Friday Final Thoughts (or Early Saturday for some as the case might be)

Thursday Review

Tom O'Brien very well might new to find a new job – O'Brien botched everything with his handling of the Russell Wilson situation. Wilson is a minor league baseball player. O'Brien wanted him on campus during the summer. Wilson honored his baseball contract. O'Brien tossed him from the roster. Wilson is now the starting quarterback at Wisconsin and looking like a Heisman contender. O'Brien screwed up badly, even though he had a capable quarterback in Mike Glennon. The huge screw up he made was chucking his team leader off the team. By doing that, he submarined his own leadership and removed the best option to win. Now, one year after a 9-4 season, he is probably on the hotseat with a team that looks de-energized and like it doesn't want to be there. Maybe his old stomping grounds at Boston College will take him back. They could use the help right now.

Butch Jones still has work to do at Cincinnati – This was a step in the right direction, but this team still has issues. Beating a BCS conference team will patch some of those, but NC State was so uninspired that the win is almost meaningless. Any team with Cincinnati's talent that gave a damn at all would have won that game by a similar margin.

Friday Review

BYU's offense still stinks – Don't let the 21 second half points fool you. The BYU offense was still terrible against Central Florida, even as BYU scored its points. The first half was an abomination, but we expected that given BYU's offense has pretty much been an abomination from the start of the season. The second half was a 37 yard drive, a kickoff return touchdown and a 22 yard drive. The rest was the same nonsensical idiocy we have seen from that offense all season. Too bad too as the defense and special teams are really, really good.

UCF has it's own offensive issues – The Golden Knights are Jeff Godfrey, a hope and a prayer. Early on, it worked. Then Godfrey got hurt. Though he returned, he was tentative as a runner upon his return and the UCF offense that was average before that became awful. Going into Conference USA play, UCF needs to find some ways to score. Even with their great defense, they will need to win at least one shootout along the way to defend their conference title. The offenses that remain well ahead of the defenses in that league will demand it.

Saturday Preview

Why is Notre Dame-Pittsburgh a national game – Remember that this one is not an Irish home game and not on NBC and therefore doesn't need to be nationally televised. On top of that, this game won't be close. Pitt is awful this season and Notre Dame really is good. Only the Irish giveaway machine can keep this close and that will just frustrate people like me.

ABC and College Gameday are going the wrong place – They should be at Oklahoma St.-Texas A&M with the LSU-West Virginia game in the afternoon. I say this just from a competition and ratings perspective. LSU should be on at the same time as Arkansas-Alabama if you really want to maximize ratings. Then, the top 10 matchup can go on in primetime where it belongs.

I've already made my pick but... - I keep seeing everyone pretty much say the same thing about the LSU-West Virginia game: Geno Smith will make plays, but not enough and the dominant LSU defense will give the average offense enough time and field position to get something going so LSU can win a close game in the low 20s. That so many seem to be saying this scares me for my pick, but makes me look forward to the game more. I suspect West Virginia might be a little more ready than previously expected.

There is a chance of a riot Saturday night – West Virginia and LSU both have reputations as being among the rowdiest fanbases in the country. Now combine a big game with College Gameday and alcohol sales in the stadium and what could possibly go wrong?

Clemson caught a massive break – Since it looks like EJ Manuel won't play for Florida St., Clemson has a chance to take the pole position in ACC play. Since it's Clemson, we know they won't keep it, but they certainly looked good against Auburn last week.

Arizona St. and USC will be a penalty fest – Of course just looking at the stats can tell us that. USC picks up 7 penalties per game and Arizona St. 8. Expect a long game with lots of laundry. And College Football Final on at about midnight Pacific time after the game.

Arkansas-Alabama will be lower scoring than I thought – I think the Razorbacks can win, but I'm convinced Alabama has no deep threat and can be stopped. I'm also convinced that its defense won't give up more than 21 points in a game all season this year.

Vandy actually has a big game – Too bad its on the road though they will keep it close against a South Carolina team that has been underwhelming in some way in all three wins thus far.

Michigan better be careful – San Diego St. has a really good team and they will have extra motivation going against their old coach.

The Big 12 is the best conference in the country – They just don't lose to anyone. Kansas is awful (but so is Ole Miss) and everyone else in the league is undefeated except for Missouri (a completely understandable loss to Arizona St.). While that won't hold this week, even for those playing non-league games, the SEC just doesn't look quite as crisp this season.

The Rose Bowl should be very, very scared right now – All they want it their Big Ten-Pac 12 matchup. With Wisconsin and Stanford cruising, its possible those teams could go undefeated and meet in the BCS Title Game. It's also possible nobody else from those two leagues will be eligible for the BCS, leaving the Rose Bowl with a matchup like Texas A&M-Florida. Yikes.

Virginia Tech stinks, but it doesn't matter – The Hokie Hokie High tour of cupcakes continues this week with another Conference USA road game. That also means another win and a conference win ledger that will read FCS, C-USA, Sun Belt, C-USA. At least Georgia Tech looks good enough to challenge this overrated team before the ACC Title Game.

Locksley's actually gonna win – At least I hope so. I poke a lot of fun at New Mexico coach Mike Locksley on this blog. I think he's awful. But I still don't want him to lose to an FCS school. New Mexico under Locksley is the type of program that needs to be scheduling these games.

Best under the radar game of the week – North Carolina vs Georgia Tech. The Tech triple option has looked lethal against overmatched competition thus far. While North Carolina lacks offense, they certainly won't be overmatched on defense. This one should be a compelling game with the winner emerging as the main contender to Virginia Tech in the ACC (whichever division its called).

Friday College Football Thoughts

My thoughts on the Thursday night game that was and the upcoming weekend

It's good for LSU and Mississippi St. that they played last night. Their game, especially with its likely defensive bent (turned out to be very defensive) would have gotten lost in the shuffle of all the big high profile games teams are playing.

Mississippi St. just doesn't have enough talent to compete with the likes of LSU and Alabama, and they likely never will. By most accounts, this is the most talented Mississippi St. team in a long time, maybe ever. They got steamrolled. The reality is that they are the 2^nd program in a state that often struggles to keep one top level program and even though they are beating Ole Miss these days, that won't continue unless they continue to have a massive coaching advantage. The only way for MSU to win the West is like they did in 1998. Favorable draw from the East, simultaneous down years or off cycles from Alabama, Auburn and LSU. Even then, MSU lost to a bad LSU team team and needed a mega upset over Arkansas in a game where Arkansas didn't bother to show up post-Tennessee loss and still almost won. All of those reasons are why Dan Mullen will ultimately leave Starkville even though he reportedly loves the town.

Given the way LSU plays, the team they should be most afraid on their schedule is not Alabama, it's Auburn. Alabama plays much the same style as LSU. When they play it will be a low-scoring, tight contest that likely could come down to one play in either direction. LSU has a decent chance of winning that. Against Auburn, nothing logical will happen. LSU could easily get drawn into a shootout and I don't like LSU's odds in a shootout. All of this is not to say Auburn is going to beat LSU and LSU will beat Alabama again. Far from it. Just that style of play wise and based on what we've seen so far, Auburn is more likely to get LSU out of its comfort zone.

The biggest game that nobody is talking about is Tennessee against Florida. Put someone in a time machine 10 years ago and have them land today, they would think we are insane, especially after watching Georgia and South Carolina play a close but still underwhelming game. The winner this week stamps themselves the co-favorites in the SEC East (and I think the outright favorite). In addition to that, Tyler Bray has looked incredible after his putrid spring game (put your hands up if you thought he could complete over 70% of his passes after the 5-30 spring performance... now liars put your hands down leaving us with his family and six optimistic Vols fans) and could be the best quarterback in the SEC. Over on the Gator sideline, we know nothing. They haven't played anyone of value (UAB will be awful and we haven't seen them against anyone else and FAU looked even worse against Michigan St. than they did against the Gators) and they have a new coaching staff. Should be intruiging.

Pac-12 job security is on the line this week. The league started the year with quite a few coaches on the hotseat of some sort. Paul Wulff at Washington St. has helped himself thus far as has Jeff Tedford at Cal and Dennis Erickson at Arizona St. Rick Neusheisel at UCLA and Mike Stoops at Arizona have not been so successful. All except Tedford have big games this week. Wulff probably doesn't have to win at San Diego St. but it would be helpful. Erickson is in much the same spot with his Sun Devils at Illinois. Neuheisel needs a win over Texas (certainly possible) or his chancs of a return next year look slim at best given the need at that point for 5 Pac-12 wins. Stoops and Arizona just can't get embarrassed. They play Stanford and while most give them little chance of winning, even at home, I expect a close game.

The hardest hitting game of last year has its rematch. Hopefully for Clemson and Auburn's young and not very depth laden teams, the body count is not as high this year. Auburn had Cam Newton and the win propelled them to the National Title. Clemson never recovered, losing to USF in a menial December bowl game and finishing 6-7. Both have high hopes this season, but the loser could be looking at a tailspin like Clemson suffered last season.

Notre Dame's season is on the line. The Fighting Irish have totally outplayed both USF and Michigan and lost both games. This week is Michigan St., a better team than either of the previous opponents. I expect Notre Dame to be firing on all cylinders again. The question is whether they will shoot themselves in the foot for a 3^rd week in a row. I suspect they won't, especially with some extra motivation after losing on a fake field goal in overtime last season. I also suspect Michigan St. is not as good as they appeared last week when they held FAU to one first down. FAU is just that awful.

Yes, I picked Florida St. No, I'm not very confident about it. Last year, Oklahoma took the Seminoles behind the woodshed. To reverse that, the 'Noles need a few things. First, Landry Jones and his road jitters need to come back. Second, the homefield need to lift Florida St. Third, the Oklahoma running game without DeMarco Murray needs to stall. Finally, they need a receiver to make a play (something that didn't happen last year when Florida St. still had a chance to stop the deluge). Do all of that and Florida St. can win.

I love how nobody cares about the Ohio St.-Miami game. The Buckeyes should win easily given the superior talent, but it wouldn't surprise me if good Miami made an appearance after being gone for the better part of last season. If turnover free Miami that upset Oklahoma two years ago shows up, anything is possible, especially if bad Ohio St. from last week against Toledo is in the building too.

Poor Boise St. plays nobody this year and watched Toledo blow their chance against Ohio St. last week. This week's game in Toledo would have been a whole lot bigger had the Rockets finished off the upset. Given that, the Broncos will make their usual mincemeat out of Toledo and nobody nationally will care, as usual.

Poor Iowa St. and Connecticut. Normally a non-conference matchup between BCS teams is a decent game. This one has been relegated to ESPN2 in favor of Mountain West against MAC. Of course the bigger game is Boise St. and Toledo, but the fact that this game is behind that one says all that's needed about why Iowa St. and UConn are on the shortlist of schools they could be left out once conferences settle.

There will be at least one huge off the radar upset this week. I don't have the slightest idea which game, but something seems likely to happen. And I don't mean in one of the big games. I'm looking at the like of Oklahoma St. and Tulsa and those type of games (not saying that's the one, though I'm not all that high on the Cowboys).

This week's schedule is a sign of all that is wrong and all that is good in college football (not recruiting scandals and extra benefits division). We have one top 25 matchup this week, yet it's one of the biggest weekends of the year. The cowardly scheduling continues in the pursuit of the almighty $ and more home games. At the same time, the weekend is huge because of increased parity. All of these ranked teams playing on the road and possibly losing makes for a great weekend. In the past, it wouldn't have really mattered, the favorite would have curb stomped their opposition in most games.

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