Factoid of the day

From the Los Angeles Times:

The margin of defeat in Rick Neuheisel’s first loss as UCLA’s coach, you may have heard, was 59 points. . . .

Pete Carroll’s 14 losses at USC have been by a combined 59 points. . . .

LVSC Top 30 Rankings – Week 4

You’ll be pleased to note that Georgia actually rose in the rankings for the “put your money where your mouth is” folks this week.

Rank	Team	Rating	Previous	Notes
1	Southern Cal	115.2	1	WOW!!!!!!!!!!
2	Oklahoma	110.5	3	Walloped Washington…Talented with plenty of depth.
3	Florida	110.0	2	SEC play beings this week at Tennessee.
4	Missouri	109.9	4	Offensive juggernaut. D’ will have to tighten up.
5	Georgia	109.2	6	Dodged a bullet at South Carolina.
6	Texas	107.8	7	Ike stopped Texas this week. Host Rice this week.
7	Ohio State	107.7	5	Still has a chance to win a bowl game…Just not the big one…
8	Penn State	107.5	9	Big Ten door could be wide open. Title shot????
9	Texas Tech	107.1	8	Red Raiders dominate a lame bunch of Mustangs.
10	Oregon	105.5	10	Purdue had Ducks on the ropes. Loss of Roper devastating.
10	Brigham Young	105.5	14	Cougars roared early and often-in demolition?
12	West Virginia	105.1	12	Head to Colorado off a bye week.
12	LSU	105.1	14	Unimpressive win versus North Texas…
14	California	104.8	11	The Bears were the turtles against the Terrapins.
15	Kansas	104.5	13	Reesing was solid, but late pick did Jayhawks in.
16	Wisconsin	104.2	20	Fresno State’s kicking woes helped Badgers escape win.
17	South Florida	104.0	17	Bulls showing knack for heart stopping wins.
18	Clemson	103.8	18	Get by Wolfpack… Cupcake on deck.
18	Texas Christian	103.8	18	Frogs still under the radar, but playing well.
20	Auburn	103.5	14	3-2 winner at Mississippi State…Yikes.
21	Oklahoma State	102.9	21	Cowboys are no slouch.
21	Tennessee	102.9	27	UCLA blowout at BYU doesn’t flatter Vols.
23	Utah	102.8	25	Easily handled in-state rival Utah State.
24	South Carolina	102.3	21	Gamecocks self-destruct once again.
25	Alabama	102.0	25	Head to Arkansas this week.
26	East Carolina	101.1	28	Tulane was tough, which appears to be the norm.
27	Cincinnati	101.0	29	Face Mid-American foes next two weeks.
28	Virginia Tech	100.5	29	Hokies rally past Jackets. ACC Title still alive.
29	Nebraska	100.1	NR	Huskers off to a 3-0 start.
30	Fresno State	100.0	NR	Even off a loss Bulldogs deserved to be ranked.

One thing’s for sure:  these guys ain’t overly impressed with the SEC right now.

A few ASU notes

It’s hard to find a lot of substance on Arizona State this week.  Whether that’s due to the Sun Devils crapping the bed against UNLV last Saturday or just the different level of coverage outside the South is hard to say.   But anyway, here are a few nuggets I’ve managed to dig up.

• Sounds like Erickson and Carpenter intend to get back to throwing the ball more this week, not so much because of what they might have seen in the Georgia-South Carolina game, but as a result of how the UNLV game turned out.
• ASU has been battling depth and injury problems, particularly at linebacker, as CFN notes in its game prediction.  But the Sun Devils get back two defensive players from suspension this week and are moving several players around in their linebacking corps as a result.
• I don’t want to presume to tell Mike Bobo how to do his job, but if you look at the ASU split stats on rushing defense, it’s pretty obvious what he ought to be doing in the second half with Knowshon Moreno.

Martinez reflects.

Marc Weiszer posted a Q &A he conducted with Coach Martinez after practice yesterday.  Here’s the key part:

Q: I know you did a lot of three man front, but you were bringing linebackers occasionally. What concerns presented themselves?
A: We blew three coverages. That was a concern. That’s huge. You can’t do that. In each one of the series, we blew major coverages. One guy makes a mistake and it just breaks down the whole defense. We gave up four big plays and three of them were in those last three series and everybody knows about the fourth one–that was the touchdown. What concerns is that we gave it to them because we blew coverages. That’s on us. Could we have tackled better? Could we have pass rushed better? Could we have done some other fundamentals better? Yeah. What concerns me is that we weren’t able to stay focused and concentrate and execute the defense–11 guys. One guy affected each one of those drives each time. We let a guy loose. We busted a coverage. We let another guy loose. That’s what concerns me. Whether we rushed enough or not? We mixed that up. We were rushing three, we were rushing five, we did six, we did seven. We brought back three. We knew that the go-to guy was Jared Cook and we were just trying to give him different looks and when it came down to it, we made sure that we tightened the coverage up against him and let him beat us. The bottom line is we won and guys found a way to make a play.

Martinez sounds a little frustrated – if you notice, all of his other answers about the South Carolina game are very short, but not this one.

What has to be of a little concern to Martinez is what the split stats for passing defense broken down by quarter show, namely, that opponents’ passing ratings are increasing each quarter throughout the game.  Some of that can no doubt be attributed to playing backups late in the games that were under control, but not all of it can.  Some of it also has to be the result of teams making effective in game adjustments on offense in response to what Georgia is running on defense.

Looking at some SEC trends

We’ve got four SEC matchups coming up this Saturday.  Courtesy of Mr. Steele, here are some random trend lines to ponder for the in conference games this week.

• Florida at Tennessee. The team that has rushed for more yards has won 16 of the last 18 games.
• Vanderbilt at Mississippi. Currently, Vandy is 1-5 in road openers.  Ole Miss has lost its last four SEC home openers.  The home team in this series is 6-1 this decade.
• LSU at Auburn. The winner of this game has won the SEC West six of the last eight years.  The home team has won eight in a row in this series.
• Alabama at Arkansas. Home team has won four straight in this one, but Arkansas is 2-5 in its last seven SEC home openers.

Make of these what you will.