Saturday the 13th is becoming Friday the 13th for my pre-season #1 (current #4) Wisconsin, who trails UNLV 23-5, and Anthony Davis is out

...Auburn has finally found the end zone, twice even leading Vandy 14-0

...Arkansas is giving Texas all they can handle, leading 21-14 at the half

aside from the Badger debacle the Big 10 is faring decently w/Iowa, Purdue, and Ohio St. leading

[ September 13, 2003, 11:04 AM: Message edited by: Breesboy ]

Does anyone have a calculator ?

Need one to count Ohio State's winning streak, it's so long I can't do it in my head; oh wait, a close win by Ohio State = a loss, but a close win by any other team = a landslide victory, that's right...

Give it a reast, osufan. If you want to play with the big boys, folks look at how you win, not just if you win. The list of teams that have won on the scoreboard but slipped in the polls (yes, even teams in the Top 5) is long and distinguished. Rather than complaining about it, I'd be thankful you're in such select company! Congrats to the Buckeyes on the win.

The fact is that OSU wins. It's not pretty. They win ugly, but they win, and they have the longest winning streak in America. And I have no fingernails left. LOL. I love my Buckeyes. They are wonderful.

Hey guys:

Well, this is the second time trying to post this - so we will see if this works. This weekend's slate of college football games continued to deliver a sense of parity, and excitement that I do not think College Football has had so early in any seasons in recent history. But, as so many games were won by close calls, I think that some teams are walking a very dangerous fine line between winning, and losing.

In the Big Ten, we saw one team self-destruct as I said they would. Wisconsin just fell on their sword today, but they did it against a UNLV team that was not even close to the talent level on the Wisconsin side line. First off, I join Wisconsin fans in hoping that RB Anthony Davis returns to action this year; I hate to see a season ended because of injury. But even losing Davis, the Badgers should have beat UNLV today, but instead, Wisconsin did the most complete self-destruction that I have ever seen. Offense, Defense, Special Teams, it didn't matter who they were, they just could not do anything right. Michigan rolled over Notre Dame, showing so many people that they are for real, and showing why so many people are picking them to play for a National Championship in New Orleans in January 2004. For Notre Dame, Coach Willingham is NOT looking like the offensive genius that Notre Dame hired, and look for pressure to continue to mount on Willingham to start producing some offensive production. At Ohio State, the Buckeyes showed again why so many people are very hesistant to pick the Buckeyes to repeat, as they barely scraped out a win against NC State. Buckeye Head Coach Jim Tressel has to be going bald by now. So many Ohio State fans are saying "Hey, a win is a win." And they are right. But, when you continually walk that fine line of winning in dramatic fashion, or losing a heart breaker, the odds are continuing to mount that Ohio State is going to not have what is needed in the ole gas tank come one Saturday afternoon, and that dream of repeating as National Champions will be ended, because of 1, or 2 or 5 points. QB Craig Krenzel is a QB that I love to watch play. He doesn't say that he wont make mistakes, and he sure did make a number of them today. But he doesn't dwell on them. He just goes out their, picks up the ball, and makes ways to win the game for Ohio State. I LOVE watching him play, because he refuses to beat himself. He must have great mental fortitude to not allow things to upset him, and that is what puts him above the rest of the QB's in College Football. But, he will not be recognized for it, because he does not draw attention to himself. The most maligned QB in College Football today has to be Texas QB Chance Mock. So many Texas fans are blaiming this young guy for Texas' loss to Arkansas, but the only people that Texas fans should be pointing at are Head Coach Mack Brown, RB Cedric Benson, and the Texas Offensive Line. QB Mock did everything he could possibly do to try and lead Texas to a win, but the rushing attack of the Longhorns just failed to show up today, period.

I want to finish by talking about coaches. Tonight I watched a legend coaching over on the Penn State sideline. What I saw, I did not like. Just like the January 2003 Bowl game that Penn State lost to Auburn in, Coach Joe Paterno continued to make one bad offensive call after another tonight against Nebraska. Coach Paterno had QB Mills doing so many fake hand-offs, fake passes, fake bootlegs, etc . . . . that Mills could not concentrate on throwing the ball. Mills is NOT the reason that Penn State's offense sucks. Coach Paterno shares that burden alone. I have never been one to indicate that people should leave programs, but I do believe that it is time for Coach Paterno to stand up, and say "I do not have what it takes to lead this program anymore." I know he loves Penn State, and I know that Penn State loves him, but he needs to show the class and the strength of character that have been stellar Coach Paterno qualities throughout his career, and admit that the Nittany Lions are going to need some infusion of young blood in their coaching ranks. In Georgia Tech though, Yellow Jacket fans do not need to look anymore for their coach of the future, he is already there in the form of Head Coach Chan Gailey. Gailey has this Yellow Jacket team playing incredibly behind true-freshman QB Reggie Ball. Even though Georgia Tech lost a heart-breaker against Florida State, do NOT be surprised to see Georgia Tech have a lot to say about who wins the ACC. Yellow Jackets fans have a lot to be proud of, and the future looks VERY bright in Yellow Jacket land!!!

Well, that is all for this week. Be glad that I was not long-winded tonight!!! LOL

David
Exfballplayer
:cool: wink

[ September 13, 2003, 10:32 PM: Message edited by: exfballplayer ]

I'm surprised we didn't hear a little about the alma mater ... it's starting to look like Arkansas-LSU is the West title game

Ohio St. must be like 2 cats because I'm starting to wonder how many lives they DO have.

[ September 13, 2003, 10:40 PM: Message edited by: Breesboy ]

If FSU continues to win out the ACC schedule, GaTech can beat on the rest of them and help insure another Nole title. Seriously, I had two nail-biters on Saturday. The FSU-GaTech just capped off a stress-filled night after I returned home from watching UCF play embarrasingly against 1-AA Florida Atlantic. The Owls proved that great coaches can create great teams, and Howard Schnellenberger had that team more than ready to play, and they almost had their second win over a 1-A opponent - and while their last-second miracle came true against MidTennState, they didn't quite get it against the Golden Knights, but the way that game was going, FAU deserved the win more than UCF. BTW, Ryan Schneider is continuing to erase Daunte Culpepper's name out of the UCF record books. 23 str8 games now with a touchdown pass, 497 passing yards, 501 total yards, 37 completions - all school records.

Jim
(who really cannot handle another day like today)

Breesboy:

Well, I was holding back on Arkansas, because I try to stay objective, but I wanted to pick them to win against Texas SO BAD!!!!! LOL I am a very happy camper, as since we left the SWC, we have won 3 straight over Texas now, and there is nothing bigger in Hawg land than that, save winning the outright SEC title. You are right, it really does look like the Arkansas/LSU game in late November will once again decide who goes to the SEC title game, but I am NOT counting Auburn out of it yet. Auburn put up impressive numbers against a much improved Vanderbilt team, so we will wait and see if Auburn has finally found their offense yet. But Arkansas will get their first SEC test when they travel to Alabama in two weeks to begin defense of their SEC West title. This was my first look at an Arkansas team that looks to be much improved over last year when they won the West, as Arkansas's offensive and defensive lines just dominated Texas, and Texas has one of the biggest Offensive and Defensive Lines in the NCAA. So, yeah things are looking really good after Arkansas's first real test. but you never know when a team can self-destruct like Wisconsin did this weekend. With my luck, I will start really building them up, and then Arkansas will fall on their swords. So I am going to remain a little shy of raving about the Hawgs for awhile.

David
Exfballplayer

Every year t.u. is overrated in the football polls, and we Aggies just sit back and enjoy watching the annual tumble. My school may not get a nod in the polls, and we do indeed lose to those t-sippers two-thirds of the time. But, any time (which seems to be every year since 1969) we love watching those poor longhorns' (the ones whom have always snatched up all of the best high school talent in the State of Texas) dreams of finishing number one slide into the cowpatches. Poor t-sippers!

Exfootballplayer ... Are you still recovering from the celebration? Mack Brown is the biggest choking dog in CF history. SOOOOOO Pigggy! I was so happy for your big victory.

BikeJocks ... Howard is a damn good coach (and family friend). He was run off from UM by Tad after winning the national championship back in 83 season. He has rebuilt programs at Miami, Louisville, and Oklahoma. The Cardinals will never gotten their on campus stadium if it was not for Howard. They will still be playing in the dump (AAA Baseball Stadium aka Cardinal Stadium with temporary bleachers in the outfield). Bama should have hired him as their head coach after Ray Perkins in 1986 instead of Bill Curry.

On Saturday's Fox Sports (Midwest Regional Game) telecast of ISU v. Iowa game, I fell out of my couch laughing when the announcers said the following things about our two A&F boys from ISU.

1. Lane Danielson and Jack Whitver were long term roommates and did everything together.

2. They bought a duplex over the summer and rehab it together for rental income.

Now, David, how many 22-23 year jocks are thinking of buying property and rehabbing it.... together ...LOL.

I wondered how Chan Gailey and John Mackovic (Univ of Arizona) were hire for their jobs. Those two guys are the biggest retreads in college football. I laugh at the ESPN commercial with Tony Roberts coming in and speaking to Mackovic and his team because they had a mutiny last year. Gailey was not a hot thing at Birmingham in the World League, Samford (1993), Dallas, or as the offensive coordinator for the Dolphins.

Finally, I had faith my boys will come back in the 4th quarter as it saw it in Atlanta back when we threw out our playbook with the pro veer and started playing the fast paced shotgun offense with Charlie Ward against Tech. We ripped out their hearts again just like 1993. Remember, as David and I preached, you need patience in football as it is a 60 minute game. It takes time!

Do you remember what other sporting event was taking place in Atlanta on the same day? TS, you are not allowed to participate.

As my former JV football coach will say .... A win is a win ... how ugly it was. Have you ever heard of pretty loss?

PS ... I have seen some pretty losses in my days following FSU's football.

Congratulations to the Buckeyes. Just joking, what is the going rate in paying off the refs these days?

Hmm... I don't know about 1993 (when the Seminoles beat Tech at Doak 41-0), but on October 17, 1992 FSU beat the Yellow Jackets at Grant Field 29-24 courtesy of 4th quarter heroics by Charlie Ward - which was the same day as Game 1 of the World Series between the Braves and Blue Jays at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium (which Toronto won).

Jim

Hey guys:

Just saw the comment made about the Iowa State players buying a place together, and I must say that you DO NOT see it very often. Very likely something else is going on there, but I have always hated outing other people!!! But it is fun to wonder sometimes. LOL Look at Troy Aikman. For 9 years after he graduated from UCLA, Troy's college roommate was also his roommate in Dallas. Of course, I guess enjoying the lifestyle of a rich NFL player could cause one to live there with no other ties, but the rumors sure did surface when Troy's house caught fire, and Troy's roommate was caught on TV acting rather "domestic" if you catch my drift. Now, I can say that, because it was documented all over the Dallas news stations, so anyone watching the news in Dallas that day saw it. So that is not outing someone!!! LOL

OK, now to the reason I really came on here. A couple of hours ago, the sports editor at the Northwest Arkansas Morning News (and close friend) Dana Caldwell emailed me the AP and Coaches Top 25, and asked me for my opinion. First off, I was shocked to see Arkansas jumping from #35 to #14. But then I looked to see where Texas was, and I had to laugh, because the team that Arkansas had just decimated, was ranked #13. How funny is that. They jump Arkansas up 16 places, but still rank Texas in front of Arkansas. I am not sure if Arkansas will take that as a slap in the face or not. But what I thought stuck out the most, was that Ohio State was actually DROPPED a spot, and Michigan jumped OVER Ohio State into the Top 5. I bet there are some screaming irate fans in Columbus this hour.

All of this just goes to show that these pollsters have their heads in the butts 99% of the time.

I am glad to see someone else make a comment in this area about the officiating, because the only word to describe it, well, it SUCKED!!!!! In a college football scene world where even one loss can potentially keep a team from competing for a national championship, I would think that the NCAA would ensure that the best offcials are out on the field. Well, I watched a rather pathetic SEC officiating crew totally screw up the Ark/Texas game, but I guess you cant make a big issue about it because they were so bad they screwed both teams, so you had equal-opportunity cluster-f***s calling the game there. But, then as I watched the Ohio State/NC State game, I continued to see officials making terrible calls. As I continued to watch Nebraska/Penn State, Florida State/Georgia Tech, Oregon/Arizona, Oklahoma/Fresno State, Georgia/South Carolina, and Iowa/Iowa State, I continually saw officials making wrong calls, and then having a official's meeting on the field to argue over what the right call was. The most annoying thing was continually watching officials rule true catches as incompletions, saying the player was out of bounds. Lets clarify something, WE ARE NOT IN THE NFL!!!!! In college football, a receiver must have ONE foot inbounds while maintaining CONTROL of the ball. In several catches that were ruled incomplete, I saw potential scoring drives cut short by officials who ruled that a player was out of bounds when making the catch. In just about all the cases, the players DRAGGED ONE FOOT inbounds before stepping out of bounds. Those, my folks, were catches. Then we had the terrible pass interference calls. Most of these calls were messed up, because of referee judgements about whether the pass was catchable. I saw some defenses flagged for pass interference when, even if the intended WR was an ACROBAT, there was no way he could have caught the pass. Then I saw pass interference calls made against players that just simply played PERFECT coverage. I think the NCAA needs to hold a seminar this week on what is a catch, and what is pass interference. Did the NCAA officials go on strike or something and not tell anyone? Because it looked this weekend just like it did in the NFL when the NFL officials went out on strike. These NCAA players and fans deserve to have the best, not the most comedic officials out on the field.

David
Exfballplayer

JT:

I think Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit nailed it on the head when talking about the Ark/Texas game Saturday night. Lee Corso, who is a huge Mack Brown fan, looked straight into the camera, and said "Mack, my friend, You were completely outcoached today." I do not think that anyone could have put it any better. But now, I think that things are getting a little out of hand, because I just saw two different articles on ESPN, and CBS in which their college football prognasticators are now saying that Arkansas is the most dominant team in the SEC this year. That is jumping way too far in front of the apple cart there, and articles like those are making me very uneasy. With these articles out there, teams cannot help but read them, and then they start to believe what they read. If Coach Nutt is not careful, and does not force a reality check on his team, you will see Arkansas fall to a nobody team before this is all over.

I hope Coach Nutt takes these articles into practice tomorrow, show the players, look them square in the eyes, and tell those players to ignore EVERYTHING that is being wrote about them, because they have ALONG WAY to go before this is over.

David
Exfballplayer

Originally posted by Exballplayer:

I am glad to see someone else make a comment in this area about the officiating, because the only word to describe it, well, it SUCKED!!!!!

HMMMMM. Maybe JoPa was not so crazy last year after all.