The Big 3
 

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/notebo...amedayFinal083

It's early. There are a dozen major plot twists still to come. A Stanford or a Pittsburgh or a Colorado may yet have something to say about the chase for the 2008 national championship.

But as we stand today, three weeks into the season, three teams stand above and apart from all the rest: USC, Oklahoma and Missouri.

http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2008...aniels_300.jpg
Heisman hopeful Chase Daniel leads a potent Missouri offense.




And of those three, USC stands on its own plane after making Ohio State look like Ohio State can look when it plays the big boys: slow, weak, soft and overmatched.

The big three have won their eight games by a combined score of 429-114. And they all have played at least one somebody.


USC has taken on two teams that won a combined 20 games in 2007, and squashed them both. This is a complete team, dominant right now in all phases. Gazing down the Trojans' schedule, it's hard to envision where the challenges will come from between now and January.


Oklahoma has cranked up its passing game to another level in routing Cincinnati and Washington. The Sooners are scoring points in gushes, pushing quarterback Sam Bradford up the Heisman Trophy lists.


But he isn't even the leading Heisman candidate in his own league. That would be Missouri QB Chase Daniel, who has more touchdowns (seven) than incompletions (six) the past two weeks. Which is just silly. The Tigers put 52 on Illinois in the opener, 52 more on Southeast Missouri State and then a whopping 69 on Nevada (a 2007 bowl team) on Saturday.
Missouri and Oklahoma don't meet in the regular season, which could make the Big 12 championship game slightly enormous (if both of them can beat Texas, among others, in a salty league).


None of this means the Southeastern Conference won't have a say in the proceedings. But so far, the SEC is specializing in UglyBall, taking a little of the luster off its top teams.


Georgia wheezed its way to 14 points against a South Carolina team coming off a loss to Vanderbilt. And the Bulldogs needed a Gamecocks fumble into the end zone to avoid a potential overtime. The Dogs haven't looked like anything special yet.


Florida was decidedly unspectacular against young Miami at home Sept. 6. The Gators looked susceptible up front on offense to pressure in that game and will have to prove they can beat a blitz consistently in a league that will bring a lot of heat.


Auburn scored three points Saturday. And won.


LSU might yet be up to a defense of its national title, but the Tigers haven't played any meaningful games to get a true gauge on their quarterback play.


So at this moment, a trio of teams have separated themselves from the pack. But at this stage last year, the big four were USC, LSU, Oklahoma and Florida. All went on to lose more than once.


Remember that. Nobody wins anything permanent in mid-September.

I still don't feel comfortable with this. What can I say, I'm a Missouri fan. I'm used to having my heart ripped out and stomped on, and until I see a lot more from this defense, I'm just not all that optimistic that they aren't going to lay an egg somewhere along the line and give up 55 points.

welp, at least one of my teams is good. that should save a bit of sanity this year.

As a Mizzou fan, I will stand firm with "cautiously optimistic"

DaKCfloriDuH will be along shortly to explain that THE ENTIRE SEC is the greatest conference EVAR!! and all of these other various pretender organizations who are not fortunate enough to play in THE GLORIOUS SEC are mere pretenders and would all lose handily to even the lowliest MAGNIFICENT SEC team, because, dammit, they actually play defense in the SPECTACULAR SEC.

All of us lifelong Mizzou fans can't help but be cautious with our optimism...but DAYUM--Chase and co. look like they can hang 50 points on anybody.

ROFL

Nevertheless, for the moment, the SEC still has 3 teams that could end up in the NC game.

I'm neither a MU or OU fan, but I'm salivating at the thought of that game.

First to 50 wins?

OU wins. MU's offense is like PS3, but OU is stout all around.

I figure our only chance is to put up enough points on them early to survive late, because they always wear us down in the second half with their giant inbred mutant linemen.

Agreed. Unless D improves.

Omaha World-Herald writer likes Chase & the Tigers.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pag...u_sid=10432763

COLUMBIA, Mo. — OK, sixth-ranked Missouri, here's the deal.

As a brand-new member of college football's Big Boys Club, certain lessons need to be learned.

Even when you smash a lesser opponent — like in Saturday's 69-17 win over four-touchdown underdog Nevada — people usually want to know more about what you didn't do than what you did.

With that in mind, I came to Faurot Field to dissect the Tigers' surprisingly wobbly defense.

More questions arose Saturday after Missouri gave up first-half scoring drives of 81, 62 and 66 yards. In the first three games, a defense with 10 returning starters has allowed nine scoring drives of more than 50 yards.

But writing about that today would only be nitpicking in light of the performance of senior quarterback Chase Daniel.

At his current success rate, the Tigers may not even need to field a defense.

Daniel, who is in his ninth consecutive year of operating the spread offense, looked Saturday like he was sitting on his living room couch manipulating a control panel.

In 2½ quarters, he completed 82.1 percent of his passes (23 of 28) for 405 yards with four touchdowns. There were no interceptions and no sacks. It would have been no sweat, too, except for the brutally humid conditions between downpours.

During the past two games, Daniel has led 13 offensive possessions. The result: 12 touchdowns and one field goal.

"We want to score every time we touch the ball," he said.

Every time?

"We know that's probably not going to happen," Daniel said. "But there is like a 25 percent chance we can."

Daniel even has hopes of playing an entire game without an incompletion.

"We talk about that all the time," he said. "There have been multiple practices where we haven't had the ball touch the ground in group work or 11-on-11 work.

"Last game was fairly close (he hit 16 of 17 in 1½ quarters). Today, I had some throwaways. We're doing the right things we want with the football right now. But that would be the perfect game."

Of Saturday's five incompletions, two were dropped. On another, pass interference easily could have been called.

On the only pass of the day Daniel shouldn't have thrown — a swing toss that a Nevada defender nearly intercepted — MU receiver Jared Perry grabbed the tipped ball for a 5-yard gain.

It's not like Nevada's defense was a bunch of stumblebums.

Last week, the Wolf Pack held Texas Tech's Graham Harrell, last year's national passing yardage leader, to a 41 percent completion rate and less than 300 yards while intercepting two passes.

None of that is good news for any future Missouri foes, especially those in the North Division forced to start walk-ons in the secondary.

The MU media relations staff on Saturday passed out old-time Viewfinders — those of you from the Internet generation can look it up — as the start of a $25,000 Heisman Trophy campaign to promote Daniel. He finished fourth in the voting last season and was part of the awards ceremony.

All-America wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, who caught touchdown passes of 80, 14 and 49 yards from Daniel, smiled when asked if he felt overlooked in the Heisman promotion.

"I'm doing everything I can to get Chase back to New York," Maclin said. "That guy deserved it last year, and he deserves it so far this year.

"He's the best quarterback in the country. By far."

Is Missouri closing in on becoming the best team in the country?

MU coach Gary Pinkel said he is pressing his players to perform at a championship level.

"This is about us winning championships," he said. "That's how we're grading our players."

But which championship, Gary?

"The Big 12 North. That's our focus," Pinkel said, before deadpanning: "Nice try."

OK, so the head coach won't bite. He doesn't need to. If his quarterback keeps playing like this and the under-achieving defense gets its act together, Missouri will be in the hunt for No. 1 to the end.

The biggest advantage Mizzou has this year over OU is Arrowhead will be more of a Mizzou tilt than OU.

I think Missouri's defense is too suspect to call them an elite team.

They are very good and capable of beating anyone, but you probably can't go a whole year winning every week if they're all shootouts

A Colorado? Maybe.

But not THE Colorado. That's just not happening.

LMAO That's unreal.

:D

It is tough for a defense to play 35 - 40 minutes a game and stop the opponents all of the time. The MU defense needs to have 2 sets of defenses to rotate because of the amount of time that the defense has to rest when the offense is running up and down the field.

MU's D only gave up 125 yards in the 2nd half, nice improvement. Illinois' offense is a good offense and will be able to put points on anyone.

Give it some time. Remember, last year MU's defense looked like slop throughout the non-con schedule.

They promptly led the Big XII in total defense during the conference schedule.

They're playing down to their opponents. It's not excusable, in fact its downright stupid, but it is what it is. We'll see the real unit come to play against NE.

We'd better. As good as this offense is, I still don't see it putting up more than about 35 in Lincoln, and that's being nice. I expect more in the 24 pt range.

Not exactly. We did not play down to Illinois level. Fact of the matter is they took advantage of a weakness on our team, the second CB. Vaughns and Bridges are not the answer. Until they figure out how to cover we will continue to give up the long ball.

I don't buy the playing down to anyone's level in any game so far. We just have given up yards but not many points. The name of the game is keep the other team from scoring and out score them. So they fact Mizzou has done a decent job of this, outside of the Illinois game, is great. The bad part is a better team will score if they are getting the yardage that is being gained by these lessor teams.

No kidding. That is incredible! :eek:

I think we'll score more than 24 pretty easily.

The 2ndary concerns me from Mizzou the most...

They def. need more of a pass rush but i think that will come, not sure what to think of these corners ****ing up assignments or getting flat out burned

Agreed...this offense has so many weapons and chase is in the zone right now...i expect us to continue to score 28+

Agree. I wouldn't be shocked if we put up 24 in the first half. It's been awhile since I've seen a college offense this efficient and explosive.

Is that your video on Youtube (bar reaction)?

ESPN is pimping Mizzou like crazy as well, esp Chase with his 7 td's being more than his incompletions the last 2 games. I am just glad i have a really damn good team this year, Go MIZZOU

We are definitely The Sexy Team in college football, and Kansas won't be pissing in our pool this year. But it won't mean anything unless we can seal the deal. I'm sure none of the other teams give a shit about these stories, especially the Gooners.

Who did they play that is a "somebody" again?

Well, we did open the season against a BCS team at a neutral site.

Does that count?

Illinois. Which looks like it could be suspect. Still it is a ranked opponent for now.

Outside them them the usual cupcakes but the fact that Mizzou is pounding these cupcakes into the dirt bodes well. Mizzou has underacheived against teams like Nevade and Ohio in the past when they were expected to beat them down.

Until USC pisspounded OSU Saturday night, who had any of the other top teams played that wasn't a joke?

Illinois is certainly a hell of a lot tougher than South Carolina.

Im happy for you MUrons. Seriously. You guys have a ****ing incredible football team this year. They are fun to watch... plus we are all brothers in arms when it comes to the Chiefs... so at least ya'll got something positive.

We KU fans are good for about 10 years with the KU hoops championship. If Mizzou wins the NC in football, I won't be a hater.

If you lose to Oklahoma in the Big XII championship... that is another story.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/2...ll_carv101.jpg

come get some

The winner of the LSU vs Auburn game this weekend might have something to do with the National title.

Just to make sure we're clear, is this the same Auburn team that scored 3 points against Mississippi State on Saturday?

Yeah Auburn sucks. Overrated just like most teams in the SEC with exception of a few.

It is. Some friends and I went there for dinner and drinks and that game happened to be on. I got my flip video camera to get some of the reactions...turned out to be pretty cool. Posted it on Sunday morning and 4k+ people have viewed the video.

Damn straight. Haven't you heard? They actually play DEFENSE in the SEC.

LMAO

A better pass rush will help the secondary on the deep balls.

Cant wait for MIzzou vs Texas! helluva game on the way in a little over a month....so is Colt McCoy gonna be worth drafting? like i said to begin the season Derrick Washington is our secret weapon

The same Illinois that barely beat La. Lafayette? Wooo there is an impressive victory. And who cares if you beat the cupcakes into the ground, still doesn't mean your any good.


(Wow sinking to muron levels makes me feel dirty)

MU actually beat the ranked team they played. They also have an O-line that can block, unlike some other Big 12 North teams.

And what level would that be? What exactly did OmahaChief say that was so nasty? There's really nothing in this entire thread that's really nasty towards Kansas. Perhaps you just see the word "cupcakes" and assume someone's talking about Kansas, which I guess is understandable. But in this case, the cupcakes in question were ours.

Seems like you were at asshole level all on your own. Don't blame us.

ROFL You can't be serious. You can't win a football game with the D they have now. Remind me of the Chiefs a few years back.

Funny, we won more games than you did last year.

Oh, but none of that matters because we beat you when we played head to head didn't we? And this isn't last year. I'm not trying to be a dick but before you guys get all hyped up about your team, they need to fix some things with that D.

Then you proceeded to humiliate the entire conference by laying down like bitches in your bowl game (as usual). Thanks for that.

But yeah, you beat us. Never said you didn't.

Interesting note: Every MU fan with which I've spoken speaks very highly of OU and and gives them due respect. Perhaps MU doesn't deserve respect, but I would guess that the OU staff respects MU even if the fans don't.

Oh, and I didn't write the article.

And what makes you think MU could have done so much better?

Keep bitching, one of these decades you may have a good program like OU does, till then STFU

And why are you getting so offended over what I say? Nothing I said was personal, I was stating stating an obvious fact.

Go play with your dolls, you cherry-picking punk. Nobody was disrespecting OU until you starting running your mouth.

I never said I don't respect them, but to say they are one of the top 3 teams (and by far) is ridiculous. I respect any program that is on the rise, and that is what they are. But with the D they have, they won't make it as far as people think. I am not saying it can't be fixed, but right now, it's a real problem.

Quit bitching because I stated an obvious fact.

How original, a MU fan calling ME a cherry-picker, LMAO.

It cracks me up how no MU face the fact that there D is not so good, and they start bitching and whining about it.

I wasn't disrespecting anyone and even said that in my second post. IT IS AN OBVIOUS STATEMENT, quit getting your panties in a bunch.

cause MU doesn't have a good football program or anything. :shake:

Oh yeah, people have been "cherry-picking" MU for decades. :rolleyes: That's one of the dumbest things I've ever seen here, and that's saying something.

Did Springfield suddenly relocate to Oklahoma? I guess it's reasonably close to Oklahoma, so perhaps you're not quite as bad as Midnight Vulture loving his favorite teams, USC and Georgia, who ironically *big shock* just happen to be in the Top 5 at the moment.

WTF are you talking about you f'n moron? MU finished ranked #1 in the Big 12 last year for total defense. What about that leads you to the conclusion that our "Di is not so good"?

Seriously, I want to hear you back up your brilliant assessment, considering we're returning 10 starters from the Big 12's #1 defense.

Since Gary Pinkle took over in 2001 he has gone 37-35 or something like that up to 2007 I believe, thats not a good program.

Whether or not you are trying is irrelevant; telling someone else not to get "all hyped up" about their team goes beyond arrogance.

Oh, I forgot you have to be from the same state to like that team :rolleyes: No one ever told me that one. My step dad lived in OK and is a huge OU fan and I have been ever since I met him when I was about 10.

Where were all these great MU fans when they weren't winning ball games? I never saw them.

Since 2007, Mizzou is 15-2.

You = moron

Uh, you game up 42 points against Illinois? Just a guess.

And before that? Good programs are not made in 2 years.

So you dismiss an entire season of defense based on one game? And not only one game, but the first game of a new season? You sure are bright.

Yes because I have said so many times you guys wont be good because your D sucked. Read my post, I said you won't be good team with a D like that, but I am not saying it's not fixable or anything. Please, go back and read it.

Can't win a football game?

Really??? Really???????????????

With the D that played against Illinois, they won't be able to beat a good team right now. Sorry, it's the truth. Not saying they won't step it up.

No. Typically a good football coach takes about 5 years to build the program he wants, and to see the results. When did Pinkel take the job?

So, you're basically saying nothing. Correct?

Funny, I thought you were 10 now.

I've been a Missouri fan all my life, and I don't need some twerp (step dad liked OU? oh boy :whackit: ) like you implying that I'm a fair weather fan. Has the level of interest in them increased lately? Of course. But consider that I can't even watch their games on TV unless they're highly ranked because I live in northern Illinois. Prior to a couple of years ago, I'd be lucky to see them play once or twice a year.

I don't think any Mizzou fan will tell you that the defense doesn't need to get better, but they are 2-0 against teams that played in bowl games last year and they appear to be able to score at will.

LOL I am saying the D they played against Illinois will not cut it against good team. You can only base their D off the first game (because they last two were easy games) and the first game, they did not play very well.

Seriously, you trying to make fun of my age has no effect on me, it really doesn't. Just trying to save you some time.

But, but, according to you, you should but Illinois fan since your from there LMAO

Yep, I started watching them around that age, I guess that still makes me a band wagoner because I didn't have a mini TV set when I came out of the womb with a OU Texas game on :rolleyes:

Fair enough, thats all I said and a bunch of people got offended and started their little MU rants like they do.

I live here now, Midnight Stummpy. I'm not from here. Why would somebody from Illinois be a fan of the Tigers and the Chiefs? Dumbass.

Wow, are you trying to tell me you have to be from a certain state to like a certain team. And your calling me a dumbass? You have got to be kidding me, I am not going to even argue about this stuff any more, your worth my time.

See ya in the Big 12 Champ. game.








38-17...

Whatever, punk. Perhaps one of these days Oklahoma will hit some lean years, and we'll see how fast you whore yourself out to the Longhorns, claiming, of course, to be a lifelong fan of them as well. "Well, I have this uncle from Texas....." :rolleyes:

Sounds like the small town high school team he is on has been getting their asses kicked up and down the field.

He needs something to hold on to.

Yes your right, we played a Class 5 Schools from Rolla(who is now 3-0 and state ranked), was down by 3 at half, lost to Class 5 Semi Finalist team from last year Ozark by 3 points with 20 seconds left (at their new stadium) and played Webb City (A top 3 HS program in the state) and we were losing 29-14 until the young ones came in. Mosports ranked us as the best 0-2 team in the state, so you obviously know nothing about my small town high school team. Nice try though. :rolleyes:

your so right ROFL

You MU fans whine more than little girls.

Quit being a poor sport.

No wins.

That sucks.

Couldn't imagine that, but it was something I never had to deal with.