The Short List To South Beach: Week 14

Another week of stasis rests over the Shortlist to South Beach as the season wraps up and the bowl bids will all get sorted out after Saturday.  The Shortlist looks the same again this week as the following teams jockey for position in my opinion as follows:

Alabama, Utah, Boise State, Ball State, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Penn State, Southern Cal, Texas Tech.

Florida has one last chance to prove itself the best team in BCS conferences in a showdown of two of the best college coaches in the modern era.  It was just a little while ago that Urban Meyer caught some fortunate breaks against an SEC West Division coaching icon on the way to an improbable National Championship run and now he finds himself ready to surpass even Steve Spurrier in Gainesville, not an easy task to be sure.  Will the reigning kings of the State of Speed find themselves on top of the nation once again?  It's hard for me to really envision anything else at this point in the season.

An expected SEC, Big 12 title game is almost all but assured as the Big 12 South's logjam of one loss teams insulates the conference from the ravages of the mediocre second half of it's member schools from dragging down the other's rankings enough to provide another team a title glimpse.  

The history of non-Big 12 champions in title games is not a promising one.  For my money, this year's best title game would be Florida versus Penn State in a interesting twist of Paterno trying to cement his argument for the title of best coach in the history of the game against yet another upstart Florida football power with shades of the Fiesta Bowl tinting the scene.  Add in Galen Hall coaching against his former school and this match-up provides it all, between the sidelines and outside of it.  

As it is, expect Penn State to end up providing Southern Cal with a real test of non-traditional Rose Bowl competition down to the final gun instead, not a bad consolation prize, but not perhaps what they deserve.

Another intriguing match-up would be Florida versus Utah, but the odds of that happening are just as likely to see a Mormon Church supporting gay marriage any time soon.  Yet Urban Meyer versus the team he introduced the term BCS-crashing with would be a interesting David versus Goliath set-up accented with student versus teacher dressing.  The Utes would have the ability to stand toe-to-toe in the first 22 guys on the bench, but after that, the odds get increasingly longer as the talent depth disparities begin to grow exponentially between the two schools.

Of course, Nick Saban has the second most prestigious school in college football history sitting in the pole position and as fortunate as his team has been in staying healthy and not letting it's still shaky depth hamper his teams performance. If Saban can resuscitate the Tide in only two years he'll be second only to Houndstooth as the Gene Stallings era will be a retroactively defined as a mere blip in an otherwise fallow period of school history in Alabama.  If the man can pull the trick off though, he'll have done something more amazing to me than finding a way to earn a well deserved trumping of Pete Carroll in 2004.

Enjoy the final week of games and join me back here next week as the Shortlist to South Beach wraps up and I tell you who really deserves to get their hands on the prize everybody wants here on the Shortlist to South Beach.

Copyright 2008 by Christopher Whelpton for Canespace.com

Comments

[darCANEgel]

Not a fan of Saban's but ROLL TIDE!

Canes, baaby

[darCANEgel]

And since we can't play in the game - let's keep it off the coasts and give middle Amurica somethin to look forward to besides icestorms and unemployment:

Bama v OU.

CANES!

[SuperCooper]

Secondly with recruiting, as we now have 16 recruits, I figure after transfers we will be looking at 23-24 schollies. Allowing for 1-2 decommittments this is how I would like the final 8-9 to round out (to me I thnk either Plein or Sanders and Vernon are most likely to be those decommits):

3 linemen (Bunche, White, Massie and Wheeler being top of the list)

Seminole Trio (this would be a huge get as Dubose is the one I am most worried about)

Orson Charles - Though a little light still, I would love to see him step up to be the next great Cane TE in 10' (Marve needs to recruit this boy hard so talks of transfers I hope aren't true)

Sheldon Richardson - This is the huge national get I hope is the present under our orange and green tree.

One more corner or Jon Bostic - Whether its the TX guy from rivals or maybe a local guy like Carter from Ely (though I don't think he comes here)

Posted by: shwarma | December 06, 2008 at 11:49 AM

You can add Randle to that list.

[SuperCooper]

Jacory is going to look good in Malzahn's no huddle offense.

[Manny Navarro]

Nice job on the Andre Johnson interview 86.

[roachcane77]

I'm a big Navy fan (as far as Academies go), but you gotta love those Army camo uni's. Neat effect.

[DATcane]

Manny, whats up with all the rumors flying around?

[MWD]

ECU 14 TULSA 17

[MWD]

...ECU 17 TULSA 17

[DATcane]

sucks watching everyone else play in meaningfull games!

[J]

SC:

Now you're on the Malzahn rumour train?!?!

[timcanes]

randle aint coming our way...or debose in my opinion, we have too many receivers to compete with that are only a yr older than them...the other 2 from the trio would be huge!! and theres few o-lineman we havent offered yet which seems alittle weird to me

[TLuv]

BC's defense is having trouble with Tyrod Taylor.

[shwarma]

Yeah Debose does seem like such a fit for UF but I think he knows that that will not help him for the NFL. (Then again with our hyrbrid type system I dont know if it will either. Nix runs a system I just don't know what to call it. Allow for the jokes to follow that comment)

[J]

Is Al Borges coaching anywhere now. His buyout with Auburn would have ended this year.

[hurriphin]

No Harvin today.....?

[hurriphin]

as I mentioned yesterday.....

the two things that keep us from snaring Debose are:

1-UF's offense(he likely won't be able to resist Meyer's "you could be the next Harvin" crap)
2-our depth at WR(not many 5* prospects have the patience and competitve edge of say a Laron Bryd, who even before signing day said he'd have no qualms about r-shirting, cause' he just wanted to be a Cane.)

[shwarma]

I understand what your saying about Meyer telling him that Harvin crap but what has Harvin done (Heisman's, in the NFL) to make that an enviable thing yet. Keep in mind last great athletic talent to hit the NFL, Reggie Bush, greatest acheivement yet is waxing Kim K.

[DZ8]

Maybe Debose just wants to be a Cane as well? One thing is for sure, Randy has impressed on the recruiting trail. This year was almost the perfect mix of acheivment and dissapointment to encourage a new batch of highly touted recruits to come to Coral Gables. The class of '09 saw that Randy means it when he says he'll play freshmen. They saw games were we needed the help. And they saw games that showed our future potential. A "perfect storm"...is brewing.

[DZ8]

I would count waxing Kim as a great achievment!

[hurriphin]

if debose comes to s.fla., I'm sure he'll have his share of kim k's to slay.

[DZ8]

Better not be after midnight, with a hat on, and your cellphone on... Shannon In Charge.

[hurriphin]

If you're slaying some of those s.fla. chicks, you'd better have some kinda "hat" on, or the only running he'll be doing is a direct snap to the doctor.

[DZ8]

Long live Ron Mexico!

[hurriphin]

Roooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooll TIDE!!!

[TLuv]

man I hate Urban Myer

[orange 'n green in the vein]

I like Urban Meyer more than Bobby Bowden. Let the former dig the grave for the latter IMO.

[Gibby]

Dude, Tebow is going to be garbage in the NFL. I would like to see the Dolphins somehow get that Cody kid from Bama. He would be a stud in the 3-4.

[SuperCooper]

randle aint coming our way...or debose in my opinion, we have too many receivers to compete with that are only a yr older than them...the other 2 from the trio would be huge!! and theres few o-lineman we havent offered yet which seems alittle weird to me

Posted by: timcanes | December 06, 2008 at 02:04 PM

You'll be surprised then in a couple of weeks. (unless Randle's own brother is wrong)

As far as OL, we have offered a ton of guys and quite a few are coming to visit over the next couple of weeks. The staff is recruiting their azz off.

[SuperCooper]

SC:

Now you're on the Malzahn rumour train?!?!

Posted by: J | December 06, 2008 at 01:49 PM

I believe.

[J]

SC:

I have a 6-year old so pardon the Polar Express reference but I believe too

[slim32]

anybody have a BBALL GAME LINK? sill at the shop with no cable.. thx

[timcanes]

I hope their recruiting there butts off because we need some big men to come here badly!!! And i thought based on a bunch of the scouting websites that randle dropped us from consideration...?

[Matthew]

Hey all, I'm doing a Kentucky Live Blog if y'all want to check it out.

http://blogs.themiamihurricane.com/index.php/2008/12/06/miami-kentucky-liveblog-extravagannza?blog=8

[TonyCane]

From the FSU website:

"Don't be surprised when the University of Miami announces that Bear Bryant has joined the team as offensive coordinator. Rumor has it that a booster has offered to pay for the costs of bringing the former Alabama coach out of cryogenic deep freeze and to contribute towards his salary."

[86Cane]

Nice job on the Andre Johnson interview 86.

Posted by: Manny Navarro | December 06, 2008 at 12:37 PM

THANKS MANNY! I have recieved a lot of positive feedback from that article from the folks at UM and all over the place.

Big things are happening all around Canespace. Next up? Vernon Carey.

[canechic]

Canes kicking a$$ in Basketball, now lets finish.

[canechic]

How was the game 86, it was pretty boring from my living room?

[SlingBlade]

fire malzahn his offense only scored 24 today and they lost to east carolina..

[SlingBlade]

if we outscore kentucky by only 10pts in the second half we win by 30...anyone think going into the game we would win by 30?

[canechic]

Thanks slingblade I was waiting for someone to bring that one up!

[DFDubCane]

What's up with Bryce Brown? He's getting as much publicity on Rivals and Scout about waffling as that idiot from Ely got last year (PJ). Is he likely to decommit?

[canechic]

Gators win so no football for a couple of months. yuck!

[hurriphin]

soooooo.....can we be credited as the only team to hold UF under 30pts?

Moral victory baby!!

Bye the bye, anybody else not wanna' play Cal. in a bowl game?

[86Cane]

How was the game 86, it was pretty boring from my living room?

Posted by: canechic | December 06, 2008 at 06:29 PM

B O R I N G...

[86Cane]

Maybe 35,000 in attendance?

[canechic]

Gameday said they did not sell many tickets to the game.

Please canes do not melt......

[86Cane]

What's up with Bryce Brown?

Posted by: DFDubCane | December 06, 2008 at 07:02 PM

He is buying Orange and Green clothing with The U on it!

[86Cane]

I couldn't GIVE tickets away at the game. Seriously, could NOT give them away!

[hurriphin]

anybody else just wanna spit......?