After another fantastic set of games this weekend for college football, here are my 10 thoughts for Week 8.
1. BCS = Broken Championship System. Two out of the three components in the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) are human polls—the USA Today Coaches poll and the Harris Interactive Poll. This has been done with the expressed intent to give the human element more control over the top teams than the computer element. The Oregon Ducks have been number one in each of these polls the last two weeks, yet Oregon is not number one in the BCS, for the second consecutive week. Oklahoma was number one last week, and Auburn is number one this week. Someone needs to fix those computers. Even with only one third the weight, they are deciding who is number one.
2. How was this game close? The Auburn Tigers out gained the LSU Tigers 526 to 243 in total offense on Saturday. Why did Auburn have to stop LSU on a fourth down with 3:20 to play to win this game? With 526 yards you should have a lot more points. For example, Oregon “only” needed 582 yards to get 60. Why couldn’t Auburn muster more than 24?
3. We are legit. The Missouri Tigers (7-0), the Baylor Bears (6-2), and the Syracuse Orangemen (5-2) made this statement Saturday. All had glossy to semi-glossy records, but no one knew how much stock to put into these records. After Missouri beat Oklahoma, Baylor beat #22 Kansas State, and Syracuse beat #20 West Virginia, we all know that they are legitimate leaders in their conferences.
4. Progress in Pullman. The Washington State Cougars still aren’t winning games, but at least they are scoring points and making some of these losses respectable. Just a 10 point loss to Stanford. USC is the only Pac-10 team to beat the Cougars by more than 20. That includes Oregon, Stanford, and Arizona.
5. Worth the wait? Tyrod Taylor is finally starting to play up to his sky high expectations. He is fourth in the nation in pass efficiency with a 171.1 rating—this is by far the highest rating of his career. He has 527 rushing yards with a 6.2 yard per carry average. Taylor already has 15 TD passes, which is two more than he had all of last season. His completion percentage is up almost 9 percent to 63.9%. He is also on pace for his highest passing yards in a season.
6. Short lived success. Cincinnati and Georgia Tech are the latest teams to join the list of teams having reached a BCS bowl and quickly fell back to middle of the pack or worse in their conferences. Wake Forest, Louisville, Kansas, and Illinois all had a spike in wins to play in a BCS game, but quickly fell below 0.500. After playing in BCS bowls last year, Cincinnati is currently at 3-4, and Georgia Tech is 5-3 with the meat of their schedule still to come.
7. Green means go. Teams with green as a school color rolled up impressive amounts of total offense. Baylor: 682 yards; Hawaii: 614 yards; South Florida: 590 yards; Oregon 582. It was even good for one player named green. Hawaii running back Alex Green ran for 172 yards and four touchdowns on just 14 carries.
8. Yellow means go faster? In driver’s ed I was taught that you are supposed to slow down and stop when the light changes to yellow. When Oregon changed from green to yellow home jerseys, they sped up. The Ducks put up 60 points Thursday night, but what was more impressive is that they did it with only 21:29 possession time. No Oregon drive was longer than 3:37.
9. Three in a row. For the third straight week a number one ranked team lost. Alabama was the first, Ohio State was the second, and now Oklahoma fell. Will Auburn or Oregon make it four this week? Oregon faces a stiffer test with USC, but don’t count out Mississippi from pulling off the unexpected upset of Auburn. No one expected the Rebels to beat number 4 Florida two years ago.
10. Which was worse? Virginia Tech’s loss to James Madison in week two, or Texas’ loss to Iowa State this week? Okay, this is a bit of a stretch to put those two losses in the same sentence, especially since one is a 4-3 FCS team and the other is a 4-4 FBS team. However, after Iowa State lost 68-27 and 52-0 in back-to-back weeks, how do the Longhorns not put up at least 30? Sure you’re coming off an emotional win over Nebraska, but this loss looks really, really bad.
Other recent posts on COLLEGE FOOTBALL HAVEN:
Poll Results: Will either #1 Oklahoma or #2 Oregon play in the BCS National Championship Game?
College Football Haven Top 25, Week 8, 2010
Game of the Week: LSU Tigers at Auburn Tigers
Game Predictions, Week 8, 2010
Weekly Trivia: LSU starting 7-0
Heisman Trophy Hopefuls, Week 7, 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment