Down goes Oregon!
Down goes Oregon!
For the first time this season, the USELESS Poll sees a change in
the top-2 of its rankings. The Ducks made a great attempt at a comeback (that
would have gone down in history if they had pulled it off) but were all but
erased from the national championship race in the span of just a few hours last
Thursday night.
As for the rest of the nation, there is still much to be decided as
we hit the home stretch. Four teams are still in the running to win the SEC
while the Big Ten title game might feature a pair of top-10 teams by the time
all is said and done. The Big XII is home to the most exciting team in the
nation and there are three non-BCS conference Cinderellas out there, still
running around without a loss.
But hey, don’t just read the intro. Work your way down this week’s
poll and see for yourself.
- Alabama (defeated
No. 11 LSU 38-17) – As much as we love to praise Johnny Manziel around
these parts, we might have to take some issue with him. It seems likely
that Johnny Football has done away with all drama in college football.
After Texas A&M beat the Crimson Tide last season, ‘Bama quickly bounced
back and didn’t lose again. Alabama
didn’t fall to the Aggies this season, but Mr. Football did push the Tide
to the brink. Since that day, Alabama
has been firmly stuck on its ‘BEAST MODE’ setting and has been destroying
everything in its wake. If Auburn
can stay hot, this year’s Iron Bowl will be a classic. If not, ‘Bama will
yawn its way into another SEC title game and might not have to try too
hard against a struggling/injured SEC East.
- Florida State
(defeated Wake
Forest 59-3) – Let
the record show that Jameis Winston now has more sexual assault
allegations levied against him than he has losses as a college
quarterback… Not that either are fun to have, but that’s a pretty catchy
lede, right? Well, assuming that Famous Jameis (that doesn’t rhyme nearly
as well in text as it does in speech) is wrongfully accused in this
incident, it seems as though the Seminoles have a clear path to the
national championship game. Oregon hit a
snag and the Big Ten refuses to produce any sort of competition that could
give Ohio State an edge over the Seminoles.
All that’s left to do is to run out the clock on the regular season
against some very beatable opponents. Of course, that’s been WAY too much
to ask of ACC favorites in the past, so FSU still has a long ways to go.
- Ohio State (did not play) – The Buckeyes
had a bye last week, making things slightly tougher on OSU than their
current run of horrible Big Ten teams on the schedule. Sitting at home
really paid off for the Buckeyes as Oregon’s
loss gave them a boost in this week’s poll. Ohio
State still hasn’t clinched its
division, but faces punching bags Illinois
and Indiana in the coming weeks before
heading to Michigan
to close out the regular season. No matter how many beatings the Bucks put
on hapless conference foes, they simply won’t catch Alabama
or Florida State unless one of those two
loses. If that happens, prepare yourself for a solid month of anyone who
isn’t from the Midwest blasting Ohio
State and the Big
Ten.
- Baylor
(defeated No. 13 Oklahoma 41-12) – Last Thursday may have set a record for
the quickest eating of words by college football fans in recorded history.
Pretty much every non-Baylor fan we know (which is all of them) said
something along the lines of “Yeah, Baylor’s offense is good. But they’ve
done it against nobodies.” When Oklahoma
shut down the Bears’ first two drives and took an early lead, the vitriol
really started to fly. Then, in a matter of a quarter, Bryce Petty and his
high-flying attack laid waste to a good Oklahoma secondary while the Baylor
defense blitzed the Sooners into a daze. By the end of the game, people
were not only giving the Bears’ offense plenty of overdue credit, they
were also complimenting the defense and recognizing Baylor as a legitimate
national title contender.
- Another
reminder that a four-team playoff isn’t the best solution (But it’s still
much better than the BCS) – Those top four teams can easily be categorized
as elite and there isn’t a single loss among them. If this were 2014, it
could easily be argued that the new four-team playoff would have worked
perfectly. We guess that’s a valid argument, but the fact remains that the
next few teams on our list would be near dead heats against the top squads
if Vegas had to come up with a spread. An eight-team playoff seems like it
should be the final answer for the NCAA’s postseason problem. Four might
be enough in some years, but there have been plenty of occasions where the
No. 5 team is very capable of taking down any of the teams ahead of it. In
an eight-team system, there would still be bitching and moaning from
whoever comes in at No. 9, but we can live with that. It’s a lot harder to
try and ignore a one-loss team from a power conference – or possibly an
unbeaten team from a smaller conference – sitting in fifth than it would
be to dismiss a two-loss team trying to state its case to be the No. 8
team that has to go play the top team in the nation.
- Stanford
(defeated No. 2 Oregon 26-20) – Thanks to the Cardinal, we all now know
that lightning can indeed strike twice. Stanford shocked the nation last
season when it held the powerful Oregon
offense to just 14 points and handed the Ducks their only loss of the
season. The Cardinal were every bit as stingy last week in building a 26-0
lead and effectively ending the game early in the fourth quarter. Oregon has scored
at least 35 points on every opponent not named Stanford since the
beginning of last season. In two tries against the Cardinal, the Ducks
have combined to score just 34.
- Oregon (lost to No.
6 Stanford 26-20) – First off, that final score doesn’t exactly reflect
how thoroughly beaten the Ducks were over the first three and a half
quarters of last week’s loss. Then again, you should also ignore people
who are running around screaming about how any team with a good defensive
line can destroy the Ducks’ offensive scheme. Let’s not forget that Oregon advanced
into Stanford territory on six possessions. If not for three turnovers
inside the Cardinal 30 – two inside the Stanford 5 – that could have been
a very different game. Of course, that wasn’t the case. There’s a damn
good reason that the winning team just happened to be the one that didn’t
hand the ball to its opponent on almost half of its drives.
- Auburn (defeated Tennessee
55-23) – Over the last few seasons, Auburn
made a concerted effort to become a more balanced team. After a couple of
horrible years, capped off by last season’s 0-8 SEC mark, the Tigers
finally made the wise decision to return to their bread and butter as a
team with a potentially fatal flaw built into its game plan. Auburn is a team
with a (mostly) very good defense and its fair share of impact players on
offense. That said, when you’ve already played tomato cans like Western Carolina and Florida Atlantic, you have to
average more than 130 passing yards per game on the season. Nick Marshall
has done his best Cam Newton impression for much of the season, but it
doesn’t seem like he has the arm to win the touch games like (s)Cam did. That theory will get a test this weekend
against Georgia
as stopping the run is about the only thing that the Bulldogs can seem to
do consistently.
- Missouri (defeated Kentucky 48-17) – It’s hard to remember
an effective, pass-heavy offense that has had such an easy time adjusting
to its starting quarterback missing significant time. Looking at the box
scores of the Tigers’ games, you’d never guess that a second stringer has
been calling the shots for nearly a month. Missouri has just one loss, but a
backloaded schedule will provide a couple more tough tests before the
Tigers can hope to claim a spot in the SEC title game. Texas A&M has
grabbed the vast majority of the two new schools in the SEC, but Missouri is clearly
in better shape for future success. The Tigers have a decent defense,
multiple receiving threats, and it’s clear that they’ve found their
quarterback of the future. If not for a Heisman winning quarterback, Texas
A&M might be losing most of its conference games by 20.
- Clemson
(defeated Georgia Tech 55-31) – The Tigers kept their BCS hopes alive with
an easy win over Georgia Tech Thursday night in front of a national
audience, but might have paid a huge price for the victory. Tahj Boyd left
the game late in the third quarter with a shoulder injury. Boyd stayed in
uniform and returned to the sideline after a visit to the locker room, but
Clemson will be hard-pressed to win its rivalry showdown with South Carolina in
two weeks if he’s unable to go. Knowing Clemson, it’s probably more likely
that Boyd sits out next week before leading the Tigers to an inspirational
win over South Carolina,
then absolutely goes into the tank as the Tigers lose a BCS bowl by five
touchdowns. Yep… that sounds about right.
- Oklahoma State
(defeated Kansas 42-6) – The Cowboys are
in a deadlock with Michigan
State for the one-loss
teams that are getting the least good press. It’s not like the nation
doesn’t have its reasons. The Spartans fell victim to Notre Dame’s only
four-quarter good effort of the season while Okie
State somehow managed to let West Virginia go
wire to wire on it back in September. Throw in the fact that the Big Ten
and Big XII are well behind the Pac-12 and SEC in terms of great teams and
overall talent and it’s not hard to see why they’re getting the cold
shoulder. But maybe that’s just how they want things to pan out. With a
national title out of the question, it’s probably pretty nice to be on
track to play for a conference title without having SportsCenter breathing
down your throat.
- Fresno State
(defeated Wyoming 48-10) – Fresno State
made short work of another hopelessly overmatched opponent last week as Wyoming could
hardly be bothered to stay competitive for more than the first quarter.
While Wyoming was mostly worthless, it was at least a home game, meaning
that if you’re into midnight action out in the Mountain West – and we know
you are – you got to see a few close ups of ‘Cowboy Joe’, Wyoming’s pony.
Yep… Not an untamed horse more indicative of the Cowboys’ namesake. It’s a
4-foot tall pony whose brothers and sisters are probably working the
petting zoo circuit. And this isn’t an insult. It’s awesome. Who doesn’t
like looking at cute barnyard animals? If they trained a monkey to ride
Cowboy Joe up and down the sidelines, Wyoming would probably never lose
again.
- Texas
A&M (defeated Mississippi State 51-41) – While talking about Missouri up there
at No. 9, we briefly touched on some of the Aggies’ shortcomings. Let’s
expand on that a bit more. Early in the season, Texas A&M looked like
a team with some defensive liabilities that would turn every game into a
shootout. Now we know that the Aggies’ defense basically consists of
Weeble-Wobbles, a couple of tackling dummies, and some drifters that
managed to wander past security. But maybe this is all part of a Heisman
campaign. If the Aggies do their best each week to make it painfully
obvious that Johnny Manziel is single-handedly responsible for pretty much
everything good that the team does, maybe voters will overlook those two
losses (where Manziel again did all of the dirty work).
- Michigan State
(defeated Michigan
29-6) – The Big Ten isn’t exactly crawling with offensive juggernauts, but
the fact that the Spartans are leading the nation in a ton of defensive
categories is still pretty impressive. Sparty’s offense has had its share
of problems, but the MSU defense is consistent and powerful enough to turn
every game into a race to 21 points. Assuming that the train doesn’t fall
off of the tracks over the final couple of weeks, it will be interesting
to see how people react to an Ohio State-Michigan State matchup. Will
analysts call for MSU to shut down the Buckeyes? Will people actually
admit that OSU will be playing a good team?
- Central
Florida (defeated Houston 19-14) – The
Knights cleared the biggest hurdle remaining on their schedule – although
it wasn’t easy – by denying Houston’s
last minute rally last week. If UCF can win out, it will head to the first
BCS bowl game in school history and will be the first Zombie Big East team
to get a crack at the best the rest of the country has to offer. It’s amazing
to think that the Knights have become a perennial solid team all under the
guidance of George O’Leary. Remember back when Notre Dame kicked O’Leary
to the curb after it was revealed that he had fudged his resume a bit?
We’re thinking that the Irish would like that executive call back. Notre
Dame has been through four coaches since the O’Leary scandal, with just as
many BCS wins as the Knights to show for all of its trouble.
- South Carolina (did not play) – Last week saw the
Gamecocks sitting comfortably at home, but they weren’t able to get much
help from teams who could have improved South Carolina’s chances to win its
division. The Gamecocks have one final chance to improve their chances to
play for the SEC title this week as they take on Florida. After that, Carolina
will be entirely at the mercy of whether or not Missouri can continue its great run. We
would tell the Gamecocks that they could kill time by planning Jadaveon
Clowney’s Heisman pre-party, but that ship sailed about 30 minutes into
the beginning of the regular season.
- Fantasy
Football Playoffs (defeating close friendships each winter) – Depending on
your league setup, it’s sweaty-palms time for millions of fantasy football
teams out there. A few of you lucky SOBs have already wrapped up a spot in
the postseason (damn you, Craig) but for many others, a few extra rushing
yards or a touchdown overturned by replay could mean all the difference
between missing out on the playoffs or making it into the 2-3 week sprint
to the finish line. We aren’t going to sit here and say that fantasy
football is life, but anyone who has ever won his/her league would be a
dirty liar if they said it didn’t excite them. After all, you spent three
months caring for your team. It’s sweet, sweet vindication of all the
neglect dealt out to other important things in your life when you can life
your league’s trophy. In our league, there was talk of that false idol
being a WalMart football super-glued to a tee and spray painted silver,
but we just ended up drinking and criticizing the last place teams
instead.
- UCLA
(defeated Arizona 31-26) – Back-to-back games against Stanford and Oregon
provided UCLA with plenty of reasons to feel bad about itself, but the
Bruins shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that they’re still in line to go
to a pretty solid bowl game. UCLA shook off those losses and managed to
wrestle a win away from a better-than-you’d-think Arizona team last week. In fact, most
of the Pac-12 is better than those not living out west would think. Eight
conference teams are already bowl eligible, with two other teams still
having a good chance to make it to the postseason.
- Wisconsin (defeated
BYU 27-17) – It’s a bit of a shame that the one Big Ten team that dared to
play a solid non-conference schedule is in danger of falling short of
making a BCS bowl. While other conference rivals spent September fattening
up on third and fourth tier schools from towns you’ve never heard of in Michigan and Ohio,
the Badgers were busy getting screwed over in a game out at Arizona State. Last week, Wisconsin played another tough
non-conference team in BYU – a great running team which the Badgers
promptly shut down. The silver lining in all of this is that the Badgers
should cruise home with a 10-2 mark as they’ll be double-digit favorites
in each of their final three games. After that, it’s just a matter of what
teams get upset in the coming weeks and whether or not Wisconsin can climb high enough to
catch the attention of BCS bowl committees.
- Northern
Illinois (defeated Ball
State 48-27) – The
Huskies might be even better than last season’s MAC-winning Orange Bowl
team. Then again, that score against a good 8-2 Ball State
squad is a bit misleading. The MAC-tion was in full swing Wednesday night
as the Cardinals gave NIU all it wanted for more than three quarters. The
Huskies weren’t able to pull ahead for good until midway through the
fourth quarter and added two late scores to make the score look much worse
than it was. On the plus side, Northern Illinois
has a bitchin’ husky for a mascot that high fives the cheerleaders after
every touchdown. In case you haven’t been paying attention to this week’s
poll, the way to the members of USELESS is through cool animals roaming
your sidelines.
- Louisville (defeated Connecticut
31-10) – Ever since that loss to Central Florida – and perhaps even before
it – Louisville
has looked like a team kind of sleepwalking its way through the season.
Back when the Cardinals were still unbeaten, it was obvious that they were
fourth or fifth in line out of all the top ranked teams to play for the
national title. Teddy Bridgewater has gone nearly two months without a
performance befitting of his ‘No. 1 overall pick’ tag and even the weaker
Zombie Big East teams are hanging in against Louisville far longer than they should.
With UCF, Fresno State and Northern Illinois all still unbeaten and
picking up steam, it seems as though the Cardinals are resigned to playing
a cold weather bowl game a day or two after Christmas in front of 5,000
fans.
- LSU
(lost to No. 1 Alabama 38-17) – For about a half, LSU looked like it was
primed to add the latest exciting chapter to what has become one of the
best rivalry games in the nation…. Then Alabama hit the gas. We think that the
Crimson Tide is owed a big ‘thank you’ from the rest of the nation. If Alabama had brought
its best effort to the field in the first quarter, the game would have
been over before the little kids had to be in bed. That looked like a
fixed prizefight where the favorite spent about five rounds just carrying
his opponent so that the mob could cash in on its bets. Then, when the
third quarter began with LSU stupidly thinking is was in prime position
for the upset, Bama unleashed a few haymakers and the game was over well
before the fourth quarter arrived. Thanks for playing, Tigers. Pick up a
door prize on your way out.
- Arizona State
(defeated Utah 20-19) – What the hell is
it about Utah
this season? They look like a somewhat dangerous team every time they pop
up on our televisions, yet they’re just 1-5 in Pac-12 competition. That
said, the Utes’ best effort of the season will likely prevent Stanford
from getting to the national championship game and another gritty effort
last week nearly knocked the Sun Devils out of the rankings. With just one
loss in Pac-12 play, Arizona State is making the most out of avoiding Oregon on the
schedule while other schools in the South Division like UCLA weren’t so
lucky. The Devils have a couple of tough games remaining in the regular
season, but will be in the conference championship game if they win out.
- Texas
(defeated West Virginia 27-20) – Ladies and gentlemen, THAT is how you
circle the wagons for a beloved coach whose seat was getting a little bit
too hot. Mack Brown might be on his way out the door after this season,
but at least he gets to do it on his terms. You would have thought half of
his office was already boxed up back when the Longhorns were 1-2. But that
was also before Big XII play began. Texas
now stands with Baylor as the only two teams unbeaten in conference play.
It’s not as if the Longhorns are winning pretty – and they certainly
aren’t dominating teams like Baylor – but it would be great if the Big XII
came down to an old power and a fresh upstart squaring off in the final
week of the regular season when the Longhorns invade Waco.
- Mississippi (defeated Arkansas 34-24) – The Rebels have
tip-toed around our final two poll categories for much of the season, but
are finally part of the top-25 this week. Some Ole Miss supporters would
argue that it’s taken too long for their team to get here, but we have to
preach patience for this team. That signing class making up this year’s
freshmen was great, but they’re still just freshmen. Add in the fact that
Alabama is still borderline immortal, the defending Heisman winner is in
your division, and Auburn has ‘Most Improved Team’ all but locked up, and
it’s really not all that important what the Rebs accomplish this season.
Give it one more winter. Ole Miss should come back strong in 2014 and it’s
impossible for the rest of the SEC West to be even deeper next season,
right?
Teams
that probably are Top-25, but I ran out of good jokes: Georgia, Duke
Teams
that are good, but not quite good enough: Oklahoma, Minnesota, Nebraska
I
enjoy making this poll every week, but it’s time consuming and I can’t always
catch all of the unique storylines that are vital to the unique weighting of my
rankings. If you have something (dirt on a player, pictures of cheerleaders,
valuable betting information, etc.) that you think should affect a team’s
ranking, feel free to bring it up in the comments section.
