Pyle of List

“Without losers, where would the winners be?”

-Casey Stengel

I’m not on a baseball kick or anything, even though the postseason is exciting.  It’s just that baseball players and managers are legendary for their amazing quotes.  Mr. Stengel is one of the most famous examples of this (on par with Yogi Berra), and this quote is beautiful in its simplicity.

 We all want to be winners, but there can be no winners without losers.  The competition of the undefeateds teams are a variety of things: patsies, teams that had an off-day, teams that put up a valiant effort, etc.  But they have one thing in common.  They’re all losers.

So thank you, losers, for showing us who the winners are.

There are only 9 undefeated teams remaining.  My initial reaction was that it’s beginning to look like we could finish the regular season with more than two undefeated teams, and perhaps more than two from major conferences.  But look at last year.  At this point last year there were still 13 undefeated teams, and we finished the year with only 1.  Point is, there’s still a lot of football left.

Here are my rankings for the remaining teams, along with a prediction for their next game.  My current record is 30-9.

#9 TCU:  The Horned Frogs move down after a scare against Air Force.  But they have plenty of opportunities to move back up.  If they finish undefeated, they deserve a BCS bid over Boise State.  The question is will the pollsters make the proper adjustment or (more likely) could they care less about this issue.

But first TCU has to worry about winning their games.  They’ll beat Colorado State this week no matter how they play, but they need to get some momentum going into the following week’s game against BYU.

Winner: TCU

#8 South Florida: The Bulls have only played one game against anything that could even be considered competition, and that was Florida State, who seem to change their team identity more often than their players change shoes.

The ugly turnover-fest with Syracuse didn’t help their national perception either.  But a win against fellow unbeaten Big East team Cincinnati on the Thursday night stage would leave no more for doubt.  More on that game later.

#7 Kansas: If Reesing was QBing a more popular Big 12 team, he’d be getting a lot more love.  But he’s hurt by the fact that the Jayhawks don’t have a football history.  He’s also hurt by the fact that his team’s defense makes the games much closer than they should be.  It’s not his fault, but the wins don’t look impressive.

The defense will have a tune-up against Colorado this week before playing Oklahoma the next.  That’s the game Reesing will have to win to get noticed.

 Winner: Kansas

#6 Boise State: The Broncos are known as a team that outscored mediocre competition while allowing lots of points and yards, which doesn’t impress many voters.  However, witness what Oregon looked like against them and what they’ve looked like lately.  Judging from Oregon’s sluggish performance in its two games following the blue turf, a large part of their lack of offense against Boise was probably their own doing.  But even so, the Broncos had to have the talent to actually do it.

Their game against Tulsa tonight will tell us more about this defense.  Tulsa’s only lost one game, to Oklahoma, but in that game they failed to get on the board.  I don’t think Boise State can shut them out, but if they can keep them to two scores, they deserve some credit.

Winner: Boise State

 #5 Iowa: Do the Hawkeyes suddenly have a quarterback?  No, don’t worry defense and special teams, enthusiasts.  That was just Michigan’s lack of a secondary playing tricks on you.  If Iowa is going to continue to win games, it will be with the same old bass-ackwards way of playing they’ve used the past few seasons.

But wait, didn’t their defense nearly let Michigan back into the game?  Yes, and if Forcier had been on the field at the end instead of Nate “what do you mean throw the ball TO someone” Robinson, the Wolverines would have had a good shot at, if nothing else, getting close enough to attempt a game-winning field goal.

Iowa is about to play Wisconsin, who has a good defense.  They held Ohio State to 8 first downs, but Tressel didn’t care.  He had already burned the offensive playbook and told his defense and special teams to score all the points, and they obliged.

Simply put, if Wisconsin plays half as well if they did against the Buckeyes and lightning doesn’t strike twice, they’ll beat Iowa.

Winner: Wisconsin

#4 Cincinnati: Let’s imagine that the Bearcats win tomorrow night.  (Or just watch tomorrow night to see them win.)  Now, look at the rest of their schedule.  Is anyone on their even capable of beating them?  Maybe West Virginia?  So…is West Virginia going to beat them?

Sorry that you won’t be sleeping for awhile thinking about that.

#3 Texas: The national media is finally catching up to me.  I’ve had Texas third for weeks.  They just haven’t looked that impressive.  Even against Colorado.  They let them stay in the game for far too long, and if it wasn’t for a gift-wrapped pick-six courtesy of the Greek tragedy that is the Hawkins’ family, who knows how that game would have turned out?

If they keep letting teams hang around, one is going to beat them.  Why not the Sooners?

While Oklahoma is clearly the underdog this year, I think too many people are writing them off.  Yeah, they’ve lost two games.  By one point each.  To teams that have each lost only one game.  It still remains to be seen how good BYU and Miami are, but they aren’t bad teams by any stretch of the imagination.

Texas is having problems in the running game, and now they might be down to their 3rd string running back.  (Even if they have the starter or 2nd string, he won’t be 100%.)  If all Oklahoma has to do is stop McCoy, what makes anyone think they won’t be able to do it?

Shipley is going to be the deciding factor here.  If Oklahoma can limit his returns, they can win.  If they can’t, they can’t.

Winner: Oklahoma

#2 Florida: Tebow played, which is honorable, but he didn’t have to.  Florida’s defense is playing like mercenaries, except much better organized.  Flashy offense isn’t going to beat them, a fact they proved last year against Oklahoma.  Methodical, clock-draining offense, however, might be their weak spot, as long as the team has a defense that can match up to theirs.

This is why I’m looking forward to the SEC Championship where they’ll face Alabama again.  Everything until then, including Arkansas, is just filler.

Winner: Florida

#1 Alabama: The Tide harassed Jevan Sneed so badly last week that by the end of the game, even his name wasn’t cool anymore.  They’re in more danger of being scored on when their offense is on the field.  Last year’s Tide showed they wouldn’t lose to anyone they weren’t supposed to, and this year’s looks no different.  South Carolina will suffer the same slow, choking death that Ole Miss did.

Winner: Alabama