I was amused by how difficult it was for Oregon to slow down in the fourth quarter. Whether just to kill some time or avoid running up the score, I don’t know.
They’d bang up to the line of scrimmage, get set, then realize, “Oh, there’s 38 seconds left on the play clock!” Relax, get set, relax, stand up, look around, wave to their friends in the stands, get set, wait some more, and finally start the play.
I guess it’s to avoid getting in the (for them) bad habit of spending a lot of time in the huddle, but I thought it was funny.
SEC now stands for Schools Eating Crow. The SEC had its run but it’s over. I hope that the pollsters stop putting them on the pedestal and giving them every benefit of the doubt, and that other teams stop being in such fucking awe of playing them that they give up before the game even starts. All year long it was SEC West, SEC West. In the bowls they go 2-5. Not only does the emperor have no clothes, he’s not very well endowed.
The surprise in the Rose Bowl, for me, wasn’t that Oregon won, but that they were able to win in exactly the same manner as they do every week against run-of-the-mill Pac-12 opponents: let them hang around in the 1st half, and then put the pedal to the metal in the 2nd half and blow them out.
Sugar Bowl was a total shock. Especially after OSU failed repeatedly to punch it in – I figured they couldn’t swap TDs for FGs and stay with the Tide. So I let my wife have the TV for most of the 2nd and 3rd quarters, and kept track on my phone. What the hell happened?
Paul Finebaum just said that the SEC has to eat a lot of crow, and that sounds like good advice to me.
What surprised me most was that the Ohio State-Alabama game looked like a very EVEN matchup of size and speed.
Over the past 20 years, I’ve seen numerous games in which Midwestern schools squared off in bowl games with SEC teams, and it was painfully obvious early on that the SEC school had much bigger AND faster guys on both sides of the ball. Ohio State has gotten whipped in many such games, and Notre Dame got slaughtered just a few years back.
But this time, it looked as if Ohio State matched up very well PHYSICALLY with Alabama. The Buckeyes seemed to have as many studs and as many speedsters as Alabama.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Urban Meyer coached in the SEC and he knew better than anyone what kind of team he’d need to match up with Bama and LSU come January.
I very much agree about there being too many teams left out and I think the playoff should be made bigger like D1 AA and DII and DIII. But considering that most years the SEC fans believe that having two SEC team in the national championship is the only way it should be it nice having none and if this was still a BCS year do you think there would be any way that OSU and Oregon would have made the national championship? I’d bet a fair bit that it would have been FSU and 'Bama.
That being said if I was going to go back and reseed this years tournament I would put in TCU over FSU and leave 'Bama in since I still believe they are in the top 4 teams in the country.
No, it’s intentional, they always do that. It mimics the best part of their tempo by not letting the defense substitute, since the O is right up on the line and could snap it if they wanted, so the D has to get set and ready. If they don’t, and try swapping players, then Mariota can call for the ball and either score or draw a 12-man penalty mid-swap.
Pretty sure the Ducks are going to walk all over Ohio. Only one team out of the top 4 showed any real defense.
I would think Alabama remains at #3 since it was a close game. The playoff selection committee is looking good with Tosu winning and Baylor losing yesterday.
I like you picks. Just don’t know if the voters will see it that way. There could be a case for Baylor at #6 and FSU #7.
I’m sure a lot of people would like FSU dropped out of the rankings for their lack of character and class. Quitting in the fourth quarter and then most of the players heading to the locker room instead of shaking hands at the end shows that it is a program that needs a gut check and a reality check. When Jameis Winston is one of the few players that showed any class at the end you have trouble.
Every college QB is a crapshoot, and I can’t possibly be sure about Winston. But he has a much better arm than Manziel and has shown a lot of skills as a passer that Manziel never did.
He had a bad game, but I don’t think it revealed him as a guy who can’t make it in the NFL. I have more questions about Marcus Mariota than about Winston.
Victories for Wisconsin (great to see you on the sidelines again, Barry!), Michigan State, and Ohio State fly in the face of the naysayers who’ve been telling us the Big Ten is finished as a meaningful conference.
Not sure yet how I feel about the bowl playoffs, but one thing is certain. Had there been no playoffs, Alabama would surely have walked off with the #1 spot for 2014, and clearly they weren’t worthy of it.
Is there any way either Braxton Miller (Meyer is quoted as expecting him to return) or JT Barrett is just going to sit at Tosu next year behind the other? Or is Meyer going to have to platoon to keep them both happy? Even Jones is showing he can be a starter now…somewhere. Something has to give, right?
Inability to command respect in a pro locker room.
Jameis Winston may or may not succeed in the NFL, but he’s already shown a much higher football IQ than Vince Young or Johnny Manziel ever showed. And by all accounts, he commands a lot of respect in the locker room.
Johnny Manziel and Vince Young shared a propensity to run FIRST, even when there were open receivers. Winston hasn’t shown such tendencies.
