ope:
USC imo has a better chance to make the title game than any SEC team. I'd be surprised if any SEC team was able to go the whole year with only 1 loss. Assuming the winner has 2 losses USC is right back at the front of the NC race as long as they win out. The Big 12 winner should be in there and unless someone goes undefeated in the other BCS conferences USC will be there if they win out.
And to answer the question, it's pretty even, but Florida's loss is worse. Ole Miss is a better team than Oregon St and I would have them at about a 6.5 favorite on a neutral field against the Beavers, but losing at home is worse than the road, tougher opponent or not. If you lose at home to someone like LSU or Georgia, fine, that can be excused. But even though Ole Miss is an up and coming team in the SEC you CANNOT lose that game.
And to answer the question, it's pretty even, but Florida's loss is worse. Ole Miss is a better team than Oregon St and I would have them at about a 6.5 favorite on a neutral field against the Beavers, but losing at home is worse than the road, tougher opponent or not. If you lose at home to someone like LSU or Georgia, fine, that can be excused. But even though Ole Miss is an up and coming team in the SEC you CANNOT lose that game.
OK, let me get this straight. Mississippi is a better team than Oregon State.
That would mean that Miss would be ranked 2nd in the Pac, at least because they'd win more games than Oregon State has which happens to be the 2nd most winningest team in the Pac-10 conference for 2 years behind USC. They are better than Oregon State so that makes them 2nd only to USC in wins (potentially.)
Mississippi didn't play too well and beat Florida @ Florida but that's OK because they just had an off day. The way they played has nothihng to do with how good they really are. Their soso play Saturday doesn't mean anything. (and neither does Florida's loss)
Oregon schooled USC. Obviously they played a very good game beating USC and owning the ball most of the game, but that doesn't count either because they are not a very good team compared to Ole Miss. The Beavers convincing performance vs the Trojans doesn't mean anything because they are not really that good to begin with. (neither is USC)
Mississippi would beat them because they are better even though they didn't play that well. How they played has nothing to do with how good they are. It doesn't count because they are an up and coming team in the SEC. That is still better than Oregon State who has won more games the last couple years than anyone but USC and also just beat them. Don't matter.
Got it. I'm learning how to think like an SEC homey. Forgive me if I've not said it as smooth as you guys when you do that circle jerk thing and blow smoke up everyone's asses because it's kind of new to me.
That would mean that Miss would be ranked 2nd in the Pac, at least because they'd win more games than Oregon State has which happens to be the 2nd most winningest team in the Pac-10 conference for 2 years behind USC. They are better than Oregon State so that makes them 2nd only to USC in wins (potentially.)
Mississippi didn't play too well and beat Florida @ Florida but that's OK because they just had an off day. The way they played has nothihng to do with how good they really are. Their soso play Saturday doesn't mean anything. (and neither does Florida's loss)
Oregon schooled USC. Obviously they played a very good game beating USC and owning the ball most of the game, but that doesn't count either because they are not a very good team compared to Ole Miss. The Beavers convincing performance vs the Trojans doesn't mean anything because they are not really that good to begin with. (neither is USC)
Mississippi would beat them because they are better even though they didn't play that well. How they played has nothing to do with how good they are. It doesn't count because they are an up and coming team in the SEC. That is still better than Oregon State who has won more games the last couple years than anyone but USC and also just beat them. Don't matter.
Got it. I'm learning how to think like an SEC homey. Forgive me if I've not said it as smooth as you guys when you do that circle jerk thing and blow smoke up everyone's asses because it's kind of new to me.
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And it's for these exact reasons that Oregon St. was extremely undervalued in the game going into USC and is a much better team than people were giving them credit for.
They outplayed Stanford and were clearly the better talent, but Moevao made several AWFUL mistakes in the game that cost them. You can throw out the Penn St. game, Oregon St. has a long history of playing badly on 3000 mile road trips (as do many other teams), and because Mississippi (and Flordia) are too chicken to schedule games like that it's hard to discuss how they would perform in similar circumstances.
Oregon St is a very talented team when they are not turning the ball over or committing penalties, they can play with just about anyone in the nation, as this game just proved. And you SEC loudmouths are kidding yourselves if you think tackling Quizz is easy. Let's see how the rest of the season plays out. Moevao is definitely a liability, but if he limits his mistakes this team could be in the rose bowl.
As for Mississippi, they played with, but still lost to, Wake Forrest in a HORRIBLE ACC conf, who just lost to Navy. Vandy I have not seen play yet, so not sure how bad a loss that was, but given it was at home that is certainly not good.
I'd put Oregon St up against Mississippi any day (as long as it wasn't at Miss), the Florida loss is much worse considering it was at home. Florida is definitely out of the national championship picture, because other one loss teams at the end will not have an unranked Mississippi loss on their reocrd. Their only hope is for several teams to go 2 losses and then run the table.
I'll be the first to say the SEC is overrated this year and the fact that they had a lot of top 10 ranked teams means absolutely zero, and I'll even say that most SEC fans/homers on this board are some of the most ignorant/stupid people you could ever try to have a conversation with, BUT with that said Ole Miss IS a better team than Oregon St THIS year. I'm not talking about who has been the best the past 2-4 years, because that's not debatable, nor is it relevant. Ole Miss is a better team this year though. They wouldn't of lost at home to Stanford and gotten beat down like that against Penn St. Oregon St played very well against USC, that will by far be there best game of the season. Overall though they don't have too much talent this year as far as I've seen.
The fact is though that the Pac 10 will likely have the last laugh as I'd say USC has a better chance to make the NC game than any SEC team.
OTK, I can understand from how Oregon St. performed vs Stanford and vs Penn St. why people would sell them short. You can go to ESPN.com and look at their schedule and results going back a couple years and see that they are NOTORIOUSLY slow starters every year. But when they gel and hit their stride, there's no one they can't beat. It's right there to be seen. As far as star power goes, you'll have to look hard to find it in terms of big name recruits because Riley and his ACs often end up with possibly one or 2 4* players and the rest 3* and 2*. This doesn't mean they have poor players, it means that the players they get need coaching up. Riley has an amazing eye for finding diamonds in the rough. Thankfully. He has a great reptutation for coaching up his players which is why they led the nation in rushing defense last year with "nobodies." But then there are the Stephen Jacksons and the Derek Andersons and the Sammie Straughters but they don't come prepackaged that way from high school, necessarily. They do have some great players, albeit you haven't heard about the Rogers brothers much unless you are from Texas and follow HS football there. My guess is that you will. My point is that this team needs time to gel. They are extremely talented but they are new and they are young. If what you saw in terms of progress this year in the USC game is any indication of what they are capable of, we will revisit this again sometime but it will be a while after the squares have had several earfulls and know what to regurgitate on this board. Not before when guys like me who follow this conference have seen it for themselves.
You must be thinking of last year when you say he's a liability. This year he is the 8th ranked QB in total yardage in the country. He did make one critical error (a backwards pass out of bounds through the end zone in the Stanford game and one silly pick,) but I don't recall any others. He used to throw too many picks and pick-6's... last season. But this season he could be the most improved QB in the nation. Watch the balls he throws and watch how quickly he releases the ball with authority and accuracy. His decisions are almost flawless. I'm still getting used to the idea that the Beavers have a very good QB under center this season, but I cannot deny what I've seen of this kid so far.
Yes, the SEC and Big 12 are good conferences. The SEC is still overrated though. People talked as if it was the best conference of all time. It very well might be the best conference again this year, but it can still be overrated at the same time.
You could also make the case there isn't a great conference this year. College football as a whole has been down the past few years imo. I see less overall talent out there now than I did 4-8 years ago. The USC/Texas teams that met in the BCS championship in 2004 would both go undefeated against the teams at the top this year. The Carson Palmer led Trojans would hammer most of the top 10 teams.
One more detail I'd like to bring out...
Both USC and UGA came out flatfooted in their losses. Both looked as if they were going to turn it around and pull it out and some point later in the game, proving that they are better than what they showed at the start of their games. I don't know how this should play into their overall strength as a team but it definitely shows that anyone can be beat no matter who they are if they come out flatfooted. Anyone can do that. It's not a very good way to gauge how good a team is because they play one bad half and end up losing the game.
You can say that a championship team would have come back despite the adversity and won. That's probably true, but it's ironic that both USC and UGA have very young OL's and not much else to criticize. That means less and less as the season wears on especially towards the end. Both USC and UGA will be better than they showed this week.
Both USC and UGA came out flatfooted in their losses. Both looked as if they were going to turn it around and pull it out and some point later in the game, proving that they are better than what they showed at the start of their games. I don't know how this should play into their overall strength as a team but it definitely shows that anyone can be beat no matter who they are if they come out flatfooted. Anyone can do that. It's not a very good way to gauge how good a team is because they play one bad half and end up losing the game.
You can say that a championship team would have come back despite the adversity and won. That's probably true, but it's ironic that both USC and UGA have very young OL's and not much else to criticize. That means less and less as the season wears on especially towards the end. Both USC and UGA will be better than they showed this week.
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Nope, not thinking of last year. Thinking of this year. I watched the Stanford game, they would have run Stanford out of their stadium (and get your facts straight whomever above impled the game was at OSU, it was at Stanford), were it not for his play that night. He handed Stanford 9 points with the pick 6 and the saftey, threw another int that killed a sure scoring drive, and was off target on many throws in the 1st half of the game.
When he is in a groove, he performs very well, but that is because of the outstanding ability of their receiver corps more than anything else. Problem is, he rarely seems to be able to put 4 good quarters together. He is undersized (below 6' I think?) and may not see the field as well, not sure if that's part of his problem.
He didn't have to do a whole lot vs. USC because they couldn't stop Quizz, but that TD pass that should have been intercepted is just another example. Moevao is shaky, he needs to get much more consistent, but if he does, this is a top 15 team. Their skill players easily outclass Ole Miss. On the front 7s, I probably would have said Ole Miss before the last 2 games, but as OSU continues to improve, it might be a toss up. Let's see Ole Miss have to make a long road trip out to USC, Oregon, or Oregon St. and see how they do. I'd bet, not very well.
OK point taken. Perhaps I'm looking more at what he's done right compared to last season. His command of the offense is 1000% better than it was at this time last year. You can count his mistakes on the fingers of one hand. Last year after 4 games you'd have run out of fingers by now. He does have a ways to go and if his improvement is any indication of the progress he will continue to make, he'll get there. I did not expect this level of performance from him. Did you notice his accuracy and touch the rest of the time? I would be lying if I said I expected that. He's just a junior in his first season as "the" starter.
The USC loss was bigger only because they don't have any real powerhouses left to play. USC needs Ohio St to run the table (takes care of Penn St), and also needs Notre Dame to win out up to their game in Noverber. A one-loss Notre Dame could be top 7-8 when playing USC.
