By
Dave
Hershorin
January 31, 2007
…And finally
Another
college football season has come and gone, so it must
be time to look back and see how I did in my preseason
predications (found in “Here We Go Again…”).
Of course, no one can know exactly what will happen,
but in this day of prognostications being used as publication
lure, how many actually go back to see if they hit the
mark or not as they shot their insights into the dark
future? If I can even hit half of my “out on a
limb” predictions, I feel pretty good in thinking
that my football thoughts are grounded.
Though
my picks against the spread may not have been over .500
(34-42-2), my participation in ESPN’s “Pick’
em” game (with two random winners having a chance
to throw footballs through that huge Dr. Pepper can
at the Big XII and ACC championships) yielded a 433rd
place finish out of the 200,000+ who signed up…not
too shabby, but those picks were merely win-loss. And
no, I was not one of those who threw the ball for money.
Anywho, here are the results of some of my more pervasive
thoughts from late August.
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In
talking about the national championship, my prediction
was that the winner of the early Ohio State-Texas game
would “have the inside track” for a spot
in the title game. Even with that loss, Texas was a
major player until they tanked against Kansas State
and a resurgent A&M squad (see below) in their last
two regular season games, which even cost them their
spot for a shot at the conference crown. I also said
that if any SEC team could run their league’s
slate successfully “they will be a lock for Arizona”.
Voila! (well, almost successfully) It looked like Georgia
was the only one who may have a chance due to scheduling
– it would have been something if I knew it would
be the Gators, but with LSU, Auburn and Tennessee all
fielding top 10-caliber efforts, which team might breakthrough
wasn’t foreseeable to me. I actually thought all
of the SEC schools would beat up on each other just
enough to keep them all out of Tucson come January 8th.
I (and most others) knew it wouldn’t be the ACC
that produced any top BCS contenders, but I (and many
others) did tout the Big East as having such easy non-conference
schedules that one of them looked worthy of a national
title invite. Funny, it was the Big East teams (not
those from the SEC) that wound up beating each other
up just enough to keep them all out of the title picture.
In the end, I called out Notre Dame – our preseason
No.1 – to exact late-season revenge on Southern
Cal for an assured finale spot, and I said they would
play WVU for all the Tostitos (don’t the winners
get a lifetime supply of the crunchy snacks?) My outside
possibility was Michigan – I said that with no
one expecting much from them since Ohio State and Penn
State were garnering most of the Big Ten headlines,
one loss could easily see the Wolverines into the championship.
They came close. But with that one loss coming so late
in the season to undefeated Ohio State, UM had no time
to claw their way back into title contention (even though
many polls saw them drop no places after the loss in
Columbus). The Big Ten wasn’t what it has been
in past years (only five Big Ten squads finished with
winning records, and only two of the conference’s
seven bowl squads won in the postseason), so when No.1
played No.2 November 18th, their rankings exaggerated
the level of football competence in this traditional
contest. The marginal play displayed in the OSU-UM game
was evident. Many of us saw how little defense was on
hand in the Buckeye’s 42-39 win; appropriately
and predictably, Michigan then got taken out 32-18 by
USC in the Rose Bowl and State took it on the chin 41-14
from Florida for the title.
Noteworthy:
what one must realize is how – when we look back
one day soon - the establishment of an extra BCS game
this past season will likely be seen as the first meaningful
step toward a playoff to determine the national title.
By adding a game, the powers that be concede that the
already-established bowl system doesn’t supply
enough games for telling who the winner should be. The
new “title” game introduces and validates
an infrastructure that supports post-season games separate
from just those already in the bowl system, which can
then allow for other games to be designated (or even
created) as quarter- and/or semi-finals in future years.
Sure, the extra game also does what it was meant to
do in the short term – it allows for the inclusion
of more teams and therefore, due to the latest tweaking
of the bi-laws, more small, non-aligned mid-major schools
in the BCS’s final lineups. And this is good,
too, for how else could Boise State have gotten their
chance to shock the world by beating Oklahoma in the
Fiesta? With hindsight, we will one day have a playoff,
and we will look back and wonder how the archaic nature
of our (current, but soon) bygone system could ever
have functionally achieved the goal of determining the
national champion with any certainty and validity. All
we have to do is have a playoff…then this year
will be seen as the one when the “new” system
began.
It
seemed evident, after 2005 saw Miami lose two of its
final three games, that it was a make-or-break year
for Larry Coker. He revamped his coaching staff heading
into 2006, but evidently such a move didn’t assure
the Canes of much. Miami’s offensive line woes
stood out as they lost two of their first three in ’06
and could only rush for 3.7 ypc all year. They pulled
out of their tailspin to beat Houston 14-13 at home,
and they seemed on a roll by then winning four in a
row. But the fourth win, a struggling 20-15 road victory
against Duke (which went 0-12) should have been an ominous
sign – the Canes then lost four straight (for
the first time since 1997) to likely cost Coker his
job. This was the guy who won more games in his first
five years than any other Miami head coach ever had
(53-9). Heck, maybe it was losing twice in a row to
FSU (each time by three in two low scoring affairs)
that turned the fans and alumnus against the man who
led them to their last national title (2001-02). But
many felt Coker was living on borrowed time since he
won that title in his first year with a team he didn’t
build, and that the teams he did eventually build were
never quite up to the high standards usually found down
in Coral Gables. His ‘04 and ’05 teams each
lost three games, and neither proved worthy of BCS contention,
snapping Miami’s four year streak of earning a
spot with college football’s elite. I thought
there was too much “speed and all-around talent”
for the Canes to again sputter, but, nevertheless, Coker
is gone and the Randy Shannon era begins. It just goes
to prove – if you smell smoke, there is usually
fire that eventually proves the reason for the smoke,
and it then winds up burning out of control…in
this case, Coker was a stoker and not a squelcher of
this heated controversy.
Then
there is the kind of prediction where I am glad to be
wrong. This time, it was my usual weather warning that
bore no truth. You know the old adage - wash the car
or plan a nice picnic if you want it to rain; similarly,
schedule a slate of games in late August and September
all along the eastern seaboard and gulf coast if you
want tropical weather to disrupt your season. Well,
there was little interference in any form from named
storms in ‘06, and having resided in New Orleans
for 10+ years, I was glad to see such a minimal threat
for a region where college football is still the furthest
thing from most people’s minds. Historically,
the odds of such a meteorological break happening again
seem pretty big, and this respite has been embraced
for allowing people to get their lives back together
so college football will soon again be an event upon
which they can focus.
Heading
into July ’06, things looked promising for Oklahoma
to get back to their usual dominant selves. But suddenly
the Sooners had to deal with the loss of their starting
QB and offensive guard due to financial improprieties.
Rhett Bomar ($7,406.88) and J.D. Quinn ($8,137.17) had
accepted monies over and above those they should have
received for the number of hours each supposedly worked
while at an off-campus job (car dealership). Many, including
myself, thought that this spelled an immediate end to
OU’s resurgence, but we were wrong. Paul Thompson,
who had competed with Bomar for the starting slot in
‘05, bumped back over from his WR designation
and finished 27th nationally for passing efficiency
(22 TDs with only 11 INTs, 60% completion rate). The
Sooners wound up winning the Big XII South division
when Texas fell to A&M, and they then won the conference
crown by dominating the Cornhuskers 21-7. Even with
their OT loss to Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl (BCS),
the Sooner’s season was an unmitigated success
and went a far way toward proving statements about their
return to the nation’s elite. If not for a 34-33
loss up in Eugene due to an errant replay call, OU could
have been right there in the hunt for that second BCS
championship slot.
The
biggest bursted bubble for Oklahoma occurred when junior
RB phenom Adrian Peterson broke his collarbone in their
34-9 win over Iowa State. Guaranteed to score after
he distanced himself from any chasing Cyclones during
an impressive 53 yard run, “AD” chose the
braggart’s way and dove into the “end”
zone – appropriately so, since he ended his 2006
regular season and Heisman campaign with the bone-cracking
move. He wasn’t quite on pace to break Barry Sanders
record of 2,628 yards, but he may have had 2,300+ if
he hadn’t tried to show off. When so many of the
nation’s top RBs struggled in the last quarter
of the season, Peterson would have been a lock to win
the I-A rushing title. Many thought he would struggle
without Bomar, but Thompson made sure opponents couldn’t
stack the box against Peterson. He often seemed like
a man amongst boys, but he still got nowhere near his
self-proclaimed goal of 2,500 yards. Hopefully, he can
take himself more seriously as he enters the NFL –
a smaller fish in a bigger pond (so to speak), AD won’t
have such a huge leg up in the pro’s and will
be required to prove he can still perform against the
next level of competition. Good luck, Adrian, to one
of the most dominating players to never win the Heisman.
One
of my biggest whiffs came in touting two Texas teams
- Texas Christian and Texas Tech - as “ready to
make some noise (again) on the national level”.
Tech (8-5) and the Horned Frogs (11-2) seem to have
landed right in the middle of where history and the
prognosticators thought, so no noise was really ever
made by either in ’06. Each had two losses by
the first week in October. The Texas team ready to make
the most noise appeared to be A&M. With first-year
starting dual-threat QB Stephen McGee finishing 31st
for total offense, the Aggie’s three regular season
losses were by an aggregate total of six points. Consecutively
to end their November slate, McGee lost by one point
(first) to Oklahoma and (then to) Nebraska, and then
broke a six-year skid to Texas by beating the heavily
favored Longhorns 12-7 in Austin. McGee will be a junior
in ’07, and with running back tandem Jorvorskie
Lane (274 lbs) and Mike Goodson (7th in the conference
as a freshman) both back – along with almost the
entire OL and most of the defense – the Aggies
seem most ready to be anointed to the state’s
no.2 position. Kudos to TCU and Tech for having solid
years, but they both seem to again be behind A&M
in the Lone Star rankings.
I
really thought this was the year the conference pack
caught up with the Trojans. With three Pac Ten teams
ranked and hungry to start the season - California (9th),
Oregon (21st) and Arizona State (24th) – more
parity in the west seemed imminent with new USC QB Josh
Booty needing time to adjust to his starting status.
But after Southern Cal opened with a 50-14 win in Fayetteville
and a 28-10 trouncing of a resurgent Nebraska squad
at home, Pete Carroll & Co. looked like they had
fully reloaded instead of slowly rebuilding. The Sun
Devils, Golden Bears and Ducks all came into Los Angeles
and lost by a combined 46 points. Notre Dame also left
Memorial Coliseum with a loss (44-24), so what went
wrong against mundane league mates Oregon State and
UCLA is all the 2006 Trojans could contemplate as they
hammered Michigan in the Rose Bowl. The loss to the
Beavers (33-31) was their first conference defeat since
2003’s loss to Cal (also away), and there is no
excuse against the 7-6 cross-town Bruins besides the
Trojans prematurely anointing themselves finalists for
the BCS title and ignoring the task at hand. Cal technically
tied USC for the conference title, with USC going to
the BCS since their win over the Bears meant they had
a better overall record. Southern Cal is still a head
above the Pac Ten field, but it is not due to them being
so good, though they will be that much better in Booty’s
second year as starter. Besides USC, only Cal and OSU
garnered any votes in the final AP tally, which means
that out of all of the BCS-aligned conferences, the
Pac Ten finished with the least amount of teams receiving
points in the season’s last poll (three). Ok,
so only two Pac Ten teams finished with overall losing
records, making it a battle between the Big Ten and
them for which BCS league is deemed the most disappointing.
Tidbits
Pitt
seems to be right where I thought they would –
in marginal trouble. If, as predicted, they can’t
win with the nation’s No.4 passer (efficiency),
what makes anyone think that next year will be any different
than the previous two?...Penn State did struggle with
their lines and quarterbacks, but it was a healthy season
for a Nittany Lion squad that looks like it can compete
for the Big Ten title next year…Colorado may have
won only two games, but in holding all their foes (but
three) to under 30 points, they seem to (at least) have
the defense to again compete in the Big XII. I said
they were one year away from returning to prominence,
so let’s hope Dan Hawkins has enough of a foundation
to make 2007 the year of the Buffalo…Spurrier
didn’t surprise anyone, contrary to my prediction
he would, except for Clemson. But in losing to Tennessee,
Arkansas and Florida over three straight weeks by a
combined total of 14 points isn’t too shabby.
The Ole Ball Coach still has it in him to motivate (lost
to national champion Gators by one point), so figure
his Gamecocks will succeed to that next level soon –
this is not an ‘if’, but a ‘when’…My
mistake from ‘05 in guessing Navy would go back
to struggling were amended as I openly copped to them
likely having only 3-6 losses in ’06. Two of their
four losses this past season were by one point; only
Notre Dame and Rutgers – both top 10 teams –
beat them soundly. Remember, they have recruiting limitations
due to being a service academy, so their challenge is
constant, like if a I-AA had an annual slate of I-A’s.
Navy is 35-15 since 2003. Having the top rushing offense
four of the last eight years and a top 5 rushing unit
six of those eight is some accomplishment, eh?...Coach
Greg Robinson needs a little more work with his lines
before the Orangemen can climb back into the thick of
the Big East hunt. Predictably, they were the weak links
in a 4-8 campaign, but Syracuse proved they can compete
by losing to ACC champs Wake by only 10 and Iowa by
seven in double overtime (the OL couldn’t get
their ball carriers into the endzone on eight straight
plays from inside Iowa’s five yard line in the
second OT against the Hawkeyes!)…
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So, sometimes you bite the bear, and sometimes the bear
bites you when making this many predictions. Guessing
right every time isn’t always the key to good
prognostication, though. One must have proper systematic
rationale about each topic to feel solid in his/her
choices, and I think that is what our site specializes
in, regardless of the results. Hey, if anyone can consistently
guess what will happen when teams full of 18-22 year
old young men take the field, they must have either
a crystal ball or a deal with the devil. I claim neither,
and feel good that Nationalchamps.net can and will continue
to have as true an aim as any major media outlet that
covers gridiron gris-gris. If you think you can do better,
let us know, please…we always have openings for
sharp thinkers on our writing staff!!!
Thanks
for being a part of Nationalchamps.net for another season
of college football – we need all the support
we can get, and we appreciate you sticking with our
growing efforts. Take care, and we’ll see you
in the spring when our full top 25 preview for 2007
hits the web.
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