Seven and Five

In a game that was "closer than the score" (UF's 4 turnovers to FSU's none was the difference), the Gators continued their trend of losing to all ranked teams they played in 2010. Our best win remains USF, and as Miami showed last night, losing to USF is the kind of loss that gets a coach fired.

 The Gators end the regular season with the NCAA's 48th Scoring Offense with 29.25 points per game. This is a stat rescued by our scoring on special teams and defense, as we are 78th by Total Offense, or only 356.8 yards per game.

 Moreover, that 29.25 points per game camouflages the reality of this season. Here were the points the Gators scored in the 5 losses -

Alabama - 6
LSU - 29
MSU - 7
South Carolina - 14
FSU - 7

Average score in loss = 12.6 ppg (and thankful to LSU for that).

Remember the frustrating days of the bubble screen? Well, we could only wish for an offense of the Zook era right now. In the year that got Ron Zook fired, Florida was ranked 19th nationally in Scoring Offense with 31.83 ppg, and 22nd in Total Offense, with 426.9 ypg. That's 70 more yards per game than what we just witnessed for 2010.

At least under Zook we seemed to have some offensive identity, no matter how inept it seemed. It's been said (ad nauseam) that if you have two quarterbacks you have none - well how does that bit of wisdom apply to a team that seems to think it has three?

Less than none seems to be the answer.

This is, by all accounts, a highly talented team. As such, we won the games one would expect to win on talent alone. With the sole exception of perhaps Georgia, we lost to teams of similar talent.

That leaves coaching. The Gators were embarrassingly, disastrously even, out coached in 2010. What we are doing clearly isn't working, and we all know what the definition of insanity is.

Don't we?

St-“U”-pid

So I’m watching Miami demolish the hapless Pitt Panthers last night, and a long term irritant of mine resurfaced.

Why in the name of Hogan’s Goat does Miami refer to itself as the “U”?

Don’t give me the obvious “It’s the University of Miami”. There are 120 schools playing FBS football. Almost every single one of them is a University, with the word “University” in their name. (Georgia Institute of Technology and Boston College would be exceptions).

In other words, there is not a single thing unique or remarkable about calling one self, essentially, “the University”. It’s the Miami part of the name that is the unique designator. It’s almost as if some dipshit, while designing their logo, chose the wrong letter.

The fact they are so proud of it drives me crazy. It’s Blutarskian!











Bluto understands why Miami is "Da U"

Now say was Georgia Tech to call themselves “The I”, THAT would be unique.  But the “U” - Shouldn’t that be Utah?

Are Oregon and Ohio State really that good?

As I turn my efforts to my BlogPoll ballot for week 3, one of the things I’ll be looking for is objective information on strength of schedule.

Yes it’s early, but some evidence is beginning to form. The tool I most value for Strength of Schedule is the NCAA’s own Toughest Schedule Grid .

What I like about the NCAA’s Toughest Schedule list is –

1. As a list of the records of team’s a program has played, it’s unbiased and transparent, unlike say Sagarin’s SOS which is neither.

2. It OMITS the records of FCS teams. This is very important to my thinking, as FCS teams essentially “don’t count” by this measure.

The NCAA also only counts the records of opponents without counting the game between them. Take Miami as an example, which has an opponent’s record of 2-0, or 100%. The record of Florida A&M is omitted as an FCS team, and the record of Ohio State (3-0) is reduced to 2-0 so that Miami’s own loss isn’t counted in favor of Miami.In this way it truly only counts your opponent’s record.

Here are the teams with the toughest opponent’s records thus far (all 100%) –

Arizona
Arizona St.
California
Cincinnati
Connecticut
FIU
Georgia
Maryland
Miami (FL)
Missouri
Notre Dame
Pittsburgh
San Jose St.
South Fla.
Southern Miss.
TCU
Tennessee
UCLA
Utah St.
Vanderbilt
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Western Ky.
Wyoming


I would suggest this helps explain the records of teams like Georgia, while making all the more impressive the records of TCU and Arizona.

Here are the teams with the easiest schedules (opponents with winless records, or 0%) –

Army
Ball St.
Boston College
Bowling Green
Buffalo
Fresno St.
Georgia Tech
Indiana
Kent St.
Kentucky
Middle Tenn.
Mississippi
Navy
New Mexico St.
Northern Ill.
Ohio St.
Oregon
Purdue
Rutgers
Syracuse
Texas A&M
Tulane
Utah
UTEP
Wisconsin

So we have Ohio State, Oregon and Wisconsin playing teams that have collectively yet to win another game against all their opponents (In the case of OSU remember – Miami’s win against Florida A&M doesn’t count).

Definite food for thought when it comes to ranking.

ACC - Historical Bed Crapping

In what might be an unprecedented episode of craptastic football display, every ranked ACC team lost today, and one of them to an FCS team.

A petition to relegate the ACC to the FCS division will be forthcoming.