Lost in the Top 5
As we approach the best Saturday of the early college football season (with 7 matchups between top 25 teams), #5 West Virginia demolished Maryland and it's troubling. After three weeks, the Mountaineers have racked up three impressive wins against unimpressive opponents, and it doesn't get much better. As one sportscenter anchor pointed out, Steve Slaton ran into the leading in the rushing race in the 1st quarter ... it's Thursday, the first quarter of his game was one more quarter than almost everyone else has played in (although Slaton has received a lot of bench time in the previous blowouts). What is Rich Rodriguez doing scheduling Marshall, Eastern Washington, Maryland, East Carolina and Mississippi State as their 5 game non-conference schedule? He's depriving fans of seeing quality football matchups, apparently.
When you play in a conference that isn't all that strong (only two top 25 teams - WVU and Louisville (#12)), you have to do more. Schedule ACC and SEC schools, but hit the top tier, not MS State! Maryland is traditionally competitive and a rivalry game, so that's fine, but why schedule EWU and ECU? Why not Texas Tech, Oregon, Virginia Tech, or Florida? If your conference schedule includes Auburn, LSU, and Florida, then maybe you don't need to take on FSU and Oklahoma to bolster your strength of schedule. That isn't the case with West Virginia. Beating Louisville and a bunch of mediocre teams shouldn't get WVU into the NCAA title game, even if no other team goes undefeated. It would be enough to get them into an 8-team playoff, and will probably be enough to get them into the BCS title game unless two other major conference teams (or ND) go undefeated, but that shouldn't be the case.
The SEC features 5 teams that as good or better than Louisville: Auburn, LSU, Florida, Tennessee and Georgia. The ACC has Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Clemson and Georgia Tech. The Big 12 is still fairly strong on top with Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas Tech and Texas A&M. The Pac-10 has USC at the top with Cal, Oregon, and Arizona State on the 2nd tier. The Big 10 (or 11) has Ohio State, Michigan, Iowa and Penn State.
Even if you argue that the Big East is close to the level of other major conferences, WVU still falls short. The SEC is probably the best conference in college football, so I'm going to give SEC schools a pass. Ohio State played Texas. Michigan, Penn State, USC and Georgia Tech all have Notre Dame on the schedule. Oklahoma plays Oregon, who also visited Fresno State. Florida State plays Florida. Miami plays Louisville. Nebraska visits USC. Texas Tech plays TCU. Cal visited Tennessee. The Mountaineers don't even come close to this list. Eastern Washington!
Steve Slaton is a quality back, but it looked like he was running against a HS JV girls basketball team! On one TD run by Slaton, #3 on Maryland backed away from Slaton as he got into the end zone rather than stick his nose in and knock him out of bounds. On a couple big runs, Slaton wasn't touched. The blocking was good, and Slaton is good, but not THAT good. The Maryland D was just awful and had no idea what hit them until the game was already out-of-hand, and maybe after that ... but I wasn't watching at that point. On WVU's last TD of the 1st half (their 5th), the return man fumbled the ball, picked it back up, then wasn't touched on his jaunt to the end zone. The return wasn't Reggie Bush-like with a number of defenders being juked out of their jocks. Rather, Darius Reynaud merely ran straightforward, made a little cut to go around a blocker, then headed back upfield. He wasn't touched. He didn't run through arm tackles or fake anyone out, he just ran from one end of the field to the other. Maybe they wanted to get a 100-yard dash time on him for future reference? Unfortunately, we'll have to wait for a bowl game to see what Rich Rodriguez can do against a high-quality defense ... maybe the whole college football system should be revisited.
posted by ET @ 12:08 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
interesting WV comments...
If MD is the JV girls team, how do you explain GA (SEC champs)?...Slaton got more yards against them.
Face it, Scedule (NOT WV fault...caused by ACC raid ..and...the Big East isn't turning out to be that bad anyway) aside, WV is good....
If they can run the table and beat Louisville (another Big Eastteam that is supposedly not worthy) , they deserve a shot at the title game over any teams with losses.
Just to start with, he had more carries against Georgia. His average yards per rush were higher against Maryland than in the Sugar Bowl win vs. Georgia. If you watched the game last night, you didn't see an attacking, physical, talented defense. That isn't Steve Slaton's fault ... he carved them up. Slaton is a good back. He has good feet and terrific speed. His shortcomings (aside from the fumble) weren't exposed because Maryland was so bad. I think Slaton is a lot like a smaller Reggie Bush. I have doubt about his ability to get tough yards in traffic, but they don't ask him to do that.
We'll find out more about Louisville this weekend when they play Miami. I'd like to see WVU play similar games against top-notch competition. I don't want to see these games because I think they'll be exposed. It looks like the Mountaineers are a good team. I want this to be validated on more than one (the Louisville game) occasion before they are allowed to play for the national title. If ND beats USC, Penn State, Georgia Tech and everyone else on their schedule but loses on a fluke play to Michigan, should an undefeated WVU team edge them out? What if USC beats Nebraska, ND, Arkansas and finishes with one loss to Oregon?
The entire college football system needs revamping. Don't take this as an attack on West Virginia, it isn't. I would say the same thing about USC if they didn't have Nebraska and Notre Dame on their schedules. The Pac-10 isn't particularly strong, although it's a better conference than the Big East, but USC put themselves out there. Anyone who knows me at all knows I despise USC, but you have to give them some credit for their non-conference schedule.
Rich Rodriguez should have scheduled tougher non-conference opponents. The ACC raid didn't happen overnight. It's not like they were supposed to play Miami and Virginia Tech, then this summer they were taken off the schedule. Pat Hill (Fresno State) understands that he has to schedule tough non-conference games every year if he wants to develop his program into a national power because he doesn't have the support of a high-power conference. Rodriguez should be doing the same things ... Big East teams shouldn't hide behind the "ACC raid" ... they should show that their conference is high-quality on the field against worthwhile competition.
Getting back to Slaton torching the Georgia defense, I doubt he had 149 yards in the first quarter of that game. Also, if you have read my previous pieces on bowl games, you'll realize what I think of them: they aren't a good measure of a team. In summary, the coaches have too long to game plan and implement new stuff and the players aren't always sharp after the month layoff. I'm pretty sure I watched the WVU v. UGA game (I was rooting for WVU, in fact), but I don't really remember any specifics.
Not to alienate readers, but I'd take your comments more seriously if there were so many eggregious errors ... just a thought.
So any comments that don't agree with yours contain "aggregious errors" ?
Facts....
1. Slaton had more yards against Georgia.....
2. WV is good....
3. ACC raid effects schedule (because you can't get homa and home series set up in less than approximately 5 years).
Also...
the rest of my post was an opinion but not an "aggregious error"
...just a thought
The question of "egregious errors" aside, this debate seems lost in details. I think there are two possible extreme positions on this issue:
1. Going undefeated is hard. Therefore, any team that does so should automatically be in the title game, regardless of schedule. (Assuming, of course, that there aren't more than two.)
2. The title game should feature the two best teams. We must decide quality by looking at not only win-loss records, but also the difficulty of the games involved.
It seems to me that the anonymous commenter is leaning toward (1), while Evan is espousing (2). The problem with (1) is that the quality of teams in college football can be widely disparate, so it's possible for a good team to have an "easy" schedule. Evan is arguing that WVU's this year is easier than other top ten teams.
The problem with (2) is that it requires quantifying why teams win or lose. That's not easily done. Did they lose because the other team was better, because they played badly, because the other team played especially well, or because of a few lucky plays, or calls? And even if you can sort that out, you have to decide which to forgive and which to condemn.
It's probably easier to go with (1). At the end of the season, try to arrange for a single undefeated team, and call them the champion. But wouldn't that encourage schools to try to make their schedules easier? That might be great for alumni who just want to see their alma mater run up the score, but it wouldn't go over very well with the fans who want to see good football.
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