Saturday, October 19, 2013

This Weekend in College Football: Week 8

Okay, this time I'll really debut the bowl predictions after today's games. (I thought the BCS was coming out last week.)

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Noon:
  • Texas Christian @ Oklahoma State (FOX): I'll take the team with close losses to the likes of LSU and Oklahoma rather than the one with the blowout loss to West Virginia, thank you.
  • Georgia @ Vanderbilt (CBS): Oh hey a game featuring the last two teams Mizzou beat. Anyway, it looks like tough sledding for Vandy here on out, with probable losses here, to TAMU, and then to Florida. They have the last 3 weeks of the season to get to 6-6, I'd say.
  • South Carolina @ Tennessee (ESPN): Hatin' Ass Spurrier is hilarious, and also, real.
    I like South Carolina in this one.
  • Minnesota @ Northwestern (ESPN2): Northwestern is now in the easier part of their schedule, after going 0-2 against two teams you'd reasonably expect them to. Minnesota, meanwhile, has blowout losses to Iowa and Michigan.
  • Texas Tech @ West Virginia (FS1): Is Tech Tech for real? I'm still not sure, but that doesn't affect my opinion of their chances against WVU.
  • Navy @ Toledo (ESPNEWS): Holy Toledo, Navy isn't very good this year.
  • Connecticut @ Cincinnati (ESPNU): There is not a joke about the start of basketball season here. None at all. Cincy rolls.
  • Southern Mississippi @ East Carolina (FSN): I have a suspicion that we're about to see a mid-major school have a 3rd coach in three years where none of the coaches left for a better job. How often does that happen?
  • Purdue @ Michigan State (BTN): EDSBS compared the Michigan State offense to the Battle of Ypres, which were a series World War I trench warfare affairs. Sounds about right. Sparty goes over the top and gets the win, but only at great cost.
  • Florida @ Missouri (SEC): Yeah, that's right, two teams with a combined 10-2 record are on at noon on syndication. Of course, one of them lost their starting quarterback last week, and Florida's gone through like 50 QBs at this point, I think. I still like the Gators here.
12:30: Syracuse @ Georgia Tech (ACC): What is there to say at this point? Arguably, our 3-3 record is correct: we have to beat every team we should've but lost to every team we should've lost to. So where do you go from there, when staring down the barrel of needing 3 wins from your next 5 FBS games? Oh, and two of those games are against our biggest rivals.
The problems for GT right now are many. The first are awful, slow starts in the first half by the defense. Then there's the backbreaking turnovers, plus the inability to capitalize on our own mistakes. It's cool that we have a kicker with a cannon of a leg now, but I liked it when we tried to score touchdowns at almost any cost. Then there's almost anything relating to the offense. Mistakes in the line, mistakes by the skill players, mistakes by both. Perhaps nothing summed up this season more than the reverse we ran against BYU last week. It was called at the perfect time of the game in the perfect situation - BYU had been overflowing to the playside, which make them perfectly vulnerable. The play would've resulted in a touchdown except one of the WRs couldn't make his block. Perhaps the other problem is that while I think we all still have reasons to be excited about our young quarterbacks, they are still young.
I haven't seen a single Syracuse game this season, so I have no idea what to really write about them. They beat NC State last week for their best of the season so far. They otherwise seem pretty average, but their record is also 3-3, so I guess that makes sense. We'll see what happens.

3:30:
  • Auburn @ Texas Agricultural and Mechanical (CBS): So it turns out that TAMU's defense is probably kind of bad? Nonetheless, the offense is so spectacular they can just keep outscoring the Auburns of the world.
  • California-Los Angeles @ Stanford (ABC/ESPN2): 5-0. #9 in the country. Why, then, does my brain keep telling me Stanford is going to win this one? I'm just not buying what the Bruins are selling for some reason.
  • Iowa @ Ohio State (ABC/ESPN2): Iowa has only scored more points in a single game than Ohio State averages per game only once this season. This one might be a little rough.
  • Oklahoma @ Kansas (ESPN): I'm glad I'm not a Kansas fan right now. I mean, when it comes to football, that's generally true, but in a "vent our frustrations" sort of game like this, I'm really glad.
  • Brigham Young @ Houston (ESPNEWS): BYU is easily the best team Houston has played this year, which I think will result in their first loss.
  • Maryland @ Wake Forest (ESPNU): How many more times this year am I going to have to go with "this isn't one of those good Wake Forest teams"? Of course, they did win last week (like it says at top, "all predictions wrong") but still, not seeing how they beat Maryland.
  • North Texas @ Louisiana Tech (CBSS): A cursory examination reveals that one of these teams is slightly less awful than the other, so going with UNT.
  • Indiana @ Michigan (BTN): Just take what I said about Kansas and Oklahoma up there and replace Kansas with Indiana and Oklahoma with Michigan.
  • Duke @ Virginia (ACC/FSN): UVA's offense is a disaster right now, which means Duke has a very good chance to eke out a win here. The way their schedule is shaping up, do I even dare suggest we could see a 7-5 Duke by season's end?
6:00: Washington @ Arizona State (Pac12): Washington's back to playing teams on its level game, and I think they'll be able to even up their Pac-12 record in Tempe.

7:00:
  • Arkansas @ Alabama (ESPN): Since giving up 42 points to TAMU, Alabama has given up 15 points in 4 games. The absurdity should continue here.
  • Louisiana State @ Mississippi (ESPN2): Ole Miss does not appear to be great at scoring points or not letting people score points. This is bad when playing superior opponents like the LSUs of the world. I mean, it wasn't great against the TAMUs of the world, but at this point the Aggies's defense can officially be considered "suspect". LSU's is not.
  • Iowa State @ Baylor (ESPNU): The Cyclones have the nation's 87th ranked scoring defense. I don't know what the over/under is on this game, but I'd probably take the over.
7:30: Southern California @ Notre Dame (NBC): DACOACHO GONNA GO TODA SOUTHA BEND ANDA GONNA SEEAH THA DOME. FOOTBAW. (Also, probably a USC loss.) (I really hope Orgeron gets another head coaching gig after this though.)

8:00:
  • Florida State @ Clemson (ABC): I have Clemson in this one. Why? For starters, they've already played and beaten a good team (Georgia) and dominated most of their opponents. Yes, FSU blew out Maryland, but come on, they're Maryland. Also it is at night, at home, and in this battle of young, excellent QBs only of them is going to have the crowd behind him.
  • Nevada @ Boise State (CBSS): I made a face when I saw that Boise has the 17th ranked scoring offense to the Wolfpack's 118th ranked scoring defense. That's, uh, that's not real good.
  • Wisconsin @ Illinois (BTN): Wisconsin continues their rampage against Illinois based teams here.
10:00:
  • Washington State @ Oregon (FS1): We all expected Oregon to score points, yeah. I'm not sure I saw the 13.8 points per game of their opponents coming. Wazzou is better this year, but not that much better.
  • Utah @ Arizona (Pac12): I'm favoring Utah in a Pac-12 game against a team that isn't Colorado and I'm not sure how that makes me feel.
10:30: Oregon State @ California (ESPN2): The nation's best passing offense goes against the nation's worst passing and scoring defense. Sure, Cal is 5th in passing as well, but their defense is so bad it doesn't really matter.
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