Tuesday in the Rain

Well, there is no Mountaineer press conference or MSN Mountaineer Replay on my beloved Fox College Sports Atlantic channel tonight, as they are showing a women's volleyball game between Florida State and Miami. Ugh. I'll try to catch the Sportsline broadcast online though I guess, so at least I might have something to discuss.

Listening to the radio in Columbus today, the Big Show with Bruce Hooley came on at 5pm. I hated this guy last year, my first year in Columbus, but he seems to have leveled out a bit. He was mad delusional in 2006, claiming Florida and West Virginia run high school offenses, and that the Browneyes would "plant Percy Harvin in the turf if they run that stuff". This season, he's actually pretty good. He thinks the Browneyes will go undefeated, as do I, and he claims that it's a combo of their talent and a terrible schedule. Again, I think tOSU is good, but not great. They will likely go unbeaten, but it's just as much a product of the teams they play.

Tim Brown joined Hooley on the show today, and picked tOSU and LSU to play in the title game. He too thinks the Browneyes go unbeaten, and then proceeded to crush their schedule. Brown implied that the Bucks would almost certainly lose at least 2 games if their schedule were legit. Furthermore, Hooley asked Brown who impressed him this season. He mentioned only two teams, West Virginia and South Florida. He went on to say that USF was upset by a good team under the lights on the road, and that he believes that they are truly a great team that will make noise even with one loss. Mind you, Tim Brown played at Notre Dame, so I was very surprised at his remarks. The BigEast has really raised its profile in the last couple of years.

Kirky Herbstreit's Top 5 Teams:
1. OSU
2. LSU
3. Oregon
4. Oklahoma
5. Boston College

I won't argue with that too much. You can justify each of those teams being in that position, and I believe he ranks based on record and potential finish, rather than who he believes is the best team. He suggested that the upset trend will continue this week, and I think he's absolutely right. Kirky also put Oregon on Upset Alert against USC. I think if USC wins that game, they jump WVU in the BCS, but we'll see. I also think VT will jump us if (and when) they beat Boston College on Thursday.

Bottom line is this: the Mountaineers need to continue taking care of business and hope for some help. If we do that, the rest will take care of itself. The best team we've beaten is ranked #44 in the Sagarin ratings in Maryland. We have no real bragging rights type wins, and are still #7, so let's quite crying about getting no respect from the media. Considering what we've done this season, we're getting plenty.

So let's go Mountaineers, and beat that Rutgers-Jersey ass.