Sunday, December 02, 2007

Week 14 Recap

Pittsburgh 13, #1 West Virginia 9
Wow. The Pitt upset doesn't surprise me too much, since the Panthers were somewhat underrated, this is a rivalry game, and this is the 2007 football season. But still. Pitt winning a shootout I might've seen. Pitt slowing down the WVU offense a bit en route to putting up 28 or so points and ekeing out a win I definitely could've seen. But, Pat White injury or not, the PITTSBURGH PANTHERS being the team to not only stop the West Virginia offense, but hold it to only 183 yards? Inexplicable. Three turnovers, no Pat White, no excuse. This is a team that should always gain yardage by the bushel, and things weren't much better on the defensive side of things. Pitt QB Pat Bostick was awful, but that only serves to even MORESO ask why West Virginia wasn't able to contain LaSean McCoy - Pitt had no passing game, and West Virginia has had an excellent run defense all year. Again, Pitt was an underrated team, but with the way this game played out, this is nothing more than a season-, era-, and perhaps program-defining choke job.
Pittsburgh: STOCK STEADY
West Virginia: STOCK DOWN

#9 Oklahoma 38, #3 Missouri 17
Meh. Not as one-sided as the score would suggest, but Missouri just got nothing going. Oklahoma didn't bring their complete "A" game, but they did enough against a Missouri team that, again, didn't do much. Chase Daniel's 23/39, 219 yard, INT day was fine, but that's about all. And that's really the outline of the game - neither team brought their top game, Missouri was fine, OU was better than fine.
Oklahoma: STOCK STEADY
Missouri: STOCK STEADY

#4 LSU 21, #25 Tennessee 14
Somewhat of a win/win game. LSU looked good - Jacob Hester ran for 120 yards, and the Tigers had 464 yards of total offense, plus they held Erik Ainge to 50% passing. And the Vols offense acquitted themselves well - while the Tigers D hasn't looked like the world-beating unit from the beginning of the year for quite some time, it's still very good, and Tennessee was able to move the ball. Really nothing that shouts out for any exceptional new insight.
LSU: STOCK STEADY
Tennessee: STOCK STEADY

#5 USC 24, UCLA 7
A completely one-sided beatdown. UCLA tends to do that, so there's almost no point in trying to gain insight from this. UCLA is bad, USC might have been the best team in the nation the last couple of weeks.
USC: STOCK STEADY
UCLA: STOCK DOWN

#6 Virginia Tech 30, #22 Boston College 16
Funnily enough, this was probably VT's worst game in recent weeks. Sean Glennon was efficient (18/27, 174, 3/1), but Tech wasn't able to get too much going on the ground. And while Matt Ryan had a pretty good completion rate and yardage, his 2 picks were killers. Everything was backwards day! So, yes - VT is rightfully the ACC champion (even if they may not be the national title-level team they're perceived as), and BC is rightfully pretty good, no more, no less.
Virginia Tech: STOCK DOWN
Boston College: STOCK STEADY

#10 Arizona State 20, Arizona 17
It's a shame Arizona didn't catch a break this year, as they're an underrated team who deserved a bowl. This was a mostly pass-oriented game, as neither team got much going on the ground. ASU's not especially cooling off or especially overrated - the score's more of a result of, again, Arizona being underrated.
Arizona State: STOCK STEADY
Arizona: STOCK STEADY

#16 Hawaii 35, Washington 28
Colt Brennan had a vintage 2006 game - 42/50, 442, 5 TD - and his team needed it since Washington was very game. They just keep doing this, don't they?
Hawaii: STOCK STEADY
Washington: STOCK UP

#20 BYU 48, San Diego State 27
SDSU's a fairly competitive team, and this was about the outclassing you'd expect. Pretty much nothing new in terms of insight to add - BYU's offense is very good, and the defense was fine if nothing too far in either direction.
BYU: STOCK STEADY
San Diego State: STOCK STEADY

Central Florida 44, Tulsa 25
Kevin Smith: 39 carries, 284 yards, 4 TD. And one of the quietest excellent seasons ever, as he's 19 yards away from the single-season yardage record. If he can make it through his senior season next year after all the carries he's had as a junior (another NCAA record), that'll be a fun ride. He's very good!
Central Florida: STOCK UP
Tulsa: STOCK STEADY

Florida International 38, North Texas 19
THEY DID IT!
Florida International: STOCK UP
North Texas: STOCK STEADY

Oregon State 38, Oregon 31 (2 OT)
Without Dennis Dixon, Oregon has now improved to completely mediocre.
Oregon State: STOCK STEADY
Oregon: STOCK UP

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