In lieu of a World Series champion being crowned in the Kansas City Royals, you can never pass up the opportunity of pulling out the great song from the late Wilbert Harrison. Congrats to the Royals who beat the New York Mets in five games to win the 111th World Series. Now, a part of me is sad now that the baseball season is over. I’m sure I’ll get over it rather quickly with a short week ahead of us.
****
So the first college football playoff poll is released at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday. And the mystery of where Baylor will land is on everybody’s mind. First things first. You have about 24 hours to pump fists or gnash teeth because there’s a game on Thursday at Kansas State.
For me, it doesn’t really matter if the Bears are in the Top 4 or not. Of course, it certainly will help them. But as we saw from 2014, Ohio State rallied from way down in the polls. In the initial poll, the Buckeyes were in the teens and gradually moved up to where they hoisted the crystal football.
With the Bears, I’m thinking if they are anywhere from 5-8, they’ll be fine. Should they win, the schedule after Kansas State – home to Oklahoma, at Oklahoma State and at TCU – will tell the story if this team is going to be playing in the playoffs (the Texas game will be ugly). If the Bears run through that, then make your plans to be somewhere big on New Year’s Eve. That would probably be AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
Having said that, here is my projected Top 10 plus 2
1. Ohio State
2. Clemson
3. Baylor
4. LSU
5. Michigan State
6. TCU
7. Stanford
8. Alabama
9. Iowa
10. Notre Dame
11. Oklahoma State
12. Oklahoma
The college football playoff committee – minus Pat Haden who stepped down – will probably look at the Bears first seven games and not come away as impressed as most of us are. What I hope the committee will do is look at this from an eye-test perspective and realize that this is a very complete team. What I also hope the committee will do is avoid punishing the Bears for the season ending injury to QB Seth Russell – for now. What the committee has to do is judge the Bears on what they have done. The committee can’t judge the Bears on what they think this team will look like now that Jarrett Stidham is playing quarterback. All of us have our beliefs of what Baylor’s offense is going to look like and that it will do this and that. The track record under Art Briles offers that sense of confidence.
But you don’t know until you know…you know? And to be honest, I don’t know if Stidham’s performance against Kansas State is going to set the tone for how he is going to play for the rest of the year. This game is so week to week. They’re 18- to 22-year-old young men who sometimes fly by the seat of their pants and drive coaches crazy.
Speaking of the Buckeyes, while I think they will be No. 1 in the poll (others believe No. 2 behind Clemson), the question will be is if the committee is going to judge them for what they have done or what they think they can foresee with their ever-changing quarterback situation. Wichita Falls Rider product J.T. Barrett was cited for DWI and is suspended for the Minnesota game this Saturday. Like Baylor, the Buckeyes enjoyed a bye this past Saturday. Now, the difference is that Cardale Jones already has a track record because he led them to the National Championship. But he hasn’t played well this year either and lost his job to Barrett two weeks ago. That said, you can’t judge the Buckeyes for what could happen against the Gophers. You just judge on how they perform against the Gophers.
The point I’m making here is that if you want to take the committee’s subjective view – because that’s what it is – then you have to believe that it will evaluate everything that has occurred. That’s all it can and should do. While my Big 12 Power Ratings are small in nature, I try to apply this principle. With the exception of the first one when no one has played, you have to evaluate the results and the caliber of play. That’s why I didn’t take Baylor out of the No. 1 position. The Bears won all of their games by at least 22 points. Minus the disjointed looking win over Lamar, they’ve flattened the teams they should have flattened. The second half against Iowa State wasn’t pretty. However, when you race out to a 35-0 lead, do you really think the Cyclones were going to come back and win that game? I didn’t either.
Now, if Baylor plays poorly but wins at Kansas State, they’re probably going to get punished by the committee and the coaches and AP polls because of it. I may have some hard thinking to do then. But I’ll follow the advice of my late mother Maureen who always said: “Never borrow trouble.’’
Regardless, Baylor will either be in the top four slots or within striking distance. At this stage of the season, all you want is to have the opportunity to be in that position.
****
I’m really interested to see how this team is going to come out and perform on Thursday night. The more I looked at Art Briles Wednesday’s presser, the more I was convinced he couldn’t wait for the Stidham era to begin. That’s not a knock on Russell. But when you have a QB with the credentials that Stidham had in high school coupled by the glimpses he showed in the blowouts, there’s no reason for Briles not to like his chances. It's kind of like his toy. Now, he gets to play with it.
Briles has never been one to play things down. He’s a competitor. He relishes these opportunities. He wants his team to reflect that personality. It usually does. That’s why competitors are usually successful or keep going until they are successful. They believe in themselves and how they got to their stage in life. They've impacted other people along the way and ended up on the right side. Pessimism never won any battles.
As I go pseudo psychology here, most people in life have endured so many disappointments that they eventually go negative. It’s really hard to be positive 24/7/365. Why do you think the late Zig Zigler had such a great career? He remained positive and was inspired by a lot of things in life. He identified that market and gave people a reason to believe they had the light within them as long as they were willing to search for it.
So that’s why I don’t flinch much when I think of the balance of Baylor’s season and a true freshman quarterback at the helm. When Stidham runs a play on first down, that’s over and you move on second down. When second down is over, you move on to third down.
#Reality.
****
Some other thoughts…
>I’ll wrap the baseball talk by saying the more I watched the Kansas City Royals, the more impressed I was with them. And it’s not just because they won the World Series. It’s just the way they play the game. They are a mentally tough team. They rallied from multiple run deficits in seven of their 11 postseason wins. Look at Game 4 in the AL Division Series at Houston. They’re down 6-2 in the 8th inning. This looks over and the Astros are moving on the ALCS. Then the Astros flinch by the unfortunate error by Carlos Correa and the rest is history. Kansas City just grinded out every pitch, every at bat and every inning. They weren’t a perfect team because their starting rotation was up and down. But they had a deep lineup. They didn’t strike out. Their bullpen was ridiculous. And now they’re going to have a parade on Tuesday.
>Congrats to ACC commissioner John Swofford who suspended the officiating crew that worked and butchered the end of the Duke-Miami (FL) game. I know some people are calling for the result to change, but I don’t agree with it. As brutal as it was, the result can’t and shouldn’t change. That’s just life and the way it works. Sometimes, you’re going to get a raw deal. You have to deal with it and be better for it. It’s clear the officials mishandled everything on Miami's kickoff return. What exactly was the replay official watching? So that crew is done for the next two weeks. I would love to know what the Big 12 would do if something like this happens. Hopefully, we won’t have to find out.
>While I always find the Cowboys a fascinating watch, they are now becoming a tough watch. It’s pretty much incompetent QB play this organization is experiencing between Brandon Weeden and Matt Cassel. For those who didn’t like Tony Romo, I’m guessing absence makes the heart grow fonder.
>Just a reminder before Baylor and TCU meet on Nov. 27 in Fort Worth, both teams have dates with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. TCU is in Stillwater this weekend and then travels to Norman, OK on Nov. 21. This league is really top-heavy between the Bears, Horned Frogs, Sooners and Cowboys. November will be amazing with this mini round robin.
****
Now on to other Baylor sports….
>For a second-straight year, junior Maggie Montoya earned All-Big 12 honors by taking fifth at the 20th-annual Big 12 Cross Country Championships Saturday. Meanwhile as a team, the Baylor women were eighth, while the BU men were seventh at the Oklahoma State Cross Country Course. Montoya, who was seventh at the meet a season ago, moved up to fifth in 2015 by running the 6,000-meter course in 20:57.4. Baylor will next travel to the NCAA South Central Regional Championships Nov. 13 in College Station, Texas. Each team will send its top seven runners to the event in an effort to qualify for the NCAA Championships.
>After grinding out two tiebreaker wins, No. 3 Baylor Equestrian (5-1, 2-1 Big 12) suffered its first loss of the season, falling to No. 5 Oklahoma State (3-2, 2-0), 13-7, on Saturday at the Totusek Arena. That followed a 9-9 draw Friday at Kansas State. The overall mark favored the Bears, earning their second Big 12 win of the season, 1452.3-1347.3.
>Baylor soccer’s Friday home match against No. 2 West Virginia has been canceled due to inclement weather conditions. The teams will not make up the Big 12 regular season finale and will play next on Wednesday at the 2015 Big 12 Soccer Championship in Kansas City.
>Baylor volleyball (14-9, 2-7 Big 12) couldn't find an answer for the explosive KU attack, bested by the 10th-ranked Jayhawks (21-1, 9-1 Big 12) in three, 25-15, 25-9, 25-16, in the Horejsi Family Athletics Center. Baylor flies to Lubbock to face Texas Tech in the United Supermarkets Arena at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Let’s make it a great week
****
So the first college football playoff poll is released at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday. And the mystery of where Baylor will land is on everybody’s mind. First things first. You have about 24 hours to pump fists or gnash teeth because there’s a game on Thursday at Kansas State.
For me, it doesn’t really matter if the Bears are in the Top 4 or not. Of course, it certainly will help them. But as we saw from 2014, Ohio State rallied from way down in the polls. In the initial poll, the Buckeyes were in the teens and gradually moved up to where they hoisted the crystal football.
With the Bears, I’m thinking if they are anywhere from 5-8, they’ll be fine. Should they win, the schedule after Kansas State – home to Oklahoma, at Oklahoma State and at TCU – will tell the story if this team is going to be playing in the playoffs (the Texas game will be ugly). If the Bears run through that, then make your plans to be somewhere big on New Year’s Eve. That would probably be AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
Having said that, here is my projected Top 10 plus 2
1. Ohio State
2. Clemson
3. Baylor
4. LSU
5. Michigan State
6. TCU
7. Stanford
8. Alabama
9. Iowa
10. Notre Dame
11. Oklahoma State
12. Oklahoma
The college football playoff committee – minus Pat Haden who stepped down – will probably look at the Bears first seven games and not come away as impressed as most of us are. What I hope the committee will do is look at this from an eye-test perspective and realize that this is a very complete team. What I also hope the committee will do is avoid punishing the Bears for the season ending injury to QB Seth Russell – for now. What the committee has to do is judge the Bears on what they have done. The committee can’t judge the Bears on what they think this team will look like now that Jarrett Stidham is playing quarterback. All of us have our beliefs of what Baylor’s offense is going to look like and that it will do this and that. The track record under Art Briles offers that sense of confidence.
But you don’t know until you know…you know? And to be honest, I don’t know if Stidham’s performance against Kansas State is going to set the tone for how he is going to play for the rest of the year. This game is so week to week. They’re 18- to 22-year-old young men who sometimes fly by the seat of their pants and drive coaches crazy.
Speaking of the Buckeyes, while I think they will be No. 1 in the poll (others believe No. 2 behind Clemson), the question will be is if the committee is going to judge them for what they have done or what they think they can foresee with their ever-changing quarterback situation. Wichita Falls Rider product J.T. Barrett was cited for DWI and is suspended for the Minnesota game this Saturday. Like Baylor, the Buckeyes enjoyed a bye this past Saturday. Now, the difference is that Cardale Jones already has a track record because he led them to the National Championship. But he hasn’t played well this year either and lost his job to Barrett two weeks ago. That said, you can’t judge the Buckeyes for what could happen against the Gophers. You just judge on how they perform against the Gophers.
The point I’m making here is that if you want to take the committee’s subjective view – because that’s what it is – then you have to believe that it will evaluate everything that has occurred. That’s all it can and should do. While my Big 12 Power Ratings are small in nature, I try to apply this principle. With the exception of the first one when no one has played, you have to evaluate the results and the caliber of play. That’s why I didn’t take Baylor out of the No. 1 position. The Bears won all of their games by at least 22 points. Minus the disjointed looking win over Lamar, they’ve flattened the teams they should have flattened. The second half against Iowa State wasn’t pretty. However, when you race out to a 35-0 lead, do you really think the Cyclones were going to come back and win that game? I didn’t either.
Now, if Baylor plays poorly but wins at Kansas State, they’re probably going to get punished by the committee and the coaches and AP polls because of it. I may have some hard thinking to do then. But I’ll follow the advice of my late mother Maureen who always said: “Never borrow trouble.’’
Regardless, Baylor will either be in the top four slots or within striking distance. At this stage of the season, all you want is to have the opportunity to be in that position.
****
I’m really interested to see how this team is going to come out and perform on Thursday night. The more I looked at Art Briles Wednesday’s presser, the more I was convinced he couldn’t wait for the Stidham era to begin. That’s not a knock on Russell. But when you have a QB with the credentials that Stidham had in high school coupled by the glimpses he showed in the blowouts, there’s no reason for Briles not to like his chances. It's kind of like his toy. Now, he gets to play with it.
Briles has never been one to play things down. He’s a competitor. He relishes these opportunities. He wants his team to reflect that personality. It usually does. That’s why competitors are usually successful or keep going until they are successful. They believe in themselves and how they got to their stage in life. They've impacted other people along the way and ended up on the right side. Pessimism never won any battles.
As I go pseudo psychology here, most people in life have endured so many disappointments that they eventually go negative. It’s really hard to be positive 24/7/365. Why do you think the late Zig Zigler had such a great career? He remained positive and was inspired by a lot of things in life. He identified that market and gave people a reason to believe they had the light within them as long as they were willing to search for it.
So that’s why I don’t flinch much when I think of the balance of Baylor’s season and a true freshman quarterback at the helm. When Stidham runs a play on first down, that’s over and you move on second down. When second down is over, you move on to third down.
#Reality.
****
Some other thoughts…
>I’ll wrap the baseball talk by saying the more I watched the Kansas City Royals, the more impressed I was with them. And it’s not just because they won the World Series. It’s just the way they play the game. They are a mentally tough team. They rallied from multiple run deficits in seven of their 11 postseason wins. Look at Game 4 in the AL Division Series at Houston. They’re down 6-2 in the 8th inning. This looks over and the Astros are moving on the ALCS. Then the Astros flinch by the unfortunate error by Carlos Correa and the rest is history. Kansas City just grinded out every pitch, every at bat and every inning. They weren’t a perfect team because their starting rotation was up and down. But they had a deep lineup. They didn’t strike out. Their bullpen was ridiculous. And now they’re going to have a parade on Tuesday.
>Congrats to ACC commissioner John Swofford who suspended the officiating crew that worked and butchered the end of the Duke-Miami (FL) game. I know some people are calling for the result to change, but I don’t agree with it. As brutal as it was, the result can’t and shouldn’t change. That’s just life and the way it works. Sometimes, you’re going to get a raw deal. You have to deal with it and be better for it. It’s clear the officials mishandled everything on Miami's kickoff return. What exactly was the replay official watching? So that crew is done for the next two weeks. I would love to know what the Big 12 would do if something like this happens. Hopefully, we won’t have to find out.
>While I always find the Cowboys a fascinating watch, they are now becoming a tough watch. It’s pretty much incompetent QB play this organization is experiencing between Brandon Weeden and Matt Cassel. For those who didn’t like Tony Romo, I’m guessing absence makes the heart grow fonder.
>Just a reminder before Baylor and TCU meet on Nov. 27 in Fort Worth, both teams have dates with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. TCU is in Stillwater this weekend and then travels to Norman, OK on Nov. 21. This league is really top-heavy between the Bears, Horned Frogs, Sooners and Cowboys. November will be amazing with this mini round robin.
****
Now on to other Baylor sports….
>For a second-straight year, junior Maggie Montoya earned All-Big 12 honors by taking fifth at the 20th-annual Big 12 Cross Country Championships Saturday. Meanwhile as a team, the Baylor women were eighth, while the BU men were seventh at the Oklahoma State Cross Country Course. Montoya, who was seventh at the meet a season ago, moved up to fifth in 2015 by running the 6,000-meter course in 20:57.4. Baylor will next travel to the NCAA South Central Regional Championships Nov. 13 in College Station, Texas. Each team will send its top seven runners to the event in an effort to qualify for the NCAA Championships.
>After grinding out two tiebreaker wins, No. 3 Baylor Equestrian (5-1, 2-1 Big 12) suffered its first loss of the season, falling to No. 5 Oklahoma State (3-2, 2-0), 13-7, on Saturday at the Totusek Arena. That followed a 9-9 draw Friday at Kansas State. The overall mark favored the Bears, earning their second Big 12 win of the season, 1452.3-1347.3.
>Baylor soccer’s Friday home match against No. 2 West Virginia has been canceled due to inclement weather conditions. The teams will not make up the Big 12 regular season finale and will play next on Wednesday at the 2015 Big 12 Soccer Championship in Kansas City.
>Baylor volleyball (14-9, 2-7 Big 12) couldn't find an answer for the explosive KU attack, bested by the 10th-ranked Jayhawks (21-1, 9-1 Big 12) in three, 25-15, 25-9, 25-16, in the Horejsi Family Athletics Center. Baylor flies to Lubbock to face Texas Tech in the United Supermarkets Arena at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Let’s make it a great week
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