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NCAAF Power Rankings: Week 9

Matthews — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:23:48 +0000

WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT...WE THINK

Some strong statements made this week in college football, both good and bad. Florida chewed up Georgia. Texas rolled over Oklahoma State in Stillwater. Oregon took USC behind the woodshed, and Iowa used a huge 4th quarter to whoop Indiana.

Disappointing weekend for fans expecting to watch some good games as the scores show.

#6 TCU 41 – UNLV 0
#7 Boise State 45 – San Jose State 7
#8 Cincinnati 28 – Syracuse 7
#9 LSU 42 – Tulane 0
#11 Georgia Tech 56 – Vanderbilt 31

You get the point, right? So with another week in the books, there’s a shakeup at the top of our power rankings.

Florida: The Gators made sure Georgia’s miserable season continued on Sunday with a 41-17 beating in Jacksonville. The annual contest is dubbed The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, but the only ones partying were the folks from Gainesville. Florida still has question marks especially at wide receiver, but the defense is solid and there’s too much talent for them to falter before facing Bama in the SEC Championship Game.

Texas: We’ve been waiting for a statement game from the Longhorns all year long, and they finally gave it to us on Saturday. Sure, Oklahoma State was playing without its biggest weapon, but not even Dez Bryant would have made a difference in this one. The defense returned to picks for TDs, and at 41-7, the game was over before the 4th quarter started. With their biggest tests out of the way, we’d be shocked if Texas didn’t waltz into the National Championship Game.

Alabama: Last week’s close win raised some question marks, and Texas’ convincing win on the road moves them up for now. I still think Bama has a great shot to beat Florida in the SEC Championship Game. They’re defense is the best in the country, and they can run the ball with anyone. That wins a lot of football games.

Oregon: Wow. Last week we said USC’s defense “has cracks”. Turns out they’re gaping holes. Oregon put up 613 yards of offense including 391 on the ground in dismantling the Trojans. Everybody watching – from the fans to the broadcasters to the coaches and players – knew they could do whatever they wanted to with the ball. USC had no chance of stopping them. Give the Ducks credit. After the opening loss to Boise State and the ugliness afterward, they’ve proven they’re a damn good football team.

Stay tuned for TJR’s NFL Power Rankings coming later in the week.

NFL Power Rankings: Week 7

Matthews — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:08:00 +0000

WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT...WE THINK

We here in the TJR Thought Lab wanted to take a new look at our NFL Power Rankings. Everyone loves the Saints. The Broncos are the league’s biggest surprise. Peyton Manning has the Colts undefeated. That old guy has that purple team at 6-1…and both the Pats and the Steelers are going to be tough again.

So we decided to have a little fun with this week’s rankings by taking a gander at the dregs of the NFL. Hapless. Pathetic. Woeful. Awful. Say what you want. They all apply to these teams.

Truth is, when we thought really hard about it, determining an order for the league’s worst teams was more difficult than settling on one for those at the head of the class. Without further ado, here’s our best shot at the league’s Bottom 5.

Pro Football

#32: Talk about embarrassing. These 3 teams are so horribly inept that it’s impossible to distinguish one from the other. One man’s trash is another man’s…well, trash in this case. The Browns, Rams and Bucs have a combined record of 1-20. And that 1 win was a Browns 6-3 stinker over the Bills in which QB Derek Anderson completed 2 of 17 passes. Can you say “contraction”?

#29: What a complete and utter mess. And that’s just off the field. Head coach Jim Zorn was stripped of his play calling duties by the EVP of Football Operations who promptly handed them over to a guy – and this is no joke – who just weeks earlier was calling out BINGO at a senior citizens home. On the field has been almost as awful. Despite becoming the first team in history to open the season with 6 straight games against winless opponents, the ‘Skins are 2-5 with those 2 wins coming against…you guessed it the Rams and Bucs.

#28: We’re still trying to figure out how these teams (2-12 combined) each managed to win a game. Then we looked it up. Yep. They both beat the Redskins. Prior to facing the Redskins, the Lions had lost 19 straight regular season games; the Chiefs had lost 16 of its previous 17.

#26:Let’s see. Where do we start? How about with the head coach breaking an assistant’s jaw with a punch. Or we could talk about JaMarcus Russell’s historically bad season (1 of 3 QB in history to have both a completion % (46.3) and QB rating (47.2) under 50 through 7 weeks. Oh, and how’d that whole passing up Michael Crabtree thing work out for the Raiders? In 7 games this season, Raiders 1st round pick Darrius Heyward-Bay has 4 catches for 64 yards. After a 10 week holdout, Crabtree suited up for the 49ers on Sunday and caught 5 passes for 56 yards. Sounds about right for the Raiders. You really can’t make this crap up.

NCAAF Power Rankings: Week 8

Matthews — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:24:41 +0000

WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT...WE THINK

For the first time this season, I had my version of the perfect Saturday. I pulled up a stool at the bar next to my friend JP, and we sat there and watched football, ate bad food and drank beer for 8 straight hours.

And to make it even better, we were in control of what games got played on the 5 huge flat screens above the bar. Over the course of the day, we watched all of 10 games and a few minutes of half a dozen others. I’m sure there’s not a better Saturday out there. We even got to watch the ‘Cuse beat Akron AND cover the spread. Not that we gamble or anything.

All in all, it wasn’t a great weekend for the nation’s top teams. No big upsets, but it was ugly out there. The Gators won a fugly one against a baaad Mississippi State team. ‘Bama won even uglier, and Iowa needed a TD as time expired to beat Michigan State.

And while we’re talking about the unimpressive, have you taken a look at the Heisman race? Is there anyone out there who wants to win this thing? I can’t remember there ever being such a muddled mess of Heisman candidates this late in the season. The “Big 3″ entering the season have all disappointed, and each new standout – Jacory Harris, Jahvid Best, Greg Paulus – has flamed out a week or so after joining the conversation. Okay, I threw Paulus in there just to see if you were still paying attention.

Sam Bradford – injured shoulder in 1st game, re-injured against Texas, surgery, done for year
Tim Tebow – 7 games, 8 passing TDs, 4 INT, and only 3.9 yards per carry
Colt McCoy – 7 games, 8 INT including at least 1 in every single game

We digress. Here are this week’s rankings:

College Football

No one deserves to be #1 right now so I’m not giving any handouts. Here’s my thoughts on each – in no particular order:

Alabama: Needed 3 missed field goals (2 of which were blocked) to beat Tennessee at home 12-10. Just how bad was Alabama’s offense? They failed to score a TD at home against a Vols defense that yielded 23 points to Ohio University. Their 256 yards of total offense was 9 fewer than Tennessee QB Jonathan Crompton’s passing total.

Florida: Tebow had 2 interceptions returned for TDs on Saturday night. They failed to score a TD on 4 of 5 trips in red zone – a glaring problem as they entered Saturday’s game ranked 76th in the country in red zone efficiency. The biggest problem on offense may be that the team’s wide receivers aren’t able to create any separation against opposing teams’ secondaries. Only Riley Cooper had more than 32 yards receiving (63).

Texas: Had the best weekend by far blitzing Missouri 41-7. McCoy looked great, completing 26-of-31 passes including 3 TDs. The special teams unit blocked a punt and fell on it in the end zone for a TD. I’ve been hard on Texas all year because of their schedule, but considering the mediocrity around them, I can’t knock them anymore.

USC: The Trojans defense has cracks in it, giving up 36 to Oregon State one week after yielding 27 to Notre Dame. Oregon State’s Sean Canfield completed 30-of-43 for 329 yards and 3 TD with 0 INT, while RB Jacquizz Rodgers totaled 113 on the ground. The usually tough D almost blew a 19-point 4th quarter lead.

As for a 5th team, take your pick at this point. I’m not really impressed by anyone. Iowa, Boise State, Cincinnati, TCU. Ugh.

Stay tuned for TJR’s NFL Power Rankings coming later in the week.

NCAAF & NFL Power Rankings: Oct 20

Matthews — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:09:13 +0000

WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT...WE THINK

Another week of football in the books, and we learned a lot about who’s legit and who’s just pretending. Here’s how things shake out in our 2nd power rankings.

College Football

Solid win this week in beating South Carolina 20-6. They’re leaning heavily on sophomore RB Mark Ingram and will need more out of QB Greg McElroy if they want to win it all. The defense, though, is just nasty. Best in football.

Needed a last minute drive to beat Arkansas at home, but when you’re the #1 team in the country and have a target on your back every week, all that matters is that you walk away with a W at the end of the day.

The defense has issues (which is no surprise after losing 8 players to the NFL draft), but they stepped up when it mattered most and stopped Notre Dame’s high powered offense on 2 plays from the 4 yard line. Much-hyped freshman QB Matt Barkley had his best performance of the year finishing with 380 yards and 2 TD.

You might not have realized it with so many good games this week, but the Canes actually played on Saturday too. Nothing impressive in a 27-7 win over Central Florida, but that doesn’t take away from their full body of work.

Texas is probably better, but Oklahoma was their first good win. After wins at Penn State, at Wisconsin and at home against Michigan, Iowa has better wins than the Longhorns. Texas has Missouri and Oklahoma State the next 2 weeks so this could change quickly.

Pro Football

Wow. The Giants were supposed to have the best defense in the NFL. Someone forgot to tell Drew Brees. Being in NY, I got to watch New Orleans just absolutely dominate the G-Men from start to finish. If you think Drew Brees is the NFL’s best QB, there are no arguments here. He and Peyton are 1A and 1B.

Colts bye week combined with the Broncos road win against rival San Diego results in Denver jumping Indy. Denver is 6-0 for the first time since 1998 when they started 13-0 and won the Super Bowl. We never doubted Josh McDaniels. Not even for a minute.

The Colts are on the road in St. Louis this week. We think they started scoring already.

Squeaked one out at home against a good Baltimore squad. Adrian Peterson broke 100 yards for the first time in 3 weeks. When he’s doing that, they’re tough to beat.

Despite Sunday’s ugly loss to the Saints, I still think the Giants are one of the NFC’s top teams. The secondary sorely missed Aaron Ross and Kenny Phillips. With Phillips gone for the season, the G-Men need to find a solution if they want to avoid a repeat performance in the playoffs.

NCAAF & NFL Power Rankings: Oct 16

Matthews — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:55:16 +0000

WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT...WE THINK

We finally decided to take our own advice and let everyone play a few games before coming out with our first rankings of the season. We’d tell you how we came up with the stuff, but that would be like Coca-Cola giving you its recipe. Without further ado…

College Football

Big win to start the year over a very good Virginia Tech team. Convincing win against an Arkansas team that upset Auburn. Dominated Ole Miss on the road. All things that lead to a #1 ranking.

Nice win on the road at LSU last Saturday. But LSU isn’t as good as Virginia Tech and the Gators other wins include Troy and Charleston Southern. We at TJR prefer teams that choose not to schedule cupcakes.

Hokies have 2 wins versus resurgent teams; a dominating performance vs. Miami and an ugly win against Nebraska. Only loss came on a neutral site to Bama.

Brutal schedule. Good conference wins: @ Florida State and vs. Georgia Tech. Great non-conference win against Oklahoma (who’s a darn good team even without Sam Bradford). The loss to Va Tech was ugly, but Blacksburg is an extremely tough place to play.

Good win on the road against Ohio State has them here. Not a good loss against Washington, but they’ll get somewhat of a pass from me because they played without their starting quarterback. Hey Texas, please play someone good.

Pro Football

Maybe the best defense in the NFL, and the offense hasn’t missed a beat without Plaxico Burress.

Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning. Those are TJR’s top 3 NFL quarterbacks.

Josh McDaniels has Broncos fans quickly forgetting about the summer. 8 new starters on defense – including TJR’s early season favorite for Defensive Player of the Year Brian Dawkins – sure has made a difference

The offense we all know about. The improved defense gives the Saints a real shot to win it all.

We’re not even gonna say the quarterback’s name. We’re tired of him. Jared Allen on the otherhand. Wow. Dude is a man-beast. Just nasty.