Let's start on Rocky Top this week. The University of Tennessee is the ultimate example of "be careful what you wish for." They forced out legendary coach Phillip Fulmer because it had been a decade since his last national championship. They ended up with Lane Kiffin for one season and a bunch of the thugs he recruited (illegally). They may face sanctions for his actions. He left Tennessee worse off than it has been in 30 years. Then they get a PR hire, one who has never had any real football success. After getting thumped at home by Oregon, they now welcome Florida, who is a 16-point favorite ON THE ROAD. I know a lot of teams would get trounced by that combination, but Tennessee shouldn't be 3-score underdogs at home to anybody at home, and two weeks in a row! That wouldn't ever happen to a Phillip Fulmer Tennessee team. Never force out a legend. Time will tell what happens with FSU...
Rich Rodriguez is in his third year at Michigan. He finally has "his" QB: a hybrid runner/thrower. Denard Robinson is perfect for his wide-open attack. This is another situation where a school is in the worst stretch in its history after forcing out a legendary coach because he hadn't won enough lately. Then to go hire the brash, whining anti-clutch Rich Rodriguez. What a poor set of choices. Now I wish Denard Robinson all the success in the world, he seems like a good kid and he is an exceptional athlete. I just wish it didn't have to go hand-in-hand with Rich Rod's.
With their abysmally poor showing over the weekend, the ACC has added itself to the list of conferences that are not in contention for the BCS National Championship. All of the overrated ACC teams from the preseason (besides North Carolina who was idle) got beat and had a very poor showing: Miami played the slop-game of the weekend at Ohio State, Florida State was out of it in quarter one at Oklahoma, Virginia Tech lost to FCS James Madison, and Georgia Tech lost at Kansas (who lost to an FCS school the week prior). They now sit with as many ranked teams as the WAC, Conference-USA, and the Big East. The Sun Belt, Conference-USA, MAC, and Big East are also current members of the out-of-the-championship-race-in-week-two club. If Boise State goes undefeated, there is always a chance, so the WAC is still "in contention." TCU and Utah keep the MWC in the thick of it as well, but as either/both of them lose, that finishes another conference. The Pac 10 will not survive a loss by Oregon either. It's probably going to come down to the Texas-Oklahoma-Nebraska winner, SEC champion, Big Ten champion, Boise State, and TCU. Imagine in basketball, if the national championship was limited to about 6 or 8 teams in early-mid December, before conference play even started...it's a good thing we love the game, because that's just screwy.
To win against Florida State, they must either rotate the QBs or play Heaps, with Nelson coming in as a more situation QB. You cannot play Nelson and bring Heaps in situationally. You also cannot play Nelson as the full-time QB: if Air Force could completely shut BYU down, imagine what the athletes at Florida State, TCU, Utah (or even Utah State) could do? Heaps may not be ready to be the full-time starter yet. If that's the case: rotate until he is. It became clear on Saturday, with the poor play at WR/TE, Nelson will never be ready to be the full-time starter. 65% of the offense (and 100% of the scoring) came in the half when BYU was rotating QBs. In the half that Nelson went at it alone, BYU got the other 35% and only "threatened" to score once. The game got away from BYU when they stopped rotating QBs. Nelson may exhibit leadership skills, but he only led the team to defeat...Now Heaps didn't play well and they didn't score points when he was out there, but at least it forced the defense to play well and differently. Plus, it's not his fault DiLuigi fumbled the ball inside the 10-yard line.
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