In terms of players we see for the combine, the best-conditioned and prepared athletes by conference come in this order: the SEC, the Big 12, the Pac-10 is just a little bit under that, and then the Big Ten brings up the rear.

[Mark Sutton, strength coach at D1 Sports Training] casually framed one of the only rational explanations for the persistent and partially inaccurate perception of the SEC speed myth/Big Ten Sloth Legend: The emphasis on speed training, explosive Olympic-style movements in the weight room, and a noticeable bleedover between the disciplines of track and field and football.

Doesn’t that sort of support the speed myth? And then there’s this:

Bringing us to the thorny point of talent development. Tossing out kooky, unempirical theories such as hot weather making players faster or WOO-WEE DEM SOUTHERN BOYZ KEN RUN, you’re left with what happens to the players after they get to the program. In the SEC, the emphasis will be developing the player’s speed. According to some trainers, the top Big Ten programs focus more on adding muscle.

The difference a training program makes may be marginal when you compare the uniformly elite talent recruited by top college programs, but margins are where smallish teams like West Virginia beat teams like Oklahoma in bowl games, and where Ohio State might lose a crucial step on the edge in high-profile debacles against SEC teams.

So … if the SEC focuses on speed and the Big Ten focuses on strength, then wouldn’t that, well, tend to make the SEC faster? We’re obviously not interested in advocating for the speed myth, but this article seems to explain it, not debunk it.

I am a pro-playoff guy and have been since I became aware that this is a sport and not a beauty contest. For 10 seasons, we have seen the BcS change its stripes more times than I care to count and each time against the wishes of most college football fans. I have finally had it. I don’t want a Plus-One; that just means that this year Virginia Tech gets in for beating no one except for a BC team they already lost to, and OU (my #2 team) would be in semi-finals against the alleged #1 and #2 teams. What a crock.

I want an 8-team playoff. I know 16 will never happen and I think that given a season like this, where 8 teams can say they should have a shot at showing they are the best, we should give them the opportunity. If not, then go back to the old beauty contest way with traditional bowl match-ups; Ohio State vs. USC in the Rose, LSU vs. Georgia in the Sugar (since they didn’t play during the regular season), Oklahoma vs. Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl (why did the Big 12 get hosed out of Miami for New Year’s for Phoenix?) and West Virginia vs. Missouri in the Fiesta Bowl. The season was amazing from day 1 with Appalachian State beating Michigan in Ann Arbor and it has propelled them on to the semi-finals of the Division 1-AA playoffs. See, all of the other kids are supposed to be the same but big time football is the sacred cow and apparently no would be excited about Ohio State hosting Kansas, LSU hosting USC, Virginia Tech vs. Missouri and Georgia at Oklahoma. Very sad that a sport that is just the best for 3 full months becomes irrelevant in 24 hours.

Now on to the Trojans: I was not a believer as many of you know. I felt that the “Dwarf from Shreveport” would never take this team anywhere and that we were destined for 9-3 and a trip to San Diego. Well the injury bug struck every Pac-10 contender and so we got another BcS trip and a 4th Rose Bowl in 6 years along with a 6th consecutive conference title. This team came on late and really looked good on for a half against ASU and 3 quarters against Nebraska. That was really it—the rest of the season the offensive play calling was inconsistent and the defense had to make just enough plays so the team got wins. I am not sure if the offense was so underwhelming because of the Dwarf’s inability to execute the plays, or Sarkisian feeling that he was the smartest guy there and thinking that no matter what we should throw all the time. The other thing I never got is why Stafon Johnson didn’t get more carries—either he was really injured or again Pete gave his seniors the benefit of the doubt sticking with Chauncey all season and Booty against Stanford.

The whole season for USC really boils down to the last 4 minutes of the Stanford game. They had a great game plan for SC and we played right into by being to confident in our offense. Three runs and a punt and we sneak out with a win because they were not going 80 yards against our defense with no time outs. Meanwhile, we would be 11-1 and playing Ohio State. But we were not smart enough to figure out that stats aren’t important wins are. Oh well, now we can find out if it was really the “Dwarf” that held this team back as in ’08 they will start the season in the Top 5 and we will see if Sanchez or Mustain are ready to fill the shoes of Matt Leinart who is the gold standard for SC QB play. Until we do the fans will not be satisfied and we will keep playing against crappy Big-10 teams in the Rose Bowl as the reward for the season instead of for National Championships in the craptacular system that we have to deal with in my opinion for another 7 years minimum. (Thanks Tournament of Roses Committee for a deal with ABC through 2014).

Ok I am sorry to everyone for not posting in the past 12 days.  After my visit to LA for the yawnfest that was the Homecoming win, I had a business trip then family in town so yeah I forgot to post about week 11.  Ohio State, thanks for playing.

Thursday Night: Holy Sh*t, the Pac-10 on Thursday night.  It gets even better for Thanksgiving with SC at ASU, but tomorrow Oregon tries to stay in the hunt for the BcS title game with a visit to Tucson.  (Erin Andrews will not be in the Top 50 of hots in that Stadium)

Saturday: Ohio State at Michigan (noon ABC, Musburger/Herbstreit) Ok, this game is worth a trip to Pasadena and maybe the end of Lloyd Carr, but Herbie calling this one seriously, ABC/ESPN come on.  Nessler/Greise without McGuire should have called this one and you should have sent Herbie and Brent to Lubbock.

Saturday Night: Oklahoma at Texas Tech (8pm ABC, Nessler/Greise/McGuire) 4-hour game guaranteed.  Maybe OU spits the bit like 2 years in Lubbock but since the Big 12 officials will be out to get Leach, I doubt it.  West Virginia at Cincinnati (7:45pm ESPN Patrick/Blackledge) maybe the Mountaineers will lose so they won’t complain about being 11-1 and left out.

Ok, that is all that I can recommend for Saturday, you can flip by LSU at Ole Miss (3:30pm CBS Lundquist/Danielson) to see if everyone has a problem concentrating when they come to Oxford because they would rather be in the Grove than in the Stadium whipping Ole Miss and Duke at Notre Dame (2:30pm NBC Hammond/Haden) just to see if Lucky #10 can happen.

I hate what has happened to college football because this used to be the best weekend of the year, rivalry Saturday across the country but with selling out for TV and conference title games the next 2 weekends are better this season. (sad)

Also, to everyone who complains that the Pac-10 doesn’t have a conference championship game, F*CK OFF!  The SEC (Die Roy Kramer for creating these things), Big 12 and ACC all went to 12 teams to get to have a title game ($$$$$$$$$$$) that is the only reason.  The Pac-10 teams play everyone now so stop complain or we will go to 12 teams (hello Utah and BYU) and then we can have years where Oregon would miss USC and ASU and everyone would say they haven’t played anyone.  So, let that stupid tired argument go away like Corso needs to.

1  USC at Notre Dame            20-Oct       $409          1        $379
2  Ohio State at Michigan       17-Nov       $408          3        $876
3  Oklahoma vs. Texas            6-Oct       $400          2        $419
4  UCLA at USC                   1-Dec       $312          4        $172
5  Tennessee at Alabama         20-Oct       $238          5        $181
6  Georgia at Florida           27-Oct       $274          7        $284
7  Texas at Texas A&M           23-Nov       $268          6        $233
8  Alabama at Auburn            24-Nov       $373          8        $321
9  Tennessee at Florida         15-Sep       $248          9        $180
10 Michigan at Michigan State    3-Nov       $218         11        $193
11 Notre Dame at Purdue         29-Sep       $105         10        $281
12 Arkansas at LSU              23-Nov       $128         12        $226
13 California at Stanford        1-Dec       $118         13        $ 77
14 Miami at Florida State       20-Oct       $113         14        $137
15 Army/Navy Game                1-Dec       $285         16        $150
16 Florida State at Florida     24-Nov       $401         15        $195
17 Georgia at Georgia Tech      24-Nov       $156         17        $161
18 Oklahoma State at Oklahoma   24-Nov       $160         19        $228
19 Pittsburgh at West Virginia   1-Dec       $139         18        $ 87
20 Oregon State at Oregon        1-Dec       $170         20        $173
21 Clemson at South Carolina    24-Nov       $414         21        $282
22 Virginia Tech at Virginia    24-Nov       $191         23        $147
23 Iowa at Iowa State           15-Sep       $122         22        $218
24 Arizona at Arizona State      1-Dec       $ 80         24        $ 69
25 Purdue at Indiana            17-Nov       $ 77         25        $ 59

Granted, this is a fairly useless ranking, as it only uses gross dollar volume of tickets sold through StubHub. But it’s interesting nonetheless. Also, it looks like the Washington schools didn’t make the cut.

• Dan Shanoff, formerly of ESPN.com’s Page 2 and now a weekly College Football contributor at Deadspin likes Ohio State over Penn State, Oregon over USC, Cal over ASU, Florida over Georgia at the Cocktail Party, WVU over Rutgers, and Virginia Tech to continue the curse of being #2 by beating BC on Thursday (Something bad needs to happen to Boston sports soon).
• SI.com’s Cory McCartney throws out his take with BC surviving its trip to Blacksburg, Ohio State staying undefeated, Florida continuing to own Georgia, and—in the Pac-10′s big games—SC to upset Oregon and Cal to upset ASU.

Since the multi-color (credited to Jim Rome) keeps paying this guy to make lines (which he steals from LVSC) I will let people see what he has on the big games of the weekend.

• VT -3.5
• Oregon -2.5
• ASU -3.5
• Florida -9.5
• Ohio St -3.5

Saturday: ABC Regional Cal at Oregon—be prepared for Dan Fouts’ homerism to get out of control when the Ducks play well. However, I think that Oregon has proven that when they are just concentrating on football they are very good and as soon as those silly text books get in the way it goes down hill. Prediction: Forsett goes nuts and Cal wins by 3.

Honestly that is all I can recommend, beyond saying that if you are an SC fan and having nothing better to do, get your booze ready and play the Musburger drinking game and thank me for your hangover in advance.

Now, I know you will say, “Wait—Cal is at Oregon!” And yes, if you live in Californa, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, or Idaho you will get to see that game. (If you have GamePlan, of course, then you are set.) Everywhere else, ABC is regionalizing it all to death. I wish they would flip the UW/SC game for Cal/Oregon, but then again SC is a national draw. Oh well.

Here’s to ND taking the days since last win to almost 330.

First, maybe I was wrong about SC. For the first time in two years, we just lined up and kicked the sh*t out of someone with our OL and running game. So that was nice and made the game very boring very quickly—after 5 minutes were gone in the 3rd, in fact. The great JD Booty is still not wowing me with his throws, but he handed off very well. The secondary remains a question mark, but when you have to face 50+ throws you tend to tire out. So: it’s Oregon, Cal, and ASU, all on the road, that make me nervous.

Notre Dame has now gone 304 days without a win (page 11) and man does beating Army rock.

Lloyd Carr just needed a game against a team with less speed than his.

Tennessee looks slower than a pig in slop.

Alabama had no business beating Arkansas after blowing the 21-0 lead, but without McFadden the Razorbacks couldn’t run out the clock.

UCLA might reconsider a home and home contract with teams from Utah.

Thanks for playing this year Louisville, now take care of West Virginia so that we don’t have to hear about an undefeated Big East team getting left out of the title game.

And finally: October 6th can’t get here fast enough.

A few highlights:

• Only one Erin Andrews appearance this week (maybe she has a wedding this weekend and has Saturday off?).
• Tennessee @ Florida (as CBS kicks off SEC football coverage) goes against America’s Pillow Fight on ABC (ND @ Mich). I think CBS wins the ratings war.
• Gameday and Musburger for SC @ Nebraska. I really was hoping for more Kirk. Why can’t he do the game in Gainesville and then fly the corporate jet to Lincoln? Apparently ABC/ESPN want to keep costs down …

Virginia Tech looked to be the 2nd most overrated team in the country; however, Pat Forde feels that LSU is #1.

The Ole Ball Coach pulled his magic against Georgia (this time in Athens) to upset the #11 Bulldogs.

Penn State made Casey Clausen wish for the Oaks Christian OL. Ohio State tried to lose its first game to another Ohio college since 1921 (looking ahead to the game in Seattle perhaps) and Wisconsin (25 pt favs) almost lost at UNLV.

The Student Body Right Top 5:

1. SC (homerism rocks)
2. LSU (VT is overrated)
3. Oklahoma (Miami ‘s offense is awful)
4. Florida (heads-up, Tennessee: Tebow looks scary)
5. Wisconsin

What to watch for in Week 3: Tennessee at Florida, Arkansas at Alabama, Ohio State at Washington, and USC at Nebraska.