Monthly Archives: July 2010

Mid American Conference Bowl Projections: Is Temple Really Chalk?

July 30, 2010
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Some questions to ponder before we dole out bowl projections for the Mid American Conference

IS TEMPLE THE REAL DEAL?

Yes, they are. Did you know that since joining the league, the Owls have the fourth best conference record. They’ve never had a losing season in MAC play. After a 7-1 mark a year ago, they welcome 16 starters back including nine from an offense that scored 29.2 points per game, improving by almost a touchdown per game each year since the start of the Al Golden era in 2006. Get Bernard Pierce on your college football fantasy team now. He’s going to score at least 20 touchdowns and flirt with 2,000 total yards. All five starters return on the offensive line, including the league’s most dominant rught side with RT Darious Morris and RG John Palumbo, both of whom earned  first team all-league honors a year ago.  On defense, nobody else in the league can match the front seven havoc the Owls can bring with Tackle Muhamed Wilkerson, End Adrian Robinson and MLB Elijiah Joseph. Those three, combined with Jacquawn Jarrett at safety give the Owls four returning first team all-MAC defenders sprinkled through their lineup. They also have the league’s best return game. The league is chalk full of teams who have the potential to be good and sound. But Temple has the potential to be great. They’re the only team in the league that  we can book as no worse than 6-2. Folks, meet your MAC favorites. About their only weakness is their inability to kick a field goal from beyond 40 yards. Otherwise, they have it all.

WILL THE END OF AN ERA JINX STRIKE MOUNT PLEASANT?

I just dont know how often the Chips will be loose this fall at Central Michigan. Year One without Dan LeFeveour should be one with zero expectations, frankly. Recent history in the MAC portends to bad things when replacing a longtime, franchise quarterback. The End of an Era jinx. Miami and Toledo have barely been competitive in league play since the departures of Roethlisberger and Gradkowski.  Bowling Green suffered a fall in the immediate two years after Josh Harris’s tenure despite having a seemingly capable replacement ready to go. Akron became a good MAC team during Charlie Frye’s upperclassmen years, including a MAC title in 2005 during his final season. They havent won more than three leagues games in a season since. We saw Buffalo and Ball State crater to losing records a year ago during their first campaign in years without Drew Wiley and Nate Davis.   Here’s the deal with the MAC. It has a large, balanced middle class. All the teams are about the same. Week in, week out you’re playing basically even teams. Having a guy like LeFevour, the Tim Tebow of the MAC since 2006,  gives you a chip no other team can think of matching. It separates you in this field more so than it would it just about every other conference in the land. CMU will return to that middle ground this year and its hard not seeing several losses as teams finally get their licks into them. For that matter, it’s hard to project WMU and BGSU into great things either with the Broncos needing to replace Tim Hiller and the Falcons holding audtions for Tyler Sheehan, the schools #2 career passer, replacement.  These teams are hardly left in shambles, but it’s going to be tough for them to muster the winning consistency needed to put up enough league wins to guarantee a bowl spot.

WHO WILL BREAK A BOWL DROUGHT?

Every year it seems the MAC delivers a formerly woebegone program into the postseason. In 2004, Northern Illinois qualified for their first bowl in 21 years.  In 2005, it was Akron, making its first ever postseason appearance. Western Michigan broke a 20-year bowl draught in 2006. Ball State did the same in 2007. The last two seasons have seen Buffalo and then Temple, longtime college football laughingstocks, play into a 13th game. Who will that be this year? I say Kent State. The Flashes havent had a winning season since logging a 6-5 mark in 2001. They havent gone bowling since a 1972 date in the Tangerine Bowl. They went a non-descript  5-7 a year ago. But, a few things emerged in their favor during the season that might set them up for a postseason berth this year. On offense, the discovered their QB of the future in Sophomore Spencer Keith. He threw 14 TD passes as a true freshmen. Most important, the Flashes were 5-2 in his starts, 0-5 when somebody else started. They were a pretty good MAC team with Keith at the helm. You could probably say the Flashes would have done no worse than reach bowl eligibility last year had he started every game. They liekly would have finished 6-6, except Keith missed the finale, a dismal 9-6 loss to Buffalo.  With their top rushers, pass catchers and four starters back on the OL, this offense could take a leap in Keith’s second year on campus. Defensively, there’s a lot to be excited about. They have 7 starters and their top six tacklers back from a year ago, including three starters in the secondary, their top sack artist from a year ago and, perhaps, the biggest individual force on defense in the league in LB Cobrani Mixon, who racked up 108 tackles, 3 sacks, 7.5 TFLs and 7 PBUs a year ago. He is the leading candidate for Defensive POY in the conference. This D made major improvements a year ago, decreasing their points allowed by nine points and cashing in 15 more sacks than the previous year. Another round of improvement and this could become a dominant unit in the league. The Flashes also have the best punter in the league. With winnable home games out of conference against Murray State and Army, the flashes just need to squeak out a 5-3 MAC record (they went 4-4 a year ago) and they’ll have seven wins and probably a bowl bid by the time November ends. Read more »

Sounders Bring New Look To CONCACAF Champions League

July 28, 2010
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Let me be the umpteenth domestic soccer observer and quip ‘what a difference a year makes’ when talking about the Seattle Sounders current MLS season. A year ago, their first in the league, was a rousing debut. With a 12-7-11 record, they finished with the fourth best mark in the league, a point out of first place in the final Western Conference standings. Even though they were bounced out of the quarterfinals of the MLS playoffs, they puncuated their first season in the top domestic league by winning the US Open Cup Championship. Year 2 in Seattle? Try sophomore slump. They’re just 6-8-4 and standing behind the pecking order for the playoffs. They’re just a single point out of the race, but all four teams ahead of them for the wild card spots have games in hand against the Sounders. It’s going to be a tough road to get into the postseason. Not only do the Sounders have to rip off a winning streak, considering the extra games the other challengers have yet to play, but they might need one or two of the teams above them to tank the second half of the summer.

But its not a totally lost summer for the Sounders. They’re alive and kicking in the pursuit of another US Open Cup title with a semifinal date next month against Chivas. They also have their debut in the CONCACAF Champions League tonight, with the first leg of a qualifying playoff against Matapin of El Salvador this evening south of the border. The second leg is next week, with the winner advancing into a spot in Group Play this fall. Earlier in the month, Sounder fans pondered flipping priorities and just cash in on the regular seasons to throw their energies into the tournaments instead. It’s hard to blame them for that sentiment. Take the US Open Cup. While they are an assortment of necessary results away from qualifying for the MLS playoffs this year, they are just two wins away from defending their Open Cup title. Is that important? Absolutely as it gives them an automatic spot in next year’s Champion’s League. As for the  current Champions League, their path is as tough as it gets.  After the LA Galaxy fell into a black hole last night, the MLS could use a little boost out of Seattle. If they can somehow topple Metapan, then Sounder fans will get treated to the excitement of group play as opposed to just playing out the string of a seemingly hopeless MLS season. To that end, tonight and next Wednesday against the El Salvadorians as well as the Open Cup date with Chivas on September 1 are arguably more important that whatever is on their MLS docket the rest of the summer.

However its worth noting that a lot has changed in the last month. While it might not be reflective in the standings, the Sounders are, uh, a more sound team to end July than they were at the beginning of the month. Injuries and a lack of consistent goal scoring have been a huge problem all season long for Seattle. Not only have the Sounders never once started the same first X1 unit that brought them glory a year ago, but they’ve shuffled 26 different people into the starting lineup this season.  Nate Jaqua, who tallied 7 goals and 9 assists a year ago has missed most of the year. Midfield Osvaldo Alonso has missed almost three months with an aggravated hamstring pull.  Michael Fucito and Brad Evans have missed serious time. As for those have played throughout, Freddie Ljungberg and Roger Leveseque, expected to pick up the offensive slack, hadn’t scored a goal between them through the start of July. Ljungberg has all but whined his way out of favor with Seattle and hasnt been playing recently as the team tries to transfer him.

Other than that situation, things have finally been coming together for the Sounders this month. They’re starting to get healthier. Alonso, perhaps the best ball winner on the team, is almost in top form and should play a lot tonight. Jaqua wasnt even cleared to play soccer this season until late June, and they’ve slowly worked him back into game shape. He was strong enough form to net a pair of goals against LA in an US Open Quarterfinal game earlier this month.  Levesque, though, finally tallied a goal when he headed in the game winning goal against DC United two weeks in the 89th minute. They’ve also added some additions in recent weeks. Midfielder Michael Seamon, a rookie from Villanova, has been playing all month as the Sounders have been getting better results. They’ve also perhaps the best foreign transfer during this open window not named Thierry Henry. The Red Bulls and Thierry have been rightfully getting a ton of run in the media with their American soccer marriage, but dont short sell the positive impact the Sounders might get from striker Blaise Nkufu. The Swiss National player has been tearing up the Dutch Eredivisie, scoring 114 goals in his seven seasons with FC Twente. The Dutch club transferred him to the Sounders after his World Cup run with the Swiss ended. He hasnt played much yet, but got his first start Sunday night against Colorado. While he didnt find the back of the net, it’s telling that a team that’s struggled to score most of the season, tallied twice in the game’s first 20 minutes with their new striker on the field.

Read more »

Previewing the MLS All-Star Game

July 28, 2010
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Tonight at 8:30 PM ET, the all-stars of Major League Soccer will take on the world’s most famous club, Manchester United. It is the match MLS has been dreaming of ever since they started this all-star format. We’ll take a look at the rosters, but first a little history of the MLS All-Star Game.

The MLS all-stars have five wins against one loss in these matches, with wins versus Chelsea, Celtic, West Ham, Fulham, and Guadalajara, and a loss last year against Everton on penalties. MLS fans will tell you this proves the league has the talent to compete with some of the best clubs in the world, while others would say the MLS all-stars do a good job treating an exhibition like the World Cup Final and have taken advantage of some out-of-form teams. Honestly, it’s somewhere in the middle. MLS does not get enough credit for its improvement over the years, but the opposition is usually a club getting ready for its meaningful season across the ocean.

None of this takes away from an all-star format that is fantastic. Bringing in top tier club teams to play the best of MLS makes the game exciting for fans and competitive for the players. Out of form or not, no club wants to come to the United States and lose, while the MLS stars want badly to beat these guys.  For all the complaining about the all-star events in major sports, here is one that gets it right. It’s a game, not a show; the players care, raising the competitive level; and there is an ‘us against them’ mentality, giving fans a chance to become emotionally invested. Add Man U to the mix and that means tonight is going to be fun.

The MLS will field a solid squad for the match, including names you might remember from the World Cup like Donovan, Buddle, and Bornstein. Donovan Ricketts (LA Galaxy) and Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake) will be the goalkeepers, both capable of keeping the MLS in the match if when needed. In the back, Heath Pearce (FC Dallas), Kevin Alston (NE Revolution), Chad Marshall (Columbus Crew), Omar Gonzalez (Galaxy) and Bornstein (Chivas USA) stand to see plenty of action. The back line and the goalkeeping will obvioulsy be important against a Manchester United side that will see most of the possession and attack with numbers. This group of MLS defenders, with a mix of guys with international experience and young prospects, could be the key to the sixth and most celebrated victory for the MLS All-Stars.

It’s always hard to say who will play the most in these games, but there are no subbing limits and everyone usually sees the field. However, the most important players in the midfield for the MLS will be Sebastian Le Toux (Philly Union), Dewayne DeRosario (Toronto FC), Sharlie Joseph (NE Revolution), Javier Morales (Real Salt Lake), and David Ferreira (FC Dallas). The midfield is a mix of players who can defend (Joseph) and those who love to get forward (uh, most of the rest).

Ideally, Landon Donovan and Edson Buddle would be paired together up top for most of the match, but as Jamie discussed in his Concacaf Champions League post yesterday, there are other factors at play. Donovan and Buddle both started in LA’s embarrassing loss Tuesday, meaning they’ll likely come on in the second half. Jamie Moreno is on this team because he’s been in the MLS since before it was formed, so I would expect Dynamo star Brian Ching to get the start in his home city and Juan Pablo Angel (NY Red Bulls) to play up top as well. Guillermo Barros Schelotto (Columbus) could also make an appearance at forward. Read more »

CONCACAF Champions League: Will Galaxy Play At Full Strength?

July 27, 2010
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Here come the LA Galaxy cruising into tonight’s CONCACAF Champions League opener, seemingly running away with the current MLS regular season crown, a season after losing in the league’s championship game. They appear to have everything–star power, dominant keeper and league leading striker. Despite their starting point in this qualifying round, everything is in place for a deep run and Knockout Round appearance. But will the Galaxy team we’ve seen up to this point be the Galaxy team we’ll see in their first leg of this playoff with Puerto Rico tonight? 

 Obviously, there’s the Landon Donovan situation.  Over the dismay of some, the Manchester City siren call keeps whistling, last week to the tune of a reported $7 million salary for the American star. This possible transfer has been a talking point for weeks now, and if you plan on forecasting any deep run in this tournament you almost have to ponder how the Galaxy would cope in Group Play this fall without the star midfielder. I think there’s enough leftover where they could still manage enough results in their favor to squeeze out of group play, but it could go either way.  If they can swap in a talent like Ronaldinho in the wake of Donovan’s departure–something that even the owners of the other MLS teams are publically expecting to happen–then thats close enough to net zero loss, so all systems would be full steam ahead. The Donovan storyline will remain a constant until the transfer period ends later this summer. Since he can continue to play for LA, you wouldnt think it would impact the Galaxy tonight. It doesnt.

Who will Bruce play tonight, and for how long?

The allegedly exhibition MLS All Star game tomorrow night, however, is a different story. It could crater the Galaxy’s lineup tonight in the CCL. And how Bruce Arenas and surrounding brain trust juggles the lineup tonight against that backdrop would keep the line burning all day on sports radio in the leadup to the match. That is, if such a station that talked MLS soccer during their talk shows existed. Four Galaxy starters–Donovan, Edson Buddle, Omar Gonzalez and Donovan Ricketts–are starters for tomorrow night’s MLS All Star match against the travelling Manchester United squad. A nationally televised game on ESPN2, the suits at MLS would probably rather have those four players fresh for possible 90-minute efforts in an effort to get a result against a European club power.  Arenas is also the All Star coach tomorrow night. How is this going to go down? Will none of them play in the CCL? Will they try to squeeze some run out of them and how much? I doubt the Galaxy are getting anything to close to 90 minutes out of either of them. Maybe the keeper Ricketts. Whatever the line is on total combined minutes, I’m banking on the under. That said, Arenas has claimed his priorities are in order and that the CCL game tonight ranks higher on the importance scale. We’ll see because if you’ve been following the MLS in recent weeks, the game tomorrow with Man U has been getting all the hype, while barely a mention of the CCL is whispered, even on Fox Soccer Channel who will be broadcasting the Galaxy/Islanders game this evening. I guess this adds some intrigue as one of the best teams this year in the MLS takes on what’s developed into one of the lesser D2 teams this season after a stellar season a year ago qualified them for this tournament.

How will LA fare if they limit the four All Stars playing tomorrow? The Galaxy played well enough to win in the MLS without Buddle and Donovan going 4-1-1 in the matches when the pair were off on their World Cup sojourn. They were also inconsistent, especially as time wore on and the quality of competition stepped up. They twice failed to score in key MLS games in June against legit playoff contenders Real Salt Lake and Toronto. Both clubs are also two of the other three league teams playing in this event. The Galaxy were at least able to nudge out a draw against Toronto. Earlier this month, they were smoked by Seattle in the second half, the fourth MLS team in this event, during a 2-0 US Open Cup loss without Donovan, Buddle and Ricketts. They also played that game without three other starters who will be in the starting XI tonight. Seattle sat several key players as well, so its hard to put a ton of stock in that outcome when analyzing anything. It does show another example of the struggle to score in recent games without Donovan and Buddle in the lineup. The Galaxy missed a golden chance to score when Alan Jordan missed a sure goal, a finishing problem he’s flashed all season long. He’s going to be playing a ton of minutes tonight and might even get his fifth start of the season. If you can promise a goal out of him, I’d  give LA a better than average chance to at least notch a draw, and with full lineup next week for the final leg,  push ahead with a winning result then. However, he hasnt shown much scoring threat in his time on the pitch this year, tallying just a single goal and no assists. In the US Open Cup against Seattle, he whiffed on an easy chance in the first half. And, last week in an MLS game against San Jose he was a non factor in 81 minutes despite the long stretches of the game played with the Galaxy on the attack.

We already have questions about the team’s scoring acumen without their World Cup stars. We’re going to find how Read more »

Interregnum: Clock Ticking On 1-Team WAC

July 27, 2010
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(Blog Note: This fine post was brought to you by Seth, perhaps the world’s only triple threat Hawaii-Texas-Michigan fan. Today, he takes a look at how the ‘Bows and their league brethern are shaping up as the clock ticks on the 1-team WAC.  He’ll be back throughout the summer and season to blog about all things college football)

INTERREGNUM: CLOCK TICKING ON 1-TEAM WAC

By Seth

 Yes, it’s an exercise in superfluity to predict Boise State will win the WAC. However, for the record: Boise State will win the WAC. But that’s not interesting; or, at least, it doesn’t make for interesting writing. When you write the WAC preview from the perspective of somebody interested only in the team that makes it out, that plays in a BCS bowl, you reduce any number of results to a binary formulation: either Boise State wins the WAC and finishes undefeated, or Boise State wins the WAC and does not finish undefeated. The consequences you care about aren’t December’s crowning of a conference champion, but rather January’s bowl selection and results.

For a while now, the WAC title race hasn’t been much of an event. It’s not merely because Boise State has taken the conference crown nearly every time; it’s because they’ve lost two games in ten years, and won the conference one of those years anyway. With one season left to play before their revered and despised leader departs for hillier and more verdant pastures, the WAC’s member schools stand ready to greet a welcomingly uncertain future. This preview, then, unlike many others, concerns itself not with this year’s national title race, but rather with the interregnum’s intrigue: the final jockeying for position as the monarch prepares to vacate his throne. Like all horse races, this one has different groupings: the Contenders and the Challengers, and then the (uncovered) Chaff.

The Contenders

Under Pat Hill, Fresno State has never had a losing record in-conference. Of course, with the exception of the 4-8 2006 team’s swoon, FSU hasn’t had a losing record over all, either. But even then, in his darkest hour, Hill pulled out four conference victories—including one over 8-win Nevada to open the season. There is no reason to think that this team will not match last year’s conference record, even with its surrender of conference rushing leader (1,808 total yards; 6.6 ypc and 150.67 ypg) Ryan Matthews to the NFL. For one thing, in 2009 each of FSU’s 4 losses was to a bowl team; for another, two of them were to BCS-bound Cincinnati and Boise State, and another was to 10-win Wisconsin (last seen smothering Miami in January, but only after having beaten FSU’s conference-mate Hawai’i 51-10 in December). And for another, pace Myerberg, FSU will replace Matthews better than you might think. Each of the past 6 seasons, they have rushed for more than 4.5 ypc. In fact, before Matthews (2007-2009) became a featured back in the offense, they had several unfairly effective rushing attacks; in 2006, with Dwayne Wright (1,462 yds; 11 TDs) leading the attack, FSU rang up a whopping 5.02 ypc on the ground. Even on route to their worst finish in decades, they got it done down low. Anyone expecting anything less than a stellar rushing attack with the entire offensive line returning for 2010 should be prepared for a pleasant surprise. What the fortunes give in one breath, however, they take away in another; the FSU front seven permitted opponents a whopping 6.01 ypc on the ground, and surrendered an uninspiring 22 rushing touchdowns. This year’s pre-conference schedule promises to yield some victories, as eminently winnable home games against rebuilding Cincinnati and dilapidated Illinois will be complemented by an execution of Cal Poly at home. The marquee OOC match-up, though, looks like it will be at Mississippi, whose defense of Oxford under Houston Nutt has been strong overall (11-3) but prodigious against non-conference opponents (6-0). To demand a win in Mississippi would be unrealistic, but to imagine a 3-1 record out of conference, and a 9-3 record overall, would be well in line with recent results and the consistency Hill’s teams have demonstrated in-conference. Fresno State’s Bulldogs will play in a bowl game this year; whether they will challenge for the second place in-conference, and head into 2011 with a target on their backs, remains to be seen.

Fresno State’s Ryan Matthews took the rushing award very quietly; the bigger to-do, obviously, was Nevada’s convoy of thousand-yard rushers. Blah blah blah system blah blah inflation blah blah. The offense was a sight to behold during Nevada’s 8-game winning streak from October 3rd through November 21st, when they beat UNLV by 5 touchdowns in a home edition of their yearly derby and averaged 47.25 points a game. And yet, on October 3rd, the offense was a sight for sore eyes rather than a sight to behold; opening the year with a hideous blanking in South Bend, and failing to come within a touchdown of (bad) Colorado State and (mediocre) Missouri, had Chris Gault’s team reeling, desperate for a win, heading into the league season. It hardly bears mention that Nevada’s most effective performances came against teams with the worst rushing defenses in the country; with national rankings of #77 and #81, respectively, Idaho and Louisiana Tech put the most effective units on the field to face the Pistol, but Hawai’i’s, Utah State’s, Fresno State’s, UNLV’s, and San Jose State’s piteous squads all gave up more than 200 yards a game on the ground and proved themselves incapable of stopping Nevada whatsoever. The offense will be good, and will win Nevada league games. But can consistency enter the picture, and reduce the recurrent nightmare that has every season marked by tale-of-two-teams streakiness? Feast-or-famine is no way to win conference titles regularly, even in this league. With the WAC championship becoming something other than an abstract property in 2011, it will be the work of 2010 for Gault, and his team, to balance the 7-1 conference record with some out-of-conference victories, and to balance the 344.92 ypg offense with something other than a 409.3 ypg defense. Another excellent league record is within reach, with Nevada playing seven home games for the first time in the ‘pack’s history as a Division-I football team; taking a big step in the direction of a conference crown as soon as that piece of headware becomes wearable will involve going on the road and beating Fresno State and Hawai’i. You have the horses; they all return. Will it be L 10-45 (2010 SMU-Nevada), or W 52-14 (2009 FSU-Nevada), on the scoreboard in Fresno and Honolulu? Champions reduce inconsistency to nothing, and make mistakes marginal factors; as perennial runners-up, the Wolfpack hasn’t yet had to try that out. Read more »