The end of the nonconference schedule
couldn’t have come soon enough for Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. cheap
49ers jerseys
Already ridiculed throughout the first
three weeks of the 2012 season, the Big Ten hit rock bottom on Saturday. The
worst of it was Iowa choking away a game to
Central Michigan, Michigan blundering its way to a loss at Notre Dame and Illinois getting blown
out at home by Louisiana Tech. It didn’t help that Ohio State, Wisconsin and Michigan State
struggled with the likes of UAB, UTEP and Eastern Michigan,
respectively.
Now that the dust has settled, the wreckage
looks like this: three national TV embarrassments and not a single win against
another BCS conference school with a winning record. At this point, you could
easily make the case that there are six Southeastern Conference teams better
than anyone in the Big Ten.
This is a particularly bad year for the
conference, but the scary part is that the Big Ten hasn’t been a really good
conference for a decade, going back to Ohio State’s
2002 national championship season.
Heck, no Big Ten team other than the
Buckeyes has ever even appeared in a BCS title game. And the two BCS title game
trips Ohio State made since 2002 – 2007 and ’08 – resulted in beat downs from
the SEC. Since ‘02, the Big Ten is also a horrendous 1-7 in the Rose Bowl.
The knock on the Big Ten has been that it’s
too slow to play with the Pac-12 and too slow and too weak in the trenches to
bang with the big boys of the SEC. Now the conference is having trouble with
the Mid-American Conference and Conference USA.
Even if the Big Ten has a bounce-back year
next fall, what does that even mean at this point?
SAME OLD CLEMSON: The Florida State
game was a perfect microcosm of a Clemson football program notorious for
disappointing its fans on an annual basis. Just when you thought the Tigers
were about to turn the corner and put themselves in the national title hunt,
they completely disappeared after taking a 31-21 lead midway through the third
quarter. Florida State scored 28 straight points in less
than 10 minutes while Clemson couldn’t even pick up a first down. No wonder
ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit recently called Clemson the hardest college
football team to be a fan of.
THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND: Is there
anything 72-year-old Kansas
State head coach Bill
Snyder can’t do with a football team? He changed the Wildcats from a
laughingstock to a national title contender in his first stint in Manhattan, and Snyder’s
work in his second go-round at K-State has been just as remarkable. The program
was in shambles after his replacement, Ron Prince, was let go in 2008. Snyder
returned to win 10 games last year and now has put K-State back in the national
title discussion by avenging last year’s blowout by Oklahoma
with a 24-19 win in Norman.
Kansas State already has named its stadium
after Snyder; now it might be time to build a shrine for him. cheap
New England Patriots jerseys
STILL SEARCHING FOR “O”: LSU fans prayed all
offseason that QB Zach Mettenberger would be the answer to the Tigers’
one-dimensional offense in 2011. That certainly wasn’t the case in the SEC
opener against Auburn.
LSU mustered only 169 yards passing and 10 offensive points against an Auburn defense that gave up 28 points just a week ago to
Louisiana-Monroe. Not that it was all Mettenberger’s fault. The LSU offensive
line played poorly, and drops plagued the wide receivers. If LSU plays like
that when No. 1 Alabama rolls into town on Nov. 3, it will end a lot like
January’s BCS title game vs. the Tide.
LEAVE IT TO BEAVERS: Give Oregon
State head coach Mike
Riley a lot of credit. After two straight losing seasons, many people thought
he was a dead man walking in Corvallis this
fall.But a defense that was abysmal in 2011 has looked very impressive in wins
over Wisconsin
and UCLA, and the difference between QB Sean Mannion has been night and day
from last fall. Without USC on the schedule and with Oregon at home for the
Civil War, the Beavers have a shot at winning 10 games this year – something no
one thought was possible a month ago.
CURSE OF THE ACCENT MARK? Since Wisconsin
running back Monteé Ball announced in July at the Big Ten media days that his
name is pronounced “Mon-TAY” instead of “Mon-TEE,” he has been jumped by fellow
students in Madison, averaged a putrid 3.9 yards per carry so far this year
and, most recently, suffered a head injury that knocked him out of Saturday’s
game against UTEP. Ball’s Heisman campaign is finished, his NFL Draft stock has
plummeted and now he might lose future carries to freshman Melvin Gordon, who
looked phenomenal against the Miners.
FAILURE TO LAUNCH: Speaking of doomed
Heisman campaigns, Denard Robinson’s performance against Notre Dame was an
absolute nightmare. All the talk about his improvement as a passer during the
offseason was just that: talk. “Shoelace” has thrown for eight interceptions in
four games and things won’t get any easier now that the Big Ten season is
starting. You can bet Michigan
will see eight-man fronts the rest of this season, just begging Robinson to
beat them through the air.
Top five games: Week 5
5. No. 8 Stanford vs. Washington:
Washington
has been known to pull big upsets in Husky Stadium but it will have to play a
lot better on Thursday than it did in a 41-3 loss to LSU on Sept. 8.
4. Wisconsin
vs. No. 22 Nebraska: The Badgers and Huskers have gotten off to sluggish starts
this fall but got a nice spark from running backs Melvin Gordon and Rex
Burkhead, respectively, on Saturday. A victory here could revive one of their
seasons.
3. Tennessee
vs. No. 5 Georgia: Tennessee
coach Derek Dooley’s hot seat is scorching, and this game should be close
because everyone on the Volunteers sideline knows he is coaching for his job. cheap
Tim tebow jerseys
2. No. 14 Ohio State vs. No. 20 Michigan
State: Neither of these teams is nearly as good as its ranking indicates, but
this game could decide the Big Ten regular-season champion, divisions aside.
1. No. 25 Baylor vs. No. 9 West Virginia:
Is Baylor really a Top 25 team without Robert Griffin III? We’re about to find
out. Expect about 90 total points between these two pass-happy offenses.
No comments:
Post a Comment