Pitt & South Carolina

I made my predictions last night but I put them on the wrong blog. Here they are: http://speakingofbasketball.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-picks.html

My thoughts about those predictions...Pitt sucks. I didn't watch the last quarter because it was such a disaster up to that point. Somehow Pitt managed to score two TD's to force OT. But seemingly in stride with the rest of the game, Pitt threw a pick of the first play of OT giving Utah a chance to win it with a field goal, and they did. My prediction was a push at +3. This highlights how absurd preseason rankings are. Pitt at #15. No way. They might not drop out of the top 25 this week but it could be close. Either way, they'll take an absolute pummeling by UM in week 3 and we likely won't hear a thing about Pitt the rest of the season unless their running back picks it up like most people think he will. He didn't have a chance to do much last night. Pitt's passing game was so bad that Utah had no problem stuffing the run. It's possible the Pitt O-Line is to blame.

South Carolina at S.Miss. I predicted over 46.5. The total was 54 points. The first drive of the game for SC looked pathetic. I said to myself that I couldn't believe after all this time that Spurrier couldn't get a decent offense together. The next drive (and the rest of the game really) made me eat my words. Stephen Garcia actually looked like a decent quarterback. He wasn't scared to tuck the ball and run which was a big departure from what I remember as a sack-laden season last year. Aside from Garcia, SC has three players that look really really good. Alshon Jeffrey had 106 receiving yards last night. Ace Sanders had one run on a reverse for 53 yards and another 47 yards receiving. He's a true freshman and he's wicked fast. Marcus Lattimore, another true freshman, only logged 54 rushing yards but scored 2 TDs and had 21 yards receiving. He's gonna be good, that's for sure.
South Carolina has a very unfriendly schedule. Right now 5 of their opponents are ranked in the top 25 (preseason rankings are dumb, I know). I don't know how good Georgia and Tennessee are going to be but I have to think SC will hold their own. If they do, they could end up in second place in the SEC behind Florida :)

Why Draft a Big 12 Quarterback?

When Sage Rosenfels is the most successful NFL quarterback to come from the Big 12 Conference in the past 15 years, one may begin to wonder why teams would use a draft pick, and especially a high one, on a quarterback from the Big 12. Yet most draft "experts" have not one, but two, Big 12 quarterbacks in their top 4 at that position, with Sam Bradford projected by many to be the first quarterback taken in the 2010 NFL Draft. This is the same Sam Bradford that padded his stats against weak Big 12 defenses for the past couple of years; that is, when he doesn't have his arm in a sling.

Do any of these names sound familier? Michael Bishop. Majoy Applewhite. Chris Simms. Josh Heupel. Eric Crouch. Seneca Wallace. Jason White. Vince Young. Josh Freeman. Brad Smith. Chase Daniel. Graham Harrell. Todd Reesing. These are the guys that were the best Big 12 quarterbacks from the past 15 years. Only 4 of them are current NFL quarterbacks: Simms, Wallace, Freeman, and Young.

Simms wasn't even the best QB on his college team yet rode daddy's coattails to the NFL where he has done nothing but acquire a career 69.1 QB rating and rupture his spleen.

Wallace has been in the league for 7 years as a mostly unheard-from back-up QB, and he's not a guy that is ever going to be the starting QB going into training camp.

Freeman is one of two Big 12 QBs that are starting QBs in the NFL, yet his sub-60 QB rating doesn't exactly make one think that he'll be a starting QB for much longer.

Young will probably turn out to be the best of these four, yet we still haven't seen a consistent and impressive season out of him. And for where Young was drafted (3rd overall), he has surely been a disappointment up until this point.

The Big 12 Conference hasn't really proven itself to be the springboard for great NFL quarterbacks like the Big 10 (4 2009 starting NFL QBs), PAC 10 (4), ACC (4), and SEC (6). Tread lightly with those draft picks GMs.