College Football Weekend September 20th

There aren't a plethora of good games on this weekend, certainly not like the cornucopia of games we had last weekend. There are some top 25 matchups, but I don't see anything that makes me froth at the mouth, other then the sandwich I made before I started writing this. Usually this makes me think there will probably be a bunch of upsets, but it's any one's guess as to where those will occur, my educated guess of games I'm not going to write about; #21 West Virginia (1-1) at Colorado (2-0), #9 Alabama (3-0) at Arkansas (2-0). But it could also just be a good weekend to spend with your family…or in my case, at the bar/beach.

Comments:

"A couple of things. Kevin Craft... not a walk on, JC transfer, pretty highly recruited too.Is South Florida going to have any sort of offense this year, because I somehow doubt there defense will be as good as last year?How sad that the Temple OWLs are 1-A and not even in the discussion for best teams in Phily? When Army-Navy coming to town sees some of the best college football of the year for a town it is rather frightening.Do you really think Kansas has a legit shot at beating Missouri or Texas? Texas Tech might beat them as well and then assuming they work that out they would likely see Oklahoma too. Do not forget Kansas played a poor schedule last year so expecting them to make a play for a BCS bowl game this year seems farcical(is that a word, hmm if it isnt it should be if only for this situation).How long do you think it takes for Rich Rodriguez to effectively implement his system at Michigan, will it work and maybe as important will the Michigan faithful eat him alive before that takes place?What happens when Missouri plays a team with a good defense? I like Chase Daniel but giving up 42 points to a solid but not spectacular Illinois team is very worrisome. What happens when they play Texas at Austin and will Daniel be able to lead his team to the 60 points it would appear that they will need to win that game over a solid Texas defense. As much as I hate to say it USC looked better, and Georgia is probably better and even Florida looked like they may be stronger. I havent seen Oklahoma or Alabama play yet, but Alabama really gave it to Clemson and Oklahoma dominated Missouri last year.

Good luck

Tim"

Temple is terrible, South Florida may not need a great offense to go undefeated, as they proved in the Kansas game. I think the Big 12 is a toss up honestly, I would be surprised if anyone makes it out undefeated. I think it will take Rich Rodriguez two years and he should be ok after that, that running back they have is pretty darn good. As for Missouri I don't think that many people will be able to effectively slow them down if they are executing well. Something I will answer more in my next comment.

"Historically Texas would certainly be among the best teams in the SEC and probably the nation, but I have not seen enough from those other teams to warrant mentioning them with the upper-echelon SEC teams. I think the biggest difference between those teams and SEC teams is the ability to strap it up and compete with big, physical teams week in and week out. You take a Kansas or Missouri and have them line up SEC defenses every week, and I just don't think they would fair too well. Top to bottom, its just a different brand of football that those teams would not be able to handle (with the exception of Texas in most years) - Darius"

Extremely good point, but I'll also say this, the teams in the SEC don't see those kinds of offenses every week. I don't think anyone with the exception of Auburn runs the spread offense like that. In fact I'm struggling to think of an SEC team that beat a spread offense like Kansas or Missouri run. Physically I think the SEC is the most dominating by far.

"No mention of Connor Dixon's valient 6 touchdown comeback effort against Duquesne in the REAL battle of Pennsylvania football? Shame on you, you magnificent mountain of a man. - Anonymous"

Yes, the real battle of Pennsylvania football actually happens every year when Lehigh plays Lafayette.... Duquesne, Bucknell, Villanova, Lehigh, Penn, and Lafayette ought to have a tournament at the beginning of the year to figure out who rules Pennsylvania. Penn State doesn't get to come unless they have a 85%+ graduation rate for their foootball team in the prior year.

"how about that ACC? completely dominating your precious Pac-10 team (Maryland v Cal). I was at the game too and it was nowhere near as close as the final score, most of the game was 28-6. Maybe we shouldn't rush to judgement just yet, or maybe the Big East and Pac-10 are just as overrated as they have been the last 3 years. - Yale"

I was shocked at how badly the Pac-10 got crushed this last weekend, it makes me wonder if they should do away with automatic BCS bowl bids altogether.

Games:
#4 Florida at Tennessee - Couple weeks ago before the season started this would have been a headline game, probably the headline game. But in that time Tennessee was beaten by UCLA who in turn was disgraced by BYU to the tune of 59-0. The Tennessee volunteers just don't have enough fire power to keep up with Gators QB Tim Tebow and WR/RB Percy Harvin who is apparently healthy. The UCLA game makes me wonder if Tennessee will evey break .500 this year.

Boise State at #17 Oregon - An intriguing matchup, Boise State were the BCS busters who won a Cinderella game against Oklahoma 2 years ago (that game had everything, even the player who scored the winning 2 point conversion run over and propose to his girlfriend afterward). The Boise State Broncos are consistently competitive teams every year and this team still has National Television proposal running back Ian Johnson and a great defense. The ducks of Oregon on the other hand just got off beating Purdue in a game they should have lost, and they are also replacing their starting QB who is out with a knee injury. If this game were at Boise I think the Broncos would take it, but since it's at Oregon…I'm not so sure. Look for a close low scoring game that could go either way, Dr. Coin picks Boise State.

#18 Wake Forest at #24 Florida State - The Seminoles of Florida State have played nobody, they may as well have played two high schools to this point, which may account for the fact that they've outscored their opponents 115-7 thusfar. But I really don't see anything that indicates to me that they should be a top 25 team. The Wake Forest Demon Deacons had lost 34 times in a row to the Seminoles before they won the last two. Wake's QB Riley Skinner is completing nearly 75% of his passes and they pass as frequently as I hurt myself (which is a lot) mostly because they don't have much of a run game. Florida State is probably going to try and put on an air show with QB Christian Ponder but Wake's defense may be a little bit sterner than the cardboard cutouts the Seminoles have faced thusfar. Wake seems like a team who is already more conditioned to play this game having faced tougher competition, so long as their defense plays like it can and the offense doesn't make too many mistakes, it should be clear sailing, but that's what they said about my singing in the 3rd grade play.

#6 LSU at #10 Auburn - Prior to last week I would have been really excited about this one. Two extremely hard hitting SEC teams getting ready to beat each other up. If my memory serves me correctly, and it almost never does, this is usually the most physically brutal game of the year for the past couple of years. So brutal in fact that neither team plays well the next week because they seem kinda drained or banged up. So you might ask yourself, why then are you not as excited Marty? Because the Auburn Tigers won a game by the score of 3-2 last weekend. Not a typo, Auburn kicked a field goal in the second quarter, and got pushed back into their own endzone for a safety in the 4th. Needless to say no matter how good their defense might be it's doubtful that their offense will put up many/any points against the LSU Tigers defense. This should be a great defensive game, but I don't see Auburn winning with their offense as terrible as it is. Tune in if you love hard hitting defensive games though.

#3 Georgia at Arizona State - I know this seems a little copy and pasteish (pasty?) but prior to last week I would have been really exciting game. But last week the Arizona State Sun Devils were beaten at home by UNLV. QB Rudy Carpenter will need to stay alive against a ferocious Georgia defense. Georgia hasn't been spectacular this year, but after having been dropped from the #1 ranking without losing I'll bet the Bulldogs are looking to make a statement. I suspect this game will be very similar to the Georgia-Hawaii bowl game last year. Georgia will just physically overpower Arizona State.