[thelyingthief]

man, that guy just absolutely needs a rectal exam: exactly what is your standard of evaluation? OSU beat WA, but then, who has WA beat? Who has the big 10 beat outside their conference? MSU struggled to win against Pitt, for god's sake, and look what Navy did to Pitt--and Pitt had ~2 wks to prepare. Wisconsin is absolutely not the same team as last year, if only for an inexperienced QB who will continue laying the ball on the carpet and tossing incomprehensible interceptions at the most critical junctures to further alienate and demoralize his team. The defense is incapable of stopping an opponent with consistency. NW is better? if by better you mean winning despite yielding 31 to Nevada, or coughing up 58 to OSU, and 41 to MSU, yeah, i guess they are. Purdue is it's usual Purdon't self at this point in the season; Michigan is waiting to have its bell rung and you'll hear around New Year's day, if not before; Iowa has been eating so much corn, it's starting to see itself as a cow, and nearly everybody else is milking it; and Illinois, the darling of the wow-wee, ain't that sumthin' they run the ball set, well they stink too.

While the OSU squad looks better than last years, and could beat USF i'd think, the talent and physicality of OU and USC look to me to be head and shoulders above any of the rest, including LSU, who has struggled, first needing a gadget play against USC for seperation, then FLA, at home, and finally lost to Kentucky, away. This is not to say that USC is not compromised by self indulgence, on the one hand, and no deep threat on the other (Herbstreet's right there); but they field as athletic a group as any i've seen this year. Beating up on VTech does little to redeem LSU's struggles for me; Aub has improved, defensively, but they are still a long way from a complete team; just as is Vandy, Ole MISS, Mste, and, one leg up, Tenn. Ark, while possessing a lot of talent, is in shambles from off field issues, and no passing game. all in all my assessment of the SEC thinks slippage is the operant word. they're still better than the rest, but the PacTen and Big12 are very competitive.

Speaking of which, the PacTen is its usual incomprehensible, self absorbed bunch: speed, high scoring, soft defenses, and dennis erickson's usual band of 24 yr. old penitentiary parolees masquerading as teenagers and calling it football. One never knows from week to week which team will show up, except that all will take their best shot at dumping SC. Still, this is a conference that has no team incapable of beating teams from any other conference by big margins on any given saturday. this doesn't mean they will, as UCLA most emphatically demonstrates, but i think the assessment is a fair one.

The whole idea of "undefeated" has to be revisited: the revision of the athletic scholarship program has leveled the playing field as never before--and this means, realistically, that here and there, through luck and a weak conference some one or another team will go through the season unmolested, but that does not, by any means promise a good team (OSU is case in point). in fact, the good southern teams, who can work some real magic with Alumni funds when no one is looking, should continue to rise above the rest because cheating is a way of life to those folks, most of whom regard victory in football roughly on a par with crapping on the gettysburg address.

tlt