Mariota’s Light Load
For decades football players have taken the “student” part out of the term, “student-athlete.” Although Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota is certainly different, as he’s achieved his undergraduate degree in just three seasons, Ducks fans shouldn’t have to worry about Mariota’s mind being on much else than Oregon football with his current course load.
According to Lostlettermen.com, Marcus Mariota is taking just two courses this semester – Yoga and Golf. Really, that’s it, yoga and golf.
Our take: The yoga course is a great idea for Mariota, as it will help him stay limber for the season and golf is a sport that you can play for the rest of your life so that also makes a lot sense. Let’s not pile on Mariota for being an elite student, he obviously put in the time to get his degree and now he’s reaping the rewards.
Three Elite Teams and Everyone Else
The folks in Las Vegas always seem to know more than the rest of us. It’s very difficult to make money gambling on sports and although a point spread’s main purpose is to promote even amounts of betting on each side, the spreads are right on the money more often than not.
The good folks at FootballPerspective.com have looked up several NCAA point spreads (around 200 to be more exact) and have ranked the teams based on the Vegas point spreads.
So who’s at the top?
Three teams rise above everyone else – Florida State, Alabama and Oregon. These teams would be roughly “pick ‘em” games against each other (based on a neutral field) and are quite a bit better than the rest of the nation. Auburn comes in next with LSU and Oklahoma rounding out the rest of the Top 6. The next five teams are pretty much even, with roughly three-tenths of a point separating them (Georgia, South Carolina, UCLA, Ohio State and USC).
Our take: If all things are equal, I’ll take whichever Las Vegas thinks are the best teams. With that said, the underdog beat the spread in every BCS game last season and the underdog won outright in every game with the exception of the National Championship. Maybe they don’t know as much as we think?
Is the Pace of Play A Problem
There’s no doubt that college football is getting faster. Not just smaller, or sometimes bigger guys too running faster, but the advent of more no-huddle is putting more plays in games.
Auburn head man Gus Malzahn and his quick pace of play nearly won it all last season much to the dismay of pro-style, huddle-most-of-the-time Alabama head coach Nick Saban.
“I don’t care about getting blamed for this. That’s part of it,” Nick Saban said. “But I do think that somebody needs to look at this very closely.”
“The fastball guys (up-tempo coaches) say there’s no data out there, and I guess you have to use some logic. What’s the logic? If you smoke one cigarette, do you have the same chances of getting cancer if you smoke 20? I guess there’s no study that specifically says that. But logically, we would say, ‘Yeah, there probably is.'”
Arizona head coach Rich Rodriguez thinks Saban’s comments resemble sour grapes.
“I call it a farce. If you think pace of play has anything to do with injuries, you drank the wrong poison,” Rodriguez said at Pac-12 Media Days. “I think it would be hard to find any hard data that shows the pace of play contributes more to injury, but that’s my opinion.”
Our take: The more snaps you play the more there is a chance for injury. With that said, we can reduce plays and time of games if the clock didn’t stop after first downs. I don’t have a problem with no-huddle offenses, it makes the game more exciting and more excitement is always better. Obviously Nick Saban doesn’t like losing and these quick-paced offenses have proven to be a form of kryptonite. There’s one thing that will slow down any offense – stopping them and forcing fourth downs.
