SB Nation User Blog: ethan

2007 Biggest Winners/Losers

ethan — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:19:01 -0000

Reviewing the AP Preview Poll vs the last regular season poll comes up with some interesting findings. It would be good to do the same with the Blog Poll as well.

Out of the original top 25:

10 teams dropped out entirely:

Michigan

Louisville

California

UCLA

Rutgers

Penn State

Florida State

Nebraska

Texas A&M

opening the path for the following 10 to enter:

Missouri

Kansas

Arizona State

Illinois

Boston College

Clemson

Brigham Young

Cincinnati

Virginia

South Florida

Within the 15 who are represented in both polls
9 have the ended within +/-5 spots of their original ranking:
Initial End
LSU 2 2
Oklahoma 8 3
Virginia Tech 9 5
USC 1 6
Florida 6 9
Tennessee 15 16
Auburn 18 22
Boise State 24 24
Arkansas 21 25

3 teams who improved greatly:
Initial End
Ohio State 11 1
Georgia 13 4
Hawaii 23 10

and finally 3 who declined greatly without dropping out:
Initial End
West Virginia 3 11
Texas 4 17
Wisconsin 7 18

Almost everyone knew that Hawaii would end up where they did, but didn't want to rank them there to begin the season as their suspect schedule doesn't really tell us much.

Ohio State, Mizzou and Kansas ended up as the biggest suprises/winners. Even though OSU and KU's schedules are suspect.

West Virginia has two losses without their QB.

I would put the biggest disappointments as:
Michigan, Louisville, Cal and our Longhorns. All 4 had a large fan base rationally thinking (not dreaming) championship and all fell well short.

Who do you think are the biggest winners and losers?

2008 schedule

ethan — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:16:12 -0000

Taking a look at next season's opponents:

http://www.mackbrown-texasfootball.c...

Every team we face with the exception of Ark and atm is a throwing team.

Every team with the exception of Baylor avg 27+ points and more than 375yds.

Pass defense in all its facets (pass rush, tackling, coverage) will make or break our season.

Just to put any coaching changes into perspective.

Nutt

ethan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:55:51 -0000

Purely hypothetical about Nutt

I realize that Nutt is the epitome of everything evil (anti-UT), but how is this as a hypothetical question:

Would you consider hiring Nutt to be our OC?

I'm not even speculating that this could possibly happen. But Nutt has been the architect of several offensive schemes always putting his best playmakers in the best position.

Could you imagine what he could do with a cha-cha offense (chiles and charles)?