It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these, but the smorgasbord of football over the last several days is too good to go unacknowledged. A ton happened so I’m just going to quickly run through a couple of thoughts on each one.
Let’s get started with my favorite part of the weekend:
What a depressing weekend of football. I didn’t post about last week, because their just wasn’t that much exciting that happened. Most of the teams that I cared about were still playing scrimmage games, so I wanted to wait until they had a real test before I commented on their success or failures.
UGA lost to SC, which is depressing. I just don’t like SC. Gamecock fans are generally just annoying and they’re coach is a huge ass.
FSU got spanked by Oklahoma and any fantasies Ponder had of winning the Hiesman ended today. I knew our defense was going to be a problem, but our offense, which was supposed to be our strength just didn’t show up.
Given the rest of the ACCs goose egg of wins today, maybe the Noles can at least win the conference. Yeah, I doubt it too.
With the awesomeness of this college football weekend, I’m a little surprised at myself for how long its taken me to get this post up. Huge win for FSU, unexpected win for UGA, and USC lost its third game this year. I think the college football gods are starting to know that I see the end of the season coming and I’m getting sad so they gave me a little gift.
We interrupt our regularly scheduled honeymoon post to bring you some thoughts on the weekend of college football.
I know we’re half-way through the season, but this is the first full day of football that I’ve gotten to watch from Gameday through the games that I wanted to watch. I think I’m sitting on about eight straight hours of football right now. Life is almost good.
I say almost good because my teams are kinda suckin right now. This was the weekend of crushed freakin hope.
Florida State looked ugly through most of the game. They played really well towards the end of the game and were able to tie it up in the fourth quarter, but that was just to give me hope they could stomp on at the end of the game. I called it at half-time, too. I said they were going to play well in the second half and get it close enough to give me hope and then screw it up in the end.
Their defense just isn’t good enough to make us a good team right now. Its really frustrating because we finally have a decent enough offense to make us a team that can compete. We give up way too many damn big plays, and while our offense has gotten better, we still shoot ourselves in the foot by fumbling and dropping balls.
Georgia did the exact same thing. Both LSU and Georgia played pretty crappy through most of the game. Then they get to the fourth quarter and points start flying around. We led late and then gave up a huge run for a touchdown. Simply depressing.
At least one team that someone in this family likes won. Notre Dame, Cris’ team, was able to pull off a pretty exciting win in overtime over Washington.
As depressing as the games were, it was still great to be able to sit and watch lot of a football during the day. I love college football.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
The voice of UGA football for the last…well, forever, announced that he was retiring today. Anyone who is a fan of college football in the South knows about Larry Munson. He became the voice of UGA football in 1966 and finally decided to hang up his microphone today due to failing health.
I can’t provide a better tribute than Chris Low at ESPN did, but I feel inspired to share one of my favorite college football memories, which Larry Munson was a big part of.
I have to admit that I wasn’t one of the diehards that would listen to Larry on the radio instead of the TV announcers while watching UGA games, but the times I did hear him on the radio were usually memorable. The last time I heard a Larry Munson broadcast turned out to be one of his most famous calls, of which he had many.
While I was in grad school at UGA, my brother was living and working on Atlanta. If I remember correctly, I had gone to my brother’s for a party he was having at his house on Friday night one random weekend. Driving back to Athens that Saturday, I turned on the Bulldog Network to her the call of the UGA-Tennessee game. The game was a pretty close one and it went down to the wire.
Time was starting to run down in the forth quarter as I was getting back into Athens and Georgia was down 24-20. Georgia got the ball back for one final drive as I pulled into my neighborhood, and I thought if I hurried I could make it inside to watch the end of the game on the TV. I pulled into my drive and just as I was about to turn off the car something stopped me from cutting the engine and I just sat and listened to the last couple of plays on the radio. The video below has the audio for what I heard over the video from the broadcast that day.
The “hobnail boot” line is one that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. I wasn’t exactly sure what Larry was talking about, and I’m not sure he did either, but it seemed like the perfect descriptor for the occasion. I don’t have as many memories listening to Larry Munson as I would like, but this one will always be filed away in my list of college football favorites.
And to Larry, hunker down and Godspeed.