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 Friday, December 13, 2002
Miami looks great, Oklahoma looks vulnerable
By Terry Bowden
Special to ABC Sports Online
Miami looked dominant against Florida on Saturday, but it is still a wide-open race for the national championship. There is a lot of football to be played and we can't totally build our opinions of any of these teams on one or two games.
I think we have to stick with the impression Miami gave us, though, and I am not surprised the Hurricanes are No. 1 by themselves in both polls this week.
Oklahoma issues
First of all, what an exciting game for the fans. I wasn't sure after the first half how good it would be, but it was as exciting as you could ever want a game to be.
There are two different thoughts on what the Oklahoma coaches tell the players and what they feel. The first thing you want to impress upon them is "You looked a loss in the eye, there was no way we could win, yet you didn't give up and you believed in yourself. You came on and did what championship teams have to do."
They came back to win a game when it didn't look like there was any way they could. When you play 11 or 12 games, get to the conference championship and then a bowl game, you always look back to one where you didn't play good enough, where you should have lost but found a way to win. This is one of those games for Oklahoma.
Then they go back to work on Monday say "Man, do we have some issues." There were large parts of that game where Oklahoma couldn't do anything. They couldn't run the ball, couldn't get receivers open and made a lot of mistakes they have to work on.
As an analyst I don't want to take away too many impressions from one game but there seems to be some problems for OU. And its not just on the offensive side of the ball, it's on defense, too.
|  | | Nate Hybl has thrown for 1,313 yards and 9 TDs this season. |
First and foremost, Oklahoma looks like an offense that doesn't have all the weapons that will make sure they are going to play well against every team, teams that are better on defense than Alabama. This offense can't run the ball at times.
Alabama stopped the running game when it wanted to and the passing was inconsistent at times. If Oklahoma is going to be a championship-caliber team they've got to be able to run the ball better and add the deep ball to their offense. You can't run the ball and use the short passing game to make the defense guard to different parts of the field. The running game and the short passing game can be stopped with the same type of defense.
And now Jason White's injury has them down to their backup quarterback in Nate Hybl, although I think they are very similar in terms of talent. I see these guys as good but not great quarterbacks and I don't put them in the same category as Ken Dorsey or Rex Grossman. But the Sooners' offense is based on having a quarterback who shows a lot of poise and leadership and doesn't turn the ball over or make mistakes, rather than one who goes out there with a rifle arm and wins it by himself. So if that is the type of QB they need I'm not sure this is a deciding factor in whether their offense can get it done.
Secondly, Alabama's offense really took it to the Oklahoma defense. I thought he Sooners had the best defense in the country, yet I saw the Tide run the ball much too well against a team that expects to play for a championship. This is Alabama and they have a great tradition, but this is not the Alabama your grandfather loved.
This 'Bama team is good but not great and I think Oklahoma has to be honest with itself and say "If we have all these great players that everyone is talking about, especially on defense, then we had better be dominant."
Oklahoma is gong to sell the fact that those kids never gave up, that they had to find a way to win and they did. But on the other hand this team put itself in a precarious situation, almost to the point where that they couldn't come back. The Sooners are still going to be ranked high, but one that every opponent sees as vulnerable.
Miami domination
The feeling you get from this game is that Miami is head and shoulders above the rest of the country. This Miami team really did reload and is not just rebuilding.
They lost 11 people to the draft and a lot of seniors, but these young guys are just as talented and the coaches have them playing just as aggressively. But Florida did play with them for most of the game even though it did get out of hand in the second half. A lot of turnovers by the Gators and big plays by the Hurricanes were the difference. I would have to say that no one in the country has impressed against good opposition like Miami did Saturday night.
Reality check for Notre Dame
The fact that the Irish don't have an offensive touchdown yet this year is not a problem in and of itself because they are 2-0, but what it represents is a major problem. In order to score on offense you have to have playmakers, and they have not shown that they have the backs and receivers to break long runs and score on long passes. This is a problem because they are going to play better teams than they have seen so far. Michigan and Michigan State are both coming up, and if you got your hopes too high against Maryland reality should be setting in now.
If Ty Willingham is going to do anything this year he's going to make sure he wins every game he has a chance to win to try and get this to become a winning team that gets to a bowl. But I just don't see enough skilled athletes who can make big plays to make this a BCS or national championship team.
Wolfpack ready to challenge
Philip Rivers is a big part of the N.C. State team and he helps them compete. He's good at running their offense, he's smart and he gets the ball to the right people. He has always been a factor.
But Chuck Amato was an outstanding defensive mind at Florida State and is building a defense that is also becoming a factor. That is what you must do if you are going to contend in the ACC. N.C. State still has not played any real strong teams, but from what we've seen so far they are the No. 2 team in the ACC and that they will challenge Florida State.
Pac-10 picture
I thought of the Pac-10 as being fairly wide-open at the beginning. I didn't see a dominant team at the beginning of the year and I think the games we've seen so far bear that out.
Washington State, which historically has not been dominant, has in Jason Gesser the senior quarterback that is usually a pretty good indicator of who will win the conference. That doesn't change after last weekend but I think this is a pretty balanced conference. Washington really should have beaten Michigan and they struggled against San Jose State, but that can be expected after a big game. Southern Cal beat Auburn but didn't show dominance. Oregon struggled against Fresno State.
So we've got a pretty open Pac-10 race, but that's what I thought it would be.
Big boys in the Big Ten
Ohio State and Michigan looked good over the weekend, and they should have. They were playing MAC schools, and both rarely lose against the MAC. Every year someone gets into a tight game with a MAC school, but Saturday the Buckeyes and Wolverines dominated their opponents and I think they are the contenders in the Big Ten in that order.
|  | | Criag Krenzel beat Michigan on the road last year in his first career start. |
I still say, though, that the problem in the Big Ten is that there is no Ken Dorsey or Rex Grossman. These teams are clones of each other. They believe in strong defense, using the run to set up the pass and giving the quarterback a lot of play action and third and long he needs to complete. You have to have a cannon for an arm and maybe a little bit of NFL talent to play that way, and I'm not sure I see that type of quarterback in those programs. These teams will contend for the Big Ten titles but I don't see that type of play getting them to the national championship.
Michigan State is another team that has the talent and the schedule to be in the hunt, but over the last couple of years we've come to doubt them. They have the talent but they just don't win the games they're supposed to win. I think the jury is still out on MSU and I'm anxious to see them in the next few weeks against Notre Dame and some other teams. They have the quarterback, running back and receivers, but you have to question the defense a little bit. It's too early to cross them out, but there are lingering memories of the last couple of seasons.
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