Simulated Gameday Experience

I can’t shake the feeling that the Capital One Bowl is a generally vague disappointment this season. Both Penn State and LSU opened the season as fringe BCS contenders who needed a bit of help to make the national title game; they finished the season 1-3 against teams in the Top 25 when they played them and more importantly 0-5 against teams that are currently in the top 25. Somehow these teams are ranked 11th and 13th in the BCS for reasons that quite frankly pass understanding to me, although they’re somewhat similar. (more…)

So this was supposed to be yet another preview article about both teams, their seasons (including their one combined loss) and, well, who’d have a shot to win this. There’s one heck of a stylistic matchup between Florida’s defense and Cincinnati’s offense that’s probably worth blowing 1,000 words on in its own right. Then again, that was also before the coaches decided they were going to up and leave town – since the end of the season, we’ve had both head coaches and both the coordinators in the main matchup bail for either various other head coaching gigs or for personal reasons. For clarity’s sake: Urban Meyer is going on vacation, Brian Kelly is at Notre Dame, Charlie Strong (Florida’s DC) is at Louisville, and Jeff Quinn (Cincinnati’s OC) is at Buffalo. Of the four, Meyer and Quinn will be acting head coaches for their respective sides and Strong will be a DC for one final game before moving on- only Brian Kelly won’t be around for this one. (Incidentally, incoming HC Butch Jones won’t be on the sidelines for either Cincinnati or his former Central Michigan outfit. Apparently there’s a pipeline between CMU and UC, who knew?)

It’s a complete shame that all the coaching activity ended up drastically overshadowing the storylines on the field, since as far as matchups go this is pretty solid. (more…)

From the annals of the truly bizarre comes Mike Leach’s termination, effective immediately. Leach is a bit of a character in his own right; as I’m writing this I’m half-staring at a pirate flag across the street, which is doing nothing but reminding me of Leach and his fascination with pirates. That, along with a prolific passing offense and tendency to act a bit bizarre at times (sometimes that qualifies as understatement), is why we’ve heard of Leach.

That, not coincidentally, is why he ended up getting canned. On some level, this came down to a he-said he-said argument; Adam James (and, by extension, Craig James, and, by extension, his employer ESPN, albeit acting as a platform only and not with any sort of agenda – would’ve made it a wee bit awkward had James gone through with broadcasting the Alamo Bowl, which TTU is a part of) assert that Leach treated him unfairly while he was injured. Leach, of course, denies this, although he does assert that he did take disciplinary action. I’m not going to get into all the details here. What’s important right now are two factors:

- Mike Leach is now available as a coach, at least in theory

- Texas Tech brass, Leach, and possibly the James family are about to get embroiled in one heck of a legal mess

(more…)

Look, this whole Urban Meyer thing is weird. It walks, talks, and smells like burnout. First, we had a full-blown resignation occurring amidst unsubstantiated speculation this was either cancer or some kind of serious heart condition. (This was also occurring as we got to play everyone’s favorite game – “Let’s Figure Out / Take Wild Guesses on the Next Florida Coach.” The Society of People to Lure Bob Stoops Away from His Cushy Job with Lifetime Security approves.) This would also make the resignation turned sabbatical turned leave of absence understandable; granted, since Meyer seems (so far) like he’s going to be the head coach once the 2010 season rolls around, this may not have a significant effect on the Florida program. This looks like a man going “I have to get away, this is going to kill me” and taking whatever steps he had to before dialing the hyperbole back a bit. (more…)

Look, I don’t care: this is the Peach Bowl. This is not the Chik-Fil-A Bowl, although they do make one heck of a sandwich. This is one of the comparatively few bowls out there that actually has some kind of history, and if it’s good enough for the Rose Bowl to stubbornly cling to an outdated tradition and be mocked roundly, well, it’s pretty easy for me to do the same.

This year’s incarnation pairs a couple of teams who are strikingly similar; both rely on power running games and excellent defensive play (typified in part by a safety operating up in run support a large percentage of the time). The difference lies in – go figure, knowing the teams – special teams: Virginia Tech has them, while Tennessee hasn’t had them in a while, up to and including this season. (more…)

Last week basically confirmed what we already thought: Alabama and Florida are playing for the SEC Championship. As we move towards that inevitable showdown, the rest of the conference keeps on knocking each other down, as the recently-consistent Tennessee and Auburn outfits both lost on the road. Further down in the conference, Arkansas keeps keepin’ on, and might actually be the most predictable team in the SEC on a weekly basis. (more..)

Yes, there were all sorts of distractions in Knoxville this week (possibly consisting of pellet guns, arrests, and – of all things – a Prius. Yes, a Prius. What the hell, y’all?), but that’s no excuse for getting shellacked in Oxford. The Volunteers got outplayed and partially outschemed against the Rebels, and that’s in part to just how wantonly destructive Dexter McCluster was on Saturday. (more…)

Credit West Virginia for coming out to play in the first half; they had a good gameplan and executed it as well as you’d expect. They wanted to force Cincinnati to operate on the ground (they did, for the most part) and they wanted to use Noel Devine between the tackles (they did, for the most part). And yet, at the end of the game, West Virginia was down ten, outplayed in bits and pieces by enough to need two scores as the clock struck midnight. (more…)

Go figure – one of the main storylines to come out of this game is yet another officiating controversy in a game involving one of the SEC’s two national title contenders. This time, it was an overturned Patrick Peterson interception of Greg McElroy with LSU down six. To some degree, it doesn’t matter what the call is, other than it happened. Alabama likely would’ve won the game anyway (it may be a fortunate gift that Leigh Tiffin hit a 40-yard FG to create the final score) but really, the SEC doesn’t need this. They don’t need more public questioning of their refs, but since Mike Silve opened that can of worms, no sense in putting them back now. (more…)

I’m a bit disappointed that The Simpsons took the obvious “so it came to this” opener, but somehow Clemson – perennially disappointing, losing to Maryland, full of talent but lacking in results, Clemson – has ended up in the driver’s seat of the ACC Atlantic. (more…)