He was always such a USC guy but has really jumped on the LSU train this year. I really enjoy reading his stuff now. I find it insightful and accurate. He fills out his ballot how everyone should, by who's the best team through the whole season, not necessarily did you win or lose last week. He was the first one to put Oregon real high and he did it after a loss to Cal, moved them up several spots as I remember. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...del/11/06/power.rankings11/index.html?eref=T1
Stewart Mandel Power Rankings, No reason to punish LSU for prevailing in close games http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/stewart_mandel/11/06/power.rankings11/index.html Stewart Mandel confronts our doubters in this weeks Power Rankings.
He makes some really good points, especially how similar our team is to the '06 Florida squad through the same stretch of games. Maybe everything is just hyper-magnified (in the negative) for us as fans. Perhaps we have a really good shot @ our second NC in the past five years.
Mandel makes a good argument for LSU because it's easy to do. LSU is the best team in the nation, but they have displayed their potential in one game only this year: vs. Virginia Tech. If the Bayou Boys can get their mental act together and stay relatively injury free, God have mercy on Ohio State on January 7th. :tigereye:
Something to think about - how badly would we have beaten Bama if not for most/all of those stupid penalties/unforced errors? Most of the plays I'm thinking of did not seem to be forced by Bama players.
He's been more than fair to the Tigers all year. I've also seen him admit being wrong about some other teams. And I like his take on the Tigers.
The cynic in me wants to believe that he's just playing the odds to protect his highly-visible reputation. If Vegas likes the Tigers, then Mandel has good reason to go with them as well. Odds are - he comes out smelling like a rose.
More important is what wasn't under official review. JPW was down before he lost control of the ball. LSU won the game fair and square at the line of scrimmage; my point is, I didn't like how the game was called.
