Random Musings on Week 11Editors Note: With this being the start of Iron Bowl week in the state of Alabama, it only seems fitting to use one of the truly great unknown bands from the state as the inspiration for this week's musings...and that band is Birmingham's own Brother Cane.
1. Hard Act to Follow - I had assumed that most of my musings on anything related to Big East sports would occur during the heart of the college basketball season. However, the past two Thursday evenings, the college football world has been treated to back-to-back n
ationally televised games featuring Big East teams ranked amongst the top 15 teams in the country. The first week, we all had the opportunity to watch two high octane offenses do battle, and ultimately, Louisville was able to use its home crowd to its advantage and outlast West Virginia. The second straight Big East Thursday night showdown surely could not have lived up to the hype surrounding the first game, but
the Rutgers victory over then #3 ranked Louisville lived up to the standard set by Louisville and West Virginia and then went past it. Rutgers did the job in a much different fashion...by playing good, hard nosed defense. It almost reminded me of a SEC defense. Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano is on the verge of creating something very special in New Brunswick, NJ. People had to think he was absolutely insane when he left the comforts of Butch Davis's University of Miami staff to take over the head coaching job at Rutgers, but now, after taking Rutgers to its first bowl game since the now defunct Garden State Bowl in 1978, Schiano has Rutgers on the verge of a BCS bowl game. With a stout defense and the dynamic running back duo of Brian Leonard and Ray Rice, this Rutgers team may not challenge for the national title, but it can certainly announce itself as a program on the rise. So now that Rutgers has officially put itself on the college football map with its first win over a ranked opponent since 1988 and a spot in the Top 10, the question is....how will Rutgers handle being the hunted rather than the hunter? Tough road games at Cincinnait this week and at West Virginia to end the season will give the Scarlet Knights plenty of opportunity to prove their worth, and any team with a defense and rushing attack like Rutgers has will certainly have a shot to defeat an opponent.
2. And Fools Shine On - Arkansas head coach Houston Nutt has never been considered as having one of the more stable personalities amongst his coaching colleagues around the country....in some circles, he might even be considered a fool. Sure, Coach Nutt is a little off his rocker, and his inability to get the Razorbacks to bowl games in 2004 and 2005 put him sq
uarely on the hot seat heading into the 2006 season. A 50-14 home loss to Southern Cal to open the 2006 season gave the Arkansas faithful ample ammunition to start up
on-line petitions to fire the resident fool of Fayetteville. However, since surviving close calls against Vanderbilt and Alabama, Houston Nutt has not only turned the season around for Razorbacks and saved his own job, but he now has Arkansas squarely in the race for the BCS Title Game...that is, if you believe the Total System Failure bowl projections!
Saturday night's thorough domination of Tennessee on ESPN proved to the college football world that this Razorback team and its crazy coach are the real deal. I will be the first to say it - Darren McFadden is the best running back in America, and in my opinion, is the best college football player in America. He should win the Heisman, if you ask me, but alas, I don't have a vote. Here's the reason that I think McFadden should win the Heisman...it doesn't matter who plays quaterback for the Razorbacks - Dick or Mustain - they just keep rolling right along. McFadden is single handedly carrying this team, and oh yeah, he is only a sophomore. Arkansas will clinch a spot in Atlanta on Saturday when the Razorbacks will drill Mississippi State in Starville, and the resident fool of Fayetteville may just laugh his crazy ass all the way to Glendale, Arizona.
3. Pressure - Georgia Tech fans are used to their team letting them down. My buddy MJ at work told me after Georgia Tech was thumped by Clemson a few weeks ago that Georgia Tech blowing it on the national stage is just expected by all true Tech fans. So you've got to believe that the Yellow Jacket faithful were sweating profusely watching their team try to clinch a spot in the ACC Championship Game against a lowly North Carolina team. Fortunately, on this occassion, the Yellow Jackets were able to s
urvive with a pathetic 7-0 victory over a North Carolina team that has yet to win a game this season against a Division I opponent. As he has done throughout his four years on the Flats, Georgia Tech senior quarterback Reggie Ball lost his accuracy, and the big play passing attack for the Jackets was non-existent against a statistically solid Tar Heel pass defense (ranked #34 nationally against the pass). For the game, Ball was a mere 10 of 24 passing for a total of 78 yards. Although the Tech passing attack was slowed by the Tar Heel
defense, running back Tashard Choice gained 119 yards on the ground and toted the ball over 30 times. If the Jackets want to claim the ACC title this year and play in a BCS bowl game, then offensive coordinator (and former Auburn quarterback) Pat Nix is going to have to get consistent offensive production from Reggie Ball and the Tech passing game. Georgia Tech only ranks 76th in the country in total offense, but the telling statistic is that the Jackets are ranked 97th in passing with a senior quarterback and the best wide receiver in college football. Tech's offensive woes won't matter much this weekend against Duke, but if the Jackets want to win in Athens against Georgia and then in Jacksonville against the ACC Atlantic Division champion, Reggie Ball is going to have to be able to handle the pressure of quarterbacking a championship team.
4. Hung on a Rope - Well, the 2006 college football season has claimed yet another victim amongst Division I head coaches. Michigan State's John L. Smith and North Carolina's John Bunting were the first casualties this year, and now Iowa State Dan McCarney has joined them as ex-head coaches.
McCarney resigned from his position at Iowa State after 12 years in Ames, Iowa and while the Cyclones have struggled this year (3-7 overall, 0-6 in Big 12 play), McCarney being forced to res
ign is a joke. Prior to Dan McCarney becoming the head coach at Iowa State in 1994, the Cycylones had not been to a bowl game since the 1978 Hall of Fame Bowl. After taking six years to build the Iowa State football program to respectability, McCarney took Iowa State to its first bowl game in 22 years after the 2000 sesaon. Since the 2000 season, Iowa State, a team that had only been to 4 bowl games in its history prior to McCarney becoming head coach, has been to 5 bowl games. So this begs the question of why would Iowa State fire a head coach that has more than doubled the number of bowl appearances in school history during his 12 year tenure? Sure, McCarney had a less than stellar overall record (55-84 through Week 11 of the 2006 season), but the strength of the past 5 years should have bought McCarney at least one down season. I believe that the answer is that athletic diretor Jamie Pollard is a little trigger happy...he's fired three head coaches of Iowa State athletic teams in the past year! Dan McCarney deserved better from Iowa State.
5. The Last Time - It had been almost one year to the day since the Stanford Cardinal won a football game when Walt Harris's team took the field this past Saturday against the University of Washington. Having surrended over 20 points a game in their previous 9 games and being ranked 101th in total defense, not even the most hardcore Stanford fan would have guessed that the Cardinal coul
d beat Washington. After all, this was a Washington team that had almost upset California without its star quarterback (and Total System Failure cult hero) Isaiah Stanbeck. To make matters worse, Stanford has the 118th ranked offense in the country...and yes, there are 119 teams in Division I football...and was without starting quarterback Trent Edwards. In spite of all of those strikes against them, Stanford was able to pull off a shocking
20-3 upset over the once might Huskies and avoid becoming the first team in Pac-10 history to finish the season with a 0-12 record. The 101th ranked defense in the country held the Washington offense to a mere 161 yards of total offense and forced three turnovers, one of which was returned for a touchdown. Walt Harris still has a long way to go to restore some pride to the Stanford football program, but at least for one Saturday, Stanford fans could feel the joy of victory and stop trying to recall the last time they felt that way.
6. Don't Turn Your Back on Me - After having its Pac-10 win streak snapped in Corvallis, Oregon of all places, it appeared that the Southern California Trojans were on the verge of being out of the national title picture for the first time in 4 years. At the time of Oregon State's upset win over the Trojans, there were a bevy of undefeated and one loss teams ahead of Pete Carroll's team. Then, upsets hit some of the nation's best teams...Louisvill
e went down at Rutgers. Georgia waltzed into Jordan-Hare Stadium and dominated Auburn. Arizona shocked California in Tuscon. All of a suddent, Southern Cal was right back in the #3 spot in the BCS rankings and in great position to play against the winner of Ohio State-Michigan for the national championship. Since losing to Oregon State, the Trojans have dominated Stanford and Oregon by a combined score of 77-10. Of course, there is nothing to brag about when you beat Stanford 42-0, but this past weekend's 35-10 victory over Oregon, definitely brought the spotlight back to the USC football team. While I do not believe that many people thought that Oregon could actually pull off the upset, it was shocking to see just how badly they were beaten by the Trojans. The vaunted Oregon rushing attack was held to 2.6 yards per carry, and the Ducks' star running back Jonathan Stewart was held to only 42 yards on 14 carries. Oregon won the turnover battle 3 to 2 and won the time of possession battle by over 7 minutes, but it wasn't enough to beat the Trojans. The bottomline is that just when we all thought we were going to get a break from the USC dynasty they've moved back into the national title race again. Maybe California or Notre Dame can do all college football fans outside of southern California a favor and prevent the Trojans from playing in a fourth straight national title game.
7. Rise on Water - Late Saturday evening, the head coaches, athletic directors, and boosters from major college football conferences were not focused on the devel
op
ments in the LSU-Alabama game, the Tennessee-Arkansas game, or even the USC-Oregon game. All eyes were on the scoring updates for the Boise State vs. San Jose State game. $14 million dollars to a major conference was on the line if San Jose State could knock Boise State from the ranks of the unbeaten and prevent the potential WAC champion from stealing a BCS bowl slot. It took a huge late fourth quarter punt return by Boise State's Marty Tadman for the Broncos to rise up after trailing the entire game to the Spartans of San Jose State. After Tadman's 44 yard punt return to the 37 yard line of San Jose State, Jared Zabransky and the Boise State offense kept the ball for the final two minutes of the game and moved to 10-0 on the season with a last second field goal to
escape with 22-20 victory. Boise State is now two games away from crashing the BCS party and clinching a spot in the Fiesta Bowl. All that stands in the way of Boise State and the $14 million pot of gold are a home game on the smurf turf against 1-9 Utah State team and a trip to Reno to battle the 7-3 Wolfpack of Nevada. I'm sure that there will be more than a few eyes around the country will be watching the scoring updates from Reno on Thanksgiving weekend, and everyone outside of Boise, Idaho will be hoping that the Broncos won't be able to rise up and rally to stay unbeaten.
8. I Lie in the Bed I Make - Bobby Bowden has no one to blame but himself. When Mark Richt left to become the head coach at the University of Georgia, Coach Bowden decided to play the nepotism card and name his son Jeff as the new offensive coordina
tor. That decision sent the Florida State offense into a steady decline that finally hit rock bottom against Wake Forest on Saturday night in Tallahassee.
With Wake Forest's 30-0 victory over the Seminoles, Florida State was shutout for the first time since the opening game of the 1988 football season. Even more revealing was that this was the first shutout of Bobby Bowden coached Florida State in Doak Campbell Stadium.. That covers a 31 year period! Florida State's offense is ranked 65th in the nation this year and averages 338 yards of total offense each game. Just as a point of comparison, in Mark Richt's final year as the Florida State offensive coordinator, the Seminoles averaged over 549 yards of total offense each game. We all know that Florida State is still recruiting the same talented players to Tallahassee, so the obvious answer is that Jeff Bowden is problem with the Seminoles' offense. With an over
$500,000 offer by alumni to buyout his contract and
on-line petition for his removal gaining more support, Jeff Bowden saved his father the public disgrace of having to fire his son by resigning this week...giving hope to Florida State fans everywhere that their offense might one day exhibit some firepower and avoid shutouts to teams like Wake Forest.
9. Come Alive Again - The last the college football world saw of the Arizona football program was the
thorough d
omination of the Wildcats by LSU back in the second week of the season. After the performance, the buzz surrounding the rebuilding job Mike Stoops is doing at Arizona went silent. All talk regarding a return to prominence for Arizona really disappeared when the Wildcats went on to lose 4 of their 6 games after the LSU game. Arizona started to show some signs of life with
a win over Washington State two weeks ago, but no one gave them much a chance to knock off Cal this past Saturday. However, the Arizona defense caused three turnovers and held the #34 ranked rushing attack in the nation to a mere 106 yards, and the
Wildcats shocked the BCS hopeful Golden Bears 24-20 in Tuscson. In addition to knocking Lee Corso's national title pick out of the picture, Arizona has positioned itself for a bowl game by getting back to 0.500 on the season with a record of 5-5, but reaching a bowl game is not going to be easy. The Wildcats last two games include a road trip to Eugene, Oregon to battle the Ducks and then a home date with their in-state rival Arizona State. The Wildcats have not played in a bowl game since the 1998 season when they defeated Nebraska 23-20 in the Holiday Bowl, and while this season may not end with a bowl berth, Mike Stoops is on the verge of bringing the Arizona program back to life after the embarrassment of the John Mackovic era of Arizona football.
10. That Don't Satisfy Me - I put off writing about what I witnessed in Jordan-Hare Stadium this past Saturday as long as I could. I even thought about not including anything on Auburn's pathetic performance against Georgia in this week's musings, but that just wouldn't be proper. The gutless, heartless performance by Tommy Tuberville's Tigers needs to be pointed out and addressed. Of course, if you listen to the sycophants on the Inside the Auburn Tigers premium message board, you'll hear that the 2006 season can be saved by defeating a 6-5 Alabama football team. To quote Damon Johnson's most famous Brother Cane song....THAT DON'T SATISFY ME! What I saw firsthand on Saturday proved to me that just being an ordindary solid 9 w
in (and possibly a ten win season) team and not a true championship team does satisfy this Auburn football team, because there was absolutely no fire, no heart, no desire. The excuses for the performance are plentiful and can be spouted off by any sunshine pumping Auburn sycophants...Brandon Cox isn't a 100 percent....Kenny Irons hasn't been healthy since the LSU game...starting safety Eric Brock was out with a sprained ankle. However, those same Auburn fans will fail to mention that the Auburn defense yielded over 225 yards rushing to the #64 ranked rushing attack in the country. They will also fail to tell you that the overhyped cornerback tandem of Jonathan Wilhite and David Irons allowed a true freshman quaterback that had 51% completion percentage coming into the game to complete 70% of his passes. Did I mention that this particular freshman quarterback had thrown 8 interceptions in the three games prior to the Auburn game? It was truly a disgraceful performance, and I wish Tommy Tuberville would strip the 'AUs' of the helmets of this Auburn football team until they have earned the right to wear them again. A victory over Alabama doesn't mean anything outside the state of Alabama, and it's time that Auburn fans realize that being the best team in the state is not as important as it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Alabama has not been an upper echleon program since the early 1990s. It is time for Auburn fans to demand true excellence from its football program and not tolerate performances like the Arkansas and Georgia games of this 2006 season. What scares me, though, is that the 2004 season was just an anamoly, and we are witnessing the real Auburn progam under the direction of Tommy Tuberville...good, but not great. And for this Auburn fan,
THAT DON'T SATISFY ME!
And now, one man's attempt to rank the Top 25 teams in the country....
1. Ohio State
2. Michigan
3. Arkansas
4. Southern Cal
5. Rutgers
6. Florida
7. Notre Dame
8. LSU
9. Texas
10. Louisville
11. West Virginia
12. Auburn
13. Wake Forest
14. Boise State
15. California
16. Wisconsin
17. Oklahoma
18. Georgia Tech
19. Virginia Tech
20. Tennessee
21. Maryland
22. Boston College
23. Clemson
24. Brigham Young
25. Houston
