By: Dave Roberson
The regular season is over and so is my weekly write-up of the SWC. It has been a lot of fun to do this each week and I want to thank John for posting it each week. I also have enjoyed the conversation that some of you have engaged with me on the teams. My next column will be in mid-December as I write about the upcoming bowls, then once a month or so through the off-season. In January I will have to declare a league champion, there is recruiting in February, and then Spring games; should be enough to find a topic or two before we kickoff Labor Day weekend 2011.
I was asked this week by one of our readers how I thought the league performed this year. Right now I am giving the league a B+. The post-season games will determine if the final grade is an A or B. Right now I am giving above expectation performance to A&M, Arkansas, Oklahoma St, SMU, Baylor, and Rice. I am giving par performance to TCU, OU, LSU, and Texas Tech. UH and Texas receive a below expectation performance. It is not just a team’s record that determines my grade, but I give each team a pre-season par performance standard. It is how that team performs against its own standard. You may question how TCU could go 12-0 and only be par. That is because last year they went 12-0 and then lost to Boise St. Should TCU win their BCS bowl game, then they move above par. The reason the league grade is B+ is because of the horrible performance relative to standard for Texas. UH gets a little grace because of the season ending injury to Case Keenan.
Rivalry week lived up to its reputation. Texas took an early lead on A&M and the Aggies had to hang on to win. It was blow for blow in Little Rock with LSU and Arkansas and the Sooners and Cowboys lived up to Bedlam in Stillwater. All three of these games were entertaining and were worthy of national television. Other significant wins were SMU winning the CUSA West, Rice winning their fourth game, and Texas Tech winning their seventh. We cannot underestimate how important this season has been for SMU. Last season was their first bowl game since the Death Penalty; this season they are playing for the championship of CUSA. Way to go Ponies. Rice was impressive with how they made changes on offense during the season (hey Texas, are you paying attention) and closed out by winning three games in the second half of the season. And coming into the season there were some serious question marks around Tech with the nasty divorce of Tech and Coach Leach. Tommy Tuberville really did a nice job getting the Red Raiders to seven wins. And even though they finished their regular season before Thanksgiving, I want to give the Baylor Bears an attaboy for a very solid season.
This week we only have two teams playing, OU in the Big 12 Championship Game against Nebraska and SMU playing in Orlando at UCF for the championship of CUSA. TCU already has won the Mountain West, while both LSU and Arkansas came up just short to Auburn in the SEC West. So how do I see it? Well OU wins and SMU does not. Why does OU win? Well, I see Nebraska losing the game more than OU winning it. I think Nebraska will play tight in their last ever Big 12 game. OU will take advantage of turnovers and win 24-20. SMU played Texas Tech, TCU, and Navy close in three of their five losses, but did not play as well against UH and UTEP. UCF is Top 20 in both Scoring Offense and Scoring Defense. I think UCF will get off to a quick start and win going away 38-17. Even with a loss, SMU will have had their second consecutive very nice season. Good work Coach Jones. And to close out, today we learned that Texas A&M is going to the Cotton Bowl and will probably be playing either LSU or Alabama; it all depends on how Auburn-South Carolina comes out and who the Capital One Bowl selects. But regardless, this is a great opportunity for the Aggies. More on all of the conference teams in the bowls in the next article. Hope your team had a better season than mine, which is a pretty low standard this year.
