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Do The Florida Gators Deserve To Play For The BCS Championship?

Bwana — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 02:17:55 +0000

Photo courtesy of Reuters

Tonight, the Florida Gators handed the Alabama Crimson Tide their first loss of the season. This college football game was one of the best SEC championship games in recent history. Florida and Alabama traded leads throughout the game and the momentum shifted so much, it was hard to tell who would pull it out.

The scoring breakdown shows it was a story of quarters:

Alabama took the first and third quarters, while Florida owned the second and fourth quarters. In the end, Florida stepped up when it mattered. I was on Twitter (via my iPhone) expressing my thoughts, and tweeted this when Florida was down 20 – 17 at the end of the third quarter:

As it turns out, the Gators scored that drive and held Alabama to 0 points in the 4th quarter. An impressive win to say the least, but is it enough? Is this win enough to propel the 4th ranked Florida Gators above the 3rd ranked Texas to play for the BCS National Title? As a Florida Gator fan, of course I believe the Gators are a better team than anyone in the country, so let’s just get that out there right now. Texas is a great team, Oklahoma is a great time, heck, Penn State and USC are great teams and no one is really talking about it?

It’s hard to say which is the better team without playing it on the field. Fortunately, Oklahoma and Texas have already settled the dispute, so if Oklahoma wins tonight, they should definitely be in. But, it’s not clear that Florida should jump two spots for beating the #1 team in the nation by 11 points in the conference championship. The only way to make this clear is to implement a playoff system. Keep the BCS, but put the top 4 teams in a playoff system to play during December when teams are usually off. Please. This is only definitive way to answer this question.

With the current system however, I believe the Florida Gators should be in the BCS title game. Is it fair? Of course not. It’s not fair to Penn State, USC, Texas, and all the other 1 loss teams who feel they should be playing for it all. (including Alabama) I’ll be watching the Oklahoma/Missouri game closely and if Missou wins, it’s going to be interesting to see who plays against Florida in the title game. We’ll see.

The next obvious question is, should Tim Tebow be seriously considered as a Heisman trophy repeat? Hmmmmmmmm

New England Patriots Vexed By College Formations

Bwana — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:24:02 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve written about football, whether it be college or professional, but this topic was brewing my belly and I had to get it out. The Miami Dolphins surprised everyone yesterday as they trounced the New England Patriots, 38 – 13. One of the big topics around the New England Patriots has been their lack of Tom Brady, but this story has very little to do with that in my opinion. Yesterday, Ronnie Brown, the Dolphins Running Back, managed to score 4 touchdowns and throw another one. The surprising part is not that he was able to score so many, but he scored them all from the same formation!

In college football, it is common to see a speedy wide receiver or running back take a direct snap from the center and run the ball. Darren McFadden did it at Arkansas, while Percy Harvin did it a few times last year for the Florida Gators. I’ve seen it so many times and I can’t name all the teams who have done it, but those two stood out. This particular formation where a running back or receiver takes the snap, fakes a hand-off to an in-motion receiver/running back is what killed New England yesterday. Sure, New England’s offense was less than stellar as Matt Cassel tries to fill Tom Brady’s shoes, but the obvious flaw yesterday was New England’s defense. Was it the coaching or the players? Why couldn’t New England adjust to such a common formation in football? Granted, I haven’t seen it done in the NFL that often, but I’m sure these coaches have seen it before somewhere. Right? Right?

Ronnie Brown had his way with New England’s defense and as a Dolphin fan, I was perplexed more than excited. It made no sense. How can a modern day NFL team give up that many yards, that many touchdowns, by the same player in the same formation. Not to mention, throw a touchdown with it. Randy Moss told reporters the Patriots “have a lot of work to do” during their bye week. I think that’s an understatement.

super bowl over – my thoughts

SEC Has Heart

Bwana — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 06:40:07 +0000

One thing I noticed tonight from the LSU Tigers in their victory over Ohio State for the BCS National Title game, is that they had heart. Heart? Yes, heart. Ohio State came out firing on all cylinders and it would have been easy for LSU to crumble under the pressure and spotlight. But as I heard one analyst say, LSU is from the SEC and they’re used to hard fought games. This brings me to my point. The SEC (Southeastern Conference) has most of the “heart” in college football. Heart meaning “desire” and “drive” to win under the grueling circumstances.

Take a look at LSU’s schedule and the amount of games they had to claw through to win. They had overtime victories, overtime losses, nail biters left and right. You can believe, in each of those games, they felt the heat. They felt the pressure. LSU demonstrated what premier programs in the SEC such as Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, and now Kentucky (!) already know. To win in the SEC, you can never give up. I’m not taking anything away from the Big 10, the Pac 10, or any other conferences, but it’s hard to deny the amount of heart the SEC has shown last year and this year.

Here’s to hoping the BCS is fixed in the coming years so the matchups for the national title are correct. But that’s a whole new topic

Nokia E61 – Pulling My Heart Strings