iggymcfly

Sorry, I'm just not buying into Arkansas at all this year. As good as McFadden is, the rushing game's not going to be the same this year losing 3 first or second-team all-SEC linemen. And the defense which wasn't all that great last year lost a lot too. If you want to say Auburn doesn't belong in the Top 25, I won't argue with you though. It was about a 5-way tossup for the last spot and I gave Auburn the benefit of the doubt based on their past history. As for Michigan, I think we all know they're not as bad as they played last week. They're favored by 7 against Oregon this week who I have at #20 and they've still got a great shot to win the Big Ten. I'm trying to weight the performance on the field heavily and that's why Michigan's not in the Top 25, but honestly I'd probably have to take the Wolverines over TCU or Auburn on a neutral field.

OK, I've got a Top 25 together. It's pretty rough and honestly the difference between #5 and #20 is tiny, but it will be a good starting point to go off of for the rest of the season. 1. USC 2. LSU 3. Louisville 4. Oklahoma 5. Wisconsin 6. West Virginia 7. Georgia Tech 8. UCLA 9. Florida 10. California 11. Texas 12. Ohio State 13. Penn State 14. Florida State 15. Rutgers 16. Virginia Tech 17. Nebraska 18. Georgia 19. Texas A&M 20. Oregon 21. Alabama 22. South Carolina 23. Miami 24. TCU 25. Auburn Close: Missouri, Hawaii, Tennessee, Oregon State, BYU, Michigan

Georgia Tech's looking frigging awesome today. The passing game could still use a little polish, but the running game and defense have been amazing. After the way Virginia Tech struggled this morning, I think the Jackets have to be considered the favorite to win the ACC at this point.

FYP.

They've also got the Nevada game in November (think cold-weather for island boys) on a short week (playing Thursday after a Saturday night game) sandwiched right in between the Fresno State game and the Boise State game. I think they blow that one. Not sure where Boise State picks up their loss though, especially if Hawaii has a letdown the week after blowing their undefeated season. At Washington and home against Southern Miss are the only other hard games for BSU.

Maybe it's funnier if you're a frustrated Georgia Tech fan?

Here's a joke I thought was worth repeating: Did you guys hear Chan Gailey hired Michael Vick as a special consultant to the GT football team? He finally found someone who knows how to beat a Dawg.

Remember when you said you didn't want to post here because there was no discussion of Federer v. Nadal? Czech and cheech basically covered anything else. Well, I came back for college football season although there hasn't really been much discussion on that either so maybe it was a mistake. This will be my last post in the Vick thread anyway, at least until sentencing. I agree that the story's getting run into the ground and there's not going to be anything new happening for quite a while.

I like how Marvin makes a point, everybody misinterprets it with a bad analogy, then I explain what Marvin was saying, and 10 people have to give the same bad analogy again. I don't know if it's that you can't read all of a 3 sentence post or that you're deliberately trying to misinterpret the point. Anyway, let me say this again, slowly: I know that what Michael Vick did to the dogs isn't the same as what Jason Kidd to his wife. The point is that beating your wife is a lot worse than anything you can do to a dog even if that involves fighting it to the death before killing it. Besides, killing isn't even the issue here. What's the ideal outcome here according to PETA/the government et al? It's that all the dogs get cleaned up and petted by a Humane Society worker and then get killed anyway. What does that accomplish? If I was a dog, I'd rather have a chance to fight for my life and maybe survive to be put out to stud and live a full life, then to get "rescued" and then injected with lethal toxins. All Vick's really being punished for here is giving the dogs discomfort for an hour or two.

If Vick had done to human beings what he supposedly did to these dogs, I guarantee there wouldn't be any discussion about his future career plans. The point wasn't that we're putting a dog's life higher than a human being's life, just that we're putting it higher than a human's well-being (such as the well-being of Jason Kidd's wife) which is still silly and out of perspective. Also, it's not really the commissioner that people like me and Marvin are upset with. It's the public/media outcry that basically forced the commissioner into this just because they didn't have anything to think about during the summer and this was something new to get outraged about.

Also, I want to retract my earlier statement that Tennessee won't be able to compete in the SEC East this year. I still think they're the 4th best team in the conference behind Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, but with their schedule (no LSU, Georgia and South Carolina at home), they actually should be the favorite. If I were to make a prediction for the SEC now, I'd say Tennessee goes 6-2 and wins the East while LSU goes 7-1 to win the West before the Tigers handle the Vols in the title game. I still think Tennessee's going to get beat by Cal though.

I'm pretty pumped for this game: Luckily, the Jackets get Notre Dame while they still have a little bit of national respect before they're 2-6 and late-night comedian fodder. I'm looking forward to a beatdown here. I'm thinking something in the range of 34-13. Maybe 210 yards and 3 TDs for Tashard Choice.

THURSDAY Utah at Oregon State FRIDAY Washington at Syracuse SATURDAY Colorado State vs. Colorado Connecticut at Duke Virginia at Wyoming Georgia Tech at Notre Dame Wake Forest at Boston College Mississippi at Memphis Arizona at BYU Oklahoma State at Georgia Central Michigan at Kansas Purdue at Toledo Tennessee at California New Mexico at UTEP Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the Tennessee/California game? 57 Tiebreak #2: How many receiving yards will Oklahoma State's Adarius Bowman have against Georgia? 85

I don't know if I'm feeling that. Ainge is great, but who's he going to throw to? With all the receivers gone, you have to think the UT passing game's going to be down somewhat. The running game's solid, but it's not enough to carry the team by itself. And no returning corners or DTs isn't really something to gloss over on the defensive side of the ball either. Don't get me wrong, the Vols will still be good this year, but they lost too much for this to be the big breakthrough season when they win the division. I'd say 8-4, maybe 9-3 at best. If I were going to make a pick for the SEC East this year, I might have to go out on a limb a little bit and take South Carolina. They had a really young defense last year (I think only 1 returning starter), but were still one of the best in the conference by year's end. This year, they've got pretty much everyone back and should be very very good, right off the bat. Blake Mitchell should really be ready to be a starter now and the passing game shoudl be solid too. The only real question mark I have is the offensive line. If that unit can play even decent, I think S. Carolina will be playing LSU for the conference title in December.

America's not going to care about this 3 months from now, let alone 3 years from now. It was a cute story for everybody to get on their high horse about during the slow part of the summer, but it will blow over eventually. Mike Tyson didn't get a lifetime ban for raping a human being or for biting half a man's ear off in the ring. Leonard Little killed a woman while drunk, then got another DUI on top of that and I think he missed like 4 games. Trying to give Vick a lifetime ban for something about 1/10 as bad would be ridiculous. I don't think he'll play in a major market when he comes back, it's too much bad PR for say NY or Chicago, but he'll get a starting job somewhere. I could see him signing some place like Carolina or Seattle. If he can still get it done on the field, that's all anyone will really care about.

A lot of the college football previews I've been looking at say that Oregon was one of the unluckiest teams in the country last year with injuries and turnovers and could easily rebound to finish as high as 2nd in the Pac-Ten this season. In raw yardage differential (yards gained minus yards given up), they actually were tops in the Pac-Ten last year ahead of even USC. I wouldn't count them out just yet.

Well, I think that's about it for me. My 8-4 loss to the Kings of Crunk this week puts me 12.5 games out of a playoff spot with only 3 weeks left in the season. I'm officially out of the race now.

Let's not get carried away with the "SC's the only Pac-Ten team that can play defense" either. UCLA's defense looks pretty awesome this year as well and is probably as good as any defense in the SEC except for LSU's. Oregon State's got a pretty solid D too.

Georgia Tech >>> Virginia Tech. They destroyed them last year in Blacksburg and they're returning their entire defense and running game. I could see you saying they won't win the conference, but putting them at 7-5 is ridiculous. Also, after looking things over a little more, I'd probably change the bottom of my Top Ten a little bit, putting UCLA ahead of Georgia Tech and Florida. They've got 20 starters coming back from the team that beat Oregon State, Arizona State, and USC to finish the season last year. And with the way their schedule sets up, I honestly don't see them losing a game until they face the Trojans. They get Oregon, Cal, and Arizona State all at home so Oregon State's going to be the only tough road test they face in their first 11.

Michigan's only got 10 returning starters, less than anyone in the Big Ten. They do have the big skill position guys back on offense, but I don't think they'll win at Wisconsin and I certainly don't see them winning the title. USC, meanwhile, has 10 returning starters just on defense. Of the preseason all Pac-Ten squad on D, 7 of the 11 first-teamers are from SC. Even if the offense isn't quite where it was in the Bush and Leinart days, the overall team talent might be even better than the 2005 team that went 13-0 and won the title.

I've got to say, I'm getting pretty excited about the upcoming season. Georgia Tech's looking absolutely loaded as shown by the #10 ranking CFN gave them. They've got 4 offensive linemen and both backs returning including the leading rusher in the ACC last year in Tashard Choice and they've got 8 starters back from a defense which was definitely their strength last season. And remember if Reggie Ball had played like an average HS quarterback the last two regular season games, GT would have been 11-2 going into the Orange Bowl. They've got more than enough talent to win the conference this year, if not to actually contend for the national title. Also, while I don't have a complete set of rankings or anything yet, here's my rough Top 10 going into next season: 1. USC 2. LSU 3. Louisville 4. Oklahoma 5. Texas 6. Michigan 7. Wisconsin 8. West Virginia 9. Georgia Tech 10. Florida The group below that's tougher to actually rank team-by-team, but it would include UCLA, Virginia Tech, Tennessee, and Ohio State for sure with Miami, Auburn, Rutgers, Georgia, and Penn State being close as well.

It's bad enough to be politically incorrect, but do you have to be grammatically incorrect too?

Yeah, that game where Harang threw 10 innings and gave up 1 run helped a ton. He's been eating up innings like crazy the last couple months.

Did you do anything weird with your schedule (like say loading up your NC slate with USC, Oklahoma, LSU, and Boise)? Because if not, that would be really good news that the game actually mixes it up randomly a little bit instead of just having 2 or 3 major conference undefeateds every season.

Finally, my team's making a late-season push. I had my two best weeks of the season the last two weeks, beating what was a Top 3 team in John Galt Express 7-2, and then hammering the top team in the league (Team Canada) 12-0. It's going to be tough with so little time left, but I think I've got a legitimate shot to steal the last playoff spot.