Mumme Poll, Week 9

Texas.  Colt McCoy.  Awesome.  

McCoy's excellence continues to be the story of the season; his numbers are gaudy, even by Big 12 standards.  I'm shocked whenever I see a ball hit the ground.  If this were baseball, we'd say McCoy is "locked-in" or "raking" (mmm...sports cliches).   To put this in some context: McCoy is completing 81.8% of his passes, the current single season record stands at 73.4% by Daunte Culpepper.  McCoy is currently on pace to complete 322 passes, a clip of (assuming 13 games) 25 completions per game.  Lets assume Culpepper was slinging passes at the same rate as McCoy; Culpepper, in this hypothetical scenario, completes 22 passes per game.  And I don't think Central Florida played the same caliber of teams that Texas does.  

On to the Mumme Poll

Top 5

Texas- I really have nothing more to say.  This team is an absolute steam roller with razors  on the rollers and laser guns in the headlights.  Driven by a shark.  With a lightsaber.  

Bama- Forced Tennessee (...sigh) into five three and outs and allowed only two drives of longer than 31 yards.  While Tennessee's offensive ineptitude has as much to do with these numbers as Bama's defensive dominance, we must give credit where credit is due.  In spite of the yardage numbers, Bama scored on 6 of 10 possessions and, had Saban felt like it, could have made that 7 of 10.  Jim McElwain's offense was, again, excellent. They were their usual ball-controlling selves, with four of their 10 drives going for more than 50 yards.  Tennessee had allowed a total of 11 such drives during the previous seven games, with three of those coming against Florida.  So yeah...Bama looks pretty good.

Penn State- This team, likely to win out, has zero shot at a National Championship.  The Lions likewise lack a National Championship caliber resume.  I'm as sentimental as the next fella and I would love to see Joe Paterno punctuate his career with a NC, but this team has done nothing to deserve it.  The relative weakness of the schedule is not entirely Penn State's fault (Coastal Carolina.  What the fuck?), the Big 10 just so happens to be down across the board.  The closest thing Penn State has to a marquee win is the blowout against Oregon State.  Who beat USC.  ...nope, not really feeling that one.  Kudos for the fine season boys, and I'll be rooting for you to beat Oregon State again in the Rose Bowl.  

Florida- The Gators have scored 110-ish points in the past two games, against teams whose prior worst defensive efforts yielded 24 points.  Lost somewhere in the Demps/James/Harvin quarkback meme is Tim Tebow's re-emergence.  His numbers, though still down from those of his Heisman campaign, belie a quarterback bent on ruthless efficiency.  Tebow's passing efficiency is 11th nationally and he has thrown all of two picks, and yet he's made nary a blip on the national radar.  Oh how callous can be capricious fate!  ESPN has exchanged last year's Tebow-mania for piles of Colt McCoy porn, and rightfully so.  

     Look out for this team, though.  They are just beginning to get humming.  My preseason expectations for the Gators were astronomically high, think 1995 Nebraska high.  And they are just now living up to my expectations.  

Georgia- I'm ecstatic that I no longer feel obligated to put USC here.  The Trojans get bumped for both a very meh-inspiring win over Arizona and a fantastic win by Georgia.  LSU, though they are clearly down from last year, is still a very good team, better than probably 105 other teams, and a win over the Tigers is still a feather worthy of any hat.  And that feather becomes even more precious when it comes to the tune of 52 points...in Death Valley.  Knowshon gashed the Tigers for 68 yard TD, during which Verne Lundquist exclaimed "[Moreno] doesn't have great speed," and Stafford went for 249 without an interception.  Ouch.  

     The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party is once again one of the season's most important games and it may prove to be the defining game of 2008.  Florida and Georgia lock horns for the right to play Alabama for the SEC Championship and, likely, a berth in the NC Game.  Georgia and Florida come into the game ranked 6 and 8, respectively, by the BCS, but the winner, by virtue of an astoundingly strong win, could easily vault up to number 4.

The Rest of the Top 12

Utah

TCU

Boise State

USC

Oklahoma

Texas Tech

Oklahoma State

Notes:

-Tulsa has been bumped in favor of TCU, who has allowed 21 points during the past three games and has held BYU to their lowest point total since WEEK ONE OF 2005.  TCU is real, very, very real.  

-Ugh.  I don't want to rank Oklahoma State at all.  Their win over Mizzou has lost a considerable bit of luster and they lack a great win other than that over the Tigers.  They deserve credit for playing Texas tough, but then again Tulane deserves some credit for playing Alabama tough.  It came down to Okie State, Mizzou, or Ohio State for that last spot.  I couldn't rank Mizzou over Okie State if I hold that the Cowboy's win over Mizzou is merely okay and I can't move Ohio State into the poll fresh off a loss.  

-I was tempted to rank Florida State, but that 6 turnover game against a suddenly mediocre Wake Forest still stinks to high heaven.

Top 25: Justifications, Prognostications, and Hastily Put-Together Garbage

Conspicuously Abesent: Rutgers, Kansas, VaTech

-In case you haven't gotten it by now: I don't like Rutgers.  No sir, not one bit.  However, my bias is by no means responsible for their absence from my top 25.  To put it simply: Rutgers is not top 25 caliber.  I do not see how this offense will continue to produce without the pinball Ray Rice and All Big East tackles Pedro Sosa and Jeremy Zuttah (not to mention guard Mike Fladell).  Sure Mike Teel, Kenny Britt, and Tiquan Underwood put up some fabulous numbers but their outrageous production was due almost entirely to a miserable non-con schedule.  Look at Teel's conference vs. non-con splits (sans the Army game in which he threw a measly four passes).  Against OOC teams (the 82, 119, 44, and 90th ranked pass efficiency D's in DI...and D-IAA Norfolk State) Teel threw for 13 TD's against 3 INT's for 295.2 ypg and 62.6 completion pct.  Not bad.  Now look at his conference numbers.  7 TD's against 9 picks, 236.7 ypg, and 58.5 completion pct.  Quite the split there.  Do any of us think these numbers improve without Rice and three new starters on the o-line?

Kansas, oh Kansas.  Where do I begin.  Rock M Nation covered Kansas as well as anyone could hope here.  Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech rotate onto the schedule this year, and those three games, as well as a sneaky tough matchup against Colorado (a game the Jayhawks should have lost in 2007) and a trip to Columba, could all easily end in loses.  I'd be shocked to see Kansas stay home for the post season.  Likewise, I'd be shocked to see them win more than 7 games.

VaTech could win their division and still be unworthy of a top 25 ranking.  The only reason anyone lists the Hokies in their preseason polls are because of the belief that a Bud Foster D is a Bud Foster D is a Bud Foster D.  Unfortunately for the Hokies, Bud Foster is about all they have left on defense.  They've lost 3 starters on the defensive line, standout linebackers Vince Hall and Xavier Adibi, and stud corner Brandon Flowers.  While there is hope for the defense (like I said, Bud Foster is still calling the shots), not even the most optimistic of Hokies can reasonably expect much from the offense.  Gone is Brandon Ore, down go Jahre Cheeseman and Kenny Lewis, gone are the top five (breath deep, repeat: top fucking five) receivers, and gone is tackle Duane Brown.  The two highlights on offense are an inexperienced sophomore QB in Tyrod Taylor (the QB of the future is, sadly, not the QB of the now) and an incoming frosh RB Ryan Williams.  If you thought the Hokies had trouble scoring last year (see 7 points against LSU and ECU, 10 against BC, and 23 against Ohio), you ain't seen nothing yet.

Hey!  USC isn't your top 3!  Dude!  

It seems that everyone is pegging USC somewhere in the 1-4 range and they don't know why.  They do it because USC...well...they're USC.  Its as if they are entitled to a high preseason ranking.  Yet the Trojans are as vulnerable as they've ever been in the past seven or so years.  They return one starter from the o-line, are breaking in a new quarterback (who is out for a few weeks with a dislocated patella), feature a mess of unproven talent at RB, and a mess of yet to (and unlikely to be) realized talent at wide receiver.  Even last year the Trojan offense was by and large very average.  The few games they dominated (633 yards against Illinois to cap off the season, 509 against Wazzu, and 508 against ASU) came against clearly inferior teams. 

Against Arizona (a narrow 20-13 win) their drive chart from the middle of the first quarter until the tail end of the third looks like such: punt, interception, interception, end of half, punt, punt, punt.  All told, those "drives" totaled 28 plays for 65 yards, with 43 of those yards coming on one 12 drive that ended in that last "punt".  Even the Trojan scoring drives were thoroughly unimpressive; other than a 10 play, 85 yard march for a TD in the first and a 15 play, 95 yard drive ending in a field goal to put the game away, they mustered a 10 play, 21 yard drive resulting in a field goal (the mighty Trojans...21 yards in 10 plays) and a 25 yard touchdown pass from Sanchez (he of "hide the patella" fame) to the departed Fred Davis.  

Similar to the 'Zona game was the Trojans' win against Oregon State.  Again, look at the drive chart.  The longest drive of the game was 54 yards, resulting in a TD.  Other than that you have 9 yards in 7 plays for a FG, 47 yards in 4 plays for a TD (26 of those yards came on the TD pass),  and 14 plays in 3 yards for another TD.  Mind you this was entirely in the first half.  The second half was a completely different story, reading: punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, end of game.  Their average second half drive was 4.5 plays for 19 yards.  I understand the Beavers had a wicked awesome defense (giving up only 70 rushing yards per game...yikes!), however a team purportedly possessing as much talent as USC should have done better than that.  

My point is: USC should expect to see their offense drop off (perhaps significantly if the o-line can't gell and the wide receivers continue to underachieve) from last year.  And when they did all of that last year...eesh.  Top 5, certainly not.  Top 10, certainly, by based entirely upon the strength of their defense. 

LSU?  Top 5?  But...but...that can't be!

Admit it.  If Perrilloux were still a Tiger, LSU would be a run away number 1.  Even without Perrilloux this team is still absolutely loaded.  In fact, they may well be better than they were last year.  

Consider this.  Gone is Early Doucet, but Terrance Tolliver, Demetrius Byrd, Brandon LaFell, and Richard Dickson all return.  Gone is the steady "war-daddy" Jacob Hester and with him his team leading 1103 rushing yards, but the explosive Keiland Williams, Charles Scott, and Richard Murphy all return.  Ciron Black and Herman Johnson continue to anchor the best left side of any o-line in college football.  And, in spite of the loss of all-everything Glenn Dorsey, the d-line is still the best in America...and may even be better than last year's! 

In fact, the only holes this team has are at quarterback, obviously, and in the secondary, where they lose Craig Steltz, Johnathan Zenon, and Chevis Jackson.  Personnel wise, the holes in the secondary will be filled the immensely talented Chad Jones (LSU's top recruit last year) and Patrick Peterson (top incoming recruit); schematically, however, expect any deficiencies in the secondary to be more than masked by pressure generated by a murderer's row of a defensive line.

Never Too Early for Rakrootin'

Native of CT, Mike Osiecki has committed to UConn.  At first glance this seems hardly news worthy, local kid continuing his football career at local school.  However read the article, linked from the Hartford Courant, and a few paragraphs down there's one sentence that stands out like I shimmering beacon of badass.  

Osiecki has 22 scholly offers...one of which coming from Pete Carroll.  Osiecki turned down Pete Carroll to attend UConn.  Think about that one for just a second, let it sink in.  Feels pretty good doesn't it.

Anyways, Osiecki is currently unranked by Rivals and ditto for Scout.  Read nothing into that whatsoever, the recruiting services may as well be hibernating for now and we won't "know" anything about the Class of 2009 until mid-fall or so.  

And as it stands we're presently in the thick of things for Scout East Top 100 players Kris McKinnie (of Hamden, CT) and Jake Golic (who will likely follow his father and brother to Notre Dame, fuck Notre Dame).