Around College Football this week.

football

USC’s Coach Carroll made a critical mistake.

I openly wondered that if Sanchez was such a good QB, why didn’t he beat out John David Booty who was very average on his best day. When Carroll said before the draft that Sanchez should stay in school because he wasn’t ready to go pro, I scratched my head again. Given how the two Sanchez replacements have played, it is obvious why Carroll wanted him to stay. Now that Sanchez has proven his readiness and we have seen USC lose to a less than average Washington team (1 and 17 in the last 18 games), I can come to only one conclusion—Carroll screwed up.

I can’t believe that Sanchez wasn’t better than Booty but Carroll started the incumbent. That could cost Carroll a prime recruit in the future. There should be no favoritism in football. I couldn’t care less if a QB was blue and yellow with pink spots and stood 2’6. If he was the best guy he started. Parents of quality high school QB prospects will take notice of the clear difference between Sanchez and Booty. They may decide to go elsewhere if the incumbent starter has an edge despite ability. Had he started Sanchez over Booty in 07, maybe Sanchez would have stayed in 09.

The Florida Offense isn’t as good as last year.

There is no question that Daddy Kippen did a great job planning and executing his D to stop the Florida O. However, this Florida O is not nearly as explosive as last years model. The difference is the WRs. Tennessee committed 8 guys in the box much of the time to stop the Florida running game including Tebow. Last year, Tebow would have made them pay by taking advantage of the man to man coverage of the wideouts. But on Saturday, that did not happen often. The wideouts struggled to get open even with man coverage with one safety over the top. When the Vols stuffed the run, the Florida O struggled.

Ole Miss @ South Carolina (Thursday) This game matches 2 over rated teams. OM is living off a 1 point victory against Florida last year. They did not lose too much in the off season and return 16 starter including their QB Snead. Snead has the potential to become an NFL QB. But Old Miss has yet to play any significant opposition.

SC beat NC State but lost against a Georgia team (41-37) that had already been shown to be just a little better than average. The old ball coach Steve Spurrier gives the team credibility but his runs to national championships were a long time ago and in Florida not SC. He has not been able to get the top recruits to come to SC.

Old Miss will win but don’t expect it to be the West division winner. In my opinion, Alabama still has the best team in that half of the league.

The one thing that Ohio State lacks to become a contender in the national championship chase is a solid O line.

One of the key differences between the offense of USC and that of OSU in their big game week 2 was the O lines. The OSU offense will not generate anything close to what it could giving the talent of QB Pryor. The O line will continue to give the Bucks just enough O to win games against lower level teams but will falter against true power teams.

Texas v Texas Tech

Texas QB Colt McCoy reportedly had the flu last week and felt lethargic during the first half of the game. That could explain the closeness of the game at half time. We will see. In my opinion, the difference between those two teams was the quality of depth that Texas had that TT lacked. Oklahoma has the same quality of depth that Texas does so we will see if the O really is as good as it is billed.

Oklahoma QB issues

There are a lot of opinions on when QB Sam Bradford will return to the Sooner lineup. One paper reported it will be 3 to 4 more weeks. The team has “hoped” he will be ready to play some next weekend against the upstart U of Miami. The Sooners need Bradford for both the game against the U and against Texas. A lot of the hype of the Red River game will be gone if the Sooners have 2 losses. In my opinion, the Sooners will not cover the spread against Miami without him and could easily lose that game.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for and edits https://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on and edits .

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2 thoughts on “Around College Football this week.”

  1. I didn’t understand what Carroll was talking about either when he said Sanchez needed to stay in college another year. It was the perfect time for him to jump into the NFL before this coming draft with 5 good quarterbacks.
    .-= 2009 Taxes´s last blog ..2 Good Reasons to Trust Turbo Tax This year =-.

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  2. It is the second entry I read tonight. Thank you.

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