Tag: Texas Longhorns (Page 15 of 18)

      BCS Bowl Forecast

      October 31, 2008 /

      RealClearSports.com lays out its first BCS bowl forecast of the year.

      Texas LonghornsBCS CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: January 8, Dolphin Stadium, Miami
      Matchup: Texas vs. Penn State (Odds: Texas 70%, Penn State 80%)
      Outlook: The No. 1-ranked Longhorns will have their toughest remaining game this week at Texas Tech. A victory should send Texas smooth sailing into Key Biscayne. Penn State has an even easier slate, but it still needs Alabama to lose one game.

      ROSE BOWL: January 1, Rose Bowl, Pasadena, Calif.
      Matchup: USC vs. Ohio State (Odds: USC 90%, Ohio State 50%)
      Outlook: The Tournament of Roses red coats don’t want this rematch – it would be the third time these two teams meet in 12 months – but it will have to really think outside of the box to avoid it. If Penn State somehow doesn’t make it to the BCS title game, fine. If USC somehow doesn’t win the Pac-10 outright, fine. But would the Rose Bowl dare to invite an SEC team to finally matchup with the Trojans in a bowl game? That would be nice, but that would also risk ticking off the Big Ten. Just remember, these guys invited Illinois last year. The track record isn’t good.

      FIESTA BOWL: January 5, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz.
      Matchup: Alabama vs. Utah (Odds: Alabama 20%, Utah 60%)
      Outlook: Say what? You ask. Well, this is going on the assumption that Oklahoma would be the obvious second choice from the Big 12 and the Fiesta Bowl doesn’t want a third consecutive appearance by the Sooners. The quandary here is that although the Fiesta would get the first pick if it loses Texas to the BCS title game, it pretty much has no way of avoid taking a non-BCS automatic qualifier, be it Utah, TCU, Boise State or even Tulsa.

      SUGAR BOWL: January, 2, Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans
      Matchup: Florida vs. Oklahoma (Odds: Florida 40%, Oklahoma 50%)
      Outlook: If the Fiesta does pass on Oklahoma, then the Sooners land here to play the SEC champion. If Oklahoma is gone, then the Sugar will be forced to take the Big East champion, leaving the second SEC team for the Orange Bowl. If the SEC champion somehow ends up in the BCS title game, then the Sugar will take the Big 12’s second team.

      Florida-Oklahoma would be awesome. And even though the Trojans blew them out earlier this season, I’d be interested in an OSU-USC rematch with Terrelle Pryor playing the entire game under center for the Buckeyes.

      College Football

      New BCS rankings out: Texas Tech No. 7

      October 27, 2008 /

      The new BCS Championship Series standings are out and here’s a look at the top 10:

      1. Texas
      2. Alabama
      3. Penn State
      4. Oklahoma
      5. USC
      6. Georgia
      7. Texas Tech
      8. Florida
      9. Oklahoma State
      10. Utah

      Obviously the hype heading into this weekend will be about No. 1 Texas squaring off with No. 7 Texas Tech. Everyone is expecting a shootout or an upset, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the Longhorns completely dismantled Tech, either. The Red Raiders haven’t played against any team with a defense yet and UT is the most complete team in college football. But it’s going to be fun playing into the excitement that builds all week.

      College Football

      UT’s Colt McCoy could break all-time competition record

      October 25, 2008 /

      Colt McCoyThe NCAA record for competition percentage by a quarterback is 73.6% held by Daunte Culpepper of Central Florida in 1998.

      Coming into Saturday’s action, Texas’ QB Colt McCoy had a completion percentage of 81.2%. He completed 38 of 45 passes (84%) for 391 yards in the Longhorns’ 28-24 win over Oklahoma State. Will he break Culpepper’s mark?

      The knock on McCoy this year is that he completes most of his passes under 10 yards and allows his receivers to rack up yards after the catch. But if defenses game plan to take away the big play, why is McCoy criticized for taking what the defense gives him? Isn’t that what a good quarterback does? Granted he doesn’t play in a conference dominated by tough defenses, but again, that’s not his fault. Even though there’s a lot of talk about him being the frontrunner for the Heisman, you hear a lot of “fraud” talk as well, perhaps more so than any other Heisman candidate over the past couple of years.

      Moving on, Oklahoma State deserves a ton of credit for hanging with the Longhorns on Saturday and shouldn’t drop too far in the rankings. UT jumped ahead 14-0 early, but the Cowboys answered the bell and had their chances to even win the game had the capitalized more on Texas mistakes. Some might discredit the Longhorns after this, but don’t forget that this was their third tough challenge in as many weeks. To suggest Texas played poorly would be a slap in the face to the Cowboys’ effort.

      College Football

      Pundits better start paying attention to Florida again

      October 25, 2008 /

      Florida GatorsOle’ Miss beat Florida on its home turf this year. So what? Clearly the Gators are over it and their 63-5 trouncing of Kentucky on Saturday went a long way in proving that.

      The BCS standings say that UF is the 10th best team in the nation, but nobody should buy that. On neutral ground, the Gators beat half the teams ranked ahead of them (I’ll leave it up to you to determine which of those teams you think they’re better than) in the polls, and in Gainesville they probably defeat most of the teams ranked ahead of them.

      This thought process isn’t based solely on what they did to Kentucky on Saturday either. The Wildcats didn’t stand much of a chance going into the game, although their defense has shown improvement this year. No, this is based on the fact that the Gators still own some of the best talent in the country and are one of the few programs that can say they have a complete football team. Their loss to Ole’ Miss was an aberration and obviously the defeat not only has motivated them, but also has re-focused them as well.

      It’s hard to fathom Texas and/or Alabama losing this season, but it’s even harder to believe that the BCS Championship won’t feature two one-loss teams with how crazy the season has been this year. That said, there’s no reason to think the Gators can’t run the table with the way they’ve handled LSU and Kentucky the past two weeks. Therefore, Florida’s a program that pundits should start paying attention to again as true title contenders.

      College Football

      Don’t go overboard with Texas Tech’s rout of Kansas

      October 25, 2008 /

      Texas Tech Red RaidersLooks like No. 8 Texas Tech will have to wait yet another week before finally facing a decent opponent as they run roughshod over No. 23 Kansas on Saturday, 63-21.

      Don’t be fooled by the score. Yes the Red Raiders offense is unbelievable and they again showed how explosive they are in racking up 63 points and close to 600 yards. But the Jayhawks have shown week in and week out that they aren’t the same team that finished 12-1 last year and beat No. 3 Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl.

      Kansas turned the ball over five times and couldn’t have stopped Tech’s offense had they only played with Graham Harrell (386 yards, 5 TDs) and Michael Crabtree (9 rec. 70 yards). Again, not to take anything away from them, but the talk next week (depending on how the Longhorns do against Oklahoma State) is how the Red Raiders could upset Texas. I guarantee you everyone is going to hop on the Tech bandwagon and forget how the Longhorns absolutely destroyed Oklahoma and MIZZOU this month.

      I think Texas Tech is fun to watch and Harrell and Crabtree are amazing. But Texas is the most complete football team in the nation right now (again, assuming they don’t stumble against OK State and make me eat my words), so hopefully the mainstream media doesn’t go overboard with the upset talk next week. (Although who am I kidding, we all know they will.)

      College Football

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