Week 3: Best thing you saw...

Observations:

1. Wisconsin not worldbeaters but probably still good.

2. PSU mediocre.

3. Colorado better than advertised. If they get their qb back, they could be up there in the Pac 12 and could win 8 games or so.

4. Notre Dame is bad this year. Texas is currently losing to a bad Cal team. MSU might be good but let's wait and see.

5. Ohio State is still good. OU might be overrated but destroying them in Norman is impressive.

6. Louisville is the real deal.

Seeing Peppers have such a great game and finally taking it to the house on a punt return. Gary keeps getting better every week. Glad to finally play a quality opponent.

ND now only one loss away from losing their win percentage title to us. Golden domer tears are delicious

Peppers playing to his full potential and Rashan Gary getting better every game.

Not really 'Best' but 'Strongest' was Ohio State and Michigan State.  

Michigan State is still same old sparty.  If you hoped week 1 meant they were soft this year, give up hope.  They are beatable, but it will take everything we've got.  

Ohio State was super super good. This was the Ohio State that smoked us last year.  Again, not unbeatable, but they are scary as ever.  Oh, in case you forgot why you hated them, the O-H-I-O chant that you heard during that game that spiked your blood pressure is EXACTLY why.  They could have put the gas on harder against Oklahoma and blown them out by another 2+ tds.  

The upside is that Oklahoma is not good at football.  They couldn't stop even the most basic of Ohio State's bread and butter.  This game was nobody's definition of close; remember that 7 of Oklahoma's points came on a special teams breakdown.  Yes, that's part of the game, but it's a very high variability part.  Oklahoma is bad, and will probably have 4 losses this season (or more).  

I think Houston is overrated.  They relied on Cinci imploding to get the margin of victory they got, and their 'signature win' over Oklahoma clearly wasn't that impressive.  

I know people are fawning over Louisville, and while they are strong, I think thing people are missing is that Florida State is actually really bad.  They were actually really bad even last season, and are worse this season.  The actual contenders in the ACC in my mind are Miami, Clemson, and Louisville.  I'll buy into the Louisville hype more if they can perform well against Clemson, which seems to be the only team that plays particularly good defense.  

The Pac-12 is hard to get a read on this early.  The fact that only Stanford and Washington look particularly good is nice for us; Colorado should be a strong enough squad to do some damage here and make us look good.  

The SEC is kinda flying under the radar.  I think the best squads outside Alabama may be Georgia, Texas A&M, and Florida. I don't believe in Arkansas or Teneseee, and none of the above should challenge Bama in the slightest.  The best thing for this league would be to continue to fly sorta under the radar and get a favorable bowl alignment, because I'm not sure there's a second truly elite squad.  

 

Finally, I'd like to touch on us a bit.  The big weakness we've had is on big play handling, and I have to imagine a ton of those issues go away with Jourdan Lewis on the field. Today we may not have looked like a top 5 squad, but you throw Jourdan Lewis into the mix and we suddenly look a lot better.  I'm not sure I'm satisfied with how we're doing up front on offense, but then again, we have no idea whatsoever if Colorado is actually any good at football.  

Not really 'Best' but 'Strongest' was Ohio State and Michigan State.  

Michigan State is still same old sparty.  If you hoped week 1 meant they were soft this year, give up hope.  They are beatable, but it will take everything we've got.  

Ohio State was super super good. This was the Ohio State that smoked us last year.  Again, not unbeatable, but they are scary as ever.  Oh, in case you forgot why you hated them, the O-H-I-O chant that you heard during that game that spiked your blood pressure is EXACTLY why.  They could have put the gas on harder against Oklahoma and blown them out by another 2+ tds.  

The upside is that Oklahoma is not good at football.  They couldn't stop even the most basic of Ohio State's bread and butter.  This game was nobody's definition of close; remember that 7 of Oklahoma's points came on a special teams breakdown.  Yes, that's part of the game, but it's a very high variability part.  Oklahoma is bad, and will probably have 4 losses this season (or more).  

I think Houston is overrated.  They relied on Cinci imploding to get the margin of victory they got, and their 'signature win' over Oklahoma clearly wasn't that impressive.  

I know people are fawning over Louisville, and while they are strong, I think thing people are missing is that Florida State is actually really bad.  They were actually really bad even last season, and are worse this season.  The actual contenders in the ACC in my mind are Miami, Clemson, and Louisville.  I'll buy into the Louisville hype more if they can perform well against Clemson, which seems to be the only team that plays particularly good defense.  

The Pac-12 is hard to get a read on this early.  The fact that only Stanford and Washington look particularly good is nice for us; Colorado should be a strong enough squad to do some damage here and make us look good.  

The SEC is kinda flying under the radar.  I think the best squads outside Alabama may be Georgia, Texas A&M, and Florida. I don't believe in Arkansas or Teneseee, and none of the above should challenge Bama in the slightest.  The best thing for this league would be to continue to fly sorta under the radar and get a favorable bowl alignment, because I'm not sure there's a second truly elite squad.  

 

Finally, I'd like to touch on us a bit.  The big weakness we've had is on big play handling, and I have to imagine a ton of those issues go away with Jourdan Lewis on the field. Today we may not have looked like a top 5 squad, but you throw Jourdan Lewis into the mix and we suddenly look a lot better.  I'm not sure I'm satisfied with how we're doing up front on offense, but then again, we have no idea whatsoever if Colorado is actually any good at football.  

3 big ten teams looked like top 10 teams

I saw Morrissey play Suedehead. That was cool.

Best thing I saw was a Michigan team get punched square in the nose by a big guy trying to be a bully. And for one of the rare times in 10 years, Michigan wiped the blood off that nose and beat big guy into a fucking pulp.

This team has heart.

Go Blue.

The end.

Jabril Peppers was very impressive. He could be a Heisman Frontrunner if he consistently gets to play a little more on offense the rest of the year. I don't remember seeing a 3 way player that was so good at all three facets of the game. Absolutely phenomenal!!!!!! It's up to Harbaugh if he wins it or not because he's no doubt the best player in college football.

Flirting with a Michigan cheerleader for 15 mins at lunch before the game. Kid has great game already. /proud

The best thing I saw was CU fans justifying their loss. How CU defense outplayed Mich offense and how Mich defense got burned for so many big plays and if it wasn't for special teams, CU would have won. I thought, that isn't us! It's not us, we don't have to do that anymore. Thank you, Coach!

Lamar Jackson, Jabrill Peppers, Bama and OSU.

Oregon losing by 3 after missing 4 two point conversions. I love when they lose because of their arrogance/stupidity

The fact that the team had the faith to put in the hard work and focus to Comeback after getting hit in the mouth early, and not playing well.

Every season we see teams in the Top 5 get hit in the mouth early in games.... the Contenders always fight back and win these games going away with superior talent and coaching adjustments.  The Pretenders get upset and lose these games.

This team is not a Pretender.  That is my take away from today.

Best thing non-Michigan for me was ND hanging in there, when MSU should have put the game away. Made me think MSU has got some problems.

Best thing I saw:

Michigan related- Grant Perry's TD catch because it was at that point I knew Michigan had control. Colorado came out on fire with something to prove and it proved I don't have the temperament to be a college coach because I was furious, but at that moment I breathed deeply and remembered Harbaugh was the coach and if Hoke was there, it would have been ugly.

Non Michigan related- NDSU beating Iowa is pretty hard to beat in my book. Iowa has been living well for over a year and today they got beaten by a team that might actually be better than them every day of the year. We can call NDSU beating Iowa an upset, but who's to say if they didn't play again the result wouldn't be the same. NDSU would be bowl eligible at the FBS level and may even be a 8-10 win team if the were in the Big Ten West.
Also, as a resident of Florida, it is wonderful to see Florida State lose. As season without the Seminole war chant blaring in my ears is a good one. It should be duly noted that Louisville may actually be a fantastic football team.