Week 3

I have a simple rule that I try to live by and remember when I get angry……people are generally stupid. After last weekend I found an addendum to that phrase. People who call radio talk shows after football games are extremely stupid. While this is absolutely the truth they can also be quite entertaining during a long miserable car ride home while you are hung over and tired. Let’s recap some of the callers from last Saturday night and Sunday morning on the way home from Florida vs. Tennessee in Knoxville.

Before I talk about the callers I want to make it very clear that I may write blogs that 7 people read, but I will never, I mean never call into a post-game radio show after a football game. First of all I love the fans insight into the game: They suggest plays that should have been run (“This is Billy Jo from Cleveland” (that’s Cleveland, TN in case you were wondering) On that 3rd down play in the 4th quarter I think a reverse might could have worked..... the Florida D was so fast and athletic they would have never seen it comin…..don’t you think?) Clearly because you own a cell phone, read about the team on the internet and own something Orange you are now qualified to be an offensive coordinator…..are you kidding me?? Unfortunately the hosts aren’t much better, they only state the obvious, (“One thing was clear tonight, we really need to run the ball better if we want to win games in the SEC!” (Wait you don’t think negative rushing yards is a good thing?? Ok now I understand) The hosts let some callers just go on and on when they have absolutely nothing intelligent to say. One guy calls in and explains that hasn't missed a home game in 20 years and drives in all the way from West Palm Beach (he has issues, i'm sure he was there for the Spring game too) after 4 minutes of his life story and why he is entitled to criticize the team he actually says….." I have 5 more points” and unbelievably they let him talk about all 5! This guy might as well have had his own show. How about a host that actually has some balls and cuts him off. Do you think Jim Rome would have listened to that bs? The hosts of the Sunday morning show, “Tennessee Football Call-In Show” are Jimmy Hyams (sports columnist for Knoxville News) and Brent Hubbs. These bafoons are seriously lacking in knowledge considering this is their actual job and they get paid. They failed to remember the name of #40 for the Vols, who happened to have 15 tackles against Florida and the pick six that was called back. (No it was not Larry Munson, this guy was under the age of 80 and appeared to be sober.) Whitey, who had been amazingly calm following the one point loss to Florida became extremely agitated and nearly drove off the road screaming with his dip in his mouth “HIS F-ING NAME IS MARVIN MITCHELL AND HE IS YOUR BEST F-ING DEFENSIVE PLAYER….LEARN HIS F-ING NAME!” That alone made listening worth while.

That wasn’t all we heard. The host Hubbs on the morning show and talks about how proud he was of UT because they played a close game vs. a vastly superior Florida team. What I wonder is did he watch the same game I did Saturday night?

#1 Steve Spurrier did not coach and Danny Wuerffel did not play.

#2 Jevon Kearse who seemed to be in UT’s huddle on every play for 4 years was not in uniform for Florida.

#3 UT led 17-7 in the 3rd quarter, had a touchdown called back because of a late hit and led the game until 6:30 remained.

#4 Until the grounding penalty on Ainge in UT’s final drive I was convinced Tennessee was going to take the lead one more time and probably win the game barring a last minute collapse.

#5 Florida had 9 penalties, 2 missed field goals and threw an interception. Can you say sloppy?

My point is this is not a great Florida team, good ok, great I don’t think so. Chris Leak is in his 9th year and still doesn’t really impress me much. The difference last night was one team could run the ball and the other couldn’t. Florida had the ball for 10 more minutes and held Tennessee to an average of .9 yards a rush….and the lost by one whole point. There are no moral victories, if the Vols average even 3 yards a carry they probably win the game.

One last thing about the Vols Gators game…..the atmosphere was unbelievable. I hadn’t been to an SEC game at Neyland in a few years and I had forgotten how loud it can get. When they play Rocky Top as the players are about to come out of the tunnel there is no better place to be in college football…..none.

Ok Saturday was billed as separation Saturday. Let’s look at last week’s blog:

I picked the following: (go back and look if you need to)

Florida over Tennessee
Auburn barely over LSU
USC over Nebraska
Clemson over FSU
Louisville over Miami
Oregon over Oklahoma (Granted this was a joke. Oklahoma is actually threatening to pull out of future Pac Ten games if the league doesn’t change its’ rule requiring their own league officials be used at all home games)

Needless to say I had a pretty good week. (15-5 in the new LYA after 2 weeks) You will notice the one game I refused to pick was Notre Dame vs. Michigan. Truth be told I thought ND would sneak by Michigan in a very close relatively low scoring game such as 20-17 or something like that. I am not a Lloyd Carr fan as a coach or as a person and I thought in a close game having Brady Quinn and Charlie Weiss would make the difference. Well clearly I was dead wrong on this one. Michigan got confidence early with a pick for 6 and then hit a 69 yard touchdown pass that looked eerily similar to a play in last year’s Fiesta Bowl. That was followed by a fumbled kick-off return and the game was over. So let’s recap ND’s season….opening win on the road and they drop in the polls because it wasn’t pretty enough, big win over inexperienced PSU team that made several sloppy plays early in the game, ND rises to #2 and talk of a rematch in the Fiesta Bowl returns. Now a big loss and 5 turnovers against Michigan, a team that had lost 6 straight road openers, so ND is again over rated and they drop out of the top ten. One thing I have forgotten over the last 10 or so years….people really despise ND when they are good…..I had an ND green shirt on while tailgating in Knoxville and more than a few people including those I was tailgating with made sure I was reminded of the final score. I quickly reminded them of the last two ND Tennessee games and returned to my double vodka red bull drink. Then Sunday I go online to read about the game and the general feeling from the media…..it was all pretty much the same. ND was overrated, over hyped and has a defense that plays with smoke and mirrors. Charlie Weiss still is yet to beat a top 25 team and Brady is terrible. WOW One thing that is clear in this age with the tremendous media coverage sports get….especially football you are only as good as your last performance, sometimes even winning isn’t enough.

PS: Weiss beat 3 ranked teams last year and #19 PSU this year. and I would still rather have him over Lloyd Carr any day.


Now that a few more undefeated teams have fallen let’s look at who’s left: Teams without a Conference Championship Game have a big advantage here:

OSU - PSU, at Iowa, at Michigan St. and Michigan left. The two road games and Michigan are potential pitfalls. Iowa has won 25 of 26 games at home.

USC – Cal, ASU, Oregon and ND are all at home. UCLA is across town. They haven’t lost a Pac Ten game in 3 years is there anything to believe that will change? They could be 11-0 hosting ND.

West Virginia - at Louisville November 2nd is the big one. At Pitt the next week and home vs. Rutgers. This team will not be in the BCS title game if there are 3 undefeated teams.

Auburn – Florida and UGA at home. At Alabama. SEC Championship. Best shot of the SEC teams.

Florida – at Auburn, Alabama, Georgia, LSU and FSU. Plus SEC Champ. Not gonna happen.

Michigan – Wisconsin, Michigan St., Iowa, PSU and OSU on the road. They will not make it to Columbus undefeated.

Louisville – at Kansas St., West Virginia, at Pitt and Rutgers No Brohm no way.

Georgia – Tennessee, Florida, at Auburn, Georgia Tech. SEC Champ.

Virginia Tech – Untested 3 games into the season. How about playing someone out of conference?? GA Tech and Clemson at home, at BC and at Clemson plus ACC Champ.

Oregon – USC – that’s all you need to see. At Cal, ASU and Oregon St.

TCU – at Utah in 2 weeks. The rest is your typical Air Force, BYU stuff. With the new BCS game they could sneak in like Utah did 2 years ago.


Next week’s big games and early predictions:

Wisconsin at Michigan - Let down? Maybe but Wisconsin can’t score enough to make this interesting.

ND at Michigan St. – MSU undefeated after clobbering Pitt. Revenge will be a factor after their mid-field celebration in South Bend last year. ND rebounds.

Virginia at GA Tech - Thursday night. Tech proves it is better than past years.

PSU at OSU – PSU plays better after having the ND game under its’ belt but can’t keep up with Ginn and Smith.

Louisville at Kansas St. – Strange out of conference game. NO Brohm and no Bush this is my potential upset of the week.

ASU at Cal – Toss-up I think ASU exposes Cal’s db’s in a shoot-out.

USC at Arizona – Mike Stoops coming out party? Maybe for a half but unless Adrian Peterson comes to Tucson SC will pull away.

Hawaii at Boise St. – The blue turf wins out in a shoot-out. This might be the most entertaining game of the week.

HOW THEY HAVE FALLEN:
Georgia was favored by 17 over UAB last week…..this week they are favored by 27.5 at home vs. Colorado. Poor Dan Hawkins will wish he was bringing Boise back to Athens.

WHY PLAY?

Buffalo at Auburn – 43 point spread you think Auburn might have a let down? Yes they win by 42.

Team of the Week

Yes it’s Michigan. They won at ND for the first time in 12 years and ended a 6 year losing streak in their road opener. I still believe they will have a loss before the end of October.

Honorable mention: Florida, Louisville and Clemson. (Yes Chuck Oliver FSU and Miami are overrated.)

Pathetic team of the week: It’s a tie between NC State and Virginia.

Random Thought of the week:
How often do we see a team lose its’ best player and all of a sudden they are better? (Aka Peyton Manning and Tee Martin) It may be happening again at Missouri. Brad Smith, Mr. All Everything, for 4 years left after a disappointing senior season and don’t look now but Missouri is finally living up to expectations. Don’t be surprised if they sneak into the pathetic Big 12 title game.

Next Week:
Next Saturday I will be in the College Football studio at Turner all day getting paid for logging highlights to be shown during the UCLA vs. Washington game. My blog will be about how things happen behind the scenes before they make it on TV. Yes, Halvorsen Ty and the Huskies are making an appearance on National TV, get your purple shirt on! Although the games aren’t as good as last weekend it should be another good weekend of ball and betting!