Point Blank – November 4
The Committee Having Spoken (Tuesday’s Gone, and we should be damn glad that it is over)…Time to talk about just how young LSU is…Perhaps Matt Leinart does know, because he was there…The Warriors will give out rings to their fans, and then run rings around the Clippers…
Well that didn’t take long. As noted in this Monday’s NCAA column, the fact that the Playoff Committee releases their first set of ratings the first Tuesday in November is an exercise in utter silliness, too few games having been played for the numbers to matter yet, too many important games still ahead that will sort the ratings out anyway, and in reality it is nothing more than a shameless money grab by the powers at be. But all I had to do was follow the social media frenzy for a bit last evening to see how many fish had taken the bait and were hooked, and when I opened the Las Vegas Review Journal this morning, it was time to stop the fight and declare a winner – ESPN and various NCAA-related bank accounts by a TKO over common sense.
Yes, the guys in accounting got what they wanted, creating major hype for an event that does not actually need that hype anyway – by just allowing the season the play itself out, and for games like LSU/Alabama and that lovely TCU/Baylor/Oklahoma triangle ahead, the sport already had the best advertising it could possibly have - good teams, good players and good coaches playing big games can set quite a stage. The bitterness I feel is that for a sport that I dearly love, the overwhelming majority of the media focus now goes to the Playoffs, ignoring the rest of the landscape, and that is indeed a shame.
Our task here is still primarily to make money, however, so we need to get on with it, but first some dignity must be restored. The fact that this particular Tuesday each November is going to be pretty much the same thing annually (Ohio State was #16 in the first Committee ratings last year, for example) means that there will also be the need to breathe out once it is over. I usually save the musical interludes to help get through the longer pieces but one is needed here - “Tuesday’s Gone”, we can move forward now, and some classic Lynyrd Skynyrd, from Winterland back in 1976, provides a catharsis -
OK, let’s get down to business. First, let’s address what some of the frenzy was about -
--No, the Big 12 did not get screwed. If you tweeted that out, wrote a column about it, or called your friends to bitch, you are the one that got it wrong, not the committee. Just relax and try to spit the hook. Yes, it might look absurd for a one-loss Notre Dame team to be ahead of Baylor and TCU, but that is of almost zero consequence moving forward - the Big 12 will be fine. It just so happens that the schedules for the better teams in that league are back-loaded this season, but if either Baylor or TCU finishes unbeaten they will easily leap-frog the Fighting Irish, and finish no lower than #3. Games against Wake Forest and Boston College in the weeks ahead will have Notre Dame already falling from SOS grace before the Fighting Irish head to Stanford.
--LSU actually got a break because it rained so hard the Tigers could not play McNeese State. The way these things work, the SOS (Strength of Schedule) is such that it was better for LSU to not play that game at all, rather than play and win. Again, it does not matter yet, with the Tigers having to earn it on the field with likely the most difficult closing four games of any team, but on that fateful final decision day in December, a one-loss LSU team just might see that postponement be a feather in the cap. But I will get back to the Tigers in a moment…
--The SEC is not guaranteed a spot. That might sound odd, but it could easily play out. Mississippi gets to play LSU at home, which leaves the Rebels as the slight favorites to emerge from the SEC West for the conference championship game. That could mean a two-loss champion from the conference, and it is not easy finding a scenario in which 11-2 cuts it. Be thinking about that as you peruse the futures, because…
--Clemson and the Big 10 winner will be difficult to budge. Clemson will likely be favored in double figures the rest of the way, including the ACC Championship game. There is not much standing in the way of the Michigan State/Ohio State winner. As you sort through the futures markets, those paths are pretty clear. The others become muddled. If there is a good price on Clemson you can take advantage (think 7-1 or better), not so much because the Tigers are going to win this thing, but that the likelihood of them being in the playoffs is so strong that there would be plenty of ways for you to maneuver a ticket if you have one in hand.
--Do style points matter anywhere? This will annually be the biggest issue, looking for teams that may need to go for the jugular just a little more in their games. And the answer is yes, although whether or not the teams themselves perceive it is an open question. Style points matter to Notre Dame, Stanford and Utah, three teams that could win the rest of their games and still not make it into the Final Four. They also matter to Memphis and Houston, which are on the outside looking in. But for all other teams in the Top 15, winning the remaining games should be enough.
Plenty of fun, of course, but now on to this week and how the process begins sorting itself out, like in the LSU/Alabama showdown.
Concerning LSU, and how rain may have hindered the Tiger development twice…
OK, so LSU not playing McNeese State helps a little bit in this week’s ratings, but it hurt the Tigers on the field by not being able to play a game. And some may make the case that the flooding in South Carolina back in early October, which forced the Gamecocks to play the Tigers in Baton Rouge, instead of Columbia, also played in the favor of Les Miles and his team. Perhaps it did, at the time, but in the long run the opposite may be true. Because that game was played at home, it means that the Tigers have been on campus since September 27, which is an unusually long stretch for any football season. I believe this particular team would have much more benefitted from a road trip.
Many of you will have LSU/Alabama not only near the top of you list of games to watch, but also to handicap as well, because there are so many fascinating components, starting with the fact that Miles and Saban have had so many head-knockers, seven of their nine meetings with these programs in doubt on the final possession, with three of them going to overtime. But while the Tigers bring every bit as much raw talent as the Crimson Tide once again, there is a matter of experience that may well be a major factor this week. For as good as that LSU roster is, this team is also awfully young.
Consider the two-deep on this week’s Tiger charts:
OFFENSE
Seniors: 2
Juniors: 5
Sophomores: 9
Freshmen: 6
DEFENSE (two extra players listed because of the nickel packages):
Seniors: 3
Juniors: 10
Sophomores: 7
Freshmen: 4
This is one of the youngest rosters in the country. That they have played as well as they have is a tribute to their talent, and it is intriguing as hell to think how good this team will be next year. But not having played McNeese, and not having traveled to South Carolina, may have actually hindered development, and the inexperience of this team should be in the forefront of your thought processes as you handicap Saturday night’s showdown.
Might this matter?
From Matt Leinart on Twitter yesterday (credit to Yardbarker for making the connections) -
"Titans coach fired. Now Marcus Mariota has a chance!"
Consider that a belated follow-up concerning Ken Whisenhunt, after Leinart also made the following comments about him to Steve DelVecchio at Larry Brown Sports a while back, right around the time that Whisenhunt was hired by the Titans –
“I don’t think it’s a great fit, and I don’t think it’s great timing, and here’s why. You look at his tenure in Arizona - only two years, he had success, and in those two years, Kurt Warner ran that football team - I was a part of it. Every single Monday, Kurt Warner would come in and implement 20-to-30 new plays which he would say, ‘I want these in my game plan.’ We became a spread offense and we became Kurt Warner’s offense. Then Kurt Warner retires, they go 5-11 twice and they go 8-8.”
Leinart is not necessarily an expert, but at least he does know what it is like to be a young QB looking to develop under a coach. Perhaps some sour grapes there, but it does provide food for thought as we re-evaluate Tennessee this week, and also follow the Mariota career arc in a most unusual setting of a rookie QB seeing his first NFL coach fired in mid-season.
In the Sights…
They are billing this as a showdown in Golden State tonight, two of the league’s best teams going head-to-head, and it intensifies because the Clippers and Warriors flat-out do not like each other. But I believe the schedule has advanced one team far more to this point, and in what will be a frenzied atmosphere, a night in which the defending champions are giving out replicas of the rings they earned to the fans, #520 Golden State is the play to pull away and win in double figures.
Think about that schedule opening – all four of the Warrior games have come against teams that had revenge against them after being eliminated in last spring’s playoffs, yet they rolled to a 4-0 SU and ATS tally in which the opponents did not sniff the pointspread. While admittedly New Orleans was short-handed, those are teams that knew the Golden State schemes, and should have brought their best punch. The final scores may be exaggerated a bit because in several of them games the other side threw in the towel once the outcome was set (like Memphis on Monday night), but it tells us one of the key storylines of this season is already out there – that was a young Warrior team that won the title in June, and as a group they may only be in the early stages in terms of how good they can get.
It is a tough matchup for the Clippers. They rely on DeAndre Jordan’s defense to shut off the interior against most teams, but Golden State can run excellent offense without needing to get the ball down on the blocks, taking a prime L.A.C. strength out of play. And while the Los Angeles bench cast has been upgraded in terms of talent, that is not the case when it comes to teamwork – a bunch of guys still learning to play together can be exploited by the NBA’s deepest roster. The Clippers will play hard and have their moments, but they are running into a buzz-saw in this environment.
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