There are many more reminders of why this system needs to be put out of its misery than there are positives in the bowl match-ups, but there are four games I’m looking forward to.

Bowls To Watch

The only BCS game I’m even somewhat excited about is Kansas St. vs. Oregon (though the runaway offenses will probably become tiresome). Neither Texas/Texas A&M nor the Backyard Brawl worked out as bowl games. Oklahoma vs. Texas A&M should be a good substitute for the former though. That gets top billing in my mind for best non-BCS contest. The second and third choices are probably Georgia-Nebraska (CapitalOne [which you might remember as the Florida Citrus Bowl]) and LSU-Clemson (Chik-fil-A, aka Peach). But I’m still going to complain about LSU’s treatment shortly.

A brief aside about the Cotton. Maybe it’s because I’m not Texan, but I really don’t understand why someone was going to veto Texas/Texas A&M. I get that Texas had its schedule set, and the non-conference schedule is also curtailed by the fact that the Big XII schedule is now 9 games, and they weren’t going to bend over backwards to accommodate a rival who decided to go to the SEC instead. But how is any of that a reason not to play that rival in a bowl game, especially one with such historic ties to both programs? Just for spite someone had to put a stop to it?

I know the non-BCS bowls I mention all involve SEC teams, but the SEC has the best non-BCS teams. Clemson and Nebraska are two of the best non-champions. Nebraska would have easily been regular-season champions of a combined Big Ten (but got creamed by a Wisconsin team that didn’t even really belong in the title game), and Clemson tied in the ACC Atlantic (the one with the only ACC teams worth a whole lot) with Florida St. but lost the head-to-head tie-breaker. Oklahoma actually tied for the Big XII championship but didn’t get the Fiesta invite for losing head-to-head (not to mention out of conference to Notre Dame).

Seeing Red

I’m still annoyed that Northern Illinois was forced into a BCS game, but they still may be better than Louisville. I have never understood why they made it top 16 rather than top 12. Any undefeated team is almost guaranteed to be in the top 12, as will many strong one-loss non-major-conference teams. But Northern Illinois has played probably the easiest schedule in FBS. They’re in 2007 Hawaii vicinity with how bad it was, and we all remember how that turned out. And that was an undefeated Hawaii team. As mentioned, at least there is some solace in the fact that this system will be replaced.

Not that NIU is sure to be embarrassed. If North Carolina St. can beat Florida St., why not the Huskies? I’ve already mentioned Wisconsin by winning a game it didn’t belong in (and actually doing the embarrassing in the process).

And Wisconsin is still an example of why you don’t put the wrong team in a match-up, they can always win. I’m not saying the Big Ten had a choice here (I understand the probations of both Ohio St. and Penn St.), but it just didn’t work out well for neutral fans here.

Full blog, including reactions to Louisiana teams' placements (or lack thereof).

I’m going to switch it up and put my top 25 last, since that’s old news at this point. But you can always look up my new ratings early Sunday morning and all week long via that link.

Saban vs. Muschamp and SEC notes

Also, I don’t think we really learned anything new last week. I’m not saying I predicted every game to happen as it did, but there was nothing earth-shattering. I do think the SEC should have quieted a bit of the talk about it being some kind of fraud illusion. I’ll get back to that after mentioning the Muschamp/Saban dispute, both of whom I remember well as LSU coaches of course.

Florida is a solid #3 now in my top 25. If Alabama beats Georgia, I would honestly rather see the Gators in the title game to Notre Dame. At least the Tide would have a greater chance of losing. But a certain head coach doesn’t even think Florida deserves the Sugar.

“You play your way into the (SEC) championship game, which means you’re the best team in your division. …”

Does it always mean that? Really? We wouldn’t to give a one-loss team that didn’t win its division the benefit of the doubt in some cases, right?

And Florida actually tied for its division, kind of like Alabama would have done with Texas A&M (which would have been followed by Alabama watching from home and hoping for a Sugar invite) had Florida not beaten Texas A&M. I hardly think it a coincidence that the two of the top-6 SEC teams who are playing for the championship had the weakest interdivisional competition (Alabama played Tennessee and Missouri, while Georgia played Auburn and Ole Miss).

So let’s look at top wins and losses by either potential loser against Florida. I list all the wins over teams .500 or better in BCS-conference competition. And don’t forget that you’re adding a second loss to either Georgia or Alabama.

(you'll have to go here to check out the table I made)

How do you NOT pick Florida?

Muschamp offered to play in the game in lieu of Alabama, and implicitly would have let the Tide have the Sugar Bowl. I’d probably rather see that game, actually.

Of course, I indicated above two of the SEC’s wins over the ACC over the weekend. Also, South Carolina beat Clemson and Vandy beat Wake Forest. The fact that Vandy not only won but was expected to win and won easily shows how far they’ve come. Being in the middle of this league (#7 based on wins and losses in conference) is hard to do. Vandy did lose to Northwestern earlier in the year though. No other such losses by the SEC top 8 though.

Full post

I’ll start off by mentioning a couple other writings of mine that might provide some interesting backstory. I wrote the first last week about Les Miles’ record at LSU, but it also compares his record to that of other coaches, including Saban’s at LSU and Alabama. Then of course there is my blog about the LSU/Alabama rivalry, dominated for decades by Alabama but controlled by LSU for much of the first decade of the 21st century before becoming competitive again of late.

This is unrelated, but I also wanted to share a couple of links about Marcus Lattimore. Spurrier got a bit of criticism for his sort of backhanded acknowledgement of Dabo Swinney’s kind words about Lattimore. Dabo didn’t go quite as far as “Hog Lady” though. The SEC isn’t just great defenses and running backs, you have to love the fans and personalities as well.

Back to the important goings on, we do have two of the most successful active head coaches with their current programs facing one another, and of course LSU was fortunate to have had them both.
If you’ll look at the stats I gave in the Les Miles blog, I think it’s an even bigger coaching match-up with Urban Meyer at a new school and with Pete Carroll in the NFL. It’s harder to argue there are other guys doing as well or better.

There was a time where the Red River Rivalry had two coaches that were at about the same level Miles and Saban are now, but I think both Texas and Oklahoma have gone a little downhill in recent years. And there was never a point where that game featured two programs with a combined 3 national championship and one runner-up in 5 seasons, with of course one runner-up in that time (LSU last year) as well. (It took 10 seasons for Oklahoma and Texas to accumulate two national championships and three runners-up between them; two national championships and one runner-up took place in the six seasons between 2000 and 2005.)

Of course, when Urban Meyer was still at Florida, his game against the Tigers in 2009 represented 4 combined championships since 2003. So that was bigger at the time, especially being that Saban hadn’t won one at Alabama yet.

Saban and Miles followed similar trajectories on their way to LSU. A little bit of NFL experiences, but they were hired from being the head coaches at second-fiddle state universities. I don’t mean to take anything away from them, but the great programs in Michigan and Oklahoma are not the ones that end in “State”, although Sparty has a little more of a substantial history.

I wanted to talk about Miles vs. Saban head-to-head and mention a few notes about the series overall before assessing this season’s game.

Continue to Full Post, including "Miles vs. Saban" and "Game Notes and Preview"

Top 25

rank / team / prior

1 Alabama 1

2 Notre Dame 2

3 Florida 5

4 Kansas St. 4

5 Ohio St. 3

6 Oregon 7

7 Oregon St. 6

8 LSU 12

9 TX Tech 8

10 Rutgers 11

11 Miss. St. 15

12 Louisville 16

13 Toledo –

14 Oklahoma 13

15 S Carolina 9

16 Florida St. 24

17 Boise St. 18

18 Stanford 19

19 W Virginia 10

20 Texas 23

21 Georgia 25

22 Clemson –

23 USC 21

24 Wisconsin –

25 TX A&M 14

Out of rankings: (17) Cincinnati, (20) N’western, (22) La. Tech

Full 124 permalink

(Prior rankings can be found via the link at the bottom of the post.)

Note about the SEC:

Mississippi St. is interesting at this point, even though they do have the games coming up against Texas A&M, LSU, and Alabama. The SEC has 9 of the top 27 best schedules and 11 of the top 44. The outliers are Alabama (#84), Mississippi St. (#107), and Georgia (#116). The bad ones may be better and the good ones may be worse, because when I factor in the third level (opponents’ opponents’ opponents), it evens out a little bit (or Alabama wouldn’t be in the top 3), but that gives you an idea of why Georgia is so low also.

Tennessee is Georgia’s best win, and they lost once again. Also, Georgia lost to South Carolina, which has since lost two in a row.

Not surprisingly, the SEC also has high numbers in the ratings. 4 in the top 11, 5 in the top 15, 6 in the top 22, 7 in the top 26. That’s half the conference in the top 26. There is a bit of a gap before the next SEC team (Ole Miss at #47), and then there is a four-team cluster (Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Arkansas) between #65 and #71. This leaves only Auburn (#97) and Kentucky (#107) as lower teams.

Full post

Alabama stays #1 and seems to have widened the gap over the competition.

Some may have expected LSU to continue the dominance it had shown in earlier games, the closest of which was the Tigers’ 41-14 win over North Texas in Week 1.

Although a win by a touchdown or so would have been preferable, I didn’t expect it to be an easy win at all. This was an SEC road game for the Tigers of LSU (in a pretty intense series of late at that), and wins at Auburn don’t come easy in these situations. As good of a program as LSU has had the last 12 years or so, it has not won by more than 5 points (which occurred in 2008, the 5-7 year that ended the Tuberville era) at Auburn since 1998 despite going to Auburn every other year since then. The prior instance of an LSU win of more than 5 points at Auburn was 25 years before that.

LSU wasn’t completely inept on offense, it just couldn’t turn field position into points or turn gaining a decent number of yards into first downs very reliably. LSU had 15 first downs to Auburn’s 9 and 351 total yards to Auburn’s 183. Auburn was 2/12 on third downs while LSU was 6/18. LSU was penalized about twice as much and had one fewer turnover, but Auburn’s third turnover was on the last play, so that wasn’t really a determining factor.

Both turnovers by the Bayou Bengals were fumbles by Zach Mettenberger (one of them with an assist from the center) in the first quarter. The first was when LSU had the ball at the Auburn 2. LSU kicked the ball at 4th and 2 or fewer four times, one field goal (which was good) and three punts.

I understand that there are normal fluctuations of a few points in the polls and either LSU will be undefeated and get a bit more support or will have a loss and will have to climb back up anyway, but I’m really annoyed that Oregon has been put ahead of LSU. I can understand if someone wants to say Auburn hasn’t started well, and some teams that clearly aren’t top teams have done better against them (though not at Auburn). That’s if you’re consistent about applying that standard and you’ll punish Stanford, for instance, for only beating San Jose St. by 3. Few are consistent though.

As an aside, that’s one reason I don’t have the Cardinal ahead of USC. USC had the somewhat shaky game against Syracuse, but it was much better than Stanford/SJSU, and at least the Trojans were impressive against somewhat of a lightweight at home. Another reason is the USC/Stanford game was at Stanford. Also, there seems to be something unique about the combination of the two teams that favors Stanford that might not indicate, for example, that Stanford would beat Oregon but USC wouldn’t.

I wonder if many pollsters who moved the Ducks ahead of LSU even bothered to look to find out Oregon scored 21 of its points in the fourth quarter and 36 of its points in the second half. I wonder how many of them realize that Arizona really should have been ahead at halftime after it had the ball at the Oregon 4, the Oregon 18, and the Oregon 2 on consecutive drives in the first quarter. In the second quarter, the Wildcats had the ball at the Oregon 13 on one drive and at the Oregon 30 on another.

I guess we’ll have to hope the Washington Huskies can do more with their opportunities than Arizona did and this will make LSU (who beat Washington, 41-3) look better, but that would require that the pollsters remember. I’m not betting on it.

This is only an anecdotal example of the problem, but I do take some comfort in the notion that pretty soon their opinions will just be advisory. It’s just too bad that there it still really matters this season and next what the pollsters (officially just those in the coaches’ and Harris polls, though both are influenced by the AP) believe.

If LSU wins easily at Florida in a couple of weeks, that might trump the Oregon situation. There is a lot left to play out of course.

Continue to full blog for thoughts and rankings of other teams.