Sunday, November 4, 2007

What we learned from Saturday's college football action

With the exception of BC losing, which wasn't all that surprising, not a real surprising Saturday. But we still learned some stuff.

1. Did ESPN mess something up on Saturday? I had to wait for the Michigan game to end before they went over to the Oregon game. How did this happen? Wasn't Oregon/ASU the College Game of the Week? I wasn't in any of the FSN areas either, that still had the rights to the game. And the game wasn't on FSN here in NorCal. What the hell happened?

2. That said, Oregon proved they should move up to #2 in the country. Although ASU was admittedly a shaky #4, they were #4 heading into today and Oregon beat them convincingly. The game wasn't even as close as the score indicated. And Dennis Dixon is now the clear Heisman frontrunner. Meanwhile, while LSU was on the road, they barely won their game against Alabama. And in all honesty, Alabama should have won that game. But to me, Oregon's comfortable win against the #4 team in the country at home is bigger than a close road win by LSU over the #17 team in country.

3. Maybe we should all start taking Kansas a lot more seriously. I haven't paid much attention to them all season, but they got my attention today. They basically scored 76 points in three quarters of play. I don't care that Nebraska sucks, hanging 76 on them is insane. And Kansas went 10 straight drives with a TD. Kansas seems to have all the makings of being this year's Boise State. A team that no one pays attention to that hammers people all year and winds up a in a BCS game - then shocks the world by beating some powerhouse. That seems to be their destiny this year. We should also pay attention to UCONN. They've beaten Louisville and USF, which no longer sounds quite as good as it used to. But they play West Virginia to end the season, so that'll tell us how legit they are.

4. All hail the Naval Academy. For the last 43 years there had been three givens in life: death, taxes, and Notre Dame beating Navy. No longer. What made it even sweeter was that it came at South Bend in triple OT. Even better is that if Notre Dame loses to Air Force, that would mean they'll lose to two service academy teams in a season for the first time since 1944. Man I hope that happens, and you know what, it probably will.

5. Boston College proved to be what we all thought they were, a joke #2 team. I can't remember when exactly, I think it was a week or two ago, someone posted a comment railing us for taking shots at BC. Something about how they had a real tough schedule or something and were the best team in the country. Well, so much for that. The truth is this team got by for so long because they play in a weak conference and didn't have to face V-Tech's starting QB last week. Now they'll be where they belong, somewhere in the middle of the top 25. And also like to thank Florida State for giving us a better national championship.

6. Virginia is either the luckiest team ever or Al Groh is one damn good coach. 5 wins by 2 points. You almost get the sense that this team can't win unless they play in a close game. I'd probably be dead by now if I was a Virginia fan.

7. Ohio State may actually be the best team in the country after all. Although Wisconsin hung around for 3 quarters, Ohio State annihilated them in the 4th. That's two weeks in a row that they've stuck it to ranked teams. I kept wondering how they'd do once they finally started playing semi-legit competition. Well, they've answered the bell. I'm no longer sure they'd lose to LSU or Oregon. I got no problem if they make the national championship.

8. However, Michigan may get in the way. Sure they started the season off terribly, but they've definitely righted the ship. Their win over Michigan State may not have been impressive, but a win's a win. Plus, they get Ohio State at the Big House this year. And with a chance to ruin Ohio State's perfect season, bury the two early season losses, and go to the Rose Bowl, I think Michigan is going to give them a seriously tough time.

9. Darren McFadden seems intent on reminding Heisman voters that he's still alive. Arkansas hasn't had a great season, and that's definitely hurt him, but nothing says Heisman like an SEC-record 323 yards rushing. Of course, South Carolina gave up 541 rushing yards in total so I might have been able to run for 100 yards in that game, but whatever. Welcome back to the race Darren. And speaking of the Heisman and running backs, here's someone you should pay a lot of attention to - Knowshon Moreno of Georgia. All he's done this year is rush for the most yards in school history as a freshman since some guy named Herschel Walker played there. Moreno will be in the top 3 for the Heisman next year and could win it his junior year.

10. What happened to Colt McCoy this year? He's been pretty awful. He's lucky to have Jamaal Charles show up every 4th quarter to save his butt. I have a feeling he'll turn it around next year, but it for whatever reason, he ain't got it this year.

-WCK

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

FSN had the rights to show that game in that area. How can you not understand this.

100% Injury Rate said...

I understand that. But I wasn't in that area, and I didn't have the game on FSN either. It took until about 8 minutes into the Oregon game before I got the game. Weird.

100% Injury Rate said...

Here's your answer anonymous, straight from LA: So the game was on Fox Sports out here, which I actually do not get. What makes this more interesting and I'm surprised all the commenters did not note this is that in order to get the one FSN channel on DishNetwork in LA, it costs an extra $10 a month for just that one channel (which is complete BS). And I really don't watch FSN that often so I just never got it, and that's not a channel you expect to have to pay $10 a month for. So, I have to stand by the fact that ESPN should not be advertising that they will be showing a game in SoCal that a number of people do not receive without paying extra money for.

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