Burning question from Tuscaloosa

Here’s what I want to know:  Is Alabama the number one team in the country because Junior said so, or is Florida the number one team in the country because Junior’s moral victory against the Gators was less impressive than the one against the Tide?

Bonus question:  what was going though Marc Curles’ mind (because you know he was watching the broadcast) as he watched Cody running down the field with his helmet off after his game saving block?

Advertisement

It took you three and a half months to come up with that?

You would think that one thing the Vol fan base would have in spades this year would be a sense of humor, but judging from this attempt at witty repartee which falls flat on its face, maybe Junior needs to recruit some of that, too.

Take this narrative and shove it.

I’m not sure whether it’s directed towards the WWL, the GPOOE™ or a little of both, but I’m digging Tavarres King’s sarcasm:

The college football world received daily updates.

The drama centered on whether the game’s most recognizable player – Florida quarterback Tim Tebow – was going to play or sit out a top-five showdown against LSU on Oct.10

“It was interesting,” Georgia receiver Tavarres King said. “I was wondering why I wasn’t on SportsCenter.”

King, like Tebow, had been recently diagnosed with a concussion.

Well played, sir.

A couple of one man bands

Two posts with some statistical anomalies caught my eye, both involving players from the ACC.

First, Steve Megargee takes a look at Tech’s Demaryius Thomas’ season.  He is the Jackets’ passing game, as this chart demonstrates.

The main target
This look at Georgia Tech’s individual receiving statistics shows how critical Demaryius Thomas is to the Yellow Jackets’ passing attack.
Name	Catches	Yards	TDs
Demaryius Thomas	27	671	4
Anthony Allen	4	81	1
Stephen Hill	3	91	0
Embry Peeples	3	69	0
Orwin Smith	2	26	0
Jonathan Dwyer	1	11	0
Totals	40	949	5

As concentrated as that is, Thomas is having a freakishly good year. How good? This good:

Demaryius Thomas – whose nickname is Bay-Bay” – ranks second in the nation in yards per catch. He has more receiving yards than anyone in the top 10 while playing on a team that throws the ball significantly less often. Here’s a look at the top 10 players in that category and how often their teams throw the ball. To qualify for the list, a player must have participated in 75 percent of his team’s games while averaging at least two catches per game. NOTE: * Reflects percentage of plays team has passed the ball this season. (Source: cfbstats.com)
Name	School	Catches	Yards	Avg.	Pct.*
Anthony McCoy	USC	14	350	25.0	42.3
Demaryius Thomas	Georgia Tech	27	671	24.9	17.7
Owen Spencer	NC State	12	287	23.9	52.6
Colin Larmond	Boston College	17	368	21.7	40.6
Curenski Gilleylen	Nebraska	13	281	21.6	50.0
Uzoma Nwachukwu	Texas A&M	21	445	21.2	51.9
Slick Shelley	Tulsa	20	411	20.5	41.0
Dane Sanzenbacher	Ohio State	16	326	20.4	39.2
Wes Kemp	Missouri	13	261	20.1	52.3
Jonathan Baldwin	Pittsburgh	28	549	19.6	42.5
Rashaun Greer	Colorado State	23	451	19.6	45.1

Like I said, freakish.  He’s got the best set of stats on that chart in an offense that throws the ball well under 20% of the time.  Despite averaging less than four catches per game, he leads the ACC in receiving yards per game and just slightly trails A.J. Green in that category.

Meanwhile, down south of the border, Christian Ponder is having one heckuva year in Tallahassee, capped by leading that stunning Thursday night comeback against North Carolina.  And when I say “leading”, I mean leading:  FSU’s top rusher finished the game with 18 yards and the Seminoles as a team only gained 43 yards on the ground for the game.  With no running game, Ponder finished 33-40, 395 yards and 3 TDs.  He also completed his last sixteen passes in a row in bringing his team back from an 18-point deficit.

If you look at his numbers on the season, he’s pretty much been the story for the FSU offense all year, as Matt Hinton shows us with this chart.

So Dawg fans, if you’re wondering whether a quarterback needs a running game to succeed, there you go.