Nov

The Return

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^{State of the Union: Mizzou football

To quote Dennis Green "they are who we thought they were," or at least who I thought they were. Going into the year I wrote Mizzou would lose three games- Texas, the Big XII Championship game, and another random game. When I originally made that prediction I was ridiculed. Phone calls poured into Saturday Afternoon Sportstalk claiming MU was a National Title contender. Two months later a three-loss campaign is looking a whole hell of a lot more likely than a BCS Championship, and seats on the Chase Daniel bandwagon are becoming more and more available.

The "Mizzou is better than you think" calls are now replaced by "Mizzou is overrated" calls. One caller in particular, if you’ve heard the show you know who I’m talking about, is named Bozo. I don’t think his real name is Bozo (if it was that’d be crazy), but he has definitely earned the title after calling in and being an effing idiot a few weeks in a row.

I know a lot of you have probably never heard the show so I’ll offer a quick reset of Bozo: He calls into a lot of shows, offers a few ridiculous uninformed points, and makes an ass of himself. Its not that I don’t like Bozo, I actually love him. He plays a perfect foil, always gets callers fired up, and adds a significant amount of humor to the presentation. I can’t tell if Bozo is drunk (got to be), stupid (at least a little), or is playing a character; but he definitely brings something to the table. If Bozo happens to be reading this I’d like him to know I enjoy and encourage his contributions. I like to drink as much as the next guy, I just don’t call into 100,000 watt radio stations and make an ass out of myself after I have few.

Anyway, this past week Bozo claimed Missouri was a borderline top 25 team. While Bozo couldn’t name even fifteen teams better than MU (I would challenge anyone too) he did bring up one interesting question: Why is two loss Missouri ranked ahead of ahead of undefeated Ball State?*

*He didn't mention Ball State by name but asked how "one of those undefeated teams" could be ranked ahead of Mizzou, I had to come up with the name. Since Ball State is the first team I came up with on the show I'll use them again here. Feel free to replace them with Utah or Bosie St. if you'd like.

Ball State has won every game they’ve played so far this season. Ball State beat a Big Ten team on the road by twenty-one points. Jason Whitlock has been pimping Ball State since before the season started. Hell, David Letterman graduated from Ball State, how could they not be good? Why are they not ranked ahead of Missouri?

Ball State is good at football the same way I’m good at solving the puzzles on the bottom of Mickey’s Malt Liquor bottle caps- pretty good, better than most, but far from world class. Ball State is the Kimbo Slice of college football. They can beat up on teams from the MAC the same way the artist formerly known as Kevin Ferguson can knock out the neighborhood bully on youtube. There is a big difference between beating Northeastern at home and beating a good Big XII team on a neutral site the same way there is a big difference between going toe to toe with a cop in a meat locker and fighting a trained MMA fighter in a caged octagon. If I were a Ball St. I’d be a lot more worried about having a Seth Petruzelli moment against Central Michigan than whether or not they deserve to be ranked ahead of Missouri.

Mizzou's two losses on they year are to two top ten teams. Ball State's best win is against Indiana, the 8th team in the Big 10. Beating a bad team in a mediocre BCS conference is nothing like beating a good team from one of the two premier BCS conferences. Give me a team from the Big XII of Mizzou's caliber over a mid-major of Ball State's caliber any day of the week.

I can already read the comments: But Boise St. beat Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl!!!

First off, the word caliber plays a pretty key role. This year’s Ball State team is not even close to the caliber of the 2006 Boise State team the same was the '06 OU team is not the same caliber of this year's Mizzou team. The 2005 Broncos won nine out of their last ten games, and the ’06 team returned more starters than anyone in the nation. If you’ll remember the Sooners lost starting quarterback Rhett Bomar in the summer prior to the season forcing Paul Thompson back into the role. Thompson was supposed to be a wide out for Bob Stoops that year- he threw three interceptions in the Fiesta Bowl loss.

Second, the Fiesta Bowl was a fluke. The hook and lateral on fourth down, the halfback pass in overtime on fourth down, the statue of liberty on a 2pt conversion; the game was an absolute circus. Boise State won after a series of unexplainable events.

Unexplainable things happen in life, we shouldn't expect for the to become trends: Turtle got an HJ on a cross-country flight from Meadow Soprano on a recent Entourage episode; does that mean we should expect him to steal chicks from Vince?

Weird exceptions to the rule will happen on occasion; that doesn’t mean we should scrap it. The rule stands: a "great" team from a mid-major conference will not beat a "good" team form the Big XII or the SEC. If you want reinforcement to the rule look no further than last year's Sugar Bowl.

Do you remember the ’08 Sugar Bowl? Remember Georgia bent Hawaii over and did what the stronger men serving life sentences in prison do to the weaker men serving life sentences in prison (Trust me I know this, I watched all 6 seasons of Oz in summer '07). A Mid-Major team can and will beat teams from the Big East, Big 10, ACC, and the Pac 10; but if you think they will beat teams from the Big XII or the SEC on a consistent basis you are not very good at thinking.

Bringing it all back to this year’s Tigers, when a team struggles it is natural for knee jerk fans and the media to forget how good they actually are. After two losses and a three point win over the doormats of the conference all the sudden the sky is falling. All of the sudden people have forgotten how good this team is, and are ready to place them below a team that has beaten no one and is without their best wide receiver for the remainder of the season.* If somehow Ball State and MU meet in a bowl game I would bet my house on the Tigers if I had one.

Mizzou is still on track to win the Big XII North, lose the Championship game, and play in a New Year’s Day bowl game. Chase Daniel still runs one of the most powerful offenses in the game. They still have a defense with some play makers that lacks the ability to impose its will on an opponent. They are a good team, but not a great team. They are who we thought they were.

*What happened to Dante Love is horrible and I don’t like using a tragedy to strengthen my argument, but you can’t deny his loss weakens Ball St.}

Comments

As much as I hate to admit it, Brian, you are right. Like the Lou dream Enjoyed your thoughts!

Posted by : MaryAnn - Thursday, November 13, 2008