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Choke Bowl
Published: 11/21/2011 12:32 PM
Last Modified: 11/21/2011 12:38 PM

Here's where the lovely BCS has us:

A team that lost at home to LSU is sitting best. That's Alabama. All it has to do is beat Auburn, and it's in.

If Georgia wins the conference, the national championship game will involve no conference winners.

Nice.

The best we can do is a rematch, boring or not, among LSU-Alabama, a disgrace.

Why are we in this mess?

OU and OSU choked.

Why did they choke?

OU appears to be fundamentally unsound on defense. Here's why. Debate it if you can. It tries all too often to cover 4.3 speed burners with safeties! Remember Woods obliterating OU safety Roy Williams? It has gone on down there forever. At schools where they play real defense, safeties cover tight ends, not wide receivers. Moreover, the goal on offense is to get a wide receiver on a safety.

The poor OU safety is being taken apart online and in the press.

Where are the cornerbacks? Man up on the corner, that's the way real defenses like LSU do.

Asking a safety to stay with wide receivers is just plain dumb.

OSU choked because of a lack of experience in big games.

So who has the worst defense in the Choke Bowl, formerly known as Bedlam?

Put a safety on a wide receiver, and Weeden will light up those guys like a cheap Christmas tree. Just like everybody else good.






Reader Comments 26 Total
BobSmith007 (last year)
Defense
BobSmith007 (last year)
So Stoops and Venables (and their TW enablers) would have you believe it's all as good as it gets. It's just the wacky world of college football. Hey, after all most teams don't ever even get a sniff at the national championship. Really? Seriously, there's NFL talent scattered across the field every year ... different but great personnel each year. So no coaching could keep those groups of guys from giving up 40 two or three times a year? Defend them if you must, but if we all did our jobs as poorly as Venables year after year after year, we'd be sitting in a park complaining about the 1 percent.
BobSmith007 (last year)
And as a card-carrying BCS hater, I can't wait for the Alabama-LSU rematch. How great will that be? We get to just pretend the first game didn't count. Just give Alabama a mulligan and tell LSU this is the one that "really" counts. The rematch would pretty much undermine the last remaining argument for the BCS system ... that every game is important. You know, except for the biggest game of the season.
                    
BobSmith007 (last year)
...But maybe I'm being to closed minded. It is a bit like a playoff system. It's just a weird playoff where LSU has to beat Alabama twice for the Championship, but Alabama just needs one win over LSU.
Solo (last year)
OU secondary is just weakest link in a pathetically inconsistent D. RGIII made them look like idiots when the game was on the line...if he tried to pull that stuff against LSU they'd cart him off in the 1st quarter.
                    
BobSmith007 (last year)
...and that's not a secret, right? Thought in Venables defense, he works every Saturday and doesn't get a chance to see other defenses play.
                    
unionfatcat (last year)
A weak OU secondary, just shows us how bad the QB situation is in Austin, dont see Mack Brown coaching in the near future.
                    
vsslwc (last year)
OU tried that approach, remember? The refs gave Baylor 15 yards and a first down. You can't ask Big XII teams to play like SEC teams until you get the same type of officiating.
If an SEC team played with Big XII officials, their opponent would march down the field with repeated pass interference penalties.
The Picker (last year)
Yep, all games count. Except when Auburn won them all a few years ago and were banished to the boondocks.

Solo makes a good point, in that after all OU games, anybody who beat them is considered to be a genius. The Baylor quarterback simply played catch with no obstructions.
But What Do I Know? (last year)
Boy did Stoops give Harris a verbal lashing. A player close to them on the sideline told me part of it was "Son, do you know how much my mortgage payment is?"
dodgerfan (last year)
Picker, you should take a 1 week hiatus from football analyzation - your record this week is 6-9 with one game to go.
The Picker (last year)
How did the Dodgers do last year?
                    
dodgerfan (last year)
Overachieved with a .509. At least they can spell. This week you feature the Patroits (again)and a new favorite - the Ravins.
The Picker (last year)
We had Baylor plus the points by the way. Which gives us every right to analyze that rotten game.
                    
Brixter (last year)
So Pick what do you think of that rotten Grass Eating coach at LSU
                    
DontHaveToGuess (last year)
That you did when others didn't.
P.OswaldBoone (last year)
Look for OSU to roll OU. I see low motivation for OU to show up. If they could get away with it, they would probably forfeit. A loss to OSU and then a loss to an inferior opponent in a bowl. Maybe some changes in store for OU.
                    
OU68 (last year)
Weedy isn't RGIII - motivation, never as issue at Bedlam.
                    
DontHaveToGuess (last year)
OSU does have a genuine chance to win against OU but they will have to play better than they did at Iowa State to cash it in.
The Picker (last year)
Brixter, Loopy Les?

What he does right is put his best players at cornerback.
                    
Tulsan in Exile (last year)
Exactly!!! This is something most of the teams in the SEC do, which is why they whip goofball spread offenses over and over again.
Solo (last year)
Pass happy Big12 has relegated defenses to second class citizen status. Thinking seems to be "let's put our best talent on the O side and give the D whatever is left over." Need another WR? Steal one from the D secondary.

Note to OU coaches: doesn't matter how many points your O puts up if your D can't stop the other side from putting up more. Good grief, you scored 38 in both of your losses.

SEC still embraces the run game on the O side and they load up their D. They'll continue to add to their crystal ball collection until the other leagues start doing what works for them.
Junie S (last year)
Go ducks!
norsemustang (last year)
When a defense gives up that many yards of total offense, it sounds more like busted assignments than getting outrun.
Brixter (last year)
Go GLoden Hurricane Beat Houston.
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Out Pick The Picker

The Picker began entertaining – and infuriating – sports fans in 1993. Each week during football season, he writes about his picks of college and NFL games in his Thursday Sports column. He's never afraid of sharing his opinions about the game and the personalities who play it. Readers have a chance to go against him each season in the Outpick the Picker contest. He welcomes the competition.

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