better jump on that 5.5 points.... wouldn't surprise me if it went off at even by Saturday.
Not very common for the Gators to be underdogs at the Swamp. I like the Aggies in this one, I think they will have a big advantage at QB.
Mack Brown said he'd like to coach again, but it would have to be the right job. With him you would be back in Texas for recruiting! And he probably wouldn't ask for a lot of money.
Chris Peterson, Wash head coach, took some admonishment from ESPN this weekend for complaining about the starting times that ESPN forces on schools to fit a TV schedule. He's right of course, it's made the game more available for all the fans of course, but the fans who attend the games are inconvenienced...but who cares about them. ESPN and the other networks have made college programs rich with TV money. all the conferences have deals that pay the members millions of dollars that they never used to get, and there is a price to pay for all that money. Like starting times that suit the network, like changing starting times to suit the network, like access to the programs by the networks before the game to suit the network. I like being able to watch games on TV for sure, but it comes with a price. Only Chris Petersen has had the courage to call them out for what it is.
I was watching Game Day when they showed Chris Peterson's comments, followed by the criticism from the ESPN "braintrust", Herbstreit, Howard and Davis. Their point about the increased revenue was valid, but their direct response to Peterson's comments was IMO awkward and inappropriate. I don't recall Corso commenting, probably because he's a former coach and sympathized with Peterson.
Coaching calls... I watched most of the Texas game and our kicker missed a chip shot FG and another FG, either of which would have won the game in regulation. So in OT, Herman after stuffing KState in the 2nd OT and the KState FG kicker missing one of his own leaving Texas in a position where all they had to do was kick a FG to win. But clearly Herman didn't trust his guy, he kept pushing and eventually scored a TD to win, but I wondered what if there was a fumble and we had to go to a 3rd OT. I guess Herman was thinking, I'm not letting this kicker even have a chance to miss a chip shot FG, unless I absolutely have to do it because I'm facing a 4th down. He'd have been roundly roasted though if one of his players had fumbled.
I wonder if the west coast teams want the 12 o'clock east coast game? That would be a 9 AM kick off for their fans. Alabama vs Ole Miss kicked off at 8 pm. I got home at 2 AM after that one.
The Pac12 teams are used to late kickoffs, I think the biggest beef is that some teams from the West Coast (Stanford and USC) get Prime Time games or earlier that the rest of the nation can watch. Washington is almost always part of the 'Pac12 after dark' lineup. Those kickoffs are often 9:00 to 10pm CST. It's hard to make an impression on the pollsters when the pollsters are in bed.
Gary Andersen parted ways with Oregon State, and clearly he doesn't have the same agent as Charlie Weis, as he just waived the rest of his contract. He got an extension in Dec and was owed millions if he'd coached out the contract. But he walked away, very unusual. Unless they had something to hold over his head he certainly could have negotiated some sort of buyout instead of getting nothing. I wonder how he explained that to the wife and kids. :shock: