Roundtable hosted this week by the Sooner-loving My Opinion on Sports. MOOS also gets extra points for involving a celebrity participant, ESPN's Bruce Feldman.
If Bruce Feldman wants more BlogPoll,
we should probably give him more BlogPoll.
1. Which coaches are clearly on the hot seat at this point? Who is surprisingly not?
Larry Coker (gone), John L. Smith (super gone), John Bunting (ridiculously gone), Dirk Koetter (unless you win out gone), Walt Harris (I know it's your second year, but dude, 0-12? Come on gone), Chuck Amato (you're a douche gone) and of course Rich Brooks (please don't be gone).
As far as surprisingly not on the hot seat, there's been a lot of calls for the culmination of the Bobby Bowden era from the Florida State faithful, but the national media hasn't picked up on it as much as they did with Joe Pa. We guess that counts. Also, Ed Orgeron isn't a good coach and the calls for his dismissal should be multiplied.
2. Pick three of the undefeated teams and state your case as to why they won't run the table.
- Michigan: So obviously the second best team in the country right now, but they have to play Ohio State for the national championship on Nov. 18.
- Rutgers: Because they're f-ing Rutgers for Christ sakes.
- West Virginia: Because Louisville has won 14 straight at home and feels like they were robbed of a BCS appearance in Morgantown last year.
The disparity between the top and bottom teams in each of the major conferences is more prevalent this year than any other in recent memory. With this in mind we're going to avoid the obvious answer (SEC) and say the Big Ten for the sheer reason that the top of its top-heavy conference is by far the strongest.
4. Which team is playing above and beyond your expectations this season?
Tennessee. We definitely thought that the only reason UT got any preseason love was because they were UT. With not a whole lot of returning promise on offense, and most of the defense gone from a team that went 5-6 in '05, what was to like? Eric Ainge has been the surprise of the season to us.
5. Which team is crashing and burning in regards to your expectations?
Iowa and Miami are the two most obvious disappointments, but we really felt that Oregon had a good shot to be undefeated at this point. We thought they'd have less trouble with Oklahoma, and the way that they folded their tent against Cal was very disappointing.
6. Is your pre-season BCS championship game prediction still alive?
Our unoriginal choice of Ohio State/Auburn is still breathing, barely.