Florida, Ole Miss Prove Southeastern Conference Greatness is Exaggerated

For more than three quarters earlier today, Miami (Ohio) outplayed a sloppy Florida Gators team in the swamp. The Gators had less than 50 total yards on offense in the third quarter before finally waking up in the fourth.

Both teams finished with 212 total yards. In the end, UF won the game 34-12 despite their horrible showing. Lucky for them they weren't playing a team that had more than one win in 2009.

New quarterback John Brantley was overwhelmingly unimpressive and it was apparent that UF has virtually no weapons at wide receiver.

Even worse for SEC-ville was the embarrassing performance of the Ole Miss Rebels against the Jacksonville State Gamecocks of FCS fame.

Junior Marques Ivory and true freshmen quarterback Coty Blanchard outplayed both Nathan Stanley and Jeremiah Masoli as they combined to lead the Gamecocks to the huge win in double overtime.

Ivory tossed the first touchdown pass, a seven-yard score to Alan Bonner to put the Gamecocks ahead 41-34.

Brandon Bolden tied the game at 41 with a two yard touchdown run, then Ole Miss took the lead in the second overtime on a two yard touchdown run by Enrique Davis.

That's when the magic happened. Blanchard scrambling for his life, hit Kevyn Cooper in the back of the end zone for the 30 yard touchdown on 4th down and 15 from the 30 yard line.

After calling timeout, Jacksonville State decided to avoid a third overtime and go for the win.

On a bootleg right and just as he was nearly caught for a dream-crushing sack, Blanchard found his man at the goal line for the conversion, and the win.

Surely SEC fans who read this are going to post comments chock full of excuses and saying that Ole Miss sucks anyway, etc, etc.

Here's the problem with that just so you all know ahead of time.

You all claim each others wins and BCS titles as a conference so by God, you're going to own this loss by Ole Miss as a conference just the same.

P.S. There goes that whole "The SEC is the best conference top to bottom in the country" crap...


Click For The Block Nation Front Page


Images Copyright of ESPN & the AP / Rogelio V. Solis

Five Top 10 Teams— Five Pathetic OOC Schedules

by HD Handshoe
Founder
BlockONation.com


This isn't just a Buckeye site.

We follow the college football scene across the board and when something catches our eye and we believe it's worthy of bringing it to you, that is what we do!

After researching the 2009 out of conference schedules of several of the top teams in college football, I have compiled a list of what I believe to be the top five weakest, most pathetic OOC schedules for 2009.

The teams I have selected are all teams that will be in, or very near the top ten of the AP poll to open the 2009 season.

I think I speak for many, if not most, college football fans when I say teams need to start "manning up" and stop playing I-AA or DII teams and start playing other top teams on the road, during the season!

Follow the example set by Ohio State and USC last year and this year. Hopefully, they do it again soon because the big time games during the season are amazing!

They can be high-risk in terms of a BCS title run, but with high risk comes high reward for the team that wins!

Now, on with the show!

No. 5: Texas Longhorns

Texas has a great coach in Mack Brown and a Heisman contender at QB in Colt McCoy. They also have loads of talent on defense so they could probably beat just about any team in the top 25, but scheduled these OOC games instead:

9/5/09—vs. University of Louisiana Monroe

9/12/09—@ Wyoming

9/26/09—vs. UTEP

11/7/09—vs. Central Florida


No. 4: Penn State Nittany Lions

It's not Lewis & Clark, it's Royster and Clark! JoePa has another talented squad one year removed from a Big Ten title and a near miss at a trip to the BCS title game.

Penn State's schedule got even weaker in 2009 so will we really know how good they are before the bowl season? Not against these OOC opponents we won't, and they're even all home games of course.

9/5/09—vs. University of Akron

9/12/09—vs. Syracuse

9/19/09—vs. Temple

10/10/09—vs. Eastern Illinois


No. 3: LSU Tigers

Charles Scott should be the best back in the SEC and the Tigers should be improved over last years team.

They don't dodge the bullets in the SEC, but they play these teams out of conference, so they're another team we may not know much about outside of the SEC until their bowl game.

9/5/09—@ Washington

9/19/09—vs. Louisiana

10/31/09—vs. Tulane

11/14/09—vs. Louisiana Tech


No. 2: Ole Miss Rebels

In their defense, Ole Miss hasn't been a top team since Eli Manning left in 2004 so the reason they have a weak OOC schedule is acceptable.

But, it still ranks at No. 2 on my list because they are very good now even if they, or nobody else saw it coming!

The OOC opponents they will be facing however; not so much!

9/5/09—@ Memphis

9/19/09—vs. Southeastern Louisiana

10/17/09—vs. University of Alabama Birmingham

11/7/09—vs. Northern Arizona


No. 1: Florida Gators

It was tough narrowing this list down to the top five.

It was not tough putting Florida at No. 1.

They have arguably one of the best coaches in the game in Urban Meyer, a two-time BCS Championship and Heisman winning quarterback in Tim Tebow, and they have all eleven defensive starters and all eleven back-ups to those starters back from last years SEC and BCS championship team.

I didn't think it was possible for their OOC games in 2009 to be even more pathetic than 2008, when they played a down and rebuilding Miami Hurricanes team along with home games vs. Hawaii and The Citadel.

Then, I looked at 2009 and realized I may have thought too soon:

9/5/09—vs. Charleston Southern

9/12/09—vs. Troy

11/21/09—vs. Florida International

11/28/09—vs. Florida State

All four of these games are home games and even though it's a traditional rivalry game, Florida State is not what they once were.

I wanted to address that in case anyone tried to defend UF's OOC games by saying FSU is a good team.

No, they are not!

---

Thanks for reading and as always, feel free to agree or disagree in the comments section!

This article is also featured on

CLICK HERE to return to the Blog.BlockONation.com Front Page