I've been so immersed in Florida-Vandy and Northwestern-Iowa (on the P-I-P) -- thank you, GamePlan -- that I am late in posting our weekly Live-Comment Tailgate. Have at it!
Update: How 'bout them Northwestern Wildcats! Meanwhile, I don't want ANY griping from Michigan fans this week when I vote Louisville No. 2 ahead of Michigan. Any team that lets Ball Effing State hang around isn't worthy of the No. 2 ranking. (Not like it matters: If the last two weeks are any indication, Michigan is going to get its ass handed to it by Ohio State anyway. Ball State? Come on! I shake my head at you, Michigan fans... And don't give me that "We were saving it for the Ohio St game" b.s. Ball State -- Ball State! -- was an incompletion away from taking the game to OT. What a joke. Stop griping about some entitlement to the No. 2 spot and learn how to put away the weak teams.)
Update 2: You know what? Take what I said about Michigan and apply it to Ohio St, too. I don't care that it was a conference game on the road: It was ILLINOIS! 17-10 is pathetic. Anyone who thinks that Ohio St is unstoppable is simply wrong. Based on watching them today, they could lose to Louisville, they could lose to a couple of teams in the SEC, they could probably lose to West Virginia (not that we'll ever find out). And, yeah, they could probably lose to Michigan (but not likely). But the point is: Ohio St. might be No. 1 -- unquestionably -- but that doesn't mean that OSU winning the BCS title game should be some kind of given.
Update 3: I've worked through my frustrations with both Michigan and Ohio St, and I think I agree with the general consensus on TV and online: Today was NOT a day to find style points from the top of the BCS (1 OSU, 2 Michigan, 4 Florida). And yet, doesn't that make Louisville's strong peformance in a win over the No. 3 team in the country THAT much more impressive?
Update 4: Wow. LSU's win over Tennessee was a hell of a game (particularly given LSU's last-gasp TD to come from behind on the road in Knoxville, where they haven't won since 1988), a real showcase of how good the SEC is. Particularly on a day when so many of the SEC's "name" brands (Florida, Georgia, Alabama) pooped the bed.
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41 comments:
Where are the Manninghams? This Michigan performance is crap-tastic.
Considering it's 34-26 and ball st. has goal to go, i stand by my previous statement.
He was going to do that anyway haha!
The difference is Michigan played crappy and won. Florida played crappy and lost. It looks like they are in the process of doing that again.
Like mentioned before, everyone was griping when Michigan squeeked by their first two games and then destroyed ND in South Bend.
Wow, Northwestern beat Iowa. Poor Lenny. Do you think OSU's absolute whipping of Iowa on primetime ripped the heart out of this team?
Dang, Vandy almost pulls off the upset. I was so sure they'd do it. Oh well.
If I did rankings, I'd have OSU at 1 and nobody at 2. I'd just skip down to 3.
Vandy did play Florida hard, but camparing Vandy to Ball State is a tad extreme.
Anyone who saw the game knows that Florida was in control until the final 3 minutes when they gave up a long TD. Unlike Michigan who had Ball State on the 2 with a chance to score.
I will say this Leak needs to calm down in the pocket, 3 INTs on the opponents side of the field made the game close.
Go Gators.
Joe (Dayton)
There must be a lot of Buckeyes fans in Illinois because I heard a lot of cheering when that fumble was recovered.
Maybe the Illini fans are pulling for Illinois to tank so they fire Zook. Zing!
BTW, congrats to Coach Croom and Mississippi State for the win at Alabama today.
In other SEC news, Auburn is only up by 13 in the 3rd quarter against Arkansas State.
Zook is a great coach, we were so stupid for getting rid of him at Florida...
Auburn will blow out Arkansas State, not worries.
Joe (Dayton)
It's easy to score a Touchdown when the O-Line pushes the entire D-Line into the end zone.
OSU 14, Illinois 0.
No argument from me that today was a poor performance by Florida and it will hurt. But it was more Florida then Vandy, Florida still dominated for over three quarters. Three INTs on the opponent's side of the field will make any game close.
I still think Michigan is deserving of #2 in the country, however, comparing the Michigan game against Vandy with a QB starting his 1st game at the beginning of the season v. 10 weeks in is hard.
Vandy is a MUCH better team than Ball State.
Go LSU, with an LSU win Florida is in the SEC title game.
Joe (Dayton)
Is anyone else annoyed by all this Breeders' Cup coverage? yeah, ESPN, we get it, you're showing it. You don't have to waste all that space on the ticker or the front page. I'm not particularly fond of a sport where they euthanize participants while it's ongoing.
If only they had euthanized Theisman.... I know, I know, that was wrong.
The thing everyone forgets about Zook is that when he got to Illinois, he had two running backs and a bunch of crap. Why do you think he's starting more freshman than anyone but Temple?
The only people who think Illinois should get rid of Zook are the people who aren't paying attention.
We've held the number one team in the country to a field goal on their last possesion. Last year, before Zook's recruits got here, OSU'd be up 63-0 by now instead of 17-0.
Columbus is 5 hours drive away, and the stadium is about half Buck-eye fans.
Holding your cards close to your vest to not show OSU anything is one thing; allowing 26 points and a near upset to Ball State is another.
Drop UM to #6 at least.
The Illini shut out Ohio in the third quarter, with the OSU starters in. No offence for Illinois, but they have started sacking Smith in the second half. How about that?
Don't worry: I'm taking Florida down a few pegs, too. They are exasperating on offense. Right now, I think that there are four teams in the SEC that could beat them: Auburn and Arkansas, plus two teams that UF has already beaten (LSU and Tennessee). By the way, Tennesse got a game-changing horrible call on that replay that should have overturned the call on the field on that punt situation. They've been playing well since, but it would have been a different story down 14-7 at any point.
I'm impressed. I was there for every home game and many of the ZOok Florida road games. I wish nothing but the best to him, but his teams were so inconsistent at UF.
One week they'd look like national title contenders, the next week they'd lose to Ole Miss.
Joe (Dayton)
Rutgers 33, Illinois 0
Ohio State 17, Illinois 3
.......
For those of you who want to start comparing teams based on schedule and common opponents... be my guest.
Oh. My. God.
I waited for and waited for it, and Thursday, 11/2/06, came and went as I predicted, and now I'm stuck waiting again.
Oh, well - the world seems to end up catching up to me. I'll just wait for 11/18/06.
Shanoff, you really didn't watch on Thursday, did you? There's no way any football fan could see that and come away with the impression that Louisville is a great team, after that slopfest.
Ok, Illinois is taking Ohio State to the wire. This is pretty bad
Joe (Dayton)
Wow, I'm giving Illinois' defense some serious kudos here. Of course, UM has to be pissed because this will definitely be a learning experience for the Buckeyes.
Excuse me:
Rutgers 33, Illinois 0
Ohio State 17, Illinois 10
Dumb mistake by Illinois. No returner=ball bounces around=a lot more seconds run off the clock.
Game over. To Carabbas!
Jim,
I'm the first person to compare shared opponents, but two months is a huge amount of time. Would you still judge Texas based solely on the OSU game?
Gary Danielson is a moron. He needs to read TMQ.
Scar,
I'm glad you were creative enough to make a nickname for Dan..."tranny"...cute.
Some of us actually enjoy reading Dan's incite and analysis, so if you don't like what you read or feel it's totally incorrect don't surf on here.
Thanks,
Joe (Dayton)
We're going to Atlanta!
1st time since my junior year in 2000. Amped.
Scar, the whole "free country" thing tells me you have the intellect of my dog. Maybe Shanoff is too smart for you.
Joe (Dayton)
Wow, BC couldn't be playing worse right now. We just keep falling for these reverses and end-arounds. We're normally a lot more disciplined, but have just gotten burned on a couple long plays.
Credit to Wake though, they're playing great football right now.
-Todd (Boston)
WHAT IS THE FU**ING POINT OF INDISPUTIBLE VIDEO EVIDENCE AS A RULE IF THEY NEVER FU**ING GO BY IT?!? IT'S FU**ING RIDICULOUS THAT REFEREES CAN SPEND 6 MINUTES LOOKING AT A PLAY, AND THEN SAY THAT THERE IS 'INDISPUTIBLE VIDEO EVIDENCE' TO OVERTURN A CALL. WELL, IF THERE WERE INDIFU**INGSPUTIBLE EVIDENCE THEN YOU WOULDN'T NEED THAT MUCH TIME.
Okay, done ranting... but still, they need to change the rule if they're not going to abide by it. I'm all for a replay system, but they need to either make the process more efficient, or they need to change the 'indisputible video evidence' rule, since they never seem to abide by that.
If you watched the Wake/BC game, I think you'd agree that there was not 'indisputible video evidence,' meaning the replay official had to be 100% sure, that there was not a fumble on the catch by the Wake TE.
-Todd (Boston)
Big day in North by God Carolina:
Wake beats BC to go 8-1.
Hurricanes win.
And the Bobcats beat the Cavs! Here's a fun clip from the AP article for Dan:
"But James, who scored 35 against the Spurs, never got into a rhythm and was held to just 16 points. He shot just 3-of-13 from the floor as rookie Adam Morrison kept him off balance, forcing James to get his points at the free-throw line, where he made nine of his 10 attempts."
Anyone else concerned with Arkansas not able to put the Gamecocks away? I just get the feeling that Spurrier will find a way to get his team the victory. Not that we expected the Razorbacks to beat the Tigers and Volunteers the next two weeks, right?
How would the BCS look with a 3-loss Ark, 2-loss UT, LSU, and UF-Aub SEC Champ loser? Would a Florida-Auburn loser get an at-large BCS spot?
--Trayton (GT, Michigan)
(Reworded some things and removed some errors)
Hypothetical question...
A common practice in bracketology is to strip away the team names and just show RPI, records (overall, non-conference, vs Top X RPI, etc) to compare multiple teams.
Now, switch the conference affiliations of the Maryland-Clemson game and the LSU-Tennessee game. In both games, the lower-/un-ranked team won on the road late in the game.
Would your opinion of the game change?
13-12... what a defensive SEC struggle! Any team can play good defense and win on the road in the SEC! Especially with a wise senior QB! SEC is the best conference in the country, everyone just beats each other up all season.
28-24... just another crapfest between two ACC teams! Loose defenses let the offense march down the field. But then the QBs make mistakes to keep the other team in the game (5 turnovers, 6 offensive touchdowns). Just your usual ACC fare. Take away their BCS bid!
Take any two games, switch conferences, and apply the stereotypes. Let's see how differently we can paint the landscape of today's games.
BC losing to Wake last night was something that I think anyone who follows (or is forced to follow) BC football knew was coming. No Tom O'Brien team is going to lose only 1 game all season and just know they'd have a meltdown against either Wake or Maryland.
Tom O'Brien is the perfect head coach for a team if you want to play a late December bowl game in Wisconsin. He's the Herm Edwards of college football and until BC learns this and sends him packing they're doomed.
Personally I couldn't care less about BC and their consistently 9-2 football team but it was fun to see another Tom O'Brien classic.
I actually think LSU might be the best team in football. I know they have 2 losses, but everytime I watch them (including the Auburn and Florida games) they just scare the crap out of me. If there were a 16 team playoff on neutral fields I think they would probably be 1 of the favorites.
As far as the top teams this week go: Illinois and Ball St aren't nearly as bad as their records would indicate. Illinois has been playing teams real tough this year as opposed to last year when they were losing but getting blown out. SLEEPER ALERT FOR NEXT YEAR: Illinois in a bowl game.
And Ball St really isn't that bad either. They could easily have another few W's than L's if the ball bounced the other way, and their 1 bad loss (North Dakota St) is actually a 1AA powerhouse
Vanderbilt also fits in there too.
Still, Ohio St and Michigan shouldn't have made it THAT close but whatever.
Last, who cares who's #s 1, 2, 3??? As long as everyone is on the same page at the end of the year and has the OSU-Michigan winner and Louisville-Rutgers winner (as long as they're undefeated) as 1 and 2.
As long as everyone is on the same page at the end of the year and has the OSU-Michigan winner and Louisville-Rutgers winner (as long as they're undefeated) as 1 and 2.
I think it's pretty clear that not everyone's on that page at all. Hell, I know the coaches aren't--they have Texas ahead of Louisville still. Granted, I'm sure they'll jump Louisville up to 3 if they beat Rutgers, but it's a little silly at this point to rank Louisville behind a one-loss team, especially one from the Big 12.
My version of a top 10, keeping the end-game goal of figuring out who deserves the Championship berth, looks something like:
1 - Michigan
2 - OSU
3 - Louisville
4 - Florida
5 - Auburn
6 - Arkansas
7 - Rutgers
8 - California
9 - USC
10 - Texas
I guess it just comes down to a heirarchy for #2. In my opinion, Louisville has the inside track, followed by a one-loss SEC Champ. Then, if the SEC Champ has 2 losses (or, like with Florida, keeps looking like crap), the nod goes to an undefeated Rutgers. After that, a one-loss PAC-10 champ and a one-loss Texas are the other worthy contenders.
That being said, it looks to me like a one-loss PAC-10 team will pretty easily be #2 in the BCS--the computers love them, and Cal and USC both have enough left to impress the human voters too.
Here's something to think about: Right now Texas is ranked #4, behind OSU, Michigan, and L'ville in the BCS. If Louisville loses to Rugters, and OSU beats Michigan by, let's say, 2 TDs, then Texas gets to (presumably) play OSU in the nat'l championship game instead of Michigan for the sole reason that they lost earlier in the year. Am I wrong in predicting this scenario?
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