2008 Bye Week Edition - 9/8/08
USC may have had a bye week, but that doesn't mean the rest of the country took the week off. It may have seemed like it, but there were actually a lot of games played. And this college football lover has much to say, so off we go ...
- It is tough to know how to read the Ohio State performance against the University of Ohio. My own opinion is that it probably does not mean much, and that it was, indeed, a case of a team looking ahead. But to see Ohio up in the fourth quarter, and to see them only down 5 points, and driving the ball downfield against the Buckeyes, certainly didn't leave one with the feeling that the Ohio State University is invincible. I don’t know if Beanie will be back or not, but I would assume that he will be playing, and that the team is better than we saw yesterday. If the Trojans hang 50 on em', though, it will get ugly, because that offense will not be scoring anything close to 50 on our defense.
- Ohio State's Wide Receiver apparently picked the Ohio State University over USC because "they have class". I am sure Tressel is thrilled to see him give the Trojans locker room material the week of the big game. Carroll and SC' define class in college football, and this kid may have just barked up the wrong tree. I make it a habit in life not to ever talk trash when I have to be running down field with a guy that looks like Ray Malaluga running after me to take my head off. This kid will be playing with very short arms Saturday.
- I am at a loss as to how to react to the Washington/BYU ending. If THAT is excessive celebration, and if THAT is supposed to be a flag, then THAT rule needs to be changed, immediately. That is as bad of a call as I have ever, ever seen. BYU would still have won in overtime, but that is how the game should have been decided. Period. This "crackdown" on excessive celebration is absurd. They ought to "crackdown" on criminal arrests (Penn State, Alabama, Miami, Florida State, and Wisconsin have all had between eight and twelve arrests in the last two seasons), and not worry about a kid throwing the ball in the air to celebrate a touchdown. Enough moralizing.
- I hate to say it, but Penn State may be one of the top 10 teams in the country.
- This will not be a year for the SEC to be bragging about anything. Their top teams look horrifically overrated, and their bottom teams are not very good. Tennessee is not one of the top 50 teams in the country, and Florida's win over Miami was nowhere near what the final score indicated. South Carolina lost to Vanderbilt. Georgia played another JC team. Auburn struggled with Southern Miss. Bama beat Tulane by 14 points. Arkansas squeaked by a JC team (by one point). Don't get me wrong - there are some very good teams in the SEC, but this is not one of their stronger years. My guess is that Bama' and Georgia are the two top teams, and they play each other in two weeks.
- From my dear friend, the "J Train", on the nagging issue I have with the SEC's non-conference scheduling:
<< Just seems like the current wisdom among schedulers is this: if you're ranked highly, don't jeopardize it by scheduling anyone who might give you a challenge. I surely hope that we can demonstrate the folly of that philosophy on Sept. 13th by showing that 2 creampuffs does not adequately prepare a team for a major challenge. I've said for a year or two that maybe someone should consider that THAT's the reason these SEC teams beat up on each other every year. It's not intra-conference parity that happens to be at a level above that of other conferences ("it's the toughest conference in the nation, waaaaah"), but it's a fore-ordained lack of preparedness that makes every conference game a crap shoot and the conference schedule a rock-paper-scissors round robin where Team 1 beats Team 2, who beats Team 3, who beats Team 1. The "top tier" SEC teams play creampuffs, which make them ill-prepared to play their "rest of the conference" foes who've prepared better by playing major-conference foes. >>
- Cal is a top 25 team, for sure. Gosh they are quick. I doubt they can hang with the Trojans, but I think USC's conference schedule (we all have to play each other here in the Pac-10), is far tougher than people understand. Fortunately, we have Cal, Oregon, and Arizona State at the Coliseum.
- I never would have said this before, because generally speaking fiscally smart places like Notre Dame do not leave themselves with the kind of severance idiocy that schools like, say, UCLA do. But, I am now rather convinced that Charlie Weis is going to be dismissed either in the middle of this season, or at the end of it. If he had won 8 or 9 games this year that would have bought him plenty of time, but he is not going to. I would LOVE to be wrong, because this Trojan prefers to beat an outstanding Notre Dame - not a weak and pathetic one. But after Saturday's performance against San Diego State, in which the only reason Notre Dame won is because San Diego State handed them the game, I just can't see this team winning five games. We shall see, but I expect a huge coaching change - THIS year.
That's it for this week, though the first Monday Morning Quarterback lunch of the year in a few hours may produce an "addendum" issue of the musings. If not, fight on, and Beat the Buckeyes.