BBR Top-25 Week 4

Well for another week we still have the same 2 teams on top,  this poll does not have Boise St  in the same spot as the 2 National Polls.   We are  going more by the teams played, or Strength of Schedule.

 1    Alabama

 2    Ohio St

 3    Oregon

 4    TCU

 5    Nebraska

 6    Florida

 7    Stanford

 8    Boise St

 9    Oklahoma

10    Auburn

11    Wisconsin

12    LSU

13    Arkansas

14    South Carolina

15    Utah

16    Arizona

17    Michigan

18    Iowa

19    Miami Fl

20    USC

21    Michigan St

22    North Carolina St

23    Texas

24    Penn St

25    Nevada

The games are getting better each week,  and it is a long time to the end of the season,  Several undefeated teams now,  but each week the list keeps getting smaller.

Have a great week.

Week 3 SEC Rankings

The SEC is Alabama and who? Arkansas, LSU or South Carolina? The drop off is even more severe once you move past the top three or four.

This week two and possibly three SEC teams will lose their first game of the year. Don’t expect anyone to drop out of the top 25 with a lose though.

1. Alabama: We’re back! With Mark Ingram and Marcell Dareus back Alabama has gone from scary to scarier. Some are expecting a game with Arkansas to materialize this weekend. Not this poster.

2. Arkansas: Ryan Mallett pulled one out against Georgia but Alabama isn’t Georgia. If the hog’s defense magically becomes endowed beyond their wildest dreams it could be a game.

3. South Carolina: On the road at Auburn will give the old balls coach heartburn but South Carolinas defense is better than Clemson’s.

4. LSU: The LSU defense looks ready to take anyone on. Now if they only had a SEC worthy offense. Expect W Virginia to give the Tigers a game.

5. Auburn: Can Auburn’s defense control the SC offensive paper juggernaut? Expect a low scoring game.

6. Florida: The Gators offense looks pedestrian at the best but speed is speed. Kentucky is a lot faster than past Kentucky teams but the defense is still suspect.

7. Kentucky: Joker gets his first shot at the Gators who looked beatable again at Tennessee. Kentucky can win this one but it wont be easy.

8. Georgia: Talent and way to much coffee this morning gets the Dawgs ranked this high. If Georgia loses at Mississippi State this coming weekend say adios to Mark Ritch.

9. Vanderbilt: Turnovers propelled a improving Vandy to a road win. Being off till Oct. 2nd will give the cellar teams a chance to sort themselves out.

10a. Tennessee: Tennessee gets ranked 10a rather than 10b because they showed some spunk against the Gators. Its still going to be a long year. Look for UAB to give the Vol’s a scare.

10b. Mississippi State: The defense is still waiting for the offense to materialize. With Georgia coming to town this weekend one of the teams is going to be 0-3 in the SEC.

12. Ole Miss: Fresno St. comes to town with a good chance to knock off a SEC team that should be 3-0 right now. I’m going to come out and say it. Getting Masoli destroyed the Ole Miss team chemistry.

BigBlueRules Top-25 Wk-3

After 3 games played by most teams it still looks like Alabama and Ohio St. are still far ahead of the other teams, but this could change after any week.
For the week of Sept 19th here is our Top-25

1 Alabama
2 Ohio St
3 Oregon
4 Oklahoma
5 TCU
6 Nebraska
7 Texas
8 Boise St. Hard to put them higher
9 Florida, I hope they lose this weekend
10 South Carolina
11 Arkansas
12 Utah
13 Wisconsin
14 LSU
15 Auburn, Lucky to win last game
16 Stanford
17 Iowa
18 USC
19 Arizona
20 Penn St
21 Michigan
22 Miami Fl
23 WVA
24 Michigan St
25 North Carolina St.

I still think your could take the top 7 teams in the SEC and play the top 7 in any other conference and the worse would be the SEC would win 5 out of 7

Brunettes Get Better Grades

Here is a post by UK_Cats_Fan on the controversy in Birmingham on Bledsoe’s grades. She sums up the issue nicely.

This story has caused panic among the Big Blue Nation. When I take the emotion out of it and attempt to look at it objectively a few things come to mind…

*UK has a bullseye on them…I know it, you know it…everyone knows it! Cal has preached it over and over. In an interview a few weeks ago he said (paraphrasing, because I can’t remember word for word at this point) ‘I’m not going to address each story that comes out falsely accusing either myself or the University of wrongdoing. The bottom line is we are doing things the right way, period. There are those who hate me, who hate UK and there are always going to be stories filled with false allegations and speculation…blah, blah, blah…(you get the point…bottom line he strongly emphasized WE are doing things RIGHT!)

*The investigation into the eligibility of Bledsoe was thorough AND was conducted more than once by the NCAA! It has been stated that the due diligence on the Bledsoe eligibility was reviewed and reviewed again in order to make sure no one (NCAA Compliance or UK Compliance) missed anything. IF there ends up being a problem then…well, start by firing the yahoos at the NCAA who cannot do their job!

*The stories out there on this subject are filled with speculation and innuendo…panic has set in and people are declaring doom and gloom before the facts are all in….people are of the mindset that wins are vacated and UK is in trouble because an Alabama school is having this investigated. (Since the slime reporter Thamel broke this big “story” they had little choice really as far as I see it).

*This is a kid we are talking about…THAT is one of the most troubling things in this whole situation. SOMEONE has provided confidential information (false or not) about a kid’s high school grades….THIS IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!! He played for our team, some may have liked him/some not…but bottom line is he was a KID, and a kid who had a hard life (one which most, if not all, of us have no concept of)…I’m not about to throw him under the bus and start slamming him on using this program as a stepping stone to the NBA. That kid worked his butt off on the court every single day while he wore “Kentucky” across his chest. At times he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder…but if I had walked a mile in that kid’s shoes I might have had the same…bottom line, it’s not my place (or anyone else’s) to judge him for that!

When this story fades, there will be another and another and another…every single one of us knows this to be a fact…after all, we have that big bullseye sitting right on our heads. It’s a waste of time to hit the panic button every time the negative story hits the headlines. After all, THAT is exactly what the writers such as Thamel, Forde, Tipton, etc are seeking…when the panic sets in the power of the BBN is massive…even where there isn’t a story, it becomes a story…and it doesn’t take a second for it to hit the national scene. We are Kentucky…everyone wants to see us take the fall!

I’m not discounting that there could be a problem with this Bledsoe situation…all I’m saying is that it is entirely too early to start marking those W’s off the record…I’m holding out to see the final report…and not one submitted by an Alabama school…the only one that means anything in the grand scheme of things is the one by the NCAA…and they haven’t even officially started ANOTHER one.

Another thing, Cal obviously has the dark clouds looming over his head because of UMass and Memphis…although we could argue endlessly that he was never implicated personally in those problems, he can’t shake the ill effects that has left behind on his reputation across the country. I find it impossible to imagine a scenario where he would take the chance on doing something wrong….he KNOWS all about the bullseye (both on himself and the one on the University). A scandal at UK would be devastating to his career. As hard as that man works…I can’t possibly imagine how he would take the risk of knowingly violating the NCAA rules and jeopardizing his livelihood.

All this rambling to say one basic thing…it’s way too early in the day to start declaring doom and gloom across the BBN! Time to take a deep breath and remember that not everything you read in the newspaper is completely factual…it’s business, and the best business generally comes when you tweak and mold things in a way that gives you the best result…in this case…pandemonium in Big Blue Land.

This has nothing to do with the nice piece UK_Cats_Fan wrote but BigBlueRules has just discovered something blonde’s have known forever, brunettes get better grades.

Me Love You Long Time NCAA

Growing up in the late 50′s my favorite day was Saturday. Bowling followed by watching a serial, cartoon and a sci-fi movie followed by baseball was like watching the Cat’s win on Saturday now. Those sci-fi or as its changed now to syfy led me on a lifelong quest to read every sci-fi book I could find. Sadly for every hardcore sci-fi book published today there is probably a dozen fantasy books published.

What does sci-fi have to do with sports? A whole bunch according to my nimble fingers. When the NCAA first arrived on the scene it was a hardcore sci-fi kind of an organization with athletes fighting gigantic space battles and worlds being casually destroyed while the NCAA simply existed. Today the NCAA pretends to be the Arisians, having created their lensman like heroes the compliance rules to battle the Eddorians and protect the student athlete.

In reality the NCAA is more of a fantasy kind of organization who battles the Eddorians with pixie dust but no consistent philosophy on protecting student athletes other than their me love you long time when it comes to $$$$.

The NCAA suspends A J Green for for games for selling a jersey but allows Georgia to make money for selling jerseys everyone knows represent him. Thats what we all can call me love you long time student athlete.

We spent the summer watching conferences trying to realign and become super conferences when instead they should have been working to break away from the NCAA and realign their conferences under new management.

There nothing new in what I’m saying but it seems to me the best way to provide student athletes who play for the haves rather than the have not’s a few bucks a month. Basing my thoughts on providing a athlete $200 a month times 400 athletes playing sports times 12 months it comes out to less than $1,000,000 a year. Thats $12,000,000 a year for the SEC. Add one more timeout to a game and ESPN would have no problem with paying 12M more in a contract to pay players and we could get another beer without missing any of the game.

As that great philosopher and coach Jerry Tarkanian said once, “me love you long time NCAA, and thanks for the money.”

Dream Big News

Duncan Cavanah at KSR had a nice piece on Luke McDermott in which he compares Lukes stats to Corey Peters, Mryron Pryor and Dewayne Robertsons stats. Would that Luke does so good this year that his dreams come true. Read it and enjoy it.

This story got my mind running around trying to think of something to write before settling on this.

If the Dallas Cowboys are Americas team, the 1992 olympic team was the original “Dream Team”, O J Simpsons lawyers were his “Dreaming Team”, and Johnny Depp is in many a middle aged maidens dreams, why shouldn’t BigBlueRules and Dream be in the same sentence.

We here at BigBlueRules dare to dream and we dream big. Compromising photos surface of Pete Thamel doing his interviews in a turkish bath house. Jerry Tipton retires and goes on a tour to promote his new book “A Writers Guide to New Trucks”. Tennessee hires Fulmer as AD and he immediately grabs a broom and when he lifts the carpet to clean house he finds Linda Bensel-Meyers who’s dreams he destroyed.

Remember its good to dream big so don’t settle for a quick dream like Karen Sypher did. Dream a big dream like we are. 10-2 baby, 10-2.

Week 2 SEC Rankings

South Carolina didn’t have much of a problem with Georgia. A J Green had some action on twitter where he seems to think if he was in the game SC would have gone down but we will never know will we A J.

1. Alabama: The tide rolled over Penn St with ease. So far they look unbeatable but this is the SEC. It will be interesting to see how easily they handle Duke who put up a lot of points.

2. South Carolina: SC did as I predicted and moved up to #2. This week they get Furman who had 377 yds rushing in their win over Colgate. Now if I had only listened to myself and picked SC.

3. Arkansas: Arkansas had a miss in a couple of cylinders but still managed a easy win. Visiting Georgia who is going to be desperate will show if they deserve to be ranked this high.

4. Florida: I think the offense woke up didn’t it? Tennessee will give them all they can handle. Upset Special.

5. Georgia: Aaron Murray looked good in the second half but Georgia’s defense didn’t. Expect Arkansas to put up some serious points.

6. Auburn: Auburn got a chance with Miss St. to show if they are mid SEC or not and they are. Since they are playing a ACC team they are off this week.

7. LSU: Beat Vandy 27-3. Miss St comes calling this week so expect a close game.

8. Kentucky: The offense rolled over W Ky. This week the Cats get Akron in what I think will be a scary game for Cat fans.

9. Mississippi State: Made Auburns high powered offense come down to earth in their 17-14 loss. We get a chance to see if they can do the same at LSU.

10. Tennessee: Hung with Oregon for a while but did what SEC fans expected them to do. Florida is visiting this week so we will get a chance to see how much pride the Tennessee players have.

11. Ole Miss: Vandy visits. Could this be the week Vandy returns to the winning fold.

12. Vanderbilt: They are ranked over 100 in points for and passing yards but this is Miss vs Vandy. Call it heads or tails.

BigBlueRules Top-25

I think that by far Bama, OSU, are ahead of the rest, but Oklahoma my be gaining on them, if Air Force don’t catch them in a let down.

1 Alabama
2 Ohio St.
3 Oklahoma
4 Oregon
5 TCU
6 Texas
7 Boise St hurt bad by VT loss
8 Iowa
9 Nebraska
10 So. Carolina
11 Wis
12 Arkansas
13 Florida
14 Utah
15 LSU
16 Michigan
17 Stanford
18 Auburn
19 Miami Fl.
20 USC
21 Arizona
22 Penn St
23 WVa
24 Houston
25 California

Report Card

Our weekly report card is out and the offensive side has made the honor roll. The defensive side is going to spend some time in study hall bringing their grades up.

QUARTERBACKS A

Mike Hartline was simply good. He did what he was supposed to and hit the receivers when he was supposed to. Morgan Newton and Ryan Mossakowski got in and both looked comfortable and played mistake free.

RUNNING BACKS A+

Derrick Locke had another 100 yd game. Donald Russell moved the ball with ease and Raymond Sanders showed he is a star in the making. The turtle Moncell Allen excelled at the fullback position.

RECEIVERS A

Top to bottom the receivers more than held up their end. Whens the last time you saw 2 catches for 40 yds, one for 30 yds and one for 20 yds in a game.

OFFENSIVE LINE B+

The line opened up some holes the whole game giving the quarterbacks the protection they needed and the running backs places to slip through.

SPECIAL TEAMS F

There isn’t anything positive to say.

DEFENSIVE LINE B-

Wheres Evans? We need more than one tackle from him. Give W Ky’s O line credit they played good.

LINEBACKERS C-

Keep your lanes guys and tackle better and watch that C go up. The talent is there for a constant B.

SECONDARY B

Coverage was good but the secondary had to make way to many tackles.

COACHING B-

Randy Sanders had a great game plan and gets an A. Tee Martin and Larry Brinson get an A. Steve Brown gets a D. Greg Nord gets a A for tight ends and a F for special teams. Give Joker a B- because hes ultimately responsible for all the coaches.

OVERALL C

A decent showing by the defense against the run game would have brought this up to a B but until special teams joins the team expect to see C’s.

Home Cooked Defense

After two games there seem to be some problems that need to be fixed real fast. Read it to mean Superman or Lightning fast.

On the defensive side of the ball we can’t seem to stop the run. The defense is giving up 188.5 yds a game and way to many long runs. So far we have played teams ranked 42nd and 45th in the nation in rushing. If it happens again next week against Aakron a team ranked 77th we need to look hard at the source which in my thoughts is based on focusing on playing defense in the red zone not between the 20yd lines.

Last year we might have won two more games if special teams had been able to stop long returns. This year even giving special teams a break when they out ran their coverage due to returners bobbling the ball there hasn’t been any thing positive to say. Like with the run lane coverage has been spotty at best.

Its not like this is new news either. This has been on going the last couple of years. With a beatable Florida two weeks away we don’t have much time to get to SEC level.

Steve Brown has two weeks to come up with some home cooked defense or its going to be a long year.

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