Fourth and Dumb

So, it’s late, and I have to be up in about 5 hours, so here’s the long and short of it.

Chris kicked ass again, the rest of us are beginning to fall behind.

The pressure to atone for last week’s guest picks falls on the shoulders of Mike Dame. Mike, once upon a time, was Chris’ freshman roommate in college (and somehow lived to tell the tale). A former AP poll and Heisman voter, Mike is also a former employee of Virginia Tech. His most memorable moment as a sportswriter, in his own words:

When Norm Sloan pointed at me in a press conference in October 1989 after I reported in The Independent Florida Alligator that his firing was imminent. “It’s like throwing chum in the water, and you frenzy like a bunch of sharks!” Sloan famously said of the media. “I’m not going anywhere!” Two days later, UF announced Sloan’s “resignation.” (God rest his soul, because I loved Norm Sloan.)

And with that, we move on to Week 5.

Read on for commentary and analysis. Continue reading ‘Pick ‘Em – Week 5’ »

Last week, as seems to be the norm around FnD HQ, was a strange one. We all think alike at times, which can be great (Oklahoma State) or disastrous (Oklahoma, Florida State), and makes things a bit streaky.

We started off well, but the losses by Oklahoma and FSU automatically put everyone down two games, and the Va Tech, Duke and Rutgers losses were also quite damaging. But now we have week 1 behind us, and a slightly more accurate gauge of who has lived up to the hype, so far. On to week 2!

This week’s guest picker is Ahmad Ragab from the University of South Florida, and is quite bullish on several of this weekend’s favorites. Ahmad is a graduate student at the University of South Florida (Go Bulls!), not-so-doggedly pursuing a Masters Degree in Religious Studies. Raised in Blacksburg, Virginia (Go Hokies!) he hopes to continue his graduate studies in some department to be named later, so that he can continue to live the sweet sexy student life, which has allowed him to enjoy college football at student ticket prices while simultaneously engaging in unapologetic boosterism. Ahmad attributes his unassailable authority as a college football commentator to his experience as a member of the Cornell University Varsity Football team (Go Big Red!) while an undergraduate far above Cayuga’s waters.

Read on for commentary and analysis. Continue reading ‘Pick ‘Em – Week 2’ »

1.  Whether Arizona will take the next step under Mike Stoops. It took five years, but the Wildcats finally broke through and ended the Pac-10’s longest bowl drought.  With that Stoops earned some well-earned job security…for now.  His sixth season is a time of change, as the face of the program for the past four years, quarterback Willie Tuitama, has exhausted his eligibility.  While the program is in no danger of descending into the chaos of the reign of John Mackovic (who is currently the coach of the U.S. national football team), it may be inevitable that they will struggle to earn a bowl berth in 2009.  For the good of the program, it may just be a hiccup on the way to the program’s first ever Rose Bowl in the next few years.

2.  Which Arizona State team will return in 2009: 2007 or 2008. Dennis Erickson’s first season with Sun Devils was a resounding success, as the vagabond coach parlayed an 8-0 start into a berth in the Holiday Bowl.  However, the big start only resulted in greater disappointment in the second year as the Sun Devils endured a six-game losing streak.  They managed to right the ship against the carrion of the Pac-10, but then got stomped by rival Arizona to stay at home for the holidays.  Star quarterback Rudy Carpenter is gone and the replacements are none too appetizing, especially with the transfer out of Jack Elway.  The program looked to be getting an upgrade by acquiring Erickson after tossing Dirk Koetter, but his third season will go a long way toward determining whether regime chance was the wise choice in the long-term.

3.  Whether California ends its 51-year Rose Bowl drought. If there were any year to finally break through to the roses, this is it.  The Golden Bears return tailback Jahvid Best and quarterback Kevin Riley and an excellent secondary.  After a moderately stiff non-conference schedule featuring Maryland and Minnesota, the meat of the schedule arrives, as they face USC at home and Oregon on the road to start conference play.  A 5-0 start would put Cal in fantastic position to win the conference championship and, perhaps, contend for a bit more than that.  They might be more motivated to avoid having to play catch-up should they start in the hole in conference play.

4.  If Oregon can bring back 2001. Nevermind that Joey Harrington had the misfortune to be selected by Matt Millen in the draft. He engineered a fantastic season that saw the Ducks head to the Fiesta Bowl.  Since then, though, it has been all USC in the Pac 10.  Recently promoted head coach Chip Kelly hopes to change that.  If the Ducks can survive a trip to Berkeley, the Rose Bowl is there for the taking with USC coming to Eugene.  It is a possibility that grows brighter should the Ducks also survive matches with the cream of Le Petit Cinq, Boise State (on the smurf turf) and Utah (at Autzen).  Jeremiah Masoli leads the way for a team that has a number of question marks, particularly the offensive line and receivers, that need to be overcome.  Can the Ducks stamp their authority on the Pac 10?

5.  Whether Oregon State can have a fast start for once. The Beavers had a miserable start to the 2008 season, dropping a game to a mediocre Stanford squad in the opener then getting smacked by Penn State in the eastern time zone.  However, the Ducks began to right the ship in game number four with their second consecutive home upset of USC, a win that unwittingly put them in the driver’s seat for the remainder of the season.  Granted, this was not the driver’s seat of a Ferrari, but a Yugo.  The confidence was low that this team could actually do it, but then something funny happened: they started to string together a fantastic winning streak.  They reached 7-1 before their dreams of the Rose Bowl for the Beavers since 1964 were crushed in the Civil War.

The non-conference schedule is kinder this season, with the toughest challenge likely to be a visit from last season’s surprise Big East champion, Cincinnati.  So the Beavers will likely get off to a good start.  However, they have the misfortune of paying visits to all three of USC, Cal, and Oregon.  So it goes.  Mike Riley consistently puts together some very good teams, so this is unlikely to be the last time Oregon State is not rated highly at the beginning of the season.  Could they keep the momentum of a fast start going?

6.  Whether Stanford will go to its first bowl game since 2001. The pieces are coming together.  After the devastating Buddy Teevens and Walt Harris administrations, the program is finally headed in the right direction under Jim Harbaugh.  The Cardinal are breaking in a new quarterback in Andrew Lick, but the schedule is not too bad if they can withstand the growing pains.  They will probably need to win six of their first eight games, because the finishing kick is brutal: Oregon, USC, Cal, and Notre Dame.  Stanford is sort of still living off that USC win two years ago, so they need to tag another superior opponent if they are to be taken seriously as a program.

7.  How much UCLA improves and measures up against the Trojans. Rick Neuheisel promised the end of the USC monopoly in 2008.  If he is going to live up to his words, he is going to need to lead upward a team that was dreadful offensively in 2008.  Exhibit A: Getting smoked 59-0 by BYU, which is terrible no matter how good BYU was last season.  Exhibit B: Kevin Craft, who threw an absurd four pick-sixes interceptions returned for a touchdown against Arizona State, a mediocre team that made the Bruins look like Washington State.  Craft finished the year with 20 interceptions and has rightfully been demoted in favor of redshirt freshman Kevin Prince, so the offensive should run a bit smoother.  Can this team scrounge up enough wins to go bowling?  Can this team keep up with their cardinal-clad crosstown rivals in their November 28 meeting?

8.  Whether USC’s run at the top of the Pac 10 will come to an end. While there is plenty of positive talk about Oregon and California making a run at the crown, most of the talk is negative.  Namely, whether USC will fall off the perch.  That is only warranted, considering to be the man you have got to beat the man.  Nevermind that USC lost a boatload of talent to the NFL; they have a boatload of talent ready to step in.  The loss of wideout Ronald Johnson will be significant, but if someone can step up to catch some balls, all will be fine in Trojanland. But the main attraction, the main blood in the water, is at the quarterback position, where redshirt freshman Matt Barkley has been deemed The Man at QB by Pete Carroll.  Can the Trojans’ pursuers take advantage of the potential growing pains?  Will someone outside of South Central keep them out of the BCS?  Will USC be deposed as king of the mountain in the Pac 10?

9.  How much Washington improves. After a 0-12 season, there is no direction to go but up.  Whether that upward movement is two wins, four wins, or (gasp!) a bowl game is a question of how high new coach Steve Sarkisian and returning quarterback Jake Locker can pull this program.  Wins really do not matter; this team just needs to be competitive in the games that matter, especially conference games, and start aiming for a bowl game in 2010.  A good measuring stick will be the Apple Cup game, one in which they lost to a team that was by most accounts even worse than the Huskies.

10.  Whether Washington State will bring up the rear in the Pac 10. The eleven losses shine much brighter than the two wins, the 60-point waxings defining the first season of the Paul Wulff administration.  Like their cross-state rivals, they cannot go down much further, but their recovery process could be more painful.  With no FCS teams on the schedule, there are no easy wins anywhere, meaning what was Washington’s fate in 2008 could be Washington State’s in 2009.  Can Wulff defy the naysayers and finish higher than last in conference?

The dust is settling on signing day, and the usual suspects are at the top of all the experts’ consensus winners. ESPN has it like this: LSU, USC, Texas, Ohio State, Alabama, Florida, Miami, Georgia, Oklahoma, FSU.  No real surprises there.

Les Miles and Nick Satan continue to work wonders by bringing in stars. With this class, luring big names like Russell Shephard away from Texas, Miles has proven that he doesn’t need Saban’s recruits to win. Keep in mind that if LSU had had a good starting QB last year, they could’ve likely beaten anybody. So they’ve reloaded. Satan kept his best players ins state and out of Auburn, and he held onto consensus #1 RB Trent Richardson.

Like anyone else watching ESPNU today, I got to see some clips of LSU’s Shephard; that kid is fast and strong, and I imagine that in fall 0f 2010 he’ll be starting for LSU, unless, of course, he lives his life like Ryan Perriloux, who got tossed out of Baton Rouge last season–therein lies the inherent difficulty of getting too excited about signing day.

Sure, championships are won based on what teams bring in today, but for every Percy Harvin there’s a Steve Shipp, a Gator recruit back in ‘95 who was the top-rated WR on everyone’s board, and by some lights the best overall player recruited that year. He barely got onto the field at UF during a stretch when they didn’t have the best receiving corps.

The one team that never ceases to amaze is USC. They pick up the country’s top QB prospect again, which appears to be a yearly prerogative for the Trojans. This year it’s Matt Barkley, who attended California’s QB assembly line, Mater Dei High School. Other notable QBs out of there: Matt Leinart, Colt Brennan, and 1964 Heisman winner John Huarte. Crikey. In the meantime, they can have verbal commitments broken by a top-five recruit like Manti Te’o or top-five OL Xavier Sua-Filo, and they still may have the best group in the country. What’s even more shocking is that some Samoan/Hawaiian dudes didn’t go to USC–isn’t it some kind of law for those guys to go to USC?

Okay, more to come. Stay tuned.

So, a college football blog should probably provide some attention to the sport’s biggest game. As an unabashed Gator, it’s hard for me to even get close to objective, but I am aware how razor thin the Gators’ margin was in that game. How different might the result have been had Oklahoma gotten seven on either of its two trips inside teh Gator five yard line in the first half? What if Ahmad Black doesn’t rip that ball away from Manuel Iglesias?

Of course, championships are won by making those plays, and Oklahoma didn’t make them. Add today’s announcement that Tebow will return for his senior season, and you’ve got a lot of happy Gators out there.

I figure that Harvin and Spikes are gone. Both should be first round picks, unlike Timmy, and both now have two rings. There’s no reason for them to risk injury and leave money on the table. I want them to go off and have big careers (please, Ahura Mazda, steer Percy to the Bucs).

Still, as is perenially the case, there are a bunch of teams with beefs, the two most legitimate of which are, in order, Utah’s and USC’s. Texas’s argument lost some of its strength because of the closeness of its win against Ohio State (who, fairly or unfairly, is now considered BCS dogmeat forever until it can blow away a Southern team) and by the poor performance of the Big 12 in the bowls. Utah, however, beat Bama more handily than UF did and went undefeated. Still, few folks not wearing magic underwear would seriously argue that Utah would’ve gone 13-0 in the SEC. USC, however, plays in a big-time conference (well, sort of) which shone in the post season, going 5-0. And then they laid a big whipping on Penn State, though I suspect that the fact that they let the Nittanies kind of hang around in the second half doesn’t help their cause too much, nor does the fact that right now no one expects the Big Ten to be able to win BCS games against anybody. As much as I respect what Utah did, the game I’d sure like to see is UF-USC. These two programs have to hook up sometime soon, and if they can do so in the BCS CG as undefeated teams next year, it will be the biggest college football game of the BCS era, and maybe ever. If Mark Sanchez stays, we might just get to see it; well, as long as USC can get by the ferocious Beavers and UF can get by its visit to Starkville, where they’ll not only meet up with former OC Dan Mullen, who might have some ideas how to slow the offense he ran, and where they’ll have to face their Mississipi Curse, which somehow for twenty years has seen them play poorly against teams from that state.

Now to find something to do for the next nine months . . . better go to Rivals to check out the recruits . . .

In earlier columns, I announced the matchups for this year’s hypothetical (as opposed to mythical) national championship tournament for the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and put forth my ideas for reforming the bowl system.  One set of details I left out of my bowl reform piece was how the national champion would be determined.  To wit, I did not mention a BCS National Championship Game.  Chris suggested that the game would exist, as the last game on New Year’s Day, but that was not my intention.  However, neither was it not my intention to necessarily exclude it.  In addition, I mentioned a loosening of conference bowl tie-ins, with the caveat that historical tie-ins like the Rose Bowl’s Big Ten-Pac 10 lineup would remain in place.

Based on my observations throughout this year’s bowl season, I decided to explore the idea of a Plus One.  For the uninitiated, the Plus One is a system where the bowls are held as normal, then a separate championship game is held between the two highest rated teams about a week after the conclusion of the bowl season.

For the purposes of this framework, lets have five BCS bowls exclusive of the BCS National Championship Game.  Keep the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange Bowls in the mix, and return the Cotton Bowl to the top tier of bowls after 15 years as a second class bowl.  Now is a good a time as any with the game set to move to Jerry World next year.  For the bowl tie-ins, have the Big Ten and Pac 10 meet as usual in the Rose Bowl, the SEC host the Sugar Bowl, the ACC host the Orange Bowl, and the Big 12 host the Cotton Bowl.  For the Fiesta Bowl, have the automatic at-large selection from the lesser conferences host the game; otherwise, if there is no qualifier from Les Petit Cinq, the Big East is the host conference.  Under this system, the 2009 matchups would have been as follows:

Rose Bowl: Penn State v. USC

Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State v. Utah

Cotton Bowl: Alabama v. Oklahoma

Sugar Bowl: Texas v. Florida

Orange Bowl: Cincinnati v. Virginia Tech

If you have been following this bowl season carefully, then you realize that something is wrong with these matchups.  Yes, the matchups have been put together in such a way that we effectively have national semifinals in the Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl, based on the BCS standings and using the pre-existing bowl tie-ins as best as can be done.  That will be the natural inclination of the powers that be.  But are the four best teams in the country the four teams in those two games?  What about USC?  There are many people who would have put the Trojans in the top four, even before their smackdown of Penn State in the real Rose Bowl.  What about Utah?  The Utes were the only team in the BCS bowls that came in undefeated.  After we saw how good they were in taking care of Alabama, would anyone outside of Columbus pick against them in this Fiesta Bowl matchup?  Even before their romp of Alabama, they would not have been a significant underdog against the Buckeyes.

There are then four (0r three, if you begrudge Texas for not covering the spread against Ohio State) worthy teams in play for two spots in the National Championship Game.  We are back in the same situation we were in December 7, except we have one more period of data to work with.  While the margin of error is larger under the Plus One compared to the current BCS, it still comes down to chance as to whether this system will work well.  When there are four teams that are clearly superior to the rest, and those four teams are matched up in two bowls, the system is guaranteed to work well.  However, when that does not happen, there is a chance that a very deserving team will be excluded from the national championship picture.  You cannot have both the full tradition and a non-mythical national champion.  The Plus One is not going to change that.

“I don’t think there’s anybody in the country who can beat us at this point.”–Colt McCoy, after beating Ohio State with a last-second pass.

“With all due respect, I don’t think anybody can beat us.”–Pete Carroll, after beating Penn State.

Boy, there’s nothing like the confidence of folks whose teams are finished. McCoy’s comment particularly galls me, considering he said this after needing a late comeback and a ridiculously close spot on a fourth down conversion to beat now-perennial BCS doormat Ohio State. Seriously, does barely beating the Buckeyes have some cache I’m not aware of, giving one the right to suggest his team is unbeatable?

Both McCoy and Carroll have legit beefs with the BCS selection process this year, but only the Trojans made a true statement about their snub, and even their win is at least a tiny bit suspect, considering how poorly the Big Ten fared in bowls this year and how bad they’ve been in the BCS the last few years.

I’ll tell you this much: watching Texas whiff on tackle attempts at Beanie Wells and Terrelle Pryor has to again call into question Big 12 defenses. Fortunately for the Gators, they have what Oklahoma DB Dominique Franks rates as the fourth-best quarterback in the Big 12–take that Stephen McGee and Joe Ganz!

Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot.

Ole Miss didn’t just beat Texas Tech, they handled them on both sides of the ball. This is the same TT offense that scored a ton of points on Texas and got over 30 on Oklahoma, but the Rebels got tons of pressure on Harrell and gouged them with the run game. Does this tell us that Florida will be able to run consistently on Oklahoma and get pressure on Bradford with just the front four, allowing LBs and DBs to stay in coverage?

But wait–what about Utah dominating Bama? The Utes got seven sacks on JP Wilson and locked down Glen Coffee in ways that the Gators clearly couldn’t.

Maybe none of this tells us too much. I know I was personally annoyed at the ass-kissing that Brent Musburger and my wife’s favorite sportscaster, Kirk Herbstreit, laid on the Trojans, continually suggesting that USC had gotten screwed and would frighten either Oklahoma or UF. Sure, it sucks that USC lost the one-loss beauty pageant, but their loss was indeed to Oregon State, a team that got whipped by Oregon and also lost to Utah, who is most obviously the team that has gotten screwed this year. And now we hear a lot about how the Pac 10 went undefeated in the bowls, but look at the opponents: OSU beat Pitt in the snorefest of all snorefests, Oregon won a very entertaining game over Okie State, though after TT’s loss that may not look quite as impressive, Arizona beat an overrated BYU, Cal beat a lackluster Miami team, and USC earned the honor of laying the traditional holiday ass-whupping on the Big 10 champ. Big deal.

Chris Borglum, ladies and gentlemen. You can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him.

He is…dare I say it…en fuego.

Commentary and analysis after the jump. Continue reading ‘Pick ‘Em – Bowl Week Extravaganza – Part 3’ »

Crap. Well, it had to happen.

Dan Mullen, the Gators’ OC, has accepted the job at Miss. State. If they couldn’t get Chris Petersen from Boise State, Mullen is the next most obvious candidate to bring innovative offensive concepts (like the forward pass) to Starkville, a town not surprised by scores like 3-2 against the hometown boys.

Apparently it’s not clear whether Mullen will stay with the Gators through the BCS Championship game, but that sure seems unlikely–MSU doesn’t have a bowl game to distract its focus from getting ready for the 09 season, and I doubt Urban Meyer wants an OC who’s distracted.

If Auburn comes through with a big-time coach, as one assumes they will considering the deep pockets of boosters there, the SEC becomes that much more ridiculously tough. I’m not sold on Lane Kiffin as a head coach, but he probably can’t do much worse than Fulmer did the last couple years, and he was a big-time recruiter for USC. It all makes for an exciting off-season.

In further scary news for Gator Nation, rumors are swirling that UCF will dump George O’Leary and go after Charlie Strong, the DC. That’s the price of success, of course. Meyer says he keeps an updated list of contacts for replacement of assistants, so let’s hope it’s handy.