Week 5 is in the books and there were several individual performances that were fantastic and very few team performances to write home about. None of the Top Ten "ranked" teams played particularly well unless you count the great halftime adjustments Chip Kelly and Steve Spurrier made to silence their opponents and secure the win. Alabama trailed for the first time this season, to Ole Miss, only to respond by returning their first kickoff for a touchdown since Trent Richardson did it in 2010. The Tide did not look good in that game and perhaps this coming bye week comes at a good time for Saban to straighten some things out on both sides of the ball. LSU played poorly for the second straight week and this time against an FCS school (Towson). They've committed 21 penalties and 5 turnovers the last two weeks against, what should have been, vastly inferior opponents. FSU and South Carolina struggled against teams, South Florida and Kentucky, who have losses to Ball State and Western Kentucky respectively. Individually, quarterbacks Geno Smith (WVU), Nick Florence (Baylor), and Zac Dysert (Miami (OH)) and several of the wide receivers to whom they threw had record-breaking days. Dysert became the first FBS player to ever have thrown for 500 yards (516) and rush for 100 yards (108) in the same game! That's not easy to do and I'm glad he didn't explode like that against my Buckeyes in Week 1; I'm guessing Terry Bowden wasn't thrilled it happened against his Zips though.
1. Come on, Ref! It's 1st and 10 at the Tennessee 35 after a fair catch from a Georgia punt with 8 seconds left to go in the game. The Volunteers are trailing 51-44. Tyler Bray drops back knowing he needs to cross midfield on this first attempt if they're going to have a reasonable chance and he throws to a receiver running an out route. The ball floats a bit inside, instead of towards the sideline, and Georgia's Sanders Commings makes a play on it. The referees rule it an interception at the Georgia 48 yard line. I immediately said it was incomplete because it seemed clear to me the ball hit the ground. Initially, I'm wasn't overly concerned because I was sure it would be overturned upon review; especially after seeing the replay on the screen. This play was never reviewed! If the play is called correctly, or overturned after review, Bray once again has the ball at the 35 with 8 seconds remaining. That's enough time for a similar route (something to cross midfield with the aim at getting out of bounds), and then a shot at the end zone. Am I saying they would have pulled off a an intermediate out route followed by a 45-50 yard passing touchdown? Not at all. I am saying, however, they should have gotten a chance at it. How do the referees not review a play during an attempt at a game-tying drive in a game that has scored a combined 95 points? Tennessee had no more timeouts so it couldn't have forced a review. Derek Dooley's Volunteers play a full four quarters for the first time this season and it ends like this? His orange pants are easing into the hot seat and this error in judgment by the referees isn't helping matters.
2. Why take away from your team? It seems like these foolish reactions happen whether the team wins or loses. Last year, after the Boston Bruins beat the Vancouver Canucks for the Stanley Cup (A hockey reference from me? Wow.), riots ensued in Vancouver injuring 140 people, and nine police officers, and resulted in over a hundred arrests. 17 cars, including police cars, were set on fire. Saturday, after the West Virginia/Baylor game, police report there were seven street fires set in Morgantown, West Virginia. One of the fires reportedly spread to three parked cars and destroyed them; it additionally caused approximately $1000 worth of heat damage to the exterior of a house. West Virginia won, folks! What's going to happen if the Mountaineers ever play for a national title? Win or lose, it seems people need to hide their cars. I don't understand why WVU fans (I'm assuming there aren't a lot of Baylor Bears fans in Morgantown) would do anything to take away from such a magnificent and record-breaking performance by quarterback Geno Smith. He threw for 656 yards and 8 touchdowns in his team's Big 12 debut. He threw two more touchdowns than he did incompletions; not interceptions, mind you, incompletions! Smith is still without an interception on the season. He's getting Heisman hype, which isn't surprising with today's media and fan overreaction so early in the season, but he just started his conference play. Let's calm down and see how it plays out before we hand him the trophy. I came across a great piece on Smith in the New York Times; it's a nice read so you should check it out. Finally, to the people of Morgantown, West Virginia Mountaineer fans and sports fans worldwide: let's calm down a little bit with the riots, fires, tree-poisoning, and lewd behavior. You're doing nothing but taking away from the team(s) and sport(s) you love.
3. The second biggest surprise team thus far is … Oregon State who is right behind Louisiana-Monroe right now. I realize it is still a relatively small sample size, as the Beavers have only played three games, but no one could have predicted they’d be undefeated through Week 5. If it weren’t for Hurricane Isaac postponing their game against Nicholls State (now will be played on 12/1), I think it’s safe to assume they’d be sitting at 4-0 right now. What Isaac has done, however, is improve their resumé thus far because none of their three wins include “powderpuff” opponents and already includes two conference wins. It’s far too early to know for sure but it looks like the Pac-12 North could actually be fairly strong and four teams deep, which is pretty incredible considering that going into the season the thought was that only Oregon and Stanford would be strong teams with Washington having the potential for a few upsets behind the play of quarterback Keith Price. You’ll notice, however, that the Beavers haven’t beaten anyone convincingly, at least on the scoreboard (they held Wisconsin scoreless for 58 minutes), so they may cause Vegas fits all season. Sophomore quarterback Sean Mannion has burst onto the scene; after three games he has a higher yards-per-attempt (8.6 yards), touchdown-to-interception ratio (6:1), and passer rating (150.5) than such better-known names as Zach Mettenberger, Denard Robinson, Tyler Bray,and Terry Bridgewater. Do I think that statement will still be true at season’s end? Probably not, but I didn’t think it’d be true at this point either. Oregon State’s coach, Mike Riley, went to Twitter (@Coach_Riley) after last week’s win over Arizona and expressed his … umm … excitement: “How bout them Beavers!!!!! Huge guts, never give up! #BeaverJuice #GoBeavs”. Beaver Juice? I’ll let the jokes tell themselves, but I know that I’ll be on the lookout for his tweets for the rest of the season and I know you will too. I’ll be following him on Twitter and the Oregon State Beavers on the field every week.
4. Ever heard of Stony Brook? If you follow college baseball you’ve probably heard of them as they defeated LSU to advance to the College World Series to become only the second team to be the fourth seed in its region to advance to the CWS. Stony Brook University is located in Stony Brook, New York and is an FCS school out of the Big South Conference (will join the Colonial Athletic Association in 2013) and were conference champions last season and made the second round of the FCS playoffs. This week the Seawolves beat FBS team Army 23-3 and addet yet another FCS team victory over an FBS team in 2012. Their roster also features several former FBS players this season. Former Iowa star running back Marcus Coker, former Maryland wide receiver Adrian Coxson, and former Minnesota defensive lineman Leston Simpson are all starting this season. The Seawolves are 4-1 this season with their only loss being an 11-point loss to Syracuse in Week 3. Their win over Army, while impressive due to it being over an FBS school should be put in a little bit of perspective. The Black Knights are winless thus far despite being second in the nation in rushing yards (due to their dependence on the triple-option). I always give a team credit for beating a triple-option team because of how rare the offense is and how difficult it is to emulate in practice. It was also pretty impressive that the Seawolves rushed for the same number of yards, 273, as the Black Knights. Congratulations to the Stony Brook Seawolves on their big win and good luck as they enter their conference schedule.
5. Coaches can’t be watching these games. Looking at the Coaches Poll after this week and comparing it to the poll the week before makes it even more evident that they’re not actually watching these games but instead placing their votes based on reputation and glancing at scoreboards. Let’s face it, part of that is because coaches don’t have the time to do what they’d need to do to make reasonable decisions to rank teams, especially outside of their team’s conference. I’d venture to guess that many of them have someone else from their athletic department placing those votes anyway. The trouble is that this poll is part of the BCS formula and we’re two weeks away from first BCS poll of the season. The only movement in the Top Ten from last week to this week was that they removed Stanford after their loss and moved Texas and Notre Dame up a spot to replace that spot. The first-place votes are distributed exactly the same with Alabama receiving 57, LSU receiving 1, and Florida State receiving 1. Given that Les Miles and Jimbo Fisher each have votes, I think we know who voted for LSU and Florida State number 1. There was nothing impressive about Alabama’s game against Ole Miss, LSU’s game against Towson, Florida State’s game against South Florida, or South Carolina’s game over Kentucky. Georgia, a team that prides itself of defensive play, ended up in a shootout against a Tennessee but at least learned they can play that kind of game. Oregon never trailed but let a .500 team hang with them in the first half; however, they made some impressive adjustments and pulled away in the second half. I suppose the voters could have been thinking that all of the Top 6 had mediocre performances this week so let’s just leave everything the same. I’m shocked LSU didn’t drop after struggling against an FCS school and that Alabama didn’t lose some first-place votes after their performance against Ole Miss. It wasn’t so underwhelming to drop a spot, but I’d have thought some voters would have second guessed their assertion that the Tide are far and away the top team. I’m guessing, though, that most of them didn’t watch the game and just saw the final score. Again, I don’t totally blame them, but it concerns me that his poll has such an important role and and isn’t realistically taken as serious as it should given it’s impact on the national championship and bowl selections.
Bonus: USC plays at Utah on Thursday night. The difference appears to be whether center Khaled Holmes will play with his ankle injury. One may remember that Holmes was out against Stanford and the Cardinal exploited that weakness the whole game and his absence clearly affected the play of the rest of the offensive line (look at the left tackle’s play that night). Utah is in a great position to take advantage of it as well if Holmes is out as they have a defensive lineman that may end up being a first-round pick named Star Lotulelei. So if Holmes doesn’t play, USC will be on upset alert. However, the Utes don’t have a strong secondary so of Barkley can get a little bit of time to throw he may be able to even overcome the Holmes absence. If Holmes starts, the Trojans will win. If not, it will either be a relatively close USC win or a title-contending eraser of a loss.
No comments:
Post a Comment