NCAA football, 2013-14

[CountDeMoney]

He strikes me as an anti-choicer.  It's his throwing motion.  Frank Reich was the same way, and he's still all up in the 700 Club.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Luck?  He just seems super dorky to me. 

[katmai]

He strikes me as an anti-choicer.  It's his throwing motion.  Frank Reich was the same way, and he's still all up in the 700 Club.

Cuz!

[dps]

Frank Reich

With that name, you'd certainly expect fascist tendencies to start with.

[Valmy]

LOL Texas is ranked between BYU and Ole Miss in the BCS.  WAY TO RUB IT IN GUYS

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/rankings/bcs

[Valmy]

A&M?  They recruit nationally.

They do?

In any case I no longer have to endure associating with them.  The SEC can enjoy their bizarre combination of a simultaneous raging inferiority and superiority complexes.

[CountDeMoney]

A&M?  They recruit nationally.

They do?

Or at least they used to once upon a time.  Do they take Longhorn rejects?

[MadBurgerMaker]

Or at least they used to once upon a time.  Do they take Longhorn rejects?

Well, yes, but they also get a lot of the guys they want. 

A&M hasn't ever been a big national recruiter that I'm aware of. Even when they were competing with SMU for best athlete salaries in the 80s (a competition they lost, but still got caught doing), their teams were predominantly from Texas, just like they are now.

E:  Well, I guess you could count Louisiana as "national."  They regularly get players from there.

[Berkut]

Arizona is riding a three game winning streak into this weekends game with UCLA.

Earlier this year they had a three game wining streak going into a match up with Washington that everyone said would be the real test to see if Arizona was for real. Well, after that game, the answer seemed to be "not so much", as Washington stomped on the Wildcats.

But since then...well, it's been interesting. The big issue early in the year was QB play. Senior QB Denker was simply not Pac-12 good enough. Through his first four games he was 45/90 for 445 yards, 2 TDs, and 2 INTs. Abysmal.

But something clicked during the USC loss. Denker seemed to figure it out, or suddenly adjust to the speed of D1 football. Since then, he has gone 91 for 144 for 1,057 yards, seven TDs and one interception.

And he has put on a clinic on how to run the ball in a spread read option offense when the defense is committed to containing one of the very best running backs in the country. Denker is not that fast, but he has had huge games running the read option, as everyone collapses on Carey and Denker goes off tackle.

Now, these last three games have been wins against Utah (pretty good), Colorado (terrible) and Cal (makes Colorado look good), so once again...who knows, really?

What is promising is that the Arizona offense has improved enough that they are going to make defenses work again. Denker can complete enough passes to make it hard to put eight in the box, and he can certainly run well enough to make selling out against Carey problematic.

Whether that is enough to beat the quality teams coming up (UCLA, WSU, Oregon, ASU) of course remains to be seen. I am hoping for 2-2.

UCLA is winnable, but hardly certain.
WSU the same
Oregon...yeah, not so much
ASU - Greatly improved team, but they are ASU, so winnable.

Prediction:

4-0: 5%
3-1: 20%
2-2: 55%
1-3: 15%
0-4: 5%

[katmai]

1-3 is 60% likely, the only gimme is Wazzu.

[Admiral Yi]

Betting opportunity. 

[MadBurgerMaker]

Valmy:  Steve Patterson is the new AD.

I had to google him  He is (was) Arizona State's AD, so maybe this makes Berk happy too.  Supposedly as the president of the Trailblazers, dude shitcanned 108 people in his first year.   

[Berkut]

1-3 is 60% likely, the only gimme is Wazzu.

So why would you think that the likely result is a loss for every non-gimme game?

[katmai]

1-3 is 60% likely, the only gimme is Wazzu.

So why would you think that the likely result is a loss for every non-gimme game?

I think UCLA is better than you give em credit, and after the curb stomping on Huskies I would say the same for Sun Devils.
And well, Oregon is Oregon

[katmai]

Don't get me wrong Berkie, I hope I'm wrong and you guys run the table, but after watching Cats vs Dawgs and then how UDub fared vs ASU and Oregon...