The Briles Baylor Bears Bowl March
Well, I promised a Baylor update every week, whether my prediction of 8-4 begins to look like an absurdity or not. I am always happy to eat crow and be mocked, as I gladly return that when I can. Well, today is more me mocking than anything, so imagine me typing this post with my bare ass pointed at your face,… unless you agreed with me.
Baylor is now 1-0. When I wrote this thread, I figured a victory over Wake could happen, but I also felt like I could get Baylor to 8-4 without it. I called it a close loss, and if Baylor won, well, 8-4 was going to look pretty damned good. Now I am worried that 8-4 isn’t enough. OK, kidding.
If anyone watched the Baylor game, they saw some impressive and some typical things. They looked really good at times. Their defense played well for the most part. Wake had a bunch of returning offensive starters, so holding them to 21 points, 14 of which came late 3rd/into the 4th, is impressive. What was easy to notice was Baylor’s impact on the Wake running game, and their ability to affect Wake’s game plan offensively. Phil Taylor or whatever his name is, the dude from Penn State, is legit. The rest of the D is too.
Offensively, Baylor was creative but not smooth. They looked a little stilted at times, but they played well enough to win, for sure.
What’s typical in this kind of situation is that Baylor looked like they didn’t really understand how to win the game. They hit the brakes and did little in the 4th, basically hoping for time to hurry up and run out. There were some moments late where it looked like Wake had a prayer of pulling it off. Baylor did make a stand to get the ball back late in the game to seal it, and I actually breathed a sigh of relief. Not because I like Baylor (I don’t, really), but it looked like a good win for the Big 12 and because I predicted them to win 8 games so I could run amok on fan sites. The scariest moment in the game to me was when Kevin Steele made an attempt to break into the press box as Baylor was about to take a snap to win the game. By all appearances, he was on the verge of calling a dive up the middle, to "set a tone" for a new attitude with this Baylor program. Grant Teaff ended up conjuring the Lord, who then smote Steele, and Baylor was able to finish the win in peace.
Moving On …
I posted about the return of DJ Monroe in early July on the BC site here and the ShaggyBevo site in a thread here. I hoped he’d get some looks in a Romance Taylor kind of way, without being a Romance Taylor kind of thug. While it was roundly ignored here (perhaps because there was a post up around that time by someone discussing the size of Shawn Williams ankles or HenryJames’ default rate on his loans), it was mocked by some fucktards and understood by others on one of my other favorite boards, SB. Beyond the superficial self-aggrandizement, I glory in the play of Monroe on Saturday, simply because it’s not something that can’t be ignored by the staff. The guy is a home run threat, he needs at least 10 touches a game. We’ve got no one else like him.
Chris Whaley is going to redshirt this year, after clocking in at over 30 pounds beyond a playable TB weight. He either gets his shit together and drops a bunch of weight by spring ball, or he’s moved to TE or DE or transfers. You can ponder otherwise, but I don’t need a slide rule to figure it out. I also didn’t simply divine that thought. Good call by Mack Brown though. Not taking Christine Michael, who had a big day for ATM on Saturday and spent an entire week at Texas’ summer camp last year hoping for an offer, because you promised Whaley he’d be your only TB in the class is really starting to look good.
People really believed that the entirety of the Okie State success last year on offense was based on Brandon Pettigrew’s contributions. Perhaps not. Okie State looked very good against Georgia, and that pleased me, as I enjoyed discussions on the matter in the offseason. The defense looked solid, although we’ll see how Bill Young handles the Big 12 spreads with 3 LBs on the field. Regardless, how hard is it, really, to determine that Georgia is going to be a good but not great team this season? When talent at critical positions falls off the face of the earth, such as QB, TB, and WR, teams are going to struggle against a good D. Joe Cox is not good. There is no way to spin it. He is a mediocre SEC QB which makes him a backup in the Big 12. AJ Green was the only target on the field worth a damn. The Samuels guy will be really good later this year. Trent Sturdivant going down to an injury shocked no one but his parents. Okie State appears to be able to find big, powerful TEs that can catch as though they’re growing on trees. Find out who they are recruiting at that spot for next year’s class and go ahead and poach him.
Dan Hawkins is honestly dumber than a bag of Lehman Brothers with his behavior regarding the QB position at CU. Not only is he playing his son, but it isn’t hard to ponder the concept that his desire to play his son might be impacting his recruiting at that position as well. They have nothing at QB. Cody Hawkins gets more tips than a table dancing stripper. When he wasn’t having batted down at the LOS, he was throwing worm burners. He’s easily the worst QB in the Big 12 and one of the worst in all of the BCS conferences. That wasn’t CU’s only problem, but it was the most obvious. Darell Scott, thank God for unanswered prayers, finished with 1 carry for 1 yard. He looked worse than that when he was returning kicks or trying to catch a screen, seriously. I don’t see how CU wins more than 4 games this season. I expect Colorado and Illinois to be in a race to see who can fire their HC the fastest as soon as the final whistle on their seasons blows.
I was wrong on Missouri, happily. I thought they’d get rolled by Illinois and wind up with a losing record. Instead, they played really well and Gabbert and Missouri are being talked up pretty well by people that saw the game. The Big 12 North could be weird. 3 good teams in KU, Nebraska, and Missouri, and 3 absolutely terrible teams, in Colorado, Iowa State, and Kansas State. Kansas State damn near lost to Massachusetts, who had a drive going late for the win. Wow.
I was also very wrong on Bama. I thought they’d be an 8-4 team this year, but that defense is outstanding. I could see them going 12-1 to 10-3, but less than that would surprise me.
The Big 12 going 10-2 with some strong wins is cool.
I watched the LSU/UW game to close out Saturday, and I was impressed with UW’s effort. They look like a team that could win 4-5 games this year. LSU and Miles amaze me. They ooze with talent at most positions. Apparently, you can swing a dead cat in Louisiana and find a DL that can beat ass and become a 1st round pick. I envy that. Still, Miles is just shockingly bad at strategy. Bob Davies hammered this home the entire evening, but anyone reading this board likely saw the same thing if they watched – Dude, Les, you have an obvious talent advantage at the WR position to their DBs, how about throwing the ball to them occasionally? Good grief, they attempted like 9 passes in the first half +. Call another TO on a change of possession for us, Les, just to seal up your jugheadery for us.
Bob Griese opened his thoughts calling the OSU/Navy game with something to the effect of "The Navy QB is going to have to play well for Navy to have a chance in this game". He then pulled that "strategic insight" out as a repeated item throughout the game. He actually gave himself credit late in the game for pointing that out before the game started. Awesome. So let us get this straight, man. You’re telling us, the viewer at home, that a QB of an offense that runs the Flexbone and is directly responsible for the yardage within that offense on roughly 85% of the snaps needs to play well for the huge underdog, on the road at the Shoe, to have a chance to win? That guy is in the twilight of a mediocre career as a sportscaster and I will be happy to see him go.
With all of the talk about OSU’s play against Navy, I watched virtually that whole game and empathized a bit. It reminded me of Texas at times when we can’t pull away from a less than terrific opponent. They were up by double digits for much of the game and seemed destined to pull away at some point, but they kept letting them hang around. Navy is a decent club and they didn’t show up just to show up, so the game turned into just that, a game. USC is probably a favorite in that game coming up, but OSU is better than what they showed against Navy. I think USC and OSU are both 3 loss teams this year and USC’s game against SJSU is getting too much credit. They can’t just plan to run all over OSU the way they did against SJSU.
I’d post things on OU, but I have something else almost finished on that one for later.
Thoughts?