Posted by intellectualgridiron in Sports.
Tags: Akron, Arizona, Arkansas State, Army, Auburn, Ball State, Bayou Bengals, Big East, Big XII, Bill Curry, Bill Snyder, Bo Pelini, Bobby Petrino, Boston College, Cardinals, Carrier Dome, Charlie Strong, college, Colorado, Commonwealth Stadium, Crimson Tide, Cyclones, Danny Hope, Dave Doeren, DeWayne Walker, FCS, Florida, football, Gary Patterson, Gene Stallings, Houston, Hyde, Iowa State, Irish, Jekyll, Jim Colletto, Joker Phillips, Kansas State, Kentucky, Longhorns, Lou Holtz, Louisiana-Monroe, Louisville, Loveliest Little Village, LSU, Memphis, Mississippi State, Missouri, Mitch Barnhart, Mizzou, Mountaineers, N.C. State, NCAA, Nebraska, New Mexico State, Nick Saban, North Carolina State, Northern Illinois, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Orange Bowl, Oregon State, Paul Chryst, Pitt, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Red Raiders, Rich Rodriguez, Rutgers, Sam Houston State, Samford, SEC, South Carolina, Stanford, Sun Belt, Syracuse, TCU, Temple, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Tigers, Toledo, Tom O'Brien, Troy, Tulane, Tulsa, UCLA, UMass, Vanderbilt, Vandy, Wake Forest, West Virginia, Wildcats, Wofford, Wolfpack
(Note: All rankings are current AP [post-week 10, pre-week 11] unless otherwise noted.)
COACHES
Wish I were him: Nick Saban, Alabama
Glad I’m not him: Rich Rodriguez, Arizona
Lucky guy: Bo Pelini, Nebraska
Poor guy: Paul Chryst, Pittsburgh
Desperately seeking a wake-up call: Tom O’Brien, N.C. State
Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Dave Doeren, Northern Illinois
Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Danny Hope, Purdue
Desperately seeking … anything: DeWayne Walker, New Mexico State
TEAMS
Thought you’d kick butt, you did: Stanford (beat Colorado 48-0)
Thought you’d kick butt, you didn’t: Florida (beat Missouri 14-7)
Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you did: Temple (lost to No. 11 Louisville 45-17)
Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you didn’t: Pittsburgh (lost to No. 4 Notre Dame, 29-26, 3 OT)
Thought you wouldn’t kick butt, you did: Vanderbilt (beat Kentucky 40-0)
Dang, they’re good: Texas A&M
Dang, they’re bad: Purdue
Can’t stand prosperity: Arizona (lost to UCLA 66-10)
Did the season start? Missouri
Can the season end? Memphis
Can the season never end? Louisville
GAMES
Play this again: No. 1 Alabama 21, No. 5 LSU* 17
Never play this again: Northern Illinois 63, UMass 0
What? No. 16 Texas A&M* 38, No. 15 Mississippi State* 13
Huh? No. 23 Texas* 31, No. 18 Texas Tech* 22
Are you kidding me? TCU 39, No. 21 West Virginia* 38, OT
Oh – my – God: UCLA 66, No. 22 Arizona* 10
* rankings are from Week 10 as opposed to Week 11
NEXT WEEK
Ticket to die for: No. 15 Texas A&M @ No. 1 Alabama
Best non-Big Six vs. Big Six matchup: (no really good match-ups)
Best non-Big Six matchup: Louisiana-Monroe @ Arkansas State
Upset alert: No. 11 Louisville @ Syracuse
Must win: No. 22 Mississippi State @ No. 9 LSU
Offensive explosion: Baylor @ No. 14 Oklahoma (or Tulsa @ Houston)
Defensive struggle: Missouri @ Tennessee
Great game no one is talking about: No. 13 Oregon State @ No. 16 Stanford
Intriguing coaching matchup: Gary Patterson of TCU vs. Bill Snyder of No. 2 Kansas State
Special Election Night Special: Ball State @ Toledo (Red vs. Blue)
Who’s bringing the body bags? No. 4 Notre Dame @ Boston College
Why are they playing? Louisiana-Lafayette @ No. 7 Florida
Plenty of good seats remaining: UMass @ Akron (notwithstanding Tulane @ Memphis)
They shoot horses, don’t they? Army @ Rutgers
Week 10 in Review:
Bama passes the test: Last week’s “Ticket to die for” certainly lived up to its billing, as The Crimson Tide duked it out with the Bayou Bengals in Death Valley. A normally mistake-free Alabama reversed that trend throughout much of the game and started making more mistakes than usual. Top-notch opponents tend bring out more mistakes than usual, to be sure. In the end, Bama’s offense finally decided to start executing. This sudden development clearly caught LSU’s defense off guard, and The Tide easily scored a TD when all they needed was a field goal to tie. With only a minute to go, LSU failed to score on the second Hail Mary play. Bama passed the test against what might be its toughest opponent of the entire regular season.
SEC Breathers: Between this and upcoming Saturday and the one to follow, it seems as though the bulk of the SEC, stud and cellar-dweller alike, will take a breather from beating up on one-another and instead focus their brutal energies on lesser opponents, be they, say, fodder from the Sun Belt Conference (e.g., Louisiana-Lafayette at Florida), or FCS teams. Case in point: Samford ventures up to Lexington to play Kentucky in two weeks. Alabama will no doubt easily dispatch with Western Carolina that same day. Missouri is somewhat an exception in that they will play middle-of-the-road Big East foe Syracuse. A curious annual constant is Wofford getting annihilated by South Carolina. Tennessee already had their little break with Troy. Vandy will conclude its season by taking its respective break against Wake Forest. Arkansas barely escaped from their little breather, beating Tulsa only 19-15. Auburn’s break, though, also comes two Saturdays from now when Alabama A&M comes to the Loveliest Little Village on the Plains. Even Texas A&M is getting in on the act and playing Sam Houston State on the 17th. Curiously, no such break comes for Ole Miss, Mississippi State, or LSU. Still, do the teams that are taking a break, either this week or next, feel that their conference schedule is so brutal that they think they need such breaks before it is time for the ol’ sprint to the finish? As a suggestion for improvement, surely Notre Dame could be squeezed in to one of these schedules, as the Irish feel they are “back,” and could be given an opportunity to test that idea. It would give the fans a lot more excitement than Wofford or Sam Houston State, that’s for sure.
Jekyll-and-Hyde Longhorns: At first, it seemed as though Texas was caught off guard by West Virginia’s high-powered offense and narrowly lost in a high-scoring game. That idea quickly vanished in Dallas the following week when the Horns got embarrassed by Oklahoma. Squeaking by Baylor in an even more high-scoring affair than that against the Mountaineers raised further concerns about Texas’ defensive woes (poor fundamentals, inability to make basic tackles, etc.). Then, inexplicably, they win on the road. And not just on the road, but in Lubbock, against Texas Tech, which in recent years has been one of the toughest places to play in the Big XII Conference. Even more inexplicable is, while Texas did have occasional recurring issues with their defense (the same sort that has visibly plagued the Longhorns for the last month), by virtue of holding the Red Raiders to only 22 points, the defense clearly made key stops this time.
Granted, Texas Tech’s offense has been a tad inconsistent this year, scoring 49 points one week then being held to 24 the next, and so on. Nevertheless, they walloped West Virginia and won in a shootout over TCU, making everyone take notice of their high-powered offense.
The “so-what” in all of this is that one of the hallmarks of a well-coached team is that you know what sort of performance to expect from week to week. Was the past month a temporary slump for Texas, or are they to be up for one week, down for the next? Time will tell if their defeat of Texas Tech has halted the bleeding, or if they will perpetrate the apparent “Jekyll-and-Hyde” mystery with a sub-par performance against Iowa State next week. Conversely, if they obliterate the Cyclones at home next week, it will bode well for the rest of the season, when they will need it the most against TCU, followed by No. 2 Kansas State.
Quietly undefeated: The Louisville Cardinals are 9-0 for the first time in program history. Not even Bobby Petrino managed such a feat when he put the Cards on the map and coached them to their first ever Orange Bowl-berth/victory. The only team that defeated them in that memorable 2006-2007 season was Rutgers, in Piscataway, N.J. Interestingly enough, that is where Louisville concludes its regular season this year, potentially for all the marbles in the Big East. But before the Cards look too far ahead, they need to focus on the next game. Syracuse is their next opponent, and Louisville takes them on in the Carrier Dome, where they are tough (though not impossible) to beat. Coach Charlie Strong would be well-served to remind his sophomore-dominated team that this upcoming match-up is a potential trap game, and that they must focus their preparations accordingly.
Another one bites the dust: The University of Kentucky opened up the floodgates in 1996 for a whole slew of coaching changes at years end when they fired Bill Curry. Soon after that, the inept Jim Colletto of Purdue resigned, and at season’s end, so did Lou Holtz and Notre Dame and even Gene Stallings at Alabama, just to name a few. Could UK have started a similar apparent chain reaction in 2012, having just fired Joker Phillips? Time will tell. Joker was, by all accounts, an honorable representative of the Wildcats, and A.D. Mitch Barnhart was lavish in his praise of the man in an open letter on UK’s official website. Ultimately, it was a business decision. Phillips simply lacked the skill set to effectively lead the largest revenue generating division of UK’s athletic brand (he was 12-23). At best, only about 10,000 fans showed up at Commonwealth Stadium to see the Wildcats get trounced by traditional conference bottom-feeder Vandy. Obviously the program has been headed in the wrong direction for the past couple of years, and Mitch Barnhart made a prudent business decision to try to rectify this problem.
Posted by intellectualgridiron in Sports.
Tags: Alabama, Arkansas, Army, Art Briles, Auburn, Baylor, Bayou Bengals, Big 10, Bo Pelini, Boilermakers, Boise State, Boston College, Cincinnati, college football, Colorado, Commonwealth Stadium, Cougars, Dana Holgorsen, Danny Hope, Derek Dooley, Fighting Illini, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Huskers, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky Wildcats, Kevin Sumlin, Kevin Wilson, Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Monroe, LSU, Mark Dantonio, Marshall, Miami Hurricanes, Miami Redhawks, Michigan State, Middle Tennessee State, Mountaineers, NCAA, Nebraska, New Mexico State, Nittany Lions, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Oregon, Oregon State, Penn State, Purdue, Sonny Dykes, South Carolina, Southern Miss, Stony Brook, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Thundering Herd, Tim Beckman, Towson, Tulane, UCLA, uniforms, unis, Urban Meyer, Virginia Tech, Washington State, West Virginia, Wisconsin Badgers
COACHES
Wish I were him: Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M
Glad I’m not him: Derek Dooley, Tennessee
Lucky guy: Bo Pelini, Nebraska
Poor guy: Mark Dantonio, Michigan State
Desperately seeking a wake-up call: Danny Hope, Purdue
Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Sonny Dykes, Louisiana Tech
Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Tim Beckman, Illinois
Desperately seeking … anything: Kevin Wilson, Indiana
TEAMS
Thought you’d kick butt, you did: North Carolina (defeated Idaho 66-0)
Thought you’d kick butt, you didn’t: LSU (defeated Towson 38-22)
Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you did: Colorado (lost to UCLA 42-14)
Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you didn’t: Marshall (lost to Purdue 51-41)
Thought you wouldn’t kick butt, you did: Penn State (beat Illinois 35-7)
Dang, they’re good: Florida State
Dang, they’re bad: Army
Did the season start? Virginia Tech
Can the season end? Indiana
Can the season never end? Oregon
GAMES
Play this again: West Virginia 70, Baylor 63
Never play this again: Louisiana Monroe 63, Tulane 10
What? Cincinnati 27, Virginia Tech 24
Huh? Stony Brook 23, Army 3
Are you kidding me? Penn State 35 – Illinois 7
Oh – my – God: Middle Tennessee State 49, Georgia Tech 28
Told you so: No.5 Georgia 51, Tennessee 44
NEXT WEEK
Ticket to die for: No. 5 Georgia @ No. 6 South Carolina
Best non-Big Six vs. Big Six matchup: Miami (Fla.) @ No. 9 Notre Dame (assuming one were to count Independents as “non-Big Six, otherwise, it would be Miami (Ohio) @ Cincinnati.
Best non-Big Six matchup: Louisiana Monroe @ Middle Tennessee State
Upset alert: No. 8 West Virginia @ No. 11 Texas
Must win: No. 17 Oklahoma @ Texas Tech
Get-well opportunity: No. 20 Michigan State @ Indiana
Offensive explosion: Washington State @ No. 18 Oregon State
Defensive struggle: No. 4 LSU @ No. 10 Florida
Great game no one is talking about: Michigan @ Purdue
Intriguing coaching matchup: Urban Meyer of Ohio State vs. Bo Pelini of Nebraska
Who’s bringing the body bags? Kansas @ No. 7 Kansas State
Why are they playing? No. 24 Boise State @ Southern Miss
Plenty of good seats remaining: Boston College @ Army (or, New Mexico State @ Idaho, take your pick)
They shoot horses, don’t they? Arkansas @ Auburn
What we have learned after Week 5:
Remember last week’s predicted “Offensive Explosion”? Scratch that. Yes, hindsight is indeed 20-20, but West Virginia’s Big XII debut against Baylor was far more than an “Intriguing Coaching Matchup” between the Mountaineers’ Dana Holgorsen and the Bears’ Art Briles. The score of the game was so high, in what has become to be a seemingly typical Baylor fashion these days, that one needed oxygen to read the numbers. The Mountaineers made a very splashy conference debut, winning at home 70-63.
Also, remember last week’s predicted “Defensive Struggle”? Scratch that one, too. Penn State defeated Illinois in the Fighting Illini’s home stadium, 35-7. That cannot be attributed alone to the Illini wearing dark blue helmets for the first time since, well, pretty much ever. The available evidence on hand indicates that Illinois has worn orange helmets since at least 1945, if not earlier. I cannot find any photographic record yet of them ever wearing blue helmets, but the search shall continue. Just don’t hold your breath in the meantime. That aside, has Penn State found some offense, or is Illinois that horrible? The Nittany Lions have sputtered offensively practically the whole season until yesterday, while the Fighting Illini were 2-2 going into that game.
The Purdue-Marshall match-up in West Lafayette, Ind., was tagged for this past week’s “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They” slot. The selection was by default, since the odds of a major blowout anywhere else aside from other chosen games seemed much higher. But while the Boilermakers were making gamey mincemeat out of the Thundering Herd in the first half, they let off the gas too soon in the second half. A clearly visible epidemic of dropped passes in the third quarter especially raised concerns for Purdue’s prospects in the Big Ten. Until now, plenty of talk has abounded regarding the Boilers having a very attainable shot at representing the Leaders division of the Big 10 in the championship game in Indianapolis. After this game, some doubts will no doubt linger. Much work is to be done if Purdue is to triumph at home next week against Michigan, and quell the justifiable newfound doubts in so doing. Get it together, Boilers.
The LSU-Towson matchup was to be, on paper, a slaughter so massive as to border on a war crime. Most fans could not even point Towson’s location out on a map (hint: it is a very nice suburb in the northern part of Baltimore). The only factor one can attribute to LSU’s inexplicably close margin of victory (38-22) is that the Bayou Bengals must have kept the playbook very, very limited so as to avoid divulging any trade secrets as they prepare to take on a quietly improving Florida team next week.
The Upset Alert prediction of last week (South Carolina @ Kentucky) seemed to almost come to fruition, as the Gamecocks wasted an entire half, trailing the Wildcats in Commonwealth Stadium by more than a touchdown. Only after they made the proper halftime adjustments did they assert themselves like a top-ten team should, and pulled themselves out of an unnecessary hole with a modest score of 38-17. South Carolina will not have such a luxury of using an entire half of a football game as their learning curve next week, when they will take on cross-border, arch-rival Georgia in what will without a doubt be the game of the week.
Awesome unis:
The Wisconsin-Nebraska game was not only a great game to watch from a purely game-play standpoint, with great execution on both sides of the ball. It was also a feast for the eyes from two teams who historically where rather stodgy uniforms. Both teams had sick-looking alternate, quasi-throwback unis (and we mean “sick” in the hip, with-it, good way!). The Badgers’ red helmets and red shoulders on white jerseys was a feast alone for the eyes, to say nothing of Huskers’ red jersey-pants combo with tasteful black trim, along with the first black helmets the team as ever donned – EVER. The proverbial icing on the cake was the large school letters worn on the front of both teams’ jerseys. All in all, a nice combination of throwback elements from the 1920s, 1940s, and 1950s! Speaking of which, did anybody notice the nice late ‘50s-style numbers on Wisconsin’s jerseys? One word: neato!
While we’re on the awesome uniform topic, it was nice to see LSU where purple jerseys again, as they have been known to do once in a blue moon. Moreover, I am prepared to designate Ole Miss’ road uniforms as the nicest away unis in the SEC. The all-gray is a unique touch, but the red-on-navy blue trim is an unbeatable combination, especially as it scrolls over the shoulders. On the other side of the continent, what is up with Oregon wearing gray pants? This thought especially came to mind as I watched them play Washington State in Pullman, Wash. Did the Ducks not know full-well that the Cougars were wearing gray pants at home? Would it have been too much trouble to wear green pants instead to provide a better contrast on the field? Sheesh.
