Monday, November 17, 2008

Monday Re-Cap

I kind of thought that this weekend would be a sort of “Cruise Control” weekend for most teams. The kind of weekend that Friday is at a PGA tournament. Teams would obviously want to win games, but for the most part don’t make mistakes. I was wrong though, for the most part, teams that needed wins for bowl eligibility went out and took care of business, teams that already have a date in the post season circled maintained the intensity of play that got them there to begin with. For the most part….this is true. I had another pretty good weekend on playing Pick-Em, with a 5-1 weekend record. I keep hunting for that perfect weekend though, the weekend where no win or loss hides from me. Let’s get down to the re-cap.

Louisiana Monroe 0 – Ole Miss 59: Bowl Eligible once again. Rebel fans, I was at this game and the Rebels finally put together a complete game. Ole Miss won on every aspect of the game. Offense, well of course the Rebs had offense! 520 yards of it. In this win Ole Miss only threw the ball 12 times but were successful on 50% of those throws for 170 yards and 3 touchdowns. The running game was the real hero in this one with 350 yards. Dexter McCluster ran the ball hard, including one run in particular where he swept to the right but quickly ran out of room, McCluster then reversed his field and went all the way to the house for what was only a 25 yard touchdown but covered probably 75 yards total. Defense, for the first time this year a quarterback didn’t have a career passing day against the Rebels. The Ole Miss “D” only allowed 131 yards of offense with only 59 being from the aerial attack. Special Teams, you betcha. The Warhawks of Louisiana Monroe didn’t exactly have the best field position to work with offensively. With the Rebs having so many kick-off opportunities the special teams really swarmed the ULM return men. If you are looking at the stats for a tell tale sign of how this game was won, there are plenty but the most important one is the turnover column. The Rebels didn’t turn the ball over at all in this contest and that is a welcome sign to the Ole Miss faithful as well as helped them put up 59 points and beat a team by its largest margin of victory since 1969. Congratulations to the Ole Miss players for giving their all for this team and becoming bowl eligible for the first time since 2003.

Mississippi State 7 – Alabama 32: The MSU Bulldogs played an inspired first half against the № 1 team in the nation, but the Crimson Tide would not allow a 3rd consecutive Dawg victory. This week Alabama used great defense coupled with a Special Teams clinic to defeat the invaders from the west. The highlight of the night was an 80 yard touchdown return for Javier Arenas, but I don’t want take anything away from a blocked punt that turned into a safety which set the tone of the evening for MSU. The Tide’s Leigh Tiffen also had a perfect night kicking 3 field goals and 3 PAT’s. As I look back over the years of Alabama football, this season fits right in. Statistically there isn’t any surprises to this one. MSU was anemic offensively as usual and Alabama controlled every facet of the game. Take your pick, from out gaining the Dawgs by 197 yards all the way over to possessing the ball for over 11 minutes longer than MSU.The Tide has never been a team to beat you with fireworks, but there is something to be said about having a good running game, strong special teams and a suffocating defense. № 1 team in the nation is a pretty good thing to be and until proven otherwise. Roll Tide Roll.

Georgia 17 – Auburn 13: This game is the longest running rivalry in the South Eastern Conference and this year’s installment showed rivalry like intensity. Mistakes were plenty for both teams as Mark Richt commented “Neither team played good enough to win. We both made enough mistakes to lose”. Georgia QB; Matthew Stafford went 15/24 for 215 yards with 2 touchdowns. Bulldog star running back; Knowshon Moreno had another impressive day as well, gaining 131 yards on the ground and also catching one of those 2 Stafford TD passes. Auburn still had the chance to win in the final seconds but the final Kodi Burns pass to Ben Tate sailed too high in the endzone. Mark Richt used the word “Perseverance” to describe how his team won this game and that is fitting so that is how I will break it down as well. The loss makes the Ironbowl a must win for Auburn if they are to get to a bowl.

South Carolina 6 – Florida 56: “A loss is a loss, whether it’s by one point or 50 points,” These words were spoken by the Ol’ Ball Coach; Steve Spurrier after he had just experienced his largest margin of defeat in his career. Never has any team hung this kind of loss on Spurrier but at least it was his Alma Mater that done it to him. This game though is not about the coaches, it is about the teams. Florida is by far the hottest team in the SEC at the moment. Tim Tebow had another good day, throwing for 2 touchdowns and rushing for another. The much talked about South Carolina defense had a little problem containing the Gators. Florida had 519 yards against the Gamecock defense, but the South Carolina offense faired no better as they only gained 173 yards total and only converting on 3rd down 6.7% of the time. The tone was set early as one of the 4 South Carolina turnovers was returned for a touchdown by Brandon Spikes. During an 8 play stretch the Gators scored 21 consecutive points and they just never looked back. Bama better have their “A” game.

Troy 31 – LSU 40: Whoa…who saw this game coming? No one could’ve predicted the type of game this turned out to be. Troy didn’t care that LSU was the defending National Champions or that the Tigers were a member of one the nation’s toughest conferences. All the Trojans cared about was winning and they came very close to doing just that in one of college football’s toughest venues. Lets give credit where credit is due though, the LSU Tigers scored 37 unanswered points to win this game. Freshman quarterback Jarett Lee said that the team never thought they would lose. I don’t know if Les Miles had designed the 28 point handicap, but his team came up big in the final quarter. The stats that will show how the Trojans lost is the turnover and penalties columns. Troy turned the ball over 3 times and was penalized 8 times for 80 yards. This game was the largest margin that LSU ever came back from to claim victory.

Vanderbilt 31 – Kentucky 24: 6 wins, Vandy finally got that elusive 6th win that they needed to get to bowl eligibility. In doing so they also gave me my only loss on the weekend. Vanderbilt has been on a 4 game skid since beating Auburn on October 4th. Saturday night however the skid stopped as well as the Commodore offensive anemia. The score makes it look closer than it really was, looking at the statistics I see one team dominating the other. Vanderbilt actually had the ball for almost a full 20 minutes longer than the Wildcats, in other words, Vandy had the ball for 2/3rds of the game. Another important statistic is turnovers. Although Kentucky only had 2, but one was a critical interception late in the game after it seemed that Kentucky had gained some momentum and only down by one touchdown. Congratulations to Bobby Johnson and his team for becoming bowl eligible for the first time since 1982.

It was a pretty solid weekend for most teams. I feel that Georgia and LSU played flat but in the end they got a “W” and that is the most important thing. Another team is now faced with a do or die game next as Auburn has now dropped to 5 – 6 over all. They join Arkansas as a team one loss away from post season death. Come back on Wednesday for another round of bowl projections. Until then….Hotty Toddy

Darryle “Speedy” Clark

No comments: