Five Reasons Why....

With all the hype surrounding next week's SEC title game, I thought I'd offer my reasons why Alabama is going to defeat Florida.





It's big, there's no denying that. The biggest Conference championship game since before 2003 (that's how far back ESPN.com goes, and I don't feel like going any farther) features 1 vs. 2/3 (depending on the polls). Tim Tebow's last SEC football game. The Alabama-Florida game, televised live at 4 eastern on CBS Saturday, is a match of Olympian proportions. These are my "Five Reasons Why...." Alabama will be the next SEC champion.





1. Alabama can play close, and come from behind to win. As evidenced by Friday night's Auburn game, the Tide knows how to come back from behind. In Florida's closest game (23-20 over Arkansas), they needed the help of some poor officiating calls to win.



2. Speaking of officiating...After getting that help against Arkansas, Urban Meyer decided that the refs weren't performing up to par. He criticized them. And got punished by the SEC. If the game is at all close, which it most likely will be, look for the refs to punish Urban too. There could be a controversial call or two going in Alabama's favor.

3. Tide wins with turnovers. Unless you're the New Orleans Saints, a positive turnover margin is a must-have for winning a football game. Bama's is a +15, while the gators have a margin of only +8 for the season. I'll take the Crimson Crusaders on the turnover battle. Their +15 is even more impressive when they're doing it in a close-game situation. I would expect the team that dominates its opponents more to have a better turnover margin.

4. Florida has a bad character record. from Brandon Spikes' on-field incident (look at the link, in the first line of the fourth paragraph, horrible grammatical error) to the most recent off-field driving violation, the Gators don't seem to be dedicated to playing clean ball. Sure, Bama has recently been on probation, but their offenses were seemingly minor compared to eye-gouging and drunk driving. The affect on the Championship will be merely through the media, but I still have a problem thinking that the arrest of a starting D-lineman will not help the Gators on the field at all.



5. Bama has more names. Sure, Superman wears Florida blue, but he's one person. And last time I checked, there's no I in team. Nope, still none. Sure Brandon Spikes is a force on defense, but the gators at this moment are out of big game receivers. If Percy Harvin hadn't gone pro, this argument would be a moot point. When I think the Crimson Tide, I think McElroy, Ingram, Julio Jones, Leigh Tiffin (he's the kicker, and he's pretty dang good if you don't follow them), Rolando McClain, more athletes. And the fact that Bama can convert these superstars to play together as a team, that means a lot. And as I mentioned here, when a team doesn't revolve around one (or two) players, they win.



Because I've been thinking....Random Ruminations:



>Were Colts coach Jim Caldwell to retire today, he would be the winningest coach to go undefeated with one team (Wally Lemm went 10-0 with the Oilers after they fired Lou Rymkus in 1961).



>I'm worrying about the WTA. It took them two and a half months to fine Serena Williams for her September 12 tirade. Perhaps it's the worst-run professional organization other than the NBA (with dress code Nazi David Stern) or MLB (are steriods really against the rules? are you sure? because everyone's still doing them).



>Is this the end for Tiger "Count Olaf" Woods? A series of unfortunate events seems to have descended upon the great golfer. Maybe it's Jack "Don't call me Nicholson" Nicklaus's way of telling Tiger, "I'm the best. you won't beat my records. If you try, I will beat you. Or your knee. Or your car."



>The Titans aren't going to the playoffs. Until they are in contention in week 17, I won't say that they will.


>As if anyone was in doubt that this would happen ten weeks ago, Charlie Weis is officially no longer the coach at The Dame of Notres. Shocker. As soon as they started discussing potential candidates to replace his job (about three weeks ago) I knew he was done.


>In other no-longer-coaching news, Bobby Bowden retired two days ago. This officially makes JoePa the greatest old man in football.


>And I'm not done yet! Bill Walsh made it to the Hall of Fame with a 102-63-1 record coaching the 49ers (including 3 Super Bowl victories). His successor, George Seifert, coached the Niners to two more championships, more career wins, and a better winning percentage for the seven years he was the coach in the Bay Area. He is not in the Hall. This needs to be amended.


>I'm surprised Dennis Dixon kept the Steelers in the game against Baltimore. It impressed me that the Oregon product wasn't phased throwing to people wearing the same jersey they wore when he completed his first NFL pass.

As we get nearer the playoffs, I will post all you possibly need to know about them.

-cth

So…random nfl stuff

To start out, i discovered this video today of al davis discussing lane kiffin’s firing. Kinda redundant, kinda redundant (oh did i mention it was redundant?), kinda funny. It was interesting…al davis has def lost his brain

Also…how bout them titans! An amazingly hilarious yet pitiful 47-10 domination of Detroit was just the start of the routs to see that weekend, dallas 34-9 over seattle, philly 48-20 over Arizona, ole miss and Alabama shutting out msu 45-0 and auburn 36-0, respectfully in the egg and iron bowls. Texas ran over a&m and the gay-tors beat fsu 38-15 i believe…other nfl creaming were Baltimore 34-3 over Cincinnati giants 23-7 vs Washington, Pittsburgh beating the pats 33-10, and minnesota’s 34-14 defeat of Chicago.

So everything’s going great…just finished duty roster for room in the inn and final English paper…about the bcs and a possible playoff situation…cloning paper got a 100 so i was pretty pumped about that. Christmas tree’s up…not ornamented or anything…gonna wait til after Saturday (12/13) to do that. My schedule’s pretty much booked up til then.

Other than that i’m takin it easy not stressin to much…well, that’s a blatant lie. I’m totally worried about midstate Sunday…my sax teacher randomly decides he has something to do on the day of my lesson three days before auditions…so i’m freakin out about that…and practice didn’t go to well yesterday…so yeah…

Guess that’s it for now…

Until later

-cth

how bout them (wyoming) cowboys!

so, i was at black eyed peas, when a newspaper article in The Tennessean caught my attention: Vols sink to new low, fall 13-7 to Wyoming

wyoming? seriously? no way.

i read on.

"In a season full of Big Orange surprises, UT unveiled an absolute stunner. Playing one of the worst teams in all of college football, the Volunteers stumbled, bumbled and fumbled their way to one of the program's worst losses ever."

wow...that's rough...

continuing my read, i saw:

"Wyoming entered Neyland Stadium as a 26-point underdog and a perceived homecoming doormat, but exited victorious with a 13-7 win front of an embarrassed crowd of 99,489.
It was the first game for UT since Monday's announcement that Coach Phillip Fulmer would not return next season. The Vols were attempting to ride a wave of emotion entering the game, but instead left riding a three-game losing streak.
"Obviously it's been a really hard week on everybody," Fulmer said. "(The players) don't owe me any kind of apology. If anything, I owe it to them and to the fans for this whole week coming about."

well, i needed read no further. it was all in front of me, wyoming. wyoming? beating ut? dang...i began to laugh.

"ha! that's great. i need to remind all my ut crazy fans whenever i see them!"

i guess it was my way of dealing with a tennessee tragedy. i really am supporting of the vols, though, as i mentioned here, i'm not as big a fan as i used to be. other people will treat the game differently, but i think ridicule will be the way i handle it.

oh well, there's another vandy win...so we'll at least be bowl eligible...

florida rant (blog one of who knows how many tonight)

so i'm sitting @ work w/ nothing to do..so i'm blogging...

my first topic is the florida gators...

can't say much becase they are three times better (yes i did the math, 42/14=3) than my vanderbilt commodores...but i've gotta say what i've gotta say...

first, my favorite thing about the gators fans is that it seems the only thing they know how to do in a football stadium is the gator chomp. sure, the've got varying speeds (even during the same pep band song), but that's about the only variation on the thing. i was so tempted to do a tomahawk chop, but refrained...at least tennessee fans can sing in the same tempo...but anyway, it started getting annoying and i didn't see much of the game...five minutes at most...

now that i've gotten that out, i really don't have much more to say...pretty much, tim tebow is a beast...Tebow:college football::Michael Phelps:olympic swimming...he's got a hard task ahead of him in the nfl though...traditionally former heisman winners (Jason Campbell, Chris Wienke, and ERic Crouch for example) and former Florida qb's (chris leak and rex grossman, for example) have had troubles in the bigs...

i had a load of fun mouthing off with a florida fan i had never met before...i said "tim tebow's overrated!" just to get a rise out of someone...he said "Yeah, does vandy even have a football team? or is it just vanderbilt high school!" i couldn't think of a comeback fast enough...so that was that...i guess it was all for the better...

anyway, i'll continue to root for my vanderbilt commodores, pulling for an 8-4 season and a trip to the peach or liberty bowl...maybe even cotton or outback...but definitely a bowl game...

next blog: how bout them (wyoming) cowboys!!!

stuff

titans are 8-0!!!!!! i'm super pumped and ready to see the bears get destroyed. it's gonna be no contest...grossman won the game for chicago last week, so naturally he's gonna suck this week. he's consistently inconsistent! so anyway, it's great...election's coming up today and i don't have a favorite i'm gonna go along with what everyone here says...mccain wins tennessee, obama wins the nation. i'll be playin around w/ the magic map on cnn.com...here's the link: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/calculator/. we'll see what happens...blog to come probably thursday on the result...all i know is that whoever wins, he's my president, and i will support him. so that's the long and the short of it.

iverson traded to the pistons, billups goes to denver...really i don't care about the nba until the playoffs...and then only with mild interest...so it's really no big deal to me.

otherwise, guess everything else is going just fine, visited tech on thursday and wasn't all that impressed...but i got out of school, so it was worth it! saw several mhms grads and that was nice. halloween was fun and so was this weekend....but now that i'm thinking saturday, i'm thinking college football, which reminds me...

FULMER'S LEAVING UT!!!!!! that was very shocking. that man has been the face of tennessee football for two decades now, and his leaving means that that will no longer be the case. i'm more of a vandy fan now, but it still hurts. firing a coach with several conference championships and two national championship appearances after one bad season...even though they tentatively have one of the best recruiting classes in the nation for next year...doesn't make sense...next thing you know they'll fire bruce pearl for not making it to the final four. oh, well, stuff happens...

vandy plays florida next week...make it four losses in a row...after a 5-0 start...classic vandy football in the second half of the season. until next time, i'll be rejoicing, comiserating, and remembering some more stuff to write about...

-cth

UPSET SPECIAL!!!

well, starting with #1 usc losing to oregon state, #4 florida, #9 Wisconsin, #16 Wake Forest (are you seeing the same pattern i'm seeing?), #20 Clemson, and #23 ECU lost to unranked teams, and #3 Georgia fell to #8 Alabama by a score of 41-30 last night. Other ranked teams losing were #24 TCU to #2 Oklahoma and #22 Illinois against #12 Penn State. Winning teams were #2 Oklahoma, #5 LSU, #7 Texas, #12 PSU, #13 South Florida, #14 Ohio State, #15 Auburn, #17 Utah, and #25 Fresno. Idle in the top 25 were #6 Missouri, #10 Texas Tech, #11 Brigham Young, #18 Kansas, #19 Boise St, and #21 Vanderbilt. with all the facts before you, I now present my top 25, from 25 to 1

25. Clemson (3-2, lost to Maryland 20-17)
24. UConn (5-0, Defeated Louisville 26-21)
23. Wake Forest (3-1, lost to Navy 24-17)
22.Virginia Tech (4-1, defeated Nebraska 35-30)
21. Oklahoma State (4-0, defeated Troy 55-24)

20. Oregon (4-1, defeated Washington State 63-14)
19. Fresno State (3-1, defeated UCLA 36-31)
18. Vanderbilt (4-0, Idle)
17. Boise State (3-0, Idle)
16. Kansas (3-1, Idle)

15. Utah (5-0, defeated Weber State 37-21)
14. Georgia (4-1, lost to #8 Alabama 41-30)
13. Auburn (4-1, Defeated Tennessee 14-12)
12. Ohio State (4-1, defeated Minnesota 34-21)
11. South Florida (5-0, defeated NC State 41-10)

10. Penn State (5-0, defeated #22 Illinois 38-24)
9. Florida (3-1, lost to Mississippi 31-30)
8. BYU (4-0, Idle)
7. USC (2-1, lost to Oregon State 27-21)
6. Texas Tech (4-0, Idle)

5. Alabama (5-0, defeated #3 Georgia 41-30)
4. Missouri (4-0, Idle)
3. LSU (4-0, defeated Mississippi State 34-24)
2. Texas (5-0, defeated Arkansas 52-10)
1. Oklahoma (5-0, defeated #24 TCU 35-10)

Teams in top 25 by conference

SEC- 6
Big XII-6
ACC- 3
PAC-10- 2
Big Ten- 2
WAC- 2
Mountain West- 2
Big East- 2

that's it for now...nfl blog to come later in the week