Category: College Football (Page 251 of 296)

There’s nothing like a gridiron battle between a top-flight offense and a stingy defense. Thursday nights Orange Bowl provides such a matchup when Kansas takes on Virginia Tech. The Jayhawks have the sixth best passing offense in the nation, while the Hokies offer the fifth best defense.

So which side of the ball do you side with?

In very general terms and not looking too deep into individual matchups, I’m usually partial to a good defense over a good offense. A good defensive coordinator will take away what an offense does best, instead of just lining up and going with the flow. Successful offenses usually require good rhythm and tempo, and I love seeing what happens when a good defense gets an offense out of its comfort zone.

It should be interesting to see how VA Tech defensive backs Macho Harris and Brandon Flowers stack up against KU receivers Marcus Henry and Dexton Fields tonight. Of course, after the Rose, Sugar and Fiesta Bowls, I’m just ready for a good BCS game at this point.

Alright, so West Virginia’s 48-28 dismantling of Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl provided a perfect example that most of the so-called “experts” don’t always know what they’re talking about. I’m certainly nowhere near expert-status, but I must admit that I thought Oklahoma would roll all over West Virginia Wednesday night, too. Unless you were a Mountaineer fan, why wouldn’t you think the Sooners would roll?

Let’s run over the check list:

1. Big 12 school playing a Big East school.

2. Some pundits believed that Oklahoma was the best team in the country, regardless of where they were ranked.

3. Some (or is it, most?) pundits believed that West Virginia was a fraud and should have never been ranked in the top 10.

4. West Virginia ran a gimmicky offense that certainly couldn’t move the ball against the big, fast, powerful Oklahoma defense.

5. West Virginia didn’t even have a coach.

Okay, so Oklahoma wins by 45 points, right? Wrong. Never underestimate a team with something to prove and that feels betrayed (not too mention, united) because their head coach left them high and dry after their biggest loss of the season. The supposed difference in conferences, speed and everything else flies out the window at kickoff. In the end, you still have to play the game.

By the way, if Oklahoma gets an invite to the Fiesta Bowl next year, they should just decline it and move on. Even if it means playing in the Tampax.com Bowl against Rice, it’s still better than being embarrassed on a national stage for a third year in a row.

Many SEC enthusiasts will claim that on a whole, their conference has faster players than the Big Ten. Apparently that’s not the only thing they have over Big Ten schools: SEC teams can sign more players at recruiting time, too.

When the Big Ten made the change in 2002, it instituted a policy where teams could oversign by no more than three players, and DiNardo said a detailed explanation behind the oversigning had to be submitted to the Big Ten. The SEC is among the conferences with no guidelines.

At the time, Michigan coach Lloyd Carr told reporters exactly why the Big Ten had to adjust, and a game like Monday’s national title game between Ohio State and LSU was part of his reasoning.

“When you look at our bowl hookup with the SEC . . . it’s an important rule,” Carr said then. “I can remember going to bowl games with 77, 76 guys on scholarship against a team with 85.

“In bowl games against conferences that have an advantage of doing that, Big Ten teams were at a severe disadvantage.”

For example, a school with 21 open scholarships could sign 26 players in February, with maybe 15 certainties and some group of six of the 11 other players expected to reach enrollment. Or perhaps three summer transfers would open opportunities if nine of the 11 were admitted to school.

If Team A and Team B are both allowed to recruit 85 players, but Team B can go over that amount and sign 10 more players than Team A, do they have a bigger advantage? I would say yes. Granted, Team B still has to recruit the right players and those players still have to perform on the field, but it’s still an advantage. If they get 10 more cracks at signing productive players than Team A does, isn’t that in their favor?

I never bought into the whole speed argument. Look at what Michigan did to Florida on New Year’s Day – both teams clearly had speed. Wisconsin hung with Tennessee just fine, too. However, this article brings up an interesting debate in terms of recruiting advantages and I think it’s worth noting at bowl time when we get to see the SEC take on the Big Ten in several instances.

Forget about your New Year’s resolution for a second and think about what’s really important as we head into 2008: football! Check out Bullz-Eye.com for previews and predictions for all five of the BCS Bowl games, beginning with the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day and ending with the BCS title game on Jan. 7.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting that Ohio State has suspended defensive backs Donald Washington and Eugene Clifford for the national championship game against LSU for violating team rules.

The loss of Clifford, a highly touted recruit from Cincinnati who has contributed almost nothing during his freshman year, is negligible. But the absence of Washington, who had emerged as a reliable starter during his sophomore year, will reshuffle the entire secondary when the Buckeyes face LSU on Jan. 7.

Expect freshman Chimdi Chekwa, who has played well at times but who also was beaten for some big plays in one-on-one coverage against Illinois, to take Washington’s corner spot when Ohio State plays its base defense.

I don’t want to tell Les Miles how to do his job or anything, but he might want to consider throwing directly at Chekwa’s side once, twice, maybe even 17 times over the course of the championship game. Something tells me that a freshman defensive back starting in the biggest game of the season might be an easy target to throw on – especially with future first-rounder Malcolm Jenkins defending the other side.

Update: Check that, now FOX Sports.com is reporting that only Clifford will be suspended and not Washington (the starter).