College Football

[BigRedMan]

and fuck you, Indiana Fats

HEH.

[Owlman]

Yes, but the Bengals beat them in Cleveland. So by definition, they must be even shittier... even if the Colts and Bengals are going to tard wrestle for the Luck pick for the rest of the year.

You are forgetting Miami and Minnesota and Kansas City

[eCat]

Who is laughing now Carson Palmer?

Oh wait, he is

goddammit

[Jungle Rat]

[Owlman]

What is the picture about?

[Jungle Rat]

[Bklyn]

What is the picture about?

It's about how black people can be paid to eat Skyline Chili in Cincinnati, it seems.

[Owlman]

Everyone has a price, mine is just very, very high

[Hizzy III]

Even with the blitz on 3rd and 21, DeAngelo Hall has no business getting turned completely around on that play. You keep everything in front of you. If they make the catch short of the 1st down, you tackle. If they run the route beyond, say, fifteen yards then be prepared to cover deep. DeAngelo Hall acted as if he forgot he was in coverage for a moment and allowed Bryant to get past him. Even if the QB is out of the pocket, you don't let the receiver get behind you.

Of course, DeAngelo Hall is feast or famine anyway. Will make a good play or two and then a string of dumbass plays. But what pisses you off is that later he'll say something even dumber to only exacerbate his error on the field.

[Hizzy III]

http://blog.chron.com/jeromesolomon/201 ... #loopBegin

This might be the best thing Jerome's written for the Chronicle. Not long but, while the points should be glaringly obvious to even dimmest of bulbs, calls a spade a spade.

For all of Wade's success, his defense was a trainwreck in the last 10 minutes, mainly because guys were too soft in coverage and Wade was scared shitless to send any extra pass rushers. They were too vanilla and played "please, don't hurt me" defense. Which never works.

I'm going to give Wade a break and just assume that he allowed himself to get caught up in the Drew Brees mystique, otherwise it's a big red flag that makes you want the season to end quickly so you don't have to see yet another mindless, pointless collapse by season's end.

[Hizzy III]

The Bottom Feeders, Volume II: Break out the Vaseline for that ass!

110. San Jose St. The Spartans managed their first victory of the season last week. Yay. Unfortunately, it was against New Mexico State. Now, now, yes, true, the Aggies did beat Minnesota on the road, and I'd be inclined to also put the Gophers on this list after losing by 13 at home to North Dakota State. But apparently North Dakota State is UM's daddy historically so... But back to my main point. The Spartans are certainly moving up (and out of) the charts, so to speak, but that's not necessarily high praise, given their peers.

110. New Mexico St.: The Aggies have a win on the road at Minnesota, as we mentioned earlier, but they also have competitive showings at UTEP as well as in their loss at San Jose State. So, yeah, they're a weak sister of the poor but they've got spunk, as far as the Bottom Feeders go.

112. UNLV: This team is impossible to figure out. Okay, yeah, they're awful, putrid and suck-boo-boo-through-a-straw bad, but it's the inconsistency of their crapiness that irks you. One week, they beat Hawaii by twenty. The next week, they get rolled at home by 20-plus points at the hands of Southern-Freakin'-Utah. I mean, if you're gonna be bad, be bad. Don't throw out ridiculous displays of "good" football every so often. Is fool's gold. Or an insult. Or both.

113. Kent State: And now we REALLY start reaching deep into the barrel of dog feces, as the Golden Flashes managed their first win of the season--a 33-25 thriller versus that juggernaut known as South Alabama. Christ. Struggling to beat mediocre FCS teams, no matter who you are, is the indictment of indictments, especially when you came into the game 0-3 and having been outscored 105-19 on the season. Can't imagine what would've happened if this game was played in that raucous coastal jubilee known as Mobile.

114. Central Michigan: Pretty much the same story as Kent State, except CMU got their FCS automatic win out of the way in week one when they "took care" of South Carolina State 21-6. Impressive. Less impressive are the 89 points they've allowed in their last two games, including 44 against cross-state MAC rival Western Michigan.

115. Memphis: SMU played a horrible game offensively in Memphis last week with overthrown/dropped TD passes, penalties in the red zone and turnovers. Still, they romped to a 42-0 win. The ponies probably could've put another 21 or so points on the board at the Liberty Bowl. Meanwhile, the Tigers spent much of the day botching punts, missing tackles or patching up their fledlging QB, who never had a chance, and even when he did, he sucked pig ass. So as John McKay replied infamously to the question So what do you think about your team's execution?: "I'm all for it." By the way, speaking of executions, in Texas, they no longer give the doomed their choice of a last meal--all because this latest wise guy decided he'd dick around with the menu on the big night. One smartass inmate ruins it for everyone.

116. North Texas Speaking of the state of Texas, let's take you just north of Dallas, where the Mean Green of UNT managed their first win of the season. Good. But now the bad: not only was that first win over crappy Indiana but the Not-So-Mean Green nearly blew a 24-point fourth quarter lead. I mean, this might turn out to be the most winnable game on their schedule and yet the former Eagles nearly blew a 24-point fourth quarter lead at home. You know, that sounds very familiar. I wonder... is Leslie Frazier and Bill Musgrave running things over in Denton for the Mean Green in the fourth quarter?

117. FAU: The Owls scored a season high 14 points on Gene Chizik's defense, a quadrupling of their season-long total of 3 points. Break up the fookin' Owls, boyos! But more impressive was the Owls defense holding a pretty good Auburn offense to just 30 points. Say what you want about the boys from Boca but they seem to be taking their mere 163 yards of total offense per game in stride and staying positive. Of course, when the bough finally breaks...

118. Akron: Sorry, you can't hide a combined 142-17 ass kicking over the first three weeks behind a piddly win over VMI, even if it was a 23-point route. You are what you are, and that's pretty damn bad.

119. New Mexico: On the one hand, I suppose there's something to be said about rallying from down two touchdowns (twice) in the 4th quarter but on the other hand, you shouldn't be allowing 42 points at home to a FCS team. Further, you go on to lose in OT anyway and have now lost 26 of your last 28 games. And, oh, by the way, your head coach, once again, found himself in hot water afterwards because his bonehead son is friends with a clown who not only drinks and drives (with other friends) but does so in a car registered to the head coach and to which the "friend" gleefuly tells police, "I'm a UNM recruit and this is Coach Locksley's car! It's all good." Okay, okay, verbatim but still... I mean, good lord. If ever there was a justification (or two or two thousand) for someone to be fired...

120. Western Kentucky: You get the feeling that Hilltopper alums are a bit sorry they made the jump to the FBS a few years ago? They've not even been competitive in the Sunbelt. The only positive is that WKU has two of the other Bottom Feeders on their schedule this year (North Texas, Florida Atlantic). But then if they lose those two as well...

[Hizzy III]

And now the Top 25, First Installment:

1. LSU: The quality of opponent alone is worth the #1 ranking. By year's end, the Tigers still may not be the best team but they've got the most impressive body of work so far. The most impressive part of this is the fact that they're averaging 37 points per game despite a pretty mediocre passing attack.

2. Alabama: The Tide, like the Tigers, look dominating on defense. Their win over Arkansas was easily their most impressive showing of the season and sort of erases some of the skepticism about Penn State as a quality opponent, given how dreadful PSU has looked on O this season. The Tide is flawed, sure, but it'll take good teams to expose them and exploit them, and even then how much of that can be done, even by the best of them?

3. Wisconsin: I may be overrating the Badgers but watching them fire off the ball is mesmerizing. Also, the D actually looks a lot better than last year's squad, even if their best defensive player from 2010 is now the starting LDE for one of the most frustrating NFL teams in history. The Badgers haven't played top-notch competition (UNLV, Oregon St., N. Illinois and S. Dakota) but the way they're trucking their opponents so soundly can't be ignored. Of course, we'll know even more about them after this weekend's tangle with Nebraska.

4. Oklahoma: The Sooners look like they could be special if not for the long periods of stagnant play. As we saw on Saturday, FSU's defense isn't so great after all and as we all saw in the season opener versus Miami (OH), Mizzou's offense isn't anything special. So why is a national championship contender looking so unspectacular on offense one week and so unspectacular on defense the next?

5. Boise St.: You know what's a shame? The fact that we'll have a season's worth of chatter about Boise State beating Georgia. Good lord, man. It's goddamn Georgia, who's probably going to fire their coach at year's end. Wake me when Boise State beating mediocre BCS teams like Georgia and Oregon State isn't viewed the same as LSU beating Oregon or Alabama beating Arkansas or Oklahoma winning at Doak and so on. On the other hand, rant aside, this is cleary a very good program, given their lack of depth relative to the other Top 10 teams. Would they be perennial 10-game winners in the Big Ten, SEC or even Pac 12? Of course not. But they could still be a consistent 8 or 9 game winner. As it is, they've moved up to a more competitive conference, although still not a BCS conference. That upgrade in conference opponents (San Diego St., Air force, TCU--for one season anyway) should help their perceived SOS even more.[/b]

6. Oklahoma St.: Okie State was dead in the water at halftime last week in Collie Station and then the light came on. The Cowboys would've won going away if Justin Blackmon didn't have one of those infernal head-up-his-ass moments that football players have while they're about to cross the endzone. Brandon Weedon also survived a Matt Schaub-like first half lull to get himself going and rally his troups. Big win for Okie State. There's a good chance that they win at least 11 games this season, given the rest of their schedule.

7. Stanford: Stanford has trucked its first three opponents. Unfortunately, Stanford's first three opponents have a combined record of 4-7. Everyone's abuzz, as usual, about Andrew Luck, but part of Luck's success is clearly due to the Cardinal's ability to run the ball between the tackles and control the LOS. Having Luck slinging it around is mere gravy. The Cardinal get tested and tested big time this week verus UCLA. LMAO! No, seriously, they're on easy street for the forseable future.

8. Oregon: Quietly, the Quack Attack has shaken off that turnover-laden debachle in Arlington and have run off three straight one-sided wins. They're still the dangerous, explosive offensive team that we all expected them to be, and while they clearly aren't among the top 10 or even 20 defenses in the country, they play it well enough to where they shouldn't be sweating too much of anyting until they head down to Palo Alto later this year.

9. Nebraska: But it's a shaky #9. The Huskers finally played something that looked like Husker D last week, albeit against a pedestrian Wyoming offense. It still doesn't exactly give you 100% confidence that the defensive issues that were evident in weeks 2 and 3 have been fixed. They'd better be fixed, though, because Wisky in Madison is a helluva lot different than Wyoming in Laramie.

10. Florida: Don't look now, but the Gators appear to be quite competent on offense, enough to where they're getting big plays both on the ground and in the air. If Muschamp can settle down a couple of his young DBs so that they stop getting called for PI every few plays and if the pass rush becomes more centralized, this might end up being an even better season than many of the most optimistic Gator fans invisioned.

The rest...
11. South Carolina
12. Virginia Tech
13. Clemson
14. Texas A&M
15. South Florida
16. Texas
17. Georgia Tech
18. West Virginia
19. Florida St.
20. Baylor
21. Michigan
22. Arkansas
23. Arizona St.
24. Kansas St.
25. TCU

[THE_WIZARD_]

STFU

[TheBigMook]

You forgot UC

[AlabamAlum]

Atm,


What is shermshine?

[aTm]

A portmanteau of Sherman and sunshine.

[AlabamAlum]

Ahh. Makes sense now.

[Dr. Nostron]

Good read as always Hizzy.

[billy bob bocephus]

Wake Forest then Duke will convince hizzy the noles don't belong in the top 50 much less the top 20

[Jonquil the Dauphin]

Tough week for survivor pools. Have to go against the grain at some point to win these things, but is this week the time to do that? Carolina at Chicago seems to be an obvious pick, but Chicago might not be that good. Always hate picking road games, but NO at Jacksonville also has some appeal.