AP Poll

[Knoxville Husker]

Would be nice to be Mizzou and A&M and go 8-5 and 7-6 in their last season getting beat up in Big 12, jump ship, and get HUGE benefit of the doubt with the mythical SEC SOS.

If you take the SEC teams remaining schedule and just assume the higher ranked team wins remainder of season, you have:

Florida 6-6

Auburn 8-4

The other 5 ranked teams 10-2 (A&M, LSU, Mizzou, USC, UGA).

The moral of that story is cheer hard for Florida to pull a couple of upsets, Auburn to pull one, and for any team to upset those other 5 ranked SEC teams. The latter part of that is obvious, but you probably didn't know you were such a big Florida fan I'll bet.

 

[Knoxville Husker]

Gotta take care of business. Especially at home and there would be no argument. I will say that no 2 loss team should be ranked above 20 this early in the season.

I can remember even in our heyday, we were penalized for close wins against KU and MIzzou in 93 and 97, despite being undefeated and by 97 a very well proven national title caliber commodity. Yet when UGA survives in similar fashion against a bad Tennessee team and loses two other games they are #16. Really?!? A team with 2.5 losses ranked that high? Sadly the rankings, in addition to being biased, take several weeks sometimes to correct those biases (if at all).

You get no argument from me. It's just difficult to complain when we get beat down by 20 at home. Regardless of what other teams have going on. I feel bad that they are not ranked but this whole debate would be a non-issue if we would have taken care of business against UCLA and not looked so bad against Wyoming and South Dakota State. We would be Top 10-12 right now.

I think the gripe has been the lack of accomplishments by some of the teams above us still in the ratings. It makes it hard to argue for or against them or us in relation to rankings.

The funny part about NU is we tend to be pretty good at beating up on weak opponents, then we flop miserably against teams that are slightly better than us and make them look like world beaters. That is the sign of a team that just needs to get mentally tougher, surprising considering we have such a fiery leader.

Back to the rankings, with us sitting at a #22 poll average and #33 in the computers, I think you have your answer. While a ten-point win over Pitt is not that impressive, it's better than anything we've done. Margin of victory means plenty in the voter polls, so it's ironic that anyone thinks taking them out of the computer polls reduces running up the score. The resultant computer polls at least do a decent job measuring relative accomplishments of a team, and it's hard to argue against our #33 rating there. We have played one of the weakest SOS in the country so far, outside of UCLA.

UCLA was a tough lesson. No reason we shouldn't have played them closer, but at least we exposed some flaws that hopefully make us better down the stretch run (e.g. more QB depth/health, more attacking on defense). It was yet another example of making a good team look like world beaters which was unfortunate for us, but that is what you often get when a high end coach goes against one who is still learning (and we can only hope) growing on the job.

 

[fro daddy]

Would be nice to be Mizzou and A&M and go 8-5 and 7-6 in their last season getting beat up in Big 12, jump ship, and get HUGE benefit of the doubt with the mythical SEC SOS.

We were a team full of sophomores in 20111. And a mash unit last season. Damn near 3/4 of our offensive starters missed most of if not all the season. The sec has nothing to do with our situation other than playing better teams. This years mzzou squad would roll in the big12.

And frankly, given that the big10 is so weak, Nebraska could help themselves by playing tougher teams than they currently do. And when they do have a great opponent, by not getting hammered. Nebraska would receive a HUGE benefit of the doubt if they had more than 1 or 2 quality wins.

Almost all of us felt the b10 was weak before the move. And I understand that it's hard to build a schedule in a few years. But Nebraska is already making moves to overcome their conference weekness. The Oregon series is the type of games that give you the benefit of tough wins & close losses.

 

[StPaulHusker]

Would be nice to be Mizzou and A&M and go 8-5 and 7-6 in their last season getting beat up in Big 12, jump ship, and get HUGE benefit of the doubt with the mythical SEC SOS.

The jury is still out on Missouri but TAMU has played better football since joining the SEC vs the Big 12.

 

[EZ-E]

Would be nice to be Mizzou and A&M and go 8-5 and 7-6 in their last season getting beat up in Big 12, jump ship, and get HUGE benefit of the doubt with the mythical SEC SOS.

The jury is still out on Missouri but TAMU has played better football since joining the SEC vs the Big 12.

Playing with players who were recruited by Tim Cassidy and Mike Sherman. I really see Sumlin and Bo in the same spots their second years. Except Sumlin was actually handed more top to bottom talent than Bo was due to the recruiting structure put in place by the two names mentioned above.

 

[StPaulHusker]

Would be nice to be Mizzou and A&M and go 8-5 and 7-6 in their last season getting beat up in Big 12, jump ship, and get HUGE benefit of the doubt with the mythical SEC SOS.

The jury is still out on Missouri but TAMU has played better football since joining the SEC vs the Big 12.

Playing with players who were recruited by Tim Cassidy and Mike Sherman. I really see Sumlin and Bo in the same spots their second years. Except Sumlin was actually handed more top to bottom talent than Bo was due to the recruiting structure put in place by the two names mentioned above.

I think it shows that Sumlin knows how to coach better than Sherman.

 

[shyndy]

Would be nice to be Mizzou and A&M and go 8-5 and 7-6 in their last season getting beat up in Big 12, jump ship, and get HUGE benefit of the doubt with the mythical SEC SOS.

We were a team full of sophomores in 20111. And a mash unit last season. Damn near 3/4 of our offensive starters missed most of if not all the season. The sec has nothing to do with our situation other than playing better teams. This years mzzou squad would roll in the big12.

And frankly, given that the big10 is so weak, Nebraska could help themselves by playing tougher teams than they currently do. And when they do have a great opponent, by not getting hammered. Nebraska would receive a HUGE benefit of the doubt if they had more than 1 or 2 quality wins.

Almost all of us felt the b10 was weak before the move. And I understand that it's hard to build a schedule in a few years. But Nebraska is already making moves to overcome their conference weekness. The Oregon series is the type of games that give you the benefit of tough wins & close losses.

That might be true but Baylor is the best team in the big 12 right now. I still wouldn't put money down on mizzou to take the big 12 were they still there, though, sorry.

 

[fro daddy]

Would be nice to be Mizzou and A&M and go 8-5 and 7-6 in their last season getting beat up in Big 12, jump ship, and get HUGE benefit of the doubt with the mythical SEC SOS.

The jury is still out on Missouri but TAMU has played better football since joining the SEC vs the Big 12.

Playing with players who were recruited by Tim Cassidy and Mike Sherman. I really see Sumlin and Bo in the same spots their second years. Except Sumlin was actually handed more top to bottom talent than Bo was due to the recruiting structure put in place by the two names mentioned above.

that and Johnny Football.

 

[EZ-E]

Would be nice to be Mizzou and A&M and go 8-5 and 7-6 in their last season getting beat up in Big 12, jump ship, and get HUGE benefit of the doubt with the mythical SEC SOS.

The jury is still out on Missouri but TAMU has played better football since joining the SEC vs the Big 12.

Playing with players who were recruited by Tim Cassidy and Mike Sherman. I really see Sumlin and Bo in the same spots their second years. Except Sumlin was actually handed more top to bottom talent than Bo was due to the recruiting structure put in place by the two names mentioned above.

I think it shows that Sumlin knows how to coach better than Sherman.

I think Sumlin's system fits the college game better. Cant ignore the fact that Sumlin was handed an OL that was very talented which made his transition a ton easier. Not to mention they don't play defense very well at all.

 

[StPaulHusker]

Would be nice to be Mizzou and A&M and go 8-5 and 7-6 in their last season getting beat up in Big 12, jump ship, and get HUGE benefit of the doubt with the mythical SEC SOS.

The jury is still out on Missouri but TAMU has played better football since joining the SEC vs the Big 12.

Playing with players who were recruited by Tim Cassidy and Mike Sherman. I really see Sumlin and Bo in the same spots their second years. Except Sumlin was actually handed more top to bottom talent than Bo was due to the recruiting structure put in place by the two names mentioned above.

I think it shows that Sumlin knows how to coach better than Sherman.

I think Sumlin's system fits the college game better. Cant ignore the fact that Sumlin was handed an OL that was very talented which made his transition a ton easier. Not to mention they don't play defense very well at all.

You're right about his system so far. Still Sherman couldn't get it done with those recruits.