Mumme Poll – Week 11

Rank	Team	Votes (top five)
1	Alabama	306     (306)
2	Florida	306     (297)
3	Cincinnati	306     (237)
4	TCU	305
5	Texas	300
6	Georgia Tech	299
7	Boise State	298
8	Pittsburgh	277
9	Oregon	271
10	LSU	261
11	Ohio State	252
12	Stanford	136
13	Oklahoma State	116
14	Iowa	76
15	Penn State	44
16	Clemson	38
17	Virginia Tech	24
18	Wisconsin	12
19	Oregon State	7
19	Utah	7
21	Rutgers	6
22	Miami	4
22	Southern Cal	4
24	Arizona	3
24	BYU	3

COMMENTS

• Three teams appeared on every ballot this week.  But only one appeared as a top five pick on every ballot.
• It’s clear we see a top eleven and then everyone else.  Only one school outside of the first eleven received a top five nod this week (Penn State).
• About 80% of us completed our ballots in fifteen minutes or less.
• Bias watch:  Georgia got two votes this week.  But only one was from a partisan!
• A total of 32 schools got votes.  Of course, two of those went to Ohio instead of Ohio State.  For some reason, that’s been the most regularly occurring glitch of the season.  Watch your dropdown, Buckeye voters.

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The Socratic Method

Michael Elkon asks the Dawgnation a simple question today.

Option A: the Georgia defense plays inspired football against Tech and shuts down the triple option. The Dawgs win 24-17. Willie Martinez stays.

Option B: the Georgia defense plays the same way against Tech that they did last year, only Matt Stafford isn’t around to keep the game close. The Dawgs lose 45-24. Willie Martinez goes.

Which option do you choose?

Humor me.  Before you answer that, consider two other questions.

How much better would Georgia’s record (and how much lower would your anxiety level) be if…

1. the Dawgs’ turnover margin today were zero?
2. the program had a full time special teams coach whose name wasn’t Jon Fabris?

No, there won’t be a test on this later.   But I’d like to see your comments.

Tuesday morning buffet

A little nibble here, a little nibble there…

• Mark Schlabach thinks Paul Johnson could be tempted away from Tech for the right situation and offer.  Color me a little surprised.
• This is the kind of stuff you get on a slow news day, I guess.
• The ‘Bama football team reviews The Blind Side.
• Tony Barnhart suggests a tweak to the BCS process.  Needless to say, I’m a little disappointed.
• Broadcast numbers for some of the key games last week were down from last year.  Not sure if that’s more support for the this-season-is-boring meme, or if the particular matchups just weren’t that attractive.
• Don’t speak ill of the GPOOE™’s roommate.
• You tell me which is the bigger head scratcher – that Kentucky fans would have Rich Brooks on the hot seat, or that anyone would seriously want Bill Curry’s opinion about the potential of the UK program.

Tapping the pipeline

You know, the NFL has a pretty sweet deal when it comes to college football.  All that development of talent for three, four, five years without any direct expense – not bad.

So I can’t say I’ve got a lot of sympathy for any inconvenience the League might suffer when it comes to dealing with the talent pipeline.  On the other hand, college football isn’t exactly covering itself in glory with its latest move.

Though it is not the over-arching, long-term agreement it sought with eight of college football’s major conferences, the NFL believes a short-term arrangement to receive digitized versions of this season’s game tapes directly from all affected schools is now in place, a league source told SI.com Thursday.
…

SI.com first reported almost three weeks ago that the stand-off between the NFL and a Boston-area company that produces and disseminates the digitized content of NCAA games for eight major conferences was proving to be a stumbling block for the league committee charged with evaluating the readiness of juniors who are potential 2010 draft prospects.

XOS Technologies, based in Billerica, Mass., in August requested the NFL pay a rights fee between $20 million and $30 million for a multi-year commitment to electronically receive the coaches’ tape content that formerly was supplied basically for free as a mutually beneficial consideration between the NFL and NCAA.

XOS said it requested the rights fee on the behalf of its eight client conferences — including the SEC, Pac-10, Big 12, WAC, Mid-American and Sun Belt — but the NFL asked the conference commissioners to differentiate between the value of the game-tape content for the league’s evaluation purposes as opposed to any commercialization of the content to media outlets.

Sure, we get the idea that you’re pissed about the lack of monetary support from the pros, guys.  But using the draft-eligible pool of college talent – kids, in many cases, from whom you’ve been generating a pretty good revenue stream of your own – to squeeze a few bucks out of the bastards is a pretty shoddy move on your part.

Georgia roundup: watching the defectives and other matters

• Having put in the time and checked out the broadcast of the Auburn game on the ol’ DVR, all I can say is that, if anything, the negativity directed towards ESPN is too kind.  It’s not just that the announcers were so wretched, it’s that it seemed as if the WWL had assigned an intern to be the producer and left a couple of cameras in the truck to boot.  In particular, the coverage on Troupe’s second catch was absolutely criminal; unless you were at the game to see it live, you’ve got no idea how brilliant a play he made on a ball that Cox led him too much on.  C’mon, ESPN.  You’re spending all that money on the broadcast rights – at least act like you care.
• Here’s a reason to give Mike Bobo a bit of a pass this year.  “The Dawgs’ offense — despite having to replace a first-round NFL quarterback and a first-round NFL tailback — are scoring more easily in SEC games than any other team in the league.  Cry about the defense.  Scream about the losses to Florida and Tennessee, but pipe down when it comes to criticizing the SEC’s most efficient offense.”
• If you haven’t read David Hale’s eloquent analysis of Joe Cox’ performance this season, take a minute and do so.  It’s hard to argue with his conclusion.

And if you don’t believe me, I’ll ask you this: After seeing him go toe-to-toe and win against Ryan Mallett, Stephen Garcia and Chris Todd, how many starting QBs in the SEC would you rather have today than Joe Cox? He’s not No. 1, but he’s a long way from No. 12.

SEC Power Poll Ballot – Week Eleven

In last week’s intro, I wrote “(t)hree at the top, one at the bottom and a scrum in the middle – that’s the current state of the Southeastern Conference.”  Well, guess what?  Nothing’s changed there; I’ve just reordered the scrum a little this week.

1. Alabama. You got the feeling watching the Mississippi State game that ‘Bama did a really good job a couple of weeks ago regrouping during its bye week.  Still, I’ve got this nagging feeling that the SECCG is going to come down to the quarterbacks and even if Tebow isn’t having a Season for the Gods, he’s going to outdo McElroy.
2. Florida. They almost seemed bored against South Carolina.  Still a 1 and 1-A situation with Alabama.
3. LSU. More and more, this is simply a default pick.  Man, that’s a crappy offense.
4. Ole Miss. You see this cat McCluster is a bad mother… shut your mouth.
5. Tennessee. I guess Monte Kiffin will need to bone up on the spread this offseason.
6. Georgia. Still getting less from more than any team in the conference.
7. Auburn. And these guys are getting more from less than any team in the conference.  I understand why Chizik said he would have gone for two if his team had scored at the end against Georgia; they were running on fumes.
8. Arkansas. The Hogs would kill it in Conference USA.  Unfortunately, they play in the SEC.
9. South Carolina. When you get down to it, the ‘Cocks aren’t really good at anything right now.
10. Kentucky. Yeah, their non-conference schedule blows.  But considering the injuries his team has incurred, Brooks has done a respectable job this year.
11. Mississippi State. Mullen’s squeezed about as much as he can out of this bunch.
12. Vanderbilt. They’re averaging less than eight points per game in conference play.  Ugh.