First off, I know, I went 4-7 with the Miami +6.5 pending. Im glad I refrained from putting money onto an account, because I would have lost most of it.
Second off, SMALL GAME BOB, SMALL GAME BOB!!!!! I do feel bad for Bradford, because although I dont like Oklahoma, and never really liked Bradford, it sucks that he came back to play this year, he got hurt in week 1. I am really happy that BYU won though.
If I have to hear "why i am" by DMB all year as games go to commercials, as Randall Floyd would say, remind me to kill myself.
The first thing I noticed was the mixup of announcers. I dont know if this was temporary or not because there were 2 Thursday games, but I would imagine that this is permanent. I like how Mike Patrick and Todd Blackledge have been separated, and it looks like the Todds Taste of the Town experiment is over.
I almost peed my pants when I saw that Millen was announcing. I talked about this idiot enough already, so I wont reiterate most of what I said, but, not only did they hire him, but they made him an announcer? On top of that, they say, "yeah, you can go and do the 2nd biggest game of the weekend (UGA @ OkSt)." There are about a million people in this country that would have liked to have gone to this game, but couldn't for one reason or another. But Millen, who was fired months ago for being incompetent and the worst GM in the history of any organization (not just sports --- maybe not as bad as execs at Enron), gets to announce the game.
Here is a conference by conference break down, the teams that looked good, and whether or not the conference moved up or down in my mind.
SEC: Is still the best conference, and it was business as usual for them. Florida won. Tennessee won. Auburn was more impressive than I thought. Alabama took care of business. Ole Miss looks very talented. LSU has so much fucking speed on offense it is sick. Vanderbilt and Kentucky look like they could make another run at bowl games.
The only SEC team to lose was Georgia. They were expected to lose. They didn't play overly bad. They failed to convert a crucial 4th down. I still see a lot of promise for them in the long run.
The SEC is hands down, still, the best conference.
PowderPuff12:
I was already starting to think it even before Bradford got hurt. I said to myself, see what happens when a team can actually get pressure on OKlahoma? This was something that was not present last year. I think they said that Bradford got hit a total of 45 times last year, and he was hit 3 times on one drive yesterday. Then he went down, and Oklahoma shit the bed. Make no mistake, BYU played really well, and deserved to win.
Texas, Kansas, Nebraska all took care of business. Oklahoma State emerged as an extremely dangerous team, as my new top 25 on Tuesday will reflect. This was the type of game that you dont really expect OSU to win -- a 24-10, physical, low scoring game. Most of their games still may end up being high scoring, but they definitely showed me something.
Mizzou just dominated the Illini (more on this later). As predicted by me, Baylor got off to a good start. They should be lined up for a bowl game now. Oklahoma State, Baylor, and Mizzou were the bright spots for the Big12.
The negatives were Colorado and Oklahoma. Overall, the Big12 stayed about even.
Big10:
Not a good start to a conference already under a lot of fire. Ohio State barely beat Navy. Iowa should have lost to Northern Iowa. Minnesota needed OT to beat Paulus. Illinois looked like it took 15 steps back and was the Illini of 2005. Terrible. The bright spots were Michigan (very bright), and Purdue. Purdue looked really good offensively for a team that was picked by some to finish in dead last. Michigan looks like they have a lot of talent on their team, and I can not wait until the game next week vs ND. For the first time since 2006, ND Michigan figures to be an important game - a sign that this will be a good college football season.
Overall, Ill put the Big10 down a little bit, but next week is very important. Michigan has ND at home, and Ohio State has USC at home. If they both lose, then there is no excuse, and the conference will suffer a big backlash in the media. If they win both though, they will look very very good. At that point, Ohio State will have an inside track to Pasadena, be a top 5 team, along with Penn State in the top 10, and Michigan and Iowa in the top 25. Next week is huge for the big10.
ACC:
By far the worst showing by any conference. Va Tech loses to Bama. UVA loses to William & Mary. Maryland loses by 5 touchdowns. N.C. State scores 3 vs S. Carolina. Wake lost at home to Baylor. Duke lost to Richmond. That isnt good at all. Ga Tech and UNC won, but against very weak opponents. The FSU Miami game tomorrow should be good, and the winner will probably be one of the top 3 teams in the ACC.
Pac10:
Im kinda torn on the Pac10. The USC win over SJSU means nothing to me. Washington looked a little better, but still lost. Wazzu might as well not exist. UCLA struggled with San Diego State early on. Arizona put forth the best effort, showcasing a strong defense vs the Chippewas. Cal ran all over Maryland, and figures now to be the 2nd strongest team in the Pac10. The obvious downside to all this is not only Oregon's loss, but their total embarrassment in Boise on all fronts. They lost, they couldnt run to save their lives, and there is friction on the team already. They fell as far as anyone. Overall, Id say the Pac10 stayed about even.
Big East:
Syracuse showed a nice challenge. UConn won at Ohio. None of the other games are worth mentioning. Cinci Rutgers tomorrow will be huge. I guess the conference is up.
MWC:
Huge thumbs up. Utah beat Utah State. Colorado St beat Colorado in Boulder (which I guess the game is no longer played at Mile High?). And of course, BYU beat Oklahoma. Strong, strong week, and the preseason favorites, TCU, had the week off.
I cant mention the BYU upset again without giving props to Bruce Feldman. I mentioned a few posts ago about how this was the only guy on espn.com that i liked. Last week, he had BYU in the Fiesta Bowl. This, I suppose, means that he thought they would go undefeated and therefore beat Oklahoma. Either way, great prediction on his part, again.
Now for a team by team/game by game breakdown. Ill give you my new top 25 on Tuesday or later, and I will talk more about the 4 teams that play tomorrow then, but for now:
Florida -- didnt see the game, but didnt have to. Business as usual.
Texas -- Ditto
Alabama vs Virginia Tech --- Bama looks just as strong as anyone right now. We knew their defense would be good, and it was. IT was a game where even though they were losing going into the 4th, you were pretty confident that they were going to win. THey had a huge advantage in yards, and Va Tech was kinda lucky to be there. If the offense can produce the way that they did, along with their great defense, then they have a legitimate shot at beating Florida. QB McElroy did pretty good for his first start, against a good defense. Ingram and Upchurch ran all over the defense, and the offensive line looked good. Another words, all the question marks I had for this team in the preseason were answered in a positive light. They will remain my #3 team.
Virginia Tech is just ehhh. I dont have any other way to describe it. Taylor still cant throw the ball as well as they need him to. I had them around 16 I think preseason, and that is about right, maybe in the 20s.
USC --- Looked real sloppy for the first 20 mins. Then, they got a few turnovers and it quickly snowballed. The defense played really well, but SJSU didn't really try to throw the ball downfield. USC didn't open up the playbook either. ABout every pass they threw was playaction, and many of them were dumped off to FB Stanley Havili. Also, they ran a curl which was open every single time. I like WR David Ausberry as a replacement to the injured ROnnie Johnson. I would imagine they need to do more to beat OHio State, and it remains to be seen whether or not they can do it. I mean, if they can just dump it off to Havili and run the way they did against SJSU, then they will win. If they have to do something more, then its still up in the air.
Ohio State -- Had trouble stopping Navy. Navy ran this play where they faked it to the fullback and then the QB just followed him. OSU is going to be more of a passing team this year than a running team. Again, I can't tell if this passing attack will work against SC or not, it remains to be seen. If not for a few fumbles, Navy could hve won this game (not to mention the 2 pt conversion). Ill need to see the spread and all that before I make a pick for SC OSU. Id imagine SC would be about -3.
Musburger wasted no time speculating what the spread would be next week. How much money did he have on Bama last night? I would imagine a lot. He only talked about Arenas' punt return skills 500 times. Every time they were about to punt it he mentioned how hes a threat, then said he has done a good job 3 times.
Ole Miss looks just as good as anyone. Snead turned the ball over in teh first half, and it was close. Remember when I wrote about Ole Miss, I mentioned how turnovers were costly last year. They still need to work on that if they want to beat Bama or LSU and win the West, but they have the talent to do so.
LSU has a shit load of talent too. Jefferson has a really, really good arm, but is still kinda raw. He also tries to run it too much. Charles Scott I still love, and WR Terrance Tolliver has tremendous speed to compliment LaFell. Keiland Williams provides a nice compliment to Scott, although he is also a load at 6'1" 220.
I take back everything I said about Bob Davie being a good announcer. He said 5 times that the deciding factor in the game was that LSU had better athletes. Yeah, when one team is good and the other isnt, that usually is a deciding factor. The only thing that stopped Washington from winning was that they werent as good as LSU. The only thing that LSU had going for them was that everyone on their team was better. Do I really need to go on?
The other games where a ranked team played some schwag game, I either didnt see, or it isnt worth noting.
Which saves (maybe) the best for last. ND
Cant say how impressed I was with ND. They ran the ball better. They didn't turn it over. Clausen was 15/18, and somehow threw for 315 yards, (a 21/completion is huge). But, coupled with the fact that his % was 83%, and its almost illogical.
Most importantly, the defense showed up. They stopped them in the red zone the first drive, and Nevada missed a FG. Then they got them to go 3 and out a few times in a row. By the half, it was over.
I dont know what to expect next week in Ann Arbor, but I cant wait to see it. Arguably, ND and Michigan were the two best looking teams last week. That is coupled with expectations of course. Did they look just as good as Bama or SC, or whoever else? Dont know, but the fact that Im mentioning ND and Michigan with two top 5 teams speaks volumes of how good they did look. both of them.
All of a sudden, Michigan figures to be prominent again. Which means, this turns into a harder game than ND might have thought. On the other hand, ND looked better than I think anyone was expecting. Michigan will be middle of the pack - top half in the Big10 this year, no question. ND, though, has a hump in front of them now..........but...........if they beat Michigan, and ND and Michigan are as good as they looked week 1, then ND will be headed back to a BCS bowl. Theres no question about that. If they lose next week, then they still could get back to one, but they would have to be close to perfect of course. Next week is a huge game for both teams. Its a rivalry, and like I said, its good for college football. A win for ND, and they figure to be favored in every game here on out other than SC.
Yeah, a lot of teams that ND will play looked good Week 1. They include, Purdue, Washington, Navy, SC, Stanford, and UConn, but still, none of them looked as good as ND did. ABout 3-4 of those teams will be in bowl games. Like I said before, its not a hard schedule, but it isnt as easy as everyone is saying it is. Michigan looked better than any team that ND has to play (other than SC), and therefore, poses one of the biggest threats left to the Irish.
A cover by Miami and I take a nice week 1 lead in the confidence pool. I need to redeem myself after last season. Im kinda like ND. I was good 2 years ago, winning it (in NDs case, 3 years ago). Then, I did really bad last year, finishing in 3rd out of 3, just like ND hasnt been good the last 2 years. But then I put up a good performance in the Bowl Pool. I finished 2nd/5, and ND looked good in the Hawaii bowl. Now, this year, Im back to redeem myself, as is ND.
Thats actually a better analogy than I explained it to be.
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