Subject One: Please Exit the Bandwagon to the Right
Before the college season kicked off, the level of hype that Jadeveon Clowney was receiving was off the charts level of ridiculous. The Manning vs. Manning game in a few week will get less attention than Clowney did. The Big Three for the Miami Heat think the kid was overhyped. The expectations for this kid were higher than Eminem in an interview with Brent Mussberger. You get the picture. The point is that this kid had won the Heisman before the season kicked off, which is strange as no purely defensive player has ever won the award and no defensive lineman has even finished higher than fourth in the BCS era.
After two weeks the speculation about his chances can officially be removed from my television, the talking can feel free to stop now. One would have to believe that since a defensive player has not won the award in it's 78 year existence that it would take some truly miraculous numbers to accomplish it now. Clowney's numbers through two games (nationally televised game by the way): 6 tackles, 1 sack. According to this article on ESPN, the Gamecocks are statistically better with his ass on the bench.
Personally, I believe the hype was never warranted. The hype had everything to do with natural physical ability and nothing to do with the player's performance. If you actually follow college recruiting, you have known Clowney's name for a long time, he was the number one overall recruit in 2011. If you don't, then you probably didn't know who he was until this play last year.
An absolutely incredible play, that I don't dispute. I'm about to quote a statistic that I have done absolutely zero research to back up that I am going to present as fact: no player has ever won the Heisman trophy for making one great play in the previous season. Quote me. Clowney is a great player and will succeed at the next level but he won't be at the trophy presentation in New York. His Heisman campaign is rightfully over.
Subject Two: The Mortality of the SEC
The SEC has won seven straight national championships and are heavily favored to win an eighth this year. However that campaign appears to have hit some substantial roadblocks. Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, SEC teams that all started the season in the top ten, have already dropped games in the first two weeks in the season. Top-ranked Alabama will play seventh ranked Texas A&M this coming week. The conference that started the season with six teams in national championship contention will be down to two unbeatens left in the top ten by the end of week three. Now make no mistake about it, people will find a way to get a one loss SEC team into the championship game but one has to question if the conference is losing some of it's luster. Alabama and Florida have both looked terrible on offense in their games played thus far and South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas A&M all have shown defense vulnerabilities that range from "they need some more tackling drills" to "holy shit, can Texas A&M stop anybody?" The big tilt in College Station next week could come down to which unit is less abysmal the Tide O or the Aggie D.Subject Three: Lane Kifiin Can't Wait to Go to Hell, His Seat Will Cool Down a Bit
Subject 4: Dead Dynasty?
What the hell happened to the Patriots and Ravens? I think just about everyone expected some drop off from last year's Super Bowl season thanks to the extensive turnover in players. That being said, this is Baltimore. One losing season since 1999, a perennial top five defense, and a coach that seems to make the most out of every player. Here's what we learned on Thursday night.
1. Defenders don't become good simply by putting on a Ravens uniform. Peyton Manning made Baltimore look like a practice squad this week. Don't get me wrong, Peyton Manning is great but no QB has been seven TD passes great in half a century. The Ravens secondary was historically bad.
2. Anquan Boldin should probably still be in a Ravens uniform. The Ravens have absolutely no playmakers on offense and defenses will spend the entire season stacking the box on Ray Rice and making Joe Flacco throw the ball downfield. Torrey Smith is the only threat on the team downfield.
3. Skeptics of Joe Flacco are right. A poor defense can be fixed over a couple seasons by replacing a few players, so can a receiving corps. How do you get 120 million dollars back though? On Thursday, the weight of the team was on Flacco's, likely gold plated shoulder pads, and he responded by..... playing just like Joe Flacco always plays when it's not the playoffs. The only difference is he threw more but the results were the same as usual. It's nice that you show up big for the postseason but someone has to get you there and it won't be the D this year.
The Patriots were the real stunner. Sure they won the game but come on, this is New England vs. Buffalo. Buffalo was starting a rookie QB, that was a highly criticized draft pick, who missed most of the preseason. Additionally Buffalo's best defensive player, safety Jarius Byrd, sat the game out as well. I know there are questions around the skill positions this year but the Patriots have done more with less before. If you look at the history of the Belichik Pats vs. teams in disarray. You will see a litany of 63-7 and 49-0 scores. On Sunday Brady and company were lucky to survive the day. Apparently Brady and Belichik together are not an automatic. If the Patriots are really the team we saw on Sunday then the AFC East is wide open.
Subject Five: History Will Probably Have to Wait Another Year
There has been a lot of talk in the offseason about the historic seasons that Calvin Johnson and Adrian Peterson had last year. The goals these players stated they had for this season: Megatron wants 2000 receiving yards and All Day is looking for 2500 on the ground. How did they start the season? Johnson racked up a meager 37 yards and Peterson had a misleading 93. I say misleading because on the first play from scrimmage Peterson reeled off a 78 yard touchdown run. For the remainder of the game, Peterson compiled 15 yards on 17 carries. From this point forward Johnson will have to average 130 yards per game and Peterson will need to average 160 and since his first run he is averaging .88 yards per carry.
Subject Six: Commercials
I have DVR. What that means to me is that from February through the end of August, I don't have to watch commercials. I rarely watch anything on live television because if I record and watch later I can skip having these advertisements try to scramble my brain. Then football season hits. Sports are the only time I need to watch TV live, specifically because there are usually four or five games I flip between. When I want to stick to a single game, I have to tolerate commercials. I know a lot of people say they hate commercials but I have a really deep committment to such hatred. I HATE COMMERCIALS!!!!! It's the marketer in me. For most people many commercials are stupid, they hate seeing the same one over and over again, don't care about the product, or just don't think the joke is funny. I share all of these sentiments but unlike most people, I can't just tune out and survive until the break is over, I have to analyze it. I can't help it, it's the businessman in me. So many commercials make my head hurt because I can't comprehend how they are supposed to promote the product. Here are some of the commercials that are grinding my gears.
All cell phone commercials: Seriously, we're at the point where cell phones have become a market of companies that feel so damn good about themselves it hurts to see them smugly promote their products. Seriously, it's become elistist. The commercials seem to aim less at making the phone seem great so much as making everyone who doesn't use it look like morons. Examples include the commercials for the phone with a great camera that has all the parents fighting over position for taking their pictures at a school play. Meanwhile, mom and pop hot shit sit in the back and sneer at all the other parents that dared to not center their point of personal pride around the picture quality of their cell phone. Or every commercial for the Galaxy 4S. The commercial with all the little green impish things washing the car also boggles mind. What does it even mean? Are we supposed to be impressed that your phone plays music? I have been using a smart phone for 3 months and got the cheapest phone on the market, and I can play music. Go die in a fire.
The French Fry Burger at Burger King: Is there any person out there that sees this commercial and thinks anything other than "that's just a really tiny hamburger with like four french fries on it." They are acting like they just invented the freaking wheel and virtually every person who has ever eaten a burger has done this and then not patted themselves on the back for it.
I do need to point out one or two commercials have got a good chuckle out of me. My favorites are the GEICO "hump day" commercial and Cheez-It commercial that culminates in the cheese singing "Wild Zings."
The Dolphin Watch
I came into this season very nervous about my beloved Miami Dolphins. They spent a ton of money and made some aggressive draft picks, there is a ton of potential for this team but if things don't click the failure could be monumental. After one game, and seeing what the rest of the AFC East looks like, I think this is a playoff team. Not a Super Bowl team mind you but a playoff team. Here is my summary of the players that saw big spending come their way this offseason.
Mike Wallace: Most people thought the signing was risky. After one week, I can say that it wasn't risky, it was stupid. Wallace was invisible all day. His route running is terrible and pure speed is all he brings. He won't live up to salary but he does pay dividends for.....
Brian Hartline: Hartline was a Dolphin last year but signed on for a big contract as a free agent this season. The extra attention paid to the threat of Wallace on deep routes made Hartline very dangerous. With one on one coverage he was a beast throughout the game, including catching one long touchdown pass. Hartline's contract will pay off as long as Wallace takes attention off of him.
Brandon Gibson: Gibson played unevenly throughout the game. He was the second leading receiver and saw ten targets but he also dropped two easy passes, both on third down and looked lost at times. The jury is still out on Gibson.
Phillip Wheeler: Wheeler shined on Sunday above all other signing. He had six tackles, a pass defense, and QB hit, but beyond the stat sheet was active on seemingly every play all game long. Wheeler will pay dividends.
Dannell Ellerbe: Ellerbe had almost the same game as Wheeler on paper but off paper, he felt invisible. The jury is still out on this one.
The Draft Class: What draft class? Dion Jordan played on a few special teams plays. Cornerbacks Will David and Jamar Taylor sat the game out. I like the talent picked up in the draft but the fact that none were healthy enough to really spend time on the field in week one is disheartening.
Overall, I loved the defense play all game long. The linebackers look to be worth the contracts, the line was every bit as stout against the run as last season and Victor Grimes looks to be a nice upgrade at CB as well. Tannehill looked improved and the receivers helped out quite a bit. The line pass protected well enough to give him some looks and new kicker Caleb Sturgis looked strong. The run game looks to be the biggest weakness by far for this club though. Lamar Miller played poorly enough that Daniel Thomas seemed not awful.
Bronco Watch
I was pretty disappointed in the game Boise State played against Washington last week and not simply because I hate seeing my team lose. The loss showed a lot of weak points that could haunt throughout the season. Those points were built upon this week. On the surface, you see a 63-14 win. Go Big Blue, the Broncos are back on track, 11-1 here we come, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's look at the box score a little further.
The Broncos only outgained Division II nobodies Tennessee-Matin in total yards 472-362. Not nearly the difference one would expect with such a lopsided scoreboard. Specifically concerning because the Broncos again gave up big yards to the hurry up offense of the Skyhawks. Through two game the defense looks to have no answers on how to slow down a fast paced offense and the schedule still features teams that run up-tempo in Fresno State, Utah State, Nevada, Air Force, and BYU, all of which are considerably better that Tennessee-Martin. The Skyhawks also converted 11 of 20 third downs and the real difference in the game was six turnovers and 110 penalty yards by the Skyhawks. None of this is likely to be repeated in conference games.
The silver lining: The Mountain West conference looks like it will be just absolutely dreadful this year. Outside of Fresno State's week one victory over Rutgers, the best win for the entire conference looks to be New Mexico over UTEP. Yuck!!! Despite plenty of concerns on both sides of the ball, there is plenty of reason to believe BSU can still win the MWC.
NCAA Top 25
For those of you that have never seen one of top 25 lists before be prepared to see a radical difference from the one in the polls. There are two reasons for this. First, preseason polls are a joke. Just because a team was predicted to be a top 5 team before the season started, leaves me with no obligation to leave them there just because they have not lost yet. Every year there are teams that look bad while winning early on yet manage to stay their spot in the polls. None of that here, your polls are based on performance, not assumptions. Secondly, I will rarely put teams with losses ahead of teams that have one. If there are undefeated teams left, they should be the top teams. I am not going to leave Florida in my polls simply because they are supposed to be good. They played like shit on Saturday, they are 1-1 on the year. I am am keeping them out. It's that simply. Your hype has no place here. The one exception to this rule this week is Georgia, who is the only team in the country to play a ranked team each week so far and have a good showing in each game.
1. Oregon - The point a minute offense lives even in the absence of Chip Kelly
2. Clemson - Victory over Georgia is the biggest win for any team so far in the season
3. LSU - Don't sleep on the Tigers, they look more complete right now than A&M or Bama
4. Stanford - A full season of Kevin Hogan at QB will give the Cardinal a crack at first national title since '26
5. Michigan - Win over Notre Dame is one of the best wins for anyone in the young season
6. Florida State - Freshman QB? I think they'll be fine
7. Alabama - Offense had a lot of ?'s in game one, still that D will be elite all year
8. Oklahoma - Defense has been suffocating in two games
9. Louisville - Don't be surprised if Louisville stays in this slot all year
10. Oklahoma State - J.W. Walsh has established himself as "the guy," Pokes tend to be when the QB is
11. Texas A&M - That D has to have Aggie fans concerned but Manziel is still playing like last season
12. Washington - Still in mild shock about how complete the beatdown on the Broncos was
13. Miami - Win over Florida biggest in a long time and that D looks sharp
14. Baylor - Offense seems to keep rolling no matter who's under center
15. Ohio State - Too low you say? Baylor beat Buffalo by 30 points more than the Buckeyes did Week 1
16. Ole Miss - Don't be shocked if the Rebs finish above A&M in SEC West
17. Georgia - Huge rebound over South Carolina, offense good enough to cover black eyes of the D
18. Northwestern - Maybe the best offense in the Big 10
19. Wisconsin - Back to back shut deserve some recognition even if the opponenets were bad
20. Arizona State - In a wide open Pac-12 South, the Sun Devil may contend for a conference title
21. UCLA - See above
22. Fresno State - Moutnatin West looks to be theirs for the taking this year
23. Auburn - Back to back wins over some decent teams have Auburn back on the rise
24. Marshall - The offense is good enough for the Herd to maybe sneak into BCS buster contention
25. Michigan State - If the offense ever gets going, Sparty will be dangerous
Also considered: UCF, Navy, Arizona, Bowling Green, Nebraska
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