Some good games on tap, esp in the SEC. 1. Clemson plays UVA at home. Shouldn't be much of a problem for them 2. Alabama plays #13 A&M at home....it's probably not fair to put too much on the Vanderbilt game but unless they clean that up it's going to be a 3 TD loss for the Aggies. 3. Fla plays So.Car at home...Gators should roll again here. 4. Georgia plays #5 Auburn at home ...I guess we'll see if Stetson Burnett can be the man at QB for the Dawgs, Auburn has Bo Nix who is a rising Soph at QB. I won't be surprised to see Auburn come away with the win here. 5. Notre Dame ...off 6. Ohio State ...off 7. Auburn at Georgia 8. Miami ...off 9. Texas gets TCU at home. I expect the Longhorns will roll these guys. Offense will rule the day here. TCU probably a decent team, but definitely not as explosive as Tech. So the Longhorn defense will look better! 10. Penn State ...off Other games. Missouri at Tenn ...Vols on a bit of a roll from last season. Missouri didn't look great against the Tide till Saban emptied the bench. I'd expect the Vols continue to roll. NC State at Pitt ...Pitt might be an ACC Spoiler, great defense which is what Narduzzi was known for when he was the DCoord at Mich State. UNC at BC ...UNC thought to be one of the teams legitimately in contention for the ACC Champ game vs Clemson. BC almost lost to a barely FBS team in Texas State at home. UNC is way better than Texas State. OU goes to Ames Iowa for Iowa State. Iowa State a team that many thought would be a dark horse in the B12, but then they lost to Louisiana in their opener. They did get by, barely, TCU last week. OU needs Spencer Rattler to settle down and not make so many mistakes, as it doesn't appear that OU has one of those defenses that erases your offenses mistakes. I won't be shocked if this is a close game or if OU loses again. LSU goes to Vanderbilt. ...redemption for Eddie O. Vanderbilt does not have an Air Raid offense. Tulsa at UCF...I put this one in mainly because UCF might be one of the best Group of 5 teams along with Cincinnati and if they can put together an undefeated season might have a shot at the CFP. USF at Cincinnati ...same reason as UCF ...they do play late in the season so only 1 will have a shot at undefeated season. Ark at Miss State....I expect we'll see another 600 yd performance out of KJ Costello. Ark really isn't very good.
I see that a number of Big 10 players who had opted out and said they were going to the NFL have changed their minds and will be playing. I'm not exactly sure how many, as the reports I see cover mostly the high profile players. I'm not sure why a waiver is needed, maybe they'd stopped going to class or maybe they signed with an agent, don't know. But so far they all seem to be getting waivers from the NCAA to allow them to return. Glad to see it, it's a different set of circumstances and I'd hate to see the NCAA make them stick to the letter of the law.
Both of players that opted out have been cleared to practice (Covid Testing). Players that left the day to day practices, have to be recleared.
As always they start projecting the CFP and the various bowl games. Fla is now in the top 4 with Clemson, Ohio State, and Alabama. In an odd projection they (USAToday) projects Oklahoma State to the Cotton Bowl, not OU or Texas. OU to the Alamo Bowl and Texas to the Cheez-it Bowl. Those projections are just weird.
Terry... they know it's all blindfolded darts at this point. They can throw up anything ridiculous and still say "hey it was just a VERY EARLY list, and things changed..." Gotta keep making content to get the eyeballs.
South Alabama/Troy has been postponed due to the Virus. As far as I know that might be the only game postponed this week. Buffalo reported an outbreak in their football team, but as a member of the MAC they don't have any games till Nov 4th so that gives them plenty of time to recover.
Update on recruiting: 1. Alabama 2. Ohio State 3. Oregon ....Ducks really doing well. 4. LSU ....Eddie O can recruit that's for sure. 5. Clemson 6. Tenn 7. Fla 8. USC ...surprised at this, USC traditionally has done well in recruiting and they are in an area where there is a lot of talent that in general wants to play at USC. But with their coaching situation sort of up in the air, I'd have thought maybe it would be a down year for them. 9. Miami...like USC they sit in an area with a lot of talent that traditionally wants to play at Miami...but again recent record has not been encouraging. Manny Diaz does have deep connections though and he's a young energetic coach. If he is able to have an excellent year this year it could end up kicking off another run by the Canes 10. Michigan ...Harbaugh is not going to be outworked and Michigan again a team that traditionally recruits very well. 11. Notre Dame....unlike some, Kelly is not a hard worker when it comes to recruiting and the results during his tenure show it, good but not great classes. Irish have to depend on developing players for the most part. The story is that he's working harder, and has better staff for recruiting. But still doesn't challenge the elites like Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, etc. Mack Browns UNC has been dropping in the rankings but they still have an excellent class, and a bit surprising that Georgia who had been a machine since Kirby Smart took over isn't in the top 10, of course it might be that he'll finish very strong. Jimbo at A&M is in the top 20 right now, but he has a lot of room to add players in this class and could move up easily. Tom Herman as well, smaller class size right now but the potential is there to move up.
Penn State will not be getting AA LB Micah Parsons back, James Franklin said they talked but too much to overcome. Said he's been gone for 2 months now and working with a trainer to get ready for the NFL draft, I have to imagine that in order to play he'd have to agree to make up a lot of course work so he could be eligible. As lenient as the NCAA has been regarding transfers and now optout/in I don't think they should let non-students play.
Big news out of Columbus is that the team practiced with pads Wednesday for the first time since the Clemson game!
I didn't realize that UNC hasn't played in 3 weeks, had a cancellation. Memphis hasn't played in 4 weeks due to the virus. If the Irish play FSU next week they will have not played in 3 weeks
Don... I think we've seen the effects of that in first games for everyone. Sloppy tackling, and poor ball security as kids aren't used to doing the real thing. (eh... Aggies with 4 fumbles)
It's been bizarre some of the calls. We had a great catch/throw taken away for offensive PI, there was no push off or hand fighting. But Texas shot themselves in the foot enough to make this a game of it. Finally starting to get things rolling and are up 29-26. Need to finish this like they did last week
Bizarre finish, Longhorns going for the kill shot and the back tries to leap and extend the ball on 1st and goal from the 1 and gets the stripped TCU recovers and that's the ball game. I'd like to blame the refs they were terrible, but Texas just took one final shot at their foot and hit it.