Weekend fallout
1. If it isn't one thing, its another. Rather than being able to focus on (and rejoice over) the fact that in the 8th game the spread offense appeared, the Gator staff is dealing with the fallout from a despicable play by Brandon Spikes. Coach Meyer was quoted that he was going to have to have a "serious talk" with Spikes. Expect Meyer to suspend Spikes for the Vandy game, even if the move was retaliation for Washaun Ealy spitting in Spikes's face earlier in the game.
2. Welcome to the Heisman raise Mr. Tebow. Sure Mark Ingram has had a nice season rushing the ball, and Jimmy Clausen has done a nice job snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, but if Tim Tebow plays like he played last Saturday for the rest of the season, college football will have its second two-time Heisman Trophy winner.
3. Congratulations (sort of). Congratulations to Tim Tebow for breaking Herschel Walker's record for SEC rushing touchdowns. Georgia fans, and Verne Lundquist, are quick to point out that Herschel got his numbers in 3 years and Tim has gotten his in 4. Many people like to counter that argument with the fact that Tim is a quarterback and Herschel was a running back. The ultimate counter-argument is rushing attempts - Herschel 994, Tim 614 (so far).
4. My favorite comment from a Georgia fan regarding the black helmets: "I say let these guys continue wearing the black helmets until they show they deserve to strap on the red ones."
5. It will be interesting to see how USC responds to getting their butts kicked. The 27 point loss to Oregon was Pete Carroll's largest margin of defeat since the 11 point loss to ND during his first year at USC.
6. Oregon is playing the best football in America right now and if Boise St. wasn't the team that beat them, they would be ranked in the top 5. With all the bitchin' and moaning coming from the non-BCS conferences, there is no way Oregon gets ranked ahead of Boise St until the Broncos lose.
7. Don't look now but Lane Kiffin has his Volunteers at 4-4 and ready to make a bowl eligibility push. With Memphis, Ole Miss, Kentucky and Vanderbilt left on the schedule, Tennessee is in position for a New Year's Day bowl game. Which would make sense for Monte Kiffin, since most people his age travel to Florida in the winter.
8. All is not well in Knoxville though. Nu'Keese Richardson, the recruit out of Pahokee whose pledge to the Volunteers led to Lane's proclamation that Urban Meyer cheated and that the residents of Pahokee weren't smart enough to fax a letter of intent, was a no-show at Tennessee's practice on Sunday. Apparently Nu'Keese has been dissatisfied with his playing time (promises of early PT was a major reason for signing with Vols) and he has had major run-ins with his position coach starting with one during the game against the Gators. It will be interesting to see if Lane kisses and makes up with Nu'Keese (for the good of the program) or if Nu'Keese walks and maybe we will find out how he got that Range Rover.
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Mentioned in Austin Murphy's book 
11 comments:
The computer polls already have Oregon over Boise State -- for good reason. And anyone who votes using the "resume" method should, too.
Any advantage Boise gets for beating Oregon head-to-head is subordinated to a comparison of the complete resumes. Oregon's features a stronger overall strength of schedule and more "high-quality" wins. If Oregon -- or two dozen other teams in 1-A -- played Boise's schedule, it would be unbeaten, too.
One more point: I'm willing to give Boise credit for beating Oregon, but let's at least acknowledge that Oregon was playing its first game of the season, for a rookie head coach, in one of the roughest road environments in college football. If they played today - two months later - on a neutral site, Oregon would win.
Keep up the great work, SS!
-- Dan Shanoff
Spikes has been suspended for the first half of Vandy.
"Many people like to counter that argument with the fact that Tim is a quarterback and Herschel was a running back"
Which is a ridiculous argument, as Tebow touches the ball on every play and while Hershel should have (maybe we'd have won in '81 if he did), he did not have that luxury. It's a hollow argument that it was harder for Tebow to get rushing TD's as a QB, because the system he was in asked him to do nothing but that for the entire first year he played. The second season, he expanded his repertoire, but still, he was essentially a fullback his freshman year.
Also, if Freshmen could win the award in '80, only George Rodgers would have given himself the Heisman.
When I first saw Spikes play, I was furious, but I had no idea that Ealey spit in his face earlier. If that is true Richt could suspend him for the rest of the year or throw him out of the program and I wouldn't care. That being said, I think both schools should consider the lame oregame handshake or something to calm it back down. This game is on the edge of getting out of control and is going to look like one of those late 90's UF FSU games with fighting before the game even starts.
I don't like how Spikes retaliated, but I can't blame him for the way UGA played dirty the entire game. There's a reason why UF is 30th in the country in penalties and UGA is 117th: UGA has absolutely no discipline and plays like it. It's a reflection of Mark Richt's lack of control over his players.
For some reason the SEC doesn't count Walker's 5 bowl TD's, so for the moment I give him the edge.
Regarding counting bowl TDs: As I understand it, the way TDs are calculated for the record was changed in 2002. Why then, didn't they go back and add bowl TDs to the existing records? There may not be good documentation for the early bowl games, but there certainly are for those from the 1950s up to 2002.
In any case, I'm pretty confident that Tebow will, over the course of the next six games, get enough TDs to surpass Walker's total with his bowl TDs.
I just saw a replay of Spike's eye-gouging incident.
A half game suspension isn't enough.
Funny, after the game all the Georgia fans were calling their own team dirty - late hits, pulling off Gator helmets by the facemask, spitting on our players and the hit on Tebow after the hand-off. Now all that everyone is hearing about is Spikes's eye gouge. While I don't condone it (and personally think he should sit the entire Vandy game), I do think UF could be doing a better job of getting Georgia's antics to the media.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cERuyek02wA&feature=player_embedded
Georgia running back Washaun Ealey says Florida linebacker Brandon Spikes shouldn't be suspended.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4619952
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