When I was about 15 and playing enough hockey that practicing on my own time seemed like a reasonable thing to do, I started begging/bribing my little brother (who would've been 13) to take shots at me since shots are kind of a necessity for practicing as a goalie. There was really nothing competitive about it in any sense; my brother has mild cerebral palsy and has never been coordinated/skilled enough to be what would normally be considered athletic outside the Special Olympics, where he destroys all comers in softball. He couldn't skate and couldn't shoot hard enough to present a legitimate challenge (except inasmuch as a moving ball/puck was more of a legitimate challenge than a not-moving ball/puck) and generally had little interest in putting in any more effort than was absolutely required because it was Michigan in the winter and I mean obviously. So it wasn't ideal. It was something.
My other brother was 2 when I graduated high school. It probably goes without saying that I never experienced the emotion produced when competing against somebody who wants exactly what you want and has to go through you to get it and can't because you are you and he is him and that's just the way of the world. That's not something that can be manifested; it has to just be (IT'S SCIENCE).
That emotion-type thing didn't exist for me when I was growing up but definitely exists; I know because I'm pretty sure I experienced it in 2003, I might have experienced it in 2005 and I definitely experienced it Saturday at approximately 5:13 p.m.
“It’s an in-state rival. But we have bigger expectations.”
Everything is right.
. . . . .
In 2010 -- which was two years ago according to the Roman calendar but approximately four centuries ago according to the Hoke calendar -- Michigan made four field goals. Four. All season. Yeah. Brendan Gibbons was a true freshman that year who won the job out of camp, made one of his first four kicks, got replaced by some guy whose name I couldn't possibly spell without looking up and didn't try another kick all year until a totally random and inexplicable Gator Bowl attempt that was about as successful as most of his others that year, which is to say not successful. He finished the year 1 for 5 and should never have been heard from again. He went 13 for 17 last year.
Only four times in the 100 billion years that Michigan football has existed has Michigan won via a field goal in the final two minutes of a game that determined in and of itself the outcome of said game (make it and win or miss it and lose). Four times. I remember the last three (1989 was a little before my time), probably because remembering three hyperbolically memorable things is involuntary. I just remember because my brains says, "yeah hang on to that for the endorphins plz," and lo it is so.
. . . . .
Words: I don't have them. I seriously don't know where to start. That was an awful, awful game that would've ended with neither team getting to double digits if not for a fake punt and then a bunch of horrifying/irritating things and then Denard and then AAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Everything else has been lost in the AAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
I guess I'll start with the defense since, ya know, 12-10 and BIG TEN FOOTBAW and all that. The defense: It is the defense. It stops offenses from doing stuff, especially crappy offenses like Michigan State's. State finished with 278 non-special-teams total yards; LeVeon Bell had 68 on 26 carries, which wow. The passing game was slightly more effective thanks to Andrew Maxwell becoming a pretty good quarterback (I know!) and Aaron Burbridge making about three OMG WTF catches; still State had to throw 34 times to get to 192 yards, which means a lot of said passes went for not a lot of yards. And what really matters is that State had one legitimate scoring drive and needed (a) a miraculous fumble recovery inside their own 10-yard line and (b) a that-is-so-Sparty fake punt on fourth-and-9 from their own 23 that went for about 30 yards just to get the would-have-been-game-winning field goal in the fourth quarter. I'll take seven effectual points allowed forever and ever (praise be to Mattison).
There's not really much more to say personnel-wise that hasn't been said at some point in the last month; Michigan's defense is good. The defensive line (especially Craig Roh and Quinton Washington on the strong side) physically dominated, the linebackers filled everything that needed filling, Jake Ryan killed somebody on every play and finished with 10 tackles and a sack (which hopefully will start getting him the All-America talk he deserves) and the cornerbacks gave up almost nothing other than some irritating underneath stuff (third-down slants, mostly) that Sparty couldn't execute very well anyway. Numbers that probably shouldn't be believed: Michigan is 10th in total defense, 16th in scoring defense, 49th in rushing defense (stupid Air Force) and 15th in pass-efficiency defense. Insert maniacal laughter here.
And then there's the offense. There's apparently a limited amount of goodness available to Brady Hoke that he has chosen to allocate entirely to the defense, because ... I mean ... yeah. This would normally be the spot where I breathe fire upon Al Borges for nonsensical things and Y U NO RUN DENARD and all that; I can't really do that this week. I can't do that because he did exactly what I implored him to do by running a ton of veer, running a little play-action off of said veer (or zone-read action of some variety) and doing nothing nonsensical. The result: 12 points.
It's worth providing some context here: Michigan State is allowing about 277 total yards, 100 rushing yards and 15 points a game. Michigan finished with 326 total yards and 163 rushing yards at 5.1 a carry (!), with Denard almost hitting 100 and Fitz Toussaint going for 52 on 14 carries in probably his best game of the year, all of which really should've generated more than the aforementioned 12 points (three of which were obviously of the desperation variety). The problem: ughghgh the passing game arghghgh. Throwing and catching seem like relatively fundamental things that I'm pretty sure are successfully executed on the regular; Michigan couldn't do either one against State, which led to two shoulda-been-touchdown drives ending with field goals and what could've been a pretty comfortable win instead being that. In other words, Al Borges produced 20 points against an elite-ish defense without the benefit of a short field (lucky Sparty fumble recoveries rabble rabble); Michigan executed 12.
I mean, this ...
... is a touchdown. This ...
... is also a touchdown. The plays are there; that they're not being made has nothing to do with Borges and everything to do with Denard and a group of wideouts who were brought in to run jet sweeps and whatnot and instead are learning the intricacies of a pro-style passing game and doing about as well as expected, which is to say not very. There comes a point (against good defenses) at which executing the not-totally-easy stuff is a necessity; that point has been every game against State for the last four years. Thank God for the defense.
All that said, Denard (a) had the aforementioned 96 rushing yards despite running into a nine-man front all game and (b) was the balls on the final drive, which was extended by this ...
.... and ended with this:
WOW. That's five seconds of pure patience followed by a leaning-to-his-left throw directly over a moving-into-the-passing-lane defensive lineman into an NFL window 16 yards downfield. Clutch? Clutch. And brunettes everywhere rejoiced (in Brendan Gibbons' mind).
My only Borges-related complaint: There was nothing resembling a new look or a new thing off a familiar look despite having basically three weeks to prepare for one game (the starters could've left at halftime against both Purdue and Illinois). That's somewhat of a long-term concern, obviously, especially being against a team that spends time it should be using to prepare for the Eastern Michigans of the world to prepare for Michigan. There's really no longer any uncertainty about whether Borges can make effective use of Denard's legs as the world's greatest play fake; he can't or maybe won't after the Notre Dame blergh. Either way, in a situation in which points are kind of a necessity (like, say, the fourth quarter against Michigan State), it'd be nice to have some constraint stuff or that back-pocket thing that won't show up on game tape (at least not any recent ones) and therefore might get a ton of yards and a touchdown. So the offense will be the offense and will either work or won't. It probably will for the most part given (a) Denard's uber-fast-ness being independent of everything, (b) the defenses left on the schedule being not good and (c) Brady Hoke pooping gold in every way.
So ... Michigan is 3-0 in the Big Ten. Northwestern just picked up its second conference loss; Iowa just got obliterated at home by Penn State. Beat Nebraska next week and the division race is over, which means a game against Wisconsin for roses and good times. Lose to Nebraska and things get considerably more difficult. I might have mentioned this before but will repeat it here (every week) for emphasis: I want roses and good times.
I mean, yeah, the Michigan State stupidity is done and WOOOO, but we have bigger expectations. This is Michigan, fergodsakes.
All that stuff I said/wrote about Geno Smith not having already won the Heisman turned out to be pretty accurate; the support for him diminished about eleventy-fold after he went whatever is the opposite of ham against Texas Tech, although he's probably still the favorite by default. I mean, the viable alternatives are almost nonexistent at this point since Matt Barkley is doing nothing of significance while playing for a team that's mediocre-ing its way toward 9-3, DeAnthony Thomas has like 300 rushing yards this season and Manti Te'o is playing defense.
Oh hai Collin Klein. There are actually, like, people voting for him to win, which is interesting since probably 10 percent of the voters couldn't pick him out of a lineup made up entirely of legitimate-Heisman-candidate quarterbacks, two of whom are black. BTW, Johnny Manziel doesn't fall into the "legitimate" category since (a) he's a freshman and (b) he didn't do much against Florida and has yet to play LSU and Alabama, the top two statistical defenses in the country. He'll be mostly forgotten when A&M is 8-4 and his numbers have come back down to Earth with authoritah.
Anyway, as for Klein, I've been somewhat skeptical of his candidacy largely because I don't think Kansas State is that good and thus will lose some games, and losses are bad things that are destroyers of Heisman relevancy. But the losses are getting a little harder to identify as Texas continues sucking on defense, West Virginia continues sucking on defense, etc. Here's K-State's remaining schedule:
at West Virginia
TEXAS TECH
OKLAHOMA ST.
@ TCU
@ Baylor
TEXAS
All those games are plausibly losable, but all of them are also plausibly winnable. And with a win over Oklahoma somewhat forgotten but still relevant in the grand Big 12 scheme of things, it's not unrealistic to think K-State could lose two conference games (as long as one of them isn't to West Virginia) and go to the Fiesta Bowl via tiebreakers, which would be crazy since Kansas State is Kansas State and the Big 12 is loaded with good-ish teams. So for all the Geno Smith/RGIII comparisons, Klein is probably more comparable to RGIII in a carrying-a-meh-team-to-LOLWUT-heights sense. West Virginia had a pretty dang good offense last year and scored a bajillion points in the Orange Bowl, so Smith hasn't been a surprise the way RGIII was; Klein has been (kind of).
HOWEVA, it's probably worth noting that K-State started 6-0 last season and finished 10-2, with Klein accounting for most of that success by rushing for an FBS-quarterback-record 27 touchdowns (!!!!!) and 1,141 yards and throwing for just under 2,000 yards with 13 touchdowns and six picks. His projected numbers this year: 1,020 rushing yards, 20 rushing touchdowns, 2,148 passing yards, 14 passing touchdowns and four picks. So basically the same except with a not-quite-as-crazy number of rushing touchdowns. And Klein didn't finish in the top 10 last year, probably with good reason. His presence in the top two of the straw poll right now probably says more about the lack of real candidates than it does about Klein (sorry, man).
But can he win it? Yeah. If West Virginia ends up 9-3/8-4, it probably means Geno Smith's numbers have gone from ludicrous speed to warp speed, and that's obviously gonna be a necessity for Klein to have any chance. I mean, Smith is on pace to throw for just under 5,000 yards with 50 touchdowns and no picks. If he throws for 50 touchdowns and no picks, the Heisman people will give him the trophy so, so hard regardless of whether West Virginia goes 8-4 or 11-1. If he throws, say, 40 touchdowns and six picks, that's really good (RGIII and Andrew Luck had similar numbers last year) but not totally overcome-able. Basically, Klein has to win something of significance and not get totally destroyed numbers-wise; both of those are possible but dependent on Smith this week and beyond.
And as for other potentially viable candidates, there are probably only two: Matt Barkley (in the relatively unlikely event that he goes bonkers against both Oregon and Notre Dame, resulting in USC going 11-1 and being a legit national title contender again) and Braxton Miller. The thing about Miller is that he's gonna have numbers very comparable (in every way) to Klein's for a team that will almost definitely be 11-0 going into the Michigan game, which everybody will be watching because obviously. Will it matter that Ohio State can't win anything of significance if Ohio State wins all its games and Miller does the Tim Tebow 20/20 thing? I dunno. I'm guessing it wouldn't but can't really say for sure since the poll numbers above are drawn from a pretty small sample size that might not be totally indicative of the full field of voters (and the ineligibility thing hasn't come up since 1989, when Andre Ware won the Heisman in what was obviously a totally different setting since Andre Ware won the Heisman). I'm sure he’ll be a finalist but less sure that he can actually win it without implosions from the other dudes.
One other thing worth considering that Heisman Pundit's been harping on for a couple weeks now:
2 -- The number of Heisman voting regions where Geno Smith will be a favorite son. His school is located physically in the Mid-Atlantic region, but he'll play four games in the Southwest region. Being a well-known commodity to media in two different regions could be crucial in a close vote.
Interesting point, FWIW. I honestly don't know how many people outside the greater Kansas area are gonna care what Collin Klein has done statistically unless K-State is doing something of greater significance nationally than winning an insane Big 12 in which every team scores 74 points a game and goes 9-3, and beating West Virginia is probably a prerequisite (even if the opposite isn't necessarily true for Smith, who's given himself some margin for error by doing a lot of ridiculous things thus far). So I’ll be watching. Of course I’ll be watching.
Sept. 14: at Texas A&M
Sept. 28: OLE MISS
Oct. 12: at Kentucky
Oct. 19: ARKANSAS
Oct. 26: TENNESSEE
Nov. 9: LSU
Nov. 16: at Mississippi State
Nov. 30: at Auburn
Uhhh ... WUT? The good non-LSU teams: There aren't any.
BTW, Alabama's nonconference schedule is similarly meh (with one nonconference spot yet to be filled since the SEC hasn't able to transition entirely to a nine-game schedule yet):
Aug. 31: Virginia Tech (at Atlanta, Ga.)
Oct. 5: GEORGIA STATE
Nov. 23: CHATTANOOGA
Guh. Upshot: Just give Alabama the next two national titles (along with a couple broken crystal footballs and credit for about five national championships) so we can fast-forward to 2014 or whenever it is that Nick Saban gets bored and restarts his dynasty as coach at Kent State.
This will probably help: Texas will be without its best defensive player for the rest of the year:
Texas defensive end Jackson Jeffcoat suffered a right pectoral muscle rupture against Oklahoma and will have to undergo surgery to repair the damage, according to trainer Kenny Boyd. Jeffcoat has been ruled out for the season.
Ouch. Jeffcoat's awesomeness has been one of the few redeeming qualities this year for Texas' mostly awful defense; he's second on the team with four sacks (defensive end Alex Okafor has six) and first by a mile with 10.5 tackles for loss. His replacements: Reggie Wilson and Cedric Reed, who have gotten a little rotation time and have a combined one sack, that by Wilson. So that's a pretty massive drop-off.
If there's any good news it's that the overall productivity of the defense (103rd in rushing yards and 89th in pass efficiency despite Jeffcoat's backfield domination) can't get significantly worse, and the schedule lightens up a little after the Baylor game this week in terms of scorching-the-earth offenses: Texas Tech and Kansas State are both currently in the top 10 in total offense, but those rankings are buoyed by some huge early-season games that haven't been replicated much in Big 12 play. That's all I got for good news (other than David Ash declaring himself ready to play this week despite having a fractured left wrist); Texas' defense will still be shockingly bad. And Prevail and Ride will still make totally NSFW cartoons about it.
Notre Dame quarterback Everett Golson cleared the final hurdle toward getting back to the field, as the redshirt freshman successfully completed concussion testing and was cleared by team doctors to return to practice Wednesday.
Golson did not practice Tuesday after failing to pass cognitive testing Monday, two days after suffering a concussion late in Notre Dame's overtime win over Stanford.
Can't figure out 2+2 on Monday, practices on Wednesday. Awesome. Anyway, Golson will presumably start Saturday, although Tommy Rees and Andrew Hendrix are both getting some snaps in practice in the event that either Golson's brain falls apart or Notre Dame needs a touchdown in the last three minutes (doubtful against BYU).
No more Honey Badger, for serious: SI published a very interesting piece on Tyrann Mathieu the other day that was mostly about his dad's struggles with drug addiction and crime (struggles that derailed a promising football career oh hey that sounds familiar) but also included this tidbit about potential NCAA violations:
Since last January, Mathieu has allowed his image to be used on a flyer promoting an event at a local night club, appeared in several promotional videos online and, multiple sources told SI, received benefits at the club that could affect his eligibility.
It seems pretty unlikely that Mathieu would be eligible by NCAA guidelines even if he were to get himself turned out and get reinstated to the LSU team, which would be in direct contradiction to the school's drug-test policy of "permanent ineligibility" and has never been referenced as something that could actually happen by anybody at LSU. Upshot: He's done with college football.
The story's worth a read in and of itself, BTW.
Good luck with that: A radio report out of Cleveland (I'm not sure which aspect of that phrase offers the least credibility) says that the Browns "will make a hard push" for Nick Saban this offseason. There's some logic to it seeing as how the team was just sold to Tennessee alum Jimmy Haslam, who just today encouraged Mike Holmgren to "retire" as president, potentially opening up a full-control situation for Saban or whoever else is out there come January.
There's presumably an assumption that Saban's history with the Browns (he was D-coordinator during the wildly successful Bill Belichik era) and general Ohio connections (he's a Kent State alum) will be of some benefit; the guy also has an ego the size of Charlie Weis (the guy, not Charlie Weis' ego, which might actually be bigger) and might figure he can't possibly do any worse than every other coach the Browns have had since their inception. Still, I'm skeptical that anything comes of it since (a) he's established a program that can legitimately win the national title every freakin' year, (b) he's already making a crapload of money and couldn't realistically get enough of a pay raise to account for the difference in team quality and (c) he's said repeatedly since leaving the Dolphins that he has no interest in returning to the NFL. Chances of actually happening on a scale of 1-10: 2.
Requisite embed: It's Alabama-Tennessee week, which means this guy is loving life:
I think he likes orange.
More SEC awesomeness: It's also LSU-Texas A&M week (the first one), which means it's time for THE ULTIMATE GIF-OFF:
Midway through the first quarter Akron faced a daunting 4th and 3 from the Bowling Green 32 and elected to punt the ball away.
Special note goes to Randy Edsall who punted from the 48 on 4th and 2 trailing by 1 in the 4th quarter. They later went on to score and go up 5 with about 5 minutes left and then kicked the extra point, to protect against two Wake Forest field goals in the final 5 minutes. Of course Maryland missed the PAT.
Uhhh ... fourth-and-3 from the 32?!? Amazing. The Randy Edsall thing is pretty hilarious all around but has nothin' on Terry Bowden summoning his inner Ron Zook (who might actually be inside Terry Bowden at this point; I mean, has anybody seen Ron Zook recently?).
Paul Rhoads FTW: Paul Rhoads went nutso butso last week against TCU and destroyed a headset in thoroughly entertaining fashion:
So that's amusing. More amusing: That headset has since been autographed by Rhoads and is now up for auction on the Iowa State website. I'm serious.
Sometimes I wish I had a ginormous pile of gold a la Scrooge McDuck so I could buy useless things.
Srsly, WTF happened to West Virginia? I have no idea. I take back everything I said/wrote about Texas Tech's pass defense; holding Geno Smith to 275 yards (on 55 attempts) and one touchdown is doin' work. Crazy stats: Texas Tech (a) is seventh in the country in pass-efficiency defense after playing both Oklahoma and West Virginia and (b) didn't produce a turnover or a sack yet held West Virginia to seven non-garbage-time points. How? Mostly by not giving up anything deep and making Smith throw to a lot of reasonably-well-covered guys underneath. I mean, I don't know how that happened, but it definitely happened. And the result was West Virginia's worst loss since 2001 (!!!) since Texas Tech was scoring more or less at will. The latter occurrence wasn't particularly surprising since it'd already been established that West Virginia's defense is terrible, but it finally became relevant when Smith wasn't throwing a touchdown pass on literally every possession. So ... West Virginia. I have no idea. It's possible that Texas and Baylor are just totally incapable of stopping anybody, which would render the previous couple games a lot less meaningful than previously assumed. It's also possible that Texas Tech is pretty good since that three-touchdown loss to Oklahoma (Tech's only loss so far) looks a lot less bad than it did a week ago. I guess the question is whether there's another pass defense in the Big 12 (other than Oklahoma) capable of doing what Texas Tech just did; I'm not sure what the answer to that question is. I am sure that a team capable of losing to Texas Tech by five touchdowns without committing a turnover is capable of losing any/all of the next five games: Kansas State, at TCU, at Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and at Iowa State (maybe). I'm trying to decide whether I'd be less surprised by 8-4 or 11-1 and am leaning toward the former.
GIF of the Week: Geno Smith had problems, man:
Worst day ever.
An enjoyable day at the fair for Oklahoma: TO THE WOODSHED. The story: Oklahoma outgained Texas 677-289, shut out Texas' first-team offense and didn't allow a first down until it was 36-2 (lol). It wasn't even as close as the score indicated. I know. Breaking news: Texas' defense is bad. I mean, yeah, Oklahoma State and West Virginia and Oklahoma all have elite-ish offenses; still, Texas has given up 44.5 points a game over the last month and is now 99th in total defense, 103rd in rushing defense, 89th in pass-efficiency defense and 94th in scoring defense. WTF, Manny Diaz? It's probably not a coincidence that Oklahoma has scored 55 and 63 points against Texas in the two years since Will Muschamp left to turn Florida into LSU East. Just sayin'. As for Oklahoma ... ummm ... wow? Landry Jones looked a lot like the Landry Jones of two years ago, probably in part due to Texas' craptacular defense but also in part due to having a pretty good group of receivers now (Kenny Stills, Justin Brown and Jalen Saunders), and Blake Bell is physically incapable of not scoring when called upon inside the 10 (and has the best nickname ever). And the defense: great googly moogly. Mike Stoops FTW? Apparently. Texas' offense is still 10th in the country in scoring and 38th in yardage and just got totally destroyed in every possible way. David Ash went 13 for 29 for 113 yards with no touchdowns and two picks. The non-garbage-time running game totaled 33 yards on 19 carries. Etc. Oklahoma is legit; I can say that because Oklahoma is one Kansas State strip-sack touchdown from being undefeated right now with wins over three top-25 teams, the latter two by a combined 63 points. And given the schedule (Notre Dame in two weeks and West Virginia in four and Oklahoma State in five), a one-loss Oklahoma at the end of the year would have a resume that'd be comparable to/better than those of the one-loss SEC teams. That's obviously hypothetical and dependent on Oklahoma replicating The Best Game Ever a couple more times but seems a lot more plausible than it did a couple weeks ago.
Fullback-Related Entertainment of the Week: Trey Millard DO NOT TACKLE:
BOOM MILLARD'D.
Luck of the something something: So ... Notre Dame. I'm just gonna get this out of the way since it's the thing everybody cares about because OMG CONTROVERSY EXPLOSION: I think Stepfan Taylor got to the goal line. Forward progress is irrelevant once it goes to review (that's not reviewable), as is any whistle, according to Mike Pereira. So all that matters is whether he got there; I think he did. I'm not sure he did before losing the ball or putting his elbow on the ground, though, so I don't know if I could've overturned the original call. It was close. Notre Dame got lucky. It happens. And Stanford still would've needed to kick an extra point in crappy weather just to tie it and force another overtime, which I'm sure they would've like the opportunity to do but hey life's not fair yadda yadda cliche cliche. But here's the thing: Notre Dame is only marginally better than Stanford by every measure, which is kinda hard to reconcile with a top-five ranking. The wins over Michigan and Stanford were both extremely fortunate and provided no real indication that Notre Dame is anything more than a team slightly better than Michigan and Stanford, two teams currently ranked 22nd and 23rd (although both are probably underranked based on the requisite overreaction to losses, even quality ones). Everett Golson went 12 for 24 for 5.9 yards an attempt and would've been largely responsible for a loss (despite Notre Dame's defense not allowing a touchdown) if Tommy Rees hadn't come in and thrown a couple hilariously clutch third-down passes on the last drive of regulation and the only drive in overtime. Upshot: Rees should be starting. I just don't see how Notre Dame can beat Oklahoma and/or USC without a passing game, which Golson provides little of except against incompetent defenses. That said, Notre Dame's defense is unquestionably legit; Stanford's offense is very meh but still got held to 272 total yards and got physically dominated on two series at the goal line with the game on the line. That's why this Notre Dame team is in fact better than all the Notre Dame teams that went 9-3 and then got lit up by Oregon State/LSU/whoever. The floor at this point is 10-2 and a BCS bowl, which wow. The ceiling is unfathomable if Rees starts the rest of the way, which he might seeing as how Golson has a (conveniently timed) concussion. Brian Kelly for Coach of the Year. Guy who scheduled Notre Dame-Oklahoma at the same time as Michigan-Nebraska for Jerk of the Year.
Gary Danielson has warm fuzzies: I will now Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V what I wrote last week about the SEC:
Any differences between Florida, South Carolina and LSU are negligible; I'm ranking them in that order because I trust Florida's offense one unit of trust more than I trust South Carolina's offense and trust South Carolina's offense one unit of trust more than I trust LSU's.
The main point stands; the teams need some reordering. LSU outgained South Carolina 406-211 overall, outrushed South Carolina 258-34 (!) despite the existence of Marcus Freakin' Lattimore and allowed basically nothing until the final three minutes, when South Carolina got a tack-on touchdown after a fourth-and-17 conversion. In other words, LSU did what I expected LSU to do all season. Despite all that, South Carolina lost by two on the road against one of the five best teams in the country. The reasons: a de facto pick six that set up the first touchdown, general domination of the LSU passing game and a couple really good drives put together by Connor Shaw, who went 19 of 34 with two touchdowns and a pick (not counting the last desperation throw) despite getting his face eaten a lot. So my opinion of South Carolina has changed little. The defense but doesn't have the interior hugeness to stop a dominant running game but is borderline elite and the offense is balanced to the point that some level of effectiveness (albeit unexciting effectiveness) is pretty much a given. Translation: South Carolina's very good. The problem: Next week's game is at Florida. Come on, scheduling dudes. I will flip out next week when one of those teams drops to 12th despite losing by three to a top-five-ish team. As for LSU, the Florida loss won't really be relevant in two weeks, at which point there will be a win over A&M and something against Alabama that will determine whether LSU is really as good as I expected LSU to be or a 2012 version of 2010 Alabama. I'm expecting the latter. BTW, whichever team in the SEC East ends up 11-1 but not in the conference title game is probably better off (from a BCS standpoint) than the one that gets the courtesy of getting pwned by Bama and taking on an extra loss, with the caveat being that a win there would probably result in a national title, which would be swell.
Y U DO THAT? There were two games Saturday in which a team was losing by 10 in the final minutes, had the ball inside the other team's 25 and went for it on fourth-and-long. WTF? It is not possible to win without scoring twice, and the odds of making a field goal (even with a crappy kicker) from inside of 40 yards have to be better than the odds of getting it on fourth-and-long. One of those teams was South Carolina, which actually did get it and scored a touchdown on the next play but probably eliminated any chance of winning in the process by taking a timeout before the fourth-down play, then burning off another minute while scoring and therefore needing to recover an ultimately unsuccessful onside kick. It would've made infinitely more sense to kick the field goal as soon as reasonably possible and have two-plus minutes plus all three timeouts to potentially score a touchdown. Pitt was the other team, BTW; they didn't get the first down and lost by 10. Conclusion: All college coaches are Marty Mornhinweg.
Nice defense: Ohio State scored 52 points against Indiana and needed all of them since Indiana finished with 49 points and 481 total yards. To be fair, the game wasn't really as close as the score implied: Ohio State led by 10-17 for pretty much all of the second half until Indiana scored with a couple minutes left, recovered the onside kick, scored again with about 30 seconds left, got the two-point conversion and briefly made every trucker in the Midwest very nervous with a close-but-not-close-enough onside kick. Alas. Anyway, what matters is that Ohio State is now giving up just under 25 points and exactly 400 yards a game yet is probably going to be 11-0 going into the Michigan game with no better wins than the ones against Nebraska and ... uhh ... Cal? Michigan State? Yeesh. That's a Boise State schedule but with a bunch of three-/seven-point wins instead of a bunch of 38-point wins. I don't know where a hypothetical 12-0 Ohio State would be ranked but don't really have to worry about it since lol NCAA'd (that "lol" is all the gratification I get since the net result of CheatyPants McSweatervest being a cheatypants was Ohio State getting a better coach). Come on, Michigan. BTW, put me down for $20 on Braxton Miller to win the 2014 Heisman.
Big Ten woo and no that's not a real woo: Iowa and Michigan State played maybe the ugliest game in the history of ugliness Saturday. The quarterbacks went a combined 31 for 67 (guh) for 4.7 yards an attempt (that's bad). The running backs went for a combined 3.7 yards a carry. There were 12 penalties. The only redeeming quality was the evenness of the overall distribution of ugly: It was blah against blah. I'd like to say something nice about the defenses but was too busy watching the offenses be awful to notice any of the good stuff. The announcers at one point referred to de facto starting running back Marc Weisman, a walk-on fullback who's getting carries only because AIRBHG is a vengeful bastard, as "Iowa's best player." No joke. And Iowa won! On the road! The Iowa that lost to Central Michigan (which just lost to Navy by 10)! Woo Big Ten! Speaking of which, Iowa is now 2-0 in conference play, gets Penn State and Purdue at home and doesn't play Ohio State or Wisconsin (for some reason). Splitting the Michigan and Nebraska games might actually be sufficient to win the division, which please God no. Just no. As for Sparty, the offense has gone from really bad to really terrible since superhuman tight end Dion Sims went out a couple weeks ago with an ankle injury. The passing game is nonexistent; the running game seems like it should be decent with LeVeon Bell but generates 3.5 yards a carry regardless of all other factors because the O-line is just sort of there and doesn't really create anything. Considering that the next four games on the schedule are at Michigan, at Wisconsin, Nebraska and Northwestern (all teams that seem capable of scoring 20 points), Michigan State could legitimately be 5-6 by the middle of November and playing Minnesota for bowl eligibility in The Game of the Century (or something).
Way to Manage the Clock of the Week: OH WHY CAN'T JOHN L. SMITH STILL BE COACHING AT MICHIGAN STATE???
Obligatory:
Never gets old. Never.
Totally unrelated Big Ten note-type thing: Jerry Kill had a seizure (another seizure) after Minnesota lost to Northwestern and was briefly hospitalized for testing and generally having a seizure and whatnot. Jerry Kill don't care:
"He was evaluated (Saturday) and this morning, and all tests confirm that he remains in excellent health," team physician Dr. Pat Smith said in a statement Sunday. "His only concern is his team and staff, and he is excited to resume his normal coaching duties as Minnesota prepares for Wisconsin this week. He plans to be back in the office tomorrow."
Srsly? The guy has had two seizures during/after games in the past two years along with an unspecified number of "additional" seizures; isn't there a point at which being alive is preferable to being the coach at Minnesota? He's having seizures! Maybe he'd have the seizures regardless and therefore sees no benefit to not coaching? I dunno. Regardless, the guy deserves some credit for dragging Minnesota back toward respectability; beating Illinois (probable) and Purdue (possible) would give Minnesota six wins and a spot in a crappy bowl game, which would represent one small step toward replicating the Glen Mason era and one giant leap toward mediocrity.
Is Gene Chizik still employed? Auburn lost to Ole Miss by three touchdowns Saturday. Auburn is terrible. Auburn scored 20 points in that game and hasn't scored more than 20 points against any major-conference team other than Ole Miss since a two-touchdown loss to Clemson last September. Auburn is terrible. Auburn is now 1-5 overall (the one win was against Louisiana-Monroe in overtime) and, barring a win over Vanderbilt next week, will go winless in the SEC. Yeah: Auburn is terrible. This is the same program that won the national title 19 games ago and has had nothing but top-10 recruiting classes since Gene Chizik took over. How does that happen? Gus Malzahn was very good (at least last year's team could score points against bad teams); hiring Scot Loeffler to replace him and coach a bunch of spread guys probably wasn't so good. Brian Van Gorder has been OK as D-coordinator this year but is in a pretty tough spot since the offense never gets a first down. It's probably worth noting that Chizik has a 22-34 career record in seasons not starring Cam Newton. Terrible. What's the record for fewest games coached after a national title before being fired for performance reasons? Even Larry Coker made it four freakin' years.
Not Quite a Tackle of the Week: Jeff Scott got tackled but didn't really and then ran a long way:
Auburn would be complaining if not for that Michael Dyer run that was slightly more meaningful.
Oh hai Boise State: Boise is 5-1 and has only two losable games left on the schedule, the first being a home game against San Diego State in three weeks and the second being the regular-season finale at Nevada. An 11-1 record and Fiesta Bowl berth beckon despite a complete lack of offense, basically nothing indicative of overall goodness and a schedule featuring nobody better than Michigan State, a team that beat Boise and might still go 6-6. Ehh.
Game of the Week: Texas A&M 59, Louisiana Tech 57. Texas A&M led 27-0 with six minutes left in the first half yet had to stop a two-point play with 38 seconds left to avoid overtime. The difference in the game: a blocked PAT run back for two points late in the first half. Louisiana Tech's offense: It's legit. Texas A&M had given up 74 points all season coming in (including 20 to Florida); Louisiana Tech finished with 615 total yards (but got outgained by 63 yards lol) and scored 57 points in a span of 35 minutes of game time to make the ending relevant. Colby Cameron went 44 for 58 for 450 yards with five touchdowns and no picks. Wideout Quinton Patton had 233 receiving yards and four touchdowns. That's crazy. Equally crazy: Texas A&M committed 19 penalties (!!!) for 168 yards. I know. Even crazier: Johnny Manziel had 395 passing yards (on only 41 attempts) and three touchdowns and ran for 181 yards and three more touchdowns. The ending in video form:
Ridiculous. I'll be pretty disappointed if Louisiana Tech ends up 11-1 and playing in the Independence Bowl; both of those seem likely given (a) the remaining schedule and (b) the remaining schedule, which includes zero games anybody will pay attention to, especially with Louisiana Tech not even currently ranked (despite comfortable road wins over both Illinois and Virginia argh).
Player of the Week: Johnny Manziel. The end.
How good is Kansas State? Get back to me in a month. The Oklahoma win looks pretty good now but has to be qualified with the acknowledgment that Oklahoma would've won by 10 if not for two fluky fumbles, one by Landry Jones that K-State recovered for a touchdown and one by Blake Bell at the K-State 1-yard line that cost Oklahoma a touchdown of its own. I'm not totally buying that a team that's played almost dead even with both North Texas and Iowa State in the last four weeks and is statistically pretty dang comparable to Michigan is legitimately deserving of a top-five ranking. NEED MOAR DATA; I'll get it via the next six games (at West Virginia, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, at TCU, at Baylor, Texas), of which Kansas State will probably be an underdog in two.
The ghost of Greg Schiano: Rutgers is gonna start 9-0. I'm serious: The next three games are against Temple (meh), Kent State and Army. The last three games are against Cincinnati, Pitt and Louisville; Cincy and Louisville are both undefeated right now, and it's plausible that the winner of their game next Friday will be undefeated come November. I don't think any of those teams is going unbeaten but have to acknowledge the possibility, although the existence of said possibility says a lot more about the Big East than it says about Rutgers/Cincinnati/Louisville, the three of which will have a combined zero wins over ranked teams other than themselves.
ACC nonsense: There's one team unbeaten in ACC play. Guess again. Not even close. It's Maryland, a team that's 2-0 in the ACC after losing to UConn (which in turn lost to Western Michigan) and beating William & Mary by one in the first month. Woo ACC! I hope for the Orange Bowl's sake that Florida State ends up winning the thing; the alternative is unfathomable. "YOU'RE LOOKING LIVE AT THE FEDEX ORANGE BOWL, WHERE NORTH CAROLINA AND RUTGERS ARE AAAHHHHH THIS NIGHTMARE MUST END NOW." BTW, Virginia Tech fell behind Duke 20-0 (!) in the first quarter Saturday before remembering that Duke (even 5-1 Duke) is Duke and going on a 41-0 run over the next 48 minutes. I still think Va. Tech ends up in the title game against Florida State but really have no idea since it's the ACC, where Maryland is unbeaten and Miami leads a division (I have no idea which one) despite being pretty bad.
Awfulness of the Week: Kentucky was losing to Arkansas 42-0 at halftime and 49-7 when the game was called with five minutes left in the third quarter (lightning and whatnot). No additional numbers needed. The chances that Kentucky wins an SEC game this year are the same as the chances that Joker Phillips still has a job as of January, which is to say that they're zero. High five?
High five!
Post-Week 7 top 10: I have no idea what to do with West Virginia (especially in relation to Notre Dame, a team with an awesome front seven, a crappy secondary and worse-than-crappy quarterback play); the bottom four teams could justifiably be rearranged in any order. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.
1. Alabama
2. Oregon
3. Florida
4. LSU
5. South Carolina
6. Oklahoma
7. USC
8. Florida State
9. Notre Dame
10. West Virginia
