The Underdog BITES!

In a season that continues to serve up the unexpected, both former #1 LSU and former #2 California lost – the first time since 1996 when #’s 1 & 2 lost on the same weekend. I’m guessing the bookies are having a tough season because the point spreads have been screwy too. Perhaps the 85 scholarship limit has finally caused parity to break out?

Not one of the conferences is dominant. The SEC is bad this year, the Pac 10 is looking bad, the ACC is horrible, the Big 12 looks soft, the Big East looks weak, and everyone knows the Big 10 is bad (though, I don’t think the B10 is any worse than the SEC or Pac 10 this year.) This year more than others it seems that talent levels have evened out and any team can beat another given the right circumstances (turnovers, home field, weather, etc.)

OSU Opponent Watch

• Youngstown State (5-2) – Played Southern Utah at home, won 23-22. Conclusion: Tougher than Expected Win
• Akron (3-4) – Played Temple at home, lost 20-24. Conclusion: Unexpected Loss
• Washington (2-4) – Played Arizona State on the road, lost 20-44. Conclusion: Expected Loss
• Northwestern (4-3) – Played Minnesota at home, won 49-48 in 3OT. Conclusion: Expected Win
• Minnesota (1-6) – Played Northwestern on the road, lost 48-49 in 3OT. Conclusion: Expected Loss
• Purdue (5-2) – Played Michigan on the road, lost 21-48. Conclusion: Unexpected Loss
• Kent State (3-4) – Played Ohio State on the road, lost 3-48. Conclusion: Expected Loss
• Michigan State (5-2) – Played Indiana on the road, won 52-27. Conclusion: Expected Win
• Penn State (5-2) – Played Wisconsin at home, won 38-7. Conclusion: Expected Win
• Wisconsin (5-2) – Played Illinois on the road, lost 7-38. Conclusion: Devestating Loss
• Illinois (5-2) – Played Iowa on the road, lost 6-10. Conclusion: Devestating Loss
• Michigan (5-2) – Played Purdue at home, won 48-21. Conclusion: Unexpected Win

Buckeye opponent’s records after the seventh week, 48-35. After 4 weeks of conference play, Ohio State and Michigan have no losses and are in contention for the Big 10 championship. Wisconsin, Purdue, Indiana, and Illinois had devestating losses taking them out of contention. Penn State and Michigan State rebounded nicely from tough losses. Guess there’s some life in Iowa and Northwestern yet. What can you say about Minnesota? They’re still playing hard…The season is a long way from over and the next 5 weeks will be very interesting.

Quick Hits from Around College Football

And then there were seven… These are the undefeated survivors; give them credit for standing tall when others are losing games they should win: Arizona State, Boston College, Ohio State, Kansas, South Florida, Boston College, and Hawaii.

Aside from Ohio State and Hawaii, I can honestly say I wouldn’t have picked any of these teams to be undefeated rolling into week 8. The way the season has gone thus far, it wouldn’t surprise me to have zero unbeaten teams at the end of the season.

Projected BCS Top 5: Ohio State, South Florida, Boston College, Oklahoma, and South Carolina.

Game of the week? Kentucky 43, LSU 37. Runner up: Oregon State 31, California 28. The SEC and Pac 10 are good, right? Over-rated.

Mismatch of the week? Texas creamed Iowa State on the road, 56-3. This is how Texas was expected to play all season.

My Special Top 12 rankings: (Why Top 12? That’s where you need to be to get into BCS contention.)

1. Ohio State – Just missed the shutout, scored on defense, special teams, and offense in a blowout win over a bad Kent State team.
2. Boston College – Latest team to thump hapless Notre Dame, on the road.
3. South Florida – Blew out a decent UCF team.
4. Arizona State – Came on strong in the second half to beat an improving Washington team.
5. Oregon – Blew out the same Washington State team Arizona State slipped by 23-20 last week.
6. Oklahoma – Outscored a good Missouri team by 10 points.
7. West Virginia – Bye week.
8. South Carolina – Squeaked by a bad North Carolina team at home.
9. Kentucky – Beat an over-rated LSU team in 3OT.
10. LSU – Lost to the better team, Kentucky, on the road.
11. Kansas – Hammered a bad Baylor team.
12. Hawaii – Only being undefeated has them in this spot. Giving up 35 points to San Jose State is not good.

My Special Bottom 5 rankings: (Why bottom 5? If you finish there you should be relegated to I-AA)

1. Notre Dame – 1-6 this season. After a 1 week respite, the Domers return to the top of the list for doing less with more resources and visibility than any other program in the country.
2. Florida International – 0-6 this season. Bye week.
3. Utah State – 0-5 this season. Bye week.
4. Colorado State – 0-6 this season.
5. Marshall – 0-6 this season.

In the coming week I’ll post an Michigan State/OSU preview, a game review of Michigan State/OSU, and a Weekend Update Sports edition.

No one picked the Golden Flashes to upset Ohio State and it was clear from the first possession that upset was not in the cards. However, KSU did not give up and ran the ball pretty effectively against the usually stout Buckeye D. In the preview, I predicted an OSU win with a 34-3 score, clearly I didn’t factor in a 14 point contribution from special teams and defense…

The Good

• Special Teams – The first complete game by special teams with deep kickoffs, good coverage on punt and kickoff returns, a special teams score on 90 yard punt return, 2 field goals, and reasonable punting.
• Pass Defense – 6-15 attempts for 60 yards and a pick six. A dominating performance.
• Pass Offense – 20-25 attempts for 264 yards and two touchdowns. Unbelievable efficiency.

The Bad

• Run Defense – For the first time this season, a team really won the battle at the point of attack resulting in 156 yards, but only 3.3 yards per attempt. This line dosen’t tell the whole story, the run game was feast or famine with plays resulting in first downs or no yards. There are some teachable moments resulting from this game.
• Run Offense – KSU sold out to stop the run which in part resulted in the passing efficiency referenced above. Never the less, one would expect more than 3.8 yards per attempt and 136 net rushing yards. Again, teachable moments available from this performance. The good news is, when it was time to run down the clock the offense did deliver.
• “Crispness” – It feels weird to write “negative” things about a 48-3 win, but this team did not play a good game. It was out of sync and looked sluggish. The great thing is, the team looked this way and won a game in this convincing manner. The bad news is, the competition level increases greatly from this point forward in the season. A performance like this against better competition will result in a much closer result.

The Ugly

• Injuries – Anderson Russell, safety appeared to be the victim of a clip or crackback block which may have resulted in a serious injury. James Laurinaitis looked to get dinged up and sat out the second half. Make no mistake, those two players represent the heart and soul of this defense. The loss of either or both of those players would be devestating particularly with the meat of the schedule approaching.
• Officiating – The hit on Russell was dirty and should have been called. The KSU line was holding (ahem, tackling) defenders all day long…So much for home cooking with the officials…
• Televised Coverage – DirecTV and the Big Ten Network screwed up coverage of the game. Despite a call in advance to warn them that it looked screwed up, they still screwed it up. To their credit, they did get the game on live mid-way through the first quarter.

The defense gave up 3 points at the end of the game, good for KSU. Not so good for a Buckeye D looking for the shutout. This is a game that OSU should have won and won big. They delivered. As much as this entry sounds negative, I don’t really feel that way, this is a very good team. I simply believe there is more room for improvement. Congratulations on a team victory and a good victory. Go Bucks!

For a cool $1.5M, this site can be yours! A decommissioned Titan Missile complex in Washington State. This property comes complete with 57 acres of land, 16 buildings with 45,000 square feet of usable floor space, and privacy from prying eyes. The complex hosted 3 Titan ICBMs when it was active and now, it’s being sold on Ebay…

Google Earth has no hi-res images, but a map of the area is available here. I did find a grainy black and white from the USGS Terraserver posted below.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt said this in 1910. And nearly 100 years later, it’s still applicable and perhaps, even more true. We’ve now got hundreds of television and radio channels where anyone can (and does) froth at the mouth about the most trivial things. Millions of blogs where people say anything…The world is full of critics.

I’m interested in people who get into the arena. I’m there, many of you are there. Let’s get dirty, bloody, sweaty, and let’s fail again and again. It is only through failure that the most important lessons are learned. My mantra has been, if you’re not failing periodically, you’re not trying hard enough. But, when you fail, make sure that your failure is original to you!

Tip of the Hat: TechCrunch

This time, from Chevron. In July we wrote about My Abodo, a consumer-focused exercise that enabled one to make choices about how they live then to see the impact of those changes on the environment around them. In retrospect, it was a very cool exercise and you can still see our little MeV home we created – optimized for lowest level of impact.

Today, Chevron has gotten into the act with WillYouJoinUs.com, more a Sim City approach to the same problem where you, the Mayor and CFO make decisions about energy supply then watch the impacts on economics, environment, and security through a few simulation phases over time. A screen shot of MeV City is located below the jump.

It’s great to see Chevron get engaged in this area, their bread is obviously still buttered by fossil fuels, but in the last few months they seem to be getting on the green bandwagon. Would it surprise you to learn that Chevron is the world’s largest geothermal electricity provider? Interesting, I’d think that geothermal power would be an option on their game. Oh well…

Tip of the hat: Didn’t You Hear?