College Football

Some days I feel like a mouse among elephants compared to some of the diaries around here. I mean, WolverineBlue has to get diarist of the week, and I didn't even open his site. Fun fact: ESPN doesn't change the week on the NCAA scoreboard until Tuesday.

On to Week 6, in which the field is down to 5 zero-win teams: UAB, New Mexico, Oregon State, and two from the Sun Belt (motto: It's the Fun Belt!): FAU and Western Kentucky. Seriously, what's with this year? EMU has 3 wins, CSU is leading the MWC, and Rutgers is leading the Big East? Cats and dogs, living together. Mass hysteria! This looks like it's going to be another year for the Big East Championship Hot Potato. Hopefully the last tie-breaker is a mascot sack race. This week I don't make fun of mascots for a change! But first:

Last week
I'd like to make a musket-related joke about Virginia's firepower downing the Vandals, but I just can't. Any game that has 16 punts does not get any sort of positive offensive efficiency comments from me. Virginia will get a +1 for the spectacularly named Trey Farquhar. I hereby declare that all kickers should be named Trey. And point guards. And waiters. Extra bonus if his brothers are named Uno and Due.

Elsewhere, Hawaii won the Frequent Flyer Miles bowl 44-26. Louisiana Tech had 3 turnovers and 8 penalties. When asked for a comment, LT's QB said "Hey, did you get to go to Hawaii in college on someone else's dime? I didn't think so."* Speaking of fitting names, ESPN's recap lists a "Tank Hopkins", but unfortunately his real name is Melvin. I hereby also declare that Stephen Hopkins's nickname be Tank as well. Or Ironhead.

*Not a real quote.

This week: Big, Bad In-conference games!

Er, Bad Games In Big Conferences. Arizona (1-4) versus Oregon State(0-4). Seriously, who would have thought Arizona would be 1-4. To be fair, they played Oklahoma State, then started conference play against Stanford and Oregon. Arizona had a chance against USC, but failed to recover an onside kick that could have set up the tying drive. Such is life. You may remember Oregon State from such games as 35-0 against Wisconsin or 27-19 against UCLA. When your QB has passed for 1000 yards on the season and only thrown 2 TDs, that's a good indication that something is wrong.

Closer to home, we've got Minnesota (1-4) vs Purdue (2-2). Since Minnesota doesn't play Indiana this year, this will have to do for Dysfunctional B1G football. We should all be well aware of Minnesota's problems on and off the field (seriously, coach, hope you feel better. You just might want a lower-stress job, like airline pilot or something). Purdue has been schitzo this year, and continued against ND. Marve returned for the second half, and TerBush thew an INT on the first play of the game. In summary: Purdue running - decent. Purdue anything else - average to not good.

One last special recognition to the WAC, for having two games with two one-win teams : Louisiana Tech versus Idaho and UNLV versus Nevada. Bold prediction: Louisiana Tech will lead the NCAA in frequent flyer miles.

Get out the globe and encyclopedia (ok, Google Earth and Wikipedia, since it's 2011), it's time for the Ugly Game of the Week. But first:

Last week

Georgia beat Ole Miss 27-14. When the ESPN summary calls your QB "efficient", that's about the faintest praise you can get for a win. Things we learned: 1. Ole Miss is officially not good. They had 8 first downs, two turnovers, and under 200 yards of total offense. 2. Ole Miss has now lost 10 of their last 11 SEC games. So they're like the SEC's Minnesota, then? 3. Mark Richt may still have a job, Huston Nutt may not. 4. Huston Nutt sounds like the mascot for the Astros or something, like the Philly Fanatic or the Capitol City Goofball. Can I play Baby Elephant Walk when he gets fired? Well, I'm going to.

Elsewhere, San Jose State beat New Mexico State 34-24 proving once and for all that Bad Team versus Bad Team equals entertaining game. SJSU came back from a 24-17 deficit to pull out the win in the 4th quarter.

Last, Ohio State handily defeated CU 37-17. Ohio debuted a new wrinkle in their offense called "Screw It, We're Not Passing" and it was effective. OSU passed for only 110 yards, but it didn't matter. The Buckeyes ran for 220 yards and that was that.

This week

We start off with the "Historically Significant Mascot Bowl", featuring the Virginia Cavaliers(2-2) against the Idaho Vandals(1-3). Virginia has wins against Indiana and W&M, and loses to UNC and Southern Miss. Idaho has beaten NoDak, and loses to the likes of Bowling Green and Fresno State. But that's not even very important. For you non-history buffs out there, the Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that sacked Rome in the 5th century. How they ended up in Idaho, I have no idea (ok, I do, but it's not very interesting. "Sports team named by quip from local sportswriter" does not a catchy byline make). Virginia, on the other hand, chose what could be the least intimidating mascot until someone names their team "The Yorkshire Terriers" or "Fightin' Lichen (We're Likin' the Lichen!". The Cavaliers get their name from people loyal to the crown during the American Revolution. Evidently the Commonwealth of Virginia was particularly partisan toward the King. I mean, it's this:

against this:

I don't know about you, but I'm picking against powdered wigs in this one.

The granddaddy of the week is the World's Furthest Conference Game, with Louisiana Tech (1-3) taking a long layover to play Hawaii (2-2). That's a 4000 mile road trip.That's like Russian hockey league-level road trip. To put that in perspective, here are some things that are not 4000 miles apart: NYC to London. Ann Arbor to Anchorage. Hawaii to Tokyo. Low Earth Orbit. You get the picture. Yay jet lag. Hawaii has beaten CU and lost to UNLV. Louisiana Tech one win against Central Arkansas, and that was overtime. Enjoy the poi, guys. To be fair, they've got to OT twice, and lost three games by a total of nine points.
 

Welcome to week 4, and the season has started taking shape. There's still a number of 0-fers going out there, including surprises like Boston College and Oregon State. Not as surprising is the fact that about half of the Sun Belt conference doesn't have a win yet. Lucky for them there's always conference play.

This week

This week we highlight three games. Is highlight the right term for this column? Maybe "Spotlight of Shame" is a better term. We start in the SEC with Georgia versus Ole Miss. Georgia is 1-2, but the two losses are to Boise State and South Carolina, while Ole Miss has losses to Vandy and BYU. Ole Miss is sporting offensive numbers near the 100's, so look for Coach Giggity's Rebels to take sole possession of the SEC - West basement. Sidenote: I love that the divisions are South Eastern Conference - East and South Eastern Conference - West. Maybe the Big East will use that naming scheme if they split into the Big East  - East and Big East - West. As a personal note, I will always cheer against any team named for or referencing the South in the Civil War.

Next we have San Jose State versus New Mexico State. Over the last three years, the two teams have combined for 10 wins. If there was ever an argument against regression to the mean, this is it. Or maybe their mean is just bad. Bear in mind that New Mexico State's win this season came against Minnesota, while NMSU is near the 100s in most offensive categories.

Finally, the big game this week is the Dan Hawkins Memorial Buyout Bowl, featuring Colorado and Ohio State. Oh how it does my heart good to be able to put OSU in here. First, this game is on ABC/ESPN, so the nation gets to watch. Second, Ohio eked out a win against Toledo in week 2. Third, they're coming of an impotent loss to Miami last week. Ohio's QB job is a pick-'em, and CU looked reasonably good last week against CSU and against Cal. I still can't cheer for CU after '94, but I will still happily wish for OSU to lose. So it's this:

against this:

I'll do my best to fit in here amongst all the Saturday navel-gazing. For me, Saturday was an exercise in How to Go Nuts and not Wake Up a Sleeping Three Month Old. But on to this week in train wrecks. First, let's catch up on the first two weeks "action".

Week One brought some humdingers. Bowling Green versus Idaho featured punts of 71 and 81 yards. I'm not sure how you punt 81 yards, but the guy that booted one 71 has to feel pretty bad about it. Maryland versus Miami was as big of a mess as expected. Maryland kicked 4 field goals for most of their 24 points, then gave up a pick-6 in the last minute to blow it. That game should be in the UGotW Year in Review. Crab cakes and football, that's what Maryland does? Well, the crab cakes are good.

Week Two featured Iowa making a bold move by refusing the Cy-Hawk trophy by giving up a late TD to Iowa State to tie, then losing in triple OT. In a twist, TCU bombed Air Force 35-19. AF scored two 4th quarter TDs to make the score reasonable. Air Force then declared TCU a state sponsor of terrorism and left Predator drones circling the stadium. CSU/UNCO was attended by 25,000 students dressed as empty seats to watch CSU club the Bears 33-14. Three CSU picks kept this from getting really messy. CSU had 28 first downs to go with only 4-14 on third down. That means they didn't need third down very often.

This Week

This week is Mascot Week! First off is the UTEP Miners versus the New Mexico State Aggies. I'm a sucker for good ol' blue-collar mascots, preferably mascots wielding weapons. This one comes down to pick-ax versus pistols.

Next is one of my favorite categories: Non-Plural Mascot fights! The Alabama Crimson Tide play the North Texas Mean Green. North Texas's real mascot is some sort of eagle, but I don't think eagle wins against elephant, not even if it's one of the eagles from Lord of the Rings (nerd!). They've already lost to FIU and Houston, so we may have to watch North Texas for a possible 0-for-season.

Last is Creepy/Crazy Mascot matchup, featuring the Indiana State Sycamores versus the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. "Big Red" was created in 1979 and we can only assume there were drugs involved, and possibly a medical procedure. I guess calling your team the Fightin' Polyps was out of the question. Big Red in action:

If that's not nightmare-inducing enough for you, they are playing this:

Indiana State decided not to go the Stanford route and have a tree on the sidelines, and created Sycamore Sam instead. Why they didn't cartoonize Larry Bird into a mascot, a la UNLV I'll never know.

For this college football season I set out on a little project to determine what college football rankings would look like based solely on how teams performed on the field. I admit there are inherent weaknesses in this model as I have to use someone else's rankings which are not completely based on on-field results.

However here is the gist of my model: teams get awarded points for a victory, with more points being awarded for beating a higher ranked team. Rankings were from Sagarin as his were the only rankings I could find that went past the top 25 teams. Points were also given/taken away based on the point differential up to a cap of 21 points. I decided that wins/losses of 21+ were all the same, but I am considering increasing the cap. Additional points were given for away wins and taken away for home losses.

Keep in mind that I am still tinkering with the model and it is far from complete. The usual caveat of small sample sizes applies. Here is the top 15 as my model stands now:

That's right, Sacramento State is the fifth best team in the country after beating Oregon State week one. The top three isn't much of a surprise and the rest of the list seems to make sense. For the record Michigan was one of a group of teams that had slightly fewer points than Mississippi State.

I plan to continue updating this model throughout the season so any and all feedback would be appreciated. I'm also considering applying this to college basketball, I think it may even be more relevant for that.

First off, I think Maryland clearly won week one. I tried to post a picture of the stadium before the game, but here are the uniforms just in case anyone missed the game on Monday:

Yeesh. The arm sleeve thing looked like they had an infection or something.

This week, in honor of Iowa/Iowa State and their Hummel-based pewter trophy disaster, I will be naming new hypothetical trophies for the best games of the week. But here's a reminder of where we started:

Thursday

There's only one game on Thursday, Oklahoma State versus Arizona. Fortunately, they can play for the "Dust Bowl" trophy, which would be a normal cup-style trophy full of dirt. And not good, black, growing-stuff dirt. Just dry, pale, desert dusty-type dirt.

Friday

Friday has no games worth mentioning, so I'm going to double-up on Saturday.

Saturday

First we get the "Jesus Versus Air Superiority" trophy as TCU plays Air Force. It's hard to cheer against The Jesus, but the Air Force does have some great (and really, really expensive) toys. This can also be a travelling trophy between TCU, BYU, Air Force and Navy.

We also get the first apperance of the "Tumbleweed Travelling Trophy" as Colorado State plays Northern Colorado. These two schools are only 22 miles apart, which is also known as "Right Next Door" out in the wide-open spaces. I'm in Denver, and no one here cares about this game. The travelling trophy will be used to determine best-in-class between CSU, Wyoming and New Mexico.