BCS Will Work Out in Our Favor IF We Take Care of Business---FOCUS ON ARK.

Discussion in 'The Tiger's Den' started by TejasTiger, Nov 25, 2003.

  1. TejasTiger

    TejasTiger Founding Member

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    Guys,

    I've looked at enough BCS stuff to make one's head spin and feel more confident than ever we'll get to where we need to go IF we win these next two games.

    Easier said than done.

    Consider: NO team save for Ohio State (Mich. State, Purdue, Michigan) or Miami (W. Va, Va. Tech, Tenn, Fla St over a 5-wk period) has or will undergo the brutal, "muderer's row"-type stretch of schedule LSU is in the midst of right now (Ole Miss, Arky, SEC East champ).

    Neither the Buckeyes nor the Hurricanes emerged from those stretches unbeaten.

    While going 3-0 during this stretch will be, if it happens, the sort of emphatic close that makes our Sugar Bowl selection a slam dunk...we need to get there first.

    First up, one of the most underrated teams in America: Arkansas

    They are a solid 8-3 team, and by that I mean they are above average in most areas, susceptible in 2-3.

    Looks like they are a bit soft up the middle (interior DL and an LB corp that's a bit banged up) and their WR corps is a bit inconsistent.

    On the other hand, they have a good OL, a solid back in Cedrick Cobb and a resillient, improvisational QB in Matt Jones.

    Special teams are decent, and they have a very underrated head coach in Houston Nutt who loves to stick it to teams when he goes on the road as a heavy underdog (should have beaten the Vols in Knoxville a few years back and took it to a top 5 Texas team in Austin).

    Since both NM State and Miss. St were effectively bye-weeks, they've had the sort of tune-up friendly stretch of schedule that we had earlier in the season, a time to figure out what works and what doesn't and to fix what is broken.

    On the other hand, they have little to play for other than to be spoilers since they can neither move up nor fall in the final SEC standings with a win or loss, respectively (they lose the head-to-head tiebreaker with Auburn).

    We can also look at their performance on the road and make a case that they have regressed as the season has worn on, with the performance versus Texas the peak and flops in Oxford and going to OT against Kentucky showing signs of slippage, perhaps.

    Below are comments from the editor of HawgsIllustrated.com on this week's matchup. Based on what he has to say, it looks like we'll use the full stable of backs and need precision from Matt Mauck to control the clock and get ahead early, hopefully keeping that offense off the field and forcing them to abandon the run as early as possible: :

     
  2. G_MAN113

    G_MAN113 Founding Member

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    Matt Jones worries me. The kid is a 4-year starter (off-and-on)
    and is very unpredictable.
     

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