Midway Coaching Moves

By Bob Davie, ESPN.com

Six weeks into the season, teams finally know who they are. For some teams, Week 1 provided answers about their strengths and weaknesses. For others, like Rutgers, easy nonconference scheduling delayed that lesson until it was too late, and possibly cost Rutgers wins.

The midpoint of the season is when the coaches are able to truly identify what kind of team they have and start coaching. It's almost impossible to accurately evaluate your team in spring ball or during two-a-days. At this point in the season, you know what you're good at, what you need to work on and hopefully, you're team is healthy enough to solve problems.

For many teams, the midway point is also the time to re-evaluate goals. A number of teams predicted to challenge for a national championship -- like Michigan and Louisville -- find themselves out of contention early in the season. As a coach, I left predictions to the media. You always have to be careful when you give a team tangible goals. You never know what's going to happen week to week, or what injuries or personnel problems your team might face. Fans want to hear how many wins you'll have, but you can't control wins and losses. Look at Florida; the Gators played great against LSU -- the Tigers just played better. You can only control your play, you can't control the outcome of the game. In football, one loss can knock you out a national or conference title race, and if that is your only goal, the season could be lost.

But a coach's biggest hurdle isn't navigating around media and fan expectations for a season. The biggest challenge might be coaching a player who is a candidate for an individual award. Coaches have a responsibility to promote their players, but you always run the risk of a player putting too much on individual goals -- that's just human nature. How can anyone live up to a billboard in Times Square or the face plastered all over the media guide? Look at Rutgers' Ray Rice, Oklahoma State's Adarius Bowman, Louisville's Brian Brohm, USC's John David Booty and Arkansas' Darren McFadden -- they're great kids, great players who started the season in Heisman contention. Because of various reasons -- losses, injuries, turnovers -- all have seen their stock drop. As a coach, the marketing made me uncomfortable. But the one thing that makes navigating the dicey road between team goals and marketing an individual a bit easier is that your best player is often your best team guy.

What makes the season fun is seeing how teams, coaches and players deal with the past six weeks -- whether they've had success or dealt with adversity -- as they embark on the second half of the season.

Approaching the Midseason Mark

By Jim Donnan, ESPN.com

Coaches are always looking at the big picture, but trying not to look too far away. It's impossible to ignore if someone is looming -- whether it's because they're more talented, or you've had some injuries, or they have a different style of play. But the most important thing is to focus on short-term fixes and stick to a basic attack. You don't win with the offense or defense of the week.

Some teams have shown the ability to put losses behind them and refocus. Michigan has done a good job of redirecting, understanding their weaknesses and handling adversity. Lloyd Carr and the Wolverines deserve a lot of credit for that.

Louisville entered the season with similar expectations and also faltered, but the Cardinals have more serious problems. Unlike Cincinnati, which also got a new coach in the offseason, Louisville's Steve Kragthorpe doesn't have the luxury of an experienced defense. Both Kragthorpe and the Bearcats' Brian Kelly are good coaches, but the momentum and whether or not players believe in the system has a lot to do with early success. Kelly was accepted and hasn't had to deal with comparisons with his predecessor. At Louisville, Kragthorpe has dealt with the opposite situation.

Breaking Down Week 7

By Jim Donnan, ESPN.com

UCF at South Florida ESPNU, noon ET
Last week proved to be a letdown game for South Florida, who barely eked out a win against Florida Atlantic after upsetting West Virginia. The program has reached an unprecedented level of success, and sometimes it's hard to keep focused after an emotional win. That said, give FAU some credit. The Owls were able to do some things in the passing game (259 yards) and caused a few Bulls turnovers (four). South Florida should bounce back from this game with more focus; it proved that if you don't play your best every game, anyone can beat you.

That anyone most likely won't be Central Florida. After winning three of its first four games -- and playing Texas very close in its only loss -- UCF was blown out by East Carolina in Week 6. Going in, I thought the Knights' offense was rolling and that they were pretty good on D, and was shocked that they lost 52-38. They do create matchup problems for South Florida. The Bulls have a quick, mobile defense that might have problems containing a powerful runner like Kevin Smith. He comes right at you, and if the Bulls are going to stop him, they're going to have to gang-tackle him. On defense, Central Florida is going to have to rattle Matt Grothe. He's not going to throw the ball away multiple times in consecutive games, so Central Florida will have to slow him down and score a lot of points on offense. The one constant for the Bulls has been the solid play of the defense; they rank seventh in pass efficiency defense and 13th in scoring defense.

South Carolina at North Carolina (ABC, 3:30 p.m. ET)
This is a sort of homecoming for South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, who began his coaching career at Duke and was rumored to be a candidate for the North Carolina job when he returned to coaching college teams. The Tar Heels are coming off a statement win for the program, beating a Miami team many thought was back after dismantling Texas A&M. The Heels moved the ball, played smart and overall, looked much improved. Quarterback T.J. Yates is taking care of the ball and doing a good job of managing the offense. They'll face a tough test in South Carolina, fresh off a monster effort against Kentucky and with a few added days of rest. The Gamecocks' Eric Norwood looked like the defensive player of the year with his performance against the Wildcats -- returning two turnovers for touchdowns in the win. South Carolina's secondary has been impressive, and now that Spurrier has settled on a quarterback, the connection between Chris Smelley and Kenny McKinley is improving.

North Carolina's win was the best thing that could have happened to South Carolina because it got the team's attention. It would have been easy for the Gamecocks to look past North Carolina and next week's matchup with Vanderbilt to a date with Tennessee. But the Heels' win was a reminder of the need to focus on each game. North Carolina proved it's capable of an upset -- and South Carolina certainly doesn't want to be its next victim.

Boston College at Notre Dame
On a similar note, Notre Dame's win put back the spark in what could have been an easy game for the Eagles to overlook. But by shocking UCLA on Saturday night, the Irish returned to the national radar. Besides Stanford's upset of USC, it was one of the most improbable outcomes of last weekend's games. To beat Boston College, Notre Dame is going to need another monster game from Maurice Crum and some help on the offensive side. Charlie Weis managed the game conservatively against the Bruins, not letting the Irish beat themselves. But Notre Dame will have to put points on the board to keep up with Heisman hopeful Matt Ryan, who is playing as well as any quarterback in the country.

Texas A&M at Texas Tech (ABC, 3:30)
Say what you want about Texas Tech's offensive system, but it's hard to ignore freshman Michael Crabtree's receiving numbers: 60 catches, 1,074 yards, 17 touchdowns. And the most amazing thing is that teams know Graham Harrell is going to throw it to him -- yet he still makes the catch. I don't care who they're playing or what they're running -- Crabtree's numbers are astounding. Tech started off the season fast -- the Red Raiders are 5-1, losing a close game at Oklahoma State -- and this matchup is the first in a rough slate of conference games. Tech's probably licking its chops, as Texas A&M owns the nation's 75th-best pass defense (allowing 237.5 yards per game). Harrell could put up that many yards in the first half.

The Aggies are coming off a big, come-from-behind victory to the Cowboys in Week 6. To get past Tech, they'll have to keep Crabtree and Co. off the field and use their running game to wear down Tech's defense. As their games against Oklahoma State proved, these teams are fairly evenly matched, and home-field advantage might be the difference in this matchup. A&M's players have shown a lot of mental toughness over the past week, dealing with issues both on the field and off, and proved that they are ready to gut out wins. Can they do it two weeks in a row?

LSU at Kentucky
LSU is coming off a tremendous win, and is going on the road to play a team coming off a disappointing loss. Kentucky's offense could give the Tigers trouble if Andre' Woodson doesn't turn the ball over. In the loss to South Carolina, the Wildcats were their own worst nemesis. Woodson has personally paid the price, dropping from among the Heisman favorites to nearly out of contention for even all-conference honors, after Eric Ainge's game against Georgia and Tim Tebow's continued outstanding performances. The big question for Kentucky is: Can Rafael Little make some first downs? Florida moved the ball on LSU by mixing up its offense; Kentucky won't be able to rely solely on Woodson's arm to beat LSU. Kentucky gets a bit of a break, as the Tigers are dealing with a number of injuries, but they do get Early Doucet back this week, which should add another dimension to an already impressive offense.

LSU coach Les Miles has shown a lot of confidence in his team in the past two conference games, and they have responded successfully in turn. He's called two fake field goals this season, and the Tigers have converted both. He's gone for it in every clutch situation, and LSU has made it every time. One of the knocks on Miles in the past is that he's winning with former coach Nick Saban's players, but his play calling the past two weeks has made a statement and should lessen the comparisons.

Coach Class: Missouri-Oklahoma

By ESPN The Magazine

Editor's note: Each week, analysts from ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine will tackle a game plan for one of the biggest games on the schedule.

Missouri hasn't beaten Oklahoma since 1998, and OU holds an all-time series edge of 63-23-5. But the Tigers are unbeaten and roaring after last week's 41-6 destruction of Nebraska. We asked our former coaches, Bill Curry and Mike Gottfried, to pretend they were making a game plan for this weekend's showdown. Then we had Jim Donnan pick a winner. On paper, anyway.

Curry takes over Missouri

This could be a rough day for us. Oklahoma's bigger and better at most spots on the field, so we need to spring an upset. That means we'll have to work very hard on dominating in hidden yardage. We need punter Adam Crossett to have a monster day, because our net punting average (28.6 yards) has to be 10 yards better against Oklahoma. We have to play field position football all day, because Oklahoma can't have a short field to work with. On defense, we need our defensive line to stand up OU's solid offensive line and create gaps for our linebackers, especially top tackler Sean Witherspoon, to get into the backfield. We know OU will run RBs Allen Patrick and DeMarco Murray a ton, and we need to have Witherspoon and company draped all over them before they even get to the line. Once either one of those guys gets going downhill, we're in trouble. We'll take chances with monster blitzes to stuff the run game and get in QB Sam Bradford's face on passing plays. Even though he's a freshman, Bradford is very calm in the pocket. It's possible to rattle him, as Colorado did, and that's the only time he seems to falter. If Bradford is cool and collected in the pocket against us, he'll pick us apart with passes to dangerous wideouts Malcolm Kelly and Juaquin Iglesias. On offense, we need Tony Temple's ankle to heal in a hurry. He has to be receiving treatment five times a day if that's what it takes. Oklahoma gives up 1.9 yard per carry, and we need to do better than that, and Temple's the key. The biggest thing for QB Chase Daniel is for him to play mistake-free. If OU is getting turnovers and Daniel takes some bad sacks, we have no chance. Everybody knows we're going to use two tight-end formations with Martin Rucker and Chase Coffman, but we have to break tendencies. That means putting them both in motion, shake up where they line up on every play, put one or both in the backfield and hand it to them, all sorts of different things to keep OU guessing. I'd do the same thing with wideout Jeremy Maclin. He's a Devin Hester-type game-changer on catches, runs and returns, and we need him to touch it at least 12 times.

Read the full story here.