Pete Fiutak, CollegeFootballNews.com’s resident expert likes North Texas’ DodgeBall and the Huskers this weekend:
You know I’m born to lose, and gambling’s for fools/But that’s the way I like it baby, I don’t wanna live forever” … The three lines this week that appear to be a tad off. (1-2 last week, so as always, enjoy these just for pure amusement.) … 1) Nebraska +10 over USC 2) UTEP +6.5 over New Mexico State, 3) SMU +3 over Arkansas State
Seems that more and more people are coming over to the dark side and actually thinking that this SC team could be overrated …
September 11th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Rob, are you a charter member of the Playa Hater’s Club? You love hating on USC. How bout you leave all prognostications, predictions, rankings, etc. alone till AFTER USC has been able to have more than 1 game for you to base your opinion off of.
Remember that everyone said Michigan losing to Appalachian St. was an aberration and they actually are really good team that had everything go wrong in one game. Well, after two games we have a much better idea of the Michigan program now don’t we. Or even this week’s foe, Nebraska. Looked like a world beater after game 1. After game 2, looks like they are actually vulnerable after all. Same Keller still throws stupid INTs, and Marlon Lucky didn’t run all over the place when a real team showed up to play defense.
I’m not saying USC is exactly where they should be in the rankings or that they deserve #1. I’m just saying that it’s ridiculous to suddenly flip out and say USC is overrated based on one game. One game they still won by 28 without trying.
Let’s wait and see what happens this weekend then let the fireworks fly.
September 11th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Jared I said we would be 9-3 before the season started; all the Idaho game did for me was cement these thoughts.
1) When JD Booty makes a good throw in the clutch it will be his first
2) Our OL is not as good as advertised because we never dominated the line of scrimmage
3) Our D got no pressure with the just the front 4
4) Our secondary does not truly understand the cover 2 because our spacing is terrible
All of these were 2006 concerns that haven’t gotten better and I was hoping to see improvement in the glorified scrimmage—but instead I got even more depressed. And I hope more than anything that I’m wrong about SC …
September 11th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Fair enough, you started the season with 9-3 as your prediction. Comments on your points:
1) JD Booty isn’t my favorite. I’ve got nothing to say for or against Booty because that’s just what his play is like. Nothing bad, nothing great. Just…. predictable. You can still win with that kind of quarterback. If LSU can win a National Championship with Matt Mauck, USC can win with Booty. And, I like Sanchez a lot and can’t wait for him to start.
2) Our OL against Idaho wasn’t the OL that was advertised. Spanos was out, Baker was injured, and Beyers is still working off the rust from being inactive all of last year. Personally, I don’t care about what some magazine said about our OL. Whether or not they live up to someone’s expectations means nothing to me as long as they just do their job. They will have breakdowns like any unit does, but if they execute and can be above average for an OL, USC will be just fine.
3) The DL has work to do. They got almost no QB pressure, but if you look back at the game you will see that Idaho ran lots of passing plays out of the shotgun and short, quick passes. That still doesn’t make up for the fact there was no pressure till the end of the game, but it provides better context for examining the reasons.
4)For what it’s worth, Idaho was 2-8 in the second half and for the whole game was held to 46% pass completion for only 155 yards. Looked fine to me. Could be better, and we’ll see this week against a real QB if they are better.
Yes, it was a glorified scrimmage, which is why it looked so weird and boring most of the time. You don’t waste scrimmage’s with unnecessary passing plays or fancy formations. You use the opportunity to test areas you are trying to fix or see if certain combinations of personal run the same play in different ways.
Everyone needs to take a step back, take a deep breath, and wait for this weekend before declaring USC the greatest of all time or the bust of the year (besides Michigan).
September 13th, 2007 at 6:59 am
[...] On Tuesday we posted that CollegeFootballNews.com’s Pete Fiutak liked Nebraska plus 10 this weekend against SC. [...]