Here’s some random thoughts on some of the goings-on in the Heisman race and college football:
–I said last week that for the vast majority of the Heisman voters, the perception of the race for the trophy–Reggie Bush leading, with Vince Young in second–will be frozen until the last game or two of the season. That’s because the voters mainly tuned into two games in the first half of the year–Texas vs. Ohio State and USC vs. Notre Dame–and formed their opinions on those games. That, of course, is not true for the much smaller group of voters who are working media and thus more attuned to what’s going on in the race. You’ll see them make swings in their opinions on a weekly basis, only it won’t really be representative of what’s going on in the race. Right now, despite Vince Young’s huge day on Saturday, Reggie Bush still leads for the Heisman (I’ll have my complete analysis up later). Why? Because very few voters watched the Texas-OSU game (sorry ATL, to have a Heisman moment, people must be watching) and very few watched the USC-WSU game. Even fewer look at the box scores very closely on Sunday. Expect a little tightening in the Scripps Howard Poll on Tuesday, though.
Despite running for about 900 yards on Saturday, Vince Young is still second in the Heisman race
–Sorry, Bruinsnation, but Drew Olson needs a couple more big weeks leading into the USC game to draw consideration as a serious Heisman candidate (if you want to argue with someone, argue with this joker). Let’s be clear: Barring extremely unlikely circumstances, Olson is NOT going to win the Heisman. Maurice Drew has a better shot, but his chance is super slim as well. If things were looking up for this duo right now, you’d hear a lot of buzz about their candidacies among the talking heads. While the great UCLA comeback was covered extensively, I saw no talk about the two Bruin candidates from anyone in the national television media. This is an indication of the lack of buzz they are generating despite their team’s success. They need someone to trumpet their cause on national television and it’s not happening…yet. This much we know: The top three–barring injury or unexpected collapses–will be a variation on Reggie Bush, Vince Young and Matt Leinart. A fourth will get invited to New York, most likely Brady Quinn, though that is not necessarily a foregone conclusion. That leaves Olson and Drew to duke it out for fourth or fifth place. What happens if UCLA beats USC? Well, then Vince Young wins the Heisman. What happens if USC and Texas both lose? Then Reggie Bush probably wins by default, since voters will not be sure which Bruin to vote for and will split things up. Basically, UCLA should just be happy it is 8-0 right now…see how all this Heisman talk can be distracting? Almost cost them a game. Almost didn’t hold up their end of the bargain.
–Check out this good piece by Dick Weiss of the New York Daily News on Vince Young.
–I guess I was wrong about Florida crushing the SEC with its spread offense. Turns out you can be very successful in that league without an offense. Makes you wonder what will happen when the Gators figure out Meyer’s system.
–How bad are the computers used by the BCS? Well, besides most of them not even making their formulas public–which is a joke and one of the main gripes I have with the BCS–how about the stupidity of this week’s Colley Rankings? Does anyone here think Oklahoma and Colorado are better than Notre Dame? That Penn State is better than USC? This particular computer poll should be eliminated immediately.
–Gang of Six Update (with Notre Dame now substituted for Utah, as I mentioned before): Combined record of 36-10, four ranked teams. Average points per game: 39. Average yards per game: 476. Easy verdict: Without the offensive styles these teams run, they wouldn’t be having as much success as they’ve had this season. Note: Some people still don’t understand the concept….but for some reason they just can’t let go, can they? They still keep reading, don’t they? I guess it takes their minds off of their hopeless teams.
–Now that Texas and UCLA had scares, can we now have no more ‘Virginia Tech wuz robbed’ columns written until the season is over? There are still games to be played and nothing is a foregone conclusion. Ivan Maisel agrees.
–Funny thing that came up in Maisel’s piece, though. It’s this notion that it’s especially hard for an SEC team to go undefeated. And so two quotes came:
“It’s darn near impossible, especially in a conference like the SEC,” said Urban Meyer.
“In this league?” Vince Dooley asked. “Real hard in this league. In the case of USC and Texas, you have to be really good in a conference that’s not as good. For Auburn to have done what they did last year, I don’t know if you’re going to have anybody do that.”
Sounds all well and good except that if Maisel had done his homework, he would know that in the last decade, an SEC team has gone undefeated through the regular season four times. That’s more than the Pac-10 (2 times), the ACC (2 times), the Big East (2 times) and the Big Ten (2 times) and the same as the Big 12. So, I grant you that it is hard to go undefeated in college football, but apparently, there are two conferences in which the task is a little easier.
The venerable Vince Dooley, one of several men to coach an undefeated SEC team
–Um, why are a one-loss Miami team and a one-loss LSU team ranked ahead of an undefeated UCLA team? When will the national media write about the unfairness of that? Who, exactly, has Miami beaten? Its best accomplishment thus far is losing to an FSU team that could barely complete a pass at the time. And LSU lost at home to a Tennessee team that is about to go to 3-5 and needed an Early Doucet dropped touchdown catch to beat ASU. UCLA isn’t the best team by any means, but they are undefeated in what is probably one of the top two conferences in the country this season. That should be worth something. Instead, it just smells of more East Coast bias.
–USC looks like it has solved its defensive issues. Not that they were ever as bad as people thought in the first place. The Trojans allowed just 85 passing yards to a Washington State team that was averaging 302 yards coming in. It looks like the window of opportunity to beat the Trojans may have been missed, since Pete Carroll teams have never lost a regular season game after October.
–Based on the way Miami played in the first half against North Carolina, it looked like the Hurricanes were just as repulsed by their throw-back uniforms as the rest of us were.
–Just imagine if Brent Schaeffer hadn’t transferred from Tennessee. Then, Phil Fulmer could have wowed us with a three-quarterback system.
The ideal Phil Fulmer quarterback
–Minnesota had nearly 600 yards of offense against Ohio State. So do the Buckeyes ‘play no defense’ all of sudden? No. Of course not. They have a very good defense. It is just very hard to stop a great offense like Minnesota’s when it is clicking. It’s even harder to stop great offenses when you have to play so many of them, like defenses in the Pac-10 must do. And of course, it’s easy to look good defensively when you never play good offenses, like teams in the SEC do. But it’s even easier to play lousy defense and lousy offense, which is what Michigan does.
–Nah, Al Borges’ offense had nothing to do with Auburn’s turnaround last year. Let’s see, he lost three first-round picks and yet the Tigers still lead the SEC in total offense and scoring in 2005. His offense is the only one in the league that doesn’t look like it got plucked out of a black-and-white newsreel. Nah, he had nothing at all to do with it.
–Boy, Penn State sure is missing freshman Derrick Williams. Since he’s been hurt, the Nittany Lions are averaging just 48 points and 472 yards per game. In all reality, folks, he wasn’t really tearing things up to begin with. He had 22 catches through seven games, with one TD catch and three TD rushes. Nice little player, but NOT worth the hype he was getting.
–Lastly, Happy Halloween from HP!
