Sunday, September 30, 2012

Morning Six Pack: September 30, 2012

http://lh6.ggpht.com/-bplRHS6qLtE/T_OHqP-CAtI/AAAAAAAADp4/YdD75tuAcHM/image_thumb%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800Beer n’ Bacon really is the breakfast of champions. Chug and chomp on these six college football stories from around the country.

So far, so perfect for Jeremy Shelley

Nobody has connected like Alabama’s Jeremy Shelley this season. He hasn’t missed a kick this year and put together his best game of the year Saturday as the Crimson Tide beat Ole Miss 33-14.

Michigan State upset with Ohio State about game footage

It wouldn’t be a Big Ten story without a little Urban Meyer/Ohio State drama now, would it?

Five reasons this 4-0 start is different

With the win over Kentucky last week, the Florida Gators find themselves right where they were a year ago — 4-0 and getting ready to open a tough October schedule against the nation’s No. 3 team in The Swamp.

Ducks start slow before dismantling Cougars

De'Anthony Thomas and Kenjon Barner sandwiched touchdown runs around Avery Patterson's 34-yard interception return for a score, and No. 2 Oregon used a third-quarter scoring blitz to shake Washington State for a 51-26 win.

Tigers' QB ranks as one of the country's worst

Young quarterbacks tend to struggle. It's nothing new. Heck, even referring to a college quarterback as 'young' is redundant. But saying Auburn's Kiehl Frazier is off to a bad start does not begin to encompass the poor play.

Quotable:

The brief seconds of trailing by a single point were a statistical oddity. The fact that Ole Miss had some momentum going was not. Alabama responded to that, forcefully, then seemed to drift again after halftime, raising the question of whether there could be some carryover against better teams coming up after the impending UA open date. Missouri hasn't been great but won on the road at Central Florida on Saturday and may be improving. Tyler Bray looked like he could be a danger to any team - admittedly, including his own - in Tennessee's shootout loss to Georgia. The win over Ole Miss doesn't "prove" how Alabama will respond if it faces road adversity. There is no reason to think the Crimson Tide will panic, but it didn't have time to do so on Saturday night before Jones was in the Ole Miss end zone. Still, Alabama seemed less like a juggernaut than it had for the previous month.

Nick Saban was actually asked, earlier in the week, if he was "worried" that his team hadn't been behind during the season. The question was curious, since that isn't a situation that a coach can control, at least not a coach in his right mind. Coaches always want to be ahead. On the other hand, there does have to be a curiosity factor, even for Saban. You can replicate all kinds of pressure situations in practice, but that is never quite the same thing as actual game action.

Championship seasons usually do require a team to prove its mettle at some point. The 1992 team that was honored Saturday night had to do so in Starkville and again in the SEC Championship Game at Legion Field. Those opponents, Mississippi State and Florida, were much tougher foes than a rebuilding Ole Miss was on Saturday night. The same thing lies ahead for this team, and will require more than Saturday saw.

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