jones Top Ten - Final - 2011 Season

First. Also, what a forgettable college season.

Again, great reads and thoughtful approaches. I look forward to September. Do you really hibernate for 7 1/2 months?

Oh, I remember a time when all big bowl games were on New Year’s Day and 2, 3, or even 4 bowl games had national title implications. That was exciting. That was consistent with the regular season.

Tonight was a bore. They played already and LSU’s win at Tuscaloosa should have counted for something. Rematches are boring particularly those involving teams from the same conference. Bama had the best team. They actually outplayed LSU in the first matchup but LSU had the best season.

It’s a shame what college football has become and where it is going.

Thank God the SEC finally lost a champeenship game. Sure hate it that they won one though.

Saban is just a machine.

So … does this mean Honey Badger does care, now?

“Chick-fil-A has also ensured that no American child under the age of about eight will ever spell c-h-i-c-k-e-n correctly”

I blew coffee out of my nose! Thanks for all your top tens Jones! Have a great offseason (oxymoron?).

Excellent, Jones. Many thanks. The line on college fans not living in the now is spot on. Up next - JUNIOR DAYS!

“In addition to renaming the Peach Bowl and denying an honest and decent Methodist a chicken sandwich on Sunday, Chick-fil-A has also ensured that no American child under the age of about eight will ever spell c-h-i-c-k-e-n correctly.” HbM beat me to it.

Who needs to watch 35 bowl games when Jones can wrap it all up under 2,000 words? Thanks. I hope you enjoy writing these as much as people enjoy reading them.

Believe me, ’Bama fans are living in the moment. I get a little misty eyed when the Burns/Houlihan romance is mentioned. What a man! Good stuff Mr. Jones.

I echo G.O.F’s thoughts and have thought this for a long time. Seriously, good reads.

These don’t get the comment quantity of some other posts, but it is not because we do not enjoy reading, more because the content/format just doesn’t lend itself to comments like some others. This is more like reading a newspaper (only more entertaining). Anyway,

One disagreement (sort of) on AJ McCarron. Herbstriet was tripping over himself talking about how good AJ was last night, but I thought it was only by comparison. He averaged 6.7 yards per catch. He was checking down all night, which is probably what he was supposed to do, but he was not “great” by any stretch. He looks like a disciplined Case McCoy to me.

If he played for Texas Tech, he would be being criticized for dinking and dunking all night, causing field goals instead of touchdowns.

I am tired of hearing about the defenses; that was putrid, over-conservative, and not even well executed offense by both teams last night. Alabama’s defense just played better than LSU’s. And that is why they won the worst national championship game I have ever watched.

The best thing I can say about that game is that it was not quite as horrible as the first time we watched it.

Well, he is a disciplined Case McCoy…except he’s 6’4" and 210. He’s, in a way, what we want David Ash to be.

He was almost great — some of the windows he hit were NFL quality. Let’s say very good, but I think we can all agree that he thoroughly outplayed Jefferson.

Thanks, all, for the kind words.

Excellent read. My favorite series on this site

The deserving champs played a defensive game on par with the 13-2 gem Oklahoma opened the millennium with against Florida State.

I hope you were smirking when you wrote this. The fact that Alabama was in the title game at all was a joke. If the Big 12 of PAC 12 had two teams in the game that HAD ALREADY PLAYED ONCE THIS YEAR. The SEC would pull out of the NCAA.

This game just goes to prove how pathetically bad the BCS system really is. The only saving grace was that the whole country (well ok the few people who bothered to watch the game for the second time ) got to see once again that Les Miles is the worst game day coach in the NCAA.

Did I miss the news that Greg Davis was now calling plays for LSU? Adhere to that old wisdom that the best way to attack a really fast defense is to stretch the field sideways.

You must be a Bama fan, because the BCS game was awful.

The defense rests: http://barkingcarnival.fantake.com/2012/01/08/previewing-lsu-vs-bama-the-rematch/#comment-317810

McCarron basically had no experienced receivers and was asked to make enough throws down the field to keep the LSU defense off-balanced and not turn the ball over.

It sounds simple enough, but how many times have we seen that it is the failure to not do that which costs a team. As jones pointed out he made some very, very good throws against some NFL calibre defensive backs.

swim,

Do you really believe that if you asked Ash or McCoy to do the same last night the result is the same?

I think as in the case of Paschall at TCU we see the value of letting a quarterback sit and grow into what is a very, very demanding position today in the college game.

Ha.

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/01/alabama-lsu_produces_lowest_tv.html

Worst title game I have seen. AJ looked good to me but not great. He made some good throws but most were checkdowns and/or blown coverages. Why is nobody talking about how LSU’s D (especially secondary) not look like they usually do last night? Their secondary seem to get beat more than usual.

How in the hell does Texas win their bowl game in convincing fashion, against a good O, and show they have a top 5 or so defense but drop out of the rankings??? What in the hell has the AP been smoking this year?

AJ fit the ball in some very tight windows. That was quality QB play to any unbiased observer.

Anyone else aware of the similarities to the ’60 Orange Bowl? In the regular season, LSU, thanks to an 89-yard punt return by Billy Cannon, defeated Ole Miss 7-6, and was voted #1.

Because the teams were both so good and the score so close, they were pitted against each other in a rematch in the Orange Bowl, where Ole Miss beat LSU like borrowed mules.

The final score? Ole Miss 21, LSU 0.

STLaw,

Texas didn’t drop out of the AP. Texas wasn’t ranked in the AP (or Harris) before the bowls. We did move up in the AP as a result of our bowl game, just not enough to crack the top 25.

We were ranked in the BCS before the bowls only because of the computer rankings, since statistically the Big 12 was phenomenal this season.

Couple of mistakes in my earlier post (blushing): LSU was ranked #1 in ’58. LSU was ranked #3 and Ole Miss #2 when they played the the rematch in the SUGAR BOWL in 1960.

Sorry about that.

I feel like I just watched the ’94 Knicks play the ’04 Pistons for the national championship with Jordan Jefferson playing the role of John Starks and Courtney Upshaw as Ben Wallace.

That was awful, awful stuff, but I also don’t think anyone else is beating either team. LSU previously has showed as much, and Alabama proved its point last night.

Still, Georgia Southern, Kent St. and Western Kentucky all put up touchdowns on these two defenses. At least McIlvane knew he had to do something different, even if they were still piss poor in the red zone. The Hatter just through up the same offense that failed miserably against Georgia and essentially counted on “something to happen.”

“. . . in the Cotton Bowl (the game, not the stadium). " Que lastima.

I can imagine that with Georgia Southern et all that Alabama pulled their starters by the third quarter. You have to give them credit they brought the wood last night and ran LSU right off the field. Their lines are huge and physical, thats how you win. Damn they are coached well.

Saban pays attention to detail.

He gave every player a weight to be at or below during the time off between the regular season and the BCS game — and they had to meet that weight on random dates.

He is a brilliant SOB who is as single-minded a coach as I have seen. He gets away with over-signing because it is part of the business model in the SEC. High School coaches in the SEC’s main recruiting territories understand that.

I doubt it would fly as well in Texas where there are multiple suitors for players from all confrences. It will be interesting to see if A&M decides that it will have to try that method, because I don’t believe it will be seen by Texas HS coaches as part of “The Price of Doing Business.”

J R 69: Thought exactly of that 1959-60 season when I saw the final score last night (did not watch the game — my win).

Poll had LSU and Ole Miss as you state; No. 1 was Syracuse, No. 4 was Texas. Regular season meeting was 7-3, LSU.

A-Tex,

Kent St. scored after returning an interception to the Alabama 3 in the third quarter of that game. Granted, LSU might not have scored from that same position last night, but the Kent drive did start inside the Bama five.

Georgia Southern scored on a kick-off return, a long run, and did have one drive. The game was played the week before the Auburn game and it is possible Bama was more focused on the Iron Bowl, but there is one thing to note in that game. GSU ran for over 300 yards in that game on this very same Saban/Kirby Smart defense that the LSU coaches could not crack with a month to prepare a game plan.

To put that into perspective Georgia Southern gained almost 1/3 of the rushing yards the Alabama defense gave up for the entire season.

GSU runs a true triple option based offense using a dive man, counter motion, and a passing game built off of it. They forced Alabaman to react to them and moved the ball to some success.

If I had to guess I would bet over 90% of the time last night if you tracked the LSU tailback you knew the direction of the Tiger running play. Only exceptions that I can recall were a few inside runs with the fullback. They basically decided to trade body blows with Alabama instead of using the tendencies of the Alabama defense against themselves.

No counters, no bootlegs, no reverses, very little if any sprint out off play action, and no flow or structure building upon itself.

My point is that some are saying the Tides two titles are a reflection of their recruiting success which is true, but LSU has got a great deal of offensive talent (especially at the skill positions) and without a plan or structure it isn’t worth jack against a quality opponent.

Do I think that Alabama would have beaten Oklahoma State or Stanford? Yes, probably.

Do I think Oklahoma State or Stanford would have beaten THAT LSU? I honestly do. Maybe not the LSU that was playing in the regular season, but that team that showed up last night was bad. Unsurprisingly poor play from their offense, unexpectedly poor play from their defense.

More dissapointing than I expected it to be.

I am not savvy about football strategy, which is a big reason I love this site. You guys make these complexities easily understandable.

I was struck by the number of times a defensive player or two for Alabama was cheating prior to the snap. For example, on one quick screen to the far side of the field, Kirkpatrick was moving towards the backfield prior to the snap - not a blitz, just to play backside contain so the DE/LBs could crash. Maybe I’m misreading that movement, but it seemed to me Alabama knew what was coming all night. If so, that’s just not fair to go along with that much talent.

That GSO game may have cost LSU a national championship, if it have Saban/Smart the data they needed to prepare a total shutdown of LSU’s option game. But if I had to blame anyone on LSU’s side for that game last night, it’s not Jefferson. It’s the offensive coaching. No adjustments from Nov. 5 at all that I could see.

For those who say the Alabama QB was great yada yada yada- I saw the dude miss a simple wheel route that would have been a 65 yard score by 5 yards, and a post that was open by a similar amount. Not close misses, either and both could have been huge plays that put the game away.

Bammer’s QB wasn’t dog shit, but he wasn’t high quality RGIII or Weeden or Landry Jones or a couple of other guys we saw.

Bama’s offense would have been about the 4th or 5th best offense we played this year- fact.

LSU showed, once again, that they are coached by a low functioning retard. The fact that Les has a national title is so mindboggling I can’t believe it- of course it was a 2 loss team that won the BCS title against a Big 10 team, so I don’t know that it should even count

Interesting that Bama only recieved 55 first place votes in the final AP poll. LSU caught one and OSU had 4. Bama’s only quality out of conference win was against a bad Penn State team way back in September. LSU beat 3 BCS bowl winners this season, and the winner of the Cotton Bowl. Pretty Impressive season for the Tigers, I think if they had of lost 9-6 that AP poll would have been very close.

This season clearly demonstrated the need for a playoff. I don’t think anyone can say with much confidence who would win a tournament this year.

Penn State was undefeated before the Sandusky crap blew up. If they win that Nebraska game, they’re in the Big 10 title game. It’s a bit disingenuous to take the post-Paterno-heave ho team and retrofit it to the pre-scandal team.

No one outside LSU had a quality OOC resume this year. The entire P-12 had a couple of wins over Notre Dame, Minnesota, and Syracuse to feather its cap prior to bowl season - and yet USC, Stanford, and Oregon were all Top 10 because they played each other. That’s really the only entertaining aspect of bowl season anymore - seeing if these teams can stand up to perceptions when they break out of conference.

Once again, SEC/Big 12 won most of their games and the P-12/Big 10/ACC lost most of theirs.

Davey,

Do I think Case or Ash could have done that against LSU? No. That is what made it good.

But to call a performance where a QB averaged 6.7 yards per catch “Great” is overboard in my opinion. If it were a Big 12 QB out there, the conversation would be very different:

We would be talking about how the greatness of the LSU defense caused them to have to dink and dunk, which is why they were only successful between the 20s. When the field got short, they could not finish drives because the short pass was not there anymore and they were incapable of doing anything else, blah, blah, SEC defenses rule, blah, blah.

But it was Bama’s offense. And Bama’s QB. So he is polished and making NFL type throws?

Come on. He was good because he had no turnovers and was accurate on the short throws. Great? maybe we have different definitions. Mine includes averaging more than 7 yards per catch.

Texas in not unique in that the highschool coaches wont go for oversigning while High school coaches in SEC territory do. Texas is no different. I doubt there is much fallout and to say they would be is pure speculation, IMO. Its spectulation because Saban gets away with it and I see no evidence that suggests we cannot do the same. If oversigning is legal then we need as much competative advantages as we can get, I say go for it. DKR brought in many athletes and they never saw the field. We used to rules to our benifit back then and we should use them to our benifit now. To not do so is operating on an uneven playing field. I dont like oversigning as the next guy, but damnit I want to win a conference and national title on the reg, not every 15 years with good guys who graduate.

HornbyMarriage said:
January 10th, 2012 at 7:51 am
"Chick-fil-A has also ensured that no American child under the age of about eight will ever spell c-h-i-c-k-e-n correctly"

All my work memos refer to the above as “Chikin”… they think it’s funny till I tell them it’s the true spelling!

As for ‘over-signing’, give it time here in Texas, and it will pick up steam!

Texas might oversign. Someday.

Mack never will. What Mack will do — at least, MAY do — is create an opening in advance of collecting the commitment, and later the signing. So it’s not oversigning, it’s filling a vacancy.

I think some of the deck-clearing that happened in November and December was to open spots so that oversigning and forcing out was not needed.

awesome reads all season, jones. hope you find time to write about something/anything during the offseason

Wiggin-

I was mainly referring to being dropped out earlier and the bowl win not letting us crack the top 25 after the bowl. Should have worded it better. The part that kills me is there are other teams in there, in very weak conferences with very weak showings, ranked ahead of more deserving teams. SUbjective and biased human element I guess. At least the BCS uses SOS in computer analysis. Why is Wiscy still ranked ahead of Mich State despite the latter beating the former AND beating the SEC East champ? Why is a 3 loss Nebraska still ranked despite not winning a conference championship (or their division) in a VERY weak Big 10 this year. Etc, etc. We see 5 loss teams in there in previous years but when we do it, while rebuilding in arguably the best conference this year, we get snubbed?

RGIII - I slept they defensive coaches.

Oh I’m not arguing that the polls are inherently biased. I don’t think anyone likes the way current way the BCS ranks teams. Didn’t the AP refuse to let itself even be used in the BCS a couple years ago? And sadly, the computers are hardly better. Richard Billingsley? Do some research on the guy. Not a pretty picture. I don’t know that a 5 loss Texas team who got absolutely smashed in our last regular season game deserves to be ranked though. Maybe some of the teams above us deserve it even less (which I believe is your contention). That may be true, but in the end, why does it matter? Are we really excited to end the season ranked #23? I think we’re all moving past this year, labeling it rebuilding, and looking forward to the next 2 or 3 years of potentially championship caliber Texas teams.

Swim,

I agree that in terms of bowl performances the game by McCarron isn’t even in the same realm at VY versus USC or Tommy Frazier versus UF. Top of my head those would be two of the “greatest” championship game performances I can readily recall by a quarterback.

Also found it very, very funny when ESPN posted AJ’s passing yards compared to the other performances by the Bama quarterbacks in championship games and there is a wishbone quarterback (Steadman Shealy) with no real frame of reference given to the audience.

I do think McCarron was much more than a caretaker in this game as compared to Barker when Bama beat UM. Bama ran the ball roughly 60-65% coming into that game so even if they threw a large number of short routes they went against what they had done all year and that required McCarron to make those good decisions and this was the only game I can recall in which LSU did not force a turnover.

That might not qualify as great in terms of production, but I am not sure how McCarron could have executed his game plan much better, I can only think of a few throws he absolutely missed, don’t recall many bad decisions with the ball, and the loss of Maze was significant as he was far and away their most productive receiver for the year.

So great no, but in that situation, with the pieces he had to work with, and against that defense I would say it was more than a good performance.

Davey,

You make good points (as usual) and you know more than me. And I agree that he executed the short passing game very well. No turnovers, and no real “misses” is great for any QB against LSU.

I just got jaded listening to Kirk Herbstreit praise him continuously like he was making Andrew Luck throws downfield.

He had a crazy low ypc, threw the ball < 40% of plays, and never really got close to the endzone, but Herby was acting like he was Joe Montana after every completion.

How many posts did we see on this site proclaiming LSU’s defense the best this year, if not the last few? Success and praise are relative things. If AJ had those stats and throws against another team, then everyone’s looking at things differently.

Swim,

Looking at the Alabama numbers their had used the short, controlled passing game for much of the year. I don’t think they looked for the big plays in the passing game as much as moving the chains and loosening up defensive fronts to ease things for the running game.

Saban has a similar strategy that Patterson has in that they want to get their defenses off the field as quickly as possible and keep their offenses on the field. That is why winning first down defensively is stress by both, they really focus on 3rd conversion percentages for both units, and utilize a short - efficient passing scheme.

If you go back and look at the one big difference between the Alabama offense in the title game in contrast to the earlier game it was the production they got out of McCarron and I think that is why his play stood out so much in this game.

G.O.F.,

The praise for the LSU defense was based upon the fact they shut down some pretty good offenses this year. Specifically UO and Arkansas. McCarron’s numbers I believe were the second highest posted by a LSU opponent this year.

The other interesting point is in the Alabama offense McCarron basically threw the ball as needed and not just to pile up numbers. They beat some good teams and had him throw the ball fewer times. That is what made the game stand out so much. They absolutely threw off the LSU defense by having him throw so many times early in the down sequence during the first half of the game which was a 180 from not only the earlier game, but for basically their season.