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.

Las Vegas Bowl: The Wannabe 2006 BCS Championship

The Las Vegas Bowl changed its name from the California Bowl in 1992, because enough people pointed out that Vegas is in fact not in California. Among other things, this bowl is famous for being the site of the first overtime game played in div I-A college football.

UCLA Bruins (by Coach Lawrence)

In recent years, UCLA is a team that has not finished the season well. In 2003 they followed a five game winning streak with a five game losing streak to finish 6-7. The following year they started 4-1 and finished 6-6. In 2005, UCLA looked like they'd have a shot at a BCS bowl with an 8-0 start, then dropped two of their final three regular season games including a loss to lowly Arizona.

Last season, UCLA started 4-1 again before losing four straight. However, their young talent gelled late and they won their final three regular season games, including a major upset of USC who otherwise might have played for the national title. In a hyped battle of future sleepers, UCLA was shockingly abused on defense to lose the Emerald Bowl to Florida State.

This season, UCLA got off to their familiar 4-1 and their equally familiar 5-5 records. In their last seven games, UCLA has lost to Notre Dame (before they became good - oh, you know they're back!), Washington State, and Arizona. They've only beaten a Cal team that nearly went from 5-0 to bowl ineligible and an Oregon team who have lost all three games without Dixon. In other words, not looking so hot.

Fortunately, UCLA has already played against BYU and won! Yes, this is a rematch bowl. In their first meeting, the Bruins were outgained by almost 200 yards but held a +3 turnover margin and returned an INT for a TD to win 27-17. One of the telling hidden statistics was that BYU was penalized 11 times for 84 yards while UCLA received just 4 for 30. The Bruins won by being the more disciplined team. During the regular season, in UCLA's six victories they had on average 2 fewer turnovers for 20 fewer yards per game while having a TO differential of +1.5 compared to -2 in their six losses.

Game Plan:
1. Maintain discipline advantage. Close to 0 penalties, max 1 turnover. They can't count on BYU being extremely generous again, but clearly they must come away from this with at least a small advantage.

2. Make third down manageable. UCLA won the first game despite converting just 2 of 12 third downs, which is a big reason why they needed the TOs and penalties to win.

3. Take away the run first. BYU is a team who averages 150 rushing ypg, but in their loss to UCLA they gained just 44. Max Hall isn't the QB whose shoulders I want to put the entire game on.

BYU (by Coach Pendley)

Finally, a good team from the Mountain West! For some reason when we split the bowls a few weeks ago I ended up with most of the Mountain West teams, and I didn't realize that until starting this preview. (We also treated the Big 10 teams like dead cats, but that's neither here nor there.) Anyway.

Like return games and the chance for a team to get revenge? Then you'll like this Stormin' Mormon (...Cougar - but that first nickname is so much better, isn't it?) team; they have an excellent opportunity to avenge one of their two losses of the season - this one to UCLA, a 27-17 road loss that didn't look nearly as questionable then as it does now. Short of that, there's not a whole lot to be ashamed of. Tulsa's a good team that was throwing up 50+ on a lot of teams, nobody in their conference beat them, and a 20-7 win over Arizona at least partially redeems their out-of-conference slate.

Sophomore QB Max Hall is ....kind of a stud, really. 3,617 yards on the season and a 24/12 ratio will do that. RB Harvey Uriga is also the third-leading rusher in the MWC, averaging 101 yards a game and another 13 TDs on the ground. Rushing defense? Best in the conference. Their pass defense isn't great, but allowing over 200 yards in the air is as much a function of their pass defense as it is averaging about 35 passes a game. PK Mitch Payne isn't great - only 9/13 on the year - but who can blame him? He never gets a shot.

Keys to Victory:
1: QB Pressure. Even if UCLA QB Ben Olsen starts, he's not exactly what you'd term "sturdy". Knock Olsen out of the game and Ossar Rasshan (who?) starts taking snaps. Even if you don't knock Olsen out of the game, a few sharp hits will make him jittery. On the flipside, Max Hall has only been sacked 17 times on the season; keep him upright.

2: Torch 'em. UCLA's pass defense is about average (234 yards allowed/game), but this isn't the same pass offense as UCLA saw earlier this season. Get the ball in the air early and often and put the game out of reach early.

3: Ball control. UCLA isn't a great team, but it won't hurt matters if the Cougars keep the ball a ton. BYU has averaged 33 minutes per game; UCLA is only at 28 1/2 minutes. There's no reason the Cougars can't at least hit their average TOP.