The flag bearers for the major conferences make big statements Saturday Florida, Texas, USC, and Bama all looked impressive in week one and can make an argument why they should claim the top spot, meanwhile Oklahoma was the lone upset victim in the top 10 as they lost once again to another Mid-Major in BYU. The Buckeyes avoided being this season’s Michigan as they came within a 2-point conversion of going to overtime with an option-running team. The Gators dominated as expected, 62-3 in a game that was not as competitive as their practices, we won’t see if their worthy of 58/60 1st-place votes until week 3. Texas (please see previous sentence), but Colt McCoy looked the best of all of the Heisman candidates throwing for 12-29-317. If this is what we can expect from him all season the Horns’ are going to be really tough to beat. Out West the Trojans answered the question of the week as their freshman Q looks poised to step into the footsteps of the famed USC starters of the previous five years who held that position and are now playing in the League, by rebounding from a shaky start to go 15-19-233. Now along the same lines as the afore mentioned Fla and Tex, we can’t start calling Barkley the “air-apparent” until he leaves the Horseshoe still standing next week. Speaking of the Buckeyes, it’s amazing how one bad Tressel decision changed the nation’s minds from how Ohio State is a team to be reckoned with to ‘same ol’ Bucks’. If OSU kicks the filed goal in the 4th, they go up 3 scores and Navy empties the bench and starts evaluating talent for the rest of the season. Instead the Buck stops there, Navy goes deep on the next play and the rest was almost history, along with the Bucks season. Lastly, the ONLY school that played someone worthy of smackin’ about was Bama who, on a NEUTRAL field, beat a top-ten team in Va.Tech and looked good doing it. They got an offense that has all kinds of firepower at the skill positions and a D that can ‘man up’ when it has to. Look for the Tide to get some respect in the next poll. Now, I realize Bradford only played half the game, but c’mon Sooners, you still were a D-Stop from sending BYU home and last time I looked Bradford doesn’t play both ways. Even with that last drive you still had the field goal opportunity as well. Despite getting “Brady’ied” who still should have won the game, so off to Sibera with you. Who do you think looked the best over opening weekend? Let us know here and in the poll of the day, or visit other quick links:
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Sunday, September 6, 2009
Curtain rises on NCAA season, and may come down early for two top-10 schools
Posted by Smacchat at 12:03 PM
Labels: alabama football, florida gators, ohio state football, texas football, Texas Longhorns, usc football
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34 comments:
This was no fluke..OSU played a decent effort for a first game..As said last week, Navy's offense is tough to prepare against and is QB'd by a young man with some serious talent. In retrospect, OSU is maybe a little fortunate that this was Dobb's first game as he seemed to really hit his stride in the 2nd half. With his throwing ability in that option offense, Navy has a great weapon with the play action pass. They are going to score a lot of points on a lot of teams.
I'm just now concerned after watching this yesterday that OUS may not have the talent needed to beat a USC. Please tell me I am wrong because i hate USC!
Geez Ohio State scared me with this one. It's crazy that for the last 2 years they have been very sub par on their opening game. I'm very curious as to how USC will perform at the Shoe. It always takes special moments from special players to win there at night, ie Vince Young in 05, and Aaron Maybin for THE Pennsylvania State University in 08. USC has tremendous depth, and if I'm not mistaken didn't Ohio State lost a lot of their starters from last season? Like somewhere around 15 or 16 graduated or went to the draft? As a PSU fan for my entire life and a current student I will be rooting for Ohio State because the best thing for the Big 10 would be an undefeated Buckeyes rolling into Happy Valley to face an undefeated Penn State.
Ohio State has no shot of winning whatsoever if they can barely beat out Navy. Tim Tebow, Sam Bradford, and Colt McCoy are all more talented than Terrel Prior, and they can mow down the OSU Defense.
Again, Navy is a solid program with a complex offense to defend...Im more happen they got out injury free...Second, none of those three play for USC so I dont see how thats relevant to USC "mowing down" OSU next weekend...
SlowHio St. fans are funny. I'll give them that....But deep down they know they don't belong on the same field as USC but they're fans, of course they have to hope they won't lose by 30+ can't blame em...But actually winning the game vs USC? Comical
USC will beat them by 30+ AGAIN...then Ohio St will beat up the Terrible Ten and get a BCS game, CFB has become the most corrupt business in the country
It must be nice to be #6 and slip by an unranked team. At least you'll still be in the top ten after getting the crap kicked out of you by USC. What a joke. Ohio State homer voters really need to come clean.
Can we leave it at this.
Texas - Great program. Leading Heisman contended in McCoy. Great leader in Mack Brown. Perenial national powerhouse.
OU - same as above expect add a lot of highly visible and high profile losses that have Sooner nation on edge with Stoops.
And most of all -- THE MWC is for REAL. BYU, Utah and TCU deserve the same respect as any SEC or Big 12 team 0 meaning they have proven they can win and win the big games on the national stage. The MWC has a winning record against the Big 12 and in bowls.
Repect the MWC, give props to BYU for an amazing win tonight and let the rest of the season play out.
bradford wasn't going to win this game. dude played like trash before. BYU's def. looked like the nations top def. and ou's looked like a wac def. BYU would have lost that game with dumb penalties and 4 turnovers, ou wasn't going to win it, byu was going to lose it.
if Bradford Had played the whole game the sooners would have won. But the point is that he didn't and BYU won plain and simple!
Hey Mark,
More like, if OU could have held their own at the line of scrimmage, Bradford may of had a chance to play the whole game.
I think if Bradford hadn't landed on and sprained his shoulder, that he would have burned BYU and Oklahoma would have won. BYU was extremely physical tonight and was able to direct all that intensity and physicality toward stopping the Sooner running game. Last season whenever the Sooner running game would slow or stall, Bradford and OU's explosive passing offense was always there to get the engine started again. I'm not a Sooner fan, I just think that if Bradford had played the whole game, Oklahoma would have won
Having followed byu football religiously for 22 years i just want to point out that byu made far more stupid mistakes than i could have imagined, including four turnovers, and for most of the game i felt that they had lost it for themselves. but time after time they fought back. goal line stands, big hits, and a couple third and longs. i thought that the excuse that the hit was late was the weakest excuse yet, but now saying that it "didn't feel right" is officially the new winner.
ChokeLahoma is good at doing 2 things EVERY year
1. Running up the score @ Norman
2. Getting drubbed in Bowls or when they play good teams
This was just a weird game. As a Sooner fan, from the very beginning, it just didn't feel right. Didn't seem like it had the makings of an OU win. Then it just seemed to snowball. Hopefully this was performance was an aberration and Stoops can get the offensive line and defense sorted out in the coming weeks. Just an odd, very surreal game to watch.
As a Utah fan, I am blown away by BYU's performance tonight. That team that just beat OU looked like last year's Utes team. Veteran QB? Check. Swarming defense that blows people up? Check. Able to overcome adversity and win big games? Check.
If Utah can get it together (they did NOT look good against Utah State) and BYU holds it together, that game in Provo at the end of the season might be for which team plays for the National Championship, and which team gets a "regular" BCS bid. (Think about it: If Utah runs the table to that point, they'll have 25 straight wins, you're really not going to put them in consideration? If BYU runs the table to that point and they have wins against Florida State and Oklahoma, you're really not going to put them in consideration? )
Congrats BYU from a Utes fan we need key wins like this to show the rest of the country the MWC is a tough conference to play in. At least 3 of the teams do a good job of proving that now the rest need to start doing there job. Congrats enjoy the victory
Nothing against Sam or Oklahoma, but it was an even ballgame in the first half with him. And BYU had two of their top players out in Harvey Unga (sorely missed in the run game and as a receiver) and Matt Bauman (captain of the defense at linebacker injured early on). This is not a cheap win because of an injury. Just like Utah over Alabama last year, the Mountain West can play with anyone and deserves the same chance any other team has to win the national championship. TCU, BYU, and Utah are Top 10 caliber.
For those of you who think that Oklahoma lost this game due to Bradford being out ...
You don't have such a big program as Oklahoma (with their money and recruiting power) to have a redshirt freshman as your backup quaterback! Bradford is a great quaterback, but him being out didn't lose the game for Oklahoma ... they are just over-rated.
I wasn't expecting USC to cover the spread in this one. Figured that they'd run 70% of the time to take the pressure off of Barkley. Maybe open things up a little once they got up 14 or so. The defense is looking good. Barkley...not so much. But it's his first quarter of college football, he needs to get calm down.
The thing I don't get is why the SEC gets 5 teams in the top 12 in the pre-season rankings every year even when one or two of those teams end up being busts. Add to this the mild OOC schedules, then the SEC has 5-6 teams with 6-0 or 5-1 records after 3 conference games which fuels the SEC perception even more. I have to give the SEC credit for exploiting the current system. The PAC 10 is being stupid by playing OOC games against Big 10, WAC, ACC, etc. because there is nothing to gain. The top 5 PAC 10 teams would be better off playing 3 OOC pansies to start the season to get guaranteed wins Then the top 5 PAC 10 conference teams would have 6-0 or 5-1 records which would translate into 5 teams in the top 15-20 rankings which would then improve the perception of the conferences strength. The PAC 10 is just not exploiting the system like the Big 12 and SEC are. That is a bit of their own fault I admit.
This is a very fast Defense and the Running Backs look bigger and stronger than last year...Look out Buckeyes...This USC Trojan Team is only gonna get better.
All USC Fans, you watch next week.. you can talk all you want...ALL YOU WANT.. the game is going to be played.. and btw navy is the #! rush offence.. it showed... why do you think osu had problems stoping the run? couldnt be cause they ran in 80 times..
I love SLOhio State fans. They are justifying their beloved Buckeyes stinking up the joint against Navy and bashing Michigan because they played Western Michigan. I got news for you the Sagarin rankings had a 56 point differential between OSU and Navy...and a 55 point differential between Michigan and Western Michigan. The two teams played very equal opponents and Michigan took care of business they way they were supposed to...can you say the same about your Suckeyes?
There is no question the SEC is the strongest conference top to bottom. The Pac 10 however can compete. Washington took LSU down to the wire. Cal opened a can of whoop #### on Maryland. Oregon would be a contender, but losing your star offensive player is a huge blow. People don't get enough respect for the Pac 10. The Pac 10 has the highest bowl win percentage in the last five years as a conference.
"whats funny is OU drops 10spots from 3 to 13 after losing to a top 20 team on a "neutral field"...... Last year Florida drops a game at home to an unranked team and get moved 8 spots down to number 12...
Just kind of funny the way the polls turn out sometimes..."
team rankings are going to be affected a lot more early in the season (especially the first week) than they are later on in the year. halfway through the year when florida lost last year, they had already solidified themselves as being better than any team ranked below them. at this point in the year for oklahoma, they haven't proven anything as far as wins and losses are concerned.
byu beats a top 5 program for the first time since Ronald R was president. (and of course it was ou), and the program they beat this time was highly over-rated, and lost its heisman winner 1/2 way through through the game.
utah beats an uniterested alabama squad last year. not only was bama disappointed not making the nc game, they got stuck playing utah. playing utah after the season they had was kind of like dating the head cheerleader all year in hs and right before prom getting dumped and having to take some chick from color guard.
tcu beat a top program a few years ago (ou again)
and now the WAC is a top conference?
puh-leeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeze
i'm sorry, but i don't think byu deserves to be in the top ten. maybe around 11 or 12. and i do agree that they should be ranked ahead of oklahoma. and they beat the third ranked team and all. but oklahoma was playing for half of the game without the defending heisman winner. and let's not forget that the sooners were winning when bradford got hurt.
i'm sorry, but i don't think byu deserves to be in the top ten. maybe around 11 or 12. and i do agree that they should be ranked ahead of oklahoma. and they beat the third ranked team and all. but oklahoma was playing for half of the game without the defending heisman winner. and let's not forget that the sooners were winning when bradford got hurt.
BYU deserves credit for the win. why is it that people are saying, ohh...BYU only won because Sam Bradford got hurt and left the game? No one is mentioning the fact that BYU won that game WITHOUT Harvey Unga. He did not play a single minute and he is BYU's star RB, who for the past 2 seasons rushed for 1,000+ yds. So credit to BYU for beating up on OU!!!
"I cannot believe BYU is getting credibility for beating an OU team without gresham or bradford. OU held them to 14 points and their backup QB had never taken a snap. this is aweful. now, BYU is going to play an aweful florida state team and will get undeserved cred for that. I didn't realize the oregon team was so bad, that is the only reason boise state won. don't even think of putting the mountain west cheesecake scedule conference into contention"
you hate for a player with the talent and committment to his school, that bradford has, to end up hurt. but i think the question of how good oklahoma really is, was answered on saturday. the fact that the sooners could not just line up and just "out athlete" brigham young, shows you that they were not "all that" in the first place. preseason rankings are no better than campaign promises; eventually you have to put up or play the game. in this instance oklahoma showed they could do neither.
After USC demolishes Ohio State, will the voters finally quit ranking the stupid Buckeyes in the Top 10! How many times do they have to get blown out in a bowl game (3 and counting) before the voters realize they are OVERRATED!
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