Each year around this time certain decisions by coaches will start to be questioned. Some will be rightly chastised, and some not so much for calls they made to determine where they will play in December or January. Like any news story bad news sells so you always here about what went wrong first. This week it isn’t real difficult to figure out who cost their team a chance at the national championship and millions of dollars for the school. If I were USC I would have a lot of questions for Lane Kiffin this morning. His coaching ways are beyond ignorant. It is hard to comprehend a guy who has been raised in a football family could make such bad calls that have his team on the outside looking in.
In the third quarter with his team up by seven points, he was faced with a fourth down and three from just inside the 15-yard line.The only call in this situation is to kick the field goal and go ahead by two scores. Kiffin apparently was the only one who wasn’t aware that his team was in a war. The arrogance he showed by not thinking those points were absolutely critical is only one of the reasons he is home today with no chance to win the national championship. To further show his arrogance, he ran an extremely low-percentage play that left anyone who knows the game just dumbfounded. Stanford holding their ground ignited the Cardinala and they soon walked down the field and tied the game. After a pathetic three-and-out, Stanford again picked apart the USC secondary and took a seven point lead. USC managed to get the ball back with plenty of time left to tie the game. There was 2:44 and they had two time outs. After an unbelievable catch on fourth down by Marquise Lee to keep a drive alive, USC completed two more passes and now had the ball across midfield with 1:44 to go. Then the unthinkable; Lane Kiffin called a dive play right up the middle that was stuffed for no gain and took a ton of time off the clock. Working with no sense of urgency, Matt Barkley then lines up under center. Under center? Kiffin knew Stanford was bringing a linebacker and corner on every play. This gave Barkley no time to survey the defense. The result was three sacks in a row and a USC loss. But this game was lost way before that. The second he walked away from those three points the game was over. Give Stanford credit but this loss falls squarely on the coach for USC. He’s lousy. If one of my employees or anyone in another profession lost a guaranteed 15 million by this kind of negligence I would expect something more then a don’t do it again. You can tell he has no character as he quickly got out of the way of the bullet and laid the loss on his quarterback. That’s not a leader, that’s a coward. USC will loose again this year bet on that. I see this team coming apart at the seems.
This week’s 5 thoughts:
1) Alabama is good. They are good everywhere. Both sides of the line, skilled positions, special teams I cannot see this team losing this year. Remember Arkansas was missing Tyler Wilson. Their defense was in tact. This was a team that was built to contend for a national championship. They were completely outclassed in every phase of the game.
2) Finally we start to see if some of these top 10 teams are for real. Oklahoma meet Kansas State, Florida State welcome Clemson in for a visit and Oregon this is Arizona. After this week the rest of the top five will start to fall into place. It didn’t take much to say farewell to pretenders USC, Virginia Tech, Michigan State and Wisconsin. Shame on you four, we expected more.
3) Will these underclassmen who are guaranteed to be first-round picks leave college already before we figure out you aren’t that good! Where do I start? Matt Barkley, Logan Thomas, Landry Jones ever hear about striking while the iron is hot? I am not saying they will not be decent pros but when you are told you are guaranteed to be picked by a certain point in the first round doesn’t the risk outweigh the reward?
4) Is the Heisman already down to three candidates? In my opinion it is. Geno Smith, De’Anthony Thomas, and possibly the best kept secret in college football, Jonathan Franklin have made this a three-horse race early. Smith and Thomas are getting all of the attention meanwhile Franklin in just three games has rushed for 541 yards and 3td’s leading the resurgence of the UCLA Bruins.
5) The big 10 is who we thought they were. Michigan State was their last hope. What has happened to this once powerful conference? Gosh do I miss the old rivalries of Penn State vs Pittsburgh and Oklahoma vs Nebraska. How’s the new “power” conference working out anyway?
This week’s top 10.
1) Alabama: I know I shouldn’t do this but in the words of one of our most beloved coaches of all time. “If you wanna crown them, then crown their asses.” Well I did and this team is just flat out better then everyone else. Next test will come in 2014.
2) Florida State: The Seminoles have beaten whoever has been put in front of them. So far that hasn’t been much in terms of talent, but they are about to be tested Saturday night under the lights. ESPN Game day will be in Tallahassee Saturday for their game against Clemson.
3) LSU: They beat Idaho Saturday and play Auburn this week. The Tigers will be tested October 6th against the Gators.
4) Oregon: The Ducks get Arizona this week and we will see how that speed holds up against a decent defense.
5) West Virginia: Geno Smith has me believing a bit, but this team doesn’t play anyone until Baylor.
6) Oklahoma: I have them winning it all, but they have to get by Kansas State this week.
7) Clemson: I went in on Clemson two weeks ago knowing they always break my heart. As a huge underdog can they make a big showing?
8) Georgia: Keep your eye on the Dawgs, a favorable schedule until the world’s largest cocktail party.
9) Florida: Has any team been more impressive other than Alabama the last two weeks? Two huge road wins at Texas A&M and Tennessee.
10) South Carolina: Missouri this week and LSU, Florida and Georgia in the upcoming weeks…sheesh that’s a tough ride.
Vegas was kind to me again this past week on the five-pack, but let’s not talk about the NFL…this week’s picks arrive on Friday.
Special Congratulations to three of my readers who got engaged this past week. Greg, Krista and Jason I wish you many years of happiness
