Thoughts from Week 2
Sunday afternoon, the MRI numbers populated through my spreadsheet for the first time this season. The system needs all of the teams to have played at least one game before it can give a rating. Of course, I don't publish it right now. If I did, I would never hear the end of it. Especially when you see who is listed at #2 in the rankings right now (HINT: It is a West Coast School that has a tree for a mascot). As I have learned with college basketball, you need a little bit of time to pass during the season before the numbers make sense, time for the averages to work out any anomalies and blockbuster games against Division 1-AA teams. For basketball, this has always been the weekend after Thanksgiving. For football, last year, I used week 6 as the benchmark. That still leaves about 10 weeks before the conference championships and bowl games begin. So, you will have to wait a little longer before I send out the rankings.
Until then, I can provide you with a couple of thoughts on the season so far.
- Thanks to Rutgers, North Texas, and Hawaii, Division 1-AA teams are 3-28 against Division 1-A teams so far this year. This is particularly embarassing for Rutgers. They put on a great show against Michigan State in their first game. Unfortunately, they had a major let down against New Hampshire. This doesn't portend great things for Rutgers, a team with big hopes this year. Last year, they managed to win 5 games, which was only one less than the last four years combined for the school. This year, there was talk of a bowl game. If that is to be, they will need to play a lot more like they did against Michigan State than the team that was on the field Saturday.
- Title hopes for a few teams are already on the line. Losses by Michigan and Florida State have seriously put their National Title hopes in jeopardy. Neither of these teams could afford to lose and have a hope to remain in the running for their league championship, especially since they play in conferences with no title game. The ACC will add a title game next season when Boston College comes over. However, that will do under-achieving Chris Rix and the Seminoles no good this year. In order to get through now, Florida State will have to hope for 2 slip ups by Miami during the rest of their conference games. Miami's schedule might provide for just that. They have match-ups against Georgia Tech (who shocked Clemson this week), Clemson, Virginia, and former Big East rival Virginia Tech still on the schedule. Of course, Florida State will need to play a lot better and remain undefeated the rest of the season in the ACC. This won't be easy as they still face Clemson, Virginia, and Maryland. They have a tune up game against UAB this week to prepare for Clemson, but a loss against them, at home on top of it all, could end any BCS hope for Florida State. Michigan has it a little easier, since their loss came out of conference. However, they must now count on Notre Dame to do well. That is a scary prospect when two different teams have shown up on the field this season, one an uncoordinated scrapping team which got destroyed by a mediocre BYU team, or the one that showed heart and came back against Michigan to win. Obviously, Notre Dame was inspired for the rivalry type game. The questions remain if they can keep it up. A high finishing Notre Dame team means that Michigan may still have a chance to finish near the top of the BCS standings and contend for the National Title. I don't personally think they will manage it, though they will play well this season. With a freshman quarterback, there is too much that can go wrong for them in the Big Ten season.
- Speaking of Chris Rix, why is he still the quarterback. I know this topic has been beaten to death on talk radio lately so I have one thing to add to the discussion. Assume that Florida State has its act together enough to beat UAB. Their next game after that is Clemson, a team that could truly contend with the Seminoles. If Mr. Rix can't get the job done by half time, he should be done for the season. I know he is a senior, but the boy has lost 5 times to Miami, making him the only player to lose 5 times to the same team in his college career. Another loss in the ACC would end Florida State's season. If they are down at half time, Bobby Bowden has to go to a back-up, no matter how inexperienced they are. At least get them some game experience now, when the season won't matter anymore.
- I wanted to give a few kudos to UNLV's defense even though in the end, UNLV lost the game against Wisconsin. The defense played very well, holding Wisconsin to only 270 yards of offense, something that in college today is only happening about 30% of the time. In addition, they only gave up one score to the Wisconsin offense, something that is probably more worthy of praise. They kept their team in the game, despite the offense repeatedly trying to give the game back to Wisconsin in a big way. Wisconsin's defense should be praised at the same time. They held UNLV to 190 yards and at the same time got two, yes that's right, two safties and a blocked field goal that they returned for a touchdown. That made this game interesting to watch and frustrating at the same time. College football has become a game where high scores and big time excitement is expected. The lack of offense in this game may have made it seem boring, but the tough pressure defense and the amount of big plays on the defensive side of the ball sure made for some excellent moments. In all, Wisconsin had a great defensive game as should be expected. What impressed me more though was the play of UNLV and that is really the only reason I mentioned the game here.
To end, I wanted to point out something that just bugged me all weekend into Monday and Tuesday of this week. I managed to get up before kick-off on Saturday in enough time to catch the end of the College Game Day pre-game show on ESPN. Normally, I could care less about what is spewed there. Until this year, it was almost too hard to hear most times because the screaming fans behind the analysts (if you can call them that... keep reading) were so loud, they drowned out most of what was said. ESPN had enough brains this year to separate them a little with a sound killing black curtain, which at least showed the enthusiasm still while dropping the decibel level so you could hear what Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit were going to say. And say a lot they did. But in order to appreciate this fully, we have to step back a few weeks before the season got going. One morning during a six pack of questions on Sportscenter, they asked Corso and Herbstreit if there were any teams in Division 1-A football which would go undefeated this year. Herbstreit to his credit, gave an answer of one, that being USC. Corso, in a style that can only be compared to Dick Vitale, claimed that there would be 3, yes three, teams with a zero in the loss column by the end of the year. Those three teams he picked, and I remember this well, were USC, Memphis, and Fresno State.
So now, we flash back to Saturday morning. I had had my coffee, so I know I didn't misunderstand what was about to be spewed on tv. Corso and Herbstreit prepare to pick who will win the Fresno State-Kansas State matchup. And the pick is up, and the pick for Mr. Corso is... Kansas State?!? How can you pick Fresno State to run the table before the season, having looked at their schedule, having taken into account that they had Kansas State on their schedule, and then not pick them to win the game when they actually play Kansas State? This boggled my mind and almost led me to spit take the coffee in my mouth all over my friend's leather sofa. (Note: the coffee stayed put and the leather was safe.) I can only imagine that this was some secret plot on Corso's part to be able to be right no matter what when questioned about the game later. Few people probably remember his bold prediction from a few weeks earlier, so if Kansas State would have won, he would have been correct for the game, and that would be that. Since Fresno State won, he can now go out and loudly proclaim "I picked them to win them all and that is what they are doing". In his own words, "NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND!". I caught you this time, and don't think I won't be watching your other picks throughout the season now. So, I chalked that one up as strike one for the analyst team that morning. I thought maybe this would be their only problem that day, considering that there was little time left in the show. But I was wrong and Mr. Herbstreit provided me with the other big gaff of the morning.
One of the last games they were set to pick for the day was Penn State versus Boston College, a game that 10 years ago, might actually have meant something to both of those teams. However, both of the programs have fallen on hard times. Boston College is a lame duck in the Big East and is ready to move to the ACC where they still will lack a shot at winning anything, anytime soon. Penn State hasn't contended in the Big Ten for a number of years and you have to wonder if the Joe Paterno magic is gone and there is a need for a change just to revitalize a program that used to bring fear to other teams. And the pick is up for both analysts and they both pick Penn State. Ok, I can handle that. Neither team has distinguished themselves enough to believe that there was a clear favorite in the game. For my own part, I picked Boston College, only because having seen Penn State play the last two years more than BC, I could firmly believe that Penn State would find a way to lose the game and give it to BC. Herbstreit though almost caused the couch to be showered in coffee for the second time that morning. His "expert" anaylsis was that Penn State would win because they were a veteran team of Juniors and Seniors, and they would know what it takes to win that game. This would be great thinking if not for the fact that Penn State traditionally puts a team of upperclassmen on the field and they haven't found a way to win with that strategy in a long time. It doesn't explain how last year, with an upperclassmen dominated team, they only managed to win three games. It doesn't explain how last year, with the same upperclassmen dominated team, they lost to Boston College by 13. Sorry Kirk. I respect your pick this year, but please come up with a better reason. At least that way you seem like you know what you are talking about, especially when you lose. (And don't get me started on how he "almost" picked Arizona to beat Utah).
That's all for this week. Looks like they postponed Thursday night's game, so you probably won't hear anything from me until Sunday unless something strikes my fancy.
