College Football Questions and Answers: Week 12

It’s a good thing I’m not a betting man…

1.) I wrote that South Carolina would cover the 21-point spread against Florida. I couldn’t have been wronger about that. Any questions from anyone about the dominance of Florida right now was soundly answered. The statistics provide the evidence for the beating that South Carolina took:

Florida Offense
519 total yards
346 rushing yards
173 passing yards
46% conversion on 3rd downs

South Carolina Offense
173 total yards
53 rushing yards
120 passing yards
6% conversion on 3rd downs
-2 turnover margin

It all resulted in a 56-6 Florida victory. South Carolina couldn’t get out of its’ own way, making mistake after mistake. The game was ostensibly over toward the end of the 1st quarter. Florida had just gone up 14-0 and South Carolina tried a little trickery on the kickoff return. They fumbled the ball and Florida recovered on the 1/2 yard line, the humor of it all brilliantly pointed out on EDSBS.com.

The game also provided further proof that without quality quarterback play, you can’t compete in big games. South Carolina has gotten 17 touchdowns against 20 interceptions from their three quarterbacks this year. No matter how good your defense is, that QB ratio isn’t going to get it done.

Everything that could go wrong for SC did and everything that could go right for UF did. It was the type of perfect storm game that resulted in an unusually lopsided result, where the losing team isn’t quite as bad as the result, nor is the winning team quite as good. But Florida is very, very good, and is peaking at the perfect time. And in a karma sense, how fascinating it was to watch Spurrier struggle through the very type of beating he used to administer on a frequent basis when he was at Florida.

2.) I was only part right on Ohio State -v- Illinois. Ohio State did win as I predicted and Juice was normal Juice and not Super Juice like he was last year. Statistically speaking, Juice had his best completion percentage game of the season and his 4th best QB rating game, but too many untimely mistakes on both sides of the ball did the Illini in.

Despite not having a consistent running game this season, Illinois was able to rush for 214 yards against the 26th ranked rush D nationally. Unfortunately for Illinois, Ohio State was able to rush for 305 with Beanie doing what Beanie does and Terrelle Pryor going over 100 yards for the first time.

Unfortunately for Ohio State fans, the Buckeyes got the win despite TP only passing the ball 10 times (49 yards total). I’ll take the win but I don’t like the reinforcement of Tressel-ball principles so late in the season. That lack of production, whether pre-meditated or accidental equals a loss to a 2nd or 3rd place SEC/Big XII team in the bowl game. And another long winter in Columbus.

If you missed any of the play-by-play, here’s a fantastic game summary including “the hurdle” over at elevenwarriors.com.

3.) As I predicted, Kansas could not keep it close with Texas, losing by a final score of 35-3. Game summary over at burntorangenation.com. Kansas now stands two games behind Missouri in the Big XII North and with one game left to play, is out of the race. Texas’ path to the Big XII championship involves blowing out Texas A&M this weekend and a close win by Oklahoma over Texas Tech. That’s probably the only way they’ll remain ahead of both OU and TT in the BCS and thus get the tiebreaker in the Big XII South.

4.) Stanford could not make lightning strike twice losing to USC 45-23, though the game was tied 17-17 at the half. The USC defense was vulnerable once again to the run giving up 202 yards but the offense came through with 282 rushing yards and five total touchdowns.

5.) I predicted a close win for Alabama over Mississippi State, and it was on track for that until the MSU special teams went in the toilet. The score was 12-7 Alabama at the half and Mississippi State was hanging tough with the nation’s # 1 team. Until the 3rd quarter that is. Following MSU’s first possession of the second half punter Blake McAdams punted the ball to Javier Arena which he proceeded to run back 80 yards for a touchdown. Score 19-7 Alabama. That was the spark that Alabama needed and they controlled the rest of the game winning by a final score of 32-7.

I still don’t buy into Alabama as the # 1 team but they’re doing what they need to win all their games. And in our current flawed system, that’s all it takes to be champion.

6.) I mistakenly predicted a Troy upset over LSU, one that almost materialized. I also detailed in a previous post how the Troy collapse happened. As I wrote on Friday, Troy needed some turnovers to get the win. They finished the game -2 so clearly that didn’t happen. The turnover problem plus the 4th quarter collapse spelled doom for the little engine that couldn’t.

You’re welcome.