This weekend will be the direct opposite of week 1. Not a single ranked team will be playing another ranked team. In fact most ranked teams are playing a really weak team at home. But that doesn't mean there won't be drama, already Univ of Houston QB Greg Ward is questionable for Sat with a sore shoulder. It's only Lamar and it is at home, but the Cougars really need for him to be healthy all season. Unless he's truly 100%, and again it's Lamar, I might not want to play him. Pitt and Penn State play in Heinz Field, first time in many years that these two have played. Cincy travels to W. Lafayette to face Purdue in what could be a good game. Cincy is a decent AAC team and has Tubberville as the coach. So the Boilermakers need to be ready. USC gets Utah State at home, Utah State isn't a big time patsie they are members of the Mtn West Conference and USC better not overlook those guys. UConn at Navy ..this is actually a big game in the AAC. Navy is down a man at QB, had to get a guy out of the stands last week. But looking at their stats you wouldn't know. Bob Diaco has had trouble with the Academies Triple Option and his first game vs Navy at ND was a disaster. I don't know if he's finally figured it out. Texas Tech at Ariz State is another big game amongst the unranked teams. Tech is a Air Raid offense, and Rich Rod always had the run heavy spread. Go Tech! Pat Mahomes is a heck of a QB and I'll be interested to see how he does in this game. BYU at Utah....Holy War!! Well after getting the low down from Kes on the realities of this series I won't be putting any money on BYU! Wazzu vs Boise State....wooo boy does the Pirate need a win here, Luke Faulk I guess did his part last week but they apparently left the defense home. Last year looked like they might have turned the corner in Pullman, so another loss not a good thing esp one to BSU. BTW does Wazzu consider BSU a rival, Kes? Ark vs TCU...this is actually a big game even if Arky is unranked. Hogs probably won't be an easy out, and TCU has Kenny "Thrill" Hill at QB. Also TCU supposed to have a very good defense, not really shocking under Gary Patterson though, he's a great D-Coach. I expect that OU and Texas A&M will score in the 70's this weekend unless they really empty the bench when it gets to 50. Louisville vs Syracuse on Thurs is good to watch just to see Louisville QB Lamar Jackson...he is an awesome athlete and a pretty good QB. If Louisville has a great season, which they could, it'll be because Jackson has a great year.
Terry, a small correction. RichRod is the coach at Arizona, not ASU. The ASU coach is the guy from Tulsa who beat ND a couple of years ago out there.
You are correct! Todd Graham the former Rice, Tulsa, Pitt coaching vagabond. I hope he gets his ass whupped by coach GQ.
I am anxious to see how we match-up with Tulsa. Montgomery was the offensive coordinator at Baylor and tried to recruit J.T. Barrett just a three-hour drive up the road to Wichita Falls. John Cooper coached at Tulsa prior to coming to Ohio State. Barrett decided on Ohio State and the rest is history. Montgomery is now the coach at Tulsa!
Not much glory to be had this week, but the walkons will get some good time. To top it off... looks like I'll be getting wet at this one. Oh well... at least I won't be blistered. 8) Arkie vs TCU interests me. The way everyone built up Arkansas you'd have thought they were world beaters. Barely beat La Tech last week so they should be easy pickins for the Toads, right? Oh wait... they barely got by S Dakota St last week. Who knows...
Just like I like it... No mention of Tennessee... even though they will be playing in front of the largest crowd to ever attend a college football game this week.
And Alabama is playing Western Kentucky, whose qb threw for over 500 yards against Rice last week. I hate these kind of games. :shock:
Notice that Tom said "attend" rather than "see". From the pics they've shown its hard to see the field much less anyone on it!
I always use attend instead of see. It applies at Neyland as well... too much "corn from a jar" limits your vision! 8)
I was about as high up as you can get in DKR last Sunday, while I could see the plays of course, It was hard to tell if the run was for 3 yds or 5 yds, a number of times I thought we'd come up short on 3rd down and the RB got it with room to spare. I wished I had brought binoculars.
I see that FSU's opponent, Charleston Southern is in a bit of a pickle. There is some scandal brewing there and up to 30 players might be suspended. Maybe not all for this game, but even if they break it up and suspend 10 guys the no chance goes to please have mercy!
Tom, The Tenn/Va Tech game is probably the top game this weekend. It's not just because it's at Bristol either, really should be a good game. I listen to XM college sports and those guys are not high on your QB's passing ability and say that will be a issue for the Vols.
The experts have pegged the line at -3 Utah. Utah beat SUU 24-0 last weekend. BYU eeked out a win against UA 18-16. BYU had the tougher opening game. Any given Saturday and all that, but I have a hard time going against history unless there's something glaringly obvious (U going for #6 in a row against the Y). Special Teams should, as usual, break for the red. The difference between a win and a loss will depend on how the offense of Utah looks. At this point, I think the only rivals for Wazzu are in the Big Sky Conference. Even that, I'm not sure the better teams in that conference would even consider Wazzu, much less a rival worthy of consideration. For another 24 hours, Wazzu can crow that they have never lost to BSU (4-0). About this time last year, Wazzu stopped being able to say the same for FCS teams. Now 0-2 in the last two years on that account.
Ohio State game with Tulsa this afternoon might result in torrential downpours during the second half of the game, if the weather reports are accurate. The last time we played in severe rainy weather was against the Spartans last fall. I would hate to see a repeat of that disaster today!
Our game with Tulsa turned out to be a rather long one. A one hour delay after the first half due to lightning, cause the delay with heavy rains. Our offense was very sluggish in the first half, but the defense picked up two TDs within minutes of each other shortly before the rain came. We were a different ball club in the second half, but not nearly as sharp at the preceding week against Bowling Green. I am not as confident about our game with Oklahoma next Saturday. Hopefully, Coach Meyer can get the bugs worked out this week?
Jury is still out on Alabama's offense. Thank God for our defense. Ole Miss next week and we need to beat them bad. :evil:
Not a lot of surprises this week. A lot of ranked teams started slow but in the end won going away. 1. Irish looked ok, not world beating great, but ok. Better defensive effort but then it was Nevada not Texas. Still it was a win. A lot of work still to do. 2. Texas, one of those slow starters, but then got on a roll and won decisively. Big game with CAL coming up, first road trip for the team and it's a long one 2 time zones. They know their foe from last season and their QB was the Texas Tech QB a couple of years ago. 3. The Vols, this was one of the best games this weekend, they looked like Va.Tech was going to run them out of the stadium, then they forced a turnover and it totally changed the game. They got on a roll and just took over the game. Dobbs still hasn't shown too much passing but he and Hurd are great running the football. Somewhere soon though they will need Dobbs to make the defense back off with his arm. Record crowd of course, all though I'm not sure some of them could actually see the game. 4. Alabama, solid win, slow start. Kiffin got his ass chewed by Saban and he took it like a man! 5. Ohio State, another slow start then a fast finish. OU up next. 6. Clemson...whoa...that was Troy and Clemson had to fight them tooth and nail for that win. But I doubt if they were very interested in the game till it was too late and Troy was actually playing decent. 7. Georgia..another team that was in a dawg fight that they didn't want to be in that's for sure. 8. Michigan...cruised to an easy win over UCF 9 FSU another easy win for them as well. 10. I didn't see the Ark/TCU game but from reading it was a terrific game unless you are a TCU fan. Frogs had their chances but didn't close'em out. 11. LSU...change at QB for the LSU offense.... former Purdue Boilermaker Danny Etling is the new guy under center. His numbers were meh, but maybe the absence of Fournette had something to do with that. 12. Big Ref screw up of the weekend...OSU/Central Mich game where they gave CMU an extra play that they didn't deserve. But then CMU did something special with it and got the undeserved win. Crews have all been disciplined but nobody can give OSU back the win that they earned. I guess you can't be critical of Gundy for the 4th down play, but did he know about the rule? 13. Miami, another ranked team with an easy foe and a win. 14. I didn't know that ASU and Texas Tech were playing basketball, but looking at the score I think maybe they were...that was a no defense game for sure. 15. Wazzu another loss. not much to say Luke Falk 71 passes for almost 500yds in a loss. So not much really went on that changed anything in the season. Clemson fell in the polls but still undefeated and in the top 5, Louisville made a big move up and will face #2 FSU next week. But overall minor moves or static in the polls.
Next weeks opponent is Appalachian St, in reading it's their biggest home game in ten years. I have no idea how this schedule worked its way into the mix at their house...If the Tennessee game was any indication it may be exciting as this early season is glaring that parity is alive and well in college football wether we like it or not... And as we are currently playing 14 true freshman I can't honestly say we are any better or have any depth considered for a top 25 ranked team....
I got home in time to see the 2nd half of the TCU/Ark game. Crazy how Mo can go from side to side. Ark was in control, but for some reason Fat Brett kept insisting on throwing too much. TCU comes back and takes the lead with a few left... Arkie makes miracle drive and ties it with 1 min left. Then Fat Brett makes the bone-head move of the night. That Turpin kid had been smoking them on special teams every time he touched the ball... so what did Brett do? Kicked it to him nice as you please. Kid returns it to the Ark 25. Easy FG to end it. BUT IT's BLOCKED! (the kick was too low) OT was fun. Brett seemed to pull his head out for that. He finally beat a team from Texas...