Some good top mach ups in the SEC again, with Florida/Georgia and Bama/Miss St. The big primetime match up this week is Notre Dame going to Norman to face Oklahoma which should be interesting with ND's defense and OU's offense. KSU is rolling in the Big 12 right now, they also have a good matchup with Texas Tech. Notable Games: Thursday, October 25, 2012 #18 Clemson @ Wake Forest - 6:30 PM CST - ESPN Friday, October 26, 2012 Cincinnati @ #16 Louisville - 7 PM CST - ESPN Saturday, October 27, 2012 Tennessee @ #13 South Carolina - 11 AM CST - ESPN Iowa @ Northwestern - 11 AM CST - ESPN2 Kentucky @ Missouri - 11 AM CST - ESPNU Ole Miss @ Arkansas - 11:21 AM CST - SEC Network Colorado @ #4 Oregon - 2 PM CST - Pac-12 Network UCLA @ Arizona St. - 2 PM CST - FX #2 Florida vs. #10 Georgia - 2:30 PM CST - CBS #14 Texas Tech @ #3 Kansas St. - 2:30 PM CST - FOX #9 USC @ Arizona - 2:30 PM CST - ABC/ESPN2 Duke @ #12 Florida St. - 2:30 PM CST - ESPNU Michigan St. @ #25 Wisconsin - 2:30 PM CST - ABC/ESPN2 Purdue @ Minnesota - 2:30 PM CST - Big Ten Network TCU @ Oklahoma St. - 2:30 PM CST Ohio St. @ Penn St. - 4:30 PM CST - ESPN Washington St. @ #17 Stanford - 5:15 PM CST - Pac-12 Network #20 Texas A&M @ Auburn - 6 PM CST - ESPNU #5 Notre Dame @ #8 Oklahoma - 7 PM CST - ABC #22 Michigan @ Nebraska - 7 PM CST - ESPN2 #11 Mississippi St. @ #1 Alabama - 7:30 PM CST - ESPN #7 Oregon St. @ Washington - 9:15 PM CST - Pac-12 Network
23.5 point favorites against the #11 team. I think Mississippi State is in for a rude awakening this weekend.
Why? Alabama and Mississippi are the same ****holes with different names. Oh, you mean on the football field.
Florida has a dog**** QB and will be exposed sooner or later. I believe Florida will clinch the SEC east if they win vs Georgia with a month left to go in the season - really illustrates how weak the eastern division is.
Or it illustrates that all the top teams (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina) played each other early in the season, and if one team sweeps the others, it'd be pretty hard for them not to win the division.
That's one way to look at it, but Georgia and S. Carolina are poor teams - their play on the field has shown that.
Uh, those two are undefeated against everyone not in the top 10. You have an interesting definition of "poor".
Rankings mean very little at this point. Texas is undefeated against everyone not in the top 10 as well.
You can use that argument for many teams that have losses, that they only lost to teams that were ranked in the top 10 at the time
Name a few, then. Pretty tough to find many teams that are a combined 12-0 (or 6-0, individually) with only top-10 losses.
They're all solid teams, too. Certainly not "poor". If the aforementioned four are the 2nd and 3rd best teams in one division of one conference, there's nothing weak or poor about it.
Generally speaking, you're right. If ranked in the top 25 or bowl eligible you're not a poor team, but you're not necessarily a good team either. Semantics I lump those previously mentioned teams and would add LSU as "solid" teams. I base this on what I've seen while watching the games, not on rankings. I do believe if you are able to clinch your division with a month left in the season, it does show a lack of parity.
Eh, I think you're lumping way too broadly. There's a far cry between being a legit top 25, probably top 15 team and being "bowl eligible". If you win all your games but one or two against elite competition, you're a lot better than merely bowl eligible. The fact of the matter is that the ability to "clinch" comes down to scheduling quirks. If UF/UGA/SC delayed at least one of their games with each other to November, as most other marquee conference rivals do, no one would be clinching. At the end of the day, I'm pretty confident the season resumes of South Carolina and the Florida/Georgia loser will stack up just fine with the resumes of the second-through-fourth place teams in other conferences (see teams like Clemson, Michigan, UT, Tech). And keep in mind that the East is just one division of a conference! Weak is a relative term, and I'm just not seeing on a comparative basis where it falls short.
Who cares if your team is ranked #10 or #25 at the end of the season? The difference is marginal, you just play in a slightly better lower tier bowl and make a bit more money. As a fan who cares? No BCS bowl, no care. Florida is overrated and couldn't compete in the championship game. They have no business being ranked #2 primarily because of their QB play. The same argument can be made for LSU. This is not exactly a ground-breaking assertion. Just watch the games, their QBs are awful. Georgia and S.Carolina were overrated as well. They have no business being ranked in the top 10 much less top 5. Do they have any quality wins to justify a high ranking? Please give a reason other than their only losses were to another overrated SEC team.
As a fan, I absolutely do care whether my team is 10-2 or in the 6-6 to 8-4 range. I find that a lot more meaningful than whether they made an arbitrary "BCS bowl", which outside of the title game, means nothing. It's hard to come up with a worse college QB than Jordan Jefferson, and a team led by that guy went undefeated in the regular season a year ago, won the SEC and played for the national title. Newsflash: there's more to a team than quarterback. South Carolina demolished Georgia, a legitimate ranked team, by 28. With much the same team, they annihilated Nebraska in the Capitol One Bowl last January. Georgia won in Columbia against Mizzou (I know, I know, but they're a different team with a healthy Franklin) by 21. Demolished a very competent Vandy group, 48-3. That said, it seems your argument is that the SEC as a whole is overrated, so I'll save my energy and wait for bowl season.