College Football: Week 7

The road to the BCS Championship goes through the Big 12?

Chiggity Chase Daniel and Sultry Sam Bradford are lighting up scoreboard from Norman to Columbia to Lincoln to Seattle, both teams have led the conference on a roll that is unprecedented in my recent memory.  I have touched on this before briefly but, can any conference boast the talent that the Big XII has in the QB position?  Hands down SEC folks, the power has shifted to the Midwest.

The offensive rankings are simply too powerful to ignore.

Here is where the Big XII signal callers rank in order of QB rating:

2.  Sam Bradford- Oklahoma 204.97

3.  Zac Robinson- Oklahoma St 204.58

4.  Colt McCoy- Texas  197.94

5.  Chase Daniel- Missouri  196.36

10.  Josh Freeman- Kansas St  162.73

12.  Graham Harrell- Texas Tech  161.04

14.  Todd Reisling- Kansas  160.50

18.  Joe Ganz- Nebraska  155.50

30.  Robert Griffin- Baylor 145.10

42. Austin Arnauld- Iowa St  136.42

51.  Jerrod Johnson- Texas A&M  131.71

70.  Cody Hawkins- Colorado  119.91

Interesting side note for SEC faithful.  Your top rated quarterback is none other than Timothy Tebow (24th), who is listed behind SAM GANZ of Nebraska! The Corn Shuckers just learned this new-fangled ball throwing stuff five years ago, and their man is ahead of your whole league.  WOW.

Quick, who is rated higher, Drew Willy from Buffalo, or Tim Tebow?

If I picture is worth 1,000 words, then I’ll just leave it at that.  Oh who am I kidding.

105

165

1299

63.6

7.9

12

3

13

150.13

79

128

1025

61.7

8.0

8

1

7

148.05

Who’s stat line is who’s?  I’ll give you a hint, Drew Willy is ranked 20th of all QBs in college football right now.

Obviously, in an 11 on 11 game there are many more factors to winning games than simple QB ratings, but how many times do you hear that a guy from the Big XII, PAC 10, or WAC is a “system guy,” while the blue-bloods of the deep south scream like girls at a Beatles concert about their highly touted QBs?  ALL THE TIME.

Look, do I really think a team like Buffalo can compete with an SEC team?  No, unless it is Ole Miss or Mississippi State, but I think it is a decent observation.  Also, Buffalo did keep pace with Mizzou.

If all these guys are “system guys” then the systems must be working, and as I alluded to last week, the new “system” is not working at Auburn.

Point me.

Speaking of QBs and systems:

Pop is on the right

I haven’t revealed what I have been doing in my free time.  Well dear readers, as the upstanding citizen I am, I have been coaching Pop Warner football here in Florida’s first coast.  That’s right, volunteerism is close to my beautiful heart so after successfully passing my FBI-like background check, I have been serving as coordinator for one of North-Central Florida’s potentially most explosive offenses.  *Note-  I said potentially.

There are a few things I have learned from this experience.  *Note-  I do abide by all the rules of our governing body.

1.  Kids are softer today and the rules limit the coach’s ability to discipline a team.

Look, I take each injury seriously but my team seems to have an alarming rate of bumps and bruises that lead to kids not being able to finish practice (or show up in uniform the next day.  Additionally, there is no recourse for disruptive behavior in your limited practice time.  I have been told that lap running as punishment is “illegal,” but if I know one thing my team hates….running.  How can a coach maintain the control of his team if he cannot actually be in charge?  When I played, I lived in fear of the coaching staff and ran regularly.

2.  Parents aren’t nearly as intrusive as I assumed.

I thought the parents would hem and haw every time we lost a game.  I am thrilled that this has not been the case, minus a few issues which is to be expected.  No one is coming up to me telling me where their kid should play (good), and I feel I can make a well informed opinion since I do not have a child of my own on the field.  However, there have been a few issues where I feel parents do not need to give me in-game advice when I am trying to lead an offense with……

3.  No experience and 19 players.

The assumption I had was that since I had 12-14 year old kids on the squad, most of them would have played before.  You know what happens when you assume?  You lose, sometimes very badly.  While our players have performed almost to the best of their abilities, I am certain we can play better.  The real problem is a lot of them seem to have an unhealthy fear of contact.  I call those my offensive line and my defense.  Since we have trouble blocking and opening holes, yet have play makers we moved to a spread offense.

4.  The basic spread is simple, yet effective.

I’ll give my adversaries some inside information here.  We run a handful of plays, that’s it yet we are starting to average 4-5 yards per play.  Why?  The spread.  To mask my offensive weakness (blocking), we have moved to a 4 WR spread.  Almost every running play is a zone read, each pass play has two deep receivers and two short ones.  The QB is allowed to roll to either side, or stand in the pocket, or run every play.  On the zone read, we simply don’t block a defensive end and allow the QB to decide whether or not to run the ball or hand it off.

Why the zone read works (or should):

Whereas football is a game of 22 players on the field at once and, each team has 11 players per side, it is a basic numbers game.  I split out 4 WRs.  That means there must be 4 people covering said WRs.  So we have eliminated 4 defenders.

Then we have 5 offensive lineman which neutralize 5 defensive lineman (we are still working on blocking).  So now I have taken accounted for 9 defenders.  So we make this a zero-sum game, we are not blocking one of the defensive ends, but accounting for a linebacker in the blocking scheme.  This leaves either a safety or linebacker who is one-on-one against my running back, and the quarterback accounts for the defensive end.  That gives an offensive line the advantage and creates running lanes somewhere, even if the defensive line blows up the play (space is vacated).

It’s a zero-sum game because on each play someone wins and someone loses.  From my experience we either gain yards or lose them, very rarely do we gain 0.

Still with me?  Ok, the QB now has the option to either hand it off or keep and run through any lane.  If the defense stacks the box, we simply check out of the play and go to a pass play where my QB has been instructed to throw the ball in two seconds.  Remember, I did say I had play makers.

Execution still remains to be seen, but we are moving the ball and our scoring has doubled since implementing the offense.  Just don’t ask for the numbers.

So using an athletic, play-making QB has led to a much more successful offense, even at the Pop Warner level.  Kids are smart enough at that age (12-14) to run a decent spread……It must be the system!

What I noticed when we went to a more traditional offense, an I-form for example, was that teams had 8 in the box and the play was over before it began.  I’ll give a recap after this week’s game.

Let’s Review:

2-1-1 is hardly sterling, but I’ll take it.  Those wins coupled with the teaser given to you free of charge, made it a good old fashioned Dickhead McAsshole beating this week.  You remember him, right?

I was on the treadmill when I saw Penn State going in for the icing on the cake TD, when their running back wiped out with nothing but green in front of him.  This lead to a near catastrophe as I nearly wiped out, which would have been embarrassing and painful.  Purdue as if it were scripted, marched down the field for the TD, but hooray they missed the extra point for the pushy-pushy, saving my week.  Thanks, Chris Summers!

Illinois held up their part of the scoring bargain, Michigan did and still looks not good, even though they have the best white tailback since John Riggins.  Sam McGuffie is the truth.  I just wonder how long Michigan can run a spread offense with the deceptively slow Steven Threet.  I’ll give the kid credit for playing admirably as a freshman, but someone tell that kid to take a dump before games.  My god he looks slow.

Who thought Wisconsin was going to win that game?  Really, you did?  If so, someone needs to check your brain for activity.  Wisconsin DID try to eat as much clock as possible, but the trickle down effect of two-minute drills from the NFL to college is obvious.  That coupled with prevent defenses and receiver-friendly rules have allowed the two-minute drill to become routine.  There used to be a handfull of NFL QBs that could make this happen, now 18-year old freshman from Jeannette, PA can make it happen.  It’s even easier in college because the clock stops on first downs.  The defense needs to evolve or stop worrying about making a mistake.

I went with the team that has not turned the corner (Miami) over the team that has hit rock bottom (FSU) and I feel like either way I went was not going to be a good one.  The only dumber thing I could have done this past weekend would be to say to grlfrnd, “yes, those jeans do make you look fat.”

Boom goes the dynamite!!!!! I hit a six team teaser.  I’d like to thank Urban Meyer for running up the score, or should I thank Arkansas’ defense for being inept?

The Penn State call along with the Mizzou pick were easy as was Illinois +10.  It hurt me greatly to go with the Irish, but lucky for me they won.  Auburn looked terrible (again), but they need to snap out of this funk at some point right?

In any event it was a plus 100 fake dollars weekend.

News:

1.  Frenchman takes aim at Tebow:

LSU lineman Ricky Jean-Francios, who I can only assume makes a great quiche said, “If we get a good shot on [Tebow], we’re going to try our best to take him out of the game.”  Look, in this time of despair in the United States we all know the liberal media is out to engage in “gotcha” journalism.  I am sure there won’t be any cheap shots.

2.  Ball State is ranked in the AP Top 25:

What in the name of David Letterman is going on here?  The Cardinals look pretty good, I can’t lie.  Too bad their strength of schedule will keep them out of a BCS game if they go undefeated.  *Note-  Ball State got no love from the coaches poll.

3.  More good news for Vols fans:

Tennessee suspended two players, Ramone Johnson and Darius Meyers for “lack of academic effort and violation of team rules.”  I wonder what the violation of team rules was.  Did it have something to do with their “lack of academic effort?”

4.  Dan Hawkins signs new deal:

College football’s zen master, Hawkins has harnessed his chi and convinced the Colorado administration to extend his contract (I’m fairly certain HE didn’t do it).  He is 11-19 after all, and 3-2 on the season.  Look, I am fine with extending Hawkins, in fact I think he is a great coach.  But his deal wasn’t up until 2010 and I am sure there  was some sort of penalty for jumping ship to another program.  Plus, I don’t think Hawkins ever wants to go east of Colorado in his lifetime.

5.  Tony Franklin fired:

You heard he was on the ropes here first.

Picks:

1.  Clemson @ Wake Forest over 43:

Foolhardy, probably but I can’t stop thinking both teams are capable of putting up 22 points on a Thursday night game.  Wacky scoring shoot outs usually occur on weeknights.  I think the over will be sealed in the fourth quarter when Clemson’s sputtering offense commits a costly turnover for a Wake TD, then Clemson will feverishly score to go way over the over in the waining minutes of the contest.

Clemson 30-Wake 31

2.  East Carolina -6 @ Virginia:

Sure, getting rid of the sign ban worked for one win over a schizophrenic Maryland team, but surely it can’t happen twice in two weeks.  Sure the Pirates lost to Houston last weekend, but I’d stop short of calling the Cavaliers a “high octane” offense.  This is another trap I have laid out for myself.  I feel like I’m walking into a full house with two pair.

ECU 24- UVA 7

3.  AND NOW FOR MY

Penn State -6 @ Wisconsin:

The play of both teams speaks for itself.  Wisconsin is strong at home, but I have a feeling a couple tiny gaffes will lead to a scoring outburst with Penn State and their “Spread HD” offense.  I can’t pull myself away from this tricky, tricky game.

If Penn State does not come out and establish their will against Wisconsin (you’ll probably be able to see it in the first quarter), then my pick will probably go down the tubes.  But how can you argue against a team that averages 39.5 points against BCS teams?  Wisconsin’s defense is good, but I can’t just can’t pull myself away from this one.

Penn State 30- Wisconsin 10

4.  Tennessee @ Georgia -13:

Tennessee blows, they are continuing their trek to the “Rocky Bottom” of the SEC. 

Georgia 45-Tennessee 13

5.  Western Michigan @ Buffalo -1

The mighty, mighty Bulls who’s quarterback is rated higer than Tim Tebow without any bluechip offensive lineman blocking in front of him in a must-win game. 

I’ll take the Bulls and my point.

UB 20- Western 17

Love Me, Thrill Me, Tease Me:

1 pays 4

Texas +14

Houston -11

Syracuse +31

Vanderbilt +4

Missouri -7

Fake Wagers:

20 on the over

50 on ECU

50 on PSU

20 on UGA

10 on UB

10 on the teaser

Results:

Last week: 2-1-1 plus a fatty teaser

Overall:  10-13-2

W/L imaginary $$:  +100

Overall imaginary $$:  685