College Football Week 7: Upset Special edition

[ebevan91]

It's like bad karma for Larry Fedora Jeff Bower leaving (or being forced to leave).

[sperry]

OU wins with a sluggish performance against an awful Kansas team on the road. But considering that a bunch of other ranked teams lost, it's not looking so bad. And where's that guy that wanted to argue that Georgia was better than mediocre?

Also, anyone think Sumlin would be very smart to start putting his name out there for the USC job? Johnny Manziel is the only thing keeping aTm from losing by 30 every week. They will be a strong candidate for last place in the SEC West next year.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

It's like bad karma for Larry Fedora leaving (or being forced to leave).

Pretty sure Fedora left by choice as North Carolina offered him a bunch of money. Did you mean Jeff Bower? He was Fedora's predecessor; the guy who "got retired" after about 15 years at the school, because apparently 7 and 8 win seasons every year at a backwater campus in south Mississippi just wasn't good enough anymore. Then if that wasn't bad enough, they proceeded to hire Ellis Johnson, which would've been a great coup as DC. Not so much as HC.

I read an interesting theory that Dan Mullen's insistence on signing a ton of Mississippi kids every year (regardless of whether or not they're SEC-worthy) is cutting into USM's usual recruiting base. Pretty comical from my perspective if true. :lol:

Also, anyone think Sumlin would be very smart to start putting his name out there for the USC job? Johnny Manziel is the only thing keeping aTm from losing by 30 every week. They will be a strong candidate for last place in the SEC West next year.

Indeed, A&M is a shitty team without Manziel. Word is that Sumlin has his sights set on leveraging the JFF experience into an NFL gig. Regardless, I do think he's gone (either to the NFL or a higher profile job elsewhere) after this year.

[ebevan91]

Pretty sure Fedora left by choice as North Carolina offered him a bunch of money. Did you mean Jeff Bower? He was Fedora's predecessor; the guy who "got retired" after about 15 years at the school, because apparently 7 and 8 win seasons every year at a backwater campus in south Mississippi just wasn't good enough anymore. Then if that wasn't bad enough, they proceeded to hire Ellis Johnson, which would've been a great coup as DC. Not so much as HC.

I read an interesting theory that Dan Mullen's insistence on signing a ton of Mississippi kids every year (regardless of whether or not they're SEC-worthy) is cutting into USM's usual recruiting base. Pretty comical from my perspective if true. :lol:

Indeed, A&M is a shitty team without Manziel. Word is that Sumlin has his sights set on leveraging the JFF experience into an NFL gig. Regardless, I do think he's gone (either to the NFL or a higher profile job elsewhere) after this year.

Yes I meant Bower! Me and my dad were talking about it the other day and for some reason I confused the two.

[BLU-RAY]

Man, this game has escalated quickly.

Oregon is having a letdown-lookahead sandwich game (after Washington, before UCLA)... and they will still probably end up winning by 20+.

[ebevan91]

So Baylor... they play Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and OSU back-to-back-to-back after Kansas next week.

You think they'll lose at least one of those games? I think they'll beat Oklahoma but TTU and OSU are both good as well.

[Greywolf2375]

Oregon looks like it will win, but FSU looks like they jump to 3rd and close the gap some for 2nd.

[sperry]

So Baylor... they play Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and OSU back-to-back-to-back after Kansas next week.

You think they'll lose at least one of those games? I think they'll beat Oklahoma but TTU and OSU are both good as well.

They should win all three of those games. They probably will lose at least one because until proven otherwise, they're still Baylor. Big XII is WAAAAAY down this year though, it's pretty depressing.

Oregon playing sloppy, sloppy football. Mike Leach is one of the best coaches in the country, and if you spot his squad all these turnovers they could pull the upset.

[Howdyphillip]

Baylor is scary good this year. If they do not score another point this season, they are already bowl eligible and will have averaged 32 points a game.

As it stands now, after 6 games, they are scoring 64 points a game. They brutalized an Iowa State team that is a solid football team.

[Ser Hippie]

Hey guys, did you know Cal's playing Oregon State on ESPN 2? Neither did the Bears, apparently.

[BLU-RAY]

A couple of points on that...

1. Cal is awful right now.

2. It'd be nice if Oregon St. had had to work for this. Second best outcome would be if they got up so big so early that they stopped paying attention and the malaise carried forward. Now it looks like they won't have to try, but Cal will score enough late that they won't be able to coast completely. Great.

3. Fuck you, Oregon St., for losing to an FCS team. Seriously. Fuck you. You are a lose/lose for everyone else on your schedule now, because of that.

4. Seriously, was Clancy Prendergast that important? I know the offense has pissed the ball away to OSU a bunch, but Cal's defense, in particular, is clownshoes.

[BLU-RAY]

'Bama, Oregon, and FSU all still have to play real teams. Who's Ohio State got left?

[BLU-RAY]

Belotti appears to not have been amused by Halliday's 89 (!) pass attempts.

ETA: Jesus. Aliotti.

[Mike]

OU wins with a sluggish performance against an awful Kansas team on the road. But considering that a bunch of other ranked teams lost, it's not looking so bad. And where's that guy that wanted to argue that Georgia was better than mediocre?

Also, anyone think Sumlin would be very smart to start putting his name out there for the USC job? Johnny Manziel is the only thing keeping aTm from losing by 30 every week. They will be a strong candidate for last place in the SEC West next year.

I'm right here, and I will admit that UGA is in a free fall right now and is heading towards mediocrity in a hurry. Their defense has been there from the beginning of the season. Their offense was one of the best in the nation, and kept them in the hunt. Now, with their top three receivers gone and their top two RBs, they are one dimensional and a lot easier to stop. Which makes them mediocre.

All that said, however, they get one of their receivers back (a very solid Michael Bennett), and, most importantly, they get one of the best RBs in the nation back in Gurley. With Gurley, they are no longer one dimensional on offense, and Aaron Murray gets a load of pressure off of him.

The defense will still be Swiss cheese, but UGA will once again be able to outscore some teams. So they may not stay mediocre for too long. We'll just have to let the season play out to figure out what kind of team they are.

As for Sumlin, no, I don't think that leaving A&M is a good move, or at least not for the reasons you bring up. He is recruiting very well, so his defense will get better. Offensively, his teams have been near the top of the nation for a good majority of his years as a HC. Johnny Football or no, Sumlin's teams can light up the scoreboard.

[dornish prince]

Southern Miss hasn't won since December 24, 2011 lol.

a fact that i'm proud of because now ellis johnson the orchestrator of 12 of those losses is coaching defense down at auburn. we've been getting better week by week and it is nice to see use playing behind the line of scrimmage on D and finally getting some INT's.

yo, FA :cheers: , nice win against LSU!!! i know it was a nail biter but you showed that you can close. ole miss is a very nice team and i wish you guys continued success! nothing to do with anything but one of my favorite "on the road" experiences was in oxford. your fans were a class act and we easily made some game-time friends. i hope to visit again one year soon. the rebels have given auburn a chance to get to atlanta as long as we can keep winning and get past bama and UGA to end the season.

I'm already imagining the mizzou/auburn sec game :)

[Rhom]

Fair point, but is this not a fascinating case study for the types of things the new committee will have to consider? What if tOSU runs the table but there's a really good one-loss team like Stanford or OU or Baylor or Mizzou?

It is... But lots of seasons look this way with six games and a conference championship left to play. Every year we get hand wringing about a four undefeated team doomsday scenario... Every year we wind up with one or two.

The season drags on and everyone is nursing a few injuries and those catch up to you eventually and you lose an unexpected game. It will sort itself out just fine.

[sperry]

It is... But lots of seasons look this way with six games and a conference championship left to play. Every year we get hand wringing about a four undefeated team doomsday scenario... Every year we wind up with one or two.

The season drags on and everyone is nursing a few injuries and those catch up to you eventually and you lose an unexpected game. It will sort itself out just fine.

It rarely sorts itself out fine. Usually there aren't multiple undefeateds, but there are a bunch of 1-loss teams that get sorted out based on horrible apples to oranges comparisons along with a heavy dose of who was ranked higher in the preseason polls. Alabama is almsot guaranteed a bid, despite the incredibly weak schedule they play this year.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

yo, FA :cheers: , nice win against LSU!!! i know it was a nail biter but you showed that you can close. ole miss is a very nice team and i wish you guys continued success! nothing to do with anything but one of my favorite "on the road" experiences was in oxford. your fans were a class act and we easily made some game-time friends. i hope to visit again one year soon. the rebels have given auburn a chance to get to atlanta as long as we can keep winning and get past bama and UGA to end the season.

I'm already imagining the mizzou/auburn sec game :)

Thanks man! It was very nice to get revenge for another of those nail-biter games we should have won last year (the first being Vandy on opening night). That's now 7 games the last two years (twice against the same 3 teams - Vandy, A&M and LSU, plus the win over Arkansas last year) decided in the last minute. If nothing else, Hugh Freeze teams fight tooth-and-nail to the bitter end, every time out. It was great to see us close out with a decisive, methodical drive. All the CFB pundits claiming after the Bama game that Saban had decoded Freeze's offense and we'd no longer be able to run the ball when the situation demanded it, are eating crow right now.

No exaggeration - I can't recall ever seeing a gutsier performance by an Ole Miss team than last night. Even in this age of advanced metrics, analytics and all that, college football is still a game where guts, determination and out-efforting the opponent can make all the difference in the outcome of a game. And I believe that is exactly what happened last night in Oxford. On paper there is no way in hell we should have won that game or even been in it, considering how utterly decimated our team was injury-wise. And it only got WORSE during the game itself. At one point in the 2nd half, the only corners we had left to match up against LSU's NFL-caliber recievers were two true freshmen and a walk-on. A walk-on defensive end played nearly the whole second half; he'd never played in a game apart from special teams. Leading tackler didn't play at all. Neither did our best playmaker on offense (Jeff Scott). And still not only did we win, we also outgained them by 137 yards. It was a masterfully coached game on both sides of the ball. I will never again doubt or fault our DC Dave Wommack in any regard - he took a defense held together with chewing gum and rusted baling wire and held one of the top offenses in the league under 400 yards and 25 points. And on offense, we completely dominated down the stretch. That overrated sack of shit John Chavis had no answers for anything we did. (Just kidding Mr. Chavis, I hope you and The Hat hang around Baton Rouge for many, many years to come. God bless. :P)

Fucking hell, if Korvic Neat (a leftover Nutt recruit and perhaps THE worst player in the history of D-1 football) hadn't muffed a 4th quarter fair catch (subbing for Scott, incidentally), the game wouldn't have been close.

Having now exited the brutal early season gauntlet (4 of 5 road games to start, followed by home games against A&M and LSU) at a respectable 4-3, I now feel much better about what we have left going forward. Mizzou is obviously the biggest remaining test, and frankly after watching them play the past couple of weeks I have doubts we can beat them. But at least we get them at home, and hopefully by that point we will be rolling off our 4th straight win and have a lot to play for.

As to Auburn - I love what Gus is doing down there. He's one of my favorite coaches in the game and has been for a while. Y'all will only get better. And I do sincerely hope you find a way to beat Bama this year on the plains. They seem to be getting better every week too, but it's the Iron Bowl and it's in Auburn so anything can happen. Mizzou/Auburn would indeed be an awesome SECCG! And, as I mentioned in the last thread Auburn fans are probably my favorite opponents in the SEC. Even in '10 when Cam was blasting everyone and we sucked, your visiting fans were great and didn't rub our faces in it the way Bama or LSU fans would've.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

Alabama is almsot guaranteed a bid, despite the incredibly weak schedule they play this year.

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.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Baylor has been amazing, but you have to temper it a bit. They've only beaten one FBS team (Buffalo) that has a winning record, and they've only played 1 (!!!!) away game in their first six.

They will annihilate Kansas next week, but then their last five games are:

OU

Tech

@ OSU

@ TCU

UT

They will lose one of those, I think. TCU, OU, and maybe UT and OSU have the defense to stop them or knock them way off their gameplan, like KSU did. TCU probably still loses since our offense is worse than KU's 2nd string, but OU, UT, Tech, and OSU have great shots at taming the bear.

Who would've predicted that Baylor and Tech would be the teams to beat in the B12 this season?