Casey thought it was about time that I write a Bowl season round-up, so I said “Yes, boss, how fast do you want that? I’ll drop everything and get right on it”. Well, it actually didn’t go like that, but after I stopped cussin’ and throwin’ things, this is what came out. It’s kinda like the “egg surprise” dish I cook on Saturday mornings … ya never know what’s gonna be in there and it’s definitely just thrown together. It’s kinda like a goulash made with New Years Eve leftovers. So let’s call it “Wally’s Soup Bowl” … a concoction of random thoughts and observations 90% of the way through the college football bowl season. Use a fork … it’s chunky.
· The Rose Bowl was quite disappointing, as many of the readers pointed out. Yes, USC was opportunistic and PSU quite mistake prone. BUT … the Trojans are clearly the better football team, especially on offense, and I’ll maintain that if we had an actual CFB Playoff, they’d be the most feared team in the brackets. If the Trojans truly come to play, I don’t think anyone else in the nation is better. What impresses me the most is that when they are pressed (e.g. the other team scores … which is rare), they come right back and usually answer with a quick score of their own.
· In the Baseball Bowl, a/k/a the Sun Bowl, Oregon State whipped the Pittsburgh Pirates … er uh Panthers … 3-0 behind stellar pitching from Randy Johnson. The Beavers tried to play small ball, but had to settle for Earl Weaver’s favorite … the 3 run home run. This game was truly the stinker of the bowl season thus far. Three to nothin’?!?!?
-
The Feel Good story of the Bowl Season: Vandy beats Boston College for their first bowl win in 53 years. Vandy hadn’t even played in a bowl game since 1982. (And we all thought ND’s infamous streak was bad).
-
Biggest Surprises thus far:
o Ga Tech losing 38-3 to LSU in Atlanta. What happened???
o The PAC 10 is 5-0 in bowl games. Arizona over BYU, Cal over Miami, Oregon over OK State, Oregon St over Pitt, USC big over Penn State.
o Notre Dame played very well for 60 mins and won impressively
o Ole Miss handily beat Texas Tech today. I’m nuts about Houston Nutt!
· Toilet Bowl Awards go to Ga Tech (see above), Steve Spurrier and South Carolina for getting manhandled by Iowa, and also to the Big 10 conference for going 1-5 thus far and looking bad doing it. Ohio State still has to play Texas.
· Predictions for games yet to be played (as of 5pm EST):
o Sugar Bowl: Alabama over Utah 20-17. But I won’t be shocked to see an upset.
o International: Buffalo (who else?) over UConn 24-17
o Fiesta Bowl: Texas beats Ohio State 28-17. Beanie turns into a weenie.
o GMAC: Ball State over Tulsa by a lot to slightly less. Hey, it’s the year of the Cardinals.
o BCS National Chan’ship: Florida edges Oklahoma 31-27. This game boils down to Florida’s defense being better than OU’s, and by a larger margin than OU’s offense is better than FLA’s. So we’ll test the axiom that “Defense wins chan’ships”.
· Closing thoughts:
o Ya know, this is not my father’s college football. Heck, this isn’t even my college football. I have to ask … WHERE’S THE DEFENSE?!?!?!?! From all 31 Bowl games completed as of this moment, the average number of points scored by the winning team is 31.4, or 32.3 if you remove the Oregon St/Pitt debacle. Back in the day, 32+ points was extremely high and the average felt more like the mid 20’s. I think all these wide open spread offenses have not really been solved by anyone … except maybe USC and TCU. Instead, coaches seem content to focus on their own offense and try to outscore the other guy.
o If there were an “And One Game” to decide the chan’ship, I suspect we’d be seeing USC play the winner of FLA/OK and that would be quite interesting, wouldn’t it? I’m still ticked that Oklahoma is in that game at the expense of Texas. If we’re gonna continue to live in this world of opinion pools and computer rankings, then there has to be more weight placed on head to head results, in my opinion. Texas should be playing FLA!!!
Hope y’all liked the soup. Enjoy the rest of the games … and let me know where I went wrong on the Soup Bowl recipe. Happy New Year to everyone!
Wally
So far, even before the BCS, there are two teams with a legitimate claim to the national championship:
USC – see what Wally said above.
Utah – only undefeated team in FBS, finished their season by decisively defeating the team that was #1 in the BCS rankings for weeks 10-14. That’s about 1/3 of the season, folks. Alabama may not be as good as Florida or Oklahoma, but if Penn State had remained undefeated and capped their season by beating Alabama, the BCS would have awarded them the championship. The real point is that Utah proved they deserved a shot at the title.
If we had a playoff, USC would probably win, but then USC will probably be the AP national champion anyway, so they don’t need a playoff. If Texas beats OSU, then it is a strong indication that the were cheated, but OSU is due for a good bowl eventually, so maybe this is their year. A playoff might have helped Texas, but they would have fared better just on a vote if decisions were made on 12/5/08. I’m always arguing against that playoff system – they call it “beating a dead horse”. All that aside, Wally you seem right on the money. Average points seem way up, 3-0 is an embarrassing score, and we should all be nuts about Houston Nutt. The inconsistency of his team this year probably points to their lack of talent. The performances in big games says coaching is a factor. They handed FL their only loss. They were nipped by 4 by AL. They kicked LSU all over the field. Ole Miss has not known such glory since the days of Archie Manning. Houston Nutt’s team is going to be an SEC force to be reckoned with in the upcoming years. He was on his way to that same success at Arkansas when there was some kind of falling out. Too bad for Arkansas, great for Mississippi. Chas, your points are “woulda, coulda, shoulda”, but I think your scenario is indeed accurate. You know, all this would be simpler if ND would just go undefeated. Then we wouldn’t need bowls or a playoff, or plus-one. We could just crown the rightful champion!
How about heart break of the year? What Wally – no mention of Northwestern. What a killer to lose because of a missed extra point. They held Chase Daniel in check for much of that game.
It will be a challenge for these final bowls to provide as much entertainment as the earlier ‘not as important’ games. Like Smitty said before the TCU/Boise St. matchup was great. As was the Humanitarian Bowl – Maryland vs. Nevada. The Gator Bowl was good stuff – Nebraska and Clemson. I caught the second half of Oregon and Ok. St.. That was pretty exciting.
By the way – this whole idea of Wally referring to me as ‘boss’? I don’t know how I feel about that. For the record – I told him no rush. If you post by Saturday night, it would be great. 🙂
Great job Wally!!!!!!!!!
Casey … you’re the “Editor-In-Chief” for the site, so I was just displaying due respect.
Re: Northwestern … sure I was disappointed they didn’t pull out the W … but for a bunch of smart kids, they sure pulled a blunder by punting right to Maclin at end of 1st half … and of course he took it to the house and totally changed a game that had been dominated by NW. I thought Mizzou’s defense was actually the story of the 2nd half … or NW played a bit scared and didn’t execute.
Actually, my real heartbreak was Boise State’s loss. So close …. they didn’t play their best game and they lost to a VERY GOOD TCU squad. Had they won, they would’ve been undefeated for the 3rd time in 5 years.
Which takes us to Chas’s point about Utah. Let me take you back to somewhere in the 1980’s when BYU was awarded the Nat’l Chan’ship after an undefeated season. That year, nobody else was undefeated and all BYU had to do on Bowl Day was beat a thrice defeated and quite pedestrian Michigan squad in the Holiday Bowl. Now that was a very good BYU team, but they really hadn’t proven it on the “big stage” against a real quality opponent. Now take Utah … undefeated at 13-0 with wins at Michigan, at Air Force, Oregon St, TCU and yesterday a dominating victory over Alabama in THE SUGAR BOWL!!! This team undoubtedly deserves a bunch of #1 votes, if not the outright AP award. One important thing I’ve got to say … I believe that a team’s “body of work” for the entire season ought to be the overriding, dominant factor when voting for the champion. I do not believe it should be “the team who is playing the best right now”. I’d much prefer that this was decided on the field, but in the absence of head-to-head matchup or a playoff, I think it’s the entire body of work that should matter most. If you agree with me, then Utah is your champ right now.
I forgot that Utah had beaten Oregon St, one of the best teams in the apparently under-rated Pac-10. Don’t forget BYU and Colorado St, Wally. That makes them 6-0 vs. bowl teams and 2-0 vs. top 10 teams, assuming TCU moves up after their bowl win. Still not as tough a schedule as the big boys, but as Wally said, much more worthy of a national championship than that ’80s BYU team.
Shouldn’t you wait till pitchers and catchers report before giving your bowl season roundup? Bowl season has turned into a joke with the games spread out into the 2nd week in January……And Utah should be #1. Hopefully there will be a big drop off for them when they come to SB in 2010…
Boog! You’re alive! Welcome back to the bench!
Boog Powell?!?
I’m with Boog on the Bowl season being spread out waaaaay too much. I totally flubbed the Sugar Bowl. Got my dates mixed up and missed that one. Of all games to miss?
Hey Boog when are we invited for the Bar-B-Que? 🙂
Casey –
Steve “Boog” Powell is fellow fomer ND pitcher now living in Bakersfield, CA. We spent weekend with him in Seattle for ND vs Washington game. Big BoSox fan … unfortunately 🙁
Oh sweet!!!!!
Boog – Welcome to ‘the Bench’. Please come back often. 🙂