College Football Week 7: Upset Special edition

[sperry]

While I agree that Bama's schedule is awful (6 out of 7 home games from mid-September to mid-November with the only road game being Kentucky...seriously??) if they beat an undefeated Mizzou in the SECCG, particularly if they do so convincingly, I will grudgingly admit that they deserve to go again.

The bottom line is that this would have been the perfect year for the playoff to start. There are too many really good teams to boil it down to only two.

Do you think Mizzou is some elite team, though? They're undefeated on the back of a horrible non-con schedule and an almost impossibly weak SEC East. I will give it to the SEC leadership, the 14 team conference but only 8 conference games has been absolutely brilliant for the conference.

[Mike]

Do you think Mizzou is some elite team, though? They're undefeated on the back of a horrible non-con schedule and an almost impossibly weak SEC East. I will give it to the SEC leadership, the 14 team conference but only 8 conference games has been absolutely brilliant for the conference.

Do you think Baylor is legit? They've benefited from a horrible non-conference schedule, and a conference schedule even worse than Missouri's. Example: K-State gave them a good game, and K-State lost to an FCS team to start the year. Another example: Iowa State, who they just destroyed, is 1-5 and also lost to an FCS team to begin the year.

[sperry]

Do you think Baylor is legit? They've benefited from a horrible non-conference schedule, and a conference schedule even worse than Missouri's. Example: K-State gave them a good game, and K-State lost to an FCS team to start the year. Another example: Iowa State, who they just destroyed, is 1-5 and also lost to an FCS team to begin the year.

I don't know if Baylor is legit, but I have a suspicion they are based on what they're doing, even against weak competition. We'll find out though, as they play some tough games down the stretch.. I have a feeling that Mizzou is not an elite team, based on the games I have seen them play. The final schedules are comparable, based on the Big XII and SEC East both being terrible this year. I just see a team in Mizzou that is solid across the board, but not outstanding at anything. Baylor is clearly a top 3 offensive team in the country. IT remains to be seen what their defense is. I think Mizzou is about the 15th-20th best team in the country. Baylor could be anywhere from 2nd to 40th best.

[sperry]

Georgia, Ole MIss, and Florida are STILL getting top 25 votes (although none are actually in the polls). Georgia is still getting enough that it can't be explained away by a handful of dumbass coaches or writers misreading a box score and think they won. There are actually multiple people out there, who have a vote that counts for something, who think a 4-3 team with one of the worst defenses in the country deserves to be ranked in the top 25. This is why we have to get to an 8 team playoff with automatic bids for conference champions as soon as possible. This system is farcical.

Even with the 4 team playoff we'll see some accountability. People will have to get up there with a straight face and argue this shit in front of multiple intelligent people, rather than sit behind an anonymous poll vote.

[S John]

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/9854222/mike-leach-washington-state-cougars-low-class-says-oregon-ducks-nick-aliotti

I don't get this. Seems like a serious case of crybaby. Why should Leach be responsible for playing offense the way Oregon would like him to? Doesn't he have a responsibiilty to get his kids some reps and to instill a 'never give up' attitude? Is a 24 point victory not big enough margin of victory for Aliotti's liking? I really don't understand the criticism of the losing team continuing to play ball for 60 minutes. And I think it's especially suspect coming from a member of the Oregon staff - a team that hasn't been at all shy about putting up style points on their end.

[BLU-RAY]

Yeah, it doesn't make a ton of sense, but it is kind of amusing.

[Kalbear]

Oregon has actually been very shy about putting up style points. It's been comical how early they would pull starters.

Aliotti makes some sense but I mostly agree that it isn't quite right. Breaking the fbs record by playing against the scout team is kind of bs. But playing starters until the end in a losing effort is totally fine.

[sperry]

Yeah that was weak by the Oregon defensive coordinator. WTF do you want them to do, get into "victory" formation when they're losing?

[Kalbear]

The common practice is that as soon as you see the other team pull their starters you do the same. And you tend to play pretty vanilla.

[Gold Storm]

If I was the DC, I would be happy they are still trying to do something on offense. Getting the guys on the bench more real time experience is a good thing. The more the bench plays the better it will be.

[kairparavel]

The BCS standings never fail to disappoint.

[Kalbear]

Eh, not surprising. Oregons schedule so far has largely been a joke. Fsu has not. They're separated by .003. Oregon if they win out will easily be #2.

[sperry]

The common practice is that as soon as you see the other team pull their starters you do the same. And you tend to play pretty vanilla.

I just don't think this is true at all. A look through box scores from the 2008 Oklahoma team, that blew out pretty mcuh everyone they played, shows that teams were passing with their starters on the final drive of plenty of games that season.

As an aside, it's kind of incredible looking at the list of QBs that threw passes that year against OU that year:

Andy Dalton

Jake Locker

RGIII

Colt McCoy

Ryan Tannehill

Graham Harrell

Josh Freeman

Chase Daniel

Tim Tebow

:eek:

(In fairness, the Tannehill pass was on some sort of WR trick play).

[Kalbear]

Thought this was a pretty funny response.

http://www.addictedtoquack.com/2013/10/20/4858632/nick-aliottis-just-give-up-already-campaign

[lokisnow]

I was gonna watch the USC game tonight, but my wife deleted the game before I could. :(

How long with the NCAA continue to hurt kids to make some ineffectual point to Reggie Bush? When I was in elementary school we read the story of The Whipping Boy. That's true of the situation at USC, the NCAA has decided it is wonderful to have a whipping boy in their stead. All these kids having their careers hurt and getting severely injured at USC at the NCAA's delight, behest and blessing. It's disgusting. These whipping boy kids the NCAA is so eager to injure, hurt or force out of football, these kids were in kindergarten when Reggie Bush hurt the NCAA's feelings. So whip those kids, whip em until they bleed, right NCAA? That'll Teach Reggie a Lesson!

we went to the UCLA Stanford game. It was my first time visiting the Stanford stadium. Technically I've now been to games at all four California Stadiums, though I've only been AT Cal, I've never actually been in the Cal stadium because my Cal friends told us not to buy tickets we'd just sit on tightwad hill.

Note to everyone in the thread. Buy tickets. stupid experience.

But back to the UCLA Stanford game, this was a fun game to be at. It felt tight and back and forth all game long. I don't know if it was visible on TV, but Stanford were playing incredibly well in the secondary, I don't think I saw more than three plays where a wide receiver was open for a pass longer than ten yards. there may have been a few ten yard crossing routes, too, but in terms of deep ball opportunities for UCLA, I didn't see any. Credit to Hundley as well, until he threw the interception in the third or fourth quarter he had patiently read the coverage on all his receivers and never forced a ball where there wasn't a play. Even though he had a terrible game stats wise, I was actually more impressed seeing him in person this year, because although most of UCLAs plays didn't go anywhere, Hundley was still making good decisions, imo, unfortunately, all Stanford left him was throws in the flat with a defender two yards away, so those almost never went anywhere. By comparison, Stanford seemed sloppy and off, seeming to miss more opportunities with dropped balls and missed receptions than UCLA did, but UCLAs defense was not as sharp as Stanford's was. It was also interesting that the Stanford team that showed up this week (defensively) felt like the Stanford teams I saw on TV the first couple weeks. Scary good. It's puzzling what a mid season shrug the team has had.

Stanford Stadium is perfectly pleasant, The acoustics are excellent with the announcer clear as a bell instead of garbled garbage (the secret is making sure no speakers are aimed at each other or at any hard echoy surfaces, which looking around the stadium, I didn't see anywhere). The sightlines are excellent and you feel tremendously closer to the field than in the Rose Bowl or Coliseum. I've set closer to the field at those stadiums and it felt like the closest seats I've had in the Coliseum were twice as far away from the field as the seats in row AA at stanford were.

Amenities are a solid Epic Fail though. We went through security (it was sort of darling laughable rural security, really pathetic, tons of people snuck alcohol in), and started walking around the stadium thinking we'd find a sausage stand or nachos or lemonade or something to take in with us.

None, nada. Zero food at the ground level outside the stadium. So we went up to our level and walked around the stadium level behind the end zone and then around the sideline. We counted TWO total, food venders, each at the corner of the sideline/endzone. They were about the size of a bacon wrapped hot-dog cart, one was CPK, the other was Subway. There were also TWO total, concession stands. That was it. There's no food options in the stadium. At half time, when our sideline all bailed on the stadium to escape the sun in the shade of the stadium there was baffled confusion. "Where is all the food?" was the constant refrain. it didn't help that the pathetic little subway cart ran out of sandwiches and soda everything but chips before half-time even started. My brother's Little League baseball games had more concessions than Stanford's sad little penny ante stadium mustered. It was pretty disappointing honestly.

To add insult to injury, there were no food venders hawking wares in the aisles of the game. a guy with waters came by once per quarter, and a guy with lemonades came by once per half, and there were a few other guys selling some random drinks like frozen lemonades or snocones.

The one benefit to Stanford's Epic Fail at being big-boy football was this: It is Dirt Cheap for Stadium fare. Waters were only $4, food was 5 or 6. our lemonade was $6. The sad part about that is there was such enormous demand for food and beverage it was hard to get anything, it's not the lines were long, they were just running out, like subway. They really failed basic Economics at brilliant-genius Stanford, and don't know what supply and demand are. We brought a hundred in cash with us figuring we'd spend our usual 60+ on stadium fare and wound up spending less than $20, cheapest game I've been to since I once made the miserable mistake as a freshman of not bringing any money with me to the game.

This is how bad it was, we were so hungry after the game, we ate trader joe's sushi! That's low Stanford, that's fucking low. Look what you made me do!

[Ramsay B.]

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/9854222/mike-leach-washington-state-cougars-low-class-says-oregon-ducks-nick-aliotti

I don't get this. Seems like a serious case of crybaby. Why should Leach be responsible for playing offense the way Oregon would like him to? Doesn't he have a responsibiilty to get his kids some reps and to instill a 'never give up' attitude? Is a 24 point victory not big enough margin of victory for Aliotti's liking? I really don't understand the criticism of the losing team continuing to play ball for 60 minutes. And I think it's especially suspect coming from a member of the Oregon staff - a team that hasn't been at all shy about putting up style points on their end.

Yup. The statements Aliotto made were ridiculous. Get over yourself, you want Wash.St to stop trying to score because you put the "scout" team in?? I was pretty confused about his way of thinking. Ducks put up 62 and complain about the other team passing too much...pretty logical way of seeing things.

[Greywolf2375]

Eh, not surprising. Oregons schedule so far has largely been a joke. Fsu has not. They're separated by .003. Oregon if they win out will easily be #2.

yeah, one of the spots I read had the FSU schedule as 10th and Ducks at 36th or so (current games only), but well before the Ducks get into the toughest part of their season. It will have to take a loss for either Bama or OU for FSU to stay in the top 2. I don't even think a series of sloppy wins for one of those two and dominating wins for FSU will give them enough to stay in the title game.

If only there was a playoff....

[sperry]

Both FSU and Oregon play the top level games. The difference is that the rest of the ACC is a dumpster fire, whereas the Pac 12 is easily the best conference top to bottom.

This was the first time I'd gotten to see Oregon play this year, so I had a couple thoughts.

1) The offense is as good as advertised. they didn't even have DAT and they were still flying all over the place.

2) You can throw the ball on them. Aliota's crying aside, Wazzu was moving the ball in the first half, to the tune of 300 yards passing, when it was very much not the Oregon scout team in the game.

3) Mariota honestly didn't look like he knew you were allowed to rush the quarterback. For a guy with track speed, he sure stood in the pocket like a statue a lost, and it cost Oregon a few turnovers.

UCLA can exploit those two weaknesses with a better passing attack thatn Wazzu and a better pass rush. Should be a fun one. Also looking forward to the civil war, because, well, POINTS!!!

[Rhom]

Here's a nice entertaining stat for you... with all the upsets in the SEC East, Kentucky still has a mathematical chance to win the division! Ha!

That’s awesome and funny all at the same time.

What I saw this weekend was our second half schedule becoming just as tough as the first half.

Mississippi State – Is there anyone who doesn’t think they’re at least as good as UofL?

Alabama State – We’ll mark these guys up as our Miami (OH) equivalent for the second half

Missouri – Manhandled the Florida team that smacked us around

Vanderbilt – Beat Georgia

Georgia – Injured, but will be getting some players back by this point and has legit SEC title worthy talent

Tennessee – Just beat South Carolina who handled us

We don’t have another game against an Alabama quality opponent, but I’d say every opponent we have left is just as good as the four ranked teams we have lost to. There’s no WKU equivalent in the second half, but man… this schedule just became an even tougher row to hoe.

Welcome to the SEC Mark Stoops indeed.

[sperry]

Here's a nice entertaining stat for you... with all the upsets in the SEC East, Kentucky still has a mathematical chance to win the division! Ha!

That’s awesome and funny all at the same time.

What I saw this weekend was our second half schedule becoming just as tough as the first half.

Mississippi State – Is there anyone who doesn’t think they’re at least as good as UofL?

Alabama State – We’ll mark these guys up as our Miami (OH) equivalent for the second half

Missouri – Manhandled the Florida team that smacked us around

Vanderbilt – Beat Georgia

Georgia – Injured, but will be getting some players back by this point and has legit SEC title worthy talent

Tennessee – Just beat South Carolina who handled us

We don’t have another game against an Alabama quality opponent, but I’d say every opponent we have left is just as good as the four ranked teams we have lost to. There’s no WKU equivalent in the second half, but man… this schedule just became an even tougher row to hoe.

Welcome to the SEC Mark Stoops indeed.

Maybe my sarcasm detector is just broken, but that's a really easy schedule down the stretch. With the exception of Mizzou, those teams range from down right terrible (Alabama St.) to mediocre (Georgia).