First, welcome to all the blog poll voters who are stopping by. Feel free to look around My Opinion on Sports. Stay as long as you want and post wherever you want. Mi casa es su casa!
I want to see from the national perspective of college bloggers exactly where things stand regarding the football season at the midway point. I’m also giving you the opportunity to give it up to yourselves or eat some humble pie based on your pre-season picks. Have fun with your answers and don’t forget to leave links back to your sites in the comments section.
1. Which coaches are clearly on the hot seat at this point? Who is surprisingly not? 
Larry Coker is as good as gone! The melee this weekend against FIU may have been the final nail in his coffin. Coker won a national title his first season but things have gone south for the hurricanes since then.
Other coaches who could be gone!
John Bunting – North Carolina
John L. Smith – Michigan State
Dirk Koetter – Arizona State
Sylvester Croom – Mississippi State 
I expected Dennis Franchione to be a “lame duck” coach by the time the Sooners made their trip to College Station on November 4th. This week the Aggies broke the Top 25 in both the coaches poll and the AP Poll.
2. Pick three of the undefeated teams and state your case as to why they won’t run the table.
Rutgers is the easy one. The Big East isn’t a monster conference but it will be more for the Scarlet Knights. They could be done this weekend when they visit Pittsburgh.
USC is the next one. The Trojans are loaded with talent but lacking experience and the ability to put teams away. It has almost cost USC a couple of Times this year and it will catch them before the season ends.
Finally, Michigan will go down as well. I can go with the illogical reasoning that the number two ranking seems to hold a curse with it this season or I can just go with the fact that winning on the road at Ohio State will is not in the cards for the Wolverines this season.
3. Which conference is playing the best football right now?
Definitely the S.E.C.! The conference has five teams ranked in the Top 15 and has single handedly eliminated itself from national championship competition.
4. Which team is playing above and beyond your expectations this season?
Beyond the aforementioned Texas A&M Aggies I would have to go with the Arkansas Razorbacks. The Hogs are ranked 15th in the AP with a 5-1 record.
5. Which team is crashing and burning in regards to your expectations?
There are a few good options here but just to prove my ignorance I’m going let the world know that I picked the Iowa State Cyclones to win the Big 12 north. Yep, the same Cyclones that are 0-3 in the Big 12 and 3-4 overall.
6. Is your pre-season BCS championship game prediction still alive?
Yes! I picked Ohio State and West Virginia and am proud to say that they are both are still undefeated and winning impressively.
That’s it! That’s the roundtable. I look forward to reading your responses.
Our friend Bruce Feldman from ESPN agreed to throw his two cents in on the roundtable discussion this week. Feldman has a great college football blog on ESPN.com and we are grateful for him stopping by. Thanks Bruce!
1. Which coaches are clearly on the hot seat at this point? Who is surprisingly not?
This is a very long list: John L. Smith, John Bunting, Larry Coker, Chuck Amato, Ted Roof, Al Groh, Dennis Franchione (although he really helped himself this weekend); Rich Brooks, Dirk Koetter, Mike Reilly and maybe Ralph Friedgen although I think he also really helped himself this weekend.
The one who probably is the most likely to stay around, aside from Friedgen and Fran is Groh although if I was a UVA fan I’d trade him for every other name on this list save for maybe Roof and Brooks.
2. Pick three of the undefeated teams and state your case as to why they won’t run the table.
Rutgers won’t stay undefeated because I don’t see the Knights winning at both Pitt and WVU although I was impressed with how easily they pounded Navy on the road.
USC won’t go undefeated because the offense isn’t explosive enough this year to overcome its defense which doesn’t get enough pressure on the quarterback or force enough turnovers. I think Cal , Oregon and ND all have more than enough firepower to knock them off in L.A.
Michigan won’t go undefeated because Troy Smith is too good in the clutch and he’ll find a way to beat them.
3. Which conference is playing the best football right now?
The SEC: The SEC has Florida , Tennessee , LSU, Auburn and Arkansas all playing near the level of the OSU and Michigan , although UGA and Alabama clearly are down this year. The Big Ten has two teams playing great (OSU and Michigan ) but then there’s a big drop-off down to Wisconsin and another drop down to Iowa and Penn State . The Pac-10 has two very good teams in Cal and USC and Oregon is close but then there is another big dropoff.
4. Which team is playing above and beyond your expectations this season?
Arkansas has been outstanding since the USC game and since the Hogs got Darren McFadden back. He makes an enormous difference. I was stunned to see how they took it to Auburn like that. I have to give credit to my man Phil Steele who was one of the few people I know of who touted Arkansas to play this well.
5. Which team is crashing and burning in regards to your expectations?
Of the three teams from our pre-season magazine rankings who have to get labeled as big disappointments (No. 8 FSU, No. 12 Iowa , No. 15 Miami), While I expected Miami and FSU to be better, they both had major issues on the O-line, so I’ll go with the Hawkeyes. The more I thought about how their schedule shaped up, the more I liked their chances to be a darkhorse team to make a national title run, especially since they had the gritty leader at QB in Drew Tate, an experienced backfield and the big O-line. Instead, they looked really shaky against Syracuse , a mediocre Iowa State team and Illinois before coming up empty in a huge spot against OSU and then losing to Indiana . Indiana ?
On the same note, Oklahoma isn’t a team I would say is crashing and burning, but the Sooners have been much worse than I expected. I wasn’t one of those people who had touted them pre-season #1, but I figured they’d be a lot better on defense. They haven’t been tackling well the whole season. To see them ranked 8th in the Big 12 in run defense is startling, especially since this isn’t a good year for the league and OU has a lot of supposed great players led by Rufus Alexander and Reggie Smith. Even in games they won (UAB, Washington) they looked very shaky.
6. Is your pre-season BCS championship game prediction still alive?
Hey Matt…my preseason pick for the title game is the same as yours.
What can I say, great minds think alike. You can see Bruce’s pre-season prediction as well as his interview with me here.
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