College Football Weekend October 25th, 2008

Let's start by saying that I'm thrilled that the Phillies are in the World Series, I'm really proud of them. I'm actually watching game one right now and the Phillies are winning 2-0. But all these good feelings are just going to make it more devastating when the Phillies make the Devil Rays the greatest story in sports history (and yes I know they aren't the Devil Rays anymore). It's Philly sports, they will lose in some embarrassing way, and I'll get more bitter with more grey hair and a further receding hairline. I'm a total stud I know. But enough about the Failies, I have plenty of time to lament the fact that nobody in a major sport in Philadelphia, I need right now to lament the fact that both Missouri and BYU have betrayed me. Now the best I can hope for is a Tulsa, Ball State, Boise State and Utah to be in the BCS. It keeps me awake at night dreaming about a Tulsa VS. Ball State BCS game, holy oxymoron batman! Oh I'd also like to take a moment to thank everyone who called me out for being a wuss while I was sick and not writing a column, I hope you all lose your cell phones and have to get everyone's number again. If you get a chance go over to the blog and check out the talk I had this week about college football, some good stuff in there.

Comments:
" I'm disappointed in you. Get worse soon. What happened to you doing review of your previous week articles? I liked hearing you mock yourself on a weekly basis (to a greater degree than you do now). Did you see/hear about the JMU game last week? That was more re-donkey-lous than that donkey from Shrek. - John"
I figured that I was TOO DAMN GOOD and that there was no need to review my previous success every week. That makes me seem cocky and it falsely showed that I was lacking humility. I don't want to have to remind everyone how good I am at everything I do, that's unnecessary. I mean for goodness sake I went 4 for 6 last week and I could barely type. Also it was too much work and it was causing me to spend too much time in front of my computer instead of doing stuff outside...which has not changed one bit but now I don't have to write two columns a week. Also we don't usually get JMU games out here in the land of magic, and I'm too lazy to figure out what happened.

"Current Heisman:Colt McCoyTim TebowBradford (Can not be ranked ahead of McCoy because McCoy beat him)Thoughts? - Forrest"
My Heisman would probably be something like:Colt McCoyDavid Johnson (Tulsa)Zach Robinson (OKst)Graham HarrellKellen Moore (Boise)All of which are on undefeated teams, which is what I'm using at the moment to determine the difference between all the great quarterbacks this year, there are no great running backs (I know I know I'm all starstruck over the quarterbacks, a girl can dream right?). Winning all your games isn't a requirement for the Heisman, but it helps, and frankly Colt McCoy could cool off only a little and he would win. He's completing more then 80% of his passes, which is silly, I don't even get my garbage in the trash 80% of the time. You could tell me that Colt McCoy was a magical wish granting alligator who wants to take a friend and the woman of his dreams to an all expense paid trip to the moon and it would be slightly more believable than a QB completing over 80% of his passes.

Games:
#8 Texas Tech at #23 Kansas - The Kansas Jayhawks are a team of contrast, the contrast being that while they have a decent offense, they play good defense about as often as my father watches Gilmore girls...which is to say infrequently but not every week. Their QB Todd Reising ins any other year would be a Heisman contender, he's accurate and smart and he makes plays. But in this, the year of the Big 12 Quarterback he's probably the 5th or 6th best QB in that conference. One of the QBs who is higher rated then him is the Texas Tech Red Raiders Graham Harrell, who put up silly numbers by virtue of playing at TT. Texas Tech is one of those undefeated teams that people don't think should be undefeated, they've played poorly against teams they should have crushed and have been underwhelming. Kansas at home coming off a decent game against Oklahoma is just the cure for Texas Tech's ($5 dollars to whomever tells me the full school name of TT off the top of their head) unblemished record. They've played better against the good teams they've played and their uniforms look better. Which is how I pick all my football games.

#6 Oklahoma State at #1 Texas - I'll be the first one to admit that I was shocked at how bad the Longhorns of Texas beat down Missouri. It was like they were playing a team in division 6 for the first half of the game, Missouri had no way to stop them. It made me feel strange on the inside, it made me feel like Missouri, who I had talked up all year, put a dagger in my back, slashed the tires on my bike, and kicked my non-existent dog. But then afte the shock wore off I realized that this is the time of year (about 6-7 games in) that all the young players who are starting for the first year are just now getting the defense or offense. They are just now figuring out the bigger pictures and what they should be doing at all times. Texas has a very young defense with lots of new starters this year, those guys may have turned a corner in the last couple weeks, and that may be what has made them so darn good. Either that or I didn't see enough Texas games prior to last week to see how good they are, whichever. That being said, the Oklahoma State Cowboys pulled off the upset a couple weeks ago against Missouri, sure it wasn't as dominant a win but they did a decent job of bottling up Missouri's spread offense. The difference being that Texas has a much better running game and defense, and they are playing at Texas. QB Zach Robinson has been tremendous for OkSt. so far this year, but the cattle drive stops here when Colt McCoy and the Longhorns go on a stampede and drive the Cowboys back to the Ranch??? (I guess that's where cowboys live, I was going to say Brokeback Mountain but that's not terribly politically correct).

#2 Alabama at Tennessee - I'm not going to write much here other then to say that this is the week the young Alabama team blows it. I just want to get that out there so that I can say I called it if it happens because it's going to happen one of these weeks. Tennessee has not met its preseason expectations and they are just waiting to surprise someone. Plus it's the SEC and who the heck knows what's going to happen. If Tennessee doesn't win then I'm going to keep betting against Alabama until I get it right and then I can be all, "I told you so." And people will go, "Oh Marty you totally called that!"

#3 Penn State at #9 Ohio State - It's easy to assume the Ohio State Buckeyes will win this game. After all the Penn State Nittany Lions haven't won there in forever and they already broke their streak for the year when they beat Michigan last week. The problem with Penn State getting a bunch of hype is the fact that everyone they've beaten has proven to be paper tigers, so they haven't really shown how good they could be, maybe they will against OSU. OSU has freshman QB Terrell Pryor who doesn't know the taste of defeat or the disappointment of not getting what you want for Christm...I mean hasn't lost a big college game that he's started. He's got a great arm and can run like crazy, but he hasn't seen a defense as good as Penn State's except for the couple of snaps he played against USC. Penn State in the meantime has terminally underrated RB Evan Royster, who as one person I know mentioned, gets less publicity than any running back in the country considering that he's run for over 9 yards a carry and over 100 yards a game this year. That's pretty impressive. This game is a tough one to call, on one hand Penn State is the better team in my mind, on the other hand I don't like them to break to losing streaks in a row. So I consult with my colleague Dr. Coin. who thinks that Penn State will win in a close game. if OSU does win, it will likely be because RB Beanie Wells had a huge game against a Penn State, who were busy defensing Terrell Pryor.

#4Wofford at #3Elon - These top 5 powerhouses (Division 1-AA) face off in North Carolina in what could be a preclude to some postseason playoff action. The Elon Phoenix are known to me only because their head coach, Pete Lembo, who was the coach of Lehigh during my time there. Lembo has taken the Phoenix from the bottom of the SoCon standings to becoming a championship contender and top-25 program in the FCS national polls as well as made noticeable improvements in the areas of academic progress, recruiting, alumni relations, home game attendance, scheduling, community outreach and fund-raising. Every person I've met who played for Elon has been a tremendous person and so I think very highly of the school. The football team itself has won all but one game this year, beating the likes of traditional powerhouses Georgia Southern, Furman, and the Citadel. The Wofford Terriers are also a perennial powerhouse in Division 1-AA and they have also only lost once this year, they also boast the most frightening mascot in college football. This will be an exciting game, and expect to see the highlights nowhere, I'll take the Phoenix's to rise up and burn the awful little dogs.