Games: Thursday GEORGIA TECH 7 Virginia Tech (43.5) TULSA 3 Iowa State (53) Friday BYU 23.5 Middle Tennessee (58.5) Utah State 10 SAN JOSE STATE (62) Saturday 1ALABAMA 14 21Mississippi (54.5) 2OREGON 37 California (81) 3CLEMSON 28 Wake Forest (58) 4OHIO STATE 7 23Wisconsin (55.5) 5Stanford 9 Washington State (46) 9GEORGIA 3.5 6Lsu (61.5) 8Florida State 23.5 Boston College (53.5) 10Texas A&M 13.5 Arkansas (64.5) 11Oklahoma State 18.5 WEST VIRGINIA (58) 12South Carolina 7 UCF (54) 14Oklahoma 3.5 22NOTRE DAME (50.5) 15Miami 16.5 SOUTH FLORIDA (47) 16 WASHINGTON 9.5 Arizona (59.5) 20Florida 11 KENTUCKY (48) 25Fresno State 17.5 HAWAII (58.5) TCU 17 Smu (50) Northern Illinois 3.5 PURDUE (59) ILLINOIS 26 Miami, Ohio (50.5) TENNESSEE 17 South Alabama (54.5) NORTH CAROLINA 12.5 East Carolina (60.5) PITTSBURGH 5.5 Virginia (50.5) Navy 3 WESTERN KENTUCKY (60.6) BOWLING GREEN 15 Akron (54) OREGON STATE 11.5 Colorado (57.5) DUKE 12 Troy (69) BALL STATE 1.5 Toledo (67.5) NC STATE 24 Central Michigan (52) Connecticut 1 BUFFALO (47) COLORADO STATE 13.5 Utep (52.5) Iowa 2.5 MINNESOTA (45) Houston 3 UTSA (64.5) LOUISIANA TECH 1 Army (52.5) Temple 7.5 IDAHO (55) Kent State 1 WESTERN MICHIGAN (50) LOUISIANA MONROE 13 Tulane (54.5) RICE 14 Florida Atlantic (52.5) Wyoming 13 TEXAS STATE (55.5) MISSOURI 21.5 Arkansas State (63.5) VANDERBILT 20 Uab (58.5) Unlv 3 NEW MEXICO (54) San Diego State 17 NEW MEXICO STATE (54) NEVADA 11 Air Force (59.5) BOISE STATE 29 Southern Miss (56.5) ARIZONA STATE 4 Southern Cal (48.5) | My Pick: Thursday Virginia Tech* Iowa State* Friday BYU Utah State Saturday Alabama Oregon Clemson Ohio State Stanford Georgia* Florida State Texas A&M Oklahoma State South Carolina Oklahoma Miami Washington Florida Fresno State TCU Northern Illinois Illinois Tennessee North Carolina Pittsburgh Navy Bowling Green Oregon State Duke Ball State NC State Connecticut Colorado State Iowa Houston Louisiana Tech Temple Kent State Louisiana Monroe Rice Wyoming Missouri Vanderbilt UNLV San Diego State Nevada Boise State Southern Cal* | Final Score: Thursday VT 17-10 ISU 38-21 Friday BYU 37-10 USU 40-12 Saturday ALA 25-0 UO 55-16 CU 56-7 OSU 31-24 STAN 55-17 UGA 44-41 FSU 48-34 TAMU 45-33 WVU 30-21 SCAR 28-25 OU 35-21 MIA 49-21 WASH 31-13 UF 24-7 FRES 42-17 TCU 48-17 NIU 55-24 ILL 50-14 UT 31-24 ECU 55-31 PITT 14-3 WKU 19-7 BGSU 31-14 OSU 44-17 DUKE 38-31 BALL 31-24 NCST 48-14 BUFF 41-12 CSU 59-42 IOWA 23-7 UH 59-28 ARMY 35-16 ID 26-24 KENT 32-14 TUL 31-14 RICE 18-14 TXST 42-21 MIZ 41-19 VU 52-24 UNLV 56-42 SDSU 26-16 NEV 45-42 BSU 60-7 ASU 62-41 |
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This week was an odd and somewhat boring weekend if you were looking for points. Most of the top ranked teams played cupcake schools starting with #4 Ohio State rolling over Florida A&M 76-0 with a big day from "backup" quarterback Kenny Guiton. #7 Louisville continued to dominate their weak schedule with a 72-0 over Florida International. The trend continued as #8 Florida State thrived under Jameis Winston defeating FCS foe Bethune-Cookman 54-6. And the FCS pinata Savannah State traveled to Coral Gables getting shut down by Miami 77-7 and Miami quarterback Stephen Morris played limited time in the first quarter after leaving the game with an ankle injury. Unless you like points, this was not a very fun weekend for college football fans and hopefully this will never happen again. With this unsatisfying weekend there were just a few things I learned from it all:
1. Georgia Tech has the potential to win the ACC Coastal division. The Yellow Jackets defeated North Carolina in a downpour in Atlanta 28-20. The Jackets came back after being down 20-7 at half. The Jackets stepped up on defense in the second half allowing just 319 total yards of offense in the whole game to a fast-paced Carolina offense. Georgia Tech posted 428 total yards with 324 yards rushing! New defensive coordinator Ted Roof seems to have the once struggling defense playing solid ball and the offense is on point with rising star Vad Lee at quarterback. Georgia Tech faces a struggling Virginia Tech team Thursday on ESPN. This is a key game for both teams 2. Washington is the best team nobody is talking about. The Huskies (3-0) have been nothing but consistent to start the season averaging 629 yards per game which is third in the nation only behind Baylor and Oregon. The Huskies have defeated #19 Boise State, an improved Illinois team, and FCS opponent Idaho State. Keith Price has significantly improved from last season and has the Huskies looking better than ever. The Huskies have four HUGE games in the next four weeks. Games include undefeated Arizona, #5 Stanford in Palo Alto, top ranked (in the Pac-12) Oregon, and an improving Arizona State team. The Huskies wil be put to test these next four weeks but are a true threat to the Pac-12 and could give Stanford a run for their money in the North division. 3. This may have been the worst week in college football. As said above, nothing really exciting happened. There were only two upsets all weekend: Memphis (+4) over Arkansas State and Utah (+6.5) over BYU. There were some close calls as Michigan almost took a loss at Connecticut but once again managed to find a win for the second week in a row. The only matchup that consisted of two ranked teams was no where close to a good game as Stanford completely dominated Arizona State from the beginning. LSU came out of the gate with a dominant showing against Auburn in a rainy game but Auburn made it interesting at the end but still was not well-represented as a game of the week. With the overwhelming victories of top teams, it only added insult to injury this past weekend. Let's just hope we don't have to ever witness this showing again. 4. Michigan is overrated. I had a feeling last week that Michigan was being overhyped after barely sneaking by Akron in the Big House 28-24 and now just barely getting by a bad Connecticut team that lost to Towson in week one. Turning the ball over is the biggest concern for the Wolverines going forward. Michigan had four total turnovers in each game the past two weeks and was very lucky to escape both gawith two wins. If this trend continues, the Wolverines will not be heading to Indianapolis especially with Northwestern nipping at their heels.
Photo credit: Tweet from @ESPNU Twitter account with stats from the Elias Sports Bureau. 1. Texas' defense is bad and worse than last season's.
In Texas' opener versus New Mexico State there were some flaws in the defense and some concern for the Texas faithful and college football fans like myself. Those concerns fizzled out as Texas scored 42 points in the second half while NMSU stayed at the whopping total of seven. Those concerns popped back into our minds Saturday as the Longhorns got embarrassed by a BYU team that previously lost to Virginia. Most importantly though, the Longhorns gave up a school record 550 rushing yards. We all knew Texas struggled with the rush defense in 2012 and expected some of it to carry over to this season but BYU fans didn't even see this amount of yards coming. Sunday, defensive coordinator Manny Diaz was let go and replaced by former Texas coordinator Greg Robinson. Mack Brown could be next... 2. Michigan is the best team in the Legends division. If there was any debate about who was the best team in the Big Ten Leaders division, there is now no contest. Michigan proved they were the most complete team Saturday by scoring 41 points on a good Notre Dame defense and playing a good game all around on defense against Notre Dame. Michigan State has yet to find a quarterback and had to have two defensive scores to beat a South Florida team that was defeated by FCS McNeese State 53-21in week one. Nebraska looks to be the biggest contest versus Michigan but Nebraska's defensive woes have carried over from last season giving up an average of 443 yards per game this season even though playing a fine game defensively in the victory over Southern Miss this weekend. Nortwestern looks to be the team to beat having wins at Cal and to Syracuse in Evanston. Michigan's win over #14 Notre Dame Saturday in the Big House proved they are the best in one of the toughest divisions in all of college football. 3. Zach Mettenberger is becoming a NFL Draft prospect. I was one of those guys that hyped up Zach Mettenberger coming into last season after he displayed a Heisman type season in the JUCO ranks while winning a national title. Mettenberger fell well short of last season's high expectations throwing just under 59% with only 12 touchdowns. This season Mettenberger has been under the radar and so has LSU. New offensive coordinator Cam Cameron (OC at NFL Ravens 2008-12) has transformed a mediocre Mettenberger into one of the bests in the SEC. Mettenberger displayed his improvement against TCU completing 50% of his passes for 251 yards with one touchdown. Even though the stats from that game may not greatly impress you, the poise and the swagger he possessed in that game was great! Mettenberger then showed his improvement again in the LSU Tiger Stadium opener against UAB going 16-of-19 for 282 yards and five touchdowns with no interceptions! Mettenberger hasn't shot up the draft boards yet, but if he continues to improve like this every week, Zach may be near the top of the QB prospect list in January. (My Top QBs as of now for the NFL Draft: 1. Bridgewater, 2. Boyd, 3. McCarron, 4. Carr, 5. Mariota) 4. Florida's offense is anemic. (scoring wise) Florida's offense can only go up from last season, right? Wrong. Florida displayed a terrible game on the offensive side of the ball after the defense played a great game versus a very potent Miami offense. Florida moved the ball well (413) but when opportunity knocked they never could open the door. Florida came up short on four trips to the red-zone with two interceptions, a fumble, and a turnover on downs. This game should have been a double-digit win for Florida but with careless play and inconsistency on offense, Miami now has the bragging rights in what could possibly be the last game in the regular season between the two schools. 5. Southern Cal has no offense. Now we know why Lane Kiffin had yet to choose a quarterback heading into week one at Hawaii. Quarterback is the biggest issue for the Trojans as the two quarterbacks combined, Kessler and Wittek, have thrown for 226 yards with a 52% completion rate and a 1-3 ratio this season. No leadership has been established on the offense. The run game did fine Saturday against Washington State as the Trojans are still without potential All-American Silas Redd. The Trojans may want to look to true freshman Max Browne to start the rest of the way. Last time they turned to a true freshman it worked out pretty well. (Matt Barkley) 6. Top non-conference rivalries will be no more. This week may have been the end of some great non-conference rivalries. Michigan and Notre Dame played their final regular season matchup this weekend as rumor has it Notre Dame doesn't want to participate in anymore games versus Michigan. Down South, Miami and Florida have decided to call it a done deal. Florida has the obvious non-conference game every year versus rival Florida State and may not have room to play Miami anymore if the SEC does decide to extend their conference season to nine games. 7. The ACC can beat the top dogs in the SEC, besides Alabama of course. I guess the ACC can play some football! (small dig just to start the write-up) Clemson showed that the ACC can defeat SEC teams by going 3-0 versus the SEC dating back to last season. (Auburn, LSU, Georgia) Miami just defeated a twelfth ranked Florida team at home this Saturday giving the ACC a 2-2 record so far against the SEC. The real test will be can an ACC road team team defeat a SEC team. Clemson will have their chance to prove it November 30th versus rival South Carolina. (All time SEC/ACC record: SEC winning 282-137-10) 8. Southern Cal, Notre Dame, Florida and Texas haven't lost on the same day in over 35 years! Elias Sports Bureau gave this stat to ESPN Saturday night. The last time these four powerhouse teams lost on the same weekend was in 1976! That was 18 years before I was born! Scores from Saturday: Washington State 10 Southern Cal 7 Michigan 41 Notre Dame 30 Miami 21 Florida 16 BYU 40 Texas 21 9. Northwestern is a big threat in the Big Ten. I knew Northwestern could be a factor this season after almost having an unblemished year last season as they led in every game going into the fourth quarter. As stated above I said Michigan has the best team in the Legends division. Northwestern is a close second. Northwestern went to Cal last week and defeated the Bears 44-30 and this past Saturday defeated Syracuse 48-27. The dual-quarterback system with Colter and Seimian has worked out great for Northwestern whether it was on purpose or not. Northwestern's first conference game is a home game with Ohio State. (Future upset alert!) 10. Aaron Murray can play in big games. Aaron Murray finally played great in a big game! Murray went 17-of-23 with 309 yards and four touchdowns. A key pass to a wide open Justin Scott-Wesley sealed the win for the Dawgs and gave Murray a signature win for his career. This is a big win for Georgia as they are 1-0 in the SEC and now have a win over one of the favorites in the SEC East. Florida is next.
1. There are no more cupcakes.
History was made this weekend. The FCS had a record setting weekend capturing eight wins over FBS opponents. Let's break it down. The eight teams that were victorious this weekend went a combined 63-33 last season. Of those eight, two of the teams (North Dakota State & Eastern Washington) finished the season in the FCS top five while North Dakota State took home the national title in 2012. Yes, there's no excuse that a FCS team should defeat a FBS team but the teams the FBS played this year were very successful in 2012. Maybe the athletic directors should do some research next time before scheduling these so-called cupcake teams. Football has become so talented nationwide. The once thick line between divisions in all of sports has become thinner over the recent years. 2. Nebraska's defense is still bad. Nebraska doesn't need to be associated with the term "blackshirt defense" anymore. Before the game I tweeted out that Nebraska could have a tough time defending a good Wyoming offense but I did not see the defense giving up 602 total yards and 34 points. In the past three games the Huskers have played the defense has given up an average of 610 yards per game! It's odd to see a Bo Pelini coached team struggle so mightily on defense. If Nebraska wants to contend for a Big Ten crown, in which they are very capable of, they must get better on defense because quarterback Taylor Martinez can only score so much. 3. Alabama's offensive line is.....average? I know I am being a little too nit-picky here but since the Alabama offensive line has been so powerful and so productive the past few seasons it was odd to see the unit struggle versus Virginia Tech in Atlanta on Saturday. The starters were LT Cyrus Kouandjio, LG Arie Kouandjio, C Ryan Kelly, RG Anthony Steen, and RT Austin Shepherd. Arie, Kelly, and Shepherd were making their first starts Saturday and needless to say need some work before their next game at Texas A&M. Again, I am being a little too demanding and picky but it's still odd to see and easy to point out a struggling Alabama offensive line based on the success in the recent years. 4. (I actually knew this) Indiana is a team to look out for. Yes, I am aware that the Hoosiers played FCS opponent Indiana State but lit up the scoreboard with 73 points and 632 total yards! The Hoosiers have a three headed monster at quarterback with Tre Roberson, Nate Sudfeld, and Cameron Coffman but Sudfeld stole the show with 219 passing yards and four touchdowns. The team is loaded with experience and the offensive line is one of the best in the conference. I'm not saying the Hoosiers will win the Big Ten but could get the better of some teams later down the road. Very challenging road schedule though with games at Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Wisconsin. |
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