College Football

Week 3 Recap

I feel bad about picking on Wyoming after hearing that they lost some players in a car accident.  A moratorium on Wyoming for the rest of the season.  Boise State still scored 52, such is life in college football.  Virginia Tech escaped a lynching after coming from behind 27-21 to win 49-27.  ECU went 4-14 on 3rd down, then 3-3 on 4th?  Figure that one out, unless they were using the "Never Punt" strategy.  Washington State lost to SMU 35-21in a game that featured 13 punts for just under 600 yards.  That's some darn fine puntin'.

This week

Two 0-3 teams face off in the "1988 Baltimore Orioles Memorial" game.  New Mexico and UNLV begin the battle for the MWC basement.  New Mexico has gotten pummeled by good competition like Oregon, Texas Tech and Utah.  UNLV has played reasonably well against Wisconsin, Utah, and Idaho.  Both teams are 100+ in scoring and defense.  Is the MWC the MAC of the west?  Also, UNLV's logo looks like a pair of testicles if you look at it long enough.  Seriously.

Speaking of New Mexico, New Mexico State goes up against Kansas.  NMS already has a loss to SDSU, and we all know the story of Kansas so far.  This is the "Jekyll and Hyde" game of the week, depending on which Jayhawk team shows up.  New Mexico also gets a special "There's A New Mexico Now?" award for overall statewide incompetence.

The "Food Network's Cupcake Wars" game this week is tOSU versus Eastern Michigan.  Eastern is already 0-2 in conference, and started off the season with a loss to Army.  Plus they're giving up 37 PPG, while tOSU is only giving up 12.  This one may be over at the coin-toss.  Special thanks to ABC for putting this up as a regional game again.

For those that stopped watching and since the original thread for night games has stopped getting new comments, Iowa has came back to tie the game at 27. Amazing what happens when you don't turn the ball over.

Week 2 Recap

Officially, Michigan State and FAU had 36,000 people at the game.  Half of them must have been in the bathroom whenever the cameras showed the crowd, though.  Eastern Michigan dropped a close one to Miami(NTM) 21-28, and so, like groundhog day, Toledo stays in Ohio for another year.  Wisconsin did well against SJSU, but Tolzien was 15-22 passing, which must have hurt their numbers.  The Cupcake award therefore posthumously goes to Maryland (!) for putting up 62 on Morgan State.  And last but not least, Louisvile scored all 23 points in the second quarter to beat East Kentucky by 10.

Week 3 Preview

The "Torch and Pitchfork" Game of the Week is Virginia Tech versus East Carolina.  VT needs a win, and ECU has scored 100 points in their first two games.  Get ready for more schadenfreude from the Hokies.

The "Think of the Children" game this week is Boise State versus Wyoming.  Boise needs to destroy everyone in their path, thanks to Virginia Tech, and Wyoming is coming off a 34-7 loss to Texas last week.  I expect Boise State to score just under 100.

As I refuse to taunt the gods of I-AA, I won't put Michigan versus UMass in, and instead give Washington State versus SMU the "One Legged Man Ass-Kicking" award.  WSU sqeaked out a win against Montana State, while SMU beat UAB 28-7.  Plus, WSU has USC next week to look forward to, which is nice.

Now that cupcake week is mostly over, it's on to week 2.  But first

Week 1 Recap

While Minnesota versus Middle Tennessee was bad, it wasn't Kansas v. North Dakota State bad.  The Turner Gill era at Kansas does not start well.  Your winning team had 163 yards of total offense and 13 penalties and won 6-3 in a three field-goal game.  Wow.  And, uh, so Arizona isn’t as bad as I thought, go figure.

Week 2 Lineup

Still not a lot of clarity about quality of competition after week one, so this week still won't have much focus on talent levels.  This is a big week for Sparty, as Michigan State gets the “Good Seats Still Available” award for scheduling Florida Atlantic at Ford Field, for some reason.  Florida Atlantic beat UAB by one last week, but State did a decent job against Western Michigan to take an early lead in the Michigan Directional School Cup.  But still, expect lots of fans to come dressed as empty seats for this one.

In other Michigan directional school action, Eastern Michigan plays Miami (NTM) in what must be a rivalry game?  Winner gets Toledo (the city, not the school) or something.  Seems odd for two non-divisional MAC schools to play so early.  EMU lost to Army on three turnovers, and  Miami(NTM) wasn't exactly cannon-fodder to Florida, but  since they both put up 212 yards of total offense, Florida wasn't its usual self either.  Miama got intercepted four times, while Florida fumbled three.

Wisconsin gets the “Cupcake of the Week” award for playing a San Jose State team that got pounded by Alabama by 45 points last week (and SJ St. gets a “Glutton For Punishment/Cash” award).  Wisconsin ran 50 times for 278 yards against UNLV, and expect more of the same.  SJSU managed 7 first downs, one field goal, and 175 total yards of offense against Alabama.  They almost tied on time of possession!

The “Somebody’s Gotta Win” game of the week is Louisville versus Eastern Kentucky.  Louisville lost to Kentucky last week, while E. KY got a thorough drubbing by Missouri State.  I'd expect a win from Louisville, but who knows at this point.

Apologies if this has already been posted (I'm pretty sure it hasn't, but you never know)

Yesterday the WSJ put up a gigantic statistical database of all D-1 FBS college football teams.  You can filter by teams/conferences, and also filter by whatever category you want using the check boxes.

Basically, somebody put all this stuff from the NCAA database into excel and its realllllly pretty.

While Michigan's season doesn't start for another 2 days, I realized today that college football begins tonight (!). So now, I have begun to get pumped for just seeing college football on TV again, on top the pumped-ness of UM-UConn. What college football hype videos do you guys/gals know of for other schools? This one comes to mind, and it's pretty awesome.