The usual hue and cry met this week’s first Bowl Championship Series rankings of the 2006 college football season. I must admit that it’s pretty difficult to understand how Auburn, which was plastered at home a couple of weeks ago by 13th-ranked Arkansas, could be ranked fourth, five places ahead of Texas, which has manhandled 22nd-ranked Oklahoma and lost only to top-ranked Ohio State.
At any rate, there is a better way. Las Vegas Sports Consultants is the leading consultant for Nevada sports books and, last year, they began publishing their own OddsMakers Top 25. Inasmuch as the firm’s four college football oddsmakers were already preparing ratings for all 119 Division I-A teams, they decided to submit ballots and calculate the results for use in their radio shows. They rank teams based on such criteria as injuries, performance, skill and game location, not on won-loss record and not on which teams will draw the greatest or least betting action (that’s for the bookies) Their poll is gaining traction in betting markets and is now published every Monday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
For my money, this ranking — which is based on the profit motive (LVSC is attempting to attract betting customers through the accuracy of its research) — is a more accurate way to rank teams than the way in which voters of widely-varying interest rank teams in the more traditional polls. The following is this week’s Oddsmakers Top 25 poll with the team record and BCS ranking in parentheses.
1. Ohio State (7-0) (1)
2. Texas (6-1) (9)
3. Michigan (7-0) (3)
4. California (6-1) (10)
5. Louisiana State (5-2) (18)
6. Southern Cal (6-0) (2)
7. Florida (6-1) (6)
8. Tennessee (5-1) (11)
9. Louisville (6-0) (7)
10. Notre Dame (5-1) (8)
11. Clemson (6-1) (12)
12. Wisconsin (6-1) (21)
13. Oregon (5-1) (14)
14. West Virginia (6-0) (5)
15. Auburn (6-1) (4)
16. Nebraska (6-1) (17)
17. Oklahoma (4-2) (22)
18. Boise State (7-0) (15)
19. Georgia Tech (5-1) (19)
20. Miami (4-2) (NR)
21. Pittsburgh (6-1) (NR)
22. Penn State (4-3) (NR)
23. Arkansas (5-1) (13)
24. Florida State (4-2) (NR)
25. Missouri (6-1) (24)
My sense is that Horns’ fans are already sold on this poll over the BCS ranking.

Cowboys 34 Texans 6

As expected, it was men against boys as the Texans (1-4) went down without so much as a whimper against the Pokes (3-2). The Texans defense played well for a half as Houston actually led 6-3 at the half. However, the utter incompetence of the Texans’ offense wore the defense down in the second half as the Texans committed all seven of their penalties and turned the ball over three times on two David Carr interceptions and a fumble by kickoff returner Edell Shepherd. With the Texans facing the Jaguars twice as well as the Giants and the Titans over the next month, the best that Houston can realistically hope for is a 2-7 record when the schedule gets a bit easier in late November and early December when the Texans play the Bills, the Jets, the Raiders and the Titans again in consecutive games. This is a brutally bad football team.

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Texas Longhorns 28 Oklahoma 10

As noted in last week’s review, my recent up-close exposure to this Texas team led me to conclude that the Sooners would have their hands full with the Longhorns (5-1, 2-0), and that was certainly the case during the second half of the annual Red River Shootout in Dallas on Saturday. The Horns dominated the Sooners 21-0 in the second half on their way to a convincing 28-10 victory in what really amounted to a rock’em, sock’em defensive battle that was won by the team with the fewer turnovers. Texas QB Colt McCoy had a couple of nice TD passes during that second half and Longhorn CB Aaron Ross was all over the field, icing the game with an alert scoop-up of a lateral pass in the 4th quarter. Texas’ current 17-game winning streak in Big 12 games is the longest in conference history, surpassing Kansas State’s 15-game winning streak from 1997-98. The Longhorns have surprising Baylor (3-3, 2-0) at home next week before facing the toughest part of their schedule — consecutive road games at Nebraska (5-1, 2-0) and Texas Tech (4-2, 1-1).

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Texans 17 Dolphins 15

Well now, that’s a relief!
In an entertaining but not particularly well-played game, the Texans (1-3) won for only the third time in the past 21 games as the Dolphins (1-3) could not convert a questionable play call on a two-point conversion attempt late in the 4th quarter. The Texans defense finally showed a long-awaited pass rush, sacking the immobile Dolphin QB Dante Culpepper five times and hurrying him at least another dozen times or so. The Texans offense was mediocre, but QB David Carr and WR Andre Johnson were able to put the Texans in a position to score a couple of TD’s, which was enough to get the job done against a Dolphins team that is dragged down by a rather pedestrian offense. The Texans have a bye in Week Five and then go to Dallas to be smoked by the Cowboys (2-1) in Week Six before returning home to face the Jaguars (3-1) in Week Seven. Although the win against the Dolphins was refreshing, this team has no NFL-average running back, is soft in the defensive secondary, tackles poorly overall and continues to have problems protecting the QB. Thus, my sense is that the Texans will be 1-5 when they have their next realistic chance for a victory in Week Eight against the Titans in Nashville.

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This past Saturday, I traveled to Austin for the day with my buddy Jerry Sagehorn to meet my brothers Bud and Mike, and my brother-in-law Gene Acuna to watch the 7th-ranked Texas Longhorns play their Big 12 Conference opener against the Iowa State Cyclones, who are coached by my longtime friend, Dan McCarney.
McCarney — or “Coach Mac” as most everyone calls him — and I grew up together in Iowa City, Iowa, where we were teammates on a championship high school football team at City High in 1970. We have remained close friends over the years, and so I have tried to attend each game that Iowa State plays in Texas since Coach Mac became head coach at ISU in 1994. Coach Mac graciously comes through with a few sideline passes for me to use, and it’s always a great experience attending a game in Austin and College Station.
The Longhorns really have it going these days. After winning their first National Championship last season since 1970, the Horns are re-loading this season with a talented and deep group of players who are not only fast and strong, but also well-motivated. Mac’s Cyclones battled hard and, had a couple of plays turned out differently, could have been in a position to pull an upset over the 24 point-favored Horns at the end. However, the Horns dominated both lines of scrimmage over the final two-thirds of the game and methodically pulled away for a 37-14 victory.
The FilmLoop below contains some of the photographs that I took from the sideline during the game along with my comments about attending a game on the sidelines at D.K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. As with College Station, Austin is one of the great college football venues in the country. I am blessed to have the opportunity to experience it up close and personal, and I am grateful to be able to pass along the experience to you.

Redskins 31 Texans 15

Oh, my.
It’s only been three games, but let’s face it — the Kubiak Era is looking like an utter disaster. As noted in this earlier post, when Bob McNair replaced former general manager Charley Casserly and head coach Dom Capers, he changed the model of the football operation from a strong GM-field coach model to the strong coach-support GM model. Thus, Kubiak — who had never been a head coach — was a somewhat unusual choice to replace Capers.
Through three games, Kubiak looks like a marginal improvement over the Texans’ previous offensive coordinators, but a fairly disastrous choice as a head coach. Indeed, there is precious little that has occurred in the first three games that indicates that this team is any better overall than the 2-14 team of last season. Although the Texans’ offense has been dreadful in large parts of each of the first three games, the Texans defense is in complete disarray after giving up almost 500 yards for the third straight game and making 36-year old Redskins QB Mark Brunell look like Hall-of-Famer Steve Young. But what’s most distressing is that the Texan defenders don’t even look as if they have ever seen a screen pass or draw play, and don’t appear to have a clue as to situations in the game when those plays are likely to be called. Talent limitations aside, such lack of preparation is a sure sign of bad coaching.
Absent a win next week against a Miami team that has a feckless offense but strong defense, the Texans will likely be 0-6 because, after their bye in Week Five, they play at Dallas and at home against Jacksonville. Thus, the next realistic chance for a victory would be in Week Eight against the Titans. Moreover, based on their performance in the first three games, the Texans appear to have a realistic chance of winning only three or four of their remaining games — my pre-season prediction of six wins is a pipe dream at this point. Bob McNair does not deserve this.

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To say that college football is a passion in Oklahoma is an understatement, which has been reflected this week as many supporters of the University of Oklahoma football team are undergoing psychotherapy over a blown call by a replay official on an onsides kick that allowed the University of Oregon Ducks to nip the Sooners at the end of their game last Saturday in Eugene, Oregon.
Well, Oregon apparently has had enough of the OU criticism over the blown call and is now fighting back. Don’t miss this hilarious news conference as the Oregon Duck explains with White House Press Secretary-style clarity that the replay official’s call was actually the correct one.

Colts 43 Texans 24

It was not as “close” as the score indicates. Behind 17-0 before they appeared to look up, the Texans (0-2) could not force the Colts (2-0) to punt until it was 30-10 midway through the fourth quarter. The only way that the local team ended up with 24 points was by scoring three largely meaningless TD’s in garbage time when the Colt defenders were merely attempting to avoid injury. After two games, the replacement of the Casserly-Capers regime with the Kubiak crew looks like the quintessential rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic, particularly on defense. The Texans have winnable games the next two Sundays at home against the Redskins and the Dolphins, so they better get a win or two in those games or this season could quickly deteriorate into a repeat of the 2005 nightmare. With each passing week, this Texans team is looking more like the inept early 1970’s Oilers teams. Where are Sid Gillman and Bum Phillips when you really need them?

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