End of the Year Recap

Team of the Year: Alabama

            From start to finish there was little doubt that Alabama would be in the playoff this season. Even after the shocking loss at Ole Miss and the daunting schedule that lied before them, Alabama reminded everyone who the best program in the country was, and Nick Saban reminded us who the best coach in the country is. While this Alabama team may not be favorably comparable to other past Alabama teams during the tenure era of “King Saban”, there is little to deny Alabama position on the throne of college football. Alabama defeated five ranked teams this season in the last eight games of the season. Alabama averaged 37 points a game while only surrendering 16.6 points a game (4^th best in the country).

Coach of the Year: Urban Meyer, Oho State

            While Nick Saban may be the best coach in the country, Urban Meyer’s coaching prowess was on display like no other this season. Say what you will about the quality and condition of the Big 10, no other team in the country can even attempt to boast that they would be able to overcome what Ohio State did this season. To have soundly defeated conference rival, and playoff contender Michigan State in East Lansing and then traveling to an up start Minnesota team after an emotional win and surviving that game in back to back weeks is nothing short than spectacular. And that was all with a back-up quarterback, who is a true freshman, who after emerging as a Heisman candidate, only to fall with a season ending injury that last week of the season. The hits that Ohio State continued to take would have crippled any team this season. But instead of that, with a third-string quarterback, the Buckeyes defeated a 13^th ranked Wisconsin team, at a neutral site, 59-0. It seems the more Ohio State has their backs up against the proverbial wall, the better they are. Hats off to Urban Meyer.

Heisman Winner: Marcus Mariota, QB, Oregon

            Mariota saved his statement game for the Pac-12 championship against Arizona as he threw for two touchdowns and ran for three. Mariota unquestionably is the best quarterback in the country, who plays for the most formidable offense in the nation. Mariota was lacking the true statement game, but Thursday night against the Wildcats, Mariota showed up in a big way. While the Heisman vote will be close between Mariota and Amari Cooper, typically the trophy goes to the more valuable position. The quarterback position has won seven out of the eight last seasons. Expect this to be eight out of nine.

Player of the Year: Amari Cooper, WR, Alabama

            But despite whom the winner of the Heisman trophy, there is little to deny that Amari Cooper is the best player in the country. No player has dominated the competition like Cooper has this season. In a year that can really be marked as “the year of the Receiver” with so many good receivers poised to enter the draft this season, Cooper is in a class of his own. In an era of spread, pass attacking offense, Cooper is part of a system that can be best defined as a “Pro-Style” offense with prides itself on balance and exposing mismatches. Cooper was this year’s ultimate mismatch. Cooper broke the single season record for receptions with 115 receptions for 1,656 yards and 14 touchdowns. To continue this dominating trend, Cooper had five games of 10 catches or more, seven games of 130 receiving yards or more, and 3 200 yard receiving games. From start to finish, Cooper unquestionably is the best at position, and the best in the sport.

Disappointment of the Year: Oklahoma

            Oklahoma entered the season considered by many, as the closest thing to a lock for the playoff this season. Instead Oklahoma dropped four games in the Big 12, three of them against the real contenders of the conference, TCU, Kansas State, Baylor. Their disappointing season came to the ultimate climax last night when they lost to in-state rival, lowly Oklahoma State at home! The quality of the Big 12 depends upon the quality of their traditional powers, Oklahoma and Texas and while everyone understood Texas is rebuilding, Oklahoma was expected to not only win the conference, but sweep this season. Instead Oklahoma proved there were not even worthy of being mentioned in the conversation of Big 12 contenders this season. This was not expected. Well somebody expected this…

Where I was right…

Oklahoma and Auburn not being a contenders:

“However what hurts the Sooner this year and why I am not a huge fan of their chances this season is the conference looks to be much stronger than a year ago”
7-8-14

I had Oklahoma finishing third in the Big 12 this season, and while they actually finished lower than my projection, I was spot in claiming that the Sooners were not playoff contenders. Trevor Knight never repeated that 2013 magic and the defense surrendered far too many points.

“The loss of Dee Ford is also problematic (10.5 sacks a year ago, second was Carl Lawson with 4, third was Gabe Wright with 3) and replacing him became even harder when Carl Lawson went down with a season ending injury. Without a significant pass rush, the Auburn defense will truly be exposed.”
 7-31-14

             And exposed they were giving up 26 points a game and their leading sacker had just 3.5 sacks over the course of the season. Their inability to generate a pass rush serverly inhibited Tigers defense to keep pace with their offense. Auburn was the team of magic in 2013, but a team of limitations in 2014.

The Big 12 not having a conference title game hurts the Big 12, which would help Ohio State.

“As for Ohio State, they may be the best-kept secret in all of College Football. The offense has been exploding as of late as J.T. Barrett and company look more and more like Ohio State week after week. So consider the following: What if Ohio State, wins out their remaining games, including going to Michigan State and pulling off the upset. If that were to take place only Ohio State and Florida State would be the only playoff representatives to go undefeated in conference play. It would be a very ‘Ohio State like’ thing to do.”
10-5-14

            I have said it all year long that the Big 12 not having a Big 12 title game would hurt whomever was at the top of the conference. Although this year there were two teams, TCU and Baylor who had identical resumes at the end of the year, the lack of a conference title game certainly impacted the committees view. When Jeff Long, chairman of the Playoff Committee  commented on TCU and Baylor resumes and lack of conference championship title game he said: “I’ll put it this way…we don’t deal with hypotheticals”. So not even in “Imagnationland” could we pretend this doesn’t matter.

            And as I said way back in October, Ohio State was a freight train not to be messed with. Going undefeated in conference play, beating 9 bowl eligible teams with backup quarterbacks certainly puts them above the rest of the Big 12 contenders.

Where I was wrong…

Do you think anyone forgot the fact the fact I had Florida winning the SEC East?

“Too many people are sleeping on the Gators and their contention for the SEC. It’s Gator Season!”

7-31-14

Yeah that’s embarrassing.

Coach Predictor

Michigan: Dan Mullen, HC, Mississippi State

            The hiring of Mike Reilly at Nebraska may be a significant indicator at the quality of coach Michigan may be able to hire this offseason. The Big 10 is not as attractive as it once was, and Michigan may be able to throw a lot of money at a potential head coach, but if Nebraska, a supposedly big time program in the Big 10 can settle on Mike Reilly, will Michigan be forced to settle? I still think Dan Mullin makes the most sense for the Wolverines.

The Playoffs:

1. Alabama

2. Oregon

3. Florida State

4. Ohio State

             I completely misread the committee after last week when they placed TCU at number 3. While I now sympathize with the TCU fan base and how upset they must be by being dropped all the way down to 6^th, the committee certainly got this right. These are the four best teams in the country who will represent the first ever college football playoff. Hopefully the Big 12 tries to adopt two more teams to the conference so they too can have a conference title game. Sorry Fort Worth and Waco, Texas but hopefully the Big 12 has learned its lesson. In the future, the only way these programs will be able to get in without a conference title game will be to go undefeated. A tall order in today’s college football.

“Save the Big 12”

“A campaign to add two more teams to the Big 12 in hopes of the Big 12 adopting a conference title game.”

Houston: A perfect fit, as Houston has been a contender in the American Conference since its inception. It would create natural rivalries with other Big 12 teams from Texas and perhaps attract more recruits from East Texas away from Texas A&M.

BYU: While the are making their money being an independent, it would be nice if BYU could draw from a bigger trough in the Big 12. Their geographic placement means little since Iowa State is also a member.

Boise State: Boise State has been looking for a home for quite some time now, and they do believe that they can contend for a National Title given an opportunity. With the PAC-12 at 14 teams, they are unable to make the natural geographic movement to the PAC. Instead they can move to the Big 12 and perhaps open pipelines in Texas.

           

2015 NFL Mock Draft

Pick	Team	Player	College	Position
1	Jacksonville	Randy Gregory	Nebraska	DE/OLB
2	Oakland	Leonard Williams	USC	DE
3	New York J	Marcus Mariota	Oregon	QB
4	Tampa Bay	Andrus Peat	Stanford	OT
5	Minnesota	Amari Cooper	Alabama	WR
6	Washington	Brandon Scherff	Iowa	OT/G
7	Tennessee	Shane Ray	Missouri	DE/OLB
8	New York G	Markus Golden	Missouri	DE/OLB
9	Carolina	DeVante Parker	Louisville	WR
10	St. Louis	Jameis Winston	Florida State	QB
11	Chicago	Ifo Ekpre-Olomu	Oregon	CB
12	New Orleans	Jalen Strong	Arizona State	WR
13	Houston	Eric Kendricks	UCLA	LB
14	Cincinnati	Shilique Calhoun	Michigan State	DE/OLB
15	Baltimore	Landon Collins	Alabama	S
16	Cleveland (from Buffalo)	Shaq Thompson	Washington	LB
17	San Francisco	Cameron Erving	Florida State	OT/G
18	Cleveland	Dante Fowler	Florida	DE
19	Kansas City	Vic Beasley	Clemson	DE/OLB
20	Atlanta	Cedric Ogbuehi	Texas A&M	OT
21	Dallas	P.J. Williams	Florida State	CB
22	Miami	Melvin Gordon	Wisconsin	RB
23	San Diego	Shawn Oakman	Baylor	DT
24	Detroit	Trae Waynes	Michigan State	CB
25	Pittsburgh	Danny Shelton	Washington	DT
26	Arizona	Brett Hundley	UCLA	QB
27	Seattle	D’haquille Williams	Auburn	WR
28	Indianapolis	Todd Gurley	Georgia	RB
29	Green Bay	Devin Funchess	Michigan	WR/TE
30	New England	D.J. Humphries	Florida	OT/G
31	Philadelphia	Kevin White	West Virginia	WR
32	Denver	T.J. Yeldon	Alabama	RB