Game 5 was must-win for Astros, not Dodgers

I’m going to say upfront I am cheering for the Astros, given their proximity to Louisiana (and shared understanding of floods), the fact that they’ve never won before, the fact that they have an exciting young player who recently played for LSU, among other reasons. However, I don’t want anyone to act like the rest of this series in just a formality.

Former LSU star Alex Bregman’s RBI in the 10th gave the Astros a 3-2 lead in the World Series.

The Astros had a great win, which will be memorable regardless of the outcome; but they had the pressure on them much more than the Dodgers did. I really thought the Dodgers’ bullpen would outlast the Astros once the game was tied, and the Dodgers may still have a stronger bullpen going forward.

Justin Verlander having a chance to put the Dodgers away is much different from merely having the chance to pull even. If it does go to Game 7, I think the Dodgers would have had the edge regardless. If going to Game 7 in Los Angeles were the Astros’ best-case scenario, it would be all but over.

Regardless of the specifics of this series, the response of most fans when they see a 3-2 series lead is that the team with the lead has the series in the bag. This may be in part because it’s more of a challenge in other sports where Game 6 and Game 7 are usually in different places. But in baseball, when the team who is behind has two games at home, half the time that team wins instead.

Just ask the Yankees, who went to Houston with a 3-2 lead this postseason. Many in my area were anticipating/bracing for the Yankees/Dodgers World Series. No doubt this was worse closer to Los Angeles and in New York. Ask Astros fans who remember 2004. The Astros went to St. Louis that year with a 3-2 lead.

David Freese hits the game-winning home run against the Texas Rangers in Game 6 in 2011. Including that one, the Cardinals have been involved in at least four postseason series since 1987 in which a team won Games 6 and 7 at home after trailing 3 games to 2.

Speaking of the Cardinals, another team in Texas took a 3-2 lead against them in 2011. Also, if you go back to 1987, the Cardinals won such a series for the NL title (over the Giants) before losing Games 6 and 7 in the World Series (to the Twins). The Twins also beat the Braves four years later under the same circumstances.

The World Series was also won this way in 1986 (Mets over Red Sox), 2001 (Diamondbacks over Yankees), and 2002 (Angels over Giants).

Scott Spiezio hitting a 3-run home run against the San Francisco Giants in Game 6 of the 2002 World Series.

This is not the full list, just the ones people might be likely to remember. I don’t remember the 1986 and 1987 series; but I remember almost all of the players, and I remember hearing and reading about those series from first-hand sources.

Week 10 Top 25

So as I said I would do, for the purposes of this list, I’m keeping Alabama #1 here. Assuming one of the top teams is still undefeated, I will make sure the #1 next week is undefeated. This might or might not be Alabama. I hope I can just follow the computer list though.

Since a couple of teams fell from the ranks of the unbeaten anyway, other than the top spot, I just let the chips fall where they may this week. Wisconsin falls a spot on this list only because I artificially moved them up last week as one of the top unbeaten teams. Other than keeping Alabama #1, the remaining order is exactly as the computer numbers gave me.

Clemson may briefly retake #1 in the formula with a win next week, but the Tigers will probably lose ground when they play Florida St. and the Citadel, so I don’t want to jump the gun. How this develops in future weeks also somewhat depends on how Auburn finishes (which matters already because Auburn plays Georgia and Alabama) and how South Carolina (who plays Georgia next week) finishes.

If you’re wondering why Mississippi St. is so high, all of their prior FBS opponents who played (Louisiana Tech, BYU, Georgia, and Kentucky) won in addition to their own win. The Bulldogs now have the 14th-best strength of schedule, which makes a pretty good combination of record and schedule at this point.

The Bulldogs are fourth in the SEC West at the moment, but since Alabama still has to play the best divisional teams and Auburn still has to play Georgia, some interesting possibilities still exist.

Alabama had the opposite situation. Unless they were playing each other (which was the case with Ole Miss and Arkansas), their prior opponents all lost. So despite not playing, the Tide lost about 0.1 points, which is about how far TCU is from Ohio St. or Virginia Tech is from Mississippi St.

I don’t normally point this out, but the Big Ten did rate higher on my chart of top 40 teams this week. The SEC had more teams in the top 40 than any other conference (8), but the Big Ten was the only conference with three teams in the top 10. Also, the Big Ten East edged the SEC West on similar grounds. Although the SEC West has more top 40 teams than any other division (5), the Big Ten East was the only division with two teams in the top 10.

However, the average SEC team is still better than the average Big Ten team. These rankings are at the bottom of the page. The Big Ten did move into second though, just ahead of the Pac-12.

The ACC is fourth and the Big XII a very distant fifth. I haven’t had time to do a more detailed conference analysis.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Georgia 3
3 Clemson 6
4 Notre Dame 7
5 Penn St. 2
6 Wisconsin 5
7 Central Florida 4
8 Ohio St. 17
9 USC 13
10 Memphis 11
11 U. Miami 9
12 San Diego St. 14
13 TCU 10
14 Oklahoma 18
15 Miss. St. –
16 Mich. St. 8
17 Oklahoma St. 20
18 Boise St. 21
19 Wash. St. 12
20 Iowa St. –
21 Washington 19
22 South Carolina 24
23 Virginia Tech 23
24 Iowa –
25 Stanford 15

Out of top 25: (19) N. Carolina St., (22) LSU, (25) Michigan

Sly Croom’s Lasting Influence

Since this is a bye week for LSU, I thought I’d reminisce a little. Ed Orgeron’s return to Ole Miss reminded me that he was one of the victims of Sylvester Croom. I don’t just mean his team lost to Mississippi St.’s, but he apparently lost his job in large part because of the 2007 game (the 2005 game didn’t help either).

Sylvester Croom after winning the Egg Bowl in a dramatic comeback in Starkville in 2007.

Losses to Sylvester Croom also factored heavily into Florida’s firing of Ron Zook, Alabama’s firing of Mike Shula, and arguably Auburn’s firing of Tommy Tuberville.

I think part of it was the perception of Mississippi St. up until then. Overall from 2001 to 2003, the Bulldogs went 8-27 and only 3-21 in the SEC. So with how competitive the SEC was, that just wasn’t a team you entertained losing to, especially since they were given heavy sanctions stemming from the Jackie Sherrill era.

In fact I remember a Florida fan (ironically) complaining that the SEC West teams got to play “the Mississippis” ever year.

So I’m not even saying it was altogether fair for Croom that losses to his teams were met with such hostility since he did improve the situation from how he found it.

Ron Zook was the only head coach to defeat Nick Saban’s Tigers in 2003; but that didn’t help him much after the loss to the Bulldogs in 2004.

The Bulldogs’ win against Florida in 2004 (Croom’s first year) was only the second SEC win in three seasons. It didn’t seem to help Zook that Mississippi St. won the next week against Kentucky. The damage had been done, and the fans wanted blood. Without Zook’s firing, who knows how Urban Meyer’s career would have developed?

Mississippi St. would only go 4-20 in SEC play from 2004 to 2006, but all but one of those wins (the one over Kentucky) resulted in a firing. Orgeron wasn’t fired until 2007, but maybe that loss would have been less fatal had he beaten the Bulldogs in his first season in 2005.

Orgeron’s one win over the Bulldogs came in 2006, but Croom did beat Mike Shula’s Tide. The fact that it was in Tuscaloosa couldn’t have helped matters. No only was it the only SEC win for the Bulldogs that year, it was the only win over a I-A (now FBS) opponent in regulation. Alabama lost six games in that regular season, but one of them was by one point in overtime at Arkansas, and the other four (apart from Mississippi St.) were against teams that were in the top 15 at the time of the game. Without that loss, there is a good chance Nick Saban never coaches Alabama. Even if he started a year later, does the Tide win the West in 2008? Do they win the national championship in 2009? Probably doubtful in both cases.

Croom with Mike Shula after a game.

In 2007, the Bulldogs went a respectable 4-4 in conference and won the Liberty Bowl to finish 8-5 overall. (The non-conference loss was to West Virginia, who won the Big East and nearly played for the national championship that year.)

Nonetheless, rivalry games can be funny things (as that same West Virginia team found out against Pitt), and Orgeron was seen as responsible for giving up a late lead (see the link in the first sentence for more details).

Had Ole Miss won, it’s possible that the administration could have held out for that fourth year, which was when Croom finally had a decent year.

It’s arguable that there was another victim, and that was Tommy Tuberville. Had Auburn beaten the Bulldogs in 2007, that would have been four consecutive seasons of two conference losses or fewer after Tuberville had only accomplished the feat once in his first five seasons on the Plains.

Tuberville recently took credit for Shula’s firing (and indirectly for Saban’s hiring) as a result of beating Shula every year, but Croom likely also played a role in his own demise.

Also, one of the two SEC wins in Tuberville’s (and Croom’s) final season of 2008 was a 3-2 win over the Bulldogs. I know that in the minds of some fans, that didn’t count as a win, at least not for the football team. Especially since the offense was under fire at that time, that score was an easy one to recall and complain about. The other SEC win was 14-12, and there were SEC losses of 14-13, 17-7, and 17-13.

It’s hard to argue the decision in hindsight (I don’t think anyone would argue that Dan Mullen hasn’t proven himself better-suited to the position), but I wasn’t that fond of Croom’s firing at the time. He did take a step back in his final season in only going 4-8, but that was still better than any team there between 2001 and 2006. The loss to Auburn was one of two one-point losses that year (the other to Kentucky). Had they won both, they would have been bowl-eligible. They also played fairly close road games against Louisiana Tech (a loss by 8) and then-#5 LSU (a loss by 10). Louisiana Tech had one of its better seasons going 8-5 and winning a bowl game under head coach Derek Dooley, so that was not an embarrassing loss by any means.

Croom coaching at the Titans minicamp in 2014.

If you were curious, Croom went back to being an NFL running backs coach, a position he still occupies today with the Tennessee Titans. Apart from his stint at Mississippi St. and a four-year term as Offensive Coordinator of the Detroit Lions, Croom has been an NFL running backs coach since 1987. Before that, he coached linebackers at Alabama, his alma mater, under Bear Bryant and Ray Perkins. Alabama and Mississippi St. were his only two college coaching stops.

Week 9 Top 25 & LSU Notes

As I did last week, the only modification from the computer rating was to put the best five undefeated teams at the top. This required moving Clemson down to spots, Notre Dame down one spot, Central Florida up one spot, and Wisconsin up two spots.

I know people aren’t going to be impressed with Central Florida, but I wanted to remind them that unlike the polls, you don’t just drift upward by remaining undefeated (which is why teams like this are kept toward the back of the pack early on). I would not be surprised if the Knights fell out of the top 5 after playing Austin Peay next week; and apart from the finale against South Florida, UCF has already played its better opponents. This could allow several teams (including TCU and U. Miami if they stay undefeated) to pass them up between now and then.

This ties into my previous couple of blogs.

I’m going to say right upfront that Alabama will be protected at #1 for one more week even if they are passed up in the computer rating during next week, in which Penn St. plays Ohio St. and Alabama does not play. If the Nittany Lions lose, Alabama will likely be safe anyway. If Penn St. and Alabama are still undefeated after November 4, I’m just going to let the system play out on its own from there.

I haven’t griped about the polls much, because to be fair they’re not ridiculously far off; but I wanted to do a blind resume test like reporters commonly do with basketball teams around March. I am using my own ratings, but this doesn’t vary much from the polls and other mainstream ratings as far as the evaluation of other teams. Team A has won three in a row, but team B lost in the last two weeks. Team A is 3-2 against the top 50, and team B is 1-2. Team A is 4-2 against the top 75, and team B is 2-2. Team A beat team B. Team A and team B have identical records. In what world does team B get ranked higher? This one! Take either poll, locate LSU, and then locate Auburn. LSU is team A, and Auburn is team B.

Is it because Malzahn wears a visor and talks about controlling his own destiny even though it isn’t true (as opposed to Orgeron’s “one game at a time” mantra)?

Big Time INT by Kevin Toliver #GeauxTigers pic.twitter.com/z0ZFS5mfSi

— Demetric D. Warren (@DemetricDWarren) October 22, 2017

(I thought this was the best play of the game.)

Anyway, I updated and added a little bit more information to the LSU-Ole Miss Rivalry blog. I have a whole page dedicated to the Alabama series.

I also found it amusing that the cook of the famous “chicken on a stick” that Orgeron talked about (he said she was the only person he remembered that he wanted to see in Oxford) was located at the Four Corners Chevron (Orgeron had misremembered it as an Exxon during the press conference). Her name is Phyllis, and she is still a Coach O (and by extension LSU) fan. She said she wanted to visit Coach O in Baton Rouge but never has the money. I hope now that she’s been discovered some LSU fans can rectify that problem.

Phyllis (in a T-shirt given by the LSU equipment staff) and the famous “chicken on a stick”.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Penn St. 3
3 Georgia 2
4 Central Florida 9
5 Wisconsin 5
6 Clemson 6
7 Notre Dame 17
8 Mich. St. 8
9 U. Miami 10
10 TCU 4
11 Memphis 18
12 Wash. St. 12
13 USC 7
14 San Diego St. 13
15 Stanford 11
16 N. Carolina St. 15
17 Ohio St. 14
18 Oklahoma 21
19 Washington 19
20 Oklahoma St. –
21 Boise St. –
22 LSU 25
23 Virginia Tech –
24 South Carolina 20
25 Michigan 16

Out of top 25: (22) Iowa, (23) Texas A&M, (24) Navy

Coach O Makes the Right Decisions, Confuses Media Narrative

Setting of the Game and Media Commentary

This season the Tigers lost at home to a non-conference opponent for the first time since 2000, Nick Saban’s first season, and lost at Mississippi St. for the first time since 1999. I was bracing for another such loss being that 1999 was the last time they lost at home to Auburn, but somehow they escaped.

That was known as the Cigar Game, by the way. Tommy Tuberville and company smoked cigars after the game even though LSU was pathetic that year. Tuberville beat basically the same LSU team when he was at Ole Miss the year before (and his predecessor Terry Bowden had won in Baton Rouge in 1997), but he wanted to act like he accomplished something special. Maybe we can call it the Cigar Curse if this keeps up. Maybe Auburn can hire Tubs back and he can defeat his own curse. Gene Chizik, Gus Malzahn, and Terry Bowden can be his assistants.

Auburn players celebrate after the Cigar Game in 1999. LSU has had its longest home winning streak against Auburn in the years since.

Back to the present, I’m annoyed that no matter what LSU does they’re going to be insulted the rest of the year. They could win out, and people like Paul Feinbaum will still say, “same old LSU, win the games they’re not supposed to and lose the games they should have won.”

There were a lot of ups and downs in terms of talent and whatnot between 2005 and 2016, when Les Miles was the head coach. Whatever happens this season, you can’t say this is some kind of permanent condition going forward. Miles had especially difficult years in 2008 and 2014. Whether it was Miles or Orgeron, this would be another year like those two in terms of experience (although there is a bit more experience at the QB position), but we may not end up with five or even four losses. (Technically, finishing with two losses is possible; but that would require not only winning the rest of the games on the schedule but also winning at least the SEC Championship and a bowl game.)

I’m not worried though, keep up the low expectations. I don’t think the 2003 team was nearly as good as the 2007 and 2011 teams, but no one saw the 2003 performance coming. I think that was preferable.

Auburn and Florida Rivalries

I didn’t realize this going in, but this was actually the first competitive LSU-Auburn game in Tiger Stadium since 2007. That was when LSU only needed a field goal to win, but Matt Flynn threw a touchdown to Demetrius Byrd that was caught with about 3 seconds left (although the ensuing kickoff was with 1 second left). Appropriately enough, the 2007 team was in attendance on Saturday. The 2007 game came two years after an overtime win by LSU which resulted from multiple missed field goals by Auburn.

It was nice to get another close win against Auburn in light of the 4-point loss in 1994 (the disaster on the plains), the 1-point loss in 2004 (the extra point game), the 4-point loss in 2006 (Refgate), the 7-point loss in 2010 (I don’t think it had a nickname; it was just a good close game on the way to Auburn’s national championship), and the 5-point loss last season (I guess we can call it the end of an era since it was Les Miles’ last game). The other games mentioned in this paragraph were all at Auburn, where LSU has only won twice since 1998.

This was the first year since 1980 in which LSU beat Auburn and Florida with at least one of those wins coming on the road. Just like this year, there were also wins at Florida and at home against Auburn that season. That year was the last of four consecutive LSU wins against Florida, which has not been repeated since then. LSU has won 6 of 8 against the Gators and 3 of the last 4 in Gainesville though. All three of those wins in Gainesville were decided in the final moments, and this was the ninth LSU-Florida game since (and including) 2004 that was decided by one possession.

Before the loss to LSU, Florida had won 14 of 15 home games and 10 of the last 11 decided by 8 points or fewer (with the previous close loss coming to LSU in 2015). Now both LSU and Texas A&M have won close games in the Swamp (by 1 and 2 points respectively) in consecutive weeks. The Gators’ remaining home games this season are against UAB and Florida St.

For more on these series, see the Auburn and Florida rivalry blogs.

LSU-Auburn Game Recap and Analysis

So I’ve talked about pundits and I’ve talked about historical significance. I’d like to talk a little more about Saturday’s game and what I think brought about the result.

I’ve mentioned this is still a young inexperienced team, but let’s recap a couple of things they have seen in recent weeks. As we have been reminded dozens of times now, yes, they lost to Troy, but let’s look at that.. Troy was up 17-0 in the second half. Had it been 17-0 at halftime, maybe LSU wins. Had the coaching staff not panicked a bit by calling an onsides kick only halfway through the fourth quarter, the Tigers may have completed the comeback. Also, after the Tigers’ initial touchdown, Troy scored again and still led by 17 well into the fourth quarter.

There was another home game where it was the opposite situation. It was LSU who seemed to have the game in control and what was an 18-point LSU lead with 20 minutes left in the game became a 28-26 lead with 5 minutes left in the game. So if Syracuse can reduce a lead by 16 points in 15 minutes on the road and LSU can reduce a lead by 14 points in 6 minutes in a nearly-empty stadium, 42 ½ minutes (especially with a nearly-full stadium) should have seemed like plenty of time to close a 20-point gap. Nine points in 30 minutes? Easy.

Florida isn’t exactly analogous, but there were two things to take from that as well. The first is LSU had the lead and despite an anemic offense, the defense realized (according to Orgeron anyway) that if Florida didn’t score over the last 17 minutes they couldn’t win. The other point was that it only took 6 minutes to close the gap from 17-3 to 17-16.

I think having Syracuse, Troy, and Florida in consecutive weeks was more than enough for this team to know there was no reason to give up hope.

I don’t agree with many commentators that the turning point was the punt return. That is what made it a 2-point game. What about the plays that made it only a 9-point lead before that?

The first important thing was the LSU defense drawing the line at the 20-yardline so Auburn didn’t go ahead 24-0.

I’ve been a critic, including in this blog, of some of Orgeron’s decisions, but like when Les Miles called 5 fourth-down attempts against Florida in the 2007 season, he made (in hindsight anyway) the right call time after time.

Russell Gage’s 70-yard run helped set up the Tigers’ first score.

When LSU got the ball back, some would have said to just take the field goal “to get some points on the board” facing a fourth and goal down 20-0, but he went for it. I doubt he called the play, but he certainly didn’t object when the jet sweep was called even though Auburn had been covering that particular play.

It’s hard to narrow it down to one decision before the half, but the Tigers played for the touchdown (not for a field goal as some recent offensive coordinators would have done), but they did it in such a way that the touchdown (or perhaps short field goal had it been necessary) was scored with less than a minute left. I’m not going to pretend I knew we had a win at that point, but I had resigned myself to being down 13 or 14 at the half (after the first touchdown; I was of course more pessimistic before that). I was honestly excited that we only ended up down 9.

After LSU punted in its first three possessions of the second half and the previous punt couldn’t even be downed before rolling into the end zone, another punt had to be hard to call at the Auburn 36. This was the possession after Malzahn lost his nerve before a 4th and 1 at midfield. LSU didn’t really have a good chance of converting, but some coaches might have tried the long field goal even though it was a likely miss just to say they tried to take the lead. Had LSU lost, that would have been a criticism. Then the special teams came through and downed the ball at the 3.

LSU did have to take the points on the next possession. Despite the field goal woes, 42 yards was close enough that they had to try for the lead even though it was 4th and 1.

Another right decision. Malzahn had to be the one to answer questions about his fourth-down decisions after the game. Why go on 4th and 10 but not on 4th and 1? Did you not believe your defense could stop LSU all the same without giving them the ball in field goal position?

On the final drive though, LSU finally did play for a field goal. It’s like a sacrifice in baseball. They give you an out at first base, throw it to first base. Don’t do anything crazy. Orgeron could have tried for a touchdown Mad-Hatter-style; but even though LSU had been down most of the day, when you have the lead you act like you can keep the lead.

Of course it make it easier to come back without penalties and turnovers that continued to haunt the Tigers in the second half against Troy, but those coaching decisions were key in this game.

The Future

A new pet peeve after the game is that Gus Malzahn said multiple times that Auburn controls its own destiny, and this was accepted without question by the media. Actually, someone at Auburn might have heard it during the game broadcast. If LSU and Auburn each finish with one loss, what happens? Spoiler alert: Auburn doesn’t represent the West. I don’t know how that many people who get paid to do so don’t bother to think for themselves.

I’m not saying LSU is going to beat Alabama, but it would be less strange than losing to Troy or beating Auburn after being down 20 points. It would be less strange than Syracuse beating Clemson.

LSU is given a 65% chance or greater (in ESPN’s FPI formula anyway) to win each of their remaining games except against Alabama. Auburn is given a 52% chance to beat Georgia and a 75% chance to beat A&M, but I’m not buying either one. If I put $100 on A&M to beat Auburn at home, you’re really going to give me $300 back if they do so? I also don’t think Auburn is 5 times as likely to beat Alabama as LSU is.

Anyway, another big rivalry game next week. After these last few games, I’m looking forward to the bye week though.

Week 8 Top 25

I was going to try to write a blog about LSU-Auburn and update my Rivalry Series blogs, but I was too tired and it’s already getting late, so I’m just going to put up my top 25 and explanation for now.

I thought about just copying the top 25 exactly as my formula spits out, but I think that’s unfair to the undefeated teams at this point. So what I did was make the top 5 all undefeated teams and keep them in the order my formula has them, and then make the other 20 teams the best remaining teams in the order my formula has them. So there are no team-by-team personal judgments here.

Since 2011, I believe, I’ve waited until after the games of the first week of November before I strictly follow the formula in my blog top 25. The top 25 here is essentially how I would vote if I were a voter in the AP or coaches’ poll, so while I generally have switched to following the formula, there are still some exceptions to account for continuity (such as a reluctance to remove a team from the #1 spot with no defect in their play) and scheduling quirks (such as a team who just had a bye week is about to play a very high-quality opponent and I’d rather that game decide whether they go down in the rankings if they lose instead of the bye week deciding).

The LSU-Alabama game hasn’t been as competitive as it once was (although there have been close games, the same team has come out on top the last several meetings), but it gives Alabama a chance to recover from the bye week, which has consistently been before the LSU game (and Alabama has consistently been one of the top teams). This year Clemson plays North Carolina St. that week, and Georgia plays South Carolina. One may not have expected it earlier in the year, but both North Carolina St. and South Carolina are serious competitors at this point for their respective divisions.

Despite the last couple of weeks, 2011 seems like a very long time ago for LSU fans.

I prefer not to switch teams at the top back and forth, and what tends to happen is among the top few undefeated teams one or two of them will have losses against the better opponents rather than it simply being a contest of who played the best team last week. Even if the teams remain undefeated, I’d rather make a change after November 4 when we have more chance of stability (since each week is a smaller percentage of the season) than possibly change back and forth between now and then.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Georgia 3
3 Penn St. 4
4 TCU 7
5 Wisconsin 13
6 Clemson 2
7 USC 9
8 Mich. St. 11
9 Central Florida 6
10 U. Miami 14
11 Stanford –
12 Wash. St. 5
13 San Diego St. 8
14 Ohio St. 12
15 N. Carolina St. 19
16 Michigan 20
17 Notre Dame 10
18 Memphis –
19 Washington 18
20 South Carolina –
21 Oklahoma 24
22 Iowa 16
23 Texas A&M –
24 Navy 17
25 LSU –

Out of rankings: (15) Houston, (21) Florida, (22) Kentucky, (23) Oregon, (25) Okla St.

Week 7 Top 25 and Recent LSU Thoughts

I had a long trip out of the country, so I haven’t had much time for blogging and so forth. I only included one picture, so I’m sure this will look like a wall of text in spots.

Troy-LSU

Not that more than a handful of people read what I have to say anyway (I never recovered from losing the free advertising TSN used to provide), but if you’re a regular reader and resorted to listening to mainstream media instead, my condolences.

Why are the most ignorant people who don’t even lift a finger to give themselves the level of knowledge that can be gained by five minutes with a search engine the ones with the biggest voices in national media? A perfect example from the NFL was Skip Bayless pretending Tim Tebow was going to the Hall of Fame, but there are people you can take seriously. I think Skip Bayless is what you get in college if you’re lucky.

Paul Feinbaum never seems to know basic facts. Maybe he’s just feigning ignorance, but if he’s that good of an actor, he should be in Hollywood.

For instance, before last year’s Florida game (the offense had looked good between Les Miles’ last game and Florida), he had no idea who Steve Ensminger was or how he came to be interim OC. He can have good commentary when he does read up on something, but he phones it in when it comes to details and it’s not a big game. Feinbaum also said the chance of Orgeron becoming head coach was infinitesimal. Why is he considered some kind of SEC guru?

Anyway, to get to the point, after Troy, he had on some guy who admitted being preoccupied with college BASKETBALL. Anyone in their right mind would have hung up instead of asking for anything about football. There are probably a million SEC fans who haven’t been distracted one iota by basketball he could have spoken to instead.

So this guy says that Orgeron is responsible for any lack of depth because he was a recruiter (for defensive linemen… for a year and a half) under Les Miles and then proceeds to bash the program in general. Who does that, who says, “I haven’t been paying attention to this sport, but here is my condemnation based on one final score”? A drunk at a bar maybe, and a relatively dumb one at that. I couldn’t keep listening.

We have had good recruiting classes the last couple of years, but that doesn’t magically give you a quality team when the field is loaded with freshmen. Go back to covering basketball, where leaving college early means not playing in college.

So then I listened to Damon Amendolara. At least that’s material I can work with, even though he’s obnoxious. I’ll respond to his points.

>LSU was embarrassed at Mississippi St.

Again, we are talking about a team playing a ton of freshmen, they should have been up 14-7 in the second quarter (but for a bullshit penalty), halftime score ends up 17-7, then the game gets away as offense starts desperation mode during a third quarter that didn’t go well. That’s not being embarrassed. Embarrassing final score maybe, but the performance was not as bad as the score.

>for the first time since 2000, a non-conference team walked into Death Valley…

Gee, who was the head coach then? That guy is probably selling life insurance now if not dead from chronic stupidity. Oh no, that’s one of the best college football coaches in history? Same difference.

You know what else that guy did? Lost his conference opener against a sub-top-20 team. He lost by 17, but it could have been worse had the other team elected to keep up the pressure.

By the way, I made these points to my family after the Troy game. I’m not just saying this because of Florida. By the way, after losing to UAB in 2000, LSU beat a ranked team the next week as well. The Tigers would finish 8-4 on the year, which I would take this year as well. The next season, they won the SEC Championship.

>Troy was up 17-0

They were up more and LSU didn’t quit and nearly came all the way back? That makes it worse if you’re a mainstream media sports guy?

>LSU frankly is a pathetic football team.

They didn’t even lose to a pathetic football team, and it was by 3 points. That’s not rushing to judgment at all. But at least if you say it like you know what you’re talking about…

>[Ed Ogeron] can’t fix the problem.

He clearly improved something being that LSU scored 21 of the last 31 points. I understand if he was arguing that LSU did the same exact things they did against Mississippi St., but this guy’s main gripe was Troy and seemed to be aware of no details of Mississippi St. You don’t see if the problems are fixed until the next game is played.

>Troy is trolling them on twitter (by saying they enjoyed the trip).

What is Orgeron supposed to do? Beat up on whoever controls their twitter? What a nonsensical point to even bring up.

These buffoons count on people to forget their mistakes. Don’t let them get away with it. Be as unforgiving as they are.

LSU struggled against the run, but the Tigers got just enough stops when they needed them.

LSU-Florida

I’m not going to pretend I knew it would work beforehand, but the important thing is players stepped up after the game to have a players meeting, and LSU maintained its normal routine before the Florida win.

You can say they got lucky with the extra point, but I would say they got unlucky with the officiating. There is no way blocking a guy with your hands around his shoulder pads is what any rules committee has ever meant by targeting even though the penalty was upheld. If that’s so dangerous you need to remove someone from the game, they need to ban blocking and tackling altogether.

There was also an LSU first down that was reversed on a spot judgment call, and yet Florida was given a first down when the guy stepped out a full two yards short of the line to gain. There was a personal foul called for bumping into a player while getting up. There was a roughing the punter that was only called running into. There were other examples, such as clear holdings that were not called, but I’m just saying what stood out. All in all, typical SEC officiating for the home team that had better prospects going into the game.

Both Florida touchdowns were set up by 15-yard LSU penalties. The other one was a correct call by the referee, but it was bad luck in a split-second decision. The defender could have gone in front of the receiver on a crossing route and broken up the pass (if not intercepted it) for a third-down stop. Instead, I think he misjudged the timing of the ball and wrapped up the receiver. Only problem was the ball hadn’t gotten there yet. To be fair, he had a perfectly-timed jump to tip a ball way over his head on the play before.

I mentioned Mississippi St. above and how pivotal the go-ahead touchdown would have been. I also think not going down 7-0 to Troy would have made a huge difference.

Of course that wasn’t the whole story. LSU did very well on third down after going 0-8 (I think a conversion or two was called back) the week before. The Tigers committed four turnovers against Troy and none against Florida. There were times they could have just hanged their heads like when Danny Etling missed wide-open receivers, when three offensive linemen had to leave the game, or when the targeting I mentioned was called and another quality offensive player was ejected. These seemed ominous as a fan, but I think the team has really worked on controlling what’s in their power and shrugging off everything else.

This was Ed Orgeron’s first-ever SEC road win as a permanent head coach. It was the third counting Texas A&M and Arkansas last season though, so he’s 3-1 in such games with the Tigers after going 0-12 at Ole Miss.

I didn’t have time before, but this weekend I will update both the Florida and Auburn rivalry blogs. Jim McElwain had previously done pretty well both in close games and in the Swamp, but LSU has won a fair number of games in both categories in recent years as well.

Top 25

I did calculate the official computer ratings for the first time this season. My top 25 for this blog is a little bit different. Summary of differences: Alabama moved from #3 to #1, Michigan put ahead of Florida (they beat Florida after all), Notre Dame ahead of Michigan St. (same reasoning), and Oklahoma St. #25 instead of South Carolina. I don’t like to remove teams from the top 25 just because they had a bye week, and it’s not like South Carolina has done anything special since Week 1. No team was moved more than two spots, and for the vast majority of teams I just let the chips fall where they may.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Clemson 2
3 Georgia 3
4 Penn St. 4
5 Wash. St. 9
6 Central Florida 7
7 TCU 6
8 San Diego St. 8
9 USC 11
10 Notre Dame 15
11 Mich. St. 20
12 Ohio St. 16
13 Wisconsin 14
14 U. Miami 18
15 Houston –
16 Iowa –
17 Navy 10
18 Washington 21
19 North Carolina St. –
20 Michigan 5
21 Florida 12
22 Kentucky 22
23 Oregon 19
24 Oklahoma 13
25 Okla St. 17

Out of rankings: (23) UCLA, (24) South Florida, (25) Maryland

Week 6 Top 25

As I mentioned last week, I’m on a trip, so this will be pretty minimal for the next week or so.

The next top 25 will be almost exclusively computer-based. In preparation, I made a rule that all teams had to be within 5 spots of their computer ranking to hopefully ease the transition. This early in the season though, the rankings are still volatile, so there still may be future 15-point swings.

Last week’s ranking listed after team name.

1 Alabama 1
2 Clemson 2
3 Georgia 3
4 Penn St. 5
5 Michigan 7
6 TCU 8
7 Central Florida 17
8 San Diego St. 15
9 Washington St. 24
10 Navy –
11 USC 4
12 Florida 9
13 Oklahoma 6
14 Wisconsin 18
15 Notre Dame –
16 Ohio St. 10
17 Oklahoma St. 25
18 U. Miami –
19 Oregon –
20 Michigan St. –
21 Washington 19
22 Kentucky 13
23 UCLA –
24 South Florida 14
25 Maryland –

Out of rankings: (11) Virginia Tech, (12) Texas Tech, (16) Wake Forest, (20) Louisville, (21) Memphis, (22) Mississippi St., (23) Vanderbilt