Top 25, Week Three

Nobody knows nothin’

So, this week as I glance at the Top 25 rankings for week three, I’m bothered by several things.

First, why has WVU won, handily, for the second straight week on the road, and dropped a spot for the second straight week?

Why, indeed? The voters are just plain fucking idiots.

Most of the time, I’m going to try to temper my contempt and loathing for “experts” and “coaches,” but not this week. This week, I’m going to “work blue,” and call them all fucking morons, because that’s what they’ve proven themselves to be.

Both the AP and USA Today polls are of a consensus mind about the top five:

1. Southern Cal
2. Louisiana State
3. Florida
4. Oklahoma
5. West Virginia

The AP is giving only USC and LSU number one votes, with one voter changed between this week and last, shifting his/her vote back to Southern Cal after the Trojans went to Lincoln and toyed with the Huskers.

The “Coaches” are slightly more unsure of who the best team is, splitting number one votes among the top four teams. The Gators garnered only one such vote, which is obviously one vote too many.

I suggest that while resituating one’s top five or ten or twenty-five is certainly an acceptable practice, I implore to know just what it is that WVU has shown to merit losing two spots in one poll and one spot in the other. Please. I beg to know.

Horse hockey

I’m sure most voters will submit the standard horseshit lines that idiots use to demerit the Mountaineers:

• Shaky defense.

• Bad opponents.

• Ummm… Pat White doesn’t throw enough.

• They don’t know the difference between West Virginia and western Virginia.

I answer those criticisms thusly:

• Yes, the defense has been shaky. But, they overpowered the Maryland offense after the first quarter. Sometimes, they overpowered them to an embarrassing degree. Maryland’s offense isn’t very good, sure. But, they were home, they have a good coach, and had a very supportive audience. And WVU’s defense bottled them up pretty well, upon opting to pressure the QB. This is a criticism of which I’m aware, and accepting of. But, does it matter? Aside from LSU, is anyone else’s defense not shaky?

• It’s true. The combined record of WVU’s three opponents to date is 2-7. Let’s glance at the top four combined opponent records, though, shall we?

Southern Cal’s opponents (2): 3-3

Louisiana State’s opponents (3): 4-5

Florida’s opponents (3): 4-5*

Oklahoma’s opponents (3): 2-6

I suppose we credit USC for traveling to Lincoln and handing the Huskers their first loss.

They are good. Very good. I don’t fully buy into JD Booty, yet, but whatever.

LSU has played one medium quality opponent (Virginia Tech), one mediocre to bad opponent (Mississippi State), and one atrocious one (Middle Tennessee State). They’re clearly a very good team, so, whatever.

Florida’s opponents earned an asterisk so that I remembered to make this point: Their opponent record should be 3-5. Western Kentucky dug really deep to find an opponent to ease the whipping they knew Florida would put on them. They beat West Virginia Tech 87-0. WVTech isn’t Div I-A. Or Div-I-AA. Or Division II. Or Div III. No, WV Tech isn’t even in the NCAA, in fact. They are an NAIA program. Give that Western Kentucky’s only other win is over a Div I-AA team, and well… maybe they shouldn’t count any of WKU’s record. Anyway, Florida hasn’t played a legit opponent yet, either, is my point. (Tennessee’s lone victory to this point came against Southern Miss.)

Oklahoma’s opponents have been North Texas (Sun Belt), Miami (ACC) and Utah State (Sun Belt). Tough opponents, to be sure.

Oh, and OU, Florida and LSU have yet to leave their home towns.

Of the top five teams, only USC and WVU have been on the road. And only WVU has been twice on the road.

It matters because it matters. If the Gators lose on the road to LSU, they’ll blame it on being on the road. But, come on. Maybe if they’d played anyone at all before that game, anywhere but in their own sandlot, well… they might have some sympathy. Not from me, but from somebody.

• Pat White was actually not very good against Maryland. He didn’t seem to read the defense very well, and made several bad choices on option plays, giving when he should have kept, throwing when he should have run, running when he should have given. Despite it all, I’ll take him over Booty every day but Sunday, over Flynn every day, over Bradford every day, and over Tebow every time he has seven days of preparation.

• While I’m mostly sure that voters actually don’t know the difference between West Virginia and western Virginia, I’m hoping it has no effect on their vote, ’cause there isn’t anything that can be done about the failure of geography education. (For these people, that is.)

My Top Five

1. Southern Cal
2. Louisiana State
3. West Virginia
4. Florida
5. Oklahoma

Penn State, Boston College, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Oregon, Rutgers, and Texas are still alive. Of this group, though, only Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers and Oregon, as I see it, can make a run at the top five.

The Big East Takes Hits

Last week, only the Orange in Syracuse had losses that counted against the Big East. Unfortunately, Pitt and Louisville both went on the road and lost games.

The Cardinals will lose four games

The Cardinals have no defense at all. Letting a guy run completely free in the game’s waning seconds is absolutely ridiculous. Just ridiculous. I predict that going forward, they’ll lose to WVU, Rutgers, and South Florida. They could lose to Cincinnati, too, but it’s hard to see the Bearcats scoring enough to keep up. Not impossible, but difficult to see.

The AP College Football Voters are MORONS

I didn’t comment on this last week because I didn’t care enough, but this week, I care.

After Appalachian (that “a” after the “l” is pronounced as in ass, not as in ace) State shocked the world on opening Saturday, the AP saw fit to change its rules and allow voters to give votes to Division I-AA. Okay, that’s dumb. I see wanting to give Appalachian State its due that one week, but let’s not go overboard, shall we?

Oh, but we shall. Because the AP are mo-rons. Appalachian State continues to get Top 25 votes. Does anyone know what the ASU Mountaineers have done since shocking Michigan? They followed the Michigan game by beating up a Division II opponent. And they traveled out west and beat Northern Arizona (who isn’t bad, actually). But, did anyone who keeps voting for them even know that. Had they heard of Lenoir-Rhyne? Do they know anything of L-R? No, likely not.

But, they continue to vote for ASU based on the weight of a single fucking game. Ri-fucking-diculous. Show your respect one week, even give them a #1 ranking. And then stop. Because there’s a Division I-AA Top 25 poll that’s voted upon by people who actually follow that division.

Glances around the Mountain State

Soccer. Yes, soccer.

I know it goes unnoticed, but when I conceived of this project some 18 months ago, I swore to myself that I’d hit on all the goings-on in Mountaineer sports that I could find information about. And, the interwebs being all inter and webby, as long as you keep your eyes open, you can find info on almost anything.

Sometimes, that can be very awkward.

On to soccer.

First, since the Women’s World Cup in China began yesterday AM Eastern time, we’ll glance first at the women. Ranked 18th, the Lady ‘Eers (Is that Lady nickname still used in college athletics today? I confess, I don’t pay close attention to women’s sports.) beat the Lady Nittanies 1-0 Sunday afternoon. Penn State was 15th ranked at the time.

In an effort to be more confusing than football’s ranking situation, there are three ranking sources in college soccer. The Mountaineer-ettes are 14, 18 and 19, depending on which publication/association you’re abiding by. That’s an average of #17. Not too shabby.

The men’s soccer team isn’t yet ranked, but beat Duquesne Monday evening, 1-0, scoring the game winner late, according to the report you can catch here at msnsportsnet.com.

That’s probably enough college soccer for now.

UPDATE: The Men’s soccer team is ranked 13th.

Injuries

As I scrolled through the college football headlines on espn.com yesterday and this morning, I was struck by how many season-ending injuries folks were dealing with. Not quite as bad as the Scroll of the Dead that the NFL put out over the last 48 hours (apologies to Kevin Everett, who has apparently improved more than expected between Monday and Tuesday).

How is it that the Mountaineers have enjoyed unusually good health in the Coach Rod era, anyway? For that matter, I can’t recall the Mountaineers losing a player to injury that changed a season. Yes, last season saw Slaton’s running one-handed affect a game (his wrist problems versus Louisville was almost as responsible for that loss as the defense’s ineptitude), but in general, injuries haven’t claimed major stars in Morgantown.

Perhaps I’m cursing the crew by even typing this.

Maryland

While I’ll write a more thorough preview tomorrow, I was struck by the score of Maryland’s game Saturday over Florida International, team #118 of 120. I would have expected the T(w)erps to have blown out the Golden Panthers, but instead they eked out a 26-10 win.

They were on the road, so that counts for something. Also, they had to have skipped game planning the game at FIU, instead focusing on the visiting Mountaineers during practice. That’s all that makes sense to me, because FIU is, well, a Division I-A team in name only. Sure, anything can happen, as Appalachian State proved on the season’s opening Saturday, but Appy State’s a good squad. FIU would lose ten games out of ten to Appy State.

So, I expect the T(w)erps will show up on Thursday night, but I truly doubt the Mountaineers will have any more trouble with them than they did with Marshall.

Administrivia

I’d promised a near-daily look at college athletes involved in police matters, but honestly, I’m overwhelmed. You’ve got computer thieves at WVU, batterers everywhere, murderers in New Hampshire, kids getting suspended for anything and everything. I will get to it. I promise.

‘Till then, I suck.

Top 25, Week Two

On the AP, and being jumped by Oklahoma

I don’t mind, too much, that the Sooners leaped ahead of the Mountaineers in this week’s AP poll. OU pounded Miami, who pounded Marshall, who got pounded by WVU. So, that makes sense.

Oh, wait. It doesn’t? Are you sure?

Marshall went to Miami, and got killed. Miami went to OU, and got killed. WVU went to Marshall, and… didn’t get killed. Sure, they weren’t great for an entire game, but… what do we really know about OU at this point?

It’s early. West Virginia’s defense doesn’t seem to have improved very much. But, I think there’s a risk in letting OU jump ahead of WVU when there’s so little to go on. Can Miami actually do anything on offense? That WVU didn’t do?

Short answer: no.

So, why would Miami have been any better against OU than WVU would be?

It’s arguable, of course, Miami would have rolled around useless for an entire half in Huntington, too.

Ah, whatever.

LSU

I would like to suggest that jumping from having five first place votes to twenty-five first place votes based on what I thought was a fairly predictable stomping of a very overrated, over-sympathized, under-talented Virginia Tech team.

Virginia Tech proved to everyone in week one that while they might be able to play some D, their offense was going to struggle against all comers. Even against Louisville.

The only surprise about VT’s loss to LSU was that anyone thought it deserved the hype that rang it in. VT was clearly not a top ten team, but had a top ten ranking because they (and Michigan) were overrated at the season’s start.

If I had found the matchup remotely interesting, I might have watched a down of the game. If I had, perhaps I’d have been aroused to full LSU lust. Instead, I was watching games whose results didn’t strike me as preordained (or were on an upset track).

I’ll grant that USC didn’t do much in week one to support their overwhelming number of top ranked votes. But they didn’t do anything yesterday to lose it.

On the USAToday, and being jumped by Florida

Ummm, you guys are kidding, right? They’ve played two games at home, against Western Kentucky and Troy State. Neither team would survive a half against Western Michigan. WTF?!

Whatever. You guys are clearly idiots.

Hawaii

Both polls are clinging to this idea that because the Warriors have one good player, they’re a Top 25 team. Their performance against Louisiana Tech yesterday should really have proven that, in fact, they’re just another overrated team with one college superstar, and really absolutely nothing else.

They could win the WAC with just that. But, I’m betting they won’t. As is the case with any conference, coaching generally wins the day. And I think we saw last season that Boise State has a superior coaching acumen to Hawaii, player (or players) be damned.