The Trojan Horse and Cowboy Joe with a short excerpt in St. Louis

Ahh yes, remember the historic novel The Iliad? Homer's beautiful poetic work and consequently a source for at least ten different teams to name themselves after warriors of a dead city (never quite understood that).
Here today, we find ourselves in a situation that baffles me more than anyone. Why are the Trojans of USC ranked so high? Who should be ranked higher? And why should they be?
The USC Trojans are ranked so high for the same reason that Bobbie Bowden and Joe Paterno are still coaching for FSU and Penn State respectively. Respect, as far as USC is concerned, the team that had Dwayne Jarrett, Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush played for is a team that was to be feared and honored as a fantastic squad (even though I was rooting for the Longhorns last year). Because the team has been nearly perfect over the past three years, it seems like the coaches, the AP and the BCS feel like they owe something to the Trojans of old by a continued low rank in their polls (currently 2, 3, and 3 respectively). One might levy this satement: "USC is just a power offense that tallies high points against any team." Unfortunately no, their only big win is against Arkansas (50-14) and from that point on they've beaten teams by about 11 points on average, these are not numbers of a team that brutalizes their opponents. But, USC is unbeaten...I will agree there, but so are West Virginia, Louisville, Boise State and Rutgers (not to mention Michigan and Ohio State). Is it true that USC is better than all these teams...let's take a look.
USC has played six games and has won six games against Arkansas, Nebraska, Arizona, Washington State, Washington and Arizona State. OOOOH! At the time, Nebraska and Arizona State I believe were ranked teams, but were high ranked teams (Nebraska was 18, ASU was 23). Yet the teams that gave them the most trouble were Washington State (NR), Arizona State (23), and Washington (NR). Somehow, USC pulled its butt out of the fire and won by 6, 7, 6 respectively. These are not difficult teams to play, these are the teams that should have been brutalized like Arkansas in the first game of the year. That is the first point of why USC is ranked too high. Now, and I'll eat my words here if I'm wrong, but USC has to get it together. They have Oregan (25), Cal (12), ND(11) not to mention Oregan State who ALWAYS brings a good game against USC and also, UCLA who has not forgotten about how they were humiliated by USC last year. These last few games of the year will be the proving ground of USC, and as far as I'm concerned, I predict losses to both Cal and ND. And this leads to my second point of why USC is overrated, their offense is just a bit slower, sure they complete each game with an average of 400 yards and a score of 30, but without the speed, strength and leadership that Leinart, Bush and White had for this squad, it slows them down just enough to be susceptible. On top of that, their defense is a bit cushy, allowing an average of 180 yards of passing a game is like an open invitation to Longshore of Cal or Quinn of ND to come on in pick the D apart. Also, the offense isn't bad, but Booty has come on lately after destroying the Razorbacks and thrown ten touchdowns and four interceptions. That is nearly a pick every two tds, and coming up against a shrewd defense like Cal's, which has tagged 18 interceptions in 8 games, meaning two a game. Can Booty throw against that kind of secondary? I don't think so. The defense and the offense just aren't enough to carry USC to a national championship, but maybe a BCS game if they are good little boys and Santy Clause gives them a gift.
Now, is there any team that should be ranked higher? Of course, here are several:
WV, the Mountaineers have been playing roughly the same difficulty of schedule as USC and are not only undefeated, but are waylaying their opponents. I will put a caveat on WV though, they have one real big test coming up in Louisville. If WV can push through the downright mean run defense of the Cardinals, I think they could be a big contender for the BCS games or even the national championship (cause they have the potential to go undefeated after Michigan and OSU cream each other). WV's general play and ability is what makes it better than USC.
Louisville by virtue of the fact that the Cardinals have a tough defense. Their offense isn't their strong point, but when that big mean defense gets into it, its hard to get the Cardinals off their balance. Louisville has realized this in encountering tougher opponents in its schedule like Miami and Syracuse. The wierd thing for Louisville is that defense will win games...and championships. If they can hold onto that explosive run game of WV, they could go undefeated. Louisville's incredible run defense is what keeps it above the Trojans for me.
Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights are even making me believe that Wyoming could become a contender soon enough. They have had a fairly easy schedule but with a dominating win over Navy, and a good one against Pittsburgh, it has reinforced their ability to score with the football, and also stop the run. Rutgers has two roadblocks coming up through, WV and Louisville. And I honestly think they'll have greater difficulty with Louisville by virtue of the fact they know they both can't rush against each other it will make for some very wierd play calls. Rutgers has a quick offense and a strong rush defense and that is what make it better than USC.
Boise State. The Broncos have made me a believer that the WAC still has some balls. Even though C-USA is the crapping grounds of NCAA FB, the WAC is still a disrespected conference. They have not had as hard a schedule as USC, but with a crushing 40 points a game 415 yards a game and 17 points scored on them on average, Boise State means business. Why are they really better than USC though? Because they WILL go undefeated. There is no team that can beat them, the only possible threat to Boise State's cindarella season is Nevada, but I'm not worried about them in the slightest. My hope is that Boise will get a BCS berth.
Without getting into too much detail, two other teams that should be ranked higher than USC are the Longhorns and the Golden Bears. Texas is still the better team that met up last year in the national championship and the Golden Bears I predict will win the PAC-10 championship against USC.
I decided not to talk too much about teams that had a digit in the loss column because people would then harp on the "perfection" of the Trojans.
In more local news, I was reading an article by Pete Fiutak on FoxSports.com and found myself enjoying it, why? Well, I like his sense of humor, but hate his constant bashing on my boy Brady Quinn. This time around, due to the brilliant comeback ND had against UCLA, he had to shut his yap. But also, he talked about the Wyoming Cowboys, which is a recognition I'd like to see more in any sports writers.
The Cowboys have gone 3-0 with Karsten Sween as their QB. Sween has thrown 66/106 for 789 yards, 7 tds and 3 ints, plus one running td. He has a QB rating of 140.9. It is easy to see why Head Coach Joe Glenn was so irritated wtih the Cowboys three weeks ago. Simply put, they are better than 1-4, and noticing this, he instead inserted Sween in for then starting QB Jacob Doss who had started to fall in stats after the Utah State game. He did this in the Syracuse matchup because he saw the game slipping away, Sween came in and got them into an overtime matchup which ended up being a loss after the Boys couldn't convert and catch the Orange in 2OT.
Since then, Sween has thrown 47/79 for 588 yds, 5 tds and two ints (with the rushing td) in three wins against New Mexico, Utah and CSU. These victories grew by increments in how badly the Cowboys defeated their opponents. I personally know Karsten and its amazing how well he is playing under this immense pressure, he is a student who is dedicated to his studies (in fact one night I stayed up til midnight trying to recover a Microsoft Word file of his for a class), is married, and faces pressure on the gridiron. But it seems when he gets out there, he is not bothered at all by the stress of running an offense. His field awareness, recognition and quick thinking help him out immensely. The way he progresses makes it nearly impossible for spies to pick up on him and make a play for the int.
However, this weekend Sween's stellar performance nearly came to a halt. In the first half, Sween could not harness the power of the Cowboys to march the field and score a td, they would settle for a field goal. It seemed that either the Rams had come to play hard nose defense, or that their coordinator was "doing something with those x's and o's." And thus it finally hit me, Sween was getting pressured like hell. He didn't have the time to the comfortable cool passer that I'd always known him to be. When the second half rolled around, either the Cowboy O-line woke up, or Sween had finally acknowledged the fact that he would have to play with the heat. He came alive, and by the final whistle had thrown 10/22 for 152 yards and 2 tds. This is one part of why I think the Cowboys are new and improved, because its obvious that Jacob Doss just doesn't have the skills that Karsten Sween does.
What is that other half? The Wyoming DEFENSE! They ARE marauders out there, they are third overall in the nation as far as defense goes. They are third in receiving yards, third in passing yards, somewhere in the 20s with points per game, and somewhere in the 20s for rushing yards. What does this translate to? The defense dominates! In the losses to other teams (besides Air Force) it seemed to be the Wyoming defense playing well that kept the Cowboys close to victory.
Now, my final statement: I am predicting that the Cowboys will win the MWC on the shoulders of its defense. There are two opposition pieces in this equation though: TCU and BYU. The Cowboys will defuse TCU in two ways: The Boys will decimate their run game (with 4-3 blitz packages) and force them to go to the pass early, when this happens, the Cowboys will just have to play smart on the pass and will shut down the TCU offense completely with that awesome pass defense (look for that 3-4 to really make a difference). Then, watch as Sween puts the ball into the air and makes it rain tds, TCU's pass offense isn't exactly shimmering and is waiting to be picked apart by Sween. Key for this game: STOP THE RUN!
BYU is a bit more challenging by virtue of the fact that they are a tough team. However, BYU's weakness is in the air, they use the run game to open up the pass which they practically abuse (305 yards a game). Now, the key is not stopping the run as before, but limiting it, don't let the run push the defense into playing bad blitz packages and giving good matchups for the BYU offense. If the Cowboys can do that, then that dominate pass defense can stack up well later into the game and cause some possible turnovers and three and outs. But the burden will lie on Sween and the Cowboy offense in the fact that they must operate well between the run and the pass. BYU's defense has eleven picks on the year so far, and so Sween must be very careful in how he throws, which means the line has to hold for him to do so. Look for Wynell Seldon and Devin Moore to be key components in this game as well. Seldon and Moore will do a good job by getting the BYU defense tired and disoriented, which will lead to rushing and passing tds. This one will be close, but I think the Cowboys can do it.
In closing *starts eating words*, looks like the Tigers didn't do it, and the Cardinals have managed to actually piss everyone in the MLB off, they had the worst record in the league and managed to win the World Series. There was a point when I'd say "Yay!" But screw you Cards...except Pujols...I like him.