Miss any of Saturday's action? Get the storylines and implications every Sunday morning with a shot of humor, two of vermouth and a pot full of what's suspected to be either coffee or the pureed remnants of Tulsa's defense. The only problem is that we have to wait.
And it's not just any kind of wait. It's a the-cable-company-will-be-here-shortly wait. It's sitting-through-an-MLS-match-boring kind of wait. It's a morning economics lecture, spend an afternoon in the dentist waiting room with Al Gore, Christmas morning won't ever come, kind of wait.
For that we have Florida to thank. And Florida to blame.
Week 12 was bland, dull and full of all the flavor of hospital pudding as game after game played by a script Baywatch might have found predictable. By mid-day, Joe Paterno probably wasn't the only one considering napping instead of football.
And then, in the middle of a sea of the non-descript, there was Florida's 56-6 tattooing of South Carolina.
There was Steve Spurrier looking more flabbergasted than Sarah Palin when she realized Africa was a continent and not just a Toto song. There was Percy Harvin blowing the Gamecock secondary out of the television frame like Usain Bolt had just decided to stage an impromptu race with your living room couch. And there were the Gators, running, running and running more like they were headed for a Black Friday sale.
But as sublime as Florida's win was against the landscape of the blindingly mundane, it only reminded us that we'll still have to wait. Wait, that is, to see just how good this Florida team is against someone its own size.
During the Gators' six-game winning streak, they couldn't have received any more adulation from the national media, this column included, if Barack Obama started at quarterback.
There are plenty of reasons, of course, starting with the offensive output that reminds everyone that the "e" button on the calculator has more uses than just tallying Iowa's arrest sheet or Charles Barkley's cholesterol count. Since the loss to Ole Miss, the Gators have crushed their opponents like a grooved fastball, 299-63. By comparison, only 39 teams in all of the bowl subdivision have scored 299 points all season.
And they've wasted no time in doing it.
If you went to get a beer during the first quarter of Saturday's game, you may have left during an excellent start for South Carolina and returned to a rout before you even knocked the suds off. In the span of 2:15, Florida turned a competitive game into a 21-0 laugher. It took three turnovers and four offensive plays.
The Gamecocks are just the latest early-bird-gets-the-whipping Florida has handed out. It has outscored opponents 101-0 in the first quarter during its winning streak. By comparison, Tennessee has scored just 59 points in 34 more quarters of play all season.
But while the Gators have been playing flawless chess, they've been doing it against competition that, comparatively, is one step above being warned not to put the pieces in their mouth.
South Carolina entered with the stingiest defense in the league, but couldn't stop Vanderbilt's 116th-ranked offense when it mattered in Week 2. While the Gamecocks were third in the nation in total yardage allowed when they entered the Swamp, they'd built that resume against four offenses ranked 102nd in the nation and below (and a fifth, Wofford, is an FCS team). The Gamecocks played only one top-25 offense, Georgia, which itself has come within a touchdown of losing to Kentucky and Auburn in consecutive weeks.
Meanwhile, LSU's best win is over the Gamecocks, followed by a narrow victory over an Auburn team that's all but certain to spend the winter at home. Saturday's near collapse and miraculous comeback against Troy in Baton Rouge only underscored the defending champions' vulnerability. Vanderbilt managed to lose to Duke at home and Kentucky is 2-5 in the SEC.
All of which means that while the Gators have racked up wins with style points by the gross, they haven't done it against the level of competition the SEC brand might suggest.
Of course, the list of teams on Florida's level are probably small enough to fit in the backseat of a taxi with room for Charlie Weis and Charlie Weis' ego. There are a handful of Big 12 teams that could at least combine with Florida to give the scoreboard operator carpal tunnel syndrome. And USC's defense seemingly would be a good match (though if the Trojans struggled to contain Oregon State's speedy sub-six-footer, Jacquizz Rodgers, Chris Rainey and Jeffrey Demps might leave smoke trails through the heart of USC's defense).
Can Alabama do it? Maybe as a dominant defensive effort against Mississippi State attests, but beating the 3-7 Bulldogs, even emphatically, inspires as much confidence as a sentence that starts "Matt Millen's idea." Beating a team that played to a 3-2 shootout loss to Auburn is a tough place to start building resume wins.
In fact, the entire SEC, despite its lofty billing, has done little to prove it's the nation's top conference. After hammering the Big Ten all season for beating just one ranked team out-of-conference all season, the much maligned three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust league is about to take a 1-0 advantage in out-of-conference wins over teams currently ranked in the top 25. (Edit: Miami, which lost to Florida in Week 2, jumped from deep in the unwashed masses of others receiving votes to No. 23.) When the polls come out Sunday, the Big Ten will have Penn State's win over Oregon State, the Big 12 will have wins over TCU, Cincinnati and possibly Western Michigan and the Pac-10 will have wins over Ohio State and Michigan State. The SEC, presumably, will have zero.
Even the MAC and Mountain West will have more wins out-of-conference over teams ranked in the top 25. Of course, anyone who suggests the MAC, Mountain West, Pac-10 or the Big Ten are better leagues than the SEC probably drank a can of lighter fluid in the morning. But if we call USC's obliterations in the Pac-10 into question and Penn State's schedule as a fair subject for debate, shouldn't we at least hold our judgment on Florida?
And lest anyone put too much faith in pundit groupthink which now heavily favors another Florida national championship, just remember how lopsided Ohio State's victory over the Gators should have been in the 2006 BCS title game.
Of course, the way the Gators are winning says plenty even if who they're beating doesn't. There are no narrow escapes since the loss to Ole Miss. The Gators aren't keeping you pinned to the television set in the fourth quarter or waiting on a Jarrett Lee to throw another interception to ensure victory. The Gators are rolling through opponents like a Sherman tank in the middle of a bunch of bumper cars.
But let's play out the season before we start finding room for another crystal football at the Swamp.
Even if that means we have a long, boring wait ahead.
The Big 16
Find out who the nation's top teams are each week as we rank the best 16 and set up something heretofore unheard of in college football, a play... wait for it... off. At season's end, the top 16 will compete in two brackets - the Fairburn, Ga. division, ancestral home of Hangover mancrush Eric Berry, and the erstwhile Fort Myers, Fla. division, ancestral home of the pizza bagel.
- 1. Texas Tech Red Raiders: How hard is it to beat Oklahoma in Norman? There have been exactly as many presidents during Bob Stoops' reign (two, three if you count Dick Cheney, four ir you count Obama) than losses (two). While the two teams might earn the scoreboard operator a raise, the team that can run the ball most effectively, not pass it, should win.
- 2. Alabama Crimson Tide: The Tide's 167-yard defensive effort was as good as any this season. Meanwhile, the special teams battle between punt returners Brandon James and Javier Arenas in the SEC title tilt should be its own pay-per-view attraction.
- 3. Texas Longhorns: What's most impressive about the Big 12 South is how well the top teams have stomped the rest of the league, excluding Texas Tech's near disaster against Nebraska. But if there's any cause for concern in Texas' three-quarter win over Kansas, it's that feature backs Foswhitt Whittaker and Chris Ogbonnaya ran for just 25 yards.
- 4. Oklahoma Sooners: Even the bye week isn't enough to figure out how to stop Michael Crabtree. But the Sooners are third in the nation in sacks and ninth in tackles-for-loss, which should keep Graham Harrell on the run and give Bob Stoops' team a chance to atone for its second half collapse against Texas.
- 5. Florida Gators: The nation's hottest team has a ruler straight shot at the BCS title and probably deserve to be placed above Oklahoma and Texas. But it's hard to argue a resume built on wins over Georgia and LSU should definitely jump ahead of the Big 12 South teams and with the Big 12's playoff still underway, we'll let the results do the sorting.
- 6. USC Trojans: Some worry that the Trojans are getting shut out of the BCS title unfairly, but the Trojans aren't even in control of their own destiny within the Pac-10. Should Oregon State win out, some unlucky team gets to face an angry USC team somewhere outside of the Rose Bowl.
- 7. Penn State Nittany Lions: It took the Lions a half to get warmed up, at least figuratively speaking, on a damp and chilly day in State College. Now it's just one win for the Roses for Penn State, but it'll have to do a better job of stopping Michigan State's Javon Ringer than it did against Iowa's Shonn Greene.
- 8. Utah Utes: The Utes didn't trip on the last mile of the marathon, easily beating San Diego State on the road. Now they just have to knock off Brigham Young in the "Holy War," a game that has been decided in the final minute or in overtime the last three seasons.
- 9. Missouri Tigers: For another week, the Tigers make an opposing team infrequent guests in the end zone, at least by Big 12 standards. Missouri has held its last four opponents to 28 points or less.
- 10. Ohio State Buckeyes: Who needs the foward pass on an ugly day in Champaign? The Buckeyes racked up a Navy-styled 49 yards passing, but ran all over Illinois on the hurdling legs of Beanie Wells. Beat Michigan and get a Penn State upset by Michigan State, and these Buckeyes are headed to the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1997, which was in the midst of a run of eight Rose Bowl titles in nine seasons for the Big Ten.
- 11. Oklahoma State Cowboys: Dez Bryant snagged his first touchdown on the road this season, a highlight one-handed grab on a crossing route in the second quarter that ended with a dive into the end zone. The Cowboys are out of the Big 12 title race, and now they've got two weeks to figure out how to make Oklahoma join them on the sidelines.
- 12. Boise State Broncos: Interestingly, the Broncos' 45-10 win over Idaho for the Governor's Cup marked the first time a Bronco back topped 100 yards rushing. And it wasn't star tailback/loving husband/knitting master Ian Johnson. Rather it was sophomore Jeremy Avery, who slipped under, through and past the Vandals for 156 yards and two touchdowns.
- 13. Georgia Bulldogs: The Bulldogs need another fourth-quarter touchdown grab from A.J. Green to knock off what should've been an overmatched foe.
- 14. Ball State Cardinals: Even we looked ahead to this week's tilt with Central Michigan last week, forgetting about Tuesday's game with Miami. But the Cardinals 10-0 start could come crashing down with arguably their toughest games, at Central Michigan and home against Western Michigan, up next.
- 15. TCU Horned Frogs: It's an off week for the Horned Frogs and coach Gary Patterson, who probably spent the week fielding more job offers than Mark Teixeira.
- 16. Brigham Young Cougars: Three Mountain West teams make the rankings while the Big East and ACC are shut out. Who's the BCS conference again?
Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Thats a fairly good ranking. You have the right top five teams, no matter what order there in. But its like you said, we'll have to let the games/season sort them out. Should be fun!
you're an idiot. the big 12 defenses are pathetic which is where all those gaudy stats come from. florida will win the sec and pound the big 12 champ for the title. it won't even be close...
Hey Travy...Thats what im talking about, exactly! But some people just dont get it, so I say lets just let it be settled on the field, through games, and yes the SEC will rule, like they do!
ps This is why we need a playoff!
i agree jacks. this is all ludicrous if you really think about it. a mismatch here or there can alter any game and make teams look different week to week depending on the opponent. (i think florida has mismatches all over the field on both sides of the ball and are basically unstoppable if they're on.)
but, just another example of old moneyed interests ruining something great for greed. it's an american tradition.
Big games are won on the basis of talent and mental outlook and leadership. On that basis I do not see how Alabama will beat Florida. I do not know enough about Texas Tech to comment. Your rating of Oklahoma over Florida overlooks the importance of winning the big game.
OK, so your favoring the BIG 12 over the SEC, don't count BAMA out yet, nor the Gators. Defense wins games, and I truly think the BIG 12 fans will be surprised when they reach the BCS Championship. Yes the BIG 12 is hot this year, but the defense in the SEC will speak, between the hedges...
Ray, I have been making this same point for weeks now. Floruida, at least prior to the SEC champion ship game, is building its resume just as Georgia did last year. Put up a few hot games in late October and November and hope everyone forgets about early October. Georgia in 2007 was all of 2-2 against ranked teams and drew Hawai'i in the bowl game. We have seen what they have accomplished with the preseason #1 ranking, which was based on last year's "accomplishments."
Now it's Florida. Of all of their OOC opponents, only Miami even got any votes in the AP poll last week. They got the same number of votes as did Iowa and 2 more than Northwestern. Florida's win over Georgia was impressive, but less so after considering that Alabama was up on Georgia by 31-0.
Now, Florida may well win out and even win the NC, but that's down the road. A series of big wins reminds me of Oklahoma and Penn State. But when Florida was challenged, they lost and to a 20-point underdog. That's a big stigma to overcome.
Yes, all of you are correct about the Big 12. The entire country must be crazy to think a conference is even close to the all-mighty SEC. This article spells out exactly why your argument is terrible. The Gamecocks played some of the worst offenses in the FBS before getting destroyed by Florida. If you'll notice, the main BCS contenders from the Big 12 also have great offenses. Hmmm... I wonder what that means. You guys just can't stand the fact that the Big 12 is much better than the SEC this year.
Your a funny child, Danny boy. Stop your crying! When your conf. wins back to back NC's, your conf. will be the best. All I can say, is what ive already said, sit back and watch the season/bowls prove who's the best. I think you'll find the SEC with back to back to back national championships!!!
You think I'm crying? Look at the rest of the comments on here, everyone else is whining about the offenses in the Big 12, lack of defense, etc... It stinks for me as a Texas fan because we don't control our own destiny, even though we have the same record as Florida. If we win out we need some weird BCS stuff to happen to make it to the 'Ship. This is a testament to the strength of the Big 12. I will say that if it comes to Texas Tech vs. SEC Champ I will be rooting for the SEC, I don't think there is a person I have despised more the past two years than Graham Harrell.
I know its hard when you think your team deserves to have a chance, and it seems they are getting the shaft! I thought my beloved UGA deserved a shot last year and didnt get it, we got stuck playing Hawaii in the sugar. So I understand, anyway keep watching the games and maybe Texas will get its chance, more than likely not, but you never know. This is a game played by young men that for the most part are kids.
First off, I want to say that as a grad of U of F...I'm a die hard Gator fan (i bleed orange and blue)--I am also a die hard SEC fan; however, I have to agree that this year the Big 12 is the most dominant conference. Texas, Tech and Oklahoma are 3 very good teams. Tennessee and Auburn have both fallen off, and UGA isn't as good as I thought they'd be this year and I don't even know how LSU needed a fourth quarter rally to beat Troy--with that being said, the Big 12 is the conference to beat in the bowls this year. If you guys are going to analyze the conferences and determine the better conference, then I suggest you do it as objectively as you can. I would love for the Gators to play Texas, Tech, Oklahoma and USC this year, just to see how they fair against great teams.
We can sit here all day and discuss the overall merits of different conferences when very few of the "elite" teams in the top conferences play each other until bowl time. Who is to say that Texas, for instance, is good or better than lets say Alabama. It's all conjecture. Certain teams are playing great right now and others mediocre. By that, they are winning, but some much more convincing than others. I love college football but I dont like the BCS because the two best teams may not be playing for the National Championship, when all is said and done. I would like to see an 8 team playoff but I dont think that will ever happen. In any case, I enjoyed the comments by all even though some of the posters comments were obviously tainted by their own favorites.
The only thing over rated more than Florida, is their IDIOT Head Coach..
I agree with Butch. Meyer behaves like a gigantic tool.
Well butch then i'd like to see your team go up against Florida and we'll see who is overrated. Urban overrated my foot...the man knows how to win. JAlexander, I don't think an eight team playoff will necessarily decide which school is the best either. There are way too many college teams out there to only break it down to eight teams. You'll have a lot of teams complaining just like you do now. Even in college basketball, the national champions aren't always the best team.
Even in professional sports, the best team doesn't always win the championship. Let's take this year's World Series for instance, the Phillies played and beat the Rays, although the Phillies were not the 2nd best team, and certainly not the best. They may have beat the Rays, but the Rays are still a better team and had the Phillies not played in such a sorry division, they would not have made the playoffs in the first place. More often than not, I believe the BCS crowns the best team in college football.
I am a Bama fan and an SEC fan, but I do believe that this year the Big12 is the better conference. The demise of Auburn and Tennessee, and even LSU has killed our conference strength this year.
Anyways, I just wanted to say that this is one of the first honest assessments of the top five (esp. UF) I have seen. Everybody is jumping on the UF bandwagon right now, saying bama has no chance to even get past the 50 against UF. But I don't think they have really noticed the different styles of play by each team. Bama likes to put together 7min drives and grind down the opponent with a solid run game and physical D. UF has capitalized off of the opponents mistakes (and good teams should do this) and likes to score with 2min drives. For example, USC gift wrapped 21points in about 2min to UF. I think the media is making a mistake to count bama out just yet. Florida and Tebow/Harvin can't score if they aren't on the field. And bama won't be throwing pick6es all game either.
USC has one loss one the road too a team that it looks like will be heading too the Rose Bowl a BCS game! so it looks like USC one loss early is too a BCS team has ruined their chance for a National Championship? But its not like SC lost to Old MISS at home or anything, Now Florida is beating up a Bunch to No Bodies no top 15 teams, teams they should stomp, now next week they play Citadel dose that count? talk about the pac10 being weak the SEC they are all talk! Florida will beat Bama great, but that Home loss to old Miss is not the same as a loss on the road to a BCS team, no team that loses at home too old Miss should not be ranked higher then USC! and if so the BSC is a Joke!
Well if you guys watched 60 minutes with Obama, he again suggested an 8 team playoff when asked,he also stated with a smile he wanted to use his infleunce. So maybe you guys will get your wish, and will see just what all our teams are made of, I still stand behind our SEC teams....................Gators or BAMA.....................and yes even LSU... Roll tide.
USCSteve, don't be such a homer. First off, Oregon State will only be a BCS team if its wins out and the only reason it is a BCS team is because they beat USC, the same team that Penn State wiped the floor with--so losing to Oregon State is just as bad as Florida losing to Ole Miss. Florida lost to Ole Miss by one point--a blocked kick. Not to mention we fumbled the ball twice on each of our first possessions to start the second half. USC lost to OS by a touchdown. Then you had a near miss against Arizona, Cal played you close until the end and then you were tied with Stanford going into half time. Florida had no other close games except for Ole Miss. Every team Florida has played since their loss is better than every team USC has played since their loss. Oh and just so we're on the same page, the team that lost to Ole Miss is not the same Florida team now...we are far more dominant now!