Oh, if only I knew

Zuerst: Happy birthday, Angela. Welcome to geezerhood (luckily, I don't join that club for another few years).

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College Football: Thoughts on my picks:

• I guess I was right about the Minnesota-PSU and UF-UK parallels. Both ranked road teams beat both unranked home teams by small margins. And I was wrong about both. Whoops. If Zook - and maybe this criticism is misplaced; perhaps I should say Zaunbrechner - got the offensive play-calling straight, perhaps this could be a really good team. Even though Zook has shown himself to be a mediocre game coach, the talent he recruits is absolutely amazing; when they play a vertical passing game (like in the second half at UK, or whenever they fall 3 touchdowns down) they do fairly well; when they dink and dunk and play a conservative game plan, they end up losing (the 2nd half of the Miami game, for example). If the coaching staff can figure out how to manage a game, and use the talent that they recruit, they'll end up being a very good team.



• I also lost the Texas A&M game. Allowing 21 points in the 3rd quarter (to an explosive Pitt team) will do that.



• I won Washington St and Va Tech. Wash St forced nine turnovers. Nine! I don't care who you are, if you turn the ball over 9 times, you're gonna lose. Come to think of it, I'm no college football historian, but I can't remember ever hearing of a team turning the ball over 9 times.



• I bet that Va Tech's defense was exhausted. I can't remember the last time I saw that a team had held the ball for more than 40 minutes. UConn's 2 touchdown drives totaled 23 plays for 177 yards. Tech had a defensive touchdown (Int return) 84 yds; 2 special teams tds (blocked punt and kickoff return) totaling 107 yards; 3 offensive touchdown drives totaling 6 plays for 177 yds; 2 field goals, the drives to get which totaled 12 plays for 42 yards. So Tech did what it's done consistently since the days of Michael Vick: struck quickly. Their defense, though, allowed long drives. If this happens against Pitt or Miami, expect them to lose. This is, in my mind, the primary reason that they lost to Pitt, allowing 275 rushing yds in the process. They scored quickly, but then allowed Pitt to come back on long drives, and eventually tired out.

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Other thoughts:

• 6 more teams fall from the ranks from the undefeateds.
  
  • Cincinnati: Rivalry games are always intense. Miami of Ohio had the home crowd, and the best QB in the game.
  
  
  • Iowa: Maybe Michigan State's loss to Louisiana Tech was a fluke. It didn't hurt that they were at home. And Iowa has games against Michigan and at Ohio State looming.
  
  
  • Missouri: Maybe I was wrong to call (by inference) Kansas "football hell" in my entry where I busted on K-State. Kansas beat the crap out of Mizzou. Neither team will win the division, but UNLV's loss to Kansas doesn't look nearly as bad these days.
  
  
  • Oregon: See above. The St. Louis Rams would have lost if they'd committed 9 turnovers against Wazzu.
  
  
  • Stanford: Until about Thursday or so, I didn't know that Stanford was undefeated. Perhaps Ty should have stayed, eh? And they lost to a ranked Washington team. Probably the least shocking of these 6 results.
  
  
  • Southern Cal: They played close against Cal last year, winning 30-28. That was their last win of less than double digits. They played close again this year, and it cost them. SC was favoured by 13 on Friday; Kevin Wheeler, among others, asked why the spread was so low. Evidently Jeff Tedford's Cal team matches up well with Pete Carroll's SC team. And, to be fair, I would have taken SC and laid the points.


• ...which leaves 14 undefeated teams in the ranks of Division 1-A.
  
  • Florida State: Last loss was against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl...next big test is Miami, 11 October in Tallahassee.
  
  
  • Miami: Last loss was against Ohio St. in the Fiesta Bowl...next big test is at Florida State, 11 October. As an aside, Miami plays 3 of the remaining undefeateds (vs. Tennessee, at Va Tech).
  
  
  • Digression: Listening to CBS Radio's coverage of Indy vs. New Orleans, I just heard a commercial for NFL Kickoff 2002, from Washington, DC. Now, I'm a big fan of the National Mall (though not of Pepsi Vanilla or Pepsi in general), but why are they playing this commercial more than 3 weeks after the fact?
  
  
  • Back to undefeateds. Va Tech last lost to Miami last December. Next big test: Miami, 1 November in Blacksburg. They follow that up with a trip to Pittsburgh the next weekend.
  
  
  • Minnesota: Last lost to Wisconsin last November. Next big test: 10 October, against Michigan in Minneapolis. They don't face Ohio State this year.
  
  
  • Speaking of...Ohio St: Last lost in the January 2002 Outback Bowl to South Carolina. Next big test, at Wisconsin 11 Oct. They also have games against Iowa, Michigan St. and at Michigan.
  
  
  • Nebraska: Last lost in the Independence Bowl to Ole Miss. Next big test is at Texas, 1 Nov. Smaller tests in October: At Mizzou (11th) and home against Texas A&M (18th).
  
  
  • Oklahoma: Last lost last November to Okla. St. Next big test: 11 Oct, against Texas in Dallas. Though, given how poorly Mack Brown has coached big games, is it really? If it isn't, then the next test is 1 Nov, against Ok. St in Norman. Oklahoma hasn't won against Ok. State in 3 years.
  
  
  • Texas Christian: Last lost to ECU last November. Next big test is 4 November, against Louisville in Ft. Worth.
  
  
  • Louisville: Last lost to Marshall in the Motor City Bowl. Next big test is 4 Nov, at TCU.
  
  
  • Northern Illinois: Last lost to Toledo last November. Next big test is 25 Oct, at Bowling Green.
  
  
  • Air Force: Last lost to Va Tech in the San Francisco Bowl. Next big test is 4 Oct, against Navy in Landover, Md. Service academy rivalries are always intense, and always tests. The next big test following that is 16 Oct, at Colorado St.
  
  
  • Tennessee: last lost to Maryland in the Peach Bowl. Next big test is 11 Oct, against Georgia in Knoxville.
  
  
  • Arkansas: Last lost to Minnesota in the Music City Bowl. Next big test: vs. Florida, 18 Oct in Fayetteville.
  
  
  • Louisiana St: Last lost to Texas in the Cotton Bowl. Next big test is 11 Oct, vs. Florida in Baton Rouge (at night). Should LSU win, the game against Arkansas should decide the West's representative in the SEC Championship.


• Toledo builds on a big win against Pitt by...getting smacked in the mouth at Syracuse.


• I wonder what the over-under is on how many of the remaining games Notre Dame wins. Can it be more than 3?


• 3/9, 5/8, 7/11, 8/12, 6/10, 4/12. These are the ratios of number of teams with 1 loss or fewer to total number of teams in each BCS conference. The only conferences which have more than 4 teams with more than 1 loss are the two conferences deepest into conference play: the ACC and SEC.

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Will dissect my pro picks tomorrow. Ryan.