After this past weekend of college football, it's more than safe to say that the similarities between last year's season and this year's are here to stay. This fact is amazing, given the volatility that characterized the 2007 season on a weekly basis. At this point in time, it's not a stretch to conjecture that a new era in college football has been ushered in -- one in which upsets abound, and a handful of teams no longer dominate the national championship discussion throughout the season. What will be interesting to note, if the trend continues in the coming years, is how the pollsters respond to this newfound volatility.
Currently, the teams are reshuffled based on losses in a pretty formulaic manner, and unfortunately a slew of wins or an undefeated record takes precedence in situations in which it certainly should not. It's clear there needs to be a modification in the way they analyze and rank teams. I don't pretend to know what such a change would look like, but in my opinion, if the environment of college football moves forward into the future as is, we'll at the very least glean some further insight into the ranking process and how best to designate which teams are actually 'best.'
Anyway, I digress. Ryan and I decided, in the wake of Saturday's barrage of upsets and lopsided games, that a column on the weekend's "most shocking loss" would be appropriate. The choices are many: Florida destroyed LSU, Penn State routed Wisconsin, Texas beat No. 1 Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout, Missouri played surprisingly poorly in a loss to an Oklahoma State team that simply is not that good, and Vanderbilt became the second highly ranked SEC team this season to lose to one of the Mississippi squads.
Florida's rolling of LSU was a tempting choice, but the Tigers had already looked weak of late, skating by an Auburn team that just got beat by Arkansas. The Nittany Lions' abuse of Wisconsin also offers a possibly viable choice, too -- it was pretty lopsided, but I'm not inclined to give Penn State all that much credit, seeing as they are, after all, a Big Ten team. Texas' victory in the Red River Shootout was a bit of a surprise, and the style in which they did it -- overcoming some pretty significant deficits throughout the game and closing when they needed to -- makes choosing them tempting, but for shock value, it doesn't quite do the job. What does, in my opinion, is Missouri's surprising loss to Oklahoma State.
The Tigers went into the season with high expectations after an impressive win over a dangerous Arkansas team in last year's Cotton Bowl and looked the part of a national championship contender after their first five games, in which they racked up over 50 points per game.
Going into this weekend, Tigers quarterback Chase Daniels was the Heisman frontrunner, having tossed 15 touchdowns versus one pick. The Tigers offense was balanced and clicking on all cylinders, and the Daniels-Maclin combo was looking like it was the best in the country. After Saturday's loss to Oklahoma State, it still does (they connected 8 times for 120 yards), but it was disappointing to see Daniels' pristine decision making skills fade in the second half, and the lack of anything even resembling a running game was astonishing, considering the success the Tigers had running the football their previous five games. As I alluded to previously, Oklahoma State might be undefeated, but I don't see them as a team worthy of the top 10, and if I had to give an educated guess, I would say that the Cowboys will lose all three of the big remaining games (Texas, Texas Tech and OU) they have left on their schedule.
The season is not over for Mizzou, and next week's matchup with Texas provides an immediate and golden opportunity to bounce back. In my opinion, the Tigers are the better team, and after their heartbreaking loss to the Cowboys, they'll be out for blood. Either way, Saturday's loss puts a huge damper on what was shaping up to be a potential national championship run and only leaves us to further wonder what is going on with college football these days.
