The Sunday Blog is a little late today because someone stayed up way too late watching football on Saturday night.
Sorry, but it was glorious.
My faith in the game was restored by the great finishes in the late-night games.
THE NOT-READY-FOR-PRIME-TIME
COLLEGE FOOTBALL TOP 25
1. LSU (11-0): They were asking for the Mercy Rule in Oxford.
2. Alabama (10-1): Only Auburn stands in the way of, well, we’re not sure. See below.
3. Arkansas (10-1): It’s an SEC world and everyone else is just living in it.
4. Virginia Tech (10-1): Hokies quietly have moved way up the rankings.
5. Stanford (10-1): Barely escaped in The Game against Cal.
6. Houston (11-0): Nobody is sure how good this team is because of competition.
7. Oklahoma State (10-1): They had a chance to play for it all but missed field goals haunt a lot of coaches.
8. South Carolina (9-2): Say this about Steve Spurrier — it took him awhile but he made the Gamecocks a winner.
9. Boise State (9-1): Broncos close with Wyoming and New Mexico. Thanks, again, TCU.
10. Kansas State (9-2): Wildcats gained 121 yards and won. Who do they think they are — Denver?
11. Oregon (9-2): Such a great comeback wasted by a kicker.
12. Oklahoma (8-2): Hard to understand the defensive collapse in two losses.
13. Clemson (9-2): The N.C. State game meant nothing and Clemson played like it.
14. Georgia (9-2): Winning nine in a row deserves something.
15. Michigan State (9-2): They won one of those silly Big 10 divisions.
16. Wisconsin (9-2): Big game against Penn State this week.
17. Michigan (9-2): Brady Hoke has done a really good job there.
18. TCU (9-2): Horned Frogs started slow but will have a nice season.
19. Penn State (9-2): That’s one tough bunch of players.
20. Southern Cal (9-2): Like him or not, Lane Kiffin can coach some offense.
21. Virginia (8-3): Cavs found a way against Semis.
22. Baylor (7-3): Did Robert Griffin get back into Heisman race?
23. Nebraska (8-3): This team has baffled me all season.
24. Notre Dame (8-3): Surprised they barely hung on against Boston College.
25. Georgia Tech (8-3): Techies have the Doggies this week.
THE SEC FOUR-PACK
1. With one week to go in the regular season, it is very possible the SEC could end up with 10 bowl teams. Seven are already bowl eligible and because two will make it to BCS games the other eight tie-ins could be filled. Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Mississippi State need one more win. Vandy has the toughest task with a game against Wake Forest. Tennessee has Kentucky and MSU has Ole Miss. All three could lose, which would leave the Liberty, Music City and Compass scrambling to find teams from other conferences. And while Florida seems destined for the Gator Bowl, if Tennessee wins and Florida gets smoked by Florida State there’s a chance the Gator could take the Vols because they will fill hotel rooms.
2. I heard an announcer say Saturday that “nobody thought Georgia could be in Atlanta after they lost their first two games.” Well, anybody who looked at the Georgia schedule thought so. I’m not taking away from Georgia winning nine games, but when they face Georgia Tech it will be the first top 50 offense they will have faced during this winning streak. The seven SEC teams they beat went a combined 12-39 in conference play. Still, as Mark Richt said, it’s hard to win nine straight against anybody.
3. If Arkansas beats LSU and Alabama beats Auburn, who goes to Atlanta? It goes to BCS standings. And that’s where it gets interesting. Per SEC rules, “The tied team with the highest ranking in the BCS standings following the last weekend of regular-season games shall be the divisional representative in the SEC Championship Game, unless the second of the tied teams is ranked within five-or-fewer places of that highest ranked team. In this case, the head-to-head results of the top two ranked tied teams shall determine the representative.” If Arky wins a close game, could it jump to the top of the BCS? Probably not because Alabama hammered the Razorbacks earlier this year. Even if Arkansas did and Alabama was second, Alabama would go because of the SEC rule. And if the final BCS standings has Alabama No. 1 and LSU second, LSU would go. Crazy.
4. Steve Shaw, the head of SEC officials, released a statement Sundsay that said his officials blew the last play of the Vandy-Tennessee game twice. The end result was correct because the defender’s knee didn’t touch the ground, but the whistle blew the play dead and when that whistle blows, the play is not reviewable. I heard a whistle. It was almost a case of two wrongs making a right.
Only think I quibble with in your rankings is South Carolina being the top 2 loss team. I would put them near the bottom of those teams, even Georgia, who they beat.
I know the final result of the last play in the Vandy -Tennessee game was correct. My question is, how could the review official not have heard the whistle on the replay? Also, on the final play of regulation where the clock seemed to run out, how could the review official take almost five minutes to make his decision? After a minute or two wouldn’t it seem that there wasn’t indisputable evidence to overturn the ruling on the field? The officials got the final play correct but it should have never happened as the game should have been over. It seems like Vandy got jobbed.
I’m the reason for the downfall of the Oklahoma defensive back field.
Since the FSU game is imminent and considering the performance of the respective squads against Furman and Virginia, I think the losing coach should be fired. The state of Florida has gone from coaches like steve Spurrier, Bobby Bowden, Urban Meyer and jimmy Johnson to nonentities like Fisher, Muschamp and Golden.Miami is doomed with NCAA probation but surely UF and FSU can find better head ball coaches. Actually, basketball coaches Donivan and Hamilton are better than the football coaches and UF and FSU are supposedly “FOOTBALL” schools.
William, you’re entitled to your opinion, but not when your grammar makes you look like a moron. Come back and post again when you learn to spell D-O-N-O-V-A-N. But, not until then, ok…Your assertion that UF is “supposedly a ‘FOOTBALL’ school” went out the window when Donovan won his second national championship…
Interesting!! A reader of this blog believes that another reader of this blog is entitled to have and presumably express his opinion so long as that opinion is stated in a grammaically correct manner as determined by the first reader. Yes, I think I remember reading about that in the Constitution or was it the Glenn Beck Show on Fox-Fair and Balanced!!
William, your grammar was fine. And the point of Florida being a football school is 100% correct. How anyone could say otherwise is a dufus. Yeah, we like our roundball but if the team plays .500 ball, nobody loses sleep over it. When the football team plays .500 ball, people run around with their hair on fire. And it’s a great thought of a winner take all death match for the coaches. I keep hearing this three year idea for Muschamp. My question is why? What on earth would possibly make you think next year will be any better? Then we’ll wait an see if he produces another .500 team all the while killing recruiting? I don’t know about that.
Jimbo may be in bigger trouble than Muschamp if State loses this weekend. The only real problem with Florida this season has been a nonfunctional offense which falls on Weiss. If I were Muschamp and we have to go through another year a watching a sputtering offense then he has to get rid of Weiss or else he is gone. The same held true for Urby and Steve A. Urban just decided to retire but the righting was on the wall for Addazio to leave. Defense will be much better next year after a year of experience and added depth. Offence needs more creativity and more shots taken down field. You can’t tell me you weren’t encouraged to see those long balls and those receivers making plays on them. They wanna play too. Go Gators!!!
Every coach deserves 5 years, to play his recruits in his system as 5th year seniors. Also, when a team has great sophomores and juniors, they have trouble recruiting blue chip HS seniors, who don’t want to sit and wait. UF is now suffering the aftereffects of Tebow et al.
I’ve told friends that what I’m looking for from our coaching staff next year is a big improvement in discipline and mental toughness. I’ll buy the theory of poor personnel for another year if I see the guys that we do have playing smarter and more fundamentally sound. If it’s the same bumbling again next year, though, I’ll have to conclude that it’s bad coaching.
With that said, you can’t be changing coaches every two years. No one is going to want to come to a program where the message is that, no matter what the roster situation is, you better be competing for championships by the second year. If that’s what prospective coaches think they’re in for, we’ll be relegated to hiring another assistant with no HC experience.
It baffles me that when we did the coach hire…We had a roster full of Spread type players!!!! That system worked and i would have loved to see the spread type coaches interviewed….Why the kneee jerk to hire without a process!!! makes no sense to me to change everything…….We did the same thing with Spurrier leaving….We had just finished 10-2 and we hire Zook that decides to run a whole new offense….We had the spurrier palybook and they were already trained>>>.
the biggest mistake was weiss and second one was brantly
Bob, I think Foley veered away from a spread-based offense after seeing Alabama shut it down in the 2009 SEC title game. You other yahoos calling for a change in coaching should take a deep breath and chant while exhaling, “I know nothing, I know nothing.” This team is 6-5, could easily be 8-3 and favored going into Saturday’s game. A 9-3 finish would have/should have exceeded everyone’s expectations who looked at our schedule at the beginning of the year. Heck, we could have/should have beaten the top two teams in the SEC East, which means we’re real close to being where we need to be. Muschamp knows football. Give him a chance. That said, he’s probably going through his rolodex, looking under the Os for offensive coordinators. Whether he changes or not is probably his biggest off-season decision. Happy Thanksgiving, Gators!
76gator, I agree with your rationale completely. I am a big fan of the FAU Owls. They currently sit at 0-10. I truly believe if they would have just won those first 10 games, they could easily be 10-0 right now. Think of the possibilities we can develop in our world. Oh, wait…..I have to go now, Frodo needs to borrow my magic crystal to help him fight Orcs on the way to Mordor!
Muschamp’s poor year probably erased a guaranteed 3rd year as HC. Now he’ll need to show improvement next year. I say an 8-4 or 9-3 campaign in 2012 and he’s safe. 7-5 or 6-6 and he’s a goner. Quite frankly, I think that’s fair. There is no way the Gators should ever go 6-6 with their talent level, even with injuries to your starting QB and RBs. Beating FSU next weekend would help him out a lot. I remember a ho-hum 2005 campaign turning into a positive season with a whipping of the Seminoles in the final game.
My point, Mr. Bites, is that a break here or there can make all the difference — remember Jarvis Moss’ tip of the Cocks field-goal attempt and what happened after that? This year, remember the 2 fumbled punts vs. Auburn and how that game could have been different? Yeah, this UF team hasn’t been pretty to watch, and one wonders where the playmakers are, but they’ve been in every game but Bama and LSU. I’m saying cut Muschamp a little slack. And trade your crystals for a reality check, RealityBites.
If Muschamp doesn’t win a national championship next year, he will be an underperformer. This may sound like a crazy statement, but look at recent history. Stoops won at Oklahoma after two years. Tressel did it at Ohio State after two. Meyer did it at Florida after two. Chizik did it at Auburn after two years. Saban and Miles took three years at Alabama and LSU, respectively. This is now the norm at top programs. Florida is obviously a top program and deserves the best coaches. Hopefully, Muschamp will turn out to be a coach who belongs in the SEC.