Friday, September 3, 2010

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 :)