HarleyQuinn

Also Cassel threw the ball a ton to reach those 400 yards... He had 51 and 43 pass attempts the last two games (numbers Brady was hitting weekly it seemed last season). Brady hit yard totals of 388, 373, 380, and 399 last year and that was with him being benched in the early 4th quarter of almost all his games. He easily could've clipped 400 yards if Belichick gave him the green to play the whole game. Here are the "rookie" number comparisons at this point Matt Cassel: 238/359 for 2615 with 13 vs. 8. 53 carries for 199 yards and 2 TD. Matt Ryan: 186/310 for 2418 with 11 vs. 6. 34 carries for 74 yards and 0 TD. Joe Flacco: 183/302 for 1996 with 10 vs. 9. 40 carries for 145 yards and 2 TD. One thing I want to point out is that Cassel, as great as he's been, has also been really lucky as of late. There've been several throws that should've been picked off but were dropped so his interception totals could easily be around 10 or 11 rather than 8 right now. Also IIRC the announcers during the Pats/Dolphins game made the mention that the Patriots have run the most plays (pass and run) out of the shotgun formation in comparison to any other team in the NFL so that's also helped with Cassel's gaudy 400+ yard stats.

1. How do you feel about the Dallas/Detroit tradition? How would you change it, if at all? It's tradition... keep 'em both but at least have them play outside of their domes and in cold weather. It's Thanksgiving and it deserves to be played in a cold weather area. I was a fan of the Patriots playing (despite the throwbacks) but I hate seeing the dome games. The NFL Network has the "flex" option to all those pining for a rotation/flex schedule, etc. so blame them for airing their games later. 2. Are there ten QBs in the league -right now- that you would take over Matt Ryan? If so, who? If not, does that blow your mind? Where do you rate him? Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Roethlisberger, Drew Brees, Kurt Warner, Eli Manning, Matt Hasselbeck (when his receivers are healthy), Donovan McNabb (Despite the off field moronics, he makes limited mistakes with crap for talent at WR) off the top of my head. So that's 8 quarterbacks but I'm not surprised at Ryan's success. Tom D's a really good talent evaluator (He came from NE after all...) and helped in the drafting of Tom Brady. Good credentials. Edit to add Romo so that's 9. 3. Who is the best player in the AFC west? Nnamdi Asomugha. He should make like Randy Moss and bolt ASAP. 4. Where does Donovan McNabb play next season? Minnesota Vikings 5. Why does Seattle suck so bad? A plethora of injuries to their receivers (See Deion Branch & Bobby Engram early on), their O-Line has been mediocre, their running backs are decent backups/spot starters at best (JJ and Duckett), and they have a bad defense with a few talented parts that can't make up for the lack of a whole.

Screw the I-A division... F-C-S I-AA Playoffs! are kicking off, booyah! And only one 1st Round game is on ESPNU? Boo... Here's the 1st Round Schedule! November 29th 12:00 PM: South Carolina State (10-2) @ Appalachian State (10-2) 2:00 PM: New Hampshire (9-2) @ Southern Illinois (9-2) 2:05 PM: Texas State (8-4) @ Montana (11-1) 5:05 PM: Maine (8-4) @ Northern Iowa (10-2) 9:05 PM: Weber State (9-3) @ Cal Poly (9-3) TBA: Wofford (9-2) @ James Madison (10-1) TBA: Eastern Kentucky (8-3) @ Richmond (9-3) TBA: Colgate (9-2) @ Villanova (9-2) Other Game of Note - 35th Bayou Classic: Grambling State (9-2) @ Southern (6-4) on NBC at 2:00 PM

Some news and I-AA scores of note - Iona is axing its football program - Murray State beat Tennessee State 24-17 - Youngstown State beat Western Illinois 31-28 - Eastern Washington upset Weber State 33-26 - Wisconsin beat Cal Poly 36-35. BTW: Cal Poly's ranked #3 by The Sports Network in the FCS so they aren't a push over by any means. - Central Arkansas blew out McNeese State 47-30. I expect CA to make noise over the next several seasons.

This is interesting because it literally comes down to: Do you favor the hot hand (Oklahoma) or do you favor the head to head match up (Texas). I'd give my vote to Texas because they already beat Oklahoma 45-35 and they lost to Texas Tech on a crazy late touchdown. Also one of Oklahoma's wins came over Tennessee-Chattanooga whereas Texas' softest win was over a 5-5 Florida Atlantic team.

Geez... not only in a conference championship game but with others hopes pinned on me too! And I was the only one to get 13 picks right

So... what happened with my game? Did Edwin ever submit any picks (doubtful skimming this thread)?

The more I watch the Bruins, the more I'm appreciating: Marc Savard's passing abilities (He seems to have a knack for hitting the open hole in front of the net), the overall ability of Krejcie (sp?) including the patience to wait for the 3 on 1 advantage rather than attacking 1-1, and the ability of the team as a whole to both use the boards for passing lanes and turn the puck over in the neutral zone.

New England: 21 Pittsburgh (10.5) Carolina Baltimore (1.5) Houston San Francisco (8.5) Tampa Bay Minnesota (3.5) Buffalo Miami (1.5) (8.5) Chicago N.Y. Jets Oakland (3.5) N.Y. Giants (3.5) Washington San Diego (2.5) New Orleans (2.5)

Quick question... what types of styles do teams employ? I remember the Devils coming to prominence with the Neutral Zone Trap but it seems like the opened offense tends to neutralize that (no pun intended), right? I also hear teams like Detroit and Colorado use a "run-and-gun" style but do teams just use that for one line or do only teams like Detroit use it for 3-4 lines?

Starting to pull away in the AFC East and still leading (barely though) in the PF race!

THURSDAY Miami SATURDAY Purdue Clemson Mississippi State Penn State Boston College California Northwestern Utah Oregon State Iowa Cincinnati Florida State Oklahoma Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the Texas Tech/Oklahoma game? 70 Tiebreak #2: How many rushing yards will Oregon State's Jacquizz Rodgers have against Arizona? 81

Big I-AA Matchups this week along with several inter-conference battles! 7-4 Montana State @ 10-1 Montana 1:00 PM ET on FamilyNet: 8-3 Elon @ 9-2 Liberty 8-3 Richmond @ 7-3 William & Mary 8-2 New Hampshire @ 8-3 Maine FCS vs. FBS - 3:30 PM ET on Big 10 Network: 8-1 Cal Poly @ 6-5 Wisconsin 12 PM ET on Versus: 6-3 Yale @ 8-1 Harvard Florida Citrus Bowl: 8-2 Bethune-Cookman @ 8-3 Florida A&M 7-3 Eastern Kentucky @ 8-3 Tennessee-Martin 12:30 PM ET on Time Warner: 7-3 Holy Cross @ 8-2 Colgate 9-2 Dayton @ 8-3 Jacksonville 12 PM ET on CSS: 7-4 Furman @ 8-2 Wofford 7-3 McNeese State @ 9-2 Central Arkansas

The big difference is that Ball State have beaten their opponents rather soundly. Central & Western Michigan have played an awful lot of close contests score wise, which makes me wonder if they can handle Ball State's offense. Central Michigan has 5 wins of 3 points while Western Michigan has 4 wins of 10 points or fewer. As "poor" as Ball State is, they've allowed 23 points to Navy, 24 to Akron, and 14 to Northern Illinois (all teams with at least a 5-5 record).

So... A 10-0 Ball State team that has two tough tests coming up is still ranked behind: - A 9-2 Michigan State team that lost to 6-4 California to start the year and later lost to Ohio State Penn State is at #9 despite losing to a 7-4 Iowa team on the road while Florida is at #4 with possible Title Shot despite losing to 6-4 Mississippi team at home. USC is still ranked high despite losing to Oregon State on the road and beating a bunch of 5 win or fewer teams afterwards. If you're gonna make the argument of SOS, it should go both ways whereas if you're gonna use dominance than USC should be ranked much lower anyway. They beat a 6-4 Arizona team 17-10 and then beat a 6-4 California team 17-3. It bugs me that it seems like there's two attitudes towards voting and coaches (and arguably the people who vote) have no idea how the voting works when a team loses and moves up, doesn't play and moves down, or wins by a small margin and moves down anyway.

Looks like I'll win this week by tiebreaker...

FCS Score Spotlight - New Hampshire laid waste to Massachussetts 52-21 behind RJ Toman's 295 yards passing and 4 TD. - Harvard continues to dominate with a win over Pennsylvania 24-21. They still only have 1 loss on the year and I think sooner rather than later, the Ivy League as a conference may start demanding a possible spot in the playoffs. One argument I've heard against them is IIRC, their finals land during the semifinal round. - Florida A&M slaughtered Hampton 45-24. QB Curtis Pulley threw for 159 yards, ran for 132, and had 4 TD total. - Number 1 James Madison keeps it hold as they won 48-24 over William & Mary. Rodney Landers threw for 212, ran for 145, and scored 4 total TD. - Western Illinois survived a crazy game over Illinois State 48-45. RB Herb Donaldson ran for 243 yards with 3 TD on 41 carries. - Jacksonville State upset Tennessee State 26-21. RB Daniel Jackson ran for 105 yards and 1 TD. - Georgia Southern upset Furman 17-10. QB Lee Chapple threw for 323 yards and 2 TD.

Here's a list of the outside looking in bowl eligible teams... Quite a lot of teams can clinch bowl eligible spots with victories this week. ACC: Virginia (5-5), Clemson (4-5), and Duke (4-5) Big 12: Colorado (5-5), Kansas State (4-6), and Texas A&M (4-6) Big East: Louisville (5-6) and Rutgers (4-5) Big 10: Illinois (5-5) and Wisconsin (5-5) Conference USA: Houston (5-4), Memphis (5-5), Marshall (4-5), UTEP (4-5), and Southern Miss (4-6) MAC: Akron (5-6), Bowling Green (5-5), and Northern Illinois (5-6) Mountain West: Colorado State (4-6) Pac 10: Stanford (5-5) SEC: Vanderbilt (5-4), Mississippi (5-4), Auburn (5-5), and Arkansas (4-6) Sun Belt: UL Lafayette (5-4), Florida International (4-5), Arkansas State (4-5), and Florida Atlantic (4-5) WAC: Nevada (5-4), Louisiana Tech (5-4), Hawaii (5-5), and Fresno State (5-4)

Tony Pike. Coming into the game he had 1,229 yards on 60.2% with 10 TD vs. 3 INT. Seems to be filling in just fine. Pike's been the starter for tonight's game anyway.

Here's some interesting bowl news that I had no idea on (and may have repercussions in terms of how many teams a conference sends to a bowl game) PapaJohns.com Bowl: In 2008 and 2009, the bowl will feature the Southeastern Conference's lowest-ranked bowl-eligible team and a team from the Big East Conference. Should neither of these conferences fulfill their bowl commitments, a team from the Sun Belt Conference - provided it is bowl eligible - will take their place. This could be Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Mississippi, or Arkansas if they can finish 6-6 EagleBank Bowl: Under the agreement, the ACC would provide its ninth-best team for the bowl if the league had nine bowl eligible (records of 6-6 or better) teams. However, if the primary options do not provide two bowl eligible teams to play, the committee can select a team from the Mid-American Conference, Conference USA, or the Big Ten Conference as a replacement. Virginia can finish at 6-6 or 7-5 to fulfill this requirement (A 9th team getting the bid) Poinsettia Bowl: Starting with the 2008 season, and continuing through 2009, if a Pac-10 team does not get the necessary six wins for bowl eligibility that the Poinsettia Bowl would select a WAC team to take its place. Armed Forces Bowl: Conference USA will send a team vs. the Mountain West in 2008. In 2009, the Pac-10 has a bowl tie in. Teams with a shot include UTEP and Memphis. Maybe Houston if they can win one of their last three. Humanitarian Bowl: The ACC did not renew their contract past the 2008 game and will be replaced by a team from the Mountain West Conference in 2009.

Possibly, but then that favors teams like Texas Tech who played two I-AA opponents and taking those 2 opponents out can harm a team that plays 4 OOC opponents who are all I-A compared to Texas Tech's 2. Keep in mind that the above includes conference and non-conference games rather than just in-conference games. Here's how they rank OOC (including I-AA games) although some teams schedule "softer" OOC teams than others. SEC: 33-8 (80.5%) - 41 Games Big 12: 38-10 (79.2%) - 48 Games ACC: 34-10 (77.3%) - 44 Games Big 10: 31-12 (72.1%) - 43 Games MWC: 25-11 (69.4%) - 36 Games Big East: 26-12 (68.4%) - 38 Games WAC: 17-18 (48.6%) - 35 Games Pac 10: 13-16 (44.8%) - 29 Games MAC: 22-29 (43.1%) - 51 Games C USA: 18-30 (37.5%) - 48 Games Sun Belt: 11-25 (30.6%) - 36 Games

Here's how the conferences rank in terms of overall win % (i.e. W/L % of all teams) 01: Big 12 (74-46) - 61.67% - Has 5 teams with at least 8 wins 02: ACC (67-43) - 60.91% - Has 8 teams with at least 6 wins 03: SEC (70-45) - 60.87% - Has 4 teams with at least 7 wins 04: Big East (43-29) - 59.72% - Has 5 teams with at least 6 wins 05: Big 10 (65-46) - 58.56% - Has 5 teams with at least 7 wins 06: MWC (53-39) - 57.61% - Has 4 teams with at least 8 wins 07: WAC (42-43) - 49.41% - Has 6 teams with at least 5 wins 08: Pac 10 (45-48) - 48.39% - Has 5 teams with at least 6 wins 09: MAC (57-64) - 47.11% - Has 3 teams with at least 7 wins 10: C USA (46-62) - 42.59% - Has 3 teams with at least 6 wins 11: Sun Belt (30-44) - 40.54% - Has 2 teams with at least 5 wins I'm surprised to see how good the Big 12 is (largely aided by Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech) but the insanity that is the ACC with it's gluttony of 6 win teams has actually helped the division out as a whole despite the lack of a top tier 8-9 win team at the moment. Also a little surprised at the suck that the Pac-10 has undergone this year... behind the WAC and barely ahead of the MAC as a whole. Keep in mind, this can all change after a couple weeks as more teams finish at 6-6 or 7-5.

I don't know if Utah could've matched up to the top tier in those conferences but they did beat: Texas A&M, Arizona, North Carolina, and later Pittsburgh in the bowl game so I could see Utah definitely going 8-4 or 9-3 at least in those two divisions. The year after, they went 7-5 but still beat Arizona and Georgia Tech. In 2003, they beat California, Oregon, and Southern Miss. I think a lot of the better mid-major teams could compete in and finish with 7-5 or 8-4 regular season records year after year if given the opportunity (Much like Texas Tech in the Big 12 over the past several years). Ironically, here's some of the teams that the MWC beat in 2004 (All Teams): Texas A&M, Arizona, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Texas Tech, Mississippi, and UCLA. This is true of 2008 as well. Boise State beat a 7-3 Oregon team 37-32 on the road and Ball State beat a 6-3 Navy team (and 3-7 Indiana team). Utah beat Michigan (3-7) and a 6-3 Oregon State team. TCU beat a 5-5 Stanford while BYU beat 0-9 Washington and 3-6 UCLA.

And that's partly the problem... They weren't given a chance to play and possibly beat a higher level team and instead was handed Pittsburgh (8-3 at the time), who they promptly killed. You point out Boise State beating Oklahoma but the same argument could've been made, "Why do people think Boise State was going places in 2006?" if they hadn't faced Oklahoma and were stuck with an 8-4 or 7-5 opponent. My perspective isn't so much that Utah was going places so much as they didn't get a real chance to prove themselves and now revisionist history has them as being mediocre/not being good enough to hang with the top teams anyway. Hawaii at least got a chance to play Georgia (even if they got blown out) rather than being given Missouri or Kansas instead.

Just for clarification... Opponents overall W-L record during the regular season USC: 70-69 (50.4%) They beat 3 teams that finished with 9 or more wins. They played 8 teams with 6 wins or less. Auburn: 73-66 (52.5%) They beat 4 teams that finished with 9 or more wins. They played 8 teams with 6 wins or less. Utah: 53-72 (42.4%) They beat 3 teams that finished with 7 wins. They played 8 teams with 6 wins or less. Oklahoma: 74-65 (53.2%) They beat 4 teams that finished with 8 or more wins. They played 6 teams with 6 wins or less. Going by the argument of strength of schedule, the two teams that should've played would be Oklahoma and Auburn. USC's demolishing of Oklahoma is arguably made more impressive by the above stats (They killed the team with the best SOS). And just to point out, teams can change dramatically year to year so comparing the "same" Auburn team from 2003 to 2004 doesn't account for the new freshmen or the experience gained by the Seniors. Not to mention any coaching staff change in between. The thing that irks me is not so much USC's being called the NC so much as Auburn and Utah not getting a chance to play for the NC. The current system basically says, "If you're a mid-major team like Hawaii, Boise State, or Utah you can win all your games 50-0 but it won't matter if you go 12-0 because we're inherently biased to not play you guys in the National Championship." The prevailing attitude seems to favor certain conferences (Big 12, Pac-10, Big 10, and SEC) and penalize mid-majors and even decent conferences such as the ACC or Big East. It's a backwards logic to complain that a team who loses one game can get in over a one loss other team while an undefeated Boise State or whomever basically gets patted on the head and told, "At least you'll win your conference and make a decent mid-level bowl game!" Under the current system, what's the incentive for an MWC/WAC/MAC team to play and go undefeated? It seems at best, they get around the 7th or 8th ranking in the polls and an outside shot at a bowl like the Fiesta or Orange. They'll arguably never get a chance to play in the National Title game, so why bother? Why even have those conferences? Why not just scrap those conferences and say that the Title game will be decided between the Big 12, Big 10, Pac-10, SEC, ACC, and Big East?