| 23 October 2011
On Saturday morning, my buddy Lou, a huge college football fan, texted me, “I think today is when one a few of these top ranked teams end up losing. Call it “Separation Saturday.”
Well, not only can we call October 22 “Separation Saturday” but I also have to call Lou a freakin’ oracle. Because while most of us thought some of these games would be close, no one could’ve ever expected things to play out like they did (except for Lou maybe). Oklahoma and Wisconsin now have a check in the loss column. Oklahoma State just keeps rolling. Alabama and LSU are on a collision course in two weeks. And oh by the way, Kansas State controls their own destiny to a BCS Championship Game, and the paths of Stanford and Clemson became a lot clearer.
Yesterday was no doubt ‘Separation Saturday,’ and below are a few notes I jotted down while watching the games. Starting with…
Oklahoma and Wisconsin: For the rest of college football season, people are going to lump these two teams and the two losses together, but let’s get one thing straight: they couldn’t have been any more different. They have about as much in common as Nick Saban and Les Miles, Pete Carroll and Lane Kiffin, Will Muschamp and my grandma. Essentially, they couldn’t be much more different.
Starting with Oklahoma, let me begin by saying that I’m sorry to all the fans of the program. You deserve better than what you got from your team last night.
At the same time, it’s hard to say that you didn’t see this coming. Oklahoma just hasn’t been the same team since they beat Florida State in Doak-Campbell Stadium a month ago. Yes there was the Texas win a few weeks ago, but there was also an ugly win against Missouri in which they gave up 532 yards of total offense, and last week’s victory over 47-17 win over Kansas, where a 17-0 fourth quarter run made a close game look much more one-sided than it really was. The intensity and urgency just hasn’t been there for the Oklahoma, and it only seemed like a matter of time until the Sooners coughed up one of these games.
Well, that game was last night. At home, against a team that entered 4-2 record and without a quality win, that is a win that a good team has to get. I don’t care about the injuries on defense. I don’t care about the subpar play from Landry Jones. If you’re a BCS National Championship contender, you win that game by three touchdowns. Instead, Oklahoma came out flatter than a pancake and was forced to play catch-up the whole night. There’s only so long you can play with fire before you get burned, and last night, Oklahoma was burned.
For Wisconsin the loss was just as painful, but at least somewhat excusable. The Badgers were on the road, against a ranked team, whose strengths (especially speed on the outside on offense) went head-to-head with the Badgers weaknesses on defense. And if anything the loss was excusable since quite a few people actually predicted a Spartans win earlier this week (the goofy writer you’re reading now, was not one). The Badgers didn’t play nearly their best game, Michigan State did, and the talent disparity was much more even than it was in Norman. Michigan State deserved to win.
Still, you’ve got to feel bad for Wisconsin if only because of how the game ended. To trail the entire second half, mount that epic comeback, and for it to end like…that? My God, that's just cruel and unusual punishment. Understand it’s one thing to lose a game, but it’s quite another to lose in the gut-wretching, kick-to-teeth way the Badgers did on Saturday. As I said after the game on Twitter, “I will watch thousands of college football games over the rest of my life, and never, ever see an ending like that one.” It’s a shame that Wisconsin’s BCS National Championship hopes had to go up in smoke that way.
But as we awake on this second to last Sunday of October, my friend Lou was right: Texas Tech and Michigan State deserved to win those games. Oklahoma and Wisconsin didn’t.
Just another college football Saturday, huh?
Alabama and LSU: Speaking of a pair of undefeated teams, we can now officially sit back, and breathe a sigh of relief. We made it. While we’re not officially at the November 5 LSU-Bama showdown, we do at the very least know that both teams will enter the game undefeated and unblemished. Each won by 30-plus points yesterday, and the scariest thing is that watching, I felt like each could’ve been better.
With Alabama, it was a little clearer that they didn’t bring their best effort Saturday. They were tied with Tennessee at halftime, and just watching that game, it was pretty obvious that Derek Dooley’s boys had outplayed them through 30 minutes, even though the scoreboard showed a draw. Reflecting back on it now, Saturday’s first half was the worst I’ve seen Alabama’s offensive line play all year, and A.J. McCarron was so bad, I actually wondered if he'd dabbled with a Stephen Garcia liquid diet before the game. As for Tennessee, their defense played the best I’ve seen them play all year, and Matt Simms was incredibly (and also surprisingly) pretty efficient.
Of course that all changed in the second half, when (and pardon the annoying cliché) Alabama just “did what they do.” The Tide forced two turnovers, Trent Richardson scored two touchdowns, and Alabama won going away. McCarron apparently sobered up at halftime, completing one of the better throws I’ve seen him make all year to Kenny Bell for a touchdown pass that opened the game wide up. And oh, they didn’t give up a single point the entire second half either. Not too shabby.
As for LSU, well, even I’ve got to admit: I’m surprised at their result Saturday. Not so much that they won, because everyone knew they would. But do it in the same, efficient, overwhelming, suffocating manner they had the last seven games, without three of their most important players (especially Spencer Ware) surprised me the most.
In specific, I let Auburn fans convince me that entering this game, Clint Moseley could be the difference in the passing game that the (visiting) Tigers needed. Especially with Tyrann Mathieu and Tharold Simon both sitting out. The way I figured it, Auburn’s running game has already been good with Michael Dyer and Onterrio McCalebb, and if they could get even a half decent passing game from Moseley, maybe Auburn could make it a game.
The problem of course, is that I forgot one pretty big thing: none of LSU’s defensive line was suspended for this one. And by the middle of the second quarter, it was pretty clear that their speed, and the speed of the game was just too much for Auburn and Moseley in specific. LSU did their LSU-y thing, scoring a touchdown right before halftime, and outscoring their opponents 21-0 in the third quarter for the win. By the beginning of the fourth quarter, this LSU game was just like every other LSU game this season: a foregone conclusion. I’m really starting to wonder if the SEC should implement a rule to allow a running fourth quarter clock for the remainder of their games.
So now, we get to look ahead to November 5. (For the record, we should probably remember that there is a whole slate of Saturday football games between now and then. Ok?)
While I don’t have a prediction yet (although I do have an idea of where I’m leaning), what I’ll say is that I think the key to the entire game is Alabama’s offensive line and McCarron in specific. The Tide have yet to see a defensive line that’s even close to as good as LSU’s is, especially given that when they played Arkansas, the Hogs were without their two best ends Jake Bequette and Tenarius Wright. At the same time, LSU’s defensive line hasn’t seen an offensive line with this kind of talent either. It’s going to literally be the immaculate force against the immovable object.
And that’s why in the end, I think it’ll come down to McCarron. Like Tennessee did last night, I fully expect LSU to do its best to take away Trent Richardson, and try and make McCarron beat them in the passing game (as a matter of fact, I think that Jim McElwain and Nick Saban will be smart enough to come out throwing the ball because of it), and the game will come down to whether McCarron can consistently make throws against LSU’s secondary. If he plays like the A.J. McCarron of the first seven games, he’ll be fine. But if LSU’s defensive backs play like they have in the first seven weeks, and get Mathieu and Simon back, it’ll make things interesting. Especially since, as we learned once again on Saturday, no one is more stocked with quality DB’s than LSU. With Mathieu and Simon out, Ron Brooks stepped in and seemed to be just fine. Can McCarron complete passes against such a talented group?
LSU-Alabama. Alabama-LSU. It’s finally almost here.
Who’s your pick?
Stanford: Annnnnnnd, after all the talk about Alabama and LSU, and upsets by Texas Tech and Michigan State, I haven’t even mentioned Saturday’s most impressive team. That was Stanford. And honestly, it wasn’t even close.
As most of you know by now, I’ve been labeled a bit of a “Stanford hater” over these past few weeks. But really, it’s not that I didn’t like or appreciate the Cardinal, as much as I just wanted to see them do it against someone- anyone really- that’s half decent. Simply put, their early season schedule sucked. And while you can’t blame Stanford because the Pac-12 loaded up their early season slate with a group of games softer than Charlie Weis’ abdomen, I was still waiting for them to beat anyone who might actually finish above .500 this year.
Well, needless to say, that happened Saturday. Simply put, Stanford was the better team in every phase of the game against Washington, and in my opinion, had one of the best games I’ve seen from anyone all year. What was maybe most impressive, was that they did it in large part without Andrew Luck. That’s not to say that Luck wasn’t good, since really, he was phenomenal. But if anything, I was actually more impressed with the running game (obviously), and even the defense stood out to me more than the great quarterbacking. After all, I knew the Cardinal would be able to score points on offense. I just wasn’t sure they’d be able to stop Washington on defense. Shows what I know, huh?
Also, I think it’s safe to say that with USC’s win over Notre Dame (which I wrote about here), next week’s Stanford-USC game just got a heck of a lot more interesting. And if Stanford can get through that (which they should), it certainly sets up an interesting visit from Oregon in a few weeks…
Clemson: Well, well, well. Speaking of teams that I still needed to be sold on, congratulations to the Clemson Tigers: I’m officially done doubting you (well, unless 
you do something stupid. Which I don’t think you will, for the record). To their credit, Clemson just keeps coming out and keeps winning games, regardless of the opponent, venue or game-time. They’ve won on the road at Virginia Tech. At home against Auburn and Florida State. In noon kickoffs like on Saturday. Nothing seems to faze these guys.
Going in a different direction on Clemson, I’ve got another question that I couldn’t help but think about while watching them beat down North Carolina on Saturday: is there any team in the country with a better collection of skill-position talent than these guys? It seems like just when you shut down one guy down, the next steps up. Sammy Watkins is the star, but yesterday North Carolina made a concerted effort to shut him down, so instead DeAndre Hopkins stepped up. And when neither of those two guys were ready, Martavis Allen made plays. Doesn’t it tell you everything you need to know that Andre Ellington- who was a huge part of this offense last year- is basically an afterthought in 2011? Sure some of that is part of the scheme change, but it still speaks to just how good everyone else is too.
What’s most interesting though, is that with last night’s losses by Oklahoma and Wisconsin it has made the road to the National Championship Game much clearer for both Stanford and Clemson. Whereas just 24 hours ago, I think most fans of those two schools thought, “Well, even if we finish undefeated, we’re still going to need a lot of help,” now they’re thinking, “My goodness! We are one or two losses away from being right in it.”
It’s pretty clear to me that at this point any undefeated team in the SEC would play any undefeated team out of the Big XII, amazingly, even if that included Kansas State. At this point, I think Stanford would be next in line if either of those conferences- likely the Big XII- didn’t have anyone who finished undefeated. And Clemson? Well, all they need is for Oklahoma State to lose to Oklahoma (and assume that Kansas State loses somewhere along the way too) and for Oregon to beat Stanford.
While it’s not totally simple, it’s a lot better than the alternative was entering Saturday, right?
Oklahoma State: Finally, I want to close with Oklahoma State.
Really, I don’t have much to say about them that hasn’t already been said, but still I’ve got to admit that I am continue to be impressed by them. Not just that they’re winning, but how they’re doing it. The Pokes three toughest games have been on the road (Texas A&M, Texas and Missouri), and other than A&M, every win has been by double-digits. Like Clemson, they’re a team that just isn’t intimidated by anything; whether it be a hostile environment, a weirdly-timed kickoff (12:30 a.m. against Tulsa anyone?) or any of the ancillary things that distract football teams.
As a matter of fact, as I watched them pick apart Missouri Saturday, I couldn’t help but think, “Man, if this team played Oklahoma today, I think they’d win.”
Turns out I wasn’t very far off. A few hours later they had another impressive win, and 12 hours after that, the Sooners were licking their wounds.
Yesterday really was “Separation Saturday.”
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