Monday, January 9, 2012

EVEN GOD IS SMILING IN BUFFALO


The picture above is an actual picture taken outside of my office in downtown Buffalo New York on January 9th, 2012. Let me shed light on a few interesting things about this photo. First, it is January and there is no snow on the ground - not even a drop. Usually we are dealing with a good amount of snow fall here in Western New York during the month of January. Actually, the weather here has been downright beautiful. Saturday, we saw a 50 degree day.Heck, that's shorts and wife-beater weather out here. Even today, it's in the mid-to-upper 30's. Now the kicker: THE SUN IS OUT!!!!!!! For those of you who do not know Buffalo, the sun is rarely out during these months. We usually don't see the sun around these parts till about April. A brother from Mississippi would turn pale here during winter. No Joke.

I'm mentioning this to make the point that today is the day that even The Lord Himself is smiling on Buffalo, and the whole world, as a matter a fact. WHY? BCS CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHT. God is extremely pleased with mankind for finally getting a match up correct: An all-SEC BCS title game. It should always be like this right? When you look back at the past 5 championship games which an SEC team won, you can argue that another SEC team could have snuck in the mix and played for the title also:

2006 - a 10-2 LSU team could have joined Florida  in the big game. Their two loses came at the hands of an 11th ranked Auburn team and to eventual BCS Champion Florida

2007 - a 11-2 Georgia team who demolished Hawaii in the Sugar joke game could have made a better game than Ohio State. For that matter, anyone except thee Ohio State could have stepped in and shown more heart. The best part about an LSU vs Georgia championship game was that they hadn't played each other that year so at least it wouldn't have been rematch.

2008 - Though USC, Texas and Oklahoma were powerful teams, Alabama was definitely the second best team in the NCAA.That Tide team got Tebowed in the SEC Championship 31-20, but easily could have been given the rematch. Florida was a juggernaut and Nick Saban had Alabama on the rise. Both teams were undefeated during the regular season and ranked 1 & 2. Oklahoma pulled the votes for the championship and got slapped again. I think Alabama would have easily given the Gators a better game.

2009 - This was a reversal of fortune year as the undefeated Tide met the undefeated Gators in the SEC Championship game. This time, the Bama came out on top and the Gators got left out of the title game. This was Tebow's senior year and many thought he would and should have a chance to repeat. Texas, who also came in undefeated ( but from the Little 12), was the recipient of the SEC beat down this time. I know that Texas fans will note that once Colt McCoy got hurt it wasn't a real game. My rebuttal: Don't get hurt! That easy.

2010 - This year marked the beginning of the current run which LSU is on. Auburn, Led by Cam Newton, was phenomenal in 2010 and they rode that stallion all the way to the BCS championship game against Oregon. I like watching Oregon. They are entertaining with that offense and all of that speed. But lets be serious. They are in the PAC 12 (PAC 10 at the time). LSU, though losing two games (one to Auburn 24-17 and the other to Arkansas), would have easily been a better game. Yes, I know Oregon played the Tigers to the wire but...........it's Oregon. LSU, on the other hand demolished Texas A&M in the Cotton bowl 41-24. Do you know who the MVP of the game was? Tyrann Mathieu the Honey Badger. Nine months later LSU would show the NCAA world why they should have been in the BCS Championship by demolishing the Ducks, in the Jerry Dome, 40-27. And it wasn't that close.


LSU Tigers vs. Alabama Crimson Tide 2012 BCS National Championship Game Bound Dueling Pin
That brings us to the clash of the titans in my home town of New Orleans tonight. The BCS has finally realized that by sticking in another conference champion to battle the SEC is useless. Who wants to see another Big 10 team, all slow of foot and overly matched athletically go in to the ring against a bunch of Men. Or a PAC 12 team with all that speed and lack of heart to tackle, get trounced by a real team made up of real players. Or even worse, a Big 12 team......nuff said.

It will be a great game to those of us who understand football. I enjoyed the first one. No player left that game without being hit. People remark about the lack of offenses in the first game. Next time they show ground level views of the game, watch the speed of the defenders. This is why the SEC is the best conference. A running lane doesn't stay open for long in that conference and all that Oregon spread stuff will get your QB and RB's broke. When LSU and Bama played anyone else in 2011, they were laying up 30-40 points. That's because they aren't playing each other. Oregon put up 27 points and West Virginia laid up 21 points against the Tigers. LSU put up 40 in each of those games. In fact LSU rung up 40 points NINE times this year. You want offense, then deal with that.

Another LSU Score

On the flip side, Bama gave up 21 points against Georgia Southern and that was about as good as it got against the #1 defense in the land. Auburn and Arkansas laid 14 on the Tide defense, but in both of those games, the Tide dominated and won by over 20 points.

So if you don't think these teams will ring up the points, well, you are stupid. The difference with the scoring of these two teams versus, lets say, Oregon, is that at some point they break the will of the opponent. They physically wear you out and then you just get tired of their o-line pushing on you and those big, greasy, nasty, hard, backs running through your d-line, up to your secondary. At some point, those DB's get tired of tackling those brothers. The issue from the first game is that neither defense backed-the-F down. The DB's were just as fierce as the linebackers. That's what separates these two teams from everyone else. Arkansas is one of the better teams in the country, but they just got their will taken from them by both LSU and Alabama.

It's all good between these two until Monday night

With all this said, I believe it will be a great game tonight, IF, you understand football and IF you are not an SEC hater. This will be football at it's best AND GOD IS SMILING because of it.



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