Once again, Greetings fellow You Gabbers!...and just like that, the 2011 college football season is now half-over. 

It is now time for Irish Shu to look back and assess how things have gone thus far for my beloved Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

The short version?...they’re a step down from where I predicted they would be at this point as far as results are concerned, but they’re right about where I expected them to be as far as progress, execution and gelling-together.  I had predicted they’d be at 1 loss right now and they’re at 2.  They could just as easily be an undefeated team right now if only they’d had their shit together when they came-out of the gate….I know, I know, “and if the queen had balls she could just as easily be the king.”  Whatever.  The breaks happen as they do and it is what it is…okay, that’s enough clichés for now.

Looking at it game by game:

SOUTH FLORIDA:  I was, indeed,  nervous about this game…and for good reason, as it turned out.  The Irish had a tough first test against Coach Skip Holtz (aka Lou Jr.) and a Bulls team that was a favorite to win the Big East crown.  The game was twice interrupted by the stadium being evacuated due to lightening storms which was a bad omen in itself.  On top of that the Irish struck their own thunder by committing 5 turnovers to South Florida’s 0 – the most costly of which came on ND’s opening drive when running back Jonas Gray fumbled while driving to the end zone and USF’s Kayvon Webster scooped up the loose ball and ran 96 yards for a score that would set the tone for the rest of the game which ended in a stunning 23-20 Irish loss.  Ironically, Notre Dame finished the game with double the total yardage of South Florida…an advantage nullified by those costly turnovers as well as an inability to finish drives on offense.  A quarterback switch from starter Dayne Crist to Tommy Rees did not help the outcome and it is still baffling, to me, that Crist lost the starting role after playing only one half and never got it back.

MICHIGAN:  ACK!!!  Notre Dame beat Michigan’s asses up and down the field nearly all game long and dominated in both time of possession and total yardage only to lose 35-31 to the honey badgers...er, I mean Wolverines because they just didn’t give a shit! (kidding – that reference is for the Beeze – he’ll get it!).  No, it was because of the damn turnovers, again.  The Irish had 5 in this game to Michigan’s 3…and they almost won, anyway, but the defense forgot to finish the damn game and let quarterback Denard Robinson drive for 80 yards in just 3 plays and 28 seconds to score the winning TD with just 2 seconds left in the game.  Dipshits!  FINISH THE DAMN GAME NEXT TIME!  ASSHOLES!!!  I hate losing to Meat Chicken, can you tell?

MICHIGAN STATE:  The only thing that would have pissed me off more than losing to Meat Chicken would be losing to Sparty in the same season…fortunately, that didn’t happen.  Notre Dame FINALLY got it together and beat the Spartans 31-13.  NOT an easy team to have to bounce-back against but despite 3 turnovers and a pretty good day by State senior QB Kirk Cousins, they got it done.  This time, it was Sparty who got snake bit as they had a better game than the Irish, statistically (except in the running game – they only had 29 yards which is well-short of what is typical for them), but were also done-in by penalties and 2 turnovers; the more costly of which was an interception by cornerback Robert Blanton who returned it 82 yards to the Michigan State 12 with under 4 minutes left to seal the win.  Another helpful big play was an 89-yard kickoff return for a touchdown from freshman running back George Atkinson III.  Again, this was a much-needed win against a team which, at this writing, is ranked #15, is fresh-off a win over the same honey badgers that beat the Irish in Ann Arbor (and just didn't give a shit), and has not lost a game yet to anyone other than the Irish.

PITTSBURGH:  This was another game I was nervous about because it was on the road against a pretty good Pitt team that I thought would go in very motivated to make a good showing for Tony Dorsett and John Majors – 2 Pitt icons who walked out of the tunnel with the team at the start of the game.  Pitt did put-up a pretty solid fight, but lost 15-12 to an Irish team that really didn’t put it together until they needed to.  A 4^th quarter drive by Tommy Rees that saw him go 8 for 8 and finish with TD and 2-point throws, both to tight end Tyler Eifert was nearly the only successful drive he could put together against a Pitt defense that came-in with the nation’s 119^th-ranked pass defense.  Other than that, a second-quarter, 79-yard scoring run by Jonas Gray were the only big plays the Irish offense could muster…but as it turned-out, it was all they needed.  The Irish defense did the rest as they kept Pitt running back Ray Graham in-check and held Pitt to just 12 points.  Credit Rees for this much though; Pitt’s D keyed on the great Irish receiver Michael Floyd and double-teamed him throughout thus limiting him to 4 catches for the game, but Rees grew-up and managed to find his other receivers when he couldn’t find Floyd.  The Irish win also came in spite of 2 turnovers to Pitt’s 0…it also peaked my interest that, 5 nights after this game, this same Pittsburgh team bounced-back and THROTTLED by a 44-17 score the same South Florida team that beat the Irish in their opener.  College football is, indeed, strange sometimes.

PURDUE:  Despite this game being at Ross-Aide, I didn’t think the Irish would have much trouble with Purdue and, indeed, they did not.  Simply put, Notre Dame’s offense really started to peak in this game, the defense played as-usual, and they simply had too much talent for the Boilermakers as they dominated in a 38-10 rout that easily could have been even more lopsided than it turned out.  The biggest improvement was that they FINALLY managed to finish a game without turning the ball over.  Rees finished one of his better games 24 of 39 for 254 yards and 3 touchdowns as he picked-apart a Purdue D unit that couldn’t contain the Irish receivers.

AIR FORCE:  The backs of the odd-numbered Air Force players’ jerseys say “service” above the numbers instead of the player’s last name.  The backs of the even-numbered players say “freedom”.  We certainly thank ALL of our military personnel for both their service and our freedom…but after this game, the backs of the Falcon’s asses had a huge footprint on them.  59 to 33 – the most combined points ever scored in a game at Notre Dame Stadium in a game that showed just what the Irish offense can do at full potential.  7 Irish players scored touchdowns in this game and, for the second game in a row, the Irish did not turn the ball over.  There was some bad news despite the rout – the Irish defense let the Air Force option attack torch them for 363 rushing yards, most of those coming around the ends…something that future opponents will take note of.  The Irish did throw-in a new wrinkle; that of sophomore quarterback Andrew Hendrix and his ability to run…and he did that for 111 yards and almost a touchdown in change-of-pace duty.  The reason I originally predicted this game as a loss is because I thought the Irish D would not be up to the task of shutting down the option…well, they weren’t, but luckily the Irish O was clicking on all cylinders to more than pick up the slack.

So, now that the first 6 games are in the books we look ahead to the remaining games that come after the bye week.  The 2 upcoming games against the Pac 12 opponents in USC and Stanford appear to be the toughest…not that there aren’t some other teams there that couldn’t bite them, too. 

My big concern is with special teams.  George Atkinson III has been a pleasant surprise on some kickoffs, but there has been little to celebrate other than him.  Punt returns have been poorly handled if handled at all.  Michael Floyd has stepped into the job, but hasn’t taken off with it yet.  And what’s up with David Ruffer???  The guy came into the season as a Lou Groza Award semifinalist after going 18 for 19 on field goals last year and now he’s only made half of his attempts this year.  We’ll see if he can right the ship.

Team health, however, has been a bright spot as injuries have been minimal – a sprain here, a bruise there and not much else.  Let’s hope that keeps up.

We’ll see how the rest of the season plays-out.  GO IRISH!!!

PS I gotta hand it to B.O.B. – on my last blog when I predicted how my Montana Grizzlies would do, he said “look out for Sacramento State!” He was right.  The Hornets have handed the Griz their only Big Sky Conference loss so far and they may make more noise in that league yet.  We shall see.

In case you missed it:

Week 6 Top 25 Blog

Full ratings, Week 6

Part 1 of this series

I won’t write as much for the other conferences, so I plan on combining some of those.

The SEC and ACC both arose out of the Southern Conference, which split before the 1933 season. I would take three current ACC teams and add them to the current SEC. Since Texas A&M seems in the SEC already, I included them as well. I did not include Missouri, because although they might make a good rival for Arkansas, they don’t really fit overall. The three ACC teams (Georgia Tech, who used to be in the SEC; Florida St.; and Clemson) would all be in existing SEC states, which doesn’t fit the expansion blueprint, but one thing I would explicitly want to do is keep conferences regional.

I put the most thought into this grouping, so I had a couple of different ideas. One would maintain the East/West idea, but what I did there was add Florida St. to the West (which apparently will already gain Texas A&M). That might not make sense at first blush, but the Western border of the SEC East already runs from Nashville to Gainesville. Both Auburn and Tallahassee (along with the rest of the SEC West) are to the South and West of that line. Ga. Tech (Atlanta is slightly to the North and East of the line I mentioned) and Clemson would be added to the East.

I have the teams in an order so that suggested interdivisional rivals line up. So this is the proposal maintaining the East/West system:

East-West

Florida-Florida St.

S. Carolina-Arkansas

Ga. Tech-Texas A&M

Georgia-Auburn

Clemson-Miss St.

Tennessee-Alabama

Kentucky-LSU

Vandy-Ole Miss

Florida/Florida St. is obvious. The only problem there is the traditional Florida-LSU rivalry (which has been played for 41 straight years…and more times total than Florida-Florida St.) wouldn’t be part of the system. But when the SEC started, each team had two interdivisional rivalries. LSU’s second rivalry had been with Kentucky, whom they had played for 51 consecutive seasons before the format changed. So I started that one again. I don’t think Kentucky’s current permanent rival, Mississippi St. (there have been 37 games total in that series) is a big deal. I’ve maintained Alabama-Tennessee, Ole Miss-Vandy, Auburn-Georgia, and Arkansas-South Carolina. The other new ones are Texas A&M-Ga. Tech and Miss. St.-Clemson. No particular reason for that, but I thought Texas A&M-Clemson was too far apart. Arkansas-South Carolina is too far apart too, but that has been played since the SEC first expanded to 12 teams, and nothing else jumps out as making a whole lot more sense. Arkansas could play Vanderbilt, and that would make for more similar travel distances, but Vandy/Ole Miss is a much better natural and traditional rivalry. Auburn-Ga. Tech (played every year but one from 1902 {or earlier} to 1987) used to be a big deal, but since that hasn’t been played annually for some time (there have only been 2 games in the series since), I thought it best to leave Auburn-Georgia intact.

As far as the ACC teams, Florida St. has only been in the ACC for the last 20 years, so I didn’t think it was too traumatic to move them away from Georgia Tech and Clemson, who are more natural rivals of each other of course. After Florida and South Carolina, Auburn is Florida St.’s most commonly-played SEC opponent (18 prior games). Florida St. has also played Miss. St. and LSU 9 times apiece.

I came up with a North-South format, which also might make sense if Missouri is added by the SEC...

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Brewers and Cardinals did something no other team did this year, where are the Florida College Football teams, these and other tidbit’s in this edition of

The Brewers, and the Cardinals were the only teams in the Major Leagues to have all their starting pitchers finish with a winning record. Yovani Gallardo (17-10), Shaun Marcum (13-7), Randy Wolf (13-10), Chris Narveson (11-8) and Zack Greinke (16-6) were the starting pitchers this year for Milwaukee, while had Chris Carpenter (11-9), Jake Westbrook (12-9), Jamie Garcia (13-7), Kyle Lohse (14-8) and Edwin Jackson (5-2) for the Cardinals. 

 Did you notice that there were 3 game five’s played in MLB playoffs and the road team won two. Tigers beat the Yankees, St. Louis defeated the Phillies and Brewers won their home game in extra innings to the Diamond Backs. Hats off to the visiting teams. 

Money spent doesn’t always mean it is well spent as evidenced by the Red Sox, Phillies and Yankees. These three teams were the top $$$ teams. Yankees spent $202,698,028, the Phillies were next with $172,976,379 and the Red Sox spent $161,762,475. 

 I don’t think that Ozzie Guillen is going to last long with the Florida Marlins. Ozzie speaks from the heart (I’m being polite) and the owners of the Marlins didn’t take too kindly to the last manager who spoke from the heart, isn’t that right Joe Girardi.  

No team from Florida was in the AP rankings this past Sunday. It was the first time this has  happened since December 6, 1982, 472 straight polls since the Gators, Hurricanes and Seminoles have not been in the polls. 

 Why do pro sports leagues wait until the last minute to try and hammer out a collective bargaining agreement between management and the players. First football, now the NBA and waiting in the wings is MLB who’s collective bargaining agreement ends at the end of the year.

Til next time

Scott

In keeping with the consensus of computer ratings systems, Alabama is #1 on my ratings site. The numbers right now indicate that Arkansas and Penn St. are better than Oregon and West Virginia and also that Vanderbilt is better than Mississippi St. Alabama also has more credit because Alabama is one of two teams (Michigan is the other) with 6 wins against FBS opponents. Although Alabama does have Georgia Southern on the schedule, that game will not take place until November 19.

I’m keeping LSU #1 here on my blog, however, for four reasons. (1) LSU was #1 before I began using the computer system, and has not given any cause for concern since, (2) LSU has already played its game against an FCS opponent, so this is one reasons the numbers haven’t caught up yet, (3) I believe that as we progress into the season, Penn St. and Vanderbilt will count less as opponents than West Virginia and Oregon, and (4) LSU itself rates higher as an opponent because its average FBS opponent is better than Alabama’s.

As to the third point, I didn’t mention SEC West opponents Mississippi St. and Arkansas. I think it just so happens (like with the FCS opponent) that LSU happens to have played the easier of the two at this point. LSU will not play Vanderbilt. But keeping with the discussion of the SEC schedule, LSU faces Tennessee next week while Alabama faces Ole Miss. Tennessee has a winning record and Ole Miss has a losing record, so I expect that this will help LSU.

It’s also important not to overlook opponents’ opponents. Arkansas beating Auburn was a big key in Alabama moving into #1. Georgia beating Tennessee helped out Boise St., who passed up Oklahoma also because Florida St. and Missouri (two of Okla.’s opponents) lost. Clemson slipped partly because of losses by Florida St. and Auburn. UCLA’s win over Washington St. (don’t laugh, WSU has three wins) helped to keep Texas from falling too far and also helped Houston to move up.

Hopefully that gave enough background.

Continue to ratings:

Top 25

120

If you missed my baseball blog about the Angels, please check it out here.  I’m going to have a blog tomorrow or Friday about end-of-regular-season collapses in major league baseball, but I promised my college football rankings blog tonight. So even though I got a bit distracted by the baseball, here it is.

I guess I need to put up front what I looked at here before getting into comments about the results this week. I compared undefeated teams ONLY on how good I think the opponents have been so far, with emphasis on the best opponent (meaning if I think it’s the best win anyone had all year, it might count for more than someone else beating two average teams). For teams with one or more loss, I mostly looked at what they did apart from that loss in a similar fashion, but of course there was some decision-making based on the quality of the team(s) that caused those losses.

Since I used this approach, the rankings this week will not be what I call internally consistent. For instance, I’m going to give Alabama a good bit of credit for beating Arkansas, but since Arkansas hasn’t beaten anyone, I won’t be ranking Arkansas. So I’m only allowing my subjective opinion about Arkansas to factor into their quality as an opponent, not their quality as a team for the purposes of ranking.

People have complained about my changing how I do things from week to week, but I believe that’s the logical way to transition from the purely subjective (“on paper”) preseason rankings to the purely objective rankings (results only…with opponents evaluated on results only as well), which I begin using in early October every year. Otherwise, what I would have to do is have the preseason rankings but not factor them in at all after week 1. Every team that beat an FBS opponent would be tied for first since all opponents would be the same 0-1. After Week 2, every team that was 2-0 with two 1-1 opponents would be tied for first, although I suppose I could add a requirement that those 1-1 opponents had to beat teams that were also 1-1 through two weeks.

Anyway, as far as last week, I feel vindicated with Temple’s win (which makes Penn St. look better) and by Notre Dame’s and Michigan’s wins (both of which make Michigan look better).

I can’t believe people thought I was ranking Big Ten teams too high, although obviously Wisconsin fans again aren’t going to be happy with me.

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