Point Blank – November 3
What a “Bettor Better Know” – NCAA #10
A look back at The Week that Was on the NCAA gridirons, focusing on key issues that you can incorporate into your portfolio to gain some key edges as November unfolds.
Item: This week, we rate the committee
Last week this column began with a take on the inherent problems of the Playoff committee (caps on the “P”, and not on the “c”, intentional) not only meeting too early, but also of them making their ratings public, which has the potential to raise all sorts of questions. But whereas the first release was all about seeing the ratings from the committee, this time it will be establishing baselines for our own ratings of the committee. And now one of the issues from starting the process too early comes into play – how do they treat Mississippi?
The stated goal all along has been to get the “Best Four Teams” into that Playoff, working on the parameters to determine how best to define those teams. Now is when conflict can come into play. If the injury to Laquon Treadwell is not factored in, there is not a savvy football handicapper anywhere on the planet that lowers the Ole Miss power rating off of that loss. If they were the #4 team, and played absolutely toe-to-toe with the #3, with only a most unfortunate finish preventing the likely outright win (yes, Auburn still would have had the ball with some time left), their rating stays the same. But the committee has a different task - they also have to choreograph those Playoff matchups.
A genuine case can be made that Oregon deserves to move up from #5 to #4, given that domination of Stanford. There would not be much quibble with that. But if Mississippi was considered better than idle Alabama last week, that should not change. Nor do the Rebel comparisons to TCU, Michigan State, Kansas State or Notre Dame. It would be convenient for the committee to drop Ole Miss several places, since that is the way the traditional polls have usually handled such settings - the AP dropped them to #12 this week, which is absolutely ludicrous. But if the aim really is to identify the best teams, that should not be the practice going forward. This will make for an interesting case study Tuesday evening.
Item: The Bulldogs got bulldozed
One of the team’s that made things easier on the committee, completely removing themselves from consideration, was Georgia. The shocking ease with which Florida physically dominated the Bulldogs in Jacksonville was one of the biggest surprises of the season. Two weeks ago there was a take here on Will Muschamp being someone’s DC next auturm, focusing on how he had not been able to bring in the kind of offensive playmakers that should be stockpiled in the Gator program. Yet while Saturday’s result will be spun as a “new beginning” by many, in truth, the old issues were not solved.
There could be headlines about the way that switching to Treon Harris at QB has made it a different world (one prominent national news source offered - “Muschamp turns it around with win vs. UGA”), but that would be a complete misread of that game – Harris only threw six passes, just one after intermission, good for only 27 yards. He ran six times for 31 yards. It was what happened on the other 54 snaps that set the tone – they simply pounded away at the Georgia defensive interior, with RBs Kelvin Taylor and Matt Jones each carrying the ball 25 times, for a shocking 389 yards and four TDs. That is 7.8 per carry, a rate that is more than double what would have been projected going in. And there was almost no finesse at all, with the overwhelming bulk of those carries coming between the tackles.
Although there will now be a much brighter environment in Gainesville, especially with three more wins available before heading to Florida State, it was a win that does not necessarily solve any of the offensive issues that had been lingering – you are not going to win consistently in the SEC with a power ground game. Instead, it was Georgia’s front seven being exposed, and there are some added ramifications to that…
Item: Has the SEC Championship game been relocated to Tuscaloosa?
Missouri is now on the verge of a second straight appearance in the SEC Championship game, despite being an ode to mediocrity. The Tigers lost at home to Big 10 lightweight Indiana, and when they did have to step up against Georgia got pushed around 34-0, getting only 50 yards rushing against that same defense that Florida just gashed. But in terms of the luck of the draw, the Tigers hold an inside straight. Those two crossovers against the SEC West avoid Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi and Mississippi State, and instead bring Texas A&M and Arkansas. Of the seven possible games, they drew the two easiest. Poker players can quickly calculate those odds.
Win out, and the Tigers head to Atlanta. But if Georgia loses to Auburn, it also means that Missouri could lose one more time, and still represent the SEC East. That in turn creates a dud of an SEC title tilt, and instead moves the real championship game up, to the Alabama vs. Mississippi State and Auburn cycle, both in Tuscaloosa. In fact, should Bama beat the Bulldogs, and Auburn win at Georgia, those in-state rivals could indeed be meeting for all of the marbles. Keep that in mind as you shop Playoff futures in the weeks ahead – Alabama will not be in the Top Four in this week’s ratings, but the path for the Crimson Tide is there for the taking. Meanwhile the injury to Treadwell also impacts Mississippi State – it appears that even if the Bulldogs lose at Alabama, a win in the Egg Bowl at Ole Miss should still get them into the Playoffs. As the focus narrows the SEC West has the distinct possibility now of two teams moving on, especially since instead of the SEC Championship being a hurdle to leap, it may only be a bar laying on the ground that requires stepping over.
Item: The throws Dana Holgorsen did not call, and one that he did
Auburn/Mississippi was magnificent; Ali/Frazier going at it in their prime. TCU/West Virginia was just as intense, but because of the conditions it was a saloon brawl, with cuts and bruises galore. The Horned Frogs finally escaped to remain very much in the Playoff picture, but they escaped because their captor did not bind the prisoner tightly enough, and one of the takeaways attached is meaningful to the handicapper, if a bit discomforting to the fan of the sport.
One of the prime issues concerning Dana Holgorsen’s tenure at West Virginia is whether he has the maturity to handle young athletes at this level. He brings the offensive tactics and the passion, but stewardship has been an open question. As such Saturday’s loss, and the immediate aftermath, shine a bright light into what are still some shadowy recesses.
First the details. West Virginia’s defense played more than well enough to win the game, and the Mountaineers led 30-21 in the fourth quarter. Move the ball a bit, make some first downs, and they could control the flow, limiting the TCU opportunities to rally. But in that final stanza the offense went three-and-out on all three possessions, finishing with -2 yards on those nine snaps. Seven of them were running plays, including three first-down runs that were all stopped for no gain, another was a sack, and only one was a pass, which went incomplete. Was it really that there was so much confidence in the defense that the burden would almost all be put on them? It would have been easy for the coach to say that after the game, and try to put a positive spin. Instead, the post-game pass he did throw was one tossing QB Clint Trickett under the bus -
“Clint was incredibly uncomfortable, incredibly uncomfortable. Their rush was good. I’ll have to evaluate it to see if our pass protection was worth a damn, but he was uneasy in the pocket. He got spooked. … If we were to sit back and try to throw the ball there, it probably wouldn’t have turned out very good.”
It is one thing to think that, but another matter entirely to say it publicly about a QB that is having a terrific season. It is a situation that bears close scrutiny down the stretch – West Virginia has a dangerous trip to Texas this week, before hosting Kansas State, and it will be a major test to see if Holgorsen can get his team to settle down and respond off of a tough loss. It is similar to LY, when the Mountaineers fell to Texas at home in overtime in Game #10, and subsequently came up flat in losing outright as a favorite vs. both Kansas and Iowa State.
Item: Indiana Passes on Passing
At least Holgorsen had confidence in Trickett until that end-game on Saturday. But for Kevin Wilson, in what may be the final furlong of his attempt to turn the Indiana program around, there appears to be none at all when it comes to freshman QB Zander Diamont. An offense that was rolling quite well with Nate Sudfeld at the helm earlier in the season is now one that is reduced to trying to shorten games through the grind of the Big 10 schedule, the opposite of a Wilson pace. And that is something that the shrewd handicapper needs to prepare for with the Hoosiers down the stretch.
After losing both Sudfeld, and then Chris Covington, the task of starting vs. Michigan State two weeks ago fell on Diamont’s untested shoulders. It was not pretty vs. that Spartan defense, with a 5-16 passing line that netted only 11 yards. But instead of a vote of confidence to boost his young QB, this was how Wilson dealt with the situation during preparation for Saturday’s game at Michigan, making Diamont unavailable to speak to the media - "The story on Zander is he threw for 11 yards. He needs to work instead of talk. So I'll talk for him."
And as the game at Ann Arbor progressed, Wilson let his actions do plenty of talking. Once again the passing game struggled – this time only 5-8 for 24 yards. But instead of working to develop his young QB, with a lot of season left to play, Wilson packed it in - the last 25 Hoosier plays were all runs. Over the past two games they have only had a combined 92 offensive plays, after averaging 82 in the five Sudfeld starts. Is this what the remainder of the season is going to look like? That is a prime issue for the handicapper, with the markets possibly a step slow to fully adjust to a team that has been playing at an entirely different pace since Wilson came to Bloomington.
Item: The Arizona State defense grows up (fast)
Earlier this season there was a game-day take on the potential perils the ASU defense was facing against UCLA (/pregame-forums/f/14/t/1047993.aspx), and much of that inexperience showed in a disastrous loss. While the offense staged a miraculous rally to beat USC the following week, the defense again struggled, allowing over 200 yards both running and passing, and not forcing a turnover. But then came a bye week, and a chance for a mini-camp in terms of coaching and teaching. Now we have to start liking what we are seeing.
Despite running some wide open offensive schemes, and first building a reputation at Tulsa on that side of the ball, Todd Graham takes a lot of pride in his defense, and actually spends more coaching time with that group. Part of the reason for starting so many young players this season is that he wanted to get his own recruits on the field, after the defense had lost discipline and focus near the end of the Dennis Erickson years. That meant those early growing pains, but since the bye week they have only allowed two offensive TDs (Washington scored one on a Pick-Six) in 12 quarters, plus that overtime vs. Utah on Saturday night. Stanford was held to 288 yards, Washington 290 (although the wind and rain did help that night), and Utah 241. This group brings a tremendous upside for the future, the question with Notre Dame coming to town this Saturday is how much of that future is “now”. Because there is also one other aspect of grading that needs to be in play…
Item: Utah is missing Dres Anderson more than you might think
One of the keys to ASU shutting Utah down was the absence of Anderson, who was lost for the season when the Utes beat USC the previous Saturday. Before being injured he was second on the team in receptions with 22, but it is the 16.1 average per catch that really matters – he is the one playmaker that can stretch a field in the passing game. Of the other five players that have at least 10 receptions, three are netting less than 10.0 per catch, with Tim Patrick’s 12.0 leading the way.
Through a combination of Anderson’s absence, and the talent in the Sun Devil secondary, Utah’s 22 pass attempts only produced 57 yards on Saturday night. The difficulty in stretching the field also shows in the production of RB Devontae Booker – he netted 3.9 per rush the past two games, far below the 6.2 he averaged through the first six. With some difficult challenges ahead vs. Oregon and Stanford the next two weeks, the absence of Anderson should have a more significant power rating adjustment than his base statistics would indicate.
Item: There were nine fumbles in the East Carolina/Temple game…
And Temple recovered eight of them, in a sloppy affair played through a driving rain. That makes for one heck of a tricky box score read, in a game in which first downs were 30-10 for the Pirates, and total offense was 432-135. It was absolutely not one of those games in which the Owls statistics were limited because the goal line got in the way – they were simply awful offensively. RBs Kenneth Harper and Jahad Thomas managed only 57 yards on their 26 carries, and QB P. J. Walker was just 7-19 for 70 yards through the air. But when the ball hit the ground, it kept coming up in the hands of one of their players. East Carolina fumbled six times, losing five, and the only recovery was a dropped snap by punter Worth Gregory, which the Owls never really had a shot at. Temple fumbled three times, but managed to get on top of each of them.
While there are both faults for an offense to throw interceptions, and merit for defenses to get them, fumbles should not carry much weight in your thinking. In the past there has been a small credit to a defense that hits hard enough to cause them, but the current rules prohibit much of that. Yet even in the past the research made it clear that recoveries were extremely random, and have such small correlation to skill that it is better to not consider them at all. In truth, Temple played a lousy game Saturday, but the Owls got a win because East Carolina was even worse, not only fumbling the ball so many times, but being whistled for 116 yards on 12 penalties. That is a better way to grade the game. But there is an issue going forward – the inability to move the chains is becoming a big headache for the Owls. They have managed just 228 snaps over the last four games, forcing the defense to be on the field for 342, and that could matter with a short practice week ahead before they host Memphis on Friday night.
Item: Eastern Michigan, without Reggie Bell
How about this for a headline – “Allen sets career kickoff return yardage record in EMU’s setback to CMU”. That was atop the Eastern Michigan sports information page on Sunday morning, a testament to the challenge of having to find some needle in the haystick in terms of positive coverage, and also to the uphill battle Chris Creighton faces in trying to turn the program around. When he lost QB Reggie Bell to an ankle injury on the first drive of that dismal 38-7 loss to rival Central Michigan, the Eagle offense was literally a car without wheels.
There was a take on Bell a couple of weeks ago after his explosive performance against Buffalo, and last week against Northern Illinois they were alive for an upset, leading 17-14 in the fourth quarter of that 28-17 defeat. But after Bell ran for 14 yards on two carries in the first series on Saturday, the remainder of the game was horrific. Eastern managed only 83 yards at 1.8 per play, with the only points coming late in the fourth quarter, on a drive that started at the CMU six-yard line after a blocked punt. That level of ineptness puts the games with Bell at QB into a different perspective, while also showing an ominous state of affairs overall.
Item: Did anyone see Brian Hill coming?
Certainly the Fresno State defense didn’t, and in fact it appeared as though the Bulldogs often did not see him during the game as well. The Wyoming freshman RB had a night for the ages, running for 281 yards on just 23 carries, and catching three passes for 106 more, which begs the question – if he has this much game, where the hell has he been?
Until last week at Colorado State, Hill was #3 on the depth chart and had only carried the ball 20 times all season, netting just 50 yards. Until Fresno, he had not caught a pass. So it is the classic case of a guy working hard and moving up the depth chart, right? No. Hill only moved into the rotation vs. Colorado State because of season-ending injuries to #1 RB Shawn Wick, and #2 D. J. May, before getting Saturday’s start largely by default.
One can not blame first-year Cowboy coach Craig Bohl for where he kept Hill on the depth chart – a tough early schedule that included brutal trips to Oregon and Michigan State naturally had him leaning more on upperclassmen, and in truth both Wick (705 yards at 6.3) and May (260 at 4.6) were productive. So in addition to following Hill’s development closely, how about some early respect for Bohl’s rushing playbook – those top three RBs, along with #4 Joshua Tapscott, have combined for 1,492 yards and 13 TDs at 6.0 per carry. There may be something to see here, both in terms of Hill’s talent, and Bohl’s X’s and O’s.
Item: Did anyone see Kent Myers coming?
Utah State needs one more win for bowl eligibility, and should get it over the final four games. It may not be as big of a bowl that the program had hoped for, back when the season started and the dynamic Chuckie Keeton was at QB. But they were able to win a game with Keeton starting before he was injured. They were able to win with #2 Darell Garretson before he was injured. They were able to win with #3 Craig Harrison starting, before he was injured. But when they went out to the islands to face Hawaii on Saturday night they were down to #4 Kent Myers, a true freshman from Texas that they had no intention of playing this season, wishing to utilize a red-shirt for the future. But Myers was all that was left, and it was not just his inexperience that was an issue, but the fact that they were also down to true freshman LaJuan Hunt as the starting RB as well.
But no problem. Myers went 11-11 in leading Utah State to a 28-14 halftime lead, before coasting home 35-14, and his final line was a nearly flawless 14-15 for 186 yards and three TDs, with the passing game also getting a 44-yard TD on an end-around from WR Ronald Butler to Hunt. That was one of two receptions for Hunt, but his real job was to manage the game and the clock in the second half and he did that – 33 carries for 150 yards, a major load for a guy that only goes 5-8/185. And that was after he had only carried the ball 42 times all season coming in.
The performances of both of those players are a tribute to an under-rated program that has now won outright 13 times over the last 22 road games, and a tribute to HC Matt Wells keeping things on track after Gary Andersen left for Wisconsin. And it was the coach himself that helped to set the tone early last week – “We’re going to line up and play really, really hard. We’re going to give great effort. Whoever’s playing quarterback, running back or linebacker, it doesn’t matter. They better play hard and they need to worry about that logo they’re representing. As long as they do that we’ll be fine. The plan to win hasn’t changed since I gave it to you last week and the week before with all these injuries.”
Now the task is not just for Bohl and Wells to adjust to young players – with Utah State playing at Wyoming in front of the national cameras on Friday night, those dynamic performances from this past week become a major task for this handicap. While those showings by the RBs were tremendous, they will now be fully visible on film for the opposing defenses, and also face recovery issues on a short practice week off of those workloads.
Item: Tulsa is too tired, too early
For Bill Blankenship at Tulsa, the remaining four games are just that – the remaining four games not just of this season, but of his tenure as HC. And while there is a welcome opportunity to take on struggling SMU this week, it is time to focus on a particular problem for the Golden Hurricanes, and one that might get clouded over because of Saturday's opponent – they are gassing out far too early in games, far too early in the season.
Three games back they had a chance to pull off an upset win on the road at Temple, leading 24-21 in the fourth quarter. They lost 35-24. Two games ago they rolled to a seemingly commanding 27-7 halftime lead vs. pedestrian South Florida, a chance to curry some favor in front of the home fans. The Bulls ran them out 31-3 after intermission. Then on Friday there was a chance to showcase the program in front of the national cameras, and they jumped out 14-3 midway through the second quarter at Memphis. It was a 37-6 Tiger domination the rest of the way.
Those are significant collapses, given the underwhelming level of the competition. And it leaves two takeaways, neither of which are favorable – there is obviously not enough depth, an issue in Blankenship’s fourth season, since the roster now bears the stamp of his recruits. But there is also that matter of in-game adjustments. This staff is not making them very well. They will beat SMU by default, but that could help to set up favorable prices to knock them down when the schedule picks up for the final stretch.