College Football....

[Andy]

Ugh.

[Andy]

Ain't life grand?

[Jack from Arkansas]

Watch Alabama vs. Arkansas this Saturday.  After Arkansas beat Georgia last week, expectations are high.

[dave from knoxville]

Watch Alabama vs. Arkansas this Saturday.  After Arkansas beat Georgia last week, expectations are high.

I take any advantage to hype my blog (I am trying to get to double digits in readers,) and I said this on Tuesday;

"Alabama at Arkansas by 23 (yes, 23, and I believe Arkansas is for real, but Alabama has too many superheroes for mortals to oppose.)"

http://gaughin.edublogs.org/2010/09/21/football-rankings-week-3/

For those of you that hate sports, it's usually about screen actors.

[Andy]

I love your system, but totally don't  understand it. What's the deal with mingling pro/college teams? 

[dave from knoxville]

I love your system, but totally don't  understand it. What's the deal with mingling pro/college teams?

It was just a wild hair I got this season; I normally keep them separately, but it works just the same to run them all together. The deal is that if you get a pro and a college team adjacent on the list, that means they are doing comparably well in their respective levels.

[gravy boat]

Andy should be happy these days

[Andy]

One of my friends put it best:  There's something pretty cool about being the worst team to ever be #1 in the BCS rankings.

I really think we have a good team, just no leadership.  Flashes of brilliance followed by the most frustratingly vanilla play calling by our coaches who think a 7 point lead should be enough.  They run the hurry up better than any team I'm watched, without a lot of false start/movement/substitution penalties.  They always follow a big strike with a running play that takes place as soon as the ball is set while the defense is still trying to get down the field (this is a genius strategy that I'm surprised more coaches don't employ. it seems to always pick up 5 or 6 and often turns into a backbreaking big gain.)

Broyles is an absolute star and will be a Wes Welker type receiver in the NFL.  Murray is good, but this true freshman Finch appears to be an animal.  Our linebackers are weak so we are constantly in the nickel, so we suspect when it comes to run defense and that makes us susceptible to the long bomb because our safeties are always having to cheat up for run support.

Mizzou really worries me this weekend.  Usually it's the games that don't worry me that we find a way to lose (Boise State, WVU, OK State, Florida, etc...) but we have lost our fair share that I was worried about, too ( LSU, USC, etc...)

[Andy]

Also, Big 12 refs are terrible.  I've always thought that they looked out for the National Championship contender (which is usually Texas), but some of the calls I've seen this year (especially the Texas game) have confirmed it.  Plus, the Bugeater game with the Horns had some suspect calls that all seemed to go against Nebraska.

[jolkow]

Plus, the Bugeater game with the Horns had some suspect calls that all seemed to go against Nebraska.

When I was at that game, it sure felt like the refs were against us, but watching the re-air earlier this week, I think less so.  Maybe they just cut out the really bad call due to time constraints!

[Andy]

fuck.

[Hugman 3.0]

M-I-Z-Z-O-U!

(this must be why you hate me, Andy.)

[Hugman 3.0]

By the way, that Finch kid is looking good.

[dave from knoxville]

Here's what I got; it's science!

1 TCU 70
2 Ohio State 67
3 Alabama 64.8
4 Boise State 63
5 Oregon 61.5
6 Utah 61.5
7 Nebraska 60.5
8 Auburn 59.1
9 Missouri 58.8
10 Oklahoma 56.5
11 Michigan State 56.1
12 Oklahoma State 56.1
13 Stanford 55.1
14 Virginia Tech 54.9
15 Southern California 52.7
16 Arizona 52.5
17 Florida State 52.2
18 Iowa 51.2
19 Nevada 50.2
20 South Carolina 49.8

[Andy]

honestly, the further we get into the season the better it looks, Dave.

The Mizzou game frustrated the crap out of me.  It was a very winnable game in which Mizzou made a lot of mistakes that we were not able to capitalize on and we just got outcoached and outplayed. Here are my biggest bitches:

I don't understand how a high profile team can ALWAYS have trouble in the kicking game.  Our coverage lets up all the time and we haven't had a consistent kicker inside of 30 yards in years (we gave up 10 points in the kicking game and lost by 9)

I don't understand why these coaches refuse to play the best players.  I may be the world's biggest DeMarco Murray fan, but Finch was averaging almost 7 yards a carry and they'd pull him.  I think it's the same thing with Landry Jones.  The kid isn't terrible, but why are we passing the ball 50 times when our running backs are averaging 5 yards a carry?  Landry is decent, but he always makes mistakes under pressure, which is the difference between an OK quarterback and a good (not even great) quarterback. The coaches have a history of being overly loyal to a guy at the expense of the team (continually starting Nate Hybl over Heisman winning quarterback Jason White, for example.)  Last night I was lamenting the fact that Cam Newton didn't choose OU over Auburn, but I honestly can't say that our coaches wouldn't be playing him at receiver or h-back and running the wildcat with him.

Also, I'm getting tired of Brent Venables.  He's just not that great of a coach.  You never hear about him getting looked at for head coaching positions and he has a very good defense about every 3 years when we're loaded with Jr's and Sr's.  I don't think these coaches do enough to develop talent and get them game experience when they're young (in other words they leave the starters in too much and then when a starter gets hurt or graduates they have no developed players to replace them with.)

I try to be a realist and I recognize the fact that you're always going to lose, but I just don't like the way this team plays under these coaches in a loss. I fully expected to lose to Mizzou, but the way it unfolded was really upsetting to me.

I feel a little better after getting that off my chest.  I have to watch what I say around the internet because the athletic department is a client of mine and they monitor that stuff.  Plus, there's no way I'm going to be on an OU message board any time this week, they're in meltdown mode.

And Hugman- I don't dislike you.  I remember exchanging PM's about it, and I don't remember what I said at the time, but I really have no ill will  toward you and I'm sorry if it's come across that way in the past.