College Football Week 5 Picks

My first week since creating this making picks, hopefully and I can do something that doesn't screw anybody over to much.


1. Stanford (-7) over Washington
2. West Virginia (-11.5) over Baylor
3. Tennessee (+14) over Georgia
4. Ohio State (+3) over Michigan State. (Braxton is going to go off. )

***Pick of the Week.

Arkansas (+14) over aTm.

I don't think Texas aTm has proven anything this year, and I think Tyler Wilson will want Arkansas to finally win a quality game.

Why Florida State will NOT dethrone the SEC

Florida State University defeated Clemson last Saturday night in a game that many thought was a very impressive win. I personally watched the game and was entertained throughout. It was a game between two top five teams in the country and both with impressive offense's. But, the story going in was how FSU's defense was ranked "number one". OK, really FSU faithful? Your really going to brag about that in week four, with the schedule you have played??? Lets look, FSU so far has played Murray State, Wake Forest, and Savannah State who lost to Oklahoma State 84-0. How in God's green earth can you be running your mouth about a defense that has faced two bowl subdivision teams, and then Wake Forest who hasn't been relevant since Aaron Curry was there, and they went 8-5 that year. They also gave up thirty-one points to an offense that tore up the ACC last year, but only put up thirty-three against West Virginia last year in the Orange Bowl. This is how good WVU's defense was last year...they gave up forty-seven points to LSU....

Let's look at Florida State's program recently..

They haven't won a National Championship since 1999, haven't won the ACC since 2005, haven't won more than ten games since 1999, and haven't won a BCS bowl game since 1999. Does this sound like a program that is going to come up and take down someone from the conference that has won the last six National Championships? This is how BAD the ACC is when it comes to playing in BCS games. They are 2-13 ALL-TIME when playing in a BCS game. The fact that they even are allowed to send a team to a BCS game is a joke. You could probably throw Baylor, or Kansas into the ACC and they would walk away with the conference championship every year. Florida State has also been one of the most over-rated teams over the last five years when pre-season rankings come out from the AP. Their average pre-season ranking over the past five years is twelfth, their average post-season rank in the AP, is twenty-third. Go and look up what LSU and Alabama's have been over that span. Now looking at the schedule, Florida State has the easiest road now that they have beaten Clemson, the only other ranked team currently on their schedule is Florida, who has been turning some heads. I expect FSU to runt he table, but I would love to see an upset from Florida, who if they stay healthy will show them what playing against a real defense is like. However, if LSU, or Alabama end up with one loss, and Oregon, and FSU both go un-defeated, I don't see how you leave out an SEC team that has proven it's dominance the past decade, and would consider it a travesty.

Now lets look at offensive styles. FSU runs mostly out of the spread, run and pass. When you think of an effective offense like that, you think Oregon. They have completely evolved the spread offense, and other teams have taken notice, including FSU. Let's look at how Oregon has fared against SEC defense's the last two years. Two years ago they played Auburn in the National Championship, yes they had 374 passing yards, but what we think, when we think of Oregon's offense is their rushing attack. They had seventy-five rushing yards in that game, and Auburn's defense was in the middle of the SEC that year. Then when LSU played Oregon, Oregon had less than 300 passing yards, and less than 100 yards rushing. You would have to be crazy to think that FSU's rushing attack is half as good as a backfield with Lamichael James in it. Now E.J. Manuel, who I consider to be the most over-rated player in the entire nation. He's never thrown for more than twenty touchdowns in a season, or more than 2,500 yards. He's only won one big game in his career, and has never had any pressure like this before on his shoulders. I expect him to crack, whether it's next week, or in the National Championship.

Regardless, I will not consider FSU a true contender until they defeat someone who didn't lose in a BCS bowl game by thirty-seven points, or until they dethrone the SEC in the National Championship*. Anyways, the true National Championship is November 3rd.

*Defeating a team from another conference won't impress me at all unless its WVU.


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Replacement Officials

Everybody thought that a bad holding call here, a defensive pass interference call there was bad during the first three weeks of the NFL season. Man, were we wrong.

Before I continue onward into any bashing of the replacement referees this season, I will say that before last night, September 24, 2012, I didn’t hold much against the replacements and honestly thought they were doing a mediocre job for being thrown into a situation that they were no where near qualified for (past jobs for some refs included the Lingerie Football League, and bowl sub-division college games, ex. Division II, or III.) The reason I backed them the way I did is simple, all referees are going to make mistakes, plain and simple. If the NFL hadn’t even told us that these were replacements I’m sure there is not a large population of people out there who would have even thought twice about it. Players and coaches have gotten frustrated with a few calls in some games that led to fines of a few coaches (Kyle Shannahan of the Redskins, John Fox of the Bronco’s) but the players had not lashed out. Then Monday Night Football rolls around. If there’s one time these refs are going to make a mistake it sure as hell better not be on Monday night, primetime football, with national coverage on ESPN. As a viewer, you didn’t know what you were in for.

When the game started, it went about it self as any other NFL game would, between the Green Bay Packers, and the under-dog Seattle Seahawks. Surprisingly the Seahawks were up 7-0 at halftime after a Russell Wilson touchdown pass to Golden Tate. The second half came and went and the game was very entertaining, great defense by both sides. Now, probably the first questionable call came when Kam Chancellor, a safety for the Seahawks was flagged for a defensive pass interference call on a vital third and short down. To many it looked like he just played great defense, but the refs saw otherwise, and awarded Green Bay with a first down. Green Bay then scored a touchdown to increase their lead to 12-7 with close to nine minutes remaining in the game. The next penalty came on a first and twenty-five for the Seahawks when Wilson threw a deep pass to Sidney Rice and Sam Shields was called for the same foul, which also looked clean, but many probably saw it as a make up call. Eventually, the Seahawks went on to stall their drive after Golden Tate dropped a fourth and three in the Green Bay end zone. The Seahawks defense then stopped the Packers and forced a punt. This is when things decided to take a turn for the worse and the replacement refs did everything in their power to make sure that the entire world knew they didn’t belong in this league. Russell Wilson rolled out and made himself some time on a fourth and ten from the Green Bay twenty-four yard line and heaved up a prayer. Somehow his prayer was answered. A pile of Green Bay secondary players and Seattle wide receivers jumped up for the ball and it seemed as if M.D. Jennings of the Packers had come away with a game ending interception, but Golden Tate did have his arms on the ball as well. About five seconds went by while viewers, including myself, stared at the television anxiously waiting on the refs to make the call. The first call you see is a line-judge signaling touchdown. I went insane; realizing I may have just witnessed one of the most amazing plays in Monday Night Football history. But then the worst thing that could have possibly happened, happened. And almost a second after the touchdown was called. The back-judge was right next to the line-judge who made the touchdown call and even looked at him before he made the call, and made the signal for the clock to stop, which would mean that the Packers had intercepted the ball.

The NFL world was silenced right then. Everybody who knew the situation realized that this was the leagues worst fear. Letting the replacement referees determine the outcome of a game. Since the play was ruled a touchdown on the field there is no challenging/reviewing who has possession of a catch, the only thing that can change the play is if the player who catches the pass is out of bounds. But with these replacement referees, they still went and reviewed something that in un-reviewable and still the play was ruled a touchdown. 

Stated below are the official NFL rules that pertain to this play:

Article 3

Item 5: Simultaneous Catch…If a pass is caught simultaneously by two eligible opponents, and both players retain it, the ball belongs to the passers. It is not a simultaneous catch if a player gains control first and an opponent subsequently gains joint control. If the ball is muffed after simultaneous touching by two such players, all the players of the passing team become eligible to catch the loose ball.

If you watched the game and saw the play, or saw a replay I think it’s pretty conclusive that Golden Tate, and M.D. Jennings did not catch the ball “simultaneously”. It looked obvious, to the ESPN anchors covering the game and to myself, that Jennings had sole possession of the ball.

This will be the game everyone will talk about probably all year. We probably won’t stop hearing about it for a month, or until the referees and the league end the lockout and the real referees are back on the field. One has to wonder though, this all happened within a matter of seconds. Is it possible that if the real referees were officiating this game, would it have been called correctly? Personally, I don’t know, and we never will know. But let the league, players, coaches, and all the referees involved in this have their fun. Roger Goodell had better pay attention because it’s not the owners, or the players that run this league. It’s the fans, and we are not happy.

From here, it’s the NFL’s play. No fan, player, or coach can decide to end this lockout between the league and the officials. Only the owners and the leagues front office have that power. As a fan, I hope to get this fixed immediately before another game is tarnished like this and makes a mockery of the sport in general.

Works Cited

1. National Football League Rulebook. N.p.: n.p., 2012. 44. Web. 25 Sept. 2012. <www.nfl.com>.

****This has not yet been edited, so changes will come.