8 comments Oh Sure NOW Oregon Is Good Enough To Win the National Championship

Bill Plaschke is the first person to ever have a West Coast bias. We all know about the East Coast bias that is often seen among the media, but Bill Plaschke has a West Coast bias, and you don't often see that. What confuses me is that he takes out his West Coast bias on a West Coast football team, the Oregon Ducks. Maybe he just has a California bias. That's probably more likely. Now that Oregon has beaten USC he thinks they are good enough to win the National Championship. Before that, not so much, but once you beat USC you are a National Championship contender, as the 3-7 Washington Huskies can attest.

The title of the article is "Oregon fits the bill as No. 1 college football team." Get it? Ducks have bills and Oregon's mascot is the duck. It's humorous!

I can't duck it anymore.

Apparently Jay Leno is now writing the jokes for Bill Plaschke.

This is how Plaschke started his column about Blake Griffin off a few days before he wrote this one:

You've got to be Blakin' kidding me.

This is journalism people. Read it, study, but please don't copy it because it's terrible. See the hook of a terrible opening sentence in a column makes people read more to see if the rest of the column sucks even worse. It gets pageviews and makes the newspaper money on ads, which helps prop up the actual newspaper delivered every morning. So basically bad journalism is helping keep print media alive.

I'm going to stop being so daffy about it.

They're ducks! Daffy Duck is also a duck! Sports journalism lives!

Oregon deserves a spot in the national championship game right now.

Cancel the season. Fuck you, all you other undefeated teams. You don't deserve a spot in the national championship because you didn't beat USC.

No seriously, that's the entire point of this article.

It was USC's title game, and Oregon kicked the BCS out of the Trojans.

So again, to sum it up...USC tried really, really hard to beat Oregon and failed to do so. By beating a currently unranked team that tried really, really hard and has been consistently good in the past, this means Oregon deserves to be in the National Championship game.

It was the first time the top-ranked Ducks had truly been hit in the mouth, and they just grinned.

Over here on the East Coast, we know that Oregon got punched right in the mouth by Tennessee earlier this year and were down 13-3 late in the 2nd quarter on the road. They grinned and then scored 45 consecutive points. Tennessee is not a good team, but hit Oregon good in the beginning. That was actually the first time Oregon had gotten hit in the mouth this year.

The second time Oregon had gotten hit in the mouth was by a little team called Stanford, a team that is ranked now, was ranked #9 at the time Oregon played them, and also happens to be a very good team. Stanford happened to be up 21-3 on Oregon when Oregon began to come back. I believe that counts as getting punched in the mouth.

At no point during the USC game was USC up by more than 3 points. That's a field goal. That's three points. But Plaschke thinks Oregon got hit in the mouth hard by USC because they played the Ducks close. Yet, Oregon had been down by much more than that this year and come back. USC was not the first team to hit Oregon in the mouth, not at all.

It was the first time the Ducks had been enveloped by 80,000 hostile screams, and they just roared.

It was the first time they had been enveloped by 80,000 hostile screams. That's true. They were enveloped by 102,000 hostile screams at Tennessee though. I'm not great at math, but I am pretty sure 102,000 is more than 80,000. Both points Plaschke tries to make at the beginning of this column that made the USC game special are wrong. So basically, Plaschke is wrong on his first two points in this column and beating USC doesn't prove anything that hasn't already been proven...yet he keeps writing.

USC wasn't ready for this. Nobody is ready for this.

Except for Stanford who went up 18 points...then got blown away by Oregon. I hear Oregon uses the "blur offense." I wish there were someone who could tell me more about that.

Oregon is now 8-0 and, in four games, here's guessing it will be 12-0. Even with Arizona coming to Eugene and Oregon State waiting in Corvallis, the Ducks will not play a tougher game all season.

Except when they beat a currently 7-1 Stanford team that was ranked #9 when they played Oregon. Other than that, beating a newly ranked USC team was much more impressive.

I can no longer make jokes about a "gimmick" offense that gained 599 yards, including 239 yards rushing by James, who would have already been given the Heisman Trophy if he played in Tuscaloosa.

I can't necessarily argue with that statement. What's it mean when the defending Heisman Trophy candidate isn't even the best running back on his own team? It means Nick Saban is a great recruiter.

So Plaschke could joke about the "gimmick" Oregon offense when it put 52 points up on a Stanford team that hasn't given up more than 30 points in a game this year just one other time? How about when Oregon hung 60 on a UCLA team that has not given up more than 35 points before or since that time? USC has given up 36 points to Hawaii, 32 points to Washington, and 37 points to Stanford, but USC still has a great defense that should be the measuring stick against which Oregon should base itself?

I can no longer poke fun at a "soft" defense that knocked around quarterback Matt Barkley and his star receivers, causing bad passes and thumping drops and a rising temper in Coach Lane Kiffin.

It was beating a just-ranked USC team that shows Oregon's defense isn't soft obviously. USC isn't a terrible team, but Plaschke is wrong in believing they are the measuring stick in the Pac-10 this year.

I will no longer even keep reminding Oregon of how its funky offensive system was overpowered against Ohio State in last season's Rose Bowl, because this is clearly not last year's team.

It's the "blur offense" dammit! Don't make Gregg Easterbrook write a 10,000 word column incorrectly describing how this offense works. He will do it.

If Bill Plaschke was basing his opinion of Oregon on last year's Oregon team and not the seven games Oregon had played this year before playing USC then he is an even bigger idiot than I thought.

I will no longer keep saying that Oregon will have no chance against an SEC team if they meet in this year's bowl, because for all of Auburn and Alabama's skill, they simply do not have the combination of athlete and playbook that Oregon possesses, not this time.

I don't know if I will go that far. Auburn and Alabama are pretty good teams. I do have to wonder why Plaschke doesn't mention TCU and Boise State at all in this column. They are undefeated, while Alabama has one loss.

With previously unbeaten Michigan State and Missouri losing Saturday, Oregon, currently No. 2 in the Bowl Championship Series standings, will surely retain one of the top two spots if it wins its final four games, putting it in the BCS title game in Glendale, Ariz.

Yes, I believe they will retain this spot also, but not because they beat USC, but because of their entire track record this year. They have been very good all year, not just against USC.

I can't imagine the crowd there being nastier than Saturday night's.

Bill Plaschke hasn't attended any other Oregon games (obviously) so he doesn't know if this is true or not. I am sure the Oregon State crowd is going to be pretty brutal the last week of the season and what I know of Tennessee fans they aren't incredibly quiet at home games either...especially when they number over 100,000 strong.

I can't imagine the Ducks falling behind as many times as on Saturday night. I understand now that none of that will matter.

It doesn't matter how many times they fell behind. It matters how many points they have been behind and the quality of the opponent they fell behind. They have fallen behind by more points to a better team than USC. So USC hasn't been Oregon's biggest test so far, no matter how much Plaschke wants to believe this is true.

It was the start of a 24-0 run to end the game, the BCS colliding with the NBA.

I don't know exactly what this means. I think you see 24-0 runs to close out a game more often in football than in the NBA.

"We honestly thought coming into this game that we had a good chance of beating them, but that offense is better than a lot of people thought," USC defensive end Wes Horton said.

As in, like, me.

Well, if Oregon shocked Plaschke with how good they are then that must mean they are a great team. If a team can beat the Trojans AND impress Bill Plaschke then clearly that's all a team needs to do to make the national championship game. Nevermind Oregon has played like the one of the top 2 teams in college football all year while beating another Top-10 team, because beating a barely ranked team and impressing Bill Plaschke is all it takes to make the national championship.

How good was Oregon? It even ran many folks out of the Coliseum's best seats. When the game ended, the Ducks ran along the sidelines and slapped hands with their fans who had moved down to the usually filled front row.

I can tell by all the early departures of Trojan fans that Oregon won't face a nastier crowd this year. USC fans were so nasty they left the game and refused to watch Oregon play. Try to find another crowd that has that much indifference and lack of passion towards watching their team get beat at home. You can't. The USC Trojans have the nastiest fans, when they stick around, which they will do if they don't have to beat traffic.

How good was Oregon? It turned the usually bold Kiffin timid. As Oregon's power became more apparent, there were times when it seemed as if the Trojans' coaching staff backed into a corner and covered up.How good was Oregon? It turned the usually bold Kiffin timid. As Oregon's power became more apparent, there were times when it seemed as if the Trojans' coaching staff backed into a corner and covered up.

Example: In the last two minutes of the first half USC, trailing 22-17, faced fourth and one on its 37. But instead of going for it and keeping that wicked offense off the field, the Trojans punted.

(Lane Kiffin) "This team is just too good."

(Assistant Coach) "What should we do coach, we have scored 17 points so far and have one yard to get a first down. They are such a good team, we can't keep up with them."

(Lane Kiffin) "Assuming we are scared of them and afraid to let them have the ball back, I would say the only logical thing to do would be to punt the ball to them."

I'm a little confused by Plaschke's descriptions of how competitive this game was. So this was the big test for Oregon, yet the nasty USC fans left the game early, USC was scared of Oregon and it was clear that Oregon was the superior team? I'm not sure this is the big defining test for the Ducks.

Two plays later, Thomas threw a 33-yard touchdown pass to Lavasier Tuinei to make it 29-17.

Thanks Gregg Easterbrook for following up on what happened after the punt. That looks like a 12 point lead for the Ducks near halftime. So was this a competitive game or a one-sided game?

Not to quack on about it, but right now, Oregon does that better than anyone.

Nothing says "great sports journalism" by bookending a column about college football with two duck-related puns.

Oregon will probably make the national championship game, and they deserve to, but not because they beat USC. USC isn't a terrible team, but Bill Plaschke clearly hasn't watched college football all year if he thinks this was really the Ducks toughest competition and when they faced the nastiest crowd. This is probably the first Oregon Ducks game he watched all year.

17 comments Mike Celizic Talks College Football and Mayhem Ensues

Sunday the first BCS Bowl Standings were revealed to the public. In a normal world, this would create a ho-hum effect among journalists because it was pretty obvious at this point which teams were the best teams in the country and it would also be obvious there is still a lot of college football to be played. As Desmond Howard (yes, I am quoting him) said last night on ESPN, "everyone calm down" and then he began to list what each team who won the National Championship was ranked during the first BCS poll of the season...and I will give you a hint, it wasn't #1 for any of them. So ho-hum should be the reaction.

Not so shockingly, because American sports journalists are not capable of ho-hum, it has created a shit-storm of controversy where there are being articles written about how dumb the BCS is, how the new poll doesn’t clear up the National Championship picture, and of course Pete Carroll is already questioning the release of the BCS standings. I swear, I feel like the National Championship game is going to be played in less than a month instead of three months from now.
To quote Pete Carroll when he was complaining:

"Is the goal to find the team with the best record or the best team?"

Well actually, the goal is to find the best team in the country, which often happens to be the same team that has one of the best records. This is an annual tradition among NFL head coaches to complain about the BCS standings and it is usually the coach whose team lost a game early in the year doing the complaining. In this case, USC lost a game in the Pac-10 to Washington and Pete Carroll is bitching the BCS is not accurately reflecting his team's skill and his team is the best team in the country right now even though they have lost a game already. At the end of the year columnists always write something like, “USC is the best team right now so they deserve to be in the National Championship Game this year.” USC has always been consistently the best team in the country at the end of the year according to many people. Unfortunately that is not enough to get them in the National Championship game. Really it is just a bad break at this point, which results in Pete Carroll sending half his team off to the NFL, him getting more 5-star recruits and the process starts over.

If it were up to Pete Carroll the ranking system in college football would not be the BCS or any other logical system, but instead would be a system of determining the second best team in the country that will play USC in the title game. No matter whether another team in the country has played against tougher in-conference competition or have less losses, Pete Carroll like most other coaches, always believes his team is the best team in the country and then whines about it publicly. Then the coaches blame it on the BCS, like if there was an 8 team playoff there would not be teams who felt left out or like they belonged.

Taking a brief break from claiming the World Series doesn’t matter because the real World Series is between the Angels and the Yankees, Mike Celizic feels the need to chime in on the discussion. Unfortunately he adds nothing to the discussion but more panic stricken and critical comments about the BCS.

First, I will give everyone a chance to look at the BCS Standings and study them intently. For some reason Mike Celizic and I have different BCS Standings. I believe mine over his.

I am not a BCS person nor am I an anti-BCS person. I feel like the system currently in place is the best system until a better alternative can be thought of. I don’t like many of the non-BCS ideas simply because they will require a cut-off for the number of teams who can make the playoffs. I am not saying every team should be in the playoff. What I mean is that if the idea for a playoff consists of taking 8 teams and making them play each other, Teams #9-#12 are going to feel left out and will have the same problems with the playoff system that many people currently have with the BCS system. There has to be a cut-off somewhere and somebody is going to end up being pissed off. It's just a fact at this point.

I don’t think the system currently in place is the fairest system, though I do believe it causes every game every week to be important. I am not sure if this could happen in a playoff. I could be wrong. For example, USC knows they can’t lose another game or they are completely out of the BCS championship picture, but if there were a playoff system in place with 16 teams they could play poorly for one more game and possibly still make it into the playoffs.

Now on to Celizic’s column and his need for college football to be a predictable sport where all the good and bad teams are easily defined. My intention isn’t to bash the BCS or bash whatever Celizic thinks should be the system (it’s funny but many people who hate the BCS and bashes it in print never have presented a good alternative...Celizic just bitches here and doesn't suggest any other alternatives), but to point out how what he is complaining about doesn’t make much sense.

The first BCS poll is finally out, and you have to wonder if the results are due to voters and computers searching their neurons and transistors for truth or a monkey throwing darts at a board.

Do you mean much like the preseason polls amount to? I find it funny sportswriters like Mike Celizic hate the BCS because he feels it is arbitrary, but preseason rankings when college football teams have played zero games don’t bother him at all. I know preseason polls don’t mean that much in the grand scheme of the season, other than to overrank/underrank teams, but it is much more arbitrary and non-scientific than anything the BCS has ever put together.

It probably doesn’t matter which method is being used.

Wow. What an absolutely idiotic way to undermine the entire point of the column by the second sentence of said column. So to sum it all up…the BCS sucks and the rankings make no sense, but the rankings wouldn’t make sense no matter what system is being used. This is not a page out of “Formulating An Argument For Dummies.”

It’s hard to remember a year when there’s been less certainty about which college football team is the best in the land. Seven teams remain undefeated

Awesome. How is this not absolutely fantastic? There are seven teams who could be the best team in the country, so from week-to-week each of these teams are going to try their best to not lose a game and remain undefeated. Parity is not bad in college football in my opinion. I like to see a bunch of good teams playing football games against each other. I find it much more preferable than seeing 4 excellent teams at the top of the poll and the rest of the teams in the Top 25 are just above average.

I would also expect there to be little certainty right now since the season is only halfway finished. I think this has been a problem nearly every single year in college football at the halfway point, but every year columnists claim this current year is more muddled than any other year.

Isn’t parity what the NFL, MLB, and the NBA are constantly striving for? So why is it so bad in college football? Oh yeah, because people can’t accept ambiguity or the idea a team that never lost a game may not win the National Championship. Last year Utah went undefeated and Florida lost once, but the Gators are still considered the National Champion outside of the state of Utah. The world did not end and nearly every single person considers Florida to be the defending National Champion for college football. I am not cool with Utah getting screwed, but we all got over this occurrence. Basically we all end up moving on.

Just like we all got over LSU being a 2 loss champion the year before that. Just like Boise State not getting a shot at the National Championship before that has been forgotten due to the excitement of the Oklahoma-Boise State Fiesta Bowl in 2007. I don’t love the BCS, but what I find is these “problems” and incongruities in the BCS system are largely forgotten the year after the major controversy. To my original point, having seven undefeated teams including 2 from the not from the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big 10, Pac-10, and SEC is fantastic. There will be controversy but there will also be quality football being played.

Florida, Alabama, Texas, Boise State, Cincinnati, Iowa and TCU — but not one of them stands head and chinstrap above the rest.

Yet again I find this good, not bad. There is a reason we play the entire college football season and don’t stop the season the week after the BCS standings are released. That reason is because these 7 teams will probably not be undefeated at season’s end. I don’t want there to be 2 teams that are great and the rest are just above average because even in this crappy system we have a chance to see teams fighting to stay undefeated and have a chance at the National Championship game…in theory.

Therein does lie the problem, that only two of these teams will even have the chance to play for the National Championship, but it has happened before and the world did not end. I know what I am saying doesn’t sound fair, and it isn’t fair, but we know at least Florida and Alabama will at least lose once this year because they have to play each other for the SEC Championship if neither team loses, so that clears the picture up a little bit…if we get to that point. The rest of these teams are in different conferences so this is an example of nearly every major conference having good teams at the top, which again is not a bad thing. I would bet at least 3 of these undefeated teams are going to end up with one loss at the end of the year.

The polls should all come with a disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein do not reflect objective reality.

Newsflash big guy, many playoff results also do not reflect objective reality. Were the NY Giants really the best team in 2007? No, the Patriots were. Were the Cardinals the best team in baseball in 2006? No, they were barely above .500, but they won the World Series. Was N.C. State the best college basketball team in 1983 or Villanova in 1985? Those were just four examples of a playoff not really determining the best team, it’s not like a playoff system means every single year the most worthy or the best team will win. So unless you want to just crown the team with the best record as “Champion” (which is really impossible many times in college football) at the end of every year without bowl games or a playoff system, many times objective reality will not be reflected in the result of the polls or playoff system.

My inclinations are to rant about how college football needs a playoff system like Glenn Beck needs a Valium. But there’s no point in that.

Instead, I’ll just fulminate about what a muddle this college football season is turning out to be.

Brilliant idea. Instead of furthering an actual idea to solve an issue, Mike Celizic is just going to bitch and moan about how screwed up this college football season is…which by the way makes this college football season exactly like nearly every other college football season over the past several years. Let’s remember, the college football season is barely halfway over at this point, so there should be a lot of muddle because teams haven’t separated themselves from the pack yet.

At a point when teams normally show why we should believe in them, it seems as if there was a contest going whose object was to show which top team is least deserving of its exalted ranking.

So we have 7 undefeated teams who all suck because they had close games? I don't see that way. I guess I must enjoy a different type of college football from Mike Celizic. Honestly, I would bet he doesn't even follow college football that closely. I enjoy games that are close and don’t necessarily believe because a team has a couple close games that means that team is a weak team, but instead believe it could mean that team has to play other great teams yet still found a way to win each game.

Sportswriting is clearly not a science. On one hand we have Gregg Easterbrook who thinks anytime a team blows out other teams it is because they are all teams that are easy to beat, and on the other hand we have Mike Celizic who believes a team is not strong if it has a close game or two.

Florida, No. 1 on the coaches’ and Harris charts and No. 2 in AP hearts, needed a big assist from the zebras and some new heroics from Tim Tebow to eke out a comeback win over Arkansas,

That second link is to College Football Talk, which alleges SEC officials helped the Gators win the game. How SEC officials are helping Florida over Arkansas, who is also in the SEC, is beyond me. I thought the pass interference call was a good one and I don’t really know too much about the other penaltybecause I was at dinner and could barely see what happened on the television.

The simple fact is Arkansas had plenty of chances to win that game and they did not. Ohio State won the National Championship over USC a few years ago because of a semi-arguable pass interference call in the end zone and USC got an arguable good non-call from the officials when Reggie Bush pushed Matt Leinart in the end zone against Notre Dame. I don't think USC won the National Championship that year but it shows good teams do get breaks every once in a while and it is not a sign a team is weak.

a team that was drilled by Alabama three weeks ago.

Simply because Florida barely beat Arkansas and Alabama whipped Arkansas, Celizic uses this as an argument the Gators are a weak team. I like how he uses the BCS margin of victory measurement to show Florida is not a good team, yet Celizic also hates the BCS because he finds the measurements it uses to be arbitrary. Ironic huh?

Here is another fun little fact Celizic overlooks, Florida will have a chance to play Alabama if they meet in the SEC Championship Game…so really comparing the two teams until they meet serves no purpose because the odds are really good these teams will meet.

The Gators will probably finish undefeated and get one berth in the BCS’ mythical championship game, but it would be nice if they could at least show that they have something going for them other than Tebow.

This is what makes me think Celizic doesn't watch much college football, I am not sure he is aware there is an SEC Championship game. Florida will have a chance to show they are a good team when/if they play in the SEC Championship Game potentially against another undefeated team like Alabama. The Gators really can’t get a better chance than that to show the world they have something going for them other than Tebow by playing and defeating another undefeated team at a neutral site. Also, the comment inferring Florida doesn’t have talent, other than Tim Tebow, is just plain stupid. They are loaded on defense and offense.

But, while Mark Ingram’s nearly 250 yards rushing were impressive, ‘Bama’s offense still has scored just two touchdowns in its past nine quarters. It’s as if the Tide seems determined to test the adage that defense wins titles.

If a team has a dominant defense then obviously that team can’t be considered one of the best teams in the country according to Celizic. Who cares if Alabama is #1 in the country in total defense? Who cares if the offense is 21st in the country in yards per game and 13th in points per game? That’s not impressive to Mike Celizic because the offense has only scored two touchdowns over the last nine quarters. He is so clearly wrong here because Alabama isn’t just a defensive team, they can play some offense also. He just wants us to ignore this and focus on his own cherry picked statistics that show Alabama isn’t a team of National Championship caliber, which is absolutely not true.

Texas, the No. 3 team in every poll, hardly looked impressive in slipping past Oklahoma 16-13. The Sooners played without reigning Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford for most of the game, but Texas insisted on playing as if he’d been replaced by Brett Favre. On offense, alleged Heisman Trophy candidate Colt McCoy performed like a man playing the flute while wearing boxing gloves.

I am going to ignore the absolutely horrible flute analogy and say Celizic needs to stick to talking about the Yankees and the Red Sox because he is shading things incorrectly here again in an effort to prove his point. Oklahoma is #8 in the nation in total defense, so it isn't exactly easy, Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback or not, to score against them. If Celizic is inferring the Longhorns should have blown out the Sooners because of the absence of Sam Bradford, then I will respond by saying Landry Jones isn’t exactly a joke at quarterback. He was highly recruited and played pretty well in the absence of Bradford earlier in this year.

I don’t know why Celizic is under the impression the top teams in the nation should run all over the teams they are playing, because I don’t think this is true at all. Close games are not necessarily a sign of a team being weak.

For some reason, USC is fourth.

Actually they are seventh in the poll I have linked, but let’s pretend Celizic is right and USC is ranked fourth, just to play devil’s advocate. They currently have 3 big road wins to their credit at Notre Dame, Ohio State and California. Those are not easy road games to play. I am all for the little guy coming up and busting the BCS Standings, but I do find it hard to reconcile ranking Cincinnati and TCU above them. TCU barely beat Air Force, and Cincinnati hasn’t played any really good teams yet. Boise State may have an argument more than any other team for this spot, but they are #4 in the BCS Standings, which they deserve.

We’re all familiar with Boise State crying about not getting any respect, and it doesn’t. But it’s for good reason: If you want respect, play in a respectable conference, or at least have the decency to lay a decent whupping on Tulsa, instead of sneaking away with a one-touchdown win.

It may not have been impressive, but they won the game. That’s all that really should matter. I don’t get the infatuation with having a bunch of teams that blow out their opponents and think this makes for good college football to watch. I know Celizic is used to watching the Red Sox and Yankees dominant in the AL East but parity in college football is not a bad thing, quit acting like it is.

If they were Ohio State or Michigan and had the same results, they’d be ranked no worse than fourth; they’d certainly be ahead of USC. But because they’re Iowa, they have a big climb ahead just to get into the Top 5.

As usual, Mike Celizic is cherry picking games, leaving out Iowa beating Northern Iowa by only 1 point and Arkansas State by 3 points. It’s easy for him to not include those games because it doesn’t go to serve his point that Iowa is getting screwed by the BCS system. Unfortunately this supports his own theory that Iowa is not a dominant team and the voters see the same thing knowing that Texas and Florida struggled against Oklahoma and Arkansas respectively, but Iowa struggled against vastly inferior competition and ranked the Hawkeyes accordingly. I also don't think the comment if Iowa were OSU or Michigan they would be ranked higher has too much basis.

But no matter what TCU and Boise State do, they’re still not going to rise into one of the top two rankings — and a shot at the BCS’ big crystal football

This is an absolutely incorrect statement. Either Florida or Alabama are going to have a loss at by the end of the year which would probably vault Boise State over one of those teams, and then if Texas loses during the season or in the Big 12 Championship game Boise State could easily play in the National Championship game. Matter of fact, I am pretty sure the eventual National Champion over the last 3 years has never been ranked #1 in the initial BCS Standings.

TCU probably does not have a shot and I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing to be honest. They are a good team, but I don’t believe they are one of the best teams in the country. I will be proven wrong this weekend if they manage to defeat BYU, because that will give them a little more credibility in my mind. I respect them but they haven't played incredibly difficult teams so far...but I am not going to bury them quite yet. I am not ruling them out, but I would not put them higher than Boise State, Iowa, or USC.

For this week, it’s still about the teams that have been marked as the nation’s best since before the season began. Florida, Alabama and Texas remain undefeated, but as we watch the season enter its final month, we’re left to wonder when any or all of them will start to play up to their rankings.

Florida has beaten a good LSU team on the road, Alabama has obliterated Ol’ Miss on the road and South Carolina at home, and Texas has beaten Oklahoma and it’s very good defense at a neutral location. Simply because they did not blow these teams out doesn’t mean they are not good teams or the BCS Standings have it all wrong. Parity in college football is not a reason to get rid of the BCS system and this parity is actually something that should be celebrated. It may make it hard to rank teams midway through the season, but it makes for good football discussions and games.

Good teams win close football games, they don’t just win football games by large margins.

The BCS is not a perfect system, but until a perfect system comes along it is the system we are currently stuck with having to deal with. The National Championship picture is not any more muddled this year than it has been in the past several years, it’s just early in the season now and teams haven’t played enough games to set themselves apart from each other by winning or losing the games remaining. Every year we get these columns stating what a mess college football is, yet it remains a popular sport, and interest from the fans never goes away.

If the same situation of having 7 undefeated teams in the country exists after the bowl games have been announced, then yes there may be a problem or it really was just a crazy year. The National Championship picture is always muddled halfway through the season and it’s what makes the sport so intriguing to watch. Mike Celizic doesn't really pay attention to either of these facts and instead just decides to start a panic by writing that there are no good teams and the BCS is screwing up the country.

5 comments Tweets From Last Night

It's Tuesday and TMQ doesn't come out until midday when I won't have much time to cover it today, so I figure we might as well do something a little different and cover some new blood for this site. This post is about more than just Tweets from last night, but I liked the title and I generally like the web site I semi-stole the post's name from, "Texts from Last Night." It's a fairly amusing site, though I in no way believe any of the texts are real. They are like Bill Simmons' mailbags except instead of funny letters to get in Bill's mailbag, people send funny texts to see if they can get on the site. Explaining that took up about three more sentences than it should have. Basically I am going to feature some articles by journalists I don't normally write about here and see if I dislike them enough for them to stick around.

-I named the title the way I did because I was going to cover several Tweets that Peter King has made this weekend. Also, when you look at people Peter is following, you can see that Brittany Favre is among those he follows. Somehow this managed to shock me, I don't know how. I should figure if he is obsessed with Brett, the rest of the family gets the Fatal Attraction-esque obsession as well. Stupid me. I don't know how old she is, but from the Tweets she is sending out, I can't imagine Peter would have any reason to follow what she is saying. So I chalk it up to his Favre obsession.

No. Just straight vodka.@Only1Steets. Were you drinking cough medicine when you made your picks? Lions over Vikes? Jets over Pats??

9:55 AM Sep 17th from web

Kudos to Peter, but it does suck for "Only1Steets" that his disbelief in the Jets being able to beat the Pats has been made so public.

Weird Fine 15. Had no idea who is number one. I'm sure you'll all have plenty of opinions for me ... And young QBs get plenty of cyberink.

about 11 hours ago from web

The Fine Fifteen is so weird this year. It's not like the other NFL seasons when after the second week of the season has been completed it is incredibly clear who the best teams in the NFL are (I wish sarcasm went over better on the Internet, it sounds much funnier in my head). Suffice to say no one knows who the top teams in the NFL really are after two weeks so Peter shouldn't be worried he doesn't know either.

Come on. Dal rush: 29-247. You can't be serious. @FITZjr. Giants at 5 really? You know it's inevitable that you'll have to put them at 1.

about 8 hours ago from web

Peter thinks there is no way he can put the Giants at #1 in his Fine Fifteen. They gave up so much rushing yardage to the Dallas Cowboys on the road is his reasoning. That's not nearly as impressive to him as beating the Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns, which is why Minnesota is #2 in his Fine Fifteen. Just like yesterday, beating Dallas but giving up a lot of yardage is not impressive but beating two of the worst teams in the league is impressive to Peter because Brett Favre plays for the team.

Ha! If they were smart, they'd take Tebow. @siddfinch. Who do you think the Browns take with the number one pick next year? :)

about 7 hours ago from web

Just when I think Tim Tebow-mania can't get any worse, Peter King says the Browns should take Tim Tebow as the first pick in the 2010 NFL Draft...over Sam Bradford, Colt McCoy, Jevan Snead. This doesn't include non-QB's like Best from California, (my personal favorite) Suh of Nebraska, Okung, Eric Berry and Taylor Mays. I really hope this is a joke. Not that I don't think Tebow will serve some use in the NFL but his running style may not serve him as well in the NFL and I am not sure how well he can play the QB position to transition to the NFL as a starter. He probably can, but I personally would not take him first in the NFL draft. I don't know why I just explained myself because it is dumb to even joke about Tim Tebow being the #1 pick. I guess with the media's infatuation with him, I actually believe someone would try to draft Tebow first.

Yes. His name is Scott Pioli. @gavingrace. Do Chiefs fans have any reason for optimism?

about 7 hours ago from web

I have never heard of his player. What position does he play?

Is it good or bad when a team's hopes are supposed to be attached to the General Manager? I know he is supposed to bring in talent to make the team better...but he is the General Manager and not a player. It would be more comforting if there was a player or two that would make the Chiefs feel better for the future coming from Peter's Twitter responses.

How did Matt Cassel do on Sunday you ask? 24-39, 241 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT's. Not bad but the Chiefs still lost to the Raiders. Obviously we are not going to know after one week whether he was worth that big contract or not.

49,413 followers. I am taking a poll: What should I do for my 50,000th follower? What can I give away? Any ideas?

about 7 hours ago from web

Promise to quit following Brittany Favre on Twitter. That would be a first step as a gift I would want if I were a follower of Peter.

-Apparently Jerome Bettis feels the need to start becoming a "journalist" and start write articles for CNNSI. He has some thoughts. Unfortunately none of his thoughts involve how fortunate he is that Ben Roethlisberger got a hand on Nick Harper's ankle in 2006 in the Divisional Playoffs which allowed everyone to forget Bettis' horrible fumble on the goal line moments earlier. I wanted to hear his thoughts about this like, "I didn't think running backs could choke in big moments until I realized I had just choked by fumbling." Or his thoughts on how he landed a broadcasting job like, "why did they put me on television? Is it simply because I am loveable and slightly overweight or that I smile a lot? Doesn't anyone know I have no broadcasting skill?" I digress...

Patriots-Jets was fantastic, but Falcons-Patriots will be a barometer game if I ever saw one. We all think New England is a much better football team than they've shown over the past two weeks, but we're not really sure. Is this a team that's getting by on its history?

"Getting by on its history?" Are they coming to midfield for the coin flip and showing off their Super Bowl rings in hopes the other team will immediately forfeit? The Patriots needed a near miracle to beat the Bills and got beaten by the Jets on Sunday. They are barely even "getting by" at this point and certainly their history of winning Super Bowls has nothing to do with this.

I don't know if this is supposed to be analysis but it's not very good analysis. Yesterday in the MMQB Review I stated that I thought Belichick gave Sanchez a false sense of confidence so he could destroy the confidence every other time they play each other and yesterday Ty Warren (I think) said the Patriots didn't plan anything really difficult on defense because they thought they could stop the Jets with what they were doing. So basically Sanchez may in for a shit storm next time they play.

So this is a barometer game for both franchises. If Atlanta wins, it validates them as a legit football team. If New England wins, they're still on top.

The first two games the Falcons won against playoff teams from last year does not validate them as a legit football team in Bettis' eyes? So if they beat a New England team they are a legit team at that point? Even though New England struggled the first two games of this season? This doesn't make sense, the Patriots had a 11-5 record last year just like the Dolphins and the Panthers had a 12-4 record, so why would the Patriots be the benchmark for the Falcons? Sounds to me like Bettis is letting New England's history affect his perspective a little bit on this game.

Personally, I'd bet on the Patriots pulling it together, but they'll have to overcome a defense that's changed too much. Man, could they use Richard Seymour to make a few plays right now. Was cutting him loose a mistake? I think we'll know for sure after this game.

This one game will define whether trading Richard Seymour was a mistake. The other 13 games for this year are merely exhibitions where the Patriots can give up 200 yards rushing in every game and it doesn't matter...because they beat the Falcons.

If there was any progress last year, before Kiffin was fired, it's evaporated. Russell doesn't look like an NFL quarterback. And that blame falls on the organization.

Yes, it is definitely not JaMarcus Russell's fault he stinks as a quarterback. It's not like he showed up for camp overweight last year, has consistently shown poor work habits in learning the playbook and doesn't seem dedicated to becoming an NFL caliber quarterback. It's not his fault at all, it's completely the organization's fault. Maybe someone tell Russell to wake up and realize his chance his almost over. Or maybe Tom Cable should punch him in the face.

So now you have a player who hasn't met his potential, and you have coaches who can't develop players.

I agree with the second part and I think Russell has met his potential and that's the problem.

Titans should have paid to keep Jim Schwartz.

Maybe Tennessee should have put some of the millions of dollars it saved by letting Haynesworth go towards paying Schwartz like a head coach.

Along with Bill Plaschke's idea the Dodgers should have bought Casey Blake, Greg Maddux and Manny Ramirez instead of trading prospects for them, comes the second non-realistic based idea of this month. I am pretty sure Schwartz would not have passed up the opportunity to be a head coach in the NFL to be a highly paid defensive coordinator. Call me jaded but you would have to be stupid to turn down a job as a NFL head coach if that is really what you want to do...even if it is with the Lions. The Titans could have offered him a ton of money and I still think he would have taken a head coaching job if it was offered. Not only would it have been stupid for Schwartz to pass up the opportunity but why would a team want to try and hold back a guy who deserved to be a head coach in the league by offering him an absurd amount of money?

Also, there is no salary cap for coaches so really the fact they saved money when they lost Haynesworth has nothing to do with Jim Schwartz. I am sure Jerome Bettis knows this though...

Ex-players think of the Hall in those terms: game changers. That's why I admire another guy in this class, Eddie George. Though he wasn't the first tall guy -- Eric Dickerson was before him -- he certainly helped break the mold for guys like Brandon Jacobs.

Eddie George should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame? I really don't think so. He seems like a great guy but he doesn't deserve it. This is the problem when athletes start writing their opinions down, pretty soon everyone deserves to be in the Hall of Fame because that athlete likes that guy or if that guy gets in the athlete writing the column would probably get in as well.

How about an 0-2 team I like? Tennessee, easily. With their personnel, they'll turn this around. Maybe not against the Jets this week, but their schedule gets easier down the line.

So Bettis sees the Titans bouncing back even if they lose to the Jets this weekend and go 0-3 because they have an easy schedule? Let's see...they have to play the Colts twice, the Texans again, then the Pats, Bills, Cardinals, Dolphins, and Chargers. It's not that difficult but I wouldn't call it easy.

I caught some flack for trashing the Steelers' line and running backs last week, but a lot of those things happened again. The defense was good, not great. They ran a little better and protected BenRoethlisberger a little longer for most of the game.

He shouldn't have caught flack for trashing the Steeler's line, he should have caught slack for changing his opinion on the Steelers offensive line depending on who he is talking to.

In Steelers Digest he said something different about the Steelers offensive line. So which one is the truth? Is he a person who panders to his audience or does he write semi-controversial things in order to get pageviews?

-Mike Lupica thinks the new Cowboys stadium is all about Jerry Jones' ego. Really, who should know about what people do in order to inflate their ego any more than Mike Lupica would? His body is 10% water and 90% ego. Even Lupica's picture says, "Look at me and dare to not call me an asshole. I dare you."

Really he writes nothing of interest in that part of the column. It's in his "quick thoughts" at the end of the column that interested me.

Don't you wish Ichiro could come here and play, just for one season?

By "here" I am assuming Lupica means "New York," and by this entire sentence I think he means, "I would want him to play in New York because a great baseball player isn't considered a great baseball player until he plays for either the Mets or Yankees. Seattle is so far away and I am not even sure it is even in the United States. Only the great athletes play in New York."

No, I don't wish Ichiro could play in New York for one season because it is not such a great place that nearly every baseball player has to play there at some point.

Has there ever been a player as great as Ichiro seen this infrequently outside his home city?

What the hell does it matter? Is Lupica looking to have dinner with Ichiro? If this is indicative of the thoughts his columns contain, I want no part of this, meaning "I will pay better attention to him so I can make fun of him more often."

Serena Williams should not just have lost her match against Kim Clijsters for the way she behaved at the end, she should absolutely have lost her chance to play for the women's doubles championship with her sister on Monday afternoon.

Oh that makes sense. The real only fair way to punish Serena would be to punish her sister, Venus, by forcing her to forfeit the championship doubles match and punish the doubles team they were going against by not allowing them to compete for the championship. This would definitely show Serena the error of her ways.

Speaking of Broadway, if you missed Sebastian Arcelus playing Bob Gaudio the first time around in "Jersey Boys," you better get down to the August Wilson Theater and see him now.

Possibly Mike Lupica should invite Peter King to this event. It sounds like it would be right down his alley, as long as they allowed coffee in the theater and they don't have to stay at the Mariott while in New York.

Here's my question: Did Peter King steal these types of thoughts from Mike Lupica or did Lupica steal it from King? Peter's thoughts in his MMQB are phrased an awful lot like what Lupica writes here. Maybe it's a coincidence.

-Jeff Miller thinks the USC Trojans are not as good as they used to be. Doesn't USC lose to an unranked team on the road nearly every year? What's so different this year?

Their two longest plays were runs.

Their longest pass play went to the fullback.

Everyone knows to be considered a great team your team has to have it's two longest plays both be flea flickers and the longest pass play has to go to a guy who is a wide receiver. These are the rules, I didn't just make them up, otherwise you can not be considered a good team.

No, no they haven't. The USC Trojans haven't been this one-dimensional often, this stagnant often, this unthreatening often.

Of course, they haven't been this young and inexperienced at quarterback often, either. That's hardly a coincidence.

Great. That's exactly what I was going to say also. Usually USC has an experienced quarterback running the offense, but this year with Mark Sanchez leaving for the NFL early they don't have that luxury. Maybe the real reason Pete Carroll did not want Sanchez to go pro had less to do with his immediate readiness and more to do with him envisioning the Trojans current situation with unexperienced quarterbacks.

Now that we have covered the reason the Trojans lost is because Washington has improved and they did not have their starting QB, let's move on to other topics. Nothing more to see here.

So the Trojans lost, 16-13, to Washington — a 19-point underdog, a program that went 0-12 last season and an opponent they beat a year ago, 56-0.

I guess we aren't done, even though we have reached the most likely conclusion for the USC loss. They are not really a shell of themselves, they just are young at key positions.

We need to remember Washington was also a team that gave LSU a tough game two weeks ago. Last year's statistics actually don't count for this year and neither does last year's record so it really doesn't matter how many games they lost last year. This is a little known fact.

History and the recruiting services tell us Matt Barkley or Aaron Corp or both eventually will arrive at USC.

Matt Barkley actually "arrived" last week when he went to Ohio State and put up enough points to beat them. He has a road victory as a quarterback against a top-10 team. That counts as "arriving" in my book. Unfortunately Barkley was not able to do the same on Saturday because he didn't actually play in the game against Washington. I don't like USC and I am not making excuses for them. They are young at QB and their best young QB wasn't even playing though.

Right now, given their quarterbacking youth, the Trojans are more about not losing than they ever have been since Carroll's arrival. They are asking Corp and Barkley to "manage" not "win" these games.

That's great. Can we all agree the headline of this column should be "USC is too young at the quarterback position to challenge for a National Championship this year" instead of the more controversial and pageview friendly "USC has become a shell of what it once was," which is a headline that is also slightly misleading since the reason is easily identifiable and can be solved with more experience which takes time? I think we can agree on this.

USC went up against a tough defense last week on the road and then they played really crappy against Washington on the road. This happens every year to USC in that they lose to an unranked Pac-10 team on the road.

Right or wrong, they are wildly conservative, a former passing team now a passive team.

It's not because of a lack of talent, which is what the title of this article seems to indicate is why USC is a shell of itself, but because there is talent there, just not talent with experience. So literally every single week after Matt Barkley gets more and more experience the passing game will be opened up even more and this problem is temporary? Is that a logical conclusion to be drawn? I think so.

We've all seen the Trojans at their strongest, and this team doesn't look like those teams did.

Because they are really young at the quarterback position. He is really hammering this point home isn't he?

Beyond their quarterbacks having to learn amid the chaos, the Trojans face issues with their special teams and still lack injured receiver Ronald Johnson, their most serious deep threat.

So the Trojans also have injury problems at the wide receiver position, which probably has an effect on the passing game as well. Let's see, they have a young quarterback and injury problems at the wide receiver position. This doesn't sound like USC is a shell of itself but more a team in transition at this stage of the season into a more conservative team out of necessity.

Considering the Trojans have like 6 tailbacks who could start for a number of other D-I schools, I don't see running the ball a lot as a huge problem for them.

The next nine games will provide more answers, but there's no doubt what they learned — what we all learned — on this day about the status of this USC football team:

Not Yet.

But USC is not a shell of itself, just not good enough to compete for a National Championship for a variety of reasons. All of these reasons are temporary and it's not like the school's football program is on a downward spiral.

See you for TMQ (if it's bad enough) tomorrow.