A Baylor coach did what?

Baylor offensive line coach Eric Schnupp was cited for urinating on a bar in a Waco tavern. Though he was not arrested, he was cited for a class C misdemeanor which carries a $258 fine. On Tuesday Coach Guy Morriss, who was happy to have his name in the news, said Schnupp is suspended indefinitely.

The suspension of Schnupp comes at a time Baylor can little afford to lose coaches. Last week Baylor 3-4 (0-3) nearly broke through for their first conference win on the road against Top-25 Kansas. Falling behind 3-0 early in the game, Baylor stormed back against the Jayhawks to go on an 11 play 50 yard drive that ended with an emphatic field goal of their own. Tied 3-3 Baylor handed the game over to Coach Schnupp to try to win the game with their vaunted running attack. Apparently, someone on the Coaching staff (Fire Guy Morriss!!) forgot that Baylor can't run the ball and is ranked 112th in the country in rushing offense. Did I mention Schnupp is the o-line coach? Without being able to run the ball (48 yards on 19 attempts), Baylor was unable to hang with the Jayhawks and lost a nail-biter 58-10.


What does relieving oneself on a bar have to do with Coaching the offensive line? Well, nothing really, but if you relieve yourself on a bar, while the police are already there for another reason and you get caught, then you are fair game to be ridiculed. The real question is how did Baylor, the world's largest baptist university, allow a counter-pisser to be involved with their fine university. Apparently, they didn't do their research. It seems Schnupp was a member of the University of Miami football team from 1995-2000.


Don't try to act out things you see
on the back of a pick-up truck

It is tough in the SEC East

Take a minute and look at the SEC East, then look at the AP top 25. Five teams from the SEC East are ranked in the top 21 in The Associated Press poll released Sunday.

And three of the SEC's seven ranked teams are in the top eight -- No. 5 LSU, No. 6 South Carolina and No. 8 Kentucky. Florida is No. 14th, Auburn No. 18, Tennessee No. 20 and Georgia No. 21.

Only Vanderbilt (3-3), which lost on a last-second field goal to Georgia on Saturday and travels to USC this week, isn't ranked among the East teams.

South Carolina has the following remaining games:

10/20/07 vs. Vanderbilt

10/27/07 at Tennessee

11/03/07 at Arkansas

11/10/07 vs. Florida

11/24/07 vs. Clemson

Anyone what to comment on predicting the remaining games, as far as wins/losses? Can USC run the table and win out?

could it be

Florida was ranked #6 last year when the BCS polls came out, went on to win the national championship

South Carolina is ranked number 6 in the BCS poll this year------ USC will____________________________

SC Pass Defense no longer #1 but Clemson is

After allowing North Carolina qb T.J. Yates to throw for 285 yards, USC dropped from first to third nationally in pass defense (149.1 yards a game). After being known as having best pass defense in the nation, the torch is passed to Clemson. It did not help that the Gamecocks were without three of their top defensive backs at the end of Saturday’s game. Starting cornerback Carlos Thomas (neck) and reserve safety Stoney Woodson (hamstring) did not play. Starting safety Darian Stewart (knee) left after breaking up a Hail Mary pass on the next-to-last snap.

The Gamecocks now trail Clemson (135.2) and LSU (149.0).

USC vs. UT game to be on ESPN

Announced today in the news outlets is that The University of South Carolina's game in Knoxville against Tennessee on Oct. 27 will kickoff at 7:45 p.m. and be televised by ESPN.

It will be USC's third game this year on ESPN.

UT leads the series 20-3-2, including a 12-1 mark at Neyland Stadium. But the Gamecocks beat UT 16-15 on Oct. 29, 2005, in their last trip to Knoxville.

I am glad that we will be playing the game at night b/c it seems our team does better on the field at night rather than day games.

Oh - This weeks ESPN College GameDay will be live from Lexington, KY as the #7 Kentucky Wildcats host the #15 Florida Gators.....I like UK's chances going into this game and a UF loss would help USC's chances but then that leaves UK with one loss....hmmmmm.....thoughts?

BCS Observations

The first BCS standings came out this week. The top 15 are as follows:

1. Ohio State
2. South Florida
3. Boston College
4. LSU
5. Oklahoma
6. South Carolina
7. Kentucky
8. Arizona State
9. West Virginia
10. Oregon
11. Virginia Tech
12. California
13. Kansas
14. Southern Cal
15. Florida

Two components of the BCS, the Coaches Poll and the Harris Poll, are public and have been widely published for weeks. The computer rankings, on the other hand, are not nearly as public. If one looks at the way the computers have the rankings, the top 15 is very different.

The Computers have the rankings as follows (omitting the highest and lowest ranking for each team of course):

1. South Florida 1.000
2. LSU .9300
3. South Carolina .8600
4. Kentucky .8500
t5. Ohio State .8300
t5. Arizona State .8300
t7. Kansas .6600
t7. Virginia Tech .6600
9. West Virginia .6400
10. Oklahoma .5500
11. Auburn .5300
12. Oregon .5000
t13. California .4800
t13. Virginia .4800
15. Missouri .4300

Where's Southern Cal? 22. at .0900

South Florida is #1 in at least 7 of the 8 computer polls. Pretty good for a team that was thought to be an also-ran in the Big East at the beginning of the year.

The SEC has spots 2-4 in the computers. Perhaps their reputation as the best conference is not simply media hype.

The Conferences break down this way SEC: 4; Pac-10: 3; the rest 2 each.

If the two human polls are taken as representative of reputation, preseason predictions and hype and the computer polls are taken as indicative of numbers, then who of the BCS top 15 is benefiting from reputation, preseason prediction, and hype and who is being hurt the most?

Benefiting:

1. Southern Cal +.5736
2. Oklahoma +.31845
3. Florida +.1878
4. California +.17995

Suffering:

1. Kentucky -.25005
2. Arizona State -.2203
3. Kansas -.21445
4. South Carolina -.1752

Thus, Southern Cal and Oklahoma are way overrated in the polls. Kentucky, Arizona State, and Kansas are way underrated.

Why are these teams overrated or underrated? Another way to look at it might be why are some teams getting so much credit in the polls and not from the computers? It could be bias; it could be reputation; it could be hype; it could be ignorance. I think it is something much simpler: the preseason poll. Take for instance the Coach's Preseason Poll. The overrated teams were ranked 1, 8, 3, 12, and 10. The underrated teams were ranked NR (1 vote), NR (1 vote), NR (0 votes), NR (90) votes.

It takes a long time to either climb the polls or to fall out of them. Too often (all the time) a team's rank in the poll is based significantly on where they were ranked last week, which was in turn based on the week before, so on and so forth until you get to preseason rankings. The preseason rankings are not based on football, but are based on the predictions of people who year in year out are proven wrong. Maybe we ought to consider no polls for at least a few weeks so that our rankings of football teams can be based, at least in part, on football.

(Numbers derived this way: In the BCS formula, each team is awarded a percentage score for their ranking in the polls. The percentage is determined by dividing the points (or votes) a team received by the total points possible. The number used by the BCS to represent the computer formulas is done in a similar manner, but each team's highest and lowest ranking is omitted. I simply subtracted the computer average from the poll average.)

Delenda est Clemson

Movin' On Up....

That is right big guy, show that Gamecock pride....The USC Gamecocks moved up today in both the Associated Press and the USA Today college football polls. In the AP poll, USC went up one position from No. 7 to No. 6. In the ESPN poll, the Gamecocks went from No. 12 to No. 8.

Oh and in the BCS poll...SC is #6!

BCS standings -/- POLLS

A Tell of Two Halfs

It took the hands of McKinley (above) to tip the pass of UNC that was caught at the 1 yard line to save the day and secure victory in the final seconds of the game.

Seventh-ranked University of South Carolina withstood a second-half rally and became bowl-eligible in the process Saturday with a 21-15 non-conference victory over the University of North Carolina before 61,000 fans at Kenan Stadium. Thank god for our defense which was led by E Cook and Eric Norwood, both of whom had great games.

Here are some links to some good articles about the game yesterday:

Greenville News

The State

The State (II)

ESPN

ESPN Box Score

Review of the 5 Keys

Gamecocks beat the Tarheels 21 to 15 yesterday. So, what do we take away from the UNC win...just that it was a win and move on. Not the flashy win we need nor a great game. It will go down as a 'W' and at the end of the day that is all that matters, right?

Let's review the 5 keys to a win we posted here earlier:

1. Smelley must be on 'q'--- USC quarterback Chris Smelley was 17 for 26 with 172 yards passing to go with 1 INT and 3 TDs. Not a bad day but what hurt him (besides the O line performance) was a weak 2nd half. USC threw just 7 passes in the 2nd half and managed just 62 yards on 23 plays. He did have scoring passes to three different receivers, covering 3 yards to Dion Lecorn, 30 yards to McKinley and 12 yards to Jared Cook. I give him and the offense a 'C+.'

2. SC Special Teams --- Gamecocks missed a crucial FG towards the end that could have "saved the drama for your mommy," but they did hold UNC KR Tate to just 60 yards total on KRs and 6 yards on PRs. The one highlight was the hit SC's Cody Wells put on UNC KR Tate. It knocked Tate out for the game and made for a good replay. I have to give them a 'C' also.

3. SC Defense must continue the trend --- Heck of a game was played in the 1st half - they shut down UNC but the second half was a different ball game. USC gave up 286 yards in the 2nd half to 112 yards in the 1st half. UNC passed for 221 yards of its 286 yards in the 2nd half. The 2nd half the defense looked lost at times (I know they had a ton of injuries) but at least the D stood tall at the end of the game to knock down 2 hail mary try's. I give this key a "B-" only b/c the defense won the game for us at the end.

4. Boyd / Davis must run run run --- Boyd had 95 yards rushing and Mike Davis had 28 yards. Mike Davis has a fumble but again in the second half the entire offense was poor. These two could not find running room so I have to give this key a "C" rating b/c they played well for the first 30 mins.

5. Gamecock TE play --- Saunders/Cook/Boyd did good things. Andy Boyd was forced out of the game with a injury but Cook played nicely when given a chance (which was only in the 1st half). Cook had 3 rec for 55 yards and a TD. So I give them a "C+" here due to the fact that again in the 1st half it was clicking but in the 2nd it was not there.

It was not a stellar performance but the 1st half was enough (barely) to win...thoughts?