Chaos Reigns. Again. Once And For All.

And, at this point is it really any surprise at all?

Interlude:

This is what is happening in Columbus Ohio (rough approximation) 

And In The What The Hell Department

Like everyone else, I sort of had a feeling that an Oklahoma victory over Missouri was inherently possible, if not probable. That being said, I still picked Missouri to win the game, because I sensed some sort of tangible improvement last week over the team that took the field in Norman. As it turns out I was wrong about that. It is not entirely surprising. What was surprising, if not downright shocking, was Pitt knocking off West Virginia. But more on that later on.

Big 12 Championship

The game in San Antonio was the least interesting game of the “major” games of the day. The game played out, by and large, in much the same way that the first match up did. Oklahoma seized control early on, and they never really relinquished it. That is not to say that Missouri wasn’t in the game because they were, especially in the first half. They traded barbs early and often, the poise and control of Chase Daniel was evident from the onset, but Missouri was never able to completely seize anything more than a partial share of the momentum in the first half.

The second half was a completely different animal. Oklahoma made some adjustments to what Mizzou was trying to do, the Tigers did not do anything in anticipation for the adjustments the Sooners brought to the table. It was as if Pinkle and company, dipped as far into their bag of tricks as they could in the first half just to match OU. When the second half came around and OU showed some fresh looks, Mizzou had nothing to fall back on. Ponder this stat for proof, Mizzou had two second half drives that were not 3 and outs. One resulted in a punt, the other a field goal.

Backyard Brawl

Did not see this one coming, no one did. Honestly, who would, not even Pitt fans I dare say. First thing out the gate. Pat White going down was a problem, a massive, team crippling, upset rendering problem. There can be no doubt about that, but WVU was in serious, serious trouble long before he went down late in the second quarter. The bigger problem, the problem that manifested itself very early in the game was the play of the suddenly porous WVU defensive line. On the first play from scrimmage LeSean “Shady” McCoy busted a 12 yard gain. A harbinger of things to come. Pitt just wanted the game more up front, on both sides of the line. The Pitt defensive line, which has been very disruptive all year long took it to another level tonight. Pitt basically applied to same game plan that Cincinnati used against WVU, but with much better results.  If you watched the Cincinnati game, UC was constantly in position to make plays for loss or no gain, but they weren’t able to make the tackles. What was the most shocking element, and thing that should be particularly galling to WVU fans is the fact that Pitt won despite never being able to attack where the Neers were most vulnerable, in the secondary. Instead they just pounded McCoy into the teeth of the defense again and again with surprisingly good results. The game is tough to define, quantify, or even comprehend, especially given the way Pat Slaton has been able to shred much more talented Panther defenses the past two years. Mystifying on a USC Stanford, and Michigan App State scale. For those keeping track of this sort of thing, Pitt is 3-4 in the Big East, the two wins coming against the two best teams in the conference.

SEC Championship

All of the talk coming into this game has been about Les Miles. Originally he was announced as  hired at Michigan, at roughly 10:30. Two hours later it was announced that he had “agreed in principal” to a contract. With LSU? WTF indeed. Then, approximately one hour later, Les Miles unleashed the second instant classic Press Conference of the year.

While it certainly lacks the duration, and classic comedic effect of the epic Mike Gundy presser, it made up for it with Miles calling Kirk Herbstreit, more or less, a hack. Miles address was his 300, to Mike Gundy’s Troy. All in all, awesome. But there was a game to be played, an SEC championship to be won, and, though he surely did not know it, a statement to be made about the national championship. LSU went out, without Matt Flynn, and with a still hobbled and ineffectual Glenn Dorsey and took care of business in a very efficient, very methodical effort though, still lacking the sadistic streak that has come to be associated with this Tigers this year. though It’s been missing since the Auburn game, which coincides with the health Glenn Dorsey, consider that insinuation made.

ACC Championship

Did you notice that Virginia Tech won the ACC for the second time in four seasons? Did you care? Did you watch? I’ll admit it. I didn’t, I was too consumed with the UCF Tulsa game, and Kevan Smith’s breathtaking performance. So yeah, go Hokies.

USC

This is a team that is finally becoming what we all thought that they would be at the beginning of the season, and this is a team that no one wants to play right now. Not when they are healthy and firing on all cylinders up front and JD Booty is as efficient as he has been the past two games. I am very secretly wishing for a Georgia vs Southern California Rose Bowl, that would be an absolute slug fest.

Peace, I’ll post something when the bowls are announced Sunday afternoon.

Sunday Musings: November 24th

Missouri

This is a team that is without a question, very very good. But there is lingering doubt in my mind about their ability to fend off a charge from Oklahoma. Are they really and truly a National Title caliber team? I say yes, but they certainly don’t look it on defense, even though there has been a remarkable improvement on that side of the ball. Chase Daniel made an interesting point last night on College Gameday Final, or whatever that bullshit is called. Missouri was very close to winning that match up the first time around, and they were, but they imploded in upon themselves, like Missouri has been oh so prone to do under the Pinkle. I have to look more into this team, this week. If they survive against Oklahoma, the match up with West Virginia looks awfully entertaining from where I am sitting.

West Virginia

Holy Shit. This is becoming an absolute buzz saw of an offense. Given the circumstances of the game, I am not sure that West Fucking Virginia could have had a better performance. Given Connecticut a lot of credit in this game, they certainly played much much harder than they did in their last real game (playing Syracuse after all is a just a glorified scrimmage) against Cincinnati, where they were dominated from the onset and where never in the game, mentally or physically. The Huskies gave it a go, and were decidedly in the game for the first half. But after that, Pat White put the pedal to the metal. What resulted was a firm step on the throat of UConn’s dream season and a simply dominating performance. This is not a team anyone wants a piece of right now, the offense is playing at an otherworldly level and, unlike last season, the defense is playing at a very high level.

USC

Reminded us all what they can do when healthy on Thursday night. The defense remained as good as it has been all season. The difference was the offense, and most notably John David Booty, who looked vintage for a USC QB, which is a hell of a statement given what it mean, and what he has looked like since the Washington game. A defensive stat for thought. USC has given up 400 plus yards once this season, 300 yards twice and has held to opponents to below 190 yards three times this year. Another team that no one is going to want to play in a bowl, though a USC OSU Rose Bowl would be fantastic. Given of course that USC beats ever schizophrenic UCLA Saturday.

LSU

If the people of this state don’t hate overtime yet, they never will. There are couple of things that stood out to me right away. First of all, massive props to Darren McFadden, Payton Hillis and Felix Jones. All three were fantastic in their own ways on Friday. But there is a point that needs to be made about the game of College Football. The most important position on defense is defensive tackle. A good defensive tackle makes a good defense very good, and a great defense elite. A guy like Glenn Dorsey creates a monster out of a good defense. But if he is not good to go, he is dead weight. Not to make excuses, but does anyone think that Arkansas would run that wild with a healthy Dorsey? Of course not, but he was not himself, and that more than anything was why LSU lost. Not because Gary Crowton went to the well one to many times with the slant against corners who were jumping routes all night long. It was because a healthy Jonathan Lugis was able to dominate and injured Glenn Dorsey at the point of attack all night long. In the end, LSU’s luck was going to run out at some point. They had been living on the edge for far too long.

Take Your Pick; Oregon, LSU

Ohio State is the best team in the country. That is something that really can’t be disputed at this point in time. Whether or not the Buckeye’s are the world beating team of legends many OSU fans wish them to be isn’t something we know right now, we can make assumptions about where this team stands in the pantheon of great teams, but those type of discussions are premature by any reasonable standard, and bordering on insanity given the tenor of this season. Regardless, that is a discussion that should be reserved for the morning of January the 8th. And so it is that, with  4 weeks remaining in the season, the defining narrative for the month of November is found. Oregon and LSU; Who ya got.

The complexity of the debate between these two teams is intricate, and thereby inherently complicated. But the general tenor that will be taken, by most, not so much in the media, but amongst fans like yourselves will boil down to a simple and epic conference debate, between what are, in my opinion at least, the two best conferences in the country. I urge you not to get caught up in that, because, frankly there is no proper answer to that question, you could take the top ten of the SEC and line them up against the PAC 10 and pretty much every game would be a toss up. There is no right answer to that question, always keep that in mind when you start/engage in/finish this argument at your local bar. As for Oregon and LSU, there is a lot to cover, so let us begin by laying down a statistical base for both teams

Oregon

• Scoring Offense – 42.8
• Scoring Defense – 22.0
• Rush Offense – 272.22
• Rush Defense – 134.67
• Pass Offense – 238.3
• Pass Defense – 269.9
• Total Offense – 510.6
• Total Defense – 404.4

LSU

• Scoring Offense – 37.2
• Scoring Defense – 17.4
• Rush Offense – 209.00
• Rush Defense – 65.89
• Pass Offense – 230.8
• Pass Defense – 168.8
• Total Offense – 439.8
• Total Defense – 234.7

On the face of it the old cliche about the unstoppable force and the immovable object does seem to apply here. When you look at the two teams, and what they have done to this point there are a lot of things that they have in common. Both schools fell victim to a top 10 ranked conference rival, Cal for Oregon and Kentucky for LSU. For both schools, that loss is beginging to have a larger and larger negative impact every week. Cal has been a wreck since that game in Autzen, going 1-3 and losing to Oregon State, Arizona State and the hypeschizophrenic UCLA. Cal just got off the snide last week against Washington State. Barely. Kentucky is doing the same thing that Cal is doing, namely sliding into the obscurity from whence they came winning one of their last 4, of course that singular win would be against LSU.

Both teams have run roughshod over their opponents, with the obvious and glaring exceptions of the games that they lost. Though, admittedly LSU has been surviving on the ability of its defense to be a brick wall while Matt Flynn continues to make a couple iffy decisions a game, decisions that often keep the score closer than it otherwise should be.

It is also interesting to note that the glaring weaknesses of both teams would be pitted against the other, with the fate of the game possibly at stake. Oregon has issues in the secondary. They have a middling pass efficiency rating, they give up a lot of yards, and don’t force an overwhelming number of mistakes out of opposing QB’s. The major weakness of LSU, in my eyes, is that Matt Flynn and the recently departed Ryan Perrilloux have made questionable decisions all season long. Last week’s game against Alabama was closer than it should have been because of Matt Flynn’s decisionmaking in the first half. He did redeem himself later on, but that doesn’t solve the problem.

In the end, this debate will center upon one thing. Who would win in a mythical neutral site game between LSU and Oregon? While I do subscribe, wholeheartedly, to the schema of the great LSU defense, there is one man who can make that defense and its collection of imposing Argonath of indestructibility look human, Tim Tebow. He is the only person who has had that defense on it’s heels for any sustained period of time. Florida could very well have won that game for want of a running game. The offenses of Oregon and Florida are eerily similar from where I am sitting in terms of scheme, personnel and objective. The one glaring difference between the two, Jonathan Stewart. I love Percy Harvin, and he can be used effectivly out of a set back possition, but he can’t simply be a tailback for any sustained period of time. LSU would move the ball on Oregon, quite effectively, but the iffy decision making of the dual headed LSU quarterback monster has come very, very close to biting them in the ass. On the other hand you have Dennis Dixon, a man that I made fun of in the summer.  The baseball didn’t hurt his decision making, and that would be the difference in a hypothetical match up. Right now I think that Oregon deserves the match up with OSU, that is, as always subject to change. So, tell me, who is your pick between the two, leave your responses below.

Les Miles Calls Out Destiny, Laughs At Death

Seriously, who else would have the balls to make that play call? I said before, after the weekend October 6th that there are only two things I thought I knew for sure.

1. LSU is the undisputed Titan of the sport.
2. Les Miles has balls the size of ten men.

The first may turn out to be true, it certainly didn’t look like that a scant hour ago. But this Tiger team has the feel of one of those “Teams of Destiny” from Hollywood sports movies, you know like in Hoosiers, where the team continually perseveres in seemingly untenable positions, and yet they continue to do it, time after time. They have to win 6 more games, which given the way the Bayou Bengals have been living on the margin the last three weeks is not given by anyones stretch of the imagination, but the way this team has made their own breaks it is inherently possible, if not probable. But when I talk about living on the margins, this is what I am talking about. As the cliché goes Football is a game of inches. Inches people, inches.

As for the second point, there really is no disputing that. None.

“I AM FUCKING CRAZY!”

That is what Les Miles was overheard yelling to his team in the locker room just minutes ago, he then slammed the door and did like five lines of taffy. Les Miles really, really loves taffy.

Jamarcus Russell

If you want to watch the most under rated Quarterback in College Football you should watch the National Title game and watch Chris Leak, who has been spurned by a vocal group of Gator fans in favor of Tim Tebow but that is another subject. If you want to watch another highly under rated player what the Sugar Bowl and Jamarcus Russell. He has been one of my favorite players to watch this season. He is going to have a monster Sugar Bowl against the coverage less Irish. The physical gifts have been evident since the 2005 Capital One Bowl. Simply speaking he is a physical freak just like Calvin Johnson and Adrian Peterson. He stands every bit of 6′6″ and 270 pounds, has shocking athletic ability for a man of his size, he ran for 70 yards in the showdown with Tennessee, and he can make every throw in the book. Like I said the physical tools have been evident from the start. Where has has come light years is his decision making. This year he has been nothing short of phenomenal as a decision maker. He has thrown for over 200 yards in every SEC game this season with only one game that could be seen in a truly negative light and that is the game against Florida. Bottom line, if I am an NFL scout and I have an older QB Russell would be my pick this year. Not the golden boy Brady Quinn, and certainly not Troy Smith.