Game Thread: Early bowl games no one cares about but will watch anyway catchall

[Krymsonman]

10-3 Louisville goes down 42-28 to 7-5 USC.

 

[uafan4life]

10-3 Louisville goes down 42-28 to 7-5 USC.

Louisville is no more a Top-15 team than I'm both Henry VIII and Benjamin Franklin...

 

[Ole Man Dan]

The New Mexico State team that trashed Jordan-Hare hasn't shown up here tonight.
---8<---
Y'all refresh my memory, please? How close were we to getting stuck with Rich Rodriguez in 2006-07?

Rich Rod's wife didn't like Tuscaloosa.
She said something along the lines of, 'I'm not gonna live in that hick town.' We owe her a debt of gratitude.
(Hope she likes Jville.)

 

[STONECOLDSABAN]

Starting to wonder about the teams Texas dominated at the end of the year. Okie state in a dogfight with a depleted Texas A&M squad.

 

[STONECOLDSABAN]

Not trying to discredit anything Texas has done but geez. The Big 12 runner up won by 8 against a team on their 4th string qb, 3 scholarship receivers, and 54 scholarship players.

 

[jds22]

Not trying to discredit anything Texas has done but geez. The Big 12 runner up won by 8 against a team on their 4th string qb, 3 scholarship receivers, and 54 scholarship players.

Not much to discredit there. Oklahoma St. lost 4 games this year. 34-27 to (7-5) Iowa St., 33-7 to (7-6) South Alabama, 45-3 to (6-7) Central Florida (a week after somehow beating Oklahoma), and then 49-21 to Texas. Texas beat them the way they should have. Although 10-4 looks good on paper they are not a top 15 team. I admire the effort from Texas A&M team tonight. So much adversity but they didn’t quit and played with heart.

 

[B1GTide]

Not much to discredit there. Oklahoma St. lost 4 games this year. 34-27 to (7-5) Iowa St., 33-7 to (7-6) South Alabama, 45-3 to (6-7) Central Florida (a week after somehow beating Oklahoma), and then 49-21 to Texas. Texas beat them the way they should have. Although 10-4 looks good on paper they are not a top 15 team. I admire the effort from Texas A&M team tonight. So much adversity but they didn’t quit and played with heart.

Yep - the only team in that conference with the athletes to stay on the field with Texas this year was Oklahoma and they wet the bed - twice.

 

[bamacon]

Sounds like A&M had a lot of those “Energy Vampires” Saban warned about last year. Maybe all those transfers saved Elko a big headache.

 

[crimsonaudio]

Louisville is no more a Top-15 team than I'm both Henry VIII and Benjamin Franklin...

BuT tHeY plAYeD fSu tOUgH iN tHe aCc CHamPiUNsHip!!11!!!1

 

[TideEngineer08]

I say Alabama was by far the most challenged team, by its schedule, in the 4 team playoff.

Nothing I've seen thus far has altered that opinion.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I say Alabama was by far the most challenged team, by its schedule, in the 4 team playoff.

Nothing I've seen thus far has altered that opinion.

It is looking more that way, yes.

I'd say looking at the playoff teams that was true anyway even before now.
DOESN'T EQUAL A WIN OF THE TITLE, no!!!

But yes, Alabama was in the shoes of teams like 1993 and 2000 Florida State (ironically) where "yes, they had a head-to-head loss to another good team, but they played and beat everybody else." Alabama was in the shoes of 1990 Colorado, who was a much better team than folks want to remember because of an unfortunate official's faux pas.

I'm always discomfited with arguing SoS on our behalf because I'll admit my Alabama bias openly and without shame. SOMETIMES our schedule isn't all that hard - just like other teams - because the other teams in the conference aren't that good or are in a down cycle (see 2011, where we basically had a 3-game season and Penn St imploded later and looked worse than when we played them). OTHER TIMES our schedule starts out looking "maybe, maybe not" and after a rough start, the conference as a whole looks semi-decent. That was this year.

I'm cutting out the fluff of the numbers and looking at it - and the most mind-boggling result in the SEC this year HAS to be Mississippi State beating Arizona. MSU scored 262 points on the year and ranked #105 in scoring offense out of 130 teams. But it was worse than that. MSU scored HALF OF THEIR TOTAL POINTS for the season in 3 games - an FCS team (48), W Michigan (41) and Southern Miss (41). SIX times the Bulldogs were held to 14 points or less...one of them was NOT Alabama fwiw. Corrected for bias, MSU only averaged 14.6 ppg on the season.

And yet - somehow - they scored 31 points on Arizona (nearly 1/8 their output for the whole season in one game that included an overtime...and beat the THIRD-BEST team in the Pac-12. And the old "it was hot in Starkville" argument doesn't wash because it's Arizona for Pete's sake.

 

[Goldrush]

It is looking more that way, yes.

I'd say looking at the playoff teams that was true anyway even before now.
DOESN'T EQUAL A WIN OF THE TITLE, no!!!

But yes, Alabama was in the shoes of teams like 1993 and 2000 Florida State (ironically) where "yes, they had a head-to-head loss to another good team, but they played and beat everybody else." Alabama was in the shoes of 1990 Colorado, who was a much better team than folks want to remember because of an unfortunate official's faux pas.

I'm always discomfited with arguing SoS on our behalf because I'll admit my Alabama bias openly and without shame. SOMETIMES our schedule isn't all that hard - just like other teams - because the other teams in the conference aren't that good or are in a down cycle (see 2011, where we basically had a 3-game season and Penn St imploded later and looked worse than when we played them). OTHER TIMES our schedule starts out looking "maybe, maybe not" and after a rough start, the conference as a whole looks semi-decent. That was this year.

I'm cutting out the fluff of the numbers and looking at it - and the most mind-boggling result in the SEC this year HAS to be Mississippi State beating Arizona. MSU scored 262 points on the year and ranked #105 in scoring offense out of 130 teams. But it was worse than that. MSU scored HALF OF THEIR TOTAL POINTS for the season in 3 games - an FCS team (48), W Michigan (41) and Southern Miss (41). SIX times the Bulldogs were held to 14 points or less...one of them was NOT Alabama fwiw. Corrected for bias, MSU only averaged 14.6 ppg on the season.

And yet - somehow - they scored 31 points on Arizona (nearly 1/8 their output for the whole season in one game that included an overtime...and beat the THIRD-BEST team in the Pac-12. And the old "it was hot in Starkville" argument doesn't wash because it's Arizona for Pete's sake.

Arizona was the reverse USC this year. They were bad for the first few games due to bad QB play. Their starting QB went down due to injury. The (better) backup QB took over and the team got really hot down the stretch.

In terms of that game, Arizona played with their season starting QB and turned it over 5 times (4 int, 1 fumble)

Mississippi State's TD drives were:

50 yards
6 yards
30 yards
25 yards (OT)

Not exactly world beating numbers. If a team is going to turn it over 5 times, that's going to put a lot of pressure on their defense.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Arizona was the reverse USC this year. They were bad for the first few games due to bad QB play. Their starting QB went down due to injury. The (better) backup QB took over and the team got really hot down the stretch.

In terms of that game, Arizona played with their season starting QB and turned it over 5 times (4 int, 1 fumble)

Mississippi State's TD drives were:

50 yards
6 yards
30 yards
25 yards (OT)

Not exactly world beating numbers. If a team is going to turn it over 5 times, that's going to put a lot of pressure on their defense.

I wouldn't expect world-beating numbers from the absolute worst offense in the SEC.

The result is still no less mind-boggling. I "get" that things happen during the year (which folks don't want to acknowledge when they talk about the Texas v Alabama game in September, but I digress), but the fact remains that MSU beat the third-best team in the Pac-12.

Utah beating Florida was somehow proof of something bad about the SEC.
But Arizona vivisected Utah.
And Mississippi State beat Arizona, and all the "but this, but that" in the world doesn't change it, either.

Most of the results across the season in the SEC, one can look and say, "Yeah, I can see that" or it's justified by a later outcome.

Btw - MSU drove all the way down the field on Arizona on the first drive of the game and fumbled it at the 4-yard line. They also had a 57-yard drive that netted a field goal right after a Wildcat TD.

And okay, MSU scored from the 25 in overtime.

Why didn't Arizona, with the better offense and short field, score against State's lousy defense with the same short field?

I was half paying attention (that game IIRC was on about the same time we were playing Texas), but when going through culling the stats it is STILL the mind-boggling result of the season in SEC games.

 

[NoNC4Tubs]

Both QB's in this game are rookies......

NC losing 27-10.......karma!

Did Maye opt out?

 

[bamacon]

It is looking more that way, yes.

I'd say looking at the playoff teams that was true anyway even before now.
DOESN'T EQUAL A WIN OF THE TITLE, no!!!

But yes, Alabama was in the shoes of teams like 1993 and 2000 Florida State (ironically) where "yes, they had a head-to-head loss to another good team, but they played and beat everybody else." Alabama was in the shoes of 1990 Colorado, who was a much better team than folks want to remember because of an unfortunate official's faux pas.

I'm always discomfited with arguing SoS on our behalf because I'll admit my Alabama bias openly and without shame. SOMETIMES our schedule isn't all that hard - just like other teams - because the other teams in the conference aren't that good or are in a down cycle (see 2011, where we basically had a 3-game season and Penn St imploded later and looked worse than when we played them). OTHER TIMES our schedule starts out looking "maybe, maybe not" and after a rough start, the conference as a whole looks semi-decent. That was this year.

I'm cutting out the fluff of the numbers and looking at it - and the most mind-boggling result in the SEC this year HAS to be Mississippi State beating Arizona. MSU scored 262 points on the year and ranked #105 in scoring offense out of 130 teams. But it was worse than that. MSU scored HALF OF THEIR TOTAL POINTS for the season in 3 games - an FCS team (48), W Michigan (41) and Southern Miss (41). SIX times the Bulldogs were held to 14 points or less...one of them was NOT Alabama fwiw. Corrected for bias, MSU only averaged 14.6 ppg on the season.

And yet - somehow - they scored 31 points on Arizona (nearly 1/8 their output for the whole season in one game that included an overtime...and beat the THIRD-BEST team in the Pac-12. And the old "it was hot in Starkville" argument doesn't wash because it's Arizona for Pete's sake.

Well it’s a dry heat

 

[B1GTide]

Did Maye opt out?

He quit on his team - yes.

 

[Krymsonman]

On another note, Miami and Rutgers are playing an entertaining game right now. Rutgers just blocked a punt for a TD to go back up 21-17, 3 minutes left in qtr 3. Miami looks like the old Miami with some of the thug moves they have been making. Those include a couple of way late hits, and just a minute ago, laying on a guys head to keep him from getting up. Fortunately, the officials have called every one of the penalties.

 

[Krymsonman]

Miami just got another unsportsmanlike for nailing the punter who was just jogging down the field - after the fair catch had already been made. The officials saw this one too.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Miami just got another unsportsmanlike for nailing the punter who was just jogging down the field - after the fair catch had already been made. The officials saw this one too.

A truly novel idea right there - guys getting paid to watch and officiate the game are actually watching and officiating the game.

 

[Tidewater]

Miami just got another unsportsmanlike for nailing the punter who was just jogging down the field - after the fair catch had already been made. The officials saw this one too.

Back in the thug years, Miami played Tejas in a bowl and set the NCAA record for most penalty yardage in a game. And beat Tejas like a rented mule, 34-7.
Miami was so talented they could overcome hundreds of yards of penalties.