SpongeWorthy

A.J. Abrams has one of the quickest releases I've ever seen on the college level. I wonder if he's the next Shawn Respert or the next Ray Allen in the NBA.

Interesting that Sarkisian is taking the UW job. Perhaps more interesting is if Pete will go after a guy that'll continue the pro-style offense or someone to with a spread background.

Nice home cooking refs down the stretch there. Blah, I'm just bitter. It was a lot closer than I thought it would be.

OU is gonna run us off the floor in the 2nd half :( Griffin is going to foul our entire front court out, Hackett can't stay in front of Johnson, and our offense bogs down like crazy. We have no slashers :/

Mayo is a lot better than Derozan. OJ had a polished, NBA-ready game almost from the time he stepped on the floor at SC. Derozan has a long way to go. He doesn't trust his handle at all (sort of negating his otherwordly athleticism) and his jumper is erratic.

Yeah some cursory reading has led me to believe that the powers that be at Auburn don't exactly take a shine to Tuberville. Still, if the UA/AU rivalry is that huge (which I don't doubt) why would Auburn want to fire the man who has been the biggest nemesis of Alabama in the history of the series? They want to keep up with Alabama but who's out there that's going to become another Saban? Personally, I think Tuberville's already in that class. He doesn't have the mega wattage star power that's going to bring in top 5 classes every year but he's had some truly great years and lots of good ones. Now after one mediocre campaign they're tossing him? And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised at all if Tuberville takes another job in the SEC. He won't be out of work for long and he shouldn't be. He's a good coach. Edit: And I should add that Tuberville accomplished a hell of a lot more at Auburn than Nutt did at Arkansas and however strained the relationship he has w ith Auburn it doesn't seem nearly as severe as what Nutt put the Razorbacks through. That whole episode was a circus.

What the hell is going at Auburn? I don't follow the program particularly closely but Tuberville's body of work speaks for itself. Doesn't he have one of the very best records in college football against ranked opponents?

I'm still waiting on a camera shot where Vinny's lips are moving when he's on the sidelines. He doesn't jaw at the refs, instruct his players, or get on/encourage guys as they come off the floor. It's ludicrous.

5 points in OT. This loss falls on Gooden, Gordon, Nocioni, and Vinny. Gordon was absolutely brutal in the 4th quarter and OT. NOcioni saw way too much floor time. Can't Vinny see that he's actively harming the team with his boneheaded plays? Tyrus was pretty good tonight. We need more of his energy and athleticism and less of his brain dead moments. At least we got the former tonight.

Nocioni is a horror. Where's our $70 million dollar man?

TT!

Also: Derrick freakin' Rose.

Yeah probably. But he really makes me gnash my teeth with his patented over dribble/bounce it off his foot or go into the lane and jump with nowhere to go. We have Tyrus Thomas, Andres Nocioni, and Larry Hughes...we can't afford stupidity from our better players.

Gordon and Nocioni are just infuriating players.

Another slow start vs. Philly. Hopefully we see a repeat of the last game.

If the level of civility in college football discussion drops below that of what you see on Charlie Rose a little part in me dies.

It's only impractical for the people who have a vested interest in not having a playoff. I find it completely ridiculous that there are characteristics unique to college football that make constructing a lucrative and logistically feasible tournament system impossible. Virtually every league with the stature of NCAA D1 football settles on its champion via a playoff and the vast majority of sports with a lesser shine than NCAA football do as well. Saying it's impractical is nothing more than a flimsy, self-serving argument for bowl committees, university presidents, and conference commissioners. Now if you don't want a playoff system because you prefer the way things are done now, that's a different argument that has some merit. I don't agree with it, but it is valid.

How much ground does Florida need to make up in the computers on Texas to pass them in the BCS? And what are the possible amounts of ground they make up by beating Bama?

Are you under some astoundng delusion that I thought he was really talking about Jason White? Or am I just not allowed to make a joke about a quarterback (who fit the given description to a T) who was horrific in the 3 biggest games of his career?

Thirty years ago, throwing a football across the line of scrimmage more than a handful of times didn't really involve a multimillion dollar investment taking vicious shots from the most freakish athletes on the planet. Tebow would never, ever, survive (as in have a career of meaningful length with adequate health) the sort of punishment in the NFL that he did in college. I doubt any QB could.

My original point that hasn't wavered a bit was a suggestion that Big XII coaches probably weren't doing an adequate job of game planning (whether through effort or imagination) a defense for OU. It seems yours is that OU is just that good that no other conclusion can be drawn except that their offense is so overwhelming that defensive coordinators are totally blameless for their teams failures. This is in spite of a very recent history of OU having what were touted as world class offenses that played anywhere from atrocious to average against teams with good defenses (when the very biggest prizes in the sport were on the line, mind you). no my point is that OU's offense just might be a little more complex than "just slant routes!" and if it isn't, that the personnel just must be overwhelming because you'd think someone might have watched tape on them at some point in the year there was also that thing about the offense being one dimensional, but i think we've disproved that it's almost like you dont actually know what you're talking about The slant/crossing routes remarks were firmly tongue in cheek. I thought that was blindingly obvious. When I refer to them as "revolutionary" and "ground breaking" I'm being more than slightly facetious. I'll admit that I haven't watched every snap of OU football this year but I've watched quite a bit. Are my points about them using primarily (exclusively?) shot gun, lots of underneath/timing routes, not a huge emphasis on the deep ball, not a ton of motion/misdirection way off? Clearly you watch more Sooner football than I do so I'll just take it back if I'm wrong. From what I can gather, a huge portion of their attack involves Bradford sitting in the gun and picking apart a team to death on short to intermediate stuff. They execute it extraordinarily well. I only submit that defenses could do better and if they face Florida and Bama in the BCS title game it'll be much tougher slogging.

If by "fully implement" you mean a full blown Oregon/Florida style attack--it'll never happen. No owner, GM, or head coach would tolerate a quarterback taking as many hits on the pro level as say Tebow or Dennis Dixon did at the collegiate level.

My original point that hasn't wavered a bit was a suggestion that Big XII coaches probably weren't doing an adequate job of game planning (whether through effort or imagination) a defense for OU. It seems yours is that OU is just that good that no other conclusion can be drawn except that their offense is so overwhelming that defensive coordinators are totally blameless for their teams failures. This is in spite of a very recent history of OU having what were touted as world class offenses that played anywhere from atrocious to average against teams with good defenses (when the very biggest prizes in the sport were on the line, mind you).

Try telling every one of Florida's opponents otherwise. Dependable grind it out Big Ten style backs are completely overrated and fairly useless in this place called reality. Wells and Moreno are better inside the tackles runners than Rainey and Demps, but Rainey and Demps for whatever reason are better at getting these important things called yards. Rainey and Demps are actually very very good inside the tackles and probably have higher YPCs than Moreno and Wells between the tackles too. I mean afterall. Beanie Wells has carried the ball a whopping 191 times for 1091 yards. Demps and Harvin have combined for 1067 yards on just two thirds the carries (116) . In fact the Gators triumvirate has 198 carries - just seven more - and have about 650 more yards. Those 1721 yards are just 8 yards fewer than Shonn Greene's total this year...on 80 fewer carries. Those 1721 yards are 130 more than Ringers'....on over 250 fewer carries. Those 1721 yards are 383 yard more than Moreno on thirty fewer carries. Perhaps Demps, Rainey and company wouldn't be able to carry the ball 30 times a game for the entire season, but that's a good thing. Take Chris Wells for example, his longest run in the fourth quarter is 9 yards. Greene's production in the fourth quarter falls by nearly a yard per carry. Last year Moreno averaged nearly 6 yards per carry in the first three quarters. 3.85 in the fourth. Granted there are some sample size issues here, but c'mon let's run the tired guy out there the entire time. Is the tired guy really better than a 100% backup at universities like Ohio State, Florida and Georgia? Of course not. Lets mix them up and keep their legs fresh. Demps, Rainey and company pile up high runs consistently because they're faster than everyone else, and their legs are completely rested each time they get the ball. This is the future of the running back position. The days of grind it out 40 attempt backs are numbered. NFL teams are starting to get the picture and so are college coaches. You run when you win, you don't run to win unless you run for high efficiency. You're "great" backs pile up empty yards in the former. http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2008/1129/ncf_u_tebow03_600.jpg I totally concur that a stable of runningbacks will be seen more than the traditional workhorse in the future. As for the NFL seeing the picture I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. The leading rushers in the NFL this year are Portis, Peterson, Turner, C. Johnson, T. Jones, Forte, D. Williams, Jacobs, Barber, and Gore. The only one out of that list that even begins to fit the mold of a Demps or Rainey is Chris Johnson. And Wells and Moreno are both going to be drafted much higher than Demps or Rainey as well. You also made some weird point earlier in this thread about how Tebow represented the future of NFL quarterbacking. Huh? If anything the last few years has seen the repudiation of mobile, spread-option type guys (Young, Smith, Vick, etc. vs. Cutler, Ryan, etc.)

How did we get into Jason White? We all know he was never slowed down by good defenses.