South Carolina Re-cap. Spurrier not cocky enough

I love college football. I love the unpredictability, I love upsets, the playoff that starts on week one, the debates on which teams and conferences are better, and I also I love it for plays like this:

To be sure, Miles had the better horses on Saturday, and we were expected to win…..but Miles outcoached Spurrier. LSU was prepared, and won the game without a star offensive lineman, and a QB that was at about 60% of his ability. Also of note: this was the first time that Ryan Perrilloux joined the game before the point spread was covered, so he really must be gaining the trust of Miles & Gary Crowton. This would have been an easy game to lose, looking back on it. Before I get into it, here’s what I liked about yesterday’s game:

1) The play of the offensive line: South Carolina has a solid D, but only had 3 tackles for a loss. With an injured offensive line, and a muddy field this could have been a weak link.

2) Matt Flynn’s toughness: Flynn showed a lot of courage by playing yesterday. It was clear that he was hurting, and the field conditions really didn’t help much. His no-look behind the back pass to Colt David on the fake field goal at the end of the first half broke the gamecock’s back, in my opinion.

3) Another solid week by the LSU defense. Another week, another game where we forced a coach to doubt his starting QB, pulling him in favor of the backup. Sure, we gave up 16 points, but you can’t shut out opponents, much less a Spurrier-coached team every week.

Here’s what I didn’t like about this week’s game:

1) Our stable of highly touted receivers – I’m not going to point out any specific player, god knows they’re all college kids trying really hard, and they’re young, but for fuck’s sake catch the @#%#%@$@ing ball. Richard Dickson is excluded from this, as he made a few good catches and didn’t seem to drop the ball at all. Speaking of our highly-touted receivers, where was Tolliver yesterday?

That’s about it. Stay tuned later on in the week for commentary on the upcoming Tulane game, who suspended their starting running back for 4 counts of attempted murder this week, and commentary on the first 1/3 of the season. Other commentary around the league:

Oklahoma 62- Tulsa 21

Stoops — put in your fucking backups, or your QB’s gonna get Bomar’d. You’re as big an ass as Herban Meyer.

USF 37 – UNC 10

Typical big east. Schedule weaker teams from BCS conferences to try and prove a point.

Syracuse 38 – Louisville 35

Wasn’t Louisville a top 10 team? Nice defense, giving up 38 points to the worst offense in Division 1-A.

Florida 30 – Ole Miss 24

Finally a Florida game where I don’t have to bitch at Herban Meyer for running up the score. I thought Ole Miss was going to pull this one off. It’s a shame people still talk about coach O as being on the hot seat, he actually is turning this program around. I really like what BJGE is doing, and the new Ole Miss QB is looking like the real deal.

Boston College – Army (score irrelevant)

Direct quote from ESPN’s commentators: “And BC proves why they should be ranked in the top 10 right here, such brilliant moves against army”. Army. They’re not even good enough to be in division I-AA, and the last bowl game they were in was over 26 years ago. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

Michigan St. 31 – Notre Dame 14

Notre Dame flat out sucks this year. Terrible. You have to feel sorry for Jimmy Claussen, they have a terrible offensive line. Seriously though, Charlie Weiss should be fired after this season, but won’t because of his mega-contract. It’s a sad sad state of affairs. People will point to racism with Ty getting fired with a better record than Charlie, but Charlie just has a better agent. Man does it do a heart good to watch that fat fucker squirm when getting interviewed by the media.

Colorado 42 – Miami of Ohio 0

Butter face, but jesus look at them abs!

Mississipi State 31 – Gardner-webb 0

It’s a shame that this game actually counts in Sly Croom’s W-L column, but I guess we all have our cupcakes right? And shouldn’t cupcakes be relational? Sure, we play Middle Tennessee and Tulane, but Sly needs an easier team to teach them how to play ball.

Tennessee 48 – Arkansas State 27

Phil, glad to see your offense is back on track. Play some D.

Georgia 26 – Bama 23

Ahh…Simeon, don’t be so hard on yourself, you guys really shouldn’t have been in this game to begin with. You don’t deserve to be in a Saban secondary.

A familiar sight for many LSU fans, a dejected Saban after choking against a beatable team. To be fair, Alabama has done MUCH better than I thought they would this year, and I have to give them credit, but oddly enough a lot of that credit is due to Major Applewhite’s offense. This team does not have a Sabanesque D.

Kentucky 42 – Arkansas 29

What more can you say about Rich Brooks and Kentucky this season? Sure, Arkansas isn’t the greatest team this year, but they’re not a bad team either. It’s a shame that Mitch Mustain transferred — this game might have been closer, but it’s hard to tell.

South Carolina Prediction

Sorry about not posting anything earlier, been a busy work week. I think South Carolina will be a tough test, but not on defense. Early’s out, Arnold’s out — time for some of the young bucks to step up. Prediction 27-10.

What to make of Middle Tennessee State.

Not sure what to even write about for the Middle Tennessee State game. Here’s what I do know:

- We scheduled them before they became a good team in the all-catholic girl’s conference known as the sun belt

- They won the Sun Belt conference last year

- Produced Vikings QB Kelly Holcomb

- Put up 41 points against a BCS quasi-contender defense, though it was on a suspect Louisville defense/

- But could only score 14 points against Florida Atlantic?

- Joe Craddock, the MTSU QB has been averaging 2 INT’s per game.  This statistic changes on Saturday.

Oh what the hey…..

When Middle Tennessee State has the ball: 

Look for them to spread the ball out, with a gameplan that slightly favors the run. This is the best offense we have seen against our defense, but I expect them to turn the ball over often.  I expect MTSU to score 14 7-10 points on us.

Advantage: LSU

When LSU has the ball: 

It will be interesting to see how much playing time Matt Flynn gets, as he has been injured and favoring his ankle much of the week. I think Ryan Perrilloux is more than capable of blowing the MTSU defense the fuck up. I expect to see Jimmy Welker at some point during this game.  As for the running game, I expect to see Hester, Murphy, and Scott get the majority of the reps, while Keiland rests up to destroy the Ole Ball Coach next week. I expect LSU to put up about 49 points, as Miles seems incapable of running the score up past 50.

Advantage: LSU

Prediction LSU 49-MTSU 10.

Other games we’re watching this week: 

Florida vs. Tennessee

Tennessee is the first team on Herban Meyer’s schedule that isn’t a regional school for retarded blind children. It is Tim Tebow’s first start against a team ranked in the top 150 of division I-A and I-AA schools. Seriously folks, Florida’s OOC schedule is fucking embarassing this year, and it’s made Tebow look like a heisman trophy winner. That ends on Saturday. With Caldwell out Florida is going to suffer. Combine that with Tebow’s fullback-as-a-quarterback style of play, and this being his first full game against any sort of competition, I expect bad things to happen to Florida.

Tennessee 25 – Florida 14.

Alabama vs. Arkansas

This is a matchup of whose team is going to have a meltdown first. With Nutt’s job on the line, I think ‘Bama fans will learn what it is to have Nick Saban coached team this weekend. ‘Bama will put up a good fight until the third quarter, when the Tide inexplicably give up against Nutt’s Arkansas team. It happened many times against LSU, and it’s going to happen many times at Alabama or anywhere else Nick Saban coaches.  You’ll have some very satisfying upsets, and some very upsetting games against teams you’re supposed to beat, and go .500 against evenly matched teams.

Notre Dame vs. Michigan

Notre Dame has the worst offensive line in NCAA division 1 football. They’ve given up 14 sacks.  Not even Michigan can fuck this up. The media will finally stop talking about Lloyd Carr getting fired after the Wolverines nail Claussen to the turf.

Ohio State vs. Washington

Notre Dame finds out what a mistake it was to fire Ty Willingham, as the Huskies go 3-0, upsetting the Buckeyes this weekend.

UCLA vs. Utah

Karl Dorrell goes 2-0.

USC vs. Nebraska

We find out how good Booty is — I suspect we find out that he’s really not that good. I think USC loses a close one.

Florida State vs. Colorado

Jimbo Fisher’s offense plays intermurals and takes another shit on the field, leaving Florida State fans to talk about how great they were 10 years ago.

Louisville vs. Kentucky

Andre Woodson and Rafael Little combine for 100 points against a Louisville defense that allowed 41 points to MTSU.

Hawaii vs. UNLV

Just kidding, we’re not watching. Nobody cares how many points Colt Brennan scores. Nobody.

Week 2 Recap: Apology to Brandon Lafell

I owe an apology to Brandon Lafell. Not for anything I’ve written or said, but just for thinking that one of the Mitchell’s, Dixon, Byrd, or that Tolliver would take his spot as the #2 receiver. Lafell clearly stepped up his game yesterday, averaging almost 18 yards per catch against the #1 ranked defense in the NCAA over the past two years. I was mostly right on my assumptions:

1) Virginia Tech’s defense is over-rated: Judging Virginia Tech’s defense based on a schedule of comprised of unimpressive ACC offenses (except Clemson) and a couple of non conference all-girls high schools is like judging Hawaii’s offense with their schedule. It’s great to be flashy, but it only matters when it’s against good teams. That’s why Reggie Bush looks awesome in college, but Joe Addai is better in the pros — it’s the schedule. I don’t give a fuck if former date rapist Colt Brennan throws for a 1000 yards in a game if it comes against Louisiana Tech. I just don’t. Throw for 195 yards against Texas and I’ll listen.

2) LSU’s Defense dominated because of their inexperience of VA Tech’s offensive line: Sean Glennon didn’t do VaTech any favors, but he wasn’t nearly as bad as Mike Henig, and Brandon Ore is a really really good running back. They’ve got a young O-line, and LSU has the best front 7 in college.

3) Virginia Tech averaged 13.41 yards per drive. I predicted 15. If you take away Virginia Tech’s 1 good drive, they averaged 8 yards. The coaching and the execution sucked.

4) LSU won in a blowout because Matt Flynn made the right decisions and Brandon Lafell emerged as a solid #2 receiver. I am happy for Lafell. The fact that he is still able to compete with all of the talent that Les Miles has brought into the program means that he’s worked really hard on improving his game. I’m proud that he’s a tiger.

Other than that, I’m really impressed with the way that LSU’s staff prepared our tigers, and extremely impressed with Gary Crowton. It’s amazing to see the difference between he and Jimbo Fisher. I’m also really happy with the play of Ryan Perrilloux. He is a solid backup, and will make huge contributions to the program as time goes on.

In other news around the NCAA:

Michigan lost to Oregon. I was convinced that Michigan would fire Lloyd Carr at halftime and would hire Mike Bellotti. I was unimpressed that Bellotti kept Dixon in the game so long, I thought that move lacked class. But as Spurrier would say, “If you don’t want me to score on ‘ya, play defense”.

Oklahoma beat the shit out of Miami. The ACC not looking so great this year, but while you can judge the ACC on Virginia Tech who is a great team and lost to an awesome team this week, you can’t really judge the ACC on the performance of Miami — it would be like judging the SEC based on Alabama.

Nebraska barely beat Wake Forest. You gotta feel for Wake’s coach losing the way he has the last 2 weeks.

UCLA beat BYU. Look out for the Bruins, they are going to surprise some people by the end of the year.

Cal beat Colorado State. I think Cal is the #1 team in the Pac 10. USC has shown me nothing by scheduling Idaho, while Cal has throttled two good teams.

Florida killed Troy. In another move that lacked class, Herban Meyer kept Tebow in the entire game. Herban has proved that he is the #1 asshole in coaching, and is inevitably going to learn the hard way that you need to put in your backups. I can’t wait to see him cry like a bitch after we pummel Florida this year.

South Carolina beat Georgia. Yawn. Why was Georgia even ranked? Or Favored? Never underestimate the Ole ball coach.

Hawaii needed overtime to beat La Tech. If they go undefeated they shouldn’t go to the MNC game. All of Colt Brennan’s statistics are irrelevant because he plays on a team that doesn’t play anybody.

Penn State beat Notre Dame. The Claussen children suck at football. It was fun to see Jimmy get jacked up a few times. How’s your 4 national championship prediction working out now Jimmy? You’re the Ryan Leaf of football.

Auburn lost to USF. Auburn is a major disappointment this year. It hurts the entire SEC when one of our teams loses to a Big East team.

Washington beat Cinderella. Notre Dame should have never let go of Ty Willingham.

Alabama beat Vandy. That’s too bad, I was hoping Bobby Johnson would go 2-0 against Bama in the last 2 years. I was hoping Bama would win because that helps our SOS.

Colorado lost to Arizona State. After starting the game 14-0, the Buffs let Arizona score 33 unanswered points. Hawkins was terrible. Oh well.

LSU vs. Virginia Tech: Poking the Hokies

ESPN hype coverage is never a bad thing, just ask heisman winner / 5th round draft pick Troy Smith. That said, I’m getting a little tired of ESPN’s 2 teams / 2 tragedies theme surrounding this weeks game. Yes, both communities had something very, very, very bad happen in recent history, but these incidents aren’t really comparable. This week the message boards were on fire about “treating visiting fans with respect”, more so than I’ve ever seen in the years that I’ve been an LSU fan. Other than the shootings, what makes Virginia Tech any different from Ole Miss, Florida, Auburn, or Alabama? That’s right — SEC teams don’t cancel return trips.

I’ve been to Tiger Stadium numerous times since I graduated, but after a few years of living in the northeast I’ve also been to many games in Gillete stadium, Giants stadium, and Soldier field. There’s a few assholes in every crowd, but for the most part the only difference is that LSU fans are actually more welcoming than their counterparts in the pros. There are going to be some assholes on Saturday night, but I’m guessing that if you’re reading this you’re probably not one of them, so get fired up and give ‘em hell!!!

On to the preview: if you know what’s going to happen in this game, you’re lying. Both teams have great defenses, and both teams have a few questions on offense.

When VT has the ball:

Sean Glennon said that he doesn’t like to play in loud noise. That’s your cue to start yelling. Don’t think, just yell. VT is currently rebuilding their offensive line, so you can’t really judge them based on last year’s numbers. Ore is a good running back, and Sam Wheeler and Eddie Royal are both solid when it comes to catching passes, but somebody’s got to block for them to be effective. Some fans think Sergio Render called out Glen Dorsey this week, but I think the kid is probably just not media savvy and his words probably just got twisted. All he said was that “I’m not afraid of him, anybody can be pancaked”. Sure, it’s cocky coming from a member of a unit that gave up 4 sacks against Eastern Carolina, but maybe he’s just not that bright — he’s an o-lineman for christ’s sake not a Rhodes scholar.

Given the losses on last year’s hokie offensive line, and looking at how Virginia tech did against tougher teams last year, I can’t really see them averaging more than 15 yards per drive.

Advantage: LSU

When LSU has the ball:

Our offensive line looked like shit against Mississippi State. I’m worried about the same thing this week given the high profile Hokie defense. The only thing I will say is that judging VT’s defense on statistics is like judging Hawaii’s offense — you have to take into account their schedule. That said, they have a solid group of linebackers and a good defensive line, which, with our offensive line, will inevitably force us to pass the ball. Matt Flynn will need to make quick decisions. If Matt makes the right decisions, and either Tolliver or Lafell can step up their play to be a #2 receiver, we will blow Virginia Tech out of the stadium. Our depth at running back will help us out in the second half of the game when Virginia Tech’s defense gets worn down.

Advantage: Slight edge to LSU

Game Prediction: This game will be close, very very very close at the end of the first half – probably tied at 10. LSU’s depth at running back will be the deciding factor in this game. IF Tolliver, Dickson, Dixon, and Lafell can emerge as solid receiving options, and IF Gary Crowton’s trick plays for Trindon Holliday don’t work and he is able to adjust his game plan accordingly, LSU will win 34-10. However, if we can’t get the passing game going and have to rely on our running backs, LSU wins a close one, 17-10.

IN OTHER NEWS: Louisville allows 41 points from Middle Tennessee State and we’re supposed to take the Big East seriously? Also, will someone take Lou Holtz out to a retirement home where he belongs?

Week 1 Recap

LSU fans, be happy that after week 1, we are 1-0 in the SEC West divisional race, with no injuries. Not only that, we scored 45 points, and forced 7 turnovers. I don’t understand why a lot of fans are downplaying LSU’s 45-0 victory over Mississippi State last Thursday, others are angry and upset about our performance last Thursday night. If y’all can’t be happy over a 45-0 shutout over a divisional conference rival, you should just stop watching football all together.

Yes, I know it’s Mississippi State. Yes, I know that their QB Mike Henig threw 7 interceptions. Yes, I too was surprised that our offensive line got rolled a couple of times by the Mississippi State defensive line, but for christ’s sake, we won 45-0. I wonder what Mississippi State’s record would be if they were a mid-major team, if we’d still be laughing at them if they only had to play against the Tulane’s, SMU’s, and the UL-L’s of the world. Before I get to the rest of the NCAA action, let’s get to the breakdown of the Mississippi State Game:

The good: Our defense was unstoppable. Any time you force 7 turnovers, you’re doing something right — Bo Pelini’s coverages tricked and confused young Henig. Early Doucet and Terrence Tolliver both looked pretty good (although Tolliver only had one catch), and Lafell looks like a hell of a blocker after game 1. Hopefully we’ll see more hits like that as the season progresses. Did anyone else think that Perrillouz looked pretty good?

The Bad: Our offensive line. What the fuck was that? Well, we’ve got a new o-line coach, and a MUCH more complex offensive scheme — I assure you that coach Miles and his staff will make some corrections before week 2 when Virginia Tech comes to visit.

The Ugly: Our trick plays didn’t work. I assume that part of this is due to the new offensive scheme, and part of this is due to an improved Mississipi State defense.

Key Takeaways: While the media pundits mock Les Miles (did anyone see the Cal – Tennesse game last week?) and diminish us by saying “LSU doesn’t look much like a #2 team”, we did an awesome job last weekend. I think we found out just how clutch Jamarcus Russell is. LSU had the widest margin of victory against any opponent from a BCS conference last weekend. It’s sickening that teams are allowed to feed on weaker teams like they do, at least most of them played their backups — I have no problem with running up the score so long as you have your #2 and #3 teams a shot at playing. Here’s how the other half lived:

USC Defeats Idaho by 28 points: What? The trojans didn’t cover the spread? No shit. And their Defense gave up 10 points to a non BCS team? Color me skeptical. By the way, I did catch that run by McKnight over the weekend. Let’s see him do that against a Pac-10, SEC, ACC, or Big 10 defense, then I’ll be convinced. I think we have all we need with Keiland Williams.

West Virginia, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Louisville, Alabama crush weaker opponents: Good job — call me when you stop playing high schools and crush a big boy team. Pussies.

Michigan loses to a weaker opponent, season ended: I hope the media keeps talking about Les Miles as if he is the worst coach ever so that we get to keep him.

Cal beats Tennessee: I was really impressed with Cal this week. There is no reason why they shouldn’t be ranked #1 going into week 2. But….that’s why we shouldn’t have rankings until week 6. By the way, Nick Saban wasn’t able to keep Lavelle Hawkins around – and you still think he’s a great recruiter? Have you seen what he left ‘ol Les with on the O-Line, a position that takes about four years to develop? Y’all are out of your fucking mind.

Florida State hires an all-star staff of coaches, constantly good at recruiting, and get rolled by Clemson: The more I look at the Jimbo Fisher situation, the more I think he was asked to leave by Miles. He was unimpressive at LSU with the talent we had, and looked terrible with all of the 5 star talent that FSU has.