SB Nation User Blog: Nico2.0

Notes From Around the College Football World

Nico2.0 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:48:15 -0000

More photos » by Gail Burton - AP

Ken Niumatalolo led Navy to their second win over the Irish in three years.

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Assorted ramblings after week 10 of the season. Alabama analysis will be coming soon...

We hope that Jahvid Best's injury is "only" a concussion and not spinal. That was a seriously nasty spill he took and it was quite scary to watch. You never want to see someone injured and we wish him a speedy recovery.
With Iowa's loss, six undefeateds remain: Alabama, Boise State, Cincinnati, Florida, TCU, Texas
With Iowa's loss, it puts Ohio State back in control of their own destiny to win the Big 10. The Buckeyes and Hawkeyes meet next weekend and the winner still controls their own destiny in the race for the conference title.
Looks like Temple is going bowling for the first time in 30 years.
I don't care if it was against Tulsa, Case Keenum put up some sick numbers against them. 40 of 60 for over 500 yards and he led them to a late comeback.
It was upset city this Saturday for ranked teams: Iowa, Penn State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oregon and Cal all lost to teams that were unranked or ranked lower than them. Several others including USC, Cincinnati, Georgia Tech and Wisconsin survived scares. Boise State got a bit of scare too on Thursday, but not like the others.
Michigan lost to Purdue to slide to 5-5 for the season. With their remaining two games being at Wisconsin and hosting Ohio State, they Wolverines are likely looking at a 5-7 season and a second season in a row of no bowl game. We really do need to send Rita a gift basket.
You've gotta think Charlie Weiss' days at Notre Dame are numbered. 1-2 against Navy over the last three years (0-2 in South Bend.) I imagine they'll get at least one win out of their remaining three games, but if they lost all three to Pitt, UCONN and Stanford, I wouldn't be terribly surprised either. That would leave them at 6-6.
They must really want USC to win at least a share of the conference championship out in Pac-10 country. The race continues to be tight after Oregon lost to Stanford tonight. Maybe it's just been so long since anyone else has won it that nobody remembers what it's like to play with weekly pressure.
The SEC has five teams that are already bowl eligible (Alabama, Florida, LSU, South Carolina, Auburn.) Though Ole Miss has six wins, two of them are against FBS teams, so only one of them counts towards bowl eligibility. Ole Miss, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky are all one game away and Mississippi State needs to pick up two more wins to go bowling. Vandy, at 2-7 is done on November 28th.
UAB hammered Florida Atlantic to pull to 4-5. With three games left against Memphis, East Carolina and UCF, UAB could get bowl eligible. Even if they didn't get an invite, making it to 6-6 would be huge for them. They probably aren't going to win at East Carolina, so they'll need wins at Memphis and at Legion Field against UCF.
Duke needs one more win to get bowl eligible. It'll be no easy task though, their remaining games are against Georgia Tech, Miami and Wake Forest. It would be their first bowl appearance since 1995. Regardless of whether the Blue Devils go bowling or not, Cutcliffe clearly has them headed in the right direction. In less than two seasons, he's eclipsed Duke's win total over the five previous seasons.
Troy looks on pace to at least share a part of the Sun Belt title for the fourth year in a row.
Don't forget there's more football on TV on Sunday. Nevada at San Jose State on ESPN at 7:30 p.m.

Five Football Games to Watch: Week 10

Nico2.0 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:21:57 -0000

More photos » by Rogelio V. Solis - AP

Greg, lead us to Atlanta. We believe.

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Let's just go ahead and get something straight: I don't care one ounce who else is playing this weekend. We've got a trip to Atlanta on the line this weekend and everything else takes a backseat to that. I wouldn't care if Florida and Texas were playing this weekend at the same time, I wouldn't even flip over to it during commercials.

With that in mind, I'm not doing this column this week. That's not a lazy cop out either. The 2nd best game of the weekend (as far as rankings go) is on at the same time (Penn State vs. Ohio State.) After that game, the drop off is so severe that it's nearly impossible to fathom. I don't care one iota about watching a Big East slap fight (West Virginia vs. Louisville) or "The Battle for the Triangle" (Duke vs. North Carolina) or the myriad of craptastic homecoming-esque games on tap in the SEC (Northern Arizona at Ole Miss, Furman at Auburn, Tennessee Tech at Georgia, Memphis at Tennessee.) You know it's a crappy week when Vanderbilt at Florida is on ESPN2 in prime time.

So, with that in mind, get ready for THE game of the season as far as we're concerned.

Five College Football Games for Bama Fans to Watch: Week 9

Nico2.0 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:27:48 -0000

More photos » by Don Ryan - AP

One can't even begin to fathom what kind of atrociously ugly jerseys Chip Kelly and the Ducks will trot out against USC in this critical Pac-10 showdown.

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Bye week! Woohoo! I've often found the bye week kind of sucky seeing as...you know...the Tide isn't playing and all. I realize now that I need the break just as much as they do (not really, but you know what I mean.) I know I'm feeling more relaxed and recharged this week. I've even managed to finish a couple of books I've been working on a for a while (rival fans, insert coloring book jokes here:___________,) but not making much progress on because I've been reading nothing but football news on tha interwebz. I've even managed to start a third. There are several games on the schedule this week that should be more interesting than they actually are (West Virginia vs. South Florida and North Carolina vs. Virginia Tech spring to mind.) Anyway, without a Bama game on tap for the week, here are your five "must see" college football games for Bama fans to watch for Week 9 of the 2009 season. Rankings reflect BCS standings and all times are Central:

OLE MISS (25) at AUBURN
Saturday, October 31st - 11:21 a.m. - ESPN Gameplan/SEC Network

It's kind of a slow week for great games, so that's why I changed it to "Five College Football Games for Bama Fans to Watch" this week. I included this one since the Iron Bowl is on the horizon and am trying to not have all the games I pick be at the same time. The Rebels could likely get a win over Auburn two years in a row for only the second time ever.

GEORGIA vs. FLORIDA (1)
Saturday, October 31st - 2:30 p.m. - CBS

On paper, Florida should win this thing by a country mile, but they've been scraping by the last few weeks and as they say with rivalry games, "Throw the record books out the windows." Florida's going to the SEC Championship game unless a meltdown of epic proportions occurs, but a win here for Georgia would at least ease the pain of an otherwise bleak season so far.

MISSISSIPPI STATE at KENTUCKY
Saturday, October 31st - 6:00 p.m. - FSS/ESPN Gameplan

Not a game that'll interest many for sure, but I take no team for granted and the Bulldogs are on the schedule for us right after LSU, so I'm watching all that they do. Some stupid playcalling (a fake punt in your own half of the field with that much time left?) and some more Florida-centric SEC officiating made the gap on the scoreboard bigger than it should have been between the Gators and the Bulldogs. It was so close and ugly in fact that Tebow didn't attend a post-game press conference for the first time ever (apologies for bring up Tebow again.) The close game with Florida coupled with the fact that we're 1-2 against them over the last three seasons (I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit typing that) means that I consider nobody a sure win these days.

TEXAS (3) at OKLAHOMA STATE (14)
Saturday, October 31st - 7:00 p.m. - ABC or ESPN2

One of two games between ranked teams this week. Texas won a close one in Austin last year and Oklahoma State would certainly love to pull the upset here as it would put the Cowboys in control of their own destiny in the Big XII South (and would have Texas fans probably cheering for Oklahoma later in the year.) Oklahoma State's best win is probably over Georgia, which in hindsight, isn't saying a whole lot. Naturally, I want Alabama to go undefeated and handle their business the rest of the way, but Texas losing to Oklahoma State certainly won't hurt our cause either if we were slip up somewhere down the line. Go Cowboys.

USC (5) at OREGON (10)
Saturday, October 31st - 7:00 p.m. - ABC or ESPN2

USC has clawed their way back in the BCS title hunt despite a loss to 3-5 Washington. Oregon State is back in the Top 10 after an opening weekend loss to Boise State. Whoever wins this game is expected to win the Pac-10, but there is still plenty of room for slip ups along the way for both teams. Once again, every Bama fans should be pulling for the Ducks in this one as it'll provide a bit more cushion for Bama, though not much because Oregon could work their way back in. Regardless of how this impacts us, it should be interesting to see if USC can notch their first win in the state of Oregon since 2005.

Poll

Which of these games are you most interested in?

Ole Miss at Auburn

142 votes

Florida vs. Georgia

216 votes

Mississippi State at Kentucky

9 votes

Texas at Oklahoma State

94 votes

USC at Oregon

112 votes

573 votes | Poll has closed

Bye Week Open Thread

Nico2.0 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:26:35 -0000

No game this week...talk about random footballness here.

Five College Football Games to Watch: Week 8

Nico2.0 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:26:27 -0000

More photos » by Butch Dill - AP

Joe Webb will be on a regional broadcast that most of you will not see.

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We're now past the half way point in the season (I'll give you all a moment to pause and weep at that thought....) and things are weird. We already have a three loss Oklahoma and a two loss Ohio State among other oddities. I imagine you'd have to go back quite a way to find that happening at the same time this early in the season. There's also a lot of one loss teams that are ranked, but that have looked really vulnerable at times: Penn State, LSU, BYU, Georgia Tech, etc. With that in mind, this isn't a super stellar week for games. I've kind of been scratching my head over which games to pick all week and honestly considered scrapping the whole thing for the week. There are several games that probably looked really interesting when they were scheduled for TV or that look good historically, but aren't particularly compelling with the way things are shaking out (Florida State at North Carolina for example.) Now that the BCS rankings are out,I'm using those rankings instead of the AP. As always, all times listed are Central. Here's ~~your Top 5~~ my Top 5 non-Bama games of Week 8 of the 2009 college football season:

UAB at MARSHALL
Saturday, October 24th - 11:00 a.m. - CSS

This pick is for Todd & I and the reason I put a strike through "Your Top 5" in the paragraph above. There's simply not a lot on this week that's going to get a consensus from the masses. I was trying to be as objective as possible, but it's just a bunch of dreck this week. What was I going to choose instead, Minnesota at Ohio State? UCONN at West Virginia? Oklahoma State at Baylor? Louisville at Cincinnati? Oklahoma at Kansas? All those games feature ranked teams and I have zero interest in them so I'm getting selfish this week.

UAB and Marshall are tied for 2nd in the CUSA East right now (along with Southern Miss) despite vastly different overall records: Marshall is at 4-3 (2-1) and UAB is at 2-4 (2-1). A win here keeps the Blazers in the hunt for winning the East. Now that they've gotten their first win over Southern Miss, the sky's the limit despite taking several bad out of conference beatings. Their one conference loss (to SMU) was a close won and they've won their other two conference games convincingly. UAB won last year's game in Birmingham and a road win here would do wonders for their division title hopes.

TCU (8) at BYU (16)
Saturday, October 24th - 6:30 p.m. - Versus

The only game of Week 8 between two ranked teams is on a channel that a lot of people probably don't even get. I haven't seen TCU play yet and have only seen parts of two BYU games (Oklahoma and Florida State.) After getting shanked by FSU, BYU's BCS-busting hopes are washed up, but TCU's are still alive and kicking (if Boise loses that is.)

FLORIDA (1) at MISSISSIPPI STATE
Saturday, October 24th - 6:30 p.m. - ESPN

I haven't seen Mississippi State play yet except for bits and pieces of their game against Auburn. Since they're coming up on the schedule, I figured I'd have a look. Another thing worth noting, this certainly shows the power of the SEC contract with ESPN. I know Florida's #1 and all, but they're playing a 3-4 team in prime time?

AUBURN at LSU (9)
Saturday, October 24th - 6:30 p.m. - ESPN2

Not too many years ago, this was THE game in the SEC West. The winner of this one could pretty much book their ticket to Atlanta. That's not the case anymore, but it's still a game that stirs interest from us as they're two of our main rivals. Though highly unlikely and hanging by a thread, Auburn's hopes for Atlanta are still technically alive. If they could win here, then win out and have Alabama lose another conference game, they'd be in a good position. With losses to Arkansas and Kentucky under their belts already though, that probably isn't happening. LSU haven't exactly looked like world beaters though despite their Top 10 ranking, so who knows...maybe the Barn's faint hopes will be kept alive.

OREGON STATE at USC (7)
Saturday, October 24th - 7:00 p.m. - ABC/ESPN Gameplan

I imagine this game will be on Gameplan for those of us in Alabama (it's up against Texas at Missouri), but I'm including it because USC has struggled against teams with "Oregon" in their name over the last three seasons. Those struggles typically only occur when playing in the state of Oregon, where they haven't won a game since 2005 (which is good new for the Ducks later this year.)

So...yeah...not exactly a weekend of must see games. After the Bama game on Saturday, this is as good of a time as there will probably be this season to help strengthen the relationships you strain every year during football season by skipping out on the rest of the day and showing them that you can, in fact, get up off of the couch on Saturdays.

Poll

Which of these games are you most interested in?

UAB at Marshall

10 votes

TCU at BYU

14 votes

Florida at Mississippi State

49 votes

Auburn at LSU

485 votes

Oregon State at USC

16 votes

574 votes | Poll has closed

Running Back Success Rates vs. South Carolina

Nico2.0 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:24:08 -0000

I feel a bit strange writing up this week's RB success rate analysis. Deeming anything Mark Ingram did on Saturday as a "success" takes away from the splendor of what actually went down. Furthermore, deeming any other runs as unsuccessful makes me feel a little guilty even though the entire point of this piece is to look at things on a carry by carry basis. Mark, if you're reading this, I consider your night a 100% success, so please don't hold the number crunching against me...

vs South Carolina / 10.17.09	Rushing				Receiving
	Rush	Yards	Avg	TD	Rec	Yards	Avg	TD
Mark Ingram	24	246	10.3	1	2	23	11.5	0

What can you even say about Mark Ingram's night that hasn't been said already? Not much. I will highlight some specifics though that are downright insane:

13 of 24 carries were for 5 yards or more
8 of 24 carries were for 12 yards or more
5 of 24 carries were for 22 yards or more
269 all purpose yards on 26 touches
A 10 carry 2nd half with 80% success.

Wrap your head around that for a minute. Over 20% of his carries went for 22 yards or more and we're talking about a 20+ carry game. Ridiculous. All six carries on his "miracle drive" were a success. An entire drive where the same player got every touch with a 100% success rate. Astounding. Call me guilty of hyperbole, but it was amazing to behold.

Upchurch is getting back into the swing of things and had a few carries instead of just being in for passing downs:

vs South Carolina / 10.17.09	Rushing				Receiving
	Rush	Yards	Avg	TD	Rec	Yards	Avg	TD
Roy Upchurch	4	27	6.8	0	2	18	9	0

Roy had a good day in limited play. No negative plays, 75% success rate and all three of those carries were for five yards or more. Coupled with two receptions out of the backfield it's good to see him getting more touches. Hopefully Upchurch can contribute more in the coming weeks.

vs South Carolina / 10.17.09	Rushing				Receiving
	Rush	Yards	Avg	TD	Rec	Yards	Avg	TD
Trent Richardson	5	13	2.6	0	2	11	5.5	0

Not a stellar day for Richardson, but it didn't have to be with the way Ingram was running (and Upchurch looked to be running.) Two really solid gains combined with two negative plays and one no gain. Trent's coming along just fine though, so I'm not really worried about it.

We did have one running play from Maze that wasn't a success, so I'm not going to build a chart for that.

Overall, we had 34 designed run plays and 23 of them were successful for a team rate of 68%. Needless to say, it was frustrating we only scored one offensive touchdown with running game production like that. I'd like to think it's a statistical aberration for the offense, but it's hard to say (I still need to process the Ole Miss numbers) since we have been on a dry spell in the TD department lately.

"I tell you, Alabama's a very clean team. After watching the tape, a lot of guys could've taken...

Nico2.0 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:39:38 -0000

"I tell you, Alabama's a very clean team. After watching the tape, a lot of guys could've taken hard shots at Stephen right as he threw the ball, but they sort of veered off and didn't clobber him near as badly as maybe some other teams do."

Steve Spurrier in an interview posted at TheState.com. It also mentions the hit on Moe Brown as being clean. Not that we thought we were a dirty team or anything, but it was nice for Spurrier to comment on our defense playing clean.

(HT: Spencer at the SBN blog)

Five College Football Games to Watch: Week 7

Nico2.0 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:23:15 -0000

More photos » by Sue Ogrocki - AP

Will Sam Bradford be able to lead the Sooners into position to win the Big XII South this weekend?

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Including Alabama's game with South Carolina, there are five games between ranked teams this weekend. That's about all you could ask for midway through the season. We've got a little bit of everything for you this week: two rivalry games, a Big East showdown, an ACC battle and the requisite SEC clash. All times listed are central and the rankings are those of the AP. With that, I bring you the Top 5 non-Bama games of week 7 of the 2009 college football season:

CINCINNATI (8) at USF (21)
Thursday, October 15th - 6:30 p.m. - ESPN

I went to USF for all of one semester of graduate school before transferring to Alabama. Even though I was only there a short time, it was during football season and I went to some games (assuming they didn't conflict with Alabama games of course.) Oddly enough, I developed a mild interest in USF football and now consider them "my Big East team." None of that is reason enough for any of you to watch this game though. The reason to watch this game is that it features two Top 25 teams that are both undefeated. Considering there's a mere 9 undefeated FBS schools left out of 120, this type of game is a rarity at this point in the season. Just off the top of my head, there's only a few more possibilities of such a game left for the entire year: Texas and Kansas play in the regular season and Alabama and Florida could both be undefeated and meet in the SEC Championship game and then two undefeateds could meet in the BCS title game. We know this much though, the list will be down to eight at the most by the end of the weekend. Both teams have played some serious cupcakes: USF has played Western Kentucky, Wofford, and Charleston Southern and Cincinnati has taken on Southeast Missouri State and Miami (OH). USF's best win is at Florida State, though that's obviously lost its shine as the 'Noles now sit at 2-4. Cincinnati's resume wins so far have come against a 4-1 Rutgers team (whose resume win is Maryland or FIU) and a 4-2 Oregon State. Not sure who will win, but somebody will get catapulted back into obscurity with a loss on Thursday.

OKLAHOMA (20) vs. TEXAS (3)
Saturday, October 17th - 11:00 a.m. - ABC

This is a game I look forward to every year. Not only does it have divisional and conference title implications, it often has national title implications. Despite Oklahoma sitting at 3-2 and being out of the national title picture, they're still very much in the Big XII title picture. They're tied for second in the division with Oklahoma State and with a win over Texas on Saturday could control their own destiny on the way to the Big XII title game. And let's face it, whoever wins this game is (probably) going to the Big XII Championship game. In the 13 previous years, only twice has a team not called Texas or Oklahoma represented the South (and that hasn't happened since 1998.) A Big XII North team has only won the league title four times since they went to a title game (and only twice since 2000.) So, according to history, this one's likely for all the conference marbles. Now that Sam Bradford's back and has a full game under his belt, this should be a fun one.

USC (6) at NOTRE DAME (25)
Saturday, October 17th - 2:30 p.m. - NBC

I know some of you will be rolling your eyes over this one, but hey, it features two ranked teams that are traditional powerhouses. Yeah, the Irish haven't won since 2001 and the game hasn't been even remotely competitive since the epic "Bush push" game of 2005, but I'll defend this game being on the list. First of all, what self-respecting Alabama fan doesn't enjoy a little schadenfreude over an Irish loss? Secondly, USC is still in the hunt to make the BCS title game. Despite losing to Washington and taking quite a tumble in the polls because of it, the amount of upsets this year has allowed them to quietly climb back to #6 (#5 in the USA Today) and if they win out, combined with a Texas loss and another Virginia Tech loss, they'll be playing on January 7th as there's no way an undefeated Boise State goes to the title game over an 11-1 USC.

ARKANSAS at FLORIDA (1)
Saturday, October 17th - 2:30 p.m. - CBS

I don't really expect this one to be terribly competitive, but there's a pretty steep drop off after the other four "top non-Bama games of the week" in my opinion. Arkansas comes in at #32 if you extend out the "others receiving votes" category and this'll be a chance to see how the #1 ranked team in the country stacks up against a team we handily beat. Plus, it'll give you a chance to hear Verne and Gary talk a bunch more about Tebow's concussion on every snap with Florida on offense and about how awesome and tall Brian Hammer...err...Ryan Mallett is.

VIRGINIA TECH (4) at GEORGIA TECH (19)
Saturday, October 17th - 5:00 p.m. - ESPN2

Virginia Tech will have played four ranked teams after this weekend. If they manage to knock off the Yellowjackets in Atlanta, then that just adds even more value to our win over the Hokies on opening weekend. Despite their 5-1 record, Georgia Tech has been a bit schizophrenic at times and you don't really know which team will show up: the one that found itself in a shootout with 2-4 Florida State or the one that handily defeated North Carolina by 17 points

Poll

Which of these games are you most interested in?

Cincinnati at South Florida

19 votes

Oklahoma vs. Texas

256 votes

USC at Notre Dame

48 votes

Arkansas at Florida

244 votes

Virginia Tech at Georgia Tech

93 votes

660 votes | Poll has closed

Charlie Davies Seriously Injured in Car Crash

Nico2.0 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:03:43 -0000

Got this info in my email a few minutes ago from Yanks Abroad:

USMNT striker Charlie Davies is in the hospital undergoing emergency surgery after an early morning car accident on the George Washington Parkway.

A 22-year old woman has been confirmed dead in the one-car crash which has also reportedly seriously injured two others.

Needless to say, this is tragic and awful and we can only hope Davies pulls through and that the other two injured are able to recover fully as well.

Iron Bowl Ticket Question

Nico2.0 — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:57:30 -0000

Many of y'all have seen me talk about how my work schedule has prevented me from going to many home games this year. Well, now that the Iron Bowl is on a Friday, that really works out for me since my workplace will be closed. Since it's at Auburn though, that obviously makes it tougher for Alabama fans to get tickets. I was wondering what y'all think is a reasonable price for a ticket to that game? Obviously I'm going to have to shell out, but if the price is right now, I'd rather hop on it and just do it rather than have it get hyper inflated the more we keep winning. What have y'all paid in the past?