November is upon us. Crunch time has arrived. Thank goodness, because the first two months of the college football season just haven’t shown us very much. No, that’s not the whining of a Debbie Downer type – it’s just a reality which should guide our collective analysis of the nation’s top teams. It’s very important to establish the most central truth of the 2011 campaign and drive it home so that you’re conscious of it when November bursts into dramatic color: With the exception of LSU, the top teams in the United States just haven’t been tested very much. We don’t know which teams are pretenders and contenders; we don’t have enough evidence to sift the worthy from the weak.
Alabama’s best non-conference win came against Penn State… yes, a Penn State team that is 8-1 because it plays a backloaded schedule in a weak Big Ten and has loaded up on Mid-American Conference teams in non-league play. LSU beat Oregon and West Virginia away from home. Alabama – had it taken down comparatively strong non-conference foes such as Stanford and Georgia Tech – would deserve to sit on the same plane as LSU. Not yet. Of course, in the case of the Tide and the Tigers, we get to find out how things stack up this weekend, so that’s not a cause for concern.
Look elsewhere, though: There’s just not a lot of information available if you want to make distinctions among other top-10 teams.
Oklahoma certainly showed against Kansas State that it can play at a very elevated level, but since Kansas State hadn’t played an elite team before getting thrashed by the Sooners, it’s hard to determine just how valuable or impressive OU’s win over the Wildcats was. Texas Tech beat Oklahoma, and that same Texas Tech team then got crushed at home by a mediocre Iowa State side. Do we conclusively know what Oklahoma’s made of? Do we know that is team will roll to an 11-1 record and put its foot down, or will it falter? We really don’t know that yet. What about the Oklahoma State team that OU will face in early December? The Pokes didn’t play anyone of note in non-league competition. Before the season began, road wins at Texas A&M, Missouri and Texas would have been extremely impressive, but those three squads – the Aggies, Tigers and Longhorns – are thoroughly mediocre. Since we don’t know how good Kansas State is, a thrashing of the Wildcats won’t give us an abundance of new information about Mike Gundy’s group. We’re basically waiting for Bedlam in the Big 12, which makes assessments of OU and OSU extremely premature at this point.
In the Pac-12, Stanford got punched in the mouth for the first time all season. The Cardinal responded well against USC, but this means that the fun’s just starting for Stanford. David Shaw’s team is just beginning to learn what it’s made of, and the Nov. 12 game against Oregon will take the measure of the folks on The Farm. Right now, there’s little meaning to be gained from speculating about Stanford’s BCS hopes or Andrew Luck’s Heisman chances. Oregon, Oregon, Oregon will tell the tale.
Boise State is very much a mystery. Georgia is an okay team that is winning games… and slopping around every Saturday in plug-ugly games brought to you by yet another wretched SEC East, a minor-league farm system compared to the major-league world of the SEC West. The TCU team Boise State will face on Nov. 12 is nothing close to the 13-0 team that rolled through the 2010 season. The Broncos will likely go 12-0… and remain a hologram, something unable to be touched or felt in real flesh. It’s not Boise’s fault that Georgia and TCU aren’t better, but the truth remains that the Broncos aren’t a known entity in the sense that they haven’t locked horns with one of the sport’s big boys this season.
If you want to establish a pecking order after No. 1 LSU, go on ahead. If you want to determine the Heisman Trophy favorites right now, go on ahead. You won’t be acting on a lot of high-value information. Let’s just wait for November to play itself out instead of insisting on various pecking orders and hierarchies. College football analysis and punditry don’t have to be this way. You don’t have to say something in week five or eight or nine if there’s not enough evidence to back it up. Late-October opinions (and anything earlier in the season) are so overrated. Early-December opinions? Those are the opinions worth advancing… and even then, a college football season often cloaks those views in uncertainty as well.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride – we’re finally going to learn about the top teams in college football. It’s been ten weeks in the making.
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