Victory Is Mine

Every conference is overrated

Until this past weekend, I was firmly in the camp that the Pac 10 would undoubtedly be considered the best conference in the country by year end. SC is on another level, Cal looked like a clear contender, ASU was playing great football despite the brain fart vs my Tigers, and UCLA was playing much better than anyone thought (despite Drew Olson's absolutely awful display against the Huskies the previous weekend).

Meanwhile, the Big 10 had proven itself to be well below average, with Michigan perhaps the most disappointing team in the country, Purdue not far behind, and Iowa massively underachieving as well. When the Michigan State charge was set back by aforementioned poor Michigan team, all that seems left of that conference is Penn State (though Michigan State and Ohio State can be counted on to do some more damage before the year is done).

The Big 12 aside from UT and Texas Tech is pretty much empty. The North is a joke.

The SEC - where do we begin? My Tigers looked terrible at Arizona State and were lucky to come out with a win, then completely bombed at home vs Tennessee, which had looked just terrible the week before in Florida. Florida, meanwhile, hasn't yet come close to meeting the revolutionary spread offense expectations of so many, and got annihilated by resurgent Bama. With Auburn having lost to Georgia Tech, the only other "power" team in the conference, Georgia, even seemed to struggle against Mississippi State (though in all fairness I did not watch that game) - though we can let them off the hook for that.

Now, after Cal's sick collapse at UCLA and ASU's dud at home versus Oregon, and the fact that USC can't seem to play four quarters of football against anyone other than Hawaii and the worst team in the SEC (Arkansas), it appears that it's just a very very ordinary year for college football overall. (And before you go off telling me that it has to be abundantly clear that USC is among the greatest teams of all time, have a gander at the start from the 2003 Sooners and the 1995 Huskers). There IS precedent here, and note that the Sooners clearly did not live up to it in the end.

Chirag and I had this discussion the other day - in trying to think of teams that have put a really SOLID game together from start to finish, not much comes to mind other than Virginia Tech. Texas' win at Ohio State, as Chirag notes, was in large part because Jim Tressel somehow managed to let himself get outcoached by Mack Brown at the end. Their win over OU - redeeming and relieving as it may have been - was still plagued with the type of errors the Horns just can't continue to make, as Ivan Maisel of ESPN accurately pointed out.

Tech, meanwhile, is just firing on all cylinders. Vick is as good as advertised (with a 177 rating - he doesn't just run the ball), that D is STOUT, and they generally have been playing mistake-free ball. The one close call, the opener at NC State, can be chalked up to first-game jitters and the fact that they were playing a pretty damn good defense on the road. But a month and change into the season, we really aren't seeing anyone else just dominate from start to finish.

USC is #1 till they lose in my book, but Va Tech is definitely #2 for now.

posted by Publius @ 7:48 PM