Tag Archives: College football

Checking In

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Obviously, I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been really busy at work lately and haven’t had a ton of time to write for the blog. By the time I get home from work, I spend a couple of hours relaxing and eating and then I go to bed.

Despite my busy-ness, there are some very exciting things going on right now.

College football is back. I love college football and I’m giddy like a school girl. If you haven’t spent a Saturday in a good college town on game day then you haven’t really lived. And let me be clear, when I say a good college town I mean a SEC or ACC town like Athens, GA, Auburn, AL or Charlottesville, VA. A place where the town is partly built around the school. Okay, I’m going to have to stop talking about it because I don’t live in a town like that anymore and its making me sad.

Second exciting thing going right now is that EPL is back. I think as I’ve been less and less capable of dealing with the rigors of playing soccer, I’ve become more more interested in watching it on TV. This is not something that makes Cris happy. The best part about the new EPL season is that ESPN is playing an EPL game each weekend in high-def. Mmmmmm, soccer in hi-def. And scheduling wise, at least some of the EPL matches will be over before College Gameday starts.

And the biggy of biggies? In exactly two weeks I’ll be married. A year and a half is way too long to be engaged. Planning, at times, has been worse than I thought it would be, but its almost over and it will totally be worth it in the end.

The light at the end of the tunnel, in addition to being married, is a plane from St. Louis, MO to Florence, Italy. What I expect to be almost two of the most glorious weeks ever in Florence, Tuscany, Venice, and the Lake Geneva area of Switzerland. I. Can’t. Wait.

So that’s the news right now. I’m going to try to post more often than I have been lately, but we’ll just have to see how busy everything is.

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College Football Weekend Review

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Cris and I were out and about in Missouri doing wedding stuff this Saturday, but I was still able to catch the Florida State game and watch the five minutes of the Texas Tech game that was worth watching.

Couple of thoughts on those games.

Our defense played played really well against Maryland and Everette Brown is a beast.  I would not want to be a quarterback playing against him right now.  He’s now first in the nation in tackles for loss and second for sacks.  Usually, offensive players are considered exciting to watch and get a great deal of attention, but I gotta say that if you’re watching an FSU game, pay attention to Everette Brown when we’re on defense.  Its really something enjoyable to see.

Beyond, Everette Brown, the rest of our defense stepped up and played extremely solidly as well.  Our yardage numbers for our defense weren’t as solid as they have been at times this season, but the huge thing was we forced four turnovers and at least one of those was a fumble returned for a touchdown.

The offense didn’t do anything overwhelming, but played a very solid game and didn’t turn the ball over, which is all you can ask for.  Ponder was extremely efficient in passing and actually carried the load in the running game.  If there is really one thing that I’m not all that happy with is that we seem to be relying on the running game a little too much and Ponder is carrying a little too much of the load for my liking.  We were very successful on the option and they weren’t picking up the QB so he’s supposed to keep it, but I don’t like him getting hit a lot.

Last thing on FSU; huge, massive, monumental congratulations to Myron Rolle, FSU’s strong safety.  Rolle was named a Rhodes scholar on Saturday before he hopped a plane to Maryland to get into the the game just before the end of the first half.  Getting a Rhodes Scholarship is hard enough in and of itself, but doing it while graduating in around two years and being a standout defensive player for a major college football program is simply an incredible accomplishment.  The only downsides to his Rhodes scholarship is that his streak of games started was snapped at 32 and he now has to decide whether he takes the scholarship and goes to study at Oxford for two or three years or he moves on to the NFL, which is a distinct possibility.  No one knows for sure what he’s going to do, but I have a feeling that his desire to be a neurosurgeon is going to take him to Oxford and his football dreams are going to be put on hold or go by the wayside.  Whatever he decides, he’s what a student athlete should strive to be.

About that other game.  What the heck happened with Texas Tech.  To sum things up with three of the top teams in the Big 12, Oklahoma got handled by Texas, Texas got handled by Texas Tech, and now Texas Tech got embarrassed by Oklahoma.  I thought this was going to be a close game because I knew Oklahoma is a good team, but I had no idea that Texas Tech was going to be taken to the woodshed.  The really bad thing for Texas Tech is that they lost late and the other teams lost earlier so they will get in to a worse bowl game than the other two.

Next week is the big rivalry week for both FSU and UGA.  FSU has Florida next weekend and UGA plays Georgia Tech.  Florida is likely to take it to FSU.  We’ve been getting better, but Florida, as much as I hate to say it, is a really good football team and I don’t think we have what it takes to beat them yet.  I’m feeling much better about UGA’s chances, but its definitely not a definite win.  Georgia has a good offense, but their defense hasn’t been as good this year and Georgia Tech’s tiple option offense has given teams fits this year.  I think a lot will be dependant on the health of Georgia Tech’s quarterback, Josh Nesbitt.  His ankle has been giving him trouble and the times that I’ve seen their back up, Jaybo Shaw, run the offense they haven’t been near as effective.

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College Football Weekend: Pain is the Word

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This weekend was so bad I can’t give a real review.  This sums up my college football weekend.

Pick’Em was one of my worst records I’ve ever had in the game…ever.

Georgia got destroyed by Florida.  It was embarrassing.

FSU fumbled on GT’s three yard line with 45 seconds to play to seal the win for GT.  We would have won if we got in the endzone and would have had an inside track on the ACC championship game.

I realize that I have issues, but I’m depressed now.

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Just How Serious do They Take College Football in Georgia?

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Serious to the point that the school district where UGA is located has decided to close school for the Friday before the UGA-Florida game. The primary reason is that they can’t keep enough teachers in town to teach school that day.

I remember when I was in grad school there the university always scheduled fall break on the weekend of the Florida game.  I’m not certain that it was intentional, but it always worked out that way.  There was some voiced dissatisfaction with that plan because people thought it was putting athletics before academics. I have to admit that I agree with the counter argument, though. A good number of students are going to go to the game one way or the other. If you’re going to have a short fall break anyway, why not put the break and the game on the same weekend so students don’t miss class and your professors don’t have to deal with half empty classes.

Getting back to the public schools shutting down for a day and the reason for the shut down.  I’d be willing to bet that a good number of those teachers are recent grads from the university and they’re going down to the game with friends that are still in school.  UGA has a pretty big education program and I’m sure a good many grads flow straight into the surrounding school district.

The whole situation is a little amusing to me, but one way or another…GO DAWGS!

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My College Football Postseason Amicus Brief

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Its that time of year when analysts and amateurs alike start in with the complaints and conspiracy theories about the BCS and argue over whether D-1A college football should go to a playoff system as opposed to playing bowl games.  I enjoy the argument as much as the next guy, and in an effort to throw out yet another opinion on the matter I submit this brief to the court of public opinion.

The BCS was originally conceived because the national champion was normally declared based on the USA Today Coaches Poll and the AP Poll.  The problem came when those two polls didn’t agree who should be number one and teams had to share the national title.  Without a doubt the biggest complaint about the BCS continues to be that there is never a clear cut #1 and #2 to play in the championship game.  As ESPN’s Pat Forde clearly explains, chaos remains king in the BCS.

The BCS was set up to be more thorough, and conclusive incorporating, those two polls, a number of computer ranking systems that existed and a few other numbers thrown in to make it as accurate as possible.  In my opinion, the major flaw is the same in both systems.  The human element hasn’t gone away.  Let me repeat that so it can sink in.  The human element (the polls) still remain.  As long as the human element remains its always going to be screwed up and someone is going to be unhappy, particularly since everything starts from rankings that are established when no one has played a game.  (preseason polls are dumb, but fun)

The most popular proposal I’ve heard is to institute a playoff system in 1-A like they have in 1-AA.  I can’t say that I’m in favor of this and I honestly don’t think its going to solve anything.  All instituting the playoff system will do is shift the argument from the top three or four teams to the teams ranked eight through ten, as the most common suggestion is for an eight team playoff.  Let’s imagine the regular season ended today and look at the BCS standings as they are right now and you see a perfect example of the argument I’m anticipating.

1. Texas 8-0
2. Alabama 8-0
3. Penn State 9-0
4. Oklahoma 7-1
5. USC 6-1
6. Georgia 7-1
7. Texas Tech 8-0
8. Florida 6-1
9. Oklahoma State 7-1
10. Utah 8-0

Ranks one through four look fine to me.  All have played pretty tough schedules and have come through unscathed except for Oklahoma who lost to the best team in the country.  Then you hit USC at five who lost to an unranked, 4-3 Oregon St team.  I think Georgia’s loss to Alabam is much more respectable than that loss and should be ranked higher than USC.  For that matter.  Undefeated Texas Tech has a completely legitimate argument for being ranked higher than USC, as does OK State since their only loss is to Texas as well.  But none of that really matters since most of the sports writers are hoping to get a proposal from USC any day now so they can live happily ever after together.

While we’re mentioning OK St., since they would be the ones left out of a playoff at this stage, they could also argue that they should be in instead of Florida since Florida lost to an unranked Ole Miss team, which is laughable in comparison to losing to Texas by four.  Utah also has an argument being undefeated, though I’ll admit my personal bias against teams in non-major conferences b/c they don’t play as strong competition as consistently, in my opinion.

My basic point is that a playoff isn’t going to accomplish anything in determining 100% the best team in the country.  What if you had a situation where one of the teams that makes the playoff wins the whole thing, but got beat by the number nine ranked team during the regular season?  Should we really consider them the best team in the country if they can’t beat the number nine ranked team in the country?  Or worse, what if USC won the whole thing?  They couldn’t even beat Oregon St.

When it comes down to it, I like the bowls.  I’m a little bit of a traditionalist and enjoy all the hoopla surrounding bowl season.  If I couldn’t have New Years day with a bunch of bowl games I might get depressed.  The worst thing that’s happening to bowls right now is that there are too many of them and its too easy to get bowl eligible now.  Leave the bowls alone and stop clamoring for a system that isn’t really going to improve things.  If you’re going to make a big change, wait till you have something that is actually going to be worthwhile.

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College Football Weekend Review

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Cris and I weren’t around the house last weekend so there wasn’t any CFB weekend review, but I was back in the college football saddle this weekend and it turned out to be a very good one.

I’ll go ahead and get this out of the way.  We only had one missed game between Cris and I this weekend in College Pick’Em.  Of course it would be me that would miss the game.  Cris continues her hot streak and I’m not sure there is any chance of me catching up to her for the season.  She’s sitting around the 93rd percentile and I’m ten points back in the 87th.

Florida State played alright this weekend against what quickly became a beat up Va Tech team.  Their starting quarterback and one of my biggest concerns for the game, Tyrod Taylor, went down in the first play with a pretty tweaked up ankle.  Then later in the game their backup, Sean Glennon, who started at the beginning of the season went down with a messed up ankle as well.  Hats off to the third stringer, who hadn’t really played quarter back…well, ever at Va Tech came in and did a pretty respectable job considering the situation.

Florida State’s defense was pretty stout, but I don’t think our offense was very consistent or impressive.  Our O-line struggled a bit more this game than we have the last couple of weeks.  We weren’t really able to get our running game going and our pass protection didn’t survive Va. Tech’s defensive line very well.  Just looking at the statistics.  Offensively, for both teams this was a pretty mundane performance.

In the end we came out of it with a “W” and that’s the critical element.  We’ve now put ourselves in the driver’s seat to win the Atlantic Division of the ACC, as Wake Forest lost this weekend.

HUGE, HUGE win for UGA this weekend over LSU.  I didn’t get to watch this game as closely as I’d like since FSU was playing at the same time, but man there were some huge plays.  I’ll use this game to start out my copying of ESPN in handing out helmet stickers.  Each week ESPN analysts and bloggers hand out theoretical helmet stickers for a good performance, like many schools actually do for their players.  Thinking through the weekend, this seemed like a good idea so here goes.

First one goes out to Darryl Gamble who opened and finished the scoring for Georgia with interceptions returned for touchdowns.  He also had 13 tackles on the game while filling in for the injured starting MLB.

This one is painful but I have to give credit where credit is due.  Second sticker goes to Florida’s kick coverage teams for 2 blocked punts and a blocked field goal Saturday.  Some teams don’t block three kicks in a season and they did it in one game.  I hope they suck next week. GO DAWGS!

An finally, we have one going to Duke for their win in the IQ bowl.  Duke played Vanderbilt in a game where I’m betting the average IQ for the players on the field was probably rivaling that of an Ivy league game.  They’re also getting this sticker for matching their win total for the last four seasons on Saturday.  Let’s hope they can get a couple of more and actually get to a bowl game this year.

Florida State has Georgia Tech next week, which should make for an interesting game.  Ga Tech’s new coach, Paul Johnson, brought the option from Navy this year, but they’ve been successfully passing much more than anyone anticipated so far this season.  It will be very interesting to see how our defense matches up with their offense.

UGA’s game is one of the biggest in college football.  Both teams are ranked in the top ten, and after last year’s game, there is no doubt UF is going to be pumped for the game.  I don’t think there is any doubt that UGA will be up for the game as well.  I just hope that we’re able to take momentum from Baton Rouge to Jacksonville and that there isn’t a letdown for this game.  We go in with anything less than our best and they’ll kill us.

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College Football Weekend Review

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Little bit of a shorter review this weekend.  Florida State didn’t play this weekend, they have a game Thursday night against NC State and I wasn’t able to watch all of the Georgia game because I went to the the US Men’s national team game against Cuba.

What a freakin weekend of football.  Let’s just jump in.

Um, Michigan lost to Toledo…

Michigan lost to Toledo…

Michigan lost to Toledo?  Oh how the mighty have fallen.  I bet there are some WV fans dieing from laughter right now.  I really hope that Rich Rodriguez can do something respectable with that program next year, otherwise he’s in some serious trouble.

Why did they feel the need to change the name to the “Red River Rivalry” from the “Red River Shoot-out?”  Somebody please give me a good, reasonable explanation so I can stop being annoyed by it.

Oklahoma-Texas was a pretty entertaining game, but the reffing was definitely dodgy, and I’m wondering if the replay guy was drinking during the game.  I think the call on OU’s first touchdown should have at least been reviewed.  I think the call saying the defensive back for OU didn’t catch the interception in the endzone was a terrible call, and the replay guy is lost if he thinks he was losing control as he was going down.  If you can’t look at the replay and see clearly that the DB had possession until he hit the ground, you shouldn’t be in the replay booth.  I also think OU’s kicker has been taking acting lessons or has been playing soccer with Latin American soccer teams.

In the end none, of the crappy reffing mattered b/c I think it was clear that Texas was the better team.  OU was pretty good on offense to start the game, but they just couldn’t keep up with Texas.  OU losing their starting middle linebacker was an obvious huge loss for them because Texas exploited that hole for the rest of the game and was able to move down the field pretty easily.

I didn’t get to watch much more than that.  Georgia started out strong and did enough to come away from the game with a win.  This was a weekend of pretty evenly matched games that where the team I expected to win did not.  Missouri lost, LSU got killed by Florida, and Vanderbilt lost to Mississippi State.

Now we just look forward to Thursday and NC State and hope that FSU doesn’t get caught in this perfect example of a trap game.

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College Football Weekend Review: FSU Edition

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I didn’t watch a ton of football this weekend.  Cris doesn’t have near the interest in watching football as I do, and in order to keep the peace in the house, I have to balance watching football with doing “her” stuff with her so she doesn’t go crazy.

The one game there was no way I was missing this weekend was the FSU-Miami game.  For anyone that isn’t familiar, this has been one of the most bitter rivalries in college football, largely due to the number of times in the 90s the winner of this game was looking at a really solid shot at the national title.  Both teams have kind of sucked since FSU’s last national championship from the ’99 season so the game hasn’t had the national title implications of late, but its still always a hotly contested game.

Here’s my quick summary with some thoughts about what I thought were key take aways from the game.  FSU jumped out to a solid lead in the first half taking a 24-3 lead into halftime.  Seeing what happened to Wisconsin last week (gave up a 19-0 lead at half to lose to Michigan) I had a bad feeling Miami’s second half comeback was imminent.  Thankfully, FSU was able to hold off the Canes and get the “W.”

First, I think this was a better win for the noles than the score indicates.  Our offense was able to move the ball pretty effectively when it needed to, though there was an obvious drop-off in the second half.  Its really strange to think of the noles as a running team, but that’s what we’re turning into and if it gets us touchdowns and wins, I’ll deal with that.  Antone Smith was really solid with four rushing TDs and just shy of 100 yards, while Ponder contributed 144 yards on the ground, many of those coming from options plays.

The big problems we had that really, really hurt us came from a lack of execution and discipline.  I have a feeling there is going to be a great deal of work on the kicking game this week.  One mishandled snap lead to a safety and the ensuing free kick gave Miami ridiculously good field position, which they immediately punished us for.  On another punt, the snapper hit one of the personal protect guys, and the result of a total debacle of a play gave them them ball inside our 15 leading to an easy score.

The lack of discipline was seen on the blown coverage on their halfback pass touchdown and their kick returns.  Not trying to take anything away from Travis Benjamin, because he’s freakin sick, but we should have figured out he was a kick returning stud and not kick it to him or maintain our lanes much better in coverage.

I’m also going to put seven of the canes points on Jimbo Fisher’s shoulders.  Their second to last touchdown came on an interception on a play I don’t think should have ever been called.  Everyone knows how inexperienced our qb and offensive line is.  Why would you call any other pass than a three step drop from your own endzone in the fourth quarter when you have the lead, your defense has played well and you’re in the middle of a tropical depression.  Maybe I’m a little too safe, but I call a slant or a quick out or a run, try to get a first down, and if it doesn’t work, you punt the ball and play D.

Next week the noles have NC State in Raleigh.  Depending on which Wolfpack team shows up, it could be an easier or really hard game.  We’ll see.

Last two quick notes.  Having Gameday at a “smart-kid” school is awesome.  My two favorite signs from the day.  “If you’re an Auburn grad, one day a Vandy grad might hire you,” and “What’s worse, the economy or Aurburn’s offense.”  The second one isn’t all that great on its own, but it’s headiness in comparison to the typical invocations of Borat references makes it a classic.

I would be remiss if I didn’t note that Cris went undefeated this week in Pick’Em and beat me and my two missed picks.  She’s now beating me overall, and its a little bit of a tough pill to swallow, but it gets her more into the games, so its totally worth it.

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College Football Weekend Review

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What an unbelievable weekend of college football; full of ups and downs for me.  I already talked about Thursday, which made me incredibly happy.  Today was full of some welcome surprises, one small disappointment, and one huge one.

I’ll say it again just because it makes me happy.  USC lost to Oregon St. on Thursday night and they’ll be surrendering the number one spot to Oklahoma, as things stand right now.

It’ll be Oklahoma because my Dawgs depressed me this weekend by getting handled by Alabama.  They got shelled in the first half and just couldn’t make it back.  We dfeinitely didn’t do ourselves any favors with the number of dropped balls we had and a number of key injuries.  I’ll also give credit to the huge freakin offensive line Alabama has, which did everything it needed to do to allow Alabama to run the ball and score points.

That was the first disappointment.  The second was my terrible performance in College Pick’Em this weekend.  All the games aren’t over yet, but I’ve already missed two games and I’m almost certain to miss two more.  All of those games had big point values assigned to them.

Now let’s go to the happy stuff.  As a FSU and UGA fan, I’m morally obligated to hate Florida and Miami.  I’m quite pleased to say that both of those teams lost today.  Florida lost to Ole Miss, which makes me laugh, and Miami lost to a UNC team that appears to be on the rise.  I didn’t think UNC was going to be good enough to beat the Canes yet, but I’m a Tarheel fan this weekend.

I also want to give a big salute to the Duke Blue Devils.  Duke won for the first time in the ACC in 25 games.  My hats off to you, you Dukies.  As a side note, USC’s win over Virginia looks even less impressive since they lost to Duke today.

And finally, my Seminoles figured out how to win a game today by beating Colorado in Jacksonville.  Another very solid performance by the FSU defense, though they didn’t keep it as tight as I would have liked in the second half.  The offense was a little up and down, but I think I’d have to say a little more up than down.  The thing I liked the most was that we had a pretty good deal of success running the ball today.  Antone Smith did a very good job and broke a couple of big runs for touchdowns.

Christian Ponder was a little less than impressive, but he didn’t lose it for us and there is something to be said for that.  Turnovers and inconsistency in our quarterbacks are some of the biggest problems we’ve had the last several years.  Ponder did have one interception, but that was on a freak play where he almost caught a batted ball himself than ended up in the hands of a defensive lineman.

Next weekend is a huge one for FSU with a trip down to Miami to face the hated Canes.  Let’s hope that we can take a little momentum down there with us, and they aren’t looking to take out their loss to UNC on us.

All in all this was a bit of a crazy weekend for college football.  Its going to be very interesting to see the rankings Monday when the dust settles, considering three of the top four teams lost and a number of other teams lost to much lower ranked or unranked opponents.

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College Football: USC vs. Oregon State

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This isn’t a review of this game since the 3rd quarter just started, but I had to throw out that USC is losing 21-0 right now.  Oregon St. is bad.  Oregon St. lost to Stanford, who is also bad, and they got crushed by Penn St.

The point that I’m trying to make is that if USC doesn’t drop in the polls after this weekend, I’ll be heading to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to pick up the wedding gift for the marriage between the media/analysts and the Trojans.  Even if USC comes back to win this game, they were down 21 points to a bad team.  You don’t deserve to be #1 in the country if you can’t handle bad teams with no problem.

If USC ends up losing this game, I, my friends, will do a happy dance a-la Bruce Willis at the end of The Last Boy Scout.  It gives me great pleasure when teams like USC get beat by teams they shouldn’t lose to, like Stanford last year.

I also thought I’d share that I’m sending a mental health professional to Pete Carroll’s house after this quote in ESPN’s article about USC’s super-duper hard schedule, when he was asked how he gets his team to take their PAC-10 schedule seriously.

“What would we address about that? We have a ridiculously difficult schedule going through the conference. We don’t address where they are ranked or anything.”

He just insulted every team in the Big 12 and the SEC and half the teams in the BIG 10.  Maybe he means its hard to deal with the schedule b/c its difficult for him to keep his team from getting bored to the point they consider changing sports.

Well, its 21-7 now and I fear a comeback is on its way.  I still think if they maintain their #1ranking a spotlight will be shown on the fact that USC is the media/analyst darling in college football right now.  If they win this game, they will have beaten a less than impressive Ohio St. team, a really bad Virginia team, and will have had to come back against a bad Oregon St. team.  Not exactly the resume for the best team in the country.  I guess if USC ends up crushing Oregon St. in the second half they’ll have an argument, but you’ll still have a tough time convincing me.

I’ll probably have some more thoughts tomorrow when I find out what the final score is.

UPDATE: Oregon St. wins 27-21.  And now we do the happy dance.  Now the question that has to be asked;  How much does USC fall after losing to an unranked team?

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