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SEC POWER POLL 2009
1. ALABAMA (12), 243
2. FLORIDA (9), 240
3. LSU, 207
4. TENNESSEE, 175
5. AUBURN, 169
6. OLE MISS, 132
7. GEORGIA, 118.5
8. ARKANSAS, 116.5
9. SOUTH CAROLINA, 103
10. MISSISSIPPI STATE, 64
11. KENTUCKY, 49
12. VANDERBILT, 21
What a 96 Team Tournament Would Mean Competitively
by Year2 on Feb 9, 2010 1:00 PM EST
in Basketball
5 comments
By now, we've all heard the talk about a potential expansion of March Madness to include 96 teams. Nearly everyone seems to be against it, including John Calipari and Dick Vitale,and the reasons are numerous. I agree on just about every point. The tournament is great where it is at 64/5 teams, and if anything, they should nix the play-in game.
From a competitive standpoint though, what would such an expanded tournament mean?
When it comes to the championship itself, it would mean absolutely nothing. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, only two teams below a 4 seed have ever won the tournament: '85 Villanova as an 8 seed and '88 Kansas as a 6 seed. Both of them won during the first four years when coverage of the sport wasn't as good as it is now and the committee was still getting used to the format. Since then, a single 4 seed has won it all ('97 Arizona), and no one below that has taken home the trophy.
If you're counting along at home, that means only three teams seeded below a 3 seed have won the thing. Letting in a bunch more teams that are below the grade of a 12 seed would not introduce any serious candidates at winning it all. If you're worried about a diluted champion, there's no real need to fret. Especially since no one below an 8 seed has ever won it and the new format almost certainly touches nothing of the top 8 seeds.
5 comments | 0 recs |
An Appreciation: RB Charles Scott and RB Michael Smith
by cocknfire on Feb 9, 2010 11:00 AM EST
in Football
0 comments
Sixth in a series on seniors leaving the SEC.
The original plan for this was to do a separate post each for Charles Scott and Michael Smith. But the more your humble correspondent looked at the running backs for LSU and Arkansas, respectively, the less sense it made to do that. After all, the two players' careers are eerily similar: Progress up the depth chart, breakout 2008 season, a 2009 that never met its potential because of injury.
| APPRECIATIONS 2009 |
| QB Jonathan Crompton (Tennessee) |
| RB Anthony Dixon (Mississippi State) |
| WR Brandon LaFell (LSU) |
| RB/WR Dexter McCluster (Ole Miss) |
| LB Eric Norwood (South Carolina) |
A year ago, it would have seemed slightly insane to suggest that neither Scott nor Smith -- Nos. 2 and 3 in the league in total rushing yardage in 2008 -- would have ended up in the Top 5 this year. Both had rushed for more than 1,000 yards in 2008 despite not matching their career per-carry average.
But the parallels had started before then. In each case, they had succeeded fairly successful backs. Scott came after Jacob Hester, who rushed for 1,103 yards and 12 touchdowns during LSU's 2007 national championship season; Smith took the reins after Darren McFadden and Felix Jones.
In 2009, Smith's bad luck started sooner, with a hamstring injury that kept him out of games against Florida and Eastern Michigan before Arkansas finally announced ahead of the Mississippi State game that Smith's season was over. Even when he was playing, Smith clearly wasn't himself: six carries for 35 yards at Ole Miss, nine carries for 15 yards against South Carolina and six carries for 21 yards against Troy.
Scott's season ended more suddenly, on a broken collarbone against Alabama. He was having a slightly better season, though matchups with Mississippi State and Auburn didn't go well, and had an outside chance at reaching 1,000 yards again had he played in the Tigers' remaining four games.
He didn't, of course, which is one reason why Scott and Smith will both be tied together in the minds of some fans. They both had one magical season, which is more than most college football players get. But we're left wondering what it might have been like had either of them had another.
| Charles Scott, 2006-09 | Charles Scott, 2008 | ||||||||
| G | ATT | YDS | AVG | TD | G | ATT | YDS | AVG | TD |
| 43 | 424 | 2,317 | 5.5 | 32 | 13 | 217 | 1,174 | 5.4 | 18 |
| Michael Smith, 2006-09 | Michael Smith, 2008 | ||||||||
| G | ATT | YDS | AVG | TD | G | ATT | YDS | AVG | TD |
| 39 | 359 | 2,018 | 5.6 | 16 | 10 | 207 | 1,072 | 5.2 | 8 |
0 comments | 0 recs |
Sprints Thinks It Can Win Five National Titles Over the Next Four Years // 02.09.10
by cocknfire on Feb 9, 2010 1:22 AM EST
in Sprints
7 comments
You say goodbye ... and so do we
It appears that those of you who were concerned about Florida recruits in the wake of George Edwards' oddly timed decisions to leave Gainesville need not be concerned anymore.
Edwards' 27-day tenure ended Thursday, the day after National Signing Day.
Miami Booker T. Washington DE Lynden Trail, who met Edwards once, said he's talked to numerous recruits in recent days and nobody has mentioned Edwards.
"He didn't seem to fit the mold of a Gators coach," Trail said. "I'm sure he's a great guy, great family guy, but he didn't have the intensity of every other Gators coach when he got here. It doesn't change anything for me. We're all ready to come play anyway."
7 comments | 0 recs |
SEC Basketball at the Half
by Year2 on Feb 8, 2010 2:17 PM EST
in Basketball
2 comments
The title of this post is not some sort of terrible new halftime show like what we saw last night in the Super Bowl ("I tell you Jim, if the Colts can get back to doing what they were doing when they were doing well, they'll be right back in it!" Right, because the Colts aren't trying to play well anymore). Rather, thanks to a weekend where all 12 teams had a game on Saturday, everyone has played at least eight of their 16 conference games.
To me, the biggest news is not Kentucky being atop the SEC East. That was fully expected, and though being 22-1 is indeed a big deal, it's not really a shock. The biggest deal to me is the sight of Arkansas alone atop the West division.
A week ago, I said the Hogs looked like a classic spoiler. Now, they are somewhat unbelievably the leaders in the division after a wild and woolly win over Auburn. Just a season ago, the program was a wreck after going 2-14 in conference. John Pelphrey looked like he might have been in over his head. Heck, this season didn't start so great either. Pelphrey kept things together though, and underwhelming seasons by division favorites Ole Miss and Mississippi State have opened the door for the Pigs. I have doubts about whether they'll be getting a first round bye in the league tournament, but then, I had doubts as to whether they'd be in the top half of the division before SEC play began too.
But anyway, back to those 22-1 guys. They had no trouble in whomping hapless LSU two days ago, looking every bit like the frontrunner they are. Taking care of business with authority is what great teams do.
With that in mind, I can safely say that Vanderbilt is not a great team.
2 comments | 0 recs |
An Appreciation: LB Eric Norwood
by cocknfire on Feb 8, 2010 11:00 AM EST
in Football
3 comments
Fifth in a series on seniors leaving the SEC.
There are a lot of things you can do for the first time in South Carolina history that wouldn't be particularly noteworthy at other universities. For example, Steve Spurrier's being the first head coach to defeat Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and Clemson might be significant in Columbia as a mark of how far the program has developed -- but it's not exactly something that would make him a nominee for best coach ever at most programs.
| APPRECIATIONS 2009 |
| QB Jonathan Crompton (Tennessee) |
| RB Anthony Dixon (Mississippi State) |
| WR Brandon LaFell (LSU) |
| RB/WR Dexter McCluster (Ole Miss) |
Just about any school, though, probably doesn't have a lot of three-time All-SEC players among its ranks. Eric Norwood might not have been the first at other schools, as he was at South Carolina. But he likely would have been in fairly exclusive company -- and he deserves to be.
For all four years of his college career, and for the last three years in particular, Norwood was almost as constant a presence in the other team's backfield as he was in South Carolina's games. He ended up with more tackles for loss than games played, and averaged five tackles a game even with his somewhat limited stats in his first campaign. And again, any doubts that he was among the most respected defensive players in the game during his career have to contend with those three consecutive years where the league's coaches voted him among the best.
All of that while earning a degree in three and a half years after being turned down for admissions multiple times. At a time when too many programs -- including, lately, South Carolina -- want to improve their APR scores the easy way by pushing out marginal athletes, Norwood is a test case for the idea that it can be done another way: By taking academically marginal athletes with good character and turning them into student-athletes.
But he will be remembered more for his accomplishments on the field -- in part because there's no better way to recognize a player of his caliber. Where he played didn't matter. Whenever he walked into the stadium, Norwood was guaranteed to be among the best.
| Eric Norwood, 2006-09 | ||||
| G | TKL | SOLO | TFL | SACKS |
| 51 | 255 | 175 | 54.5 | 29 |
3 comments | 0 recs |
Sprints Wonders Why We All Paid So Much Attention to the Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad // 02.08.10
by cocknfire on Feb 8, 2010 12:40 AM EST
in Sprints
6 comments
That's it? Your humble correspondent must admit that he actually laughed when the CONTROVERSIAL TIM TEBOW ABORTION SEEK AND DESTROY LIBERALS ad finally aired. I laughed because, well, we all lost our collective minds over this:
6 comments | 0 recs |
Super Bowl XLIV Links: Where the NFL Steals College Football's Naming Convention
by cocknfire on Feb 7, 2010 3:57 PM EST
in Football
0 comments
It's time for the Super Bowl, which features the No. 1 team from the National Football Conference playing the No. 1 team from the American Football Conference. Look at those carefully again -- National Football Conference. Sounds vaguely socialist, especially when compared to the AMERICAN Football Conference. (Yeah, the Falcons are in the NFC, but that's for another year.) So Americans will obviously not cheer for the Saints.
In any case, SBNation.com is covering the big infomercial game so we don't have to.
Go here for the SBN-wide open thread. Works the same way our weekend threads here on Team Speed Kills work, only with hopefully more people from all over the sporting Interwebs.
Before the game, you can look at our comprehensive Super Bowl preview. It's up to 59 updates as of this writing, so I think it's about as complete a look at the game as you'll find.
But always check out the team-specific sites. In this case, Stampede Blue has your Colts coverage and Canal Street Chronicles follows the other guys.
Enjoy the game.
0 comments | 0 recs
Sprints Wonders If a Meme Is a Meme If Your Coach Repeats It // 02.05.10
by cocknfire on Feb 5, 2010 2:24 AM EST
in Sprints
9 comments
NATIONAL SIGNING DAY REACTION
Another person echoes mainstream media meme about Georgia's defensive coordinator search
Why can't these anti-Georgia commentators stop talking about how the hiring process hurt the Dawgs? The latest is ... Mark Richt?
"Recruiting is a lot about relationships," Richt said. "Anytime there is some kind of change on your staff for whatever reason, the relationships that had been built throughout this recruiting process were broken. I think the timing of the hire, taking as long as it did, it did put a strain on some of these young men who had committed. We know some guys changed their mind."
That's obviously different. Just because.
9 comments | 0 recs |
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