Predictions and Some Tim Talk

What's good? 4and26sports is back for a little venting. First of all, though:
Phils over Dodgers in 6, Eagles over Niners 21-12, PSU over Wisconson 27-21.

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  If someone had asked me who has the top offense, yards wise, I would have guessed Texas Tech, Mizzou, Penn State, or Oklahoma. Well, they're ranked 2, 3, 9 and 5, respectively. Who's number one? Why, Tulsa of course, with mighty Houston sitting at four. Just goes to show you can't put too much stock in statistics in college, unlike the NFL; the level of competition is so varied as opposed to parity.
    Case in point- while an average Big XII team has to go through Texas, OU, Mizzou, OKST, Kansas, et al, while Tulsa has the pleasure of playing such patsies as Rice, U Texas El Paso, U Alabama-Birmingham, and Southern Methodist, yet when you measure who possesses the best offense in CFB, the stats point to Tulsa.
    Something esle to ponder: the yardage and TD's are horrificly skewed due to gimmick offenses and one man offenses. Seriously, are Mike Leach's "Let's throw 80 times a game" Texas Tech team and June Jones's old "Hey, Le'ts see if we can throw 90 times a game" Hawaii teams really that much better and more athletic than, say, a Pete Carroll pro-style USC team or a Bob Stoops conservative Oklahoma? No way, and if you disagree, you're kidding yourself- but the numbers suggest otherwise. Gimmick offenses work in CFB. Another thing that may skew totals, as noted above, is a one man offense.
    While pro football is dominated by a platoon system, i.e. Barber/Jones, McFadden/Bush/Fargas, Jackson/Grant, college football can be dominated by a good enough athlete. It's simple, really- in the pros, it's a lot more equal footing, and someone carrying the ball every play would be beaten down and out of the league well before they should be.
    Which brings me to my point- if you have an elite athlete (let's call him "Tim") against a large amount of good and above average athletes, and Tim's team is filled with just plain average athletes, there's no reason not to give Tim the ball every play. Since Tim gets the ball every play, he gets his numbers, but his team still isn't really that good because the opposing defense knows exactly what's coming and can stop it. And just because Tim scores a lot doesn't mean he's a great football player or a great leader. So even though Timmy can score 55 touchdowns by getting the ball every play and running QB draws by the goal line, Timmy has never had a 4th quarter comeback. Tim blew it against an inferior team on its last legs in his bowl game. Tim's team went 9-4 after winning a national championship where he was the backup, and got entirely too much credit for what he did on that squad.
    And Tim's going to realize that when he gets to the NFL he's not going to be able to truck overmatched defenders en route to another easy score in Urban Meyer's vaunted spread- he's going to get laid out, concussed and tossed aside like a taller, more religious Ryan Leaf. Go and ask Alex Smith how it feels to be the highly-touted, awesome Urban Meyer-spread Quarterback in the pros. Might be able to give Tim some good advice.
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