Who's No. 1 now?
I have a friend in Missouri who sent out an email a week and a half ago in celebration of the University of Missouri football team’s rising to number one in the football polls. The next week all they would need to do is beat Oklahoma to play for the National Championship and the real Big Bucks.
A number of his friends from around the country emailed him and copied me and others, telling him to enjoy it while he can, that these things can be very fleeting. And indeed they are.
As you may know, Oklahoma thrashed Missouri, for the second time this season. Mizzou fell in the polls to No. 6.
As the friends counseled him right after that No. 1 celebration, this has been a season where it seemed that being designated one of the top two teams in the country has been a bit of a curse. There has been a parade of teams who ascended to the highest in the polls, only to fall the following weekend.
There are a lot of reasons why it has been so hard to stay on top. One obvious reason is the lack of a truly dominant team. No one is good enough, save Hawaii, with their cream puff schedule, to go through the season undefeated.
You have to credit coaching for a lot of the “upsets.” There are a lot of talented coaches out there who are great at looking at films of opponents and spotting a weakness. Then they come up with ways to exploit that weakness.
I went to a meeting Monday night, but imagine my surprise when I turned on Monday Night Football and there, in the second half, the lowly Baltimore Ravens were tied with the mighty New England Patriots, the NFL’s only undefeated team.
I credit the Raven’s coaching staff with coming up with a winning game plan, and they certainly could have won that game. There was more to it than that.
As I have said many times before, I know football is played on many different levels, and often I believe games are won or lost before the team takes the field. I believe Baltimore believed in Baltimore. I believe the players believed enough in their team, their game plan, to win that game.
On the opposite side of the field, the New England Patriots knew they were a better team and should easily beat Baltimore. After a tough match with another team that they should have easily beaten, Philadelphia, the Pats struggled again.
You can argue that it is hard to summon the level of play necessary to overcome the inevitable bumps and bruises along the way. Every team will have breaks during the season that go against them.
They celebrated the Mighty Undefeated Dolphins of 1972 Monday night and had their coach, Don Shula, in the booth. If you go back and look at that season, Miami had their share of close games against clearly inferior teams.
The mark of a champion, and the Patriots can claim this, is the ability to overcome a sub-par performance and pull out the win. We put a lot of stock in wins, and we should.
One of the benchmarks increasingly used in the BCS rankings is the strength of schedule, hence Hawaii not getting into the championship game, despite going undefeated. With the balanced scheduling used by the NFL, with the better teams from last year scheduled to play the other better teams, you tend to have harder games every week.
There is a lot of comment that the Southeastern Conference is so hard to win and even more difficult to go through undefeated because of the high level of competition. We in the ACC would have a hard time denying that, as I think our record against them wasn’t very good. I know Virginia Tech, our supposed best team, took a beating by LSU.
You can debate that if New England goes through this 16-game season undefeated, that is an even greater feat than Miami’s season, with the strength of schedule they play. Of course, like the Indianapolis Colts prior to last year, who had strong season after strong season, if you don’t win the big games at the end, the aura quickly fades.
Yes, the Mizzou Tigers had their 15 minutes of fame, and then the spotlight moved to another team. The target on the back of jerseys moved to another team.
And the fans of the Tigers, and a lot of other fans, joined in pulling against the new number one.
A number of his friends from around the country emailed him and copied me and others, telling him to enjoy it while he can, that these things can be very fleeting. And indeed they are.
As you may know, Oklahoma thrashed Missouri, for the second time this season. Mizzou fell in the polls to No. 6.
As the friends counseled him right after that No. 1 celebration, this has been a season where it seemed that being designated one of the top two teams in the country has been a bit of a curse. There has been a parade of teams who ascended to the highest in the polls, only to fall the following weekend.
There are a lot of reasons why it has been so hard to stay on top. One obvious reason is the lack of a truly dominant team. No one is good enough, save Hawaii, with their cream puff schedule, to go through the season undefeated.
You have to credit coaching for a lot of the “upsets.” There are a lot of talented coaches out there who are great at looking at films of opponents and spotting a weakness. Then they come up with ways to exploit that weakness.
I went to a meeting Monday night, but imagine my surprise when I turned on Monday Night Football and there, in the second half, the lowly Baltimore Ravens were tied with the mighty New England Patriots, the NFL’s only undefeated team.
I credit the Raven’s coaching staff with coming up with a winning game plan, and they certainly could have won that game. There was more to it than that.
As I have said many times before, I know football is played on many different levels, and often I believe games are won or lost before the team takes the field. I believe Baltimore believed in Baltimore. I believe the players believed enough in their team, their game plan, to win that game.
On the opposite side of the field, the New England Patriots knew they were a better team and should easily beat Baltimore. After a tough match with another team that they should have easily beaten, Philadelphia, the Pats struggled again.
You can argue that it is hard to summon the level of play necessary to overcome the inevitable bumps and bruises along the way. Every team will have breaks during the season that go against them.
They celebrated the Mighty Undefeated Dolphins of 1972 Monday night and had their coach, Don Shula, in the booth. If you go back and look at that season, Miami had their share of close games against clearly inferior teams.
The mark of a champion, and the Patriots can claim this, is the ability to overcome a sub-par performance and pull out the win. We put a lot of stock in wins, and we should.
One of the benchmarks increasingly used in the BCS rankings is the strength of schedule, hence Hawaii not getting into the championship game, despite going undefeated. With the balanced scheduling used by the NFL, with the better teams from last year scheduled to play the other better teams, you tend to have harder games every week.
There is a lot of comment that the Southeastern Conference is so hard to win and even more difficult to go through undefeated because of the high level of competition. We in the ACC would have a hard time denying that, as I think our record against them wasn’t very good. I know Virginia Tech, our supposed best team, took a beating by LSU.
You can debate that if New England goes through this 16-game season undefeated, that is an even greater feat than Miami’s season, with the strength of schedule they play. Of course, like the Indianapolis Colts prior to last year, who had strong season after strong season, if you don’t win the big games at the end, the aura quickly fades.
Yes, the Mizzou Tigers had their 15 minutes of fame, and then the spotlight moved to another team. The target on the back of jerseys moved to another team.
And the fans of the Tigers, and a lot of other fans, joined in pulling against the new number one.
posted by Barry | 9:51 AM
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