Monday, October 01, 2007

Crazy College Football

I took one look at the new College Football polls today, and felt the need to quote Stewy Griffin, because I was thinking... WHAT THE DEUCE?

Cal 3rd? South Florida, Boston College, and Kentucky 6 through 8? And things just get weirder the further down you go. At the moment, LSU and USC are the top two teams in the nation but I wonder how long that's going to last. I was going to make a comparison to the NFL, where there's New England, Indy, and then everybody else, but that's really not true in college football. Right now, yes USC and LSU appear better, but I'd honestly be surprised if both go undefeated. For the mighty Trojans, their offense just isn't that good right now, but they've got some issues throwing the ball. The D is crazy good, but I wonder if that'll be enough in a Pac 10 conference that is just loaded with offense this year. Been awhile since we've been able to say it, but the best playmakers in that conference do not reside in Troy, but instead in Berkeley with WR DeSean Jackson (the early favorite to be a Viking if he declares), and in Eugene with the Ducks' QB Dennis Dixon and RB Jonathan Stewart.

For LSU, it's not a question of being good enough, it's a question of can they survive a full SEC slate, and then have to play a conference championship game? I say no. They may beat Florida this weekend, but it's likely they'd get them again (unless Kentucky continues this insanity) in Atlanta in December for the SEC Title. As always there's a LOT of good football teams in the South, and it makes running the table a near impossibility, even for a team as good as LSU is.

What does this mean? As of now, I believe the teams ranked 3rd and 4th, Cal and Ohio State, are going to be playing for a National Title. Seriously. Although I was not overly impressed with the Buckeyes when I saw them against Washington a few weeks ago, they should still have enough to win a watered down Big 10. That's ironic to me considering this is probably their worst team in 4 or 5 years. The D is good (Laurenitis is amazing. He was EVERYWHERE in that Husky game!), the run game is scary with the Wells boys slamming it down your throat, but I am not sold at all on their passing game. Still, they're better than Wisconsin and Tressel flat out owns Michigan, so the conference is again theirs for the taking.

California has Jackson, VERY underrated RB Justin Forsett, a very reliable QB in Nate Longshore, and a D that's certainly proven to be good enough so far. They'll finally beat USC and claim the Pac 10 Title. It's just too bad these teams won't meet in the Rose Bowl where they belong.

2 comments:

jdmill said...

I had to add to your Laurenitis comment... I can tell you that he was a BEAST against Minnesota. Like you said, just everywhere. Scary good. And here's the kicker... he's a hell of a guy too.
Stupid Mason, Laurenitis should have been a Gopher. (And that comes directly from the keyboard of a Gopher homer.)

Jeff said...

Jer, your problem is that Mason had no interest in recruiting the state of Minnesota at all. Who wants to see the hometown kids play for the hometown school?