Monday, November 06, 2006
Decision 2006 - L'Ville, Texas or Florida?
I think there’s an interesting debate going in college football regarding the SEC and its stable of one-loss teams. SEC folks keep saying that if Florida or Auburn or Arkansas can win out and take the SEC title game, they deserve to be playing for the national championship. Which got me thinking, should the No. 2 team be the second-best team in the country or the team that most deserves to be there?
Basic facts, unless one of them loses in a monumental upset this weekend (OK, perhaps not monumental, but at least big), either Michigan or Ohio State will be playing for the national championship. But who gets No. 2? Right now it looks like Louisville, which beat West Virginia, 44-34, in a pretty impressive game Thursday night. And it looks like Louisville will be No. 2 if the Cardinals can end the season undefeated, which would include wins over Rutgers, currently No. 13 in the BCS, and Pitt.
As they should be. The basic fact is that, while the SEC is undoubtedly the toughest conference in college football, none of the SEC teams are great teams. Florida has struggled mightily the last two weeks in victories over a mediocre Georgia team and a perpetually meager program in Vanderbilt; Auburn has hardly looked impressive against either Ole Miss or Arkansas State; and Arkansas got blown out earlier this season by USC (and will likely lose this weekend to Tennessee).
The only team that currently has an argument to hop Louisville is Texas, which had a great win this past weekend, 36-10 over Oklahoma State, but which only beat Nebraska and Texas Tech by a combined seven points (though both of those games were on the road). The hiccup in all this is if Michigan and Ohio State play to a near draw, but right now I think Louisville is—deservedly—in the driver’s seat.
Other weekend football thoughts:
-) The Giants, Broncos and Patriots are 0-3 versus the Colts, 18-3 against everyone else. And even more impressively for a team so well associated with its dome, Indianapolis beat all three on the road. While we’re here, last week I pitched to Budds that we deduct five points for anyone who goes 0-4 picking NFL games. Then I promptly went out and went 0-4 and shuffled to bed with my head between my legs. No tail. No, no, it’s head.
-) The Bucs really should have made more of an effort to re-sign Brian Griese, and Bears fans should be very happy they have him. I thought it was a bad call at the time to trust the entire team to Chris Simms when he’d never played a full season, and his injury has only magnified the fact that Tampa has no experienced backup. Now the Bucs are paying the price. The offense can’t score, Bruce Gradkowski hasn’t topped 200 yards in over a month and Cadillac Williams hasn’t gone over 100 in that same span.
As for the Bears, Rex Grossman has been awful against the Cardinals and the Dolphins. I mean, Ken O’Brien-on-a-bad-day awful. I think he’ll turn it around, but if he doesn’t the Bears have a backup capable of winning playoff games. That’s a big luxury in the NFL.
-) The Giants are a very impressive 6-2. The last two wins may have been a little lackluster, but they had a killer first half of the schedule and have come out of it as one of the few teams that can seriously entertain thoughts of winning the Super Bowl.
Of course, what the hell do I know? I picked every single game wrong this week, saved only from a complete 0-fer by Ball State.
Basic facts, unless one of them loses in a monumental upset this weekend (OK, perhaps not monumental, but at least big), either Michigan or Ohio State will be playing for the national championship. But who gets No. 2? Right now it looks like Louisville, which beat West Virginia, 44-34, in a pretty impressive game Thursday night. And it looks like Louisville will be No. 2 if the Cardinals can end the season undefeated, which would include wins over Rutgers, currently No. 13 in the BCS, and Pitt.
As they should be. The basic fact is that, while the SEC is undoubtedly the toughest conference in college football, none of the SEC teams are great teams. Florida has struggled mightily the last two weeks in victories over a mediocre Georgia team and a perpetually meager program in Vanderbilt; Auburn has hardly looked impressive against either Ole Miss or Arkansas State; and Arkansas got blown out earlier this season by USC (and will likely lose this weekend to Tennessee).
The only team that currently has an argument to hop Louisville is Texas, which had a great win this past weekend, 36-10 over Oklahoma State, but which only beat Nebraska and Texas Tech by a combined seven points (though both of those games were on the road). The hiccup in all this is if Michigan and Ohio State play to a near draw, but right now I think Louisville is—deservedly—in the driver’s seat.
Other weekend football thoughts:
-) The Giants, Broncos and Patriots are 0-3 versus the Colts, 18-3 against everyone else. And even more impressively for a team so well associated with its dome, Indianapolis beat all three on the road. While we’re here, last week I pitched to Budds that we deduct five points for anyone who goes 0-4 picking NFL games. Then I promptly went out and went 0-4 and shuffled to bed with my head between my legs. No tail. No, no, it’s head.
-) The Bucs really should have made more of an effort to re-sign Brian Griese, and Bears fans should be very happy they have him. I thought it was a bad call at the time to trust the entire team to Chris Simms when he’d never played a full season, and his injury has only magnified the fact that Tampa has no experienced backup. Now the Bucs are paying the price. The offense can’t score, Bruce Gradkowski hasn’t topped 200 yards in over a month and Cadillac Williams hasn’t gone over 100 in that same span.
As for the Bears, Rex Grossman has been awful against the Cardinals and the Dolphins. I mean, Ken O’Brien-on-a-bad-day awful. I think he’ll turn it around, but if he doesn’t the Bears have a backup capable of winning playoff games. That’s a big luxury in the NFL.
-) The Giants are a very impressive 6-2. The last two wins may have been a little lackluster, but they had a killer first half of the schedule and have come out of it as one of the few teams that can seriously entertain thoughts of winning the Super Bowl.
Of course, what the hell do I know? I picked every single game wrong this week, saved only from a complete 0-fer by Ball State.
# posted by EJ @ 9:17 AM 
