Hodgepodge
Monday, February 5, 2007 at 07:29AM National Letter of Intent Day is on Wednesday. If your coworkers are needlessly edgy this week, that's why. There's nothing like worrying about the decision-making skills of high school seniors to set off an anxiety attack.
***
Parade has released its 2007 All American team. You can see the roster here.
Its co-players of the year are Punky QB Jimmy Clausen who is Notre Dame bound and all-purpose offensive force Joe McKnight from Louisiana who will choose from LSU, USC and Ole Miss on signing day.
***
The Indianapolis Colts won a strange Super Bowl last night. It was reminiscent in some way of college football's title game. We had the opening kickoff returned for a touchdown. We had a game-long answer to that return by the other team that utilized a sharp underneath passing game to mystify their opponents' vaunted defense mixed in with a healthy dose of first and second down runs.
But we also saw the favorite win, whereas the underdog won in college football's title game. Where Indianapolis had no answer but field goals in the short field red zone situations, Urban Meyer's crew wasted no time scoring touchdowns.
Congratulations to the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts, although you'll have a hard time convincing me they're the best team in the NFL. San Diego and Baltimore made a great case during the regular season before the apparent randomness of playoff football saw neither team even make the Super Bowl. Remind me again why you want a playoff in college football?
***
Say what you want about the Gang of Six but five of the original six have now appeared in and won BCS games, including championships from USC and Florida. Three of the original six (USC, Boise State, Louisville) plus 2005 entrants Florida and Notre Dame were in this year's series of BCS games.
And about Boise State... I never got to it around bowl time, but I ended up being a year early on my whole bold prediction thing. Boise slayed their dragon alright, it just took another year and for Jared Zabransky to do something other than melt down. There was an article by Austin Murphy in last week's Sports Illustrated documenting the in's and out's of their Fiesta Bowl victory over Oklahoma that might be worth a look.
One can be good for a long time in college football with talent and a mundane offense, but the innovators alone are the ones who move the wheels of history.
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (27)
I wasn't really surprised to see Manning take the MVP, but I think I would have given it to Addai or Rhodes.
that being said...Meyer was holding a lot back when he was getting his offense was getting it's butt whipped int eh 2nd half against Auburn....anyone who saw that game knows Auburn's fast defense was superior to Ohio States deense. I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings to talk about the fact that Auburn's linebackers and DE's are faster than Ohio States, but it is a fact, read up on the players. I can understand having a healthy skepticism for website posted 40 times on linemen and linebackers, but if you just watched game tape you'd seriously have no doubt.
Am I a bit scared of a true Meyer offense in the SEC over the coming years? yes
Do the superior speed defenses stop the innovative offenses a little better than a OSU defense can hope too? YES
look at bama vs. Hawaii and Texas Tech the last two years...look at UGA vs Boise State....look at LSU vs Notre Dame
last word: You are silly to have Michigan ranked higher than LSU in your final rankings...really really really silly...like please get a grip on reality silly...do you think MIchigan has a innovative offense? do you think their defense is better than LSU's, ridiculous...Chad Henne can't compare to J rock either..your bias shows in this ranking and it shows badly
A fair point.
Speed is of course going to have an impact on a game.
With the Florida/Auburn game, I don't know, maybe it was a matchup thing where Auburn could match the Gators' quickness.
I definitely agree Auburn's defense is fast, Blackmon is a flier and for 2-3 years Auburn's gone with a very fast edge from the DE's to the LB's who are all a little small for the typical SEC LB's.
Of course, one counter to that is a direct, physical attack with big/fast backs, which happened when Arkansas just shelled them for four quarters.
But Florida has not yet found a decent offensive line to work with which is why they're still not where they will eventually be with the offense. To win a title in spite of it speaks well of Meyer's strategizing (and yes, the Gator defense).
I understand your point about my ranking of LSU, BUT BUT BUT, here's what couldn't escape my mind with LSU:
1)What they did to Notre Dame wasn't unique. Two other similarly ranked teams did the exact same thing this year: USC and Michigan.
2)In their two biggest games of the year, LSU's offense never showed up (Florida, Auburn). In a weird way, they played like Texas Tech last year, killing everyone who was average or below and then folding in with the offense against the two best opponents. Obviously LSU is superior to Texas Tech, but the pattern was the same.
We have to be careful to extrapolate them as being superior to everyone in the Big Ten just because Florida killed Ohio State. Don't forget LSU's peers fell to two Big Ten teams in bowls this year.
BTW I'm glad you brought up retro innovators because it's just as much innovation in my mind as newfangled offenses. I think the new guys can do it best (Boise, what USC ran before canning Chow, etc.) but playing the same old mundane offense can only get most teams so far. Just ask Michigan these last 10 years.
Finally, about Borges, here's my theory on Auburn's offense this year. I think Tommy Tuberville stepped in quite a bit and made Auburn go conservative. He probably looked at the receivers and realized his second best guy was a walk-on, that his best back kept getting hurt and went into bunker mode.
So out the door went a lot of the more innovative stuff. The basic shell of the offense was there, but it was easy enough to defend unless the running game was doing well.
Finally, I think they realized that Brandon Cox wasn't who they thought he'd be. That or his health issues and other things were going to mess with consistency.
Auburn can once again ascend towards the top of the SEC but if I were coach I'd continue with the small/fast strategy on D but mix in a big guy or two somewhere, perhaps with one of those outside backers or defensive ends and then get some receivers who will be longtime NFL guys to help the quarterback. Tuberville clearly knows how to find linemen and backs but a highl productive offense usually has great players at every position. Rodriques Smith and McKenzie/Trott probably aren't the answer/ more of the same on offense in the coming years until an upgrade in talent occurs. Whoever is calling the shots on offense (since I'm not sure it's fully Borges anymore) is too conservative with the available talent.
Playing Colorado or Oklahoma or whoever is just as big for Texas Tech but when it mattered as an undefeated team in '05 they laid a huge egg against texas.
LSU just struck me as a very good team that not once but twice blew big game opportunities.
Ironically, Auburn did beat LSU and Florida but hemorrhaged at home in lesser games against Arkansas and Georgia. Funny sport, this college football.
LSU played 4 really good teams on the road. They lost the first 2 road games and won the last 2. Did they "choke" in the 1st two? Maybe. Maybe they just progressed and learned to handle adversity better as the season went on. I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder...
We all know that mass opinions can be just as wrong as individual opinions. A large majority of people thought Ohio State would beat Florida handily. Even more thought USC would whip UCLA. Dead wrong in both cases and many, many, others. So just because a bunch of people vote a team as #1, even unanimously, it's not even close to a certainty that they are correct.
You said that Florida was the best team this past season after championship game, yet if USC had beaten UCLA, you never would have known it. Everyone would have assumed it was the Ohio State - USC winner. That makes no sense, and it's because we don't know who the best team really is.
My argument is that since we don't know who the best team is, and it cannot be proven otherwise, it's best to have a playoff and determine a champion on the field. Note that I said "champion" and not "best team." Even after a playoff, we still don't know who the best team truly is. We will never know, so we should not act like we can. I don't care which team is the best, I want a champion.
It's nice to see some honesty.
But what would be the point of that?
Rivals says he's an impact RS-FR in the SEC next year:
http://collegefootball.rivals.com/content.asp?SID=1144&CID=638305
I agree about Auburn's small defense having a achilles heel against a serious running team. Muschamp has made bigger players a priority. I think part of the reason they are small is Tubby just wasn't able to recruit against LSU,UGA, BAMA and FLA for the big fast defensive players so he took the little faster ones and did the best he could, which turned out pretty good. Dontarius Thomas wasn't offered any other football scholies and was a 185 pound track athlete...tubby and auburn turned him into a 245 pound nfl linebacker.
I agree that borges is probably beign guided by the defensive coach in his playcalling...did you see manning throw a incomplete pass 30 yards down field with a two score lead and 9:30 left in the game?!? Tubby would never ever, never, ever ever do that...
however I disagree about auburn's talent at WR. Cortney taylor is gonna play in the NFL, you'll see after the combine...yes rod smith was a walk-on but his speed and catching ability are standard issue SEC WR..as is prechae rodriguez...they are as good as anything Eli Manning ever had to work with and not to mention Brad Lester and Carl Stewart being very dangerous recievers out of the backfield. If the 2nd and 3rd strigners were so bad why would they redshirt supposed 5 star Recruit Tim Hawthorne? The passing problems were with Cox and/or Borges or maybe the OL. Cox's injuries/sickness and regression is a mystery, do they really think he will heal up this off-season? Cox earned a lot of leeway with the UGA game two years ago, but if he starts of the new season with a 5-6 sack game I expect to see the other QB's get some work or maybe a Mario Fannan package ala Tim Tebow to help give Cox some rest.