Bonk!
Tebow, bonked on the head. FSU bonked in the face. Penn State bonked (again) by Iowa. And Bucs fans once again bonked in the groinal region by their beloved team. Will the hurting ever stop?
Ralph
I am not sure if Tim Tebow should have been in the game so long Saturday night. But that doesn’t change the fact that he was, and that he got hit. The hit was clean, and if not for another Gator blocking in pass protection we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Outside of the big news, I didn’t write much down during the game. It wasn’t that exciting, despite the score. I do miss the Spurrier era sometimes in that respect. Even going up 31-0 in the first, the OBC would tack on three or four more scores just for the heck of it.
I did notice that Rich Brooks is a little teensy bit insane. You have a bad team dude. They make mistakes. If you’re going to blow out a blood vessel every time they false start you’re going to be in the ambulance right behind Tebow.
The only good thing is that the Gators are off this coming Saturday so that Superman can recover in time to take LSU to task in Baton Rouge.
Geaux Home
Dan Mullen. Danny boy. Come on dude. You know better than that. Even on a day full of upsets, you could have pulled the upset of upsets if only you had stayed with what got you that coaching gig in the first place. Run your QB around the end, and have him option-read to the wide open tailback off to his left. Touchdown. Book it. Done. Instead, the luckiest man alive, Les Miles, escapes with another win and gets to hold on to that inexplicable #4 national ranking.
Eighty-Six
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, supposed National Football League franchise, managed to gain 86 yards Sunday. No, not one one long clock grinding drive. No, not during a quarter. The entire game. I am now quite glad that I didn’t see it with my own eyes. Because I may have gouged them out. The Giants’ second leading rusher for the day, Brandon Jacobs, gained 92 yards by himself.
Now word comes down from The Wireframe Football that Josh Johnson will be starting at QB for the Bucs on Sunday. You read that right, Josh Johnson. Not Josh Freeman, highly regarded rookie QB and future of the franchise. At 0-3 this team is done. Sure, they *could* win 13 straight and roar into the playoffs. (I’ll pause to allow you stop laughing and clean up your keyboard.) History shows that this is a highly unlikely scenario. Since 1990, only three teams that have started 0-3 have gone on to the post-season, and none in 11 years. Exactly zero of them went to the Super Bowl. So the question in my mind is why not start Freeman? If he’s the future, then let’s get him the reps. Put him out there for some real game action. He’ll be well served by getting beat up by some NFL level defenses while nothing is on the line. He can make his mistakes now, when the expectations are low anyway.
I wish I knew what Morris’ plan was. What he was trying to do. How he was trying to go about it. Gruden wanted to win, now. So he went to the well a few times, and came up dry. But at least we knew what he was doing. With Morris, I just can’t figure it out. Any ideas?
The BCS Era
As I read through college football blogs and websites I see a focus on who is number one. And I start to wonder, do these people know anything about the BCS? In olden times, you know 1999, you wanted to be Number One in order to declare yourself National Champion of the World. Nowadays, you just need to be Number Two. You need to reach the Tournament of Two in order to claim your crystal egg.
And that it doesn’t much matter what happens during the season with regards to your ranking. The Harris Poll is going to switch it up on The Sunday Following Championship Saturday to essentially anoint the two teams who will vie for said glassine ovum. The Florida Gators were beneficiaries of such last-minute jiggering themselves following the 2006 season. In pre-BCS years Michigan would have likely stayed at #2 going into the bowls, and then we’d have had to wait for Ohio State to play whoever in the Rose, Florida to play whoever in the Sugar, and Michigan to play whoever in the Citrus to figure out who was “The National Champion”. But these are things you already know. What I’m trying to get across is that for as much chance as Boise State has to rise as high as #2, don’t get comfy. Because the pollsters can, and maybe will, knock you down for no other reason than they don’t think you belong. I’m going to go on a bit a few graphs below on why I think Boise has a shot at Pasadena. But if things go the way I think they are, we’re more likely to see Florida versus VT or Oklahoma instead. And people say that the human polls are better at this than the computers.
BJ & The Bulls
Okay. Even I’ll admit that was bad. But early returns indicate that the Bulls are not going to miss a beat with BJ Daniels starting in place of The Fauxhawk. What I expected to see in Tallahassee Saturday was a close first quarter, followed by the Noles’ defense burying the poor freshman in his first game. But instead, the kid lit them up like that stupid spear they plant at mid-field before every game. And USF just didn’t stop either. Their offense was on the attack for most of the game. And the defense just hit everyone as hard as they could from start to finish.
I just hope they can carry this intensity into conference play. Aside from West Virginia, the Bulls seem to only get up for big out of conference games anymore. If Daniels can keep this up, and the team stays focused on the Big East, they might just challenge Cincy for the Orange Bowl spot.
Running Items
Breath Of A Salesman
Nothing specific this week, but throughout the USF-FSU game on ESPNU, I found it very odd that the network could only manage to secure “As Seen On TV” type advertisers. While it might not be The Ocho, ESPNU is part of the Worldwide Leader’s family of networks, so you’d think they could sign up higher profile commercials.
Citi National Championship (not the Rose Bowl)
Florida vs. Texas
I guess it was inevitable at some point that the people who are paid to think about college football might just know what they are talking about from time to time. Here is your current coaches’ top 15 (since that one counts toward the BCS):
1. Florida
2. Texas
3. Alabama
4. LSU
5. Boise State
6. Virginia Tech
7. USC
8. Oklahoma
9. Ohio State
10. TCU
11. Cincinnati
12. Oklahoma State
13. Penn State
14. Georgia
15. Houston
So in my BCS rejiggering that I like to do you get:
1. Alabama/Florida - The SEC champ goes to Pasadena. Until the Tebow situation is resolved, one has to give the edge to the Tide.
2. Texas - Pending the outcome of the Oklahoma game.
3. LSU - Will not win out to reach Atlanta. They have not shown that they are up to the level of either Alabama or Florida to this point. But until the time comes when they do lose, they have to be in the discussion.
4. Boise State - Can easily go undefeated. But will that be enough to reach the title game? It will if Oklahoma can beat Texas in a way that does not vault Oklahoma above them. And they need to watch out for Virginia Tech. I’m going to spend a few extra words on BSU, because I think it’s intriguing what they need to have happen in order to reach Pasadena. First, in chronological order, they need to have Florida beat LSU. A loss by Florida to LSU probably doesn’t push the Gators too far down the poll. Behind BSU for sure, but not too far. And the Gators are likely to run the table from there and end up in Atlanta again. And I don’t see LSU beating Florida twice and Alabama once to be SEC champs. But if LSU looses, they would fall several spots behind BSU, and the Broncos would move up to the defacto #3 team in the BCS. Then they want Oklahoma to just barely beat Texas in a sloppy game. Such an outcome would take Texas several spots below Boise and keep Oklahoma from rising above them. Of course, none of this factors in the computers. The machines could bury Boise’s chances before any of these games even kick-off.
5. Virginia Tech - Had the Hokies taken care of Alabama, maybe they’d be up toward #2 or #3. But they didn’t so they aren’t. But they do have a solid case if they were to run the table, and see some other conference champs falter.
6. Oklahoma - If they beat Texas, then they move into the top 5. On this list at least. I give them the edge over USC because the Big XII is deemed stronger than the Pac 10. And over Ohio State because OSU lost to USC.
7. USC - If only Cal had won Saturday… But they did beat Ohio State, who can still win the Big Ten.
8. Ohio State -
9. Cincinnati - Presumptive Big East champion, for whatever that might be worth.
10. TCU - Two BCS busters, that’s unpossible.
Super Bowl XLIV
Ah… let’s see… New Orleans vs. Denver. Yeah. We’ll go with that for now. Can anyone tell me who is playing the best football in the NFL right now? I know it’s early, but by this time you can usually pick out four or five teams that are obviously going to be playing in January. But not so much this year.
Next Week: Who knows what Saturday will bring?
