3rd Saturday in Blogtober

There was a lot to digest this weekend. How do you differentiate between cupcakes that consist of various levels of sugar and sugar-like substances? How much can we really garner from these games? How much should I punish teams that struggled against said cupcakes? There’s a lot of flux in here this week as some teams disappointed and some surprised, but this is still just one week’s worth of games, so hopefully I didn’t overreact too much. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Third Saturday in Blogtober Ballot – Week 2

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama Crimson Tide	–
2	Ohio St. Buckeyes	–
3	Boise St. Broncos	1
4	Iowa Hawkeyes	4
5	TCU Horned Frogs	1
6	Wisconsin Badgers	3
7	Oregon Ducks	6
8	Miami Hurricanes	2
9	Texas Longhorns	-2
10	Florida Gators	-7
11	Georgia Bulldogs	4
12	Florida St. Seminoles	7
13	Nebraska Cornhuskers	-1
14	Penn St. Nittany Lions	4
15	Arkansas Razorbacks	2
16	Oklahoma Sooners	-11
17	South Carolina Gamecocks	6
18	Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets	4
19	USC Trojans	-5
20	Stanford Cardinal	1
21	Utah Utes	–
22	Houston Cougars	3
23	Virginia Tech Hokies	-12
24	West Virginia Mountaineers	–
25	Michigan Wolverines	–
Dropouts: Pittsburgh Panthers, Oregon St. Beavers, LSU Tigers

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

Before I get into this, let me first say that San Jose State is not a very good football team. And that’s being nice. They had several players participating in their very first game at the collegiate level. With that being said, Alabama did what a championship caliber team is supposed to do to an over-matched opponent. They beat the stew out of ‘em.

• Bama rolled up almost 600 yards while playing mostly subs the entire second half. The o-line simply enforced its will on the hapless Spartans. Aside from Eddie Lacy’s fumble and Julio’s drop, the offense couldn’t have played any better.
• Julio!

• CJ Mosely gets it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was starting by the end of the year. Playing the run as a linebacker is pretty intuitive. It typically takes a young player time to get accustomed to playing the pass, but Mosely was in the passing lanes the entire second half. Now he just needs to learn how to catch.
• Even without Dareus on the field, the athleticism of the defensive line borders on absurd.
• Just as the offense had two bad plays, the defense gave up two big plays, but aside from that they were dominant. Giving up 175 total yards is a good day’s work no matter who you’re playing.
• And what about those special teams we’ve been so worried about? Mandell boomed two 50+ yard punts, Foster and Shelley combined to go 8-for-8 on field goals and extra points, and the coverage units looked improved over last season.
• Overall, it’s hard to take much from games like this, both the offense and defense ran about as vanilla schemes as it can get, but Alabama went out and took care of business. We’ll learn a whole lot more about what this team is made of next week.

Now on to what we learned about the rest of the SEC and beyond.

More…

Saban Gameday Commercial

HT: Capstone King

One of the top players in the 2012 class committed to Alabama earlier today. Eddie Williams, a 6-foot-4-ish, 200 -ish lb safety/athlete prospect out of Panama City, FL has 5-star written all over him according to the gurus that assign stars to freakish teenage athletes. Now whether the ESPN All-Access special on Alabama had anything to do with Williams committing or not, as the article asserts, I don’t know. All the coach says about it is that “Eddie watched it”. But it couldn’t have hurt, that’s for sure.

My favorite part:

Williams accounted for seven touchdowns in one game last season at Gulf Breeze, Fla., running for four scores, throwing a TD pass and return a punt and a kickoff for a touchdown.

I don’t think even Matt Dillon’s character in There’s Something About Mary had that much success against Warren and his friends.

(Ed: No, we don’t have a new writer here. This is Crimson Daddy. I’ve just decided to pull back the curtain a little. That is all.)

The venerable BlogPoll is getting cranked up again. This year it’s jumped to SBNation. Being a preseason ballot, I really have nothing but hunches on which to base my rankings. The final ballots don’t have to be in for a few days, so let me know what you guys think about which teams may be too high, low, or those you think I should have included.

Yes, I am alive. I apologize for my lack of content this off season. The new job has kept me quite busy and away from a computer the large majority of the time during the day. But I am back and better than ever*.

The team reported today with 104 of the 105 available spots filled. It sounds like that last slot is designated for Blake Sims if he passes the NCAA Clearinghouse. If not, then it could go to Deion Belue, who is awaiting eligibility news his own self. Wilson Love and Ronald Carswell are taking grayshirts and will join the team in January.

The biggest news of the day is that potential starting safety Rod Woodson will not be back with the team and will transfer. There goes Saban again, cutting the riffraff to get under the 85 schollie limit. WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN? I’ve said my piece on the whole oversigning business last year, and while I do think it ironic that it was a Michigan man that came up on the losing end of the numbers game, I’m sure we’ll hear about it from opposing fans. Nevermind the fact that Woodson was going to be in a battle for a starting role after a season of performing well on special teams, or that he played a position of great need in an already depleted secondary. No, Saban is the devil. As an aside, one of my female cousins received a scholarship offer to play basketball at a DII school. It’s the coach’s first season there. He’s already let five of the girls on last year’s team go. I’m just sayin’.

Marcel Dareus is still up in the air, as far as being able to play in a game. Alabama is still awaiting word from the NCAA. There are also no injuries to report. OK, last year Dont’a Hightower blew up his entire knee and was back at full speed by spring practice. JUCO transfer Dequan Menzie tore his Achilles in April and he’s a go for practice. Did I miss when Bennie Hinn was added as team chaplain? Only ones that truly believe in The Process will be healed!

*Relatively speaking, of course

USC recently unveiled their media guide cover for this season, but what they failed to mention is that just like Alabama, they created more than one.  We happen to have a copy of the alternate version they didn’t release at Media Days.  [H/T Ghost of Neyland]

Days.