The Blue Board

Did I mention that Oregon shut down Auburns offense compared to the rest of the SEC. They held them to less points than Alabama and LSU and substantially less than UGA and South Carolina.

Well said. People always tend to forget that Oregon shut down Auburns offense as well.

Looks good. I think Michigan should be outside the top 10 but will be where you place them for the Alabama game to get 2 top 10 teams in that game.
I feel they should be 11-14 but your list looks solid as to where it might come out.

Lol

In that game, Auburn put up 519 yards on 85 plays, or 6.11 yards per play.

On the year, Auburn put up 6470 yards on 863, or 7.497 yards per play.

That means Auburn put up only 81.44% of their season average in the title game.

In that game, Auburn scored 22 points, just 51.2% of their season average of 42.46 points in regulation.

Auburn turned the ball over twice and punted 5 times. Their season averages in those categories was 1.2 and 2.85.

Auburn certainly wasn't completely shut down, but they had one of their two worst games of the year, with at Alabama being the other. If Oregon's performance on defense was only topped by a Saban-coached Alabama team with the home crowd behind them, I would say the Ducks did a pretty solid job.

An interesting note on that title game--Newton's regular season high in pass attempts was 24. In the SEC title game, he threw the ball 28 times. In the national title game, he threw the ball 35 times.

I will address the questions about Michigan all in one post. 11-2 team that is returning one of the most electric players in the game in Denard Robinson. A defense that ranked 17th nationally in total D and 6th in scoring D. Returning a 1000 yard RB. 2 of our top 3 receivers. 4 OL that got plenty of playing time. One would think the offense would be better going into year 2 under Borges, a very good offensive coordinator. Mattison took a defense that ranked in the 100's and made them more than respectable in one year. One should very easily expect that our returning guys on D should see some improvement under this coaching staff.

To address the OL and DL question mentioned above. Michigan's starting OL should be good and very possibly better than last year. Lewan is considered possibly an elite tackle and could possibly be a high first round draft pick if he decides to go pro after this year. Barnum, Omameh and Schofield are all returning guys who either started or saw plenty of playing time. Now if we suffer a couple of injuries on the OL Michigan could be in trouble. Michigan's DL has some talent and going into their second year of having 3 DL coaches(Mattison, Hoke and our actual DL coach) one can expect guys like Roh, Cambell, Black, Beyer and Clark to all improve from last year. Michigan is not starting 2* scrubs on the DL. They are all high 3*s or higher who just haven't received the coaching to develop until Hoke and Mattison got to Michigan.

As for Michigan not beating anyone of quality that is just silly. Michigan blew out Nebraska who just so happened to beat Michigan State handily.

be honest with yourself Zo, Oregon is good enough to win the P12 & that is about where it ends.

I know right.. wtf is a 3***? Never heard of that before.

Quit taking things so seriously.

He obviously knows that Claiborne was a 3 star and left college one of the best CBs, if not the best in the last decade, and I certainly know that Marcel Dareus was a 3 star and turned out pretty good as well and was the 3rd overall pick in the draft last year.

I know. We haven't beaten anyone outside of our league. It's really just sad.

Shhhhhhh.......don't tell Penn St, Michigan St, Virginia Tech, Clemson, or Texas I said that.

3 of those 5 teams won their conference the years we defeated them.

But shhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Solid list, but I'd switch SC and LSU. Let LSU have that target on their back.

Edit: West Virginia should be somewhere in the top 10. I think they might mess around and win the big 12 next season.

Yeah, I have no problem with LSU or Bama ahead of SC because both have ridiculous talent and depth in the trenches and that's where games are won IMO. I have to see how SC's interior defensive linE situation shakes out and if the second and third string RBs are up to the task.