Yearly Archives: 2007

Week 2 Games of Interest!

Couple of interesting games this week, but mostly crap. At any rate, we continue onwards! All times Eastern.

11:00: West Virginia @ Marshall (ESPN2): The Battle of West Virginia! WVU wins going away.

Noon:

  • Miami (FL) @ Oklahoma (ABC): I’m not sold on either of these teams – they gorged themselves on cupcakes last week. That said, I have to give the edge to OU based on how terrible Miami’s been the past couple of years.
  • Nebraska @ Wake Forest (ESPN): Another ACC-Big 12 game! Wake didn’t exactly look awesome last week. I’m giving a slight edge to Nebraska here, even if I am rooting for wake.
  • Duke @ Virginia (LF/Gameplan): Both are terrible, but one is much more terrible than the other. Virginia wins a game!

12:30: Alabama @ Vanderbilt (LF/Gameplan): I so desperately want this to be close and for Vandy to pull off the upset. My brain tells me that it will probably go otherwise, as ‘Bama fans are packing Nashville to see the Saban.

1:30: Samford @ Georgia Tech (ESPNU): Included even though I don’t get das ‘U’. Tech should win this one without much trouble, and hopefully Bennett can work off his nerves in a half of work and get his timing down for the passing game.

2:00: California @ Colorado State (CSTV): Cal’s second toughest OOC game – they need to win this to stay in the national picture after taking care of Tennessee this week. CSU and CU looked about level last week, so the boys from Berkeley should take this going away.

2:30: NC State @ Boston College (ESPN2): Important ACC divisional matchup, but NC State is still terrible as Tom O’Brien faces the school he jilted. BC wins to go to 2-0 heading into Atlanta next week.

3:30:

  • Oregon @ Michigan (ABC): Ahahahahahaha. Sorry. Anyway. Oregon runs a spread-offense with a speedy quarterback, the same formula that App State uses. Oregon wins what originally looked like an intriguing matchip.
  • Fresno State @ Texas A&M (FSN): Is Fresno back to its giant-killing ways? Probably not. TAMU wins.
  • Boise State @ Washington (FSN NW/FCS Pacific): Washington claims to have a found a saviour in its young freshman QB. Boise State claims to be a legit contender. This is probably the Broncos’ most import game until they play Hawaii. I’m going say Washington gives them a run for their money, but they’re still Washington and Boise should win.

5:45: South Carolina @ Georgia (ESPN2): I hope against hope the boys from Columbia can go into Athens and whip the dogs. I hope is probably unfounded, though – UGA looked pretty good last week against Oklahoma State while the Gamecocks looked lackluster against UL-Lafayette.

6:00: Notre Dame @ Penn State (ESPN): Georgia Tech’s renowned defense terrorized ND’s QBs into 9 sacks last week. Penn State’s renowned defense should do similar damage. Happy Valley should be pretty happy about this one.

7:00: TCU @ Texas (FSN): TCU also is claiming to be a mid-major to contend with this year along with Boise and Hawaii. To prove it, they need to go giant-killing in Austin. Will they prove it? Probably not, but they may make it interesting.

9:00: South Florida @ Auburn (ESPN2): Auburn shouldn’t have any trouble with the Golden Bulls. However, they also weren’t supposed to have any trouble with Kansas State last week. If the AU offense bothers to show up for more than the last 5 minutes of the game this week they should win this going away – however, USF is probably better than KSU and if Auburn stagnates again they may not get as many second chances.

9:15: Virginia Tech @ Louisiana State (ESPN): The marquee matchup of the weekend – we’ve got real national title implications here, folks. Baton Rogue will be as nuts as they can get, which is pretty nuts. Virginia Tech looked…uninspired on offense against East Carolina last week and let them hang around way too long. Meanwhile, LSU took a business-like approach in beating Mississippi State (who is probably just as good, if not worse, than ECU). I feel like overall, LSU is probably more competent on offense and just as good as VPI on defense. This, plus home field advantage, gives them a slight edge here. I don’t expect a lot of points, though – something like 14-10 for a final would not be unsurprising.

On Notice! (Belated Week 1 Edition)

Everyone’s (well, the like 3 people who read this thing, anyway) favorite weekly feature announcing who sucked last week in CFB is back for it’s second season!



1) University of Michigan – This one is pretty obvious, but in case you didn’t know UM lost to D1-AA (I refuse to call it the “Championship Subdivision”) Appalachian State 34-32. WTG guys.
2) University of Virginia – Now we enter the Crappy ACC teams section of the post. UVA lost to Wyoming, and from what I hear, their QB looked pretty awful.
3) North Carolina State University – Lost to UCF – good job Tom O’Brien.
4) Duke University – Lost to UConn 45-14 in what was probably their best chance to win a game this season. The L streak is now at 21 and counting.
5) Sports Media – 2 things here: First, Lloyd Carr is not going to get fired at Michigan, no matter what those idiots keep calling for in their columns. Second, almost all the articles about the GT-ND game are about how much ND sucks, and in some you have a hard time telling what team they even played against. It’d be nice to give a little credit to GT for being a pretty good team, but I haven’t seen any mainstream articles about this.
6) Charlie Weis – In retrospect, he must have been withholding the starting QB because he knew they all sucked. A “genius” should be able to get it done with less than top-flight talent and have his team looking at least somewhat prepared in Week 1.
7) Early Polls – Michigan at #5 looks pretty dumb right now. As does having FSU at #19 and BC and GT unranked. Good job dumbasses. (BTW, if anyone from the BlogPoll reads this, I would love to vote, and will announce my love for all things poll related)
8) Samford – Little D1-AA cupcake action coming up this weekend for GT – posters on GT message boards are like “if we don’t take this seriously, we’ll end up like Michigan!!!!1111”. This is an obviously dumb statement – Samford and App State aren’t even close in terms of talent. Plus, they’re the Bulldogs.

Week One

Most of this week’s games were mismatches of talent, but that didn’t stop a large portion of the major powers from struggling (or in one case falling flat on their faces). Penn State, Florida, Oklahoma, and West Virginia took care of business, but…

LSU 45, Mississippi State 0: The final score here is misleading. LSU scored 17 points off of four interceptions in the first half, the final touchdown coming as time expired. You’d expect more from a highly-touted SEC offense. Bulldog quarterback Michael Henig looked awful the entire night and literally threw away the hard work of his persistent defense. Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom is still optimistic about his chances. Looking at his schedule, though, he would be lucky to win half of his games.

Virginia Tech 17, East Carolina 7: C’mon now. 17 points against a minor team from the Big East with a pirate as a mascot? 7 of which came from an interception-turned-touchdown? Pitiful. The Hokies travel to Baton Rouge next Saturday. I don’t think they’ll win.

Texas 21, Arkansas State 13: Two missed field goals, an interception in the end zone, and a penalty on a successful onside kick prevented Arkansas State from bringing down the Longhorns. Texas failed four straight attempts to score from the Indians’ three yard line. Their quarterback is still named Colt McCoy. He’s not VINCE YOUNG, but the name is still awesome.

Auburn 23, Kansas State 13: This was not the season opener I was expecting from my Tigers. Kansas State seemed to run the same short passing play once or twice every series, and Auburn did little to slow them down. The Wildcats even ran some double reverses for similar results. Auburn missed tackles all night, especially during kickoff coverage. To the credit of the defense, they did intercept Kansas State twice and forced one fumble for a touchdown. They missed two or three other interception opportunities, though.

These guys should never have had reason to celebrate.

Auburn’s offense had a disappointing showing as well. Brandon Cox looked a little better than last season. Despite an inexperienced line which gave him little time to settle down, Cox completed 17 of 30 passes for 229 yards. However, most of his completions were to receivers who were wide open and forced them to come back for the catch. It didn’t help that some of the passes which were on target were blatantly dropped (including one in the end zone).

Tuberville had better get to work before South Florida shows up next Saturday. This season could be a painful way to end my career in the student section of Jordan-Hare. At least the completely revamped kicking staff wasn’t a problem.

“Why are we so bad right now?” a distraught and incredulous Tuberville asks his team.

Appalachian State 34, Michigan 32: Ha ha ha…this is hilarious and unbelievable at the same time. No team from I-AA has beaten a ranked I-A oppenent since the divisions were created in 1978. In a poll on ESPN.com, 42% called this the greatest upset in college football history. I think I agree. It’s a shame this had to come at the beginning of the season, because everything else is going to pale in comparison.

28-14. Wolverine fans worldwide begin to fear.

I’ll spare you the recap. If you didn’t watch SportsCenter at all yesterday, this should get you up to speed. On a side note, some ASU students ripped a goal post out of their own stadium, which holds 85% less people than the Big House, and left it in the university chancellor’s driveway.


The action continues tomorrow as Florida State travels to Clemson (8 PM ET, ESPN). Saturday’s slate features some interesting interconference games, including:

West Virginia at Marshall (11:10 AM ET, ESPN),
Miami (FL) at Oklahoma (12 PM ET, ABC),
Nebraska at Wake Forest (12 PM ET, ESPN),
Oregon at Michigan (3:30 PM ET, ABC) (ha ha ha),
and Virginia Tech at LSU (9:15 PM ET, ESPN).

It looks like we’ll have to wait until week three for the major intraconference battles to begin. See you again next Sunday!

Also: I was wrong about Tennessee/California. Darn.

Opening Weekend Football on TV!

It’s finally time, kids! We’ll cover all the games this wonderful Labor Day weekend.

This selection of games is completely arbitrary. I’ll cover all nationally televised games as well as regional games. All times eastern for these delicious cupcakes:

Thursday:
7:00: Tulsa @ UL-Monroe (ESPN2): I am so desperate for football I will actually watch this provided I’m still not at work. Also, it’s on HD! So I think I’m required to watch it. (Tulsa rolls.)
8:00: LSU @ Mississippi State (ESPN): Marginally better than the first game as Miss State goes to the slaughter for the football desperate masses.
10:00: Utah @ Oregon State (FSN NW, Utah, and Pacific): This may actually be competitive. My money’s on OSU, though.

Friday, 8:00:
Washington @ Syracuse (ESPN): Two terrible teams face off on a Friday night in a dome in rural New York! I really don’t have much else to say about this.

Saturday:
Noon:

  • East Carolina @ Virginia Tech (ESPN): Take a drink every time the word “tragedy” is mentioned! VPI rolls.
  • Alabama-Birmingham @ Michigan State (ESPN2): I’m sad because I no longer have John L. Smith to make fun of.
  • Colorado State @ Colorado (FSN): Lost in the fact that CU is terrible is that there’s an honest-to-god rivalry game in the opening weekend! This should be pretty fun.

12:30: Western Kentucky @ UF (Gameplan/LF): I just laid down the cash for Gameplan, and I’ll be dammed if I’m not going to use it. For 5 minutes.

3:30:

  • Georgia Tech @ Notre Dame (NBC): (Breathe in) (breathe out) Oh man. This is it. Everything before this is filler. One of like 3 worthwhile games of the day. An entire non-ND nation wants us to win here. I want us to win here. However, I hate predicting GT games. Both teams have new quarterbacks, but ND has a lot more questions have skill positions and is switching to the 3-4 defense. GT returns the ACC’s leading rusher and has hired an offensive coordinator who (presumably) knows what the hell he’s doing. At any rate, GO JACKETS!
  • Nevada @ Nebraska (Gameplan/ABC): Uh, woo?
  • Wake Forest @ Boston College (ESPN/ABC): Early ACC action! I like BC and their QB here, though.
  • Washington St. @ Wisconsin (ABC/ESPN): Not terribly excited about this one. Wisconsin should roll.
  • Missouri vs. Illinois (ESPN2): This is a toss-up. A toss-up of crap.
  • UCLA @ Stanford (FSN): UCLA rolls.

5:30: Arizona @ BYU (Versus): Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa……

6:00: Baylor @ TCU (CSTV): aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh………

6:45: Oklahoma State @ Georgia (ESPN2): To hell, to hell, to hell with Georgia… at least, I hope so. Go Sooners!

7:00: North Texas @ Oklahoma (FSN): OU rolls.

7:45: Kansas State @ Auburn (ESPN): AU rolls.

8:00: Tennessee @ California (ABC): And we round out the day with the probably best overall game. I love these sorts of intersectional matchups. If I have some time, I’ll figure out the last time an SEC team traveled to California for something other than a bowl game.

10:00: New Mexico @ UTEP (CSTV): Miners? I guess? Gah.

10:15: Idaho @ Southern Cal (FSN): 7:15 pacific, so I’ll probably watch it.

Monday:
4:00: Texas Tech @ Southern Methodist (ESPN): I’ll be at work.

8:00: Florida State @ Clemson (ESPN): Bowden Bowl! Clemson, with a stable of running backs should be able to take out Papa Bowden.

Well, that was mediocre. Trust me when I say I’m pretty excited about the interesting games (especially ours) but outside of that it’s a bleak slate. Alas! What is important is that the college football season is finally here!