While calmly awaiting the next devastating natural disaster that the media will largely ignore in favor of Olympic coverage, I ran across some interesting facts that were sent to me by one of my known accomplices, proud Canadian-American Grimson Haberchuk. These great points are his with some of my emphasis quietly added.
-LSU was the first two-loss national champion since Minnesota in 1960. Minnesota actually LOST in the Rose Bowl that year to #6 Washington.
-The Title game featured Matt Flynn vs. Todd Boeckman at quarterback. This combination deserves to be in any discussion of the worst QB matchup of any era, even worse than Craig Krenzel vs. Ken Dorsey in 2002 or AJ McCarron vs. Jordan Jefferson in 2011.
-The #2 ranked team lost six times that season (5 of those losses were to unranked opponents). USC, who had been ranked #1 for their first 4 games of the season, was a 41 point favorite at home against Stanford and lost. On the brink of a spot in the Title game, #2 West Virginia was a 29 point home favorite against Pitt in their last game of the season and lost.
-2007 was the season that saw #5 Michigan lose to Division 1-AA (FCS) Appalachian State.
-As discussed in my prior posts, Ohio State entered the title game as the #1 team in the country despite losing two weeks earlier at home to Juice Williams and his unranked Illinois team. Again, OSU had one win against teams that were ranked at the end of the season. One.
-Missouri was ranked #1 heading into the final week of the season before being thumped to the tune of 3 touchdowns by Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game. A ONE-LOSS MISSOURI TEAM WAS RANKED #1 AFTER THANKSGIVING IN 2007.
-Kansas was ranked in the Top 10 for 7 weeks and ended the season ranked #7 after beating #5 Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl. Less than a decade ago a #2 Kansas team played #3 Missouri on November 24th.
-Your South Florida Bulls were ranked #2 on October 14th before losing 3 straight games to Rutgers, UConn and Cincinnati. If you knew the South Florida Bulls were located in Tampa, pat yourself on the back and get your own blog because you’re probably more knowledgeable than 90% of sports bloggers out there.
-Matt “Matty Ice†Ryan and Boston College were ranked in the Top #10 for 5 weeks until losing to two unranked teams (Florida State and Maryland).
-Hawaii finished an undefeated season ranked #10 before a 41-10 bludgeoning by Matt Stafford, Knowshon Moreno and #4 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. Colt Brennan was sacked 8 times. Had Brennan not played in the game, he would still hold a number of NCAA career passing efficiency records. Fan video montages are the best:
-California was 5 and 0 and ranked #2 on October 7th before finishing the season 1 and 6 in Pac 10 play. Â They finished the season unranked after beating Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl.
-Tim Tebow became the first sophomore to win the Heisman. The other players invited to New York were Darren McFadden, Colt Brennan, Chase Daniel, Dennis Dixon and Chase Daniel. At the time, 92% of Americans believed that Colt Brennan and Chase Daniel were the same person. Today only Kansas City Chiefs fans know the difference.
-Speaking of Darren McFadden, Arkansas ran the ball 620 times that season vs. 313 passes. McFadden completed 6 passes that year for 4 touchdowns. Two other future 1,000 yard NFL rushers joined him in the Razorback backfield (Felix Jones and Peyton Hillis).
If you missed my completely biased slander of ten overrated teams, you can read them here and here.