Random Thoughts: Pac-10(!) Edition

First off, if you haven’t seen the modified Top 25 rankings, check them out; I hadn’t gotten a chance to add my thoughts to the rankings. That’s taken care of now.

So right now, we have almost 120 teams (Western Kentucky joins the Sun Belt next year) in we’re-not-calling-it-1-A-anymore, and if you think we’re covering all of them, you’re nuts. We’ll do our best to get to the ones that matter, though, and on that note here’s a bunch of random notes and thoughts about some teams.

- UCLA: if you’ve missed the news, Ben Olson is injured again and won’t be available for the first few weeks of the season at best. This will cause Kevin Craft to move up to the starting role, meaning he’ll likely get the nod against Tennessee, BYU, and Arizona (if not Fresno State). This is about as painful as it sounds for Bruins fans, but the rest of us are laughing at the turn of misfortune.

- Arizona State: the offensive line problems are very real here. We’ve already documented our concerns with it on a few occasions (it’s the main thing holding them back), but the good news is that they have three games to get it together. The bad news is they’re one injury to Paul Faniaka away from having a completely decrepit offensive line, but for those of us used to calling them the Arizona State Paper Sun Devils, that’s good news too.

- Left tackles are apparently optional at Georgia. Trinton Sturdivant is out at LT for the season, and while this will be his RS year it won’t make life any easier for the ‘Dogs. They’re not sure what they’ll do about it, but there’s enough talent there to make coping difficult yet not impossible. Expect some combination of Justin Anderson, Vince Vance, Kiante Tripp, Cordy Glenn, and Josh Davis to flip around in pursuit of that spot; of those guys, Vance and Tripp are already starters.

- Does anyone have a spare ACL for Florida? They’ve lost five (!) guys already to ACL tears: starters Cornelius Ingram and Dorian Munroe, plus backups Jim Barrie, John Curtis, and Brendan Beal. Ingram was undoubtedly the biggest loss of those five, but Munroe and Curtis were both SS, which means secondary depth is already a concern. Beal might’ve redshirted this year anyway, so that seals the deal for him, and Barrie hurts the line depth. The Gators should be fine coping with the losses, but if injuries in the secondary start to pile up, you heard it here first.

Speaking of the Gators, they allowed straight thuggin’ Ronnie Wilson to rejoin the team. EDSBS summed this up way better than we could even dream of, but: bad form, Meyer. You’re in a state that’s fucking loaded with talent; did you really need a guy who knows how to fire assault rifles in public?

- Kentucky’s kicked starting QB Curtis Pulley off the team. Mike Hartline will assume QB duties for the Wildcats, which will consist of “run around like crazy praying to g-d Dicky Lyons can shed triple coverage before getting wrecked”. I’d say this is a big deal, but I’d be lying my ass off; nobody cares about Kentucky this year.

- If this isn’t the gayest college football article you read all year, I will be very surprised. I didn’t realize they let the gays out in Tuscaloosa. That being said, Jones could be one hell of a playmaker, and I’d be scared of him if I had any confidence that John Parker Wilson, Esq. could actually turn in a consistent week-to-week performance.

- So I’ve been reading a fair amount of articles on how TAMU’s offense will be designed to feature Mike Goodson more, and I refuse to buy it. I’ll buy that Stephen McGee won’t be running the ball as much this season, but I think it’s a reach to assume a guy with Goodson’s size won’t get wrecked running behind an offensive line returning only one starter. Compound that with learning a new offensive scheme, and while we can expect Jovorski Lane to rack up the close yardage and TDs without getting too injured, I’ll need to see Goodson as the feature back before signing on. Actually, I’ll buy Goodson as the featured back, but I won’t buy him as the signature back. It just seems like a mess waiting to happen.

- Is Texas Tech due for a letdown? They’re facing the highest expectations since …well, ever, and there are still some huge questions around their defense. Mike Leach is saying all the right things and the team is at least acting like they’re focused, but I buy that as much as I buy the “[pitcher] is feeling great this season” articles that show up in spring training, after said pitcher has spent the last 112 weeks on the DL. At some point, we’ll actually have to see the actual improvement in focus and commitment from the Red Raiders, and the last five years would seem to indicate otherwise: 2003, L 21-49 @ NC State; 2004, L 24-27 @ New Mexico; 2005, L 17-24 @ Oklahoma St.; 2006, L 6-30 @ Colorado; 2007, L 45-49 @ Oklahoma State, again. Consider this a warning to take care of business on the road, guys.

- Speaking of saying the right things, Duke is quickly becoming a soft spot for me. Admittedly, 90% of this is because David Cutcliffe has become their HC, but it’s kind of weird seeing a bunch of guys who have been playing football for 6+ years on average (if not longer) talk about what it actually means to be a college football athlete. It makes me wonder what Ted Roof was doing as HC there and how he was able to land a job somewhere else, even if it was at Minnesota. Will it matter? I suspect not, but the ACC is bad enough that they could sneak a conference win (Virginia? NC State?) and finish the season 3-9. Bonus points: only one team – Clemson – has scheduled Duke for their homecoming opponent. This is a step up, as Virginia gets dinged on that twice.

That’ll cover it for now.

The Gator Bowl: Because It's Not Enough To Have Just One Likely Blowout at 1 PM EST on New Year's

The Gator Bowl, hosted in Jacksonville, FL, has recently had a strong Virginia history. Since 2001, every Gator Bowl has had a team from either North Carolina, Virginia, or West Virginia. Hm. After a few floppers, the last three Gator Bowls have been pretty good and increasingly more and more competitive.

Honestly, with this matchup, who knows what we'll get. Virginia's still tough to read and Texas Tech tends to show up if they feel like it.

Texas Tech (by Coach Lawrence)

Like seemingly every Mike Leech team, Texas Tech leads the nation in passing, runs the ball on occasion, and has a mediocre defense. Midway through October, nobody had held them below 35 but the Red Raiders managed to lose a game in which they scored 45 points. Then they got blown out by a strong Missouri team, lost a shocker to Colorado, and were run over by Jamaal Charles and Texas. In a showdown with Oklahoma, TTU took advantage of an injury to Sam Bradford to win a pseudo-shootout.

Texas Tech figured to have a strong season for their QB, as the system favors it and Graham Harrell is probably the best talent that Leech has had yet. What wasn't expected was the rapid ascension of freshman phenom receiver Michael Crabtree. Crabtree destroyed the freshman TD record with 21, and his 155 ypg receiving is tops in the nation by 22. Sure, his drop cost TTU the OK State game and a 7-0 start, but for the most part it's been catch after catch on the way to an historic individual season.

Defensively, Jamar Wall is the standout in an otherwise pedestrian secondary. But the run defense... ouch, they give up 171 ypg. Indeed, Tech is one of a very small number of teams who can be successful despite getting outrushed by 110 ypg... I guess +281 passing makes up for that.

Keys to Victory:
1) Good isn't Good Enough for Graham Harrell. Check out these numbers: 147 QB rating, 69.6% completions, 485 ypg. Those are Harrell's numbers when they lose. With Mike Leech's offense, Harrell needs to be completing 75% of his passes and throwing 4 TDs minimum with at most 1 INT. It's a daunting task, and here's my hint: look for Crabtree.

2) Okay, you're gonna give up yards on the ground. You can't turn bad into good. But you can minimize its damage with more aggressive schemes. When the Red Raiders lose, they give up 269 rushing yards a game. In victory, that's down to 121. We're not asking the world of this defense, but just keep 7 or 8 committed to stopping the run and see if Jameel Sewell can outduel Graham Harrell.

3) Stay committed to the (above) gameplan. Last season they were pretty much getting run out of the Insight Bowl by Minnesota before Harrell caught fire... all they did was complete the biggest comeback in division 1 history. This offense is deadly and no QB save for Colt Brennan can go head to head with Harrell and win. Stop (or slow down) the run, throw the ball 60 times. That should do it.

Virginia (by Coach Pendley)

So the Cavaliers went 9-3 this season, but how? Well, they bookended a 9-1 season with big losses to Virginia Tech (understandable) and Wyoming (wtf n00b?). In between, they stole wins against UNC, Georgia Tech, MSTU, UConn, Maryland, and Wake Forest. How?
- Getting outgained 399-350 against UNC but hitting 5 FGs, two from beyond 45 yards. Includes what should’ve been a drive-stalling sack, but UNC committing a personal foul to prolong UVA’s drive, which resulted in a 48-yard FG.
- INT return for a TD against Georgia Tech provides the winning score
- K Chris Gould nailed a 34-yard FG as time expired to beat MTSU
- UConn completely squandering their +1 turnover margin and fumbling at the UVA 4 with time winding down in the 2nd quarter
- Maryland being …well, Maryland, and letting Chris Turner get sacked for a safety (final score: 18-17 UVA)
- Sam Swank missing a game-winning FG to preserve the win over Wake Forest

So yeah, when people say that UVA is the luckiest team in the country, they’re not kidding around. The offense? Anemic – Cedric Peerman is the team’s leading rusher and he hasn’t even played since the MTSU game. None of their receivers averages over 40 yards a game. They have more punts per game than anyone in the ACC but Virginia Tech and Duke. Even the nausea-inducing Maryland offense scored more than these guys did on the year.

What about on D? Well, they do have a pretty good run defense thanks to Chris Long (19 TFL). However, since they’re playing Texas Tech, nobody really cares about that. How do they defend the pass? They allowed about 210 yards per game through the air and a 15/11 ratio, which sounds great, but:
- they missed the two best passing teams in the ACC, BC and Clemson
- the two “best” passing offenses the Cavs did play – UNC and NC State – passed for 339 and 347 yards, respectively
So …yeah. Now they get to face a TTU offense that has passed for under 400 yards just once on the year – with a 48/15 ratio.

Keys to Victory:
1: Ball possession. I don’t really know – nor do I really care – how they hold onto the ball, but they’ll need to. 35 minutes is a minimum; predictably, TTU doesn’t hold onto the ball that long, but they’re going to get points, so there’s not a whole lot else to do other than try and shorten the game. The good news is that TTU's run D is less than stellar, so ...maybe Mikell Simpson can run 4 yards and fall down. 35 times.

2: No empty possessions. Chris Gould is going to have to kill it – we’re talking no missed FGs here; get into the end zone. Don’t even bother punting – TTU will likely drive the field anyway.

3: Reach out and pull in a horseshoe. Seriously, they’re going to have to get a bit lucky – maybe Michael Crabtree misses a key third down catch, maybe Graham Harrell has his worst game yet this season. It doesn’t matter how they get lucky, but they will have to get lucky.