On The Field
Gad Zook-s!
Ron Zook has four days left to prepare to play the Georgia Bulldogs. He also might need to spend some of that time looking for a new job.
Zook was fired on Monday as head coach of the Florida Gators, along with his entire coaching staff. During his two and a half years at Florida, Zook has led his team to a record of *insert record*, clearly not up to expectations of a Florida program that was used to contending for the National Title under Steve Spurrier.
As the quest begins for Zook's replacement, obviously the first name on the list is Spurrier who resigned from coaching the Washington Redskins after two troublesome years in the NFL. Spurrier has spent most of his time since that point on the golf course and away from coaching. Comments by Spurrier on Monday don't tip his hand in either direction as to what he would say if he was asked to come back. He would be inheriting a team with obvious talent, but which was not motivated under Zook's leadership to compete in a very difficult SEC over the past few years.
The most shocking part for me, which seems to be the trend these days, is that Zook will continue to coach through the end of the season. If a team had no motivation to win under him when he was the coach, where will the motivation come when he is coaching as a lame duck with four games to go? To me, it does not seem like this would be a situation where a team would go out and try extra hard to win it for the guy who brought them there. At least not this Florida team. That to me is why it is shocking that Zook was fired before the end of the season. Obviously, the loss to Mississippi State was going to spell the doom for Zook at year end. By accelerating the process, the only guarantee that Florida has right now is that they will not get into a situation similar to what happened at Auburn last year when Louisville coach Bobby Petrino was secretly flown in to meet with Auburn officials while Tommy Tuberville still was in possession of his job.
As I wrote on Saturday, Florida still has a difficult schedule ahead with their next four games. The only "easy" win should come against Vanderbilt. The other three teams remaining have a combined record of 17-4 heading into this weekend. With a 4-3 record right now, Florida could potentially end the season at 5-6, missing a bowl game for the first time since the 1990-91 season. According to a
poll run by ESPN, almost 60% of those responding believe this will be the case.
The Georgia game on Saturday will be the true litmus test for the team. Should they fight hard and be close against Georgia, or maybe even win the game, they may be able to salvage their season and a bowl berth. However, this will be a tough chore against a Georgia team which had over 500 yards of offense on Saturday in their game against Arkansas.
If the Gators lose on Saturday...well, at least their next opponent is Vanderbilt.
BCS Standings for Week 2 are released
Week 2 of the BCS was released on Monday and looked more like what everyone expected out of Week 1. Oklahoma moved up to #2 overall in the standings, passing by a Miami team who now is ranked #1 in most of the computer polls after their win against North Carolina State on Saturday.
My prediction was wrong. USC did not increase its lead. Maybe I should read what I write sometimes as that would have stopped me from making the prediction. USC lost ground in most of the computer polls, despite their crushing victory over Washington. Why? Because Washington is not a good team this year. Miami, meanwhile, played a very good North Carolina State team and won, which allowed them to move up in the computers, as they calculate it. So, while USC in the MRI increased its lead and Miami actually lost ground, the BCS computers showed just the opposite.
This release of the BCS actually sets up more controversy than last week. In none of the 3 categories are the top 3 teams the same. This could lead us down the road to another split champion at the end of the year, or a case where the top two teams in the polls don't meet in the championship game once again. What if Auburn were to move to #2 in one of the human polls, most likely the coaches' poll, while Oklahoma remained #2 in the AP poll? Through the magic of BCS, what if we end up with USC and Miami actually meeting in the championship game while Miami is not #2 in either poll? What if Miami actually wins? Granted there are four weeks left to sort it all out, but with Miami leading the computers and with a strong schedule the rest of the way including a date with Virginia, it is a possibility that they could gain
enough ground in the polls to still be #3, but move back to #2 in the BCS.
Although my prediction for this week was wrong, I was just taking a guess based on what the MRI showed after all its calculations. I am more shocked by the prediction of the rankings that was shown on Saturday night during the College Gameday Final show on ESPN. With great fanfare, they revealed their prediction for this week's rankings and they predicted that they would be exactly the same as last week's rankings. I even commented on this in my article on Sunday. While predictions can be wrong, it is shocking because they have someone tracking this fulltime who came up with that prediction. Not only was it wrong, it lead to commentary from the analysts to the effect of "Thank goodness that Utah team is out of the picture".
With Utah actually moving into 6th in the BCS, they are in a better position now than a week earlier. If they continue to win, they should move up the human polls, strengthening their position in the final standings. It will be difficult, because they will be playing lesser opponents compared to those that Wisconsin, Cal, and Auburn will be playing. Right now though, it is within reason that Utah will be in the top 6 at the end of the year, and will be automatically in a BCS bowl. If they win that, look for more changes in the BCS next year, especially with all the conferences being shaken up.
Mr. Mandel pleases again
Now, this is what you call in depth reporting. These stories don't just fall in your lap... though in this case, they do start there.
Stewart Mandel: Five teams have turned it around:
"When you've gotta go ...
No one was happier to see Stanford miss a 49-yard field-goal attempt that would have sent Saturday's game against Oregon to overtime than Ducks QB Kellen Clemens. Why? He had to pee -- and he'd been holding it nearly the entire second half. In the rain, no less. On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad was it? 'Eleven,' Clemens told the Oregonian. Even so, Clemens took a few moments after the final gun to shake hands with Stanford's players, salute the crowd and join the band in a serenade before darting to the locker room, but not before apologizing to a pack of people waiting for him as he was coming off the field: 'Sorry, I really have to pee.' Ducks tackle Adam Snyder said Clemens was being extremely polite, and hygienic, to wait that long when he could have just, well ... 'Guys do it all the time,' he told the Oregonian. 'They just squirt some water on them to rinse off. Their socks are probably nasty, though.'"
More Thoughts from the week
The BCS rankings will be released for the second week tomorrow at noon. Most predictions are that they will look exactly the same as they did last week. I myself believe that after the crushing that USC put on Washington, they will actually increase their lead, which is hard to do, because they were less than .01 from a perfect score last week. For the other spots, it will most likely get closer with Miami, Oklahoma, and Auburn all probably getting as close as close can be, and leaving no room for error.
It is disappointing that they took margin of victory out of the computer polls a few years ago. I think if handled correctly, margin of victory is an important component of a team's strength. There is a big difference between beating a team by one or two points on a last second field goal, and taking it to that team and beating them by 30. That is why I include margin of victory in the MRI. I however do have rules around it which long time followers of my rankings know. I have a cap on the amount of margin that you can get credit for, and I weight the amount you win by based on the strength of the team that you beat. I believe this gives a fair assessment of the true margin of victory. As a result, Oklahoma's victory over a middle of the pack Kansas team by 31 was worth more than Auburn's 32 point win over a terrible Kentucky team.
It has annoyed me a lot lately watching the studio shows and hearing the analysts consistently say, "The computers don't watch the games, the pollsters do." Well, I have news for them. The pollsters most likely aren't watching either. How many coaches are watching the games when they are out on the field at the same time playing their games? Some of those coaches may get tapes of the games because they might play some of the teams in coming weeks. But how many can honestly watch all of the games before the deadline that they are required to vote by?
To be fair, the computer polls that are included in the BCS are not all very complete. Some of them only look at who you play and the outcome of the game, making it no more exact than the RPI for judging teams. I have written much in the past about how I loathe the RPI, so I will not repeat that here. Let's just say, I find it inaccurate, and that is part of the reason that I developed the MRI. Other polls lose their accuracy because of the rules imposed by the BCS. Jeff Sagarin has two polls that he runs to get his final numbers posted on his
website. His first poll is more like a chess rating, which makes it a type of RPI. The other is a more in depth algorithm that includes margin of victory. The BCS only uses the chess type rating which lessens the accuracy that Sagarin has been known for.
I feel my computer poll is complete and enough in depth because it weighs a number of factors, not just wins and losses like some polls do. I will admit that it appears to weight teams with only superior defenses low. You can see this from the lower ranking of Wisconsin, a team that has a punishing defense. However, this was the case last year also with Ohio State. I still believe that despite the addage that defense wins championships, you still need a quality offense to put points on the board for those times when your defense is not what it should be. Wisconsin's defense won it the game against Purdue last week, but it will not be able to win them every game. It is too bad that they do not play Michigan this year, a team with a balanced offensive attack and a good defense to see how they would hold up.
Ok, some quick shots:
- Was there any more punishing hit this weekend than the one that Ernest Shazor of Michigan put on Purdue's Dorien Bryant late in the game? Kyle Orton was once again driving his team late in the game looking to put them in position for a game tying field goal and hoping to take their chances in overtime. Orton's pass to Bryant took him over the middle and he was knocked into the air by Michigan defensive back Markus Curry. Shazor then came from up the field as Bryant was still airborne and knocked him back about 3 yards, at the same time jarring the ball loose. The ball was recovered by Michigan and they were able to run out the clock on the Boilermakers. This was the second week in a row that a late fumble by Purdue has stalled a crucial late game drive. Perhaps they are trying to be like Nebraska, who incidentally had four turnovers once again on Saturday. This loss may have essentially eliminated Kyle Orton from the Heisman race. It was pretty much a given that Purdue would need a big performance from him to keep that dream alive after he struggled against Wisconsin. That didn't happen as Orton finished with 213 yards and only one touchdown, numbers which weren't very much different from Michigan's freshman quarterback, Chad Henne.
- Something has gotten into Miami's offense and whatever it was, it was given to them by Larry Coker during half time of the Louisville game. Since halftime of that game, the Hurricanes have scored 79 points, something that was not expected from this team. Brock Berlin threw for five touchdowns on Saturday against North Carolina state, who had the top rated defense in the league going into the game. His five touchdowns tied a Miami record and put him in pretty good company (Can anyone say Bernie Kosar?). Whatever Larry Coker said during that halftime, he needs to bottle and sell it. I can think of a few teams who right now are wishing they had that kind of magic.
- Iowa beat Penn State 6-4. Yes, that is right, 6-4. And yes, they were playing football. This actually reminded me of one of those bar conversations I know you have all had. Ok, well, maybe only I have bar conversations like this, but bear with me. The conversation was along the lines of what score did we think no one had ever had at the end of a game in football. The consensus between me and my friend was that "4" was definitely the answer. However, no amount of research on our parts could find that answer, and since I don't know anyone at any of the big sports statistics firms, the question went unanswered. Well, now we have "4".
- For just a minute, think about how the standings would be different right now if Cal had beaten USC a few weeks back. Cal has shown between that game, which was very close all the way, and the rest of the season that they are every bit as good as USC if not even a little bit better. I hope that Cal gets a shot at a BCS bowl this year. They have definitely shown that they have what it takes. Granted there is a lot of football left, but it would be nice to see them and Aaron Rodgers in the Rose Bowl.
Lastly, Ohio State managed to win against Indiana and avoid going 0-4 in the Big Ten. I shouldn't gloat, but it was really nice to see them at 0-3 and having no idea what to do with themselves. I still think they will have a good game with Michigan later this season, and the Wolverines better beware as they can't let down if they hope to at least tie for the Big Ten championship. At the same time, the road for Ohio State doesn't get any easier. They have a good chance of finishing with only three wins in the conference. I can't say I will be very upset if that happens.
Enjoy the
rankings and see you next week.
B
Mmmm, Sandwiches
Actual quote during the halftime show on ABC in reference to the amount of time that Wisconsin quarterback, John Stocco, had in the pocket.
"Stocco back there eating sandwiches." - Aaron TaylorHuh? Never heard that one before. Must be something they only say at Notre Dame, where Taylor went to school. If this was a comment on Dream Job for a spot at being a SportsCenter anchor, I can guarantee that Al Jaffe would be putting Taylor on the cut list.
Florida defeated by Mississippi State
Things can't get much worse for the Florida Gators. As if all the
off the field issues weren't enough for the team, their performance on the field late in games has left something to be desired.
Saturday marked the third time this year that Florida has lost the lead late in the fourth quarter, and it ultimately cost them the game. To make matters even worse, all three losses have come against SEC opponents.
The trouble started September 18th, just two days after the fraternity house incident, when the Gators lost on a 50 yard field goal to Tennessee. Their troubles continued three weeks later against LSU when a late drive by the Tigers set up a touchdown pass to LSU running back Joseph Addai with only 0:27 remaining in the game. To make that loss worse, it marked the 6th time that the Gators had lost at home under Ron Zook in the last two and a half years. To compare, the Gators did not lose that many times at home in 12 seasons under Steve Spurrier.
Flash forward to Saturday, playing on the road at Mississippi State, a team which had only one win, coming against an unimpressive Tulane team in their first game. Mississippi State was sure up for the Gators possibly calling on the guts they showed the last time the Gators were on the road in Starkville. On that trip, the Bulldogs also won, snapping a 72 game win streak by Florida against unranked opponents.
Mississippi State and Florida went back and forth the entire game with the final score coming with just 0:44 left in the fourth quarter. On the play, Jerious Norwood broke two tackles and scampered for 37 yards for a touchdown to put Mississippi State up for good. This came on a drive where Mississippi State was just trying to get in position to kick a field goal and hope it would be enough. Norwood finished with 2 touchdowns and 174 yards rushing on 29 carries.
Florida was unable to do much with the ball on their drive, and having to start at their own 20 on the last drive didn't help. A personal foul facemask penalty on the touchdown run allowed Mississippi State to kick off from the 50 and easily get a touchback.
Florida still has three more SEC games remaining, but at 2-3 in conference, there is not much hope left for a title run. Two of the remaining conference games are against Georgia and South Carolina, two teams which should put up a good fight against the Gators. Even splitting those two games would only guarantee that Florida could end at .500 in conference, as their other conference game is against Vanderbilt, a game which should be winnable. Of course, that was what people were saying about Mississippi State.
Lost in the game was that this is the first conference win for Sylvester Croom who took over at Mississippi State this year. This is the type of win that can turn a program around fast. Croom is probably hoping that is just the case. He has found offense from his running back, and a gutsy performance by his quarterback Omarr Conner, who fought cramps throughout the final drive by the Bulldogs.
Hats off to Croom and the Bulldogs on their win. For Zook and the Gators, they have seven days to figure out what went wrong and correct it before they face another tough Bulldog team, this one in Georgia.
"A Spattering of Northwestern Fans"
The comment was just made in the Northwestern-Wisconsin game after a shot of Northwestern fans were shown celebrating a touchdown by the Wildcats that
"A spattering of Northwestern fans have made the trip [to Wisconsin]"Well, yes, because that is all that exist in the entire country, a spattering. Though, I do think that they probably have gained a lot more fans over the past few weeks with their wins over Ohio State and Minnesota. It doesn't look like they can pull the same magic this week against Wisconsin right now, with only 13:30 left in the fourth quarter. However, they have just scored two touchdowns in the last 5 minutes, and they have just stopped another drive by Wisconsin.
Stay tuned.
SI's Stewart Mandel gets some props
Everyone should go read
this article, but you really only have to look at 3 things on the page.
First, the BCS rules that Mr. Mandel lays out are correct and while I think is it possible that we may have three teams undefeated this year, it is also most likely that it will not happen. I think Auburn will be the surprise team from rule #3 and that is not because the MRI has them first right now, or because I happen to like Auburn. You can't deny a team from the SEC who has a very good chance, if they stay focused, to go undefeated should get a shot at the title. Even with a regular season loss, Auburn would be 11-1 after the SEC championship game (Tennessee could maybe make a game of it the second time around). In my book that is better than a USC team with one loss. The only way I see them being left out at 11-1 is a second undefeated team, and scary enough, it might be from the Big Ten.
Second, he is the first person in any column I have read, and that was a lot of columns, or on any television show who has noted the distinct possibility that on Thursday night, we will see Louisville defeat Miami. Yes, that is Louisville, a team in Conference USA. They are moving to the Big East next year, but the Big East will still be a who cares league even with them. The MRI has this game being very close and only going to Miami on the basis of home field advantage. Don't be surprised if the MRI gets this one wrong.
Third, the last question is hilarious.
Fourth, ok, yes I said only three, but fourth, at least he has a decent picture on the SI.com site. The picture they have of him on Yahoo Sports should be burned. Repeatedly. Honestly, if someone posted that picture of me on my articles week after week, I would find the guy in the web department and put magnets on his hard drive.
Enjoy,
B
Week 6 thoughts
This was an interesting week in college football. There were a number of big games, most notably, Texas-Oklahoma, USC-Cal, and Georgia-Tennessee. There were a number of games which looked lopsided on paper and then ended up being very close victories for some teams. All of this served to shuffle the MRI around a lot and throw a new team on top of the pack. Even teams that lost this week moved ahead of the team that beat them, most notably, Cal, after their strong game against USC, proving that they could hang around in the second half and still give themselves a chance to win.
My thoughts this week are varied so stay with me. I meant to post the last two weeks, but things have been crazy so some of these may be a little longer than you are used to.
- First, I am going to dismiss Fresno State from the BCS contenders. It was a nice run the first few weeks of the season, and I thought that they definitely had what it would take to mow through the rest of the season without a hitch, especially after their win against Kansas State, which I have talked about before. However, the last two weeks they have blown it. A shocking loss to Louisiana Tech last week would pretty much have ended the hopes for anything outside of one of the WAC's bowls. This is especially true after watching how Louisiana Tech got destroyed by Auburn this week. However, you should have expected Fresno to come back this week. Instead, another shocking loss this week to UTEP makes their chances of winning the WAC a long shot as they are now 0-2. Not only does this second loss hurt Fresno State, but it also hurts Boise State. How you ask? Boise State goes against Fresno State, in what was thought to be the matchup which would leave one team undefeated and with a chance to break into the BCS top 10 and a chance at an at large bid. Now that game doesn't have the same schedule strength for Boise State and will most likely hurt them, even if they do win. Fresno State with the second loss of the year is now 3-2 and lingering at 48th in the MRI standings. This will be a position hard to maintain, especially given the weakness in the WAC this year, which now Fresno State is part of.
- The Big East is missing and someone better call their mothers, because they haven't been heard from in two weeks. If you look up and down the rankings this week in the MRI, you will notice that no team from the Big East is listed in the Top 25. There is one member of the WAC, Mountain West, and Conference USA. Even the two team independents managed to squeeze in Notre Dame this week after their win against Stanford. However, no team from the Big East was rated high enough in the MRI to warrant the blue and yellow Top 25 numbers next to their name. The current MRI leader for the league is Boston College(#26), a team who no one expected to be tied for the lead in the conference, yet they are on top in the weakest of the BCS conferences. West Virginia(#29), a team that everyone expected to be on top in the conference has yet to play a conference game was thoroughly beaten by Virginia Tech(#34) last week. This week during their bye, they had a lot to work on. The Big East was even listed under the Mountain West last week in the MRI standings. How bad is that? Besides Wyoming(#43) and MRI #9, Utah, no other team in the Mountain West has a record over .500. The Big East was able to move back ahead this week despite BC and West Virginia having the week off. A late comeback by Rutgers for a win, a close game between Syracuse and Florida State, and the surprisingly close game between Pittsburgh and Temple helped to move the Big East back up. While we mention it, Pittsburgh should be ashamed of themselves. Temple last week was massacred to the tune of 70 points. Pittsburgh came into Temple this week and played down to their level. Temple led throughout the game until the final 8 minutes when Pitt was able to score twice and hold off the Owls who scored late to make it only a five point victory for the Panthers. You can definitely say that Pittsburgh will be happy to see Temple leave the Big East at the end of this season.
- One of the teams which will take up play in the Big East next year is Cincinnati, and they have some explaining to do this week. They got beat by Army. Yes, Army. You remember them. They hadn't won a game since 2002. They hadn't won a home game since 2001. The last team they had beaten in both cases had been Tulane. Yet, somehow, the Cincinnati Bearcats played like pussycats, and got creamed by the cadets of West Point. Army, and their coach Bobby Ross, deserve a lot of credit for their win. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a turn around for Army. Cincinnati, meanwhile, has a lot of soul searching to do. Quarterback Gino Guidugli was quoted as saying, "We're probably the laughingstock of the nation." Gino, yes, yes you are.
- How bad is SMU? They lost to Rice on Saturday. That alone wouldn't have been enough to make me call them out. However, you could count the number of times that Rice threw the ball on one hand. Yes, they only threw the ball five times. How many passes did they complete? You only need one finger for that number. Rice completed one attempted pass for five total yards. Yet, they still won the game and racked up 496 yards on the ground. You would have thought that SMU would catch on. If their rushing defense is that pathetic, SMU should just give up, because in this game, just guessing run every down would have been right 94% of the time. There was a reason that SMU went winless last year. Had they not played San Jose State this year, they might have had a chance to do the same again this year.
- I called it two weeks ago. The Navy and Notre Dame game next week will actually mean something. Navy took care of business against Air Force, despite a close game which was really a pleasure to watch. Notre Dame survived this week against Stanford, despite doing everything they could to lose the game. Navy, with a win against the Irish at home, has a chance to go through the season without a loss, as their remaining games should be a lot easier than what they have seen so far. Notre Dame, with a win, has 3 games left which could actually help them climb into the Top 10, despite not being ranked currently. If they could win against BC, Tennessee, and possibly beat USC in the season finale, they definitely will be in the hunt for an at large BCS bid. This is a tough call for Notre Dame. They have, at times, looked terrible this season, including opening night against BYU, and their game yesterday. They will need to step up their performance, and the first step in doing that will be beating Navy on the road. Personally, you all know how much I hate Notre Dame. GO MIDSHIPMEN!
- Whoever purchases the receiver gloves and stick-um for the Nebraska Cornhuskers should be fired. Nebraska had 7 turnovers against Texas Tech in their game on Saturday, the worst loss ever for Nebraska in their 114 year history. This marks the fourth time in five games that Nebraska has had 4 or more turnovers in the game. They currently have a -11 turnover ratio, which is next to last in Division 1 football. The only two teams who are worse are SMU and Clemson, both at -12. Nebraska would most likely lead the league if it weren't for Western Illinois holding onto the ball just as poorly in their game against Nebraska. The Cornhuskers, currently #58 in the MRI, have a lot of work to do starting with holding onto the ball and not throwing to the team wearing the other colors. After that, they have to get their offense working as the only team they have more than 3 TDs against was Division 1-AA Western Illinois. After their performance on Saturday, it looks like their defense needs some help too, though they weren't helped by the turnovers deep in their own territory. Bill Callahan, good luck.
- The Wyatt Sexton experiment continues at MRI #12, Florida State. Since I didn't post two weeks ago, you missed me finally getting my wish. Chris Rix went down with a sprained ankle in the Florida State game against Clemson and has yet to return. That is because a young man by the name of Wyatt Sexton has stepped in and taken charge of a struggling offense. Sexton, a sophomore, played in two games last season, mostly as mop up work for Chris Rix in blow outs against Duke and North Carolina. This year, Sexton has been impressive. He stepped into the game against Clemson and led the offense beautifully to a win. It wasn't so much that he put up big stats in the game. It was more that his passes were accurate, with a completion percentage over 65%, and his receivers were given a chance to catch them and do something with them. This trend continued against North Carolina last week and Sexton put 3 TD passes up on the board. While the game against Syracuse was not as impressive, Sexton still proved he has what it takes to lead the team the rest of the year. Despite throwing no touchdowns and an interception against the Orange, Sexton held his ground in the Dome, a place that no one wants to go play. The hostile crowd berated him the entire game, yet with only one miscue on his part, you can hardly attack the young QB. Bobby Bowden has found his quarterback. If he doesn't stick with Sexton the rest of the season, it should only be due to injury.
- I paid $20 this weekend to get the ESPN GamePlan football package. Because of this, I got to see the second straight overtime victory for Northwestern, putting them to 2-1 in Big Ten and actually in the hunt for the conference title. I also watched Virginia Tech hold off Wake Forest on their final drive to win for the second week in a row and capture their first ACC road win. The real reason for the purchase, was to see two Top Ten MRI teams, duke it out. USC and Cal at the Coliseum was a great game which saw USC pull ahead only to have Cal keep coming back. Lost in the great game was the fact that Aaron Rodgers, the quarterback from Cal, tied an NCAA record by completing 23 passes in a row. That performance was almost enough to lead the Bears to their second straight victory over the Trojans, yet it was not enough. Rodgers had even led the Bears down to the 9 yard line late in the game with a chance to move ahead on the scoreboard. However, a sack and three incomplete passes left the Bears just short of dropping USC again. The performance by Cal was enough though to move the Bears ahead of USC in the MRI. USC lost some ground, in part because of losses by BYU and Stanford. Both teams dropped in the MRI standings leaving Cal at #10, from #8, and USC at #11, from #6. If you think this is the first time that has happened in the MRI where a winning team would actually lose MRI points while the losing team gains, you don't have to look any further back than Friday when Houston and Southern Mississippi played. Houston dominated every facet of the game but on the scoreboard. Southern Mississippi dropped 10 spots in the MRI from 26 to 36, despite the fact that they remained undefeated.
- The biggest game of the week was not the one I just finished talking about. It was the game between Texas and Oklahoma which began the day. This was a defensive player's dream game. Neither team was at home, as the game was at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, and the crowd was split 50/50 right along the mid field line. It was raining and windy through most of the game, which severely limited the ability for either team to complete anything through the air. Once again, Oklahoma had the defensive answer to Texas's ground game. Cedric Benson, the star back for the Longhorns was held to under 100 yards, and without him to carry the team, the Texas offense struggled. Quarterback Vince Young could not get anything done through the air and twice, on runs, lost the ball, including one deep in Oklahoma territory after a fumble by Oklahoma gave Texas great field position. It looked like Texas was going to take the momentum lead in the game after that recovery, but Young's miscue once again turned the tide back to the Sooners. Oklahoma rode the back of Adrian Peterson, who ran for 225 yards against Texas, even though he failed to score a touchdown. Despite not scoring, he helped to set up all three of Oklahoma's scores with impressive running. And not to scare anyone in the Big 12, but this guy is still a freshman. Texas has now lost five games in a row against Oklahoma and it looks like they will have to wait until next year to try and be the big dog in the Big 12. The MRI had predicted a win for Texas by a small amount. Oklahoma was able to prove it wrong. Oklahoma moved up to #5 in the MRI with the win while dropping Texas to #13.
Finally, I thought I would make one comment on Auburn. The Tigers took over the
top spot in the MRI this week with their big win over Louisiana Tech. Yes, Auburn has the 83rd ranked schedule in the league as calculated by the MRI, with games so far against Louisiana-Monroe, Mississippi State, and the Citadel. Their schedule doesn't get very much more difficult either, as they have already played two of their tough games against LSU and Tennessee. Their remaining big matchups are with Alabama, which every year can go either way, Georgia, after a bye week, and Arkansas, who has yet to show whether or not they should be feared. Auburn should be able to handle Alabama and Arkansas, but Georgia is really the wild card right now. After their disappointing loss against a Tennessee team which Auburn easily handled the week before, Georgia needs to regroup in a hurry. Auburn does lead the MRI right now, but they have also played one more game than most of the other leaders, and the race remains close. Any slips by the Tigers, or a great game by any of the other teams, could drop them from the lead spot and that could come at any time. Good luck Auburn, you will need it.
I hope you all enjoyed week 6. I know I did.
B
