I’d be pissed if I was at UNC, that has to suck that bad to lose their top qb with all the momentum and not being able to finish the game, they are still a year away from being good consistently but they aren’t goin under the radar.
And UF beat the hell out Tenn, ECU finally went down, and UGA/ASU and LSU/Auburn still to come!
I had a feeling ECU would go down, but I didn’t act on it. Dang!
I knew the Gators would destroy the Vols after watching the Vols last two games. They are going to have a rough year.
The Gators have a very favorable schedule this year, and I had agreed with Kirk Herbstreit at the beginning of the year that it would be USC vs. UF for the BCS Championship game this year. I think it can happen.
I hate florida so much but darn the defense so very good
im an ohio state fan but i agree we dont deserve to go to national champ but i would love to play a bowl game against auburn or lsu again my new qb will be much better by the end of the season and really good next year
and sec is no deep its crazy
usc vs florida would be fun to watch
Pretty good game so far between UGA and ASU, 3-0 halftime wake against FSU, Auburn up on LSU 7-3, tough games on right now, damn their being 3 good games on right now, I hate flippin back n forth!
[quote]eic wrote:
One thing is for sure, though, the Big 12 is the premier conference this year, with the SEC a distant or close second. I think this has to do with a combination of strength in the Big 12 as well as just absolute dog shit in virtually every other conference other than the SEC. [/quote]
Confession: I had to google the Big 12 to see who’s all in the conference. There are some pretty good football teams. I knew that Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, and A & M were in the Big 12. Oklahoma and Texas are tough year in and year out. Some of the other teams had good years last year and are looking good this year.
As an SEC fan I’m used to hearing “Conference X is just as good or better than the SEC.” The past few years it was the PAC-10 and the Big 10. Now it’s the Big 12. Nobody ever hears anyone say “The SEC is just as good or better than Conference X.” That’s because the SEC is the best Conference right now. That can and will change, though. It could easily be this year: to be honest, we won’t really be certain who’s the best 'til the dust clears and Bowl Season gets here.
TCU 48 SMU 7
2 picks by D lineman.
Next stop, Norman, OK.
I am a big ten man but i find it more then clear the sec team is the team to beat and albama is going to be the team to beat in down the road because of the great coach and recruiting class’s he is bring in but ohio state also brought some great freshmen in and got some in high school to agree to join the team.
I can not believe how deep sec is though they could have 14 teams in the top 25 they just play each other and knock each other out if they played more out of conference teams they would even have more teams in the top 25
[quote]WxHerk wrote:
As an SEC fan I’m used to hearing “Conference X is just as good or better than the SEC.” The past few years it was the PAC-10 and the Big 10. Now it’s the Big 12. Nobody ever hears anyone say “The SEC is just as good or better than Conference X.” [/quote]
That’s because fans from other conferences have to listen to fans from the SEC constantly drone on and on about how the SEC is the best conference.
No doubt the SEC has several very good teams. But in my opinion, the SEC has a little bit of the Big 10 situation going on: Is the SEC really full of teams that are dominant on a national scale, or do the close intra-conference games, rivalries, and hype make it seem that way? It is tough to say when a lot of the SEC teams play terrible out-of-conference schedules (looking particularly at you, LSU).
I wish more of the SEC teams would step out and play some serious non-conference competition. As much as I like to criticize Ohio St., they get props for scheduling home-and-away series against Texas and USC of late. Props to Florida for playing Miami and FSU every year. That is why Florida is the premiere team in the SEC, in my opinion.
[quote]
The Gators have a very favorable schedule this year, and I had agreed with Kirk Herbstreit at the beginning of the year that it would be USC vs. UF for the BCS Championship game this year. I think it can happen.[/quote]
Agree. I think Florida-USC is a good pick for the NC. And it’s high time that USC plays a good SEC team without Ohio St. getting in the way. That said, if Florida slips up and Oklahoma comes through, I expect OU to play for the NC. USC should be a lock unless they do something incredibly dumb (see close loss to Oregon St. in 2006, close loss to UCLA at the end of 2006; close loss to Stanford in 2007). USC is not God’s gift to football, but I believe that only they can beat themselves during the regular season this year.
[quote]eic wrote:
The Gators have a very favorable schedule this year, and I had agreed with Kirk Herbstreit at the beginning of the year that it would be USC vs. UF for the BCS Championship game this year. I think it can happen.
Agree. I think Florida-USC is a good pick for the NC. And it’s high time that USC plays a good SEC team without Ohio St. getting in the way. That said, if Florida slips up and Oklahoma comes through, I expect OU to play for the NC.
USC should be a lock unless they do something incredibly dumb (see close loss to Oregon St. in 2006, close loss to UCLA at the end of 2006; close loss to Stanford in 2007). USC is not God’s gift to football, but I believe that only they can beat themselves during the regular season this year.
[/quote]
True dat.
[quote]Nate Dogg wrote:
Here are my top picks this week:
3 Georgia over ASU
4 Gators over Vols
6 LSU over 10 Auburn
9 Alabama over Arkansas
15 East Carolina over North Carolina State
24 FSU over 18 Wake Forest
Miami over Texas A&M[/quote]
I went 5-2 here since FSU let me down (I really wanted them to win) and East Carolina lost to NC State (and I was orignally tempted to pick NC State - dang!).
[quote]My “iffy” games that could go either way:
North Carolina over Virginia Tech
Michigan State over Notre Dame
Georgia Tech over Mississippi State
Ole Miss over Vanderbilit (but my gut says to go Vanderbilit over Ole Miss…we’ll see how this pans out)
Boston College over UCF[/quote]
I went 3-2 here. I should have gone with my “gut” and picked Vanderbilt over Ole Miss…and I can’t believe North Carolina let me down. I wasn’t thinking Tech would win that one.
[quote]Gimme Games:
5 Missouri over Buffalo
7 Texas over Rice
11 Texas Tech over Massachusetts
12 USF over Florida International
13 Ohio State over Troy
14 BYU over Wyoming
16 Penn State over Temple
17 Oregon over Boise State
19 Kansas over Sam Houston State
23 Clemson over South Carolina State[/quote]
I guess Oregon wasn’t such a gimme after all thanks to that loss to Boise State. 9-1.
I definitely need to go with my gut feeling more often when picking gaames. I was very tempted to call NC State over ECU and Vandy over Ole miss, but I didn’t listen!
[quote]eic wrote:
The Gators have a very favorable schedule this year, and I had agreed with Kirk Herbstreit at the beginning of the year that it would be USC vs. UF for the BCS Championship game this year. I think it can happen.
Agree. I think Florida-USC is a good pick for the NC. And it’s high time that USC plays a good SEC team without Ohio St. getting in the way. That said, if Florida slips up and Oklahoma comes through, I expect OU to play for the NC.
USC should be a lock unless they do something incredibly dumb (see close loss to Oregon St. in 2006, close loss to UCLA at the end of 2006; close loss to Stanford in 2007). USC is not God’s gift to football, but I believe that only they can beat themselves during the regular season this year.
[/quote]
Well, I love the Gators as much as anyone. They’ve really got to get their shit together on offense if they want to hang around for the SEC Championship. I really don’t like a lot of Meyer’s playcalling on offense, and it almost looks like they’re falling into the trap of having too much talent, not enough heart.
[quote]eic wrote:
The Gators have a very favorable schedule this year, and I had agreed with Kirk Herbstreit at the beginning of the year that it would be USC vs. UF for the BCS Championship game this year. I think it can happen.
Agree. I think Florida-USC is a good pick for the NC. And it’s high time that USC plays a good SEC team without Ohio St. getting in the way. That said, if Florida slips up and Oklahoma comes through, I expect OU to play for the NC. USC should be a lock unless they do something incredibly dumb (see close loss to Oregon St. in 2006, close loss to UCLA at the end of 2006; close loss to Stanford in 2007). USC is not God’s gift to football, but I believe that only they can beat themselves during the regular season this year.
[/quote]
Florida-Oklahoma might just be better. I know you’re tired of hearing about the SEC but, in my opinion, part of the past two NC’s being out of Ohio State’s reach was because the SEC teams had already played “that game” several times during the regular season. Ohio State hadn’t really been tested. Just like USC won’t be tested like the SEC or Big 12 Champion will be during the regular season/Conference Championship. The PAC 10 just isn’t nearly as deep as the SEC or Big 12. In my opinion, whoever emerges on top of the SEC and Big 12 will definitely have earned a shot.
This may be the first year ever where the SEC isn’t horribly overrated.
[quote]WxHerk wrote:
eic wrote:
The Gators have a very favorable schedule this year, and I had agreed with Kirk Herbstreit at the beginning of the year that it would be USC vs. UF for the BCS Championship game this year. I think it can happen.
Agree. I think Florida-USC is a good pick for the NC. And it’s high time that USC plays a good SEC team without Ohio St. getting in the way. That said, if Florida slips up and Oklahoma comes through, I expect OU to play for the NC. USC should be a lock unless they do something incredibly dumb (see close loss to Oregon St. in 2006, close loss to UCLA at the end of 2006; close loss to Stanford in 2007). USC is not God’s gift to football, but I believe that only they can beat themselves during the regular season this year.
Florida-Oklahoma might just be better. I know you’re tired of hearing about the SEC but, in my opinion, part of the past two NC’s being out of Ohio State’s reach was because the SEC teams had already played “that game” several times during the regular season. Ohio State hadn’t really been tested. Just like USC won’t be tested like the SEC or Big 12 Champion will be during the regular season/Conference Championship. The PAC 10 just isn’t nearly as deep as the SEC or Big 12. In my opinion, whoever emerges on top of the SEC and Big 12 will definitely have earned a shot.
[/quote]
I really don’t mean to talk shit… but I swear to God, if Chokelahoma gets into one more BCS game and loses it, they need a lifetime ban. Wouldn’t that make it 7 straight BCS losses?
I agree that the Pac-10 just sucks this year. In the local paper here, there was an article about how the Pac-10 consisted of only USC, because the rest of the 9 teams just sucked. This does give credence that USC wont be tested until a real challenger (perhaps Notre Dame, but thats still not certain) steps up to the plate. But the SEC and Big 12 are always tough competitors and will impact the BCS for sure.
[quote]SSC wrote:
Well, I love the Gators as much as anyone. They’ve really got to get their shit together on offense if they want to hang around for the SEC Championship. I really don’t like a lot of Meyer’s playcalling on offense, and it almost looks like they’re falling into the trap of having too much talent, not enough heart.[/quote]
I’m not too worried about it yet. The season is still young, and the team is going to get better each week, especially on offense.
This year reminds me a lot of the 2006 National Championship year. The defense and special teams have been the best part and the offense has struggled but has playmakers. I think we may see a similar type of year and possibly a few real close games (but I hope not - that was too stressful for me!).
I believe the offense will continue to get better and the playmakers will begin to really shine. Urban Meyer needs to get his offensive coordinator to get more aggressive and come up with some new stuff (it was commented on in the local paper after the win over the Vols).
Dan Mullen has been too conservative and has called the same plays over and over again even when they didn’t work the first 2 or 3 times.
[quote]WxHerk wrote:
Florida-Oklahoma might just be better. I know you’re tired of hearing about the SEC but, in my opinion, part of the past two NC’s being out of Ohio State’s reach was because the SEC teams had already played “that game” several times during the regular season. Ohio State hadn’t really been tested.
[/quote]
That’s total bullshit. The Ohio State team that USC just dismantled was basically the same team (minus Wells, but plus Pryor) that LSU beat in the NC except that this team was (1) even more experienced and (2) was dead set on not being blown out yet again on the national stage.
So your suggestion that the result in the last two NC games is due to the superior quality of SEC teams is demonstrably false; USC handled that same OSU team just as if not more easily than Florida and LSU.
This is largely what was said about USC in '04. Everyone thought that the mighty OU was going to dominate the “untested” USC team. Well what happened? USC flat out embarrassed Oklahoma in the 2005 National Championship.
Just because the conference is weak does not necessarily mean that a team at the top of that conference is not worthy. I was totally behind OSU playing for the national championship in 2006/2007 against Florida. At that point, we had no idea whether they were really a fantastic team on a national scale or just the best of the worst.
After that game, we knew it was the latter and that is why I opposed them for consideration in the 2007/2008 NC game against LSU. You can’t make the same argument about USC.
Unlike all of the teams in the SEC except Florida, USC goes out of it’s way to play decent nonconference opponents. Starting the season on the road at Virginia? Playing against Ohio St.? A game against Notre Dame every year? Show me a team in the SEC besides Florida that plays such a schedule.
You are also forgetting one important factor: The fact that USC is so clearly superior in the Pac-10 means that USC has a bulls-eye on their back and that everyone in the Pac-10 has their matchup with USC circled on their calendar. In other words, USC is getting those teams’ “best shot.” The same was true of the Patriots last year.
Teams that sucked ass all of a sudden rose to the occasion and played the Patriots (a clearly superior team) to some very close games. In my opinion, this gives USC a very similar experience to what teams in the SEC are said to experience with their schedules. This provides more than enough testing for USC.
In fact, only a fool would fail to recognize that year in and year out, USC seems to be good at handling the pressure of playing on the big stage.
As an aside, I noticed that you are from Mississippi. Odds are that you are either an Ole Miss fan or an Mississippi St. fan. That explains a lot. It seems to me that the people who trumpet the virtues of the SEC tend to be either Mississippi St., Ole Miss, or Vanderbilt fans.
Fans of the other teams in the SEC tend to promote their team without having to talk about the conference’s overall strength.
Bottom line? Both the Big 12 and SEC have several quality teams this year: Florida, LSU, Auburn, Georgia, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, Texas Tech, as well as others. The Big East, ACC, and Pac-10 are largely total shit. I actually think that the Big 10 falls somewhere in between with Penn State, Illinois, and Wisconsin playing some good ball.
That said, USC is still a fantastic team that could beat or compete with any of those other teams.
[quote]eic wrote:
WxHerk wrote:
So your suggestion that the result in the last two NC games is due to the superior quality of SEC teams is demonstrably false; USC handled that same OSU team just as if not more easily than Florida and LSU.
[/quote]
You’re 100% right about how well USC handled OSU.
What I meant about the last two NC games was that the SEC teams had faced tougher competition in their conferences throughout the season. OSU had just as much talent but in their conference games just hadn’t faced the same level of competition.
Who hasn’t flat out embarrassed Oklahoma in a bowl game the past few years?
Excellent point. I hadn’t really given that much consideration and you are right. USC has an INCREDIBLE team, the rest of the conference withstanding.
What’s the big deal about Virginia and Notre Dame?
UVA is 1-2, got blown out by Connecticut(?!) 45-10
Notre Dame ain’t what they used to be, though they ARE coming back. I met Coach Weis this summer when he was on the Coaches Tour of the Middle East Military Bases. Heckuva good guy, EXTREMELY personable.
That is a great point. USC does have a GIANT bullseye on its back. LSU is defending National Champion. You think perhaps that LSU has a bullseye on its back? Oh, and LSU plays several NC Caliber teams this year. They’ve already beaten Auburn in Auburn. Let’s see how their luck holds out.
This fool never said anything of the sort. They are FANTASTIC at handling the pressure of the big stage.
Really? What does it explain? I’m an LSU fan. Have been since I was tiny.
WHAT??? I’m around all sorts of fans of almost all SEC teams during the week. Every. Single. One. talks about the Conference’s overall strength.
By the way, I’ve never met a Vanderbilt fan, so I couldn’t tell you what they think.
Hmmmmmm, maybe one could say the same for a Nebraska fan touting the overall strength of the Big 12 . . . . .
[quote]
Bottom line? Both the Big 12 and SEC have several quality teams this year: Florida, LSU, Auburn, Georgia, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, Texas Tech, as well as others. The Big East, ACC, and Pac-10 are largely total shit. I actually think that the Big 10 falls somewhere in between with Penn State, Illinois, and Wisconsin playing some good ball.
That said, USC is still a fantastic team that could beat or compete with any of those other teams. [/quote]
Bottom line. I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m anxious to see how everything shakes out after the bowl games. The Big 12 has definitely risen to prominence and each of those teams will give whoever they play a SERIOUS game.
haha…USC lost. Just another reason for the BCS to be thrown to the way-side