Now that the games have begun, and we can all reset our personal polls a bit thanks to the “corrections” made over the weekend (what am I talking about here?), we’re rolling out a new, hopefully weekly feature: Better Know a Top Ten.
In BKTT, we feature the current Top 10 teams in the country (using the AP until the BCS is released) and the bloggers who blog them. Why not the top 25? Because we haven’t the time, and because we, like you, realize that Top-10 is for the real winners in today’s polling thanks to the “new playing field” of parity that Bob Davie liked to talk about so often 10 years ago. Frankly, being in the top 25 but not in the top 10 is just a giant Tootsie Roll in the game of life. At the same time, finding excellent writing by those who are enjoying their football lives may be difficult. As anyone who has ever taken a high school writing class can attest, it’s far easier to write while exploring the existential tailspin that one might find themselves in because of a breakup or mounting losses on the gridiron and far more difficult to find the right words with the right weight when everything is sunshine and roses. So if you know the current Top 10, and you stumble upon a blog post in that big world of ours that really resonates with you articulates the current state of affairs with a Top 10 team, please pass it along to us via the e-mail address on our sidebar.
For now, we’ll just have to go it alone…
This week’s AP Top 10 and the bloggers who blog them…
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Southern Cal represented by Conquest Chronicles, who isn’t concerned any longer about starting QB Mark Sanchez’s knee, or, perhaps, the Trojan offensive line.
If there were any doubts about Mark Sanchez and his knee they were answered pretty early on in USC’s rout of Virginia on Saturday. Sanchez seemed to have all the mobility that he had prior to the injury as he commanded the USC offense flawlessly. Sanchez had all the time in the world on a number of plays and there were plays where he hardly moved in the pocket at all with nothing but time as he waited for the play to develop.
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Georgia represented by Dawg Sports who was already a little down even before their drop in the polls.
Except under the most extreme of circumstances, I probably err on the side of being overly positive rather than needlessly dour, at least where football is concerned. Nevertheless, I came away from this outing feeling that the glass was half-empty rather than half-full.
- Ohio State represented by Waiting for Next Year who probably doesn’t care much about rankings until the Beanie Wells injury gets cleared up.
When a player goes down like a pile of bricks, making nary an attempt at recovering his own fumble, can you blame the Buckeye faithful for simply assuming the worst as their running back is being carted off of the field?
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Oklahoma represented by Crimson and Cream Machine who wonders a little about last weekend’s tale of two halves.
Maybe it was the sloppy wet field or the hour-and-a-half rain delay or perhaps it was the 50-0 lead at halftime when the storms came. Regardless, Oklahoma tied a Sooner record by scoring seven touchdowns on seven consecutive first half possessions but then the first-team offense only mustered two first downs in three second half possessions before giving way to the backups. The second and third unit guys finished off the Mocs 57-2.
- Florida represented by… nobody. EDSBS is apparently too busy to write anything actually about Florida anymore, and Saurian Sagacity hasn’t really written up anything that fits here. Anyone got a good Florida blog?
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Missouri represented by Rock M Nation who wants to know how they could give up such a huge passing day to Juice Freaking Williams.
So after taking a day to digest what happened in St. Louis, I whipped out the TiVo to try to figure out exactly what most Mizzou fans were thinking: what the hell went wrong with our pass defense?
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LSU represented by And The Valley Shook who admits they’ve got a case of the 2 most dreaded words in college football: Quarterback Controversy.
Strictly by the numbers, it’s a dead heat. Lee was slightly more accurate and threw for more yards. Hatch didn’t turn the ball over and had the added dimension of rushing for 43 yards. Both lines are fairly pedestrian, but not bad.
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West Virginia represented by We Must Ignite This Couch who are pretty geeked about WVU’s “new passing attack.”
The Mountaineers would pass more. This much we knew.
What we didn’t know was that the maiden effort from new West Virginia head coach Bill Stewart and his staff would be a record-setting performance from quarterback Pat White, who tossed five touchdowns in leading the No. 8 Mountaineers to a 48-21 season-opening victory over Villanova Saturday afternoon in Morgantown.
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Auburn represented by From the Bleachers who seem pretty excited about the possibilities of their new-fangled offense… so long as the QB thing gets figured out.
One of Auburn’s questions was answered Saturday night, at least as well as such a thing could be answered against a Louisiana-Monroe: you can have a power running game from “the spread.” Running the ball was not a problem. Brad Lester, Ben Tate and newcomer Eric Smith were all able to move the ball on the ground, amassing over 300 rushing yards on the night. Passing, on the other hand…
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Texas represented by Barking Carnival who thinks you should let sleeping giants lie.
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape;
You don’t spit into the wind;
You don’t pull the mask on that old Lone Ranger,
And you don’t mess around with Jim.
- HLS Tweets for the Week of 2009-11-15 - November 15, 2009
- HLS Tweets for the Week of 2009-11-08 - November 8, 2009
- HLS Tweets for the Week of 2009-11-01 - November 1, 2009
