Every week, all of us start out thinking we know what's going to happen. And then the games start and remind us this is the wildest, most unpredictable, most glorious sport in the world. Games we think will be great suck, games we think will suck are great. The truth is this is a sport played by kids who might be great one day and awful the next and there's really no way to predict which is which. We see one game and decide we know what's going to happen for the next three months. We have no idea. It's awesome.
1) For a few minutes, all of us olds could pretend it was 1987 again. And then Oklahoma and Nebraska kicked off and only one of those teams is still worthy of our attention. The Sooners steamrolled Nebraska 49-14 in a game they led 28-7 early in the second quarter. So much for the momentum of a coaching change and playing hard so the interim guy gets the job. Nostalgia is fun though. It reminded me briefly of the Big Eight days growing up when everybody in the conference had the team they cheered for and then also picked either the Sooners or the Huskers because you knew that was the only game that was really going to matter all year anyway. The Huskers are off next week. They host Indiana on October 1. That will be exactly 364 days since Nebraska has beaten an FBS opponent. Should the Hoosiers win that game, Nebraska will go a full calendar year without a win over an FBS team. Incredible.
2) Speaking of the Hoosiers, it wasn't easy, but they beat Western Kentucky 33-30 in overtime. Connor Bazelak threw for 355 yards and two touchdowns and for the second straight week led a game winning or game tying drive in the final minutes. Then he finished this one off in OT. Bazelak is 16th in the country with 297 passing yards per game. Here are the teams that join Indiana at 3-0 so far this season:
Syracuse
Kansas
Duke
Wake Forest
North Carolina
Kentucky
Maryland
UCLA
It's like a who's who of....college basketball.
3) Since we're talking Indiana quarterbacks, the Hoosiers' former signal caller might have logged the most impressive win of the day. Michael Penix threw for 397 yards and four touchdowns as Washington raced out to a huge lead and held off Michigan State 39-28 in Seattle. The Huskies are 3-0 and the only ranked team they face the rest of the year is Oregon. Don't discount them as a college football sleeper. Penix was one of the sensations of college football a couple years ago and he might be again.
4) The game of the day, as it has every week so far this season, involved Appalachian State
The Mountaineers lost to North Carolina 63-61, won at Kyle Field and then did that yesterday
5) Sticking in the PAC-12, it's got to be a matter of time before Arizona State is looking for a new coach. The Sun Devils are 1-2 after a 30-21 loss at home to Eastern Michigan. Considering the program is under heavy NCAA scrutiny and Herm Edwards was already the top name on most non-Scott Frost hot seat lists, it sure seems like when, not if, Arizona State will start playing to win the games again.
6) Shame on me for getting my hopes up and rooting for Bobby Petrino. When Missouri State answered a 17-0 Arkansas run with 10 straight points of its own and led 27-17 in the fourth quarter, I actually believed there was a chance the Bears were going to pull one of the most incredible upsets in college football history. So did Arkansas fans
But then Raheim Sanders went 75 yards with a shovel pass and the Hogs returned a punt 80 yards and the whole thing fell apart and Arkansas survived to face Texas A&M without a loss on its record this season. I'm anti-Petrino. He's a hell of a coach, but he leaves disaster and scores of people who hate him everywhere he goes. I'll just put in here now, Missouri shouldn't and won't hire him. But I really included this game simply so I could link the greatest college-football related song I've ever heard.
7) Forget the near upsets, let's talk about actual upsets. Southern Illinois beat Northwestern 31-24. The Salukis came into the game riding the momentum of a tough 34-31 loss to SEMO last week. That came after opening the season with a 64-29 loss to Incarnate Word. Since beating Nebraska, the Wildcats have now lost to Duke and Southern Illinois. College football, man. I know Pat Fitzgerald's an alum and he's done a great job there, but it sure hasn't gone well the last couple of years. The Cats have lost 14 of their last 20 games dating back to the last part of the 2020 season.
8) Personally, I very much enjoyed Tulane's 17-10 win at Kansas State yesterday. Willie Fritz seems like a good enough guy and the Green Wave has great helmets, but my enjoyment of this one had absolutely nothing to do with Tulane. I've never had an issue with Kansas State fans. Always seemed to be decent folk. Kind of an enemy of my enemy is my friend type situation. They were so down for so long and then they got some success and it was really kind of a cool story and I was happy for them. And while judging a fanbase by its Twitter representation is a bad idea, it's sometimes all we have to go on. My Twitter experience with Kansas State fans was...ummmm...not super pleasant in the last week or two. They were very hard to like. So it was fun to watch them file out of the stadium in the final two minutes after their team had failed to convert a fourth down for the fifth time in six tries as their season's hopes rode a big green wave out of Manhattan back to New Orleans.
9) Under the radar development of the week: Vanderbilt may have found a quarterback. The Commodores were off to a 2-1 start and Mike Wright seemed to be doing okay, but Clark Lea made the move to true freshman AJ Swann for yesterday's game at Northern Illinois. Swann went 18-28 for 255 yards and four touchdowns in a 38-28 win over the Huskies. Don't get me wrong, it's not an incredibly impressive result overall and Vandy still has a long way to go, but the most important thing to do in establishing your program is to find your quarterback and Vandy may have done so for the next three or four years. Of course, the Dores play Alabama next week, so Swann's numbers seem likely to dip a little bit.
10) Five games I'll watch next week other than Mizzou/Auburn (honestly I won't really watch any because we'll be busy all day):
Virginia at Syracuse, 6 p.m. Friday, ESPN--I figured Dino Babers was getting fired this year but now he's 3-0. Plus, it's Friday night. What the hell else are you gonna watch?
Clemson at Wake Forest, 11 am Saturday, ABC--The Tigers were in a battle with Louisiana Tech for about two and a half quarters yesterday. I really don't think they're a top five team. But they're in the top five right now and don't have much on their schedule, so this might be the best chance they have of being knocked off.
Baylor at Iowa State, 11 am Saturday, unknown--Do I really care about this game? No. But it's not a great week next week and these teams are both at least competent.
Florida at Tennessee, 2:30 Saturday, CBS--The Vols are pretty good, guys. Florida started with a bang, but hasn't impressed anyone the last two weeks. Winner here is clearly in the top half of the East. If the Vols win, they've got a shot to be 5-0 and in the top 10 when they face Alabama on the third Saturday in October. If they lose, they could start a three-game losing streak (they're at LSU in two weeks).
Arkansas at Texas A&M, 6:00 Saturday, ESPN--This game always seems to be competitive. Both teams are capable of being pretty good and pretty bad. No idea what to expect.
1) For a few minutes, all of us olds could pretend it was 1987 again. And then Oklahoma and Nebraska kicked off and only one of those teams is still worthy of our attention. The Sooners steamrolled Nebraska 49-14 in a game they led 28-7 early in the second quarter. So much for the momentum of a coaching change and playing hard so the interim guy gets the job. Nostalgia is fun though. It reminded me briefly of the Big Eight days growing up when everybody in the conference had the team they cheered for and then also picked either the Sooners or the Huskers because you knew that was the only game that was really going to matter all year anyway. The Huskers are off next week. They host Indiana on October 1. That will be exactly 364 days since Nebraska has beaten an FBS opponent. Should the Hoosiers win that game, Nebraska will go a full calendar year without a win over an FBS team. Incredible.
2) Speaking of the Hoosiers, it wasn't easy, but they beat Western Kentucky 33-30 in overtime. Connor Bazelak threw for 355 yards and two touchdowns and for the second straight week led a game winning or game tying drive in the final minutes. Then he finished this one off in OT. Bazelak is 16th in the country with 297 passing yards per game. Here are the teams that join Indiana at 3-0 so far this season:
Syracuse
Kansas
Duke
Wake Forest
North Carolina
Kentucky
Maryland
UCLA
It's like a who's who of....college basketball.
3) Since we're talking Indiana quarterbacks, the Hoosiers' former signal caller might have logged the most impressive win of the day. Michael Penix threw for 397 yards and four touchdowns as Washington raced out to a huge lead and held off Michigan State 39-28 in Seattle. The Huskies are 3-0 and the only ranked team they face the rest of the year is Oregon. Don't discount them as a college football sleeper. Penix was one of the sensations of college football a couple years ago and he might be again.
4) The game of the day, as it has every week so far this season, involved Appalachian State
The Mountaineers lost to North Carolina 63-61, won at Kyle Field and then did that yesterday
5) Sticking in the PAC-12, it's got to be a matter of time before Arizona State is looking for a new coach. The Sun Devils are 1-2 after a 30-21 loss at home to Eastern Michigan. Considering the program is under heavy NCAA scrutiny and Herm Edwards was already the top name on most non-Scott Frost hot seat lists, it sure seems like when, not if, Arizona State will start playing to win the games again.
6) Shame on me for getting my hopes up and rooting for Bobby Petrino. When Missouri State answered a 17-0 Arkansas run with 10 straight points of its own and led 27-17 in the fourth quarter, I actually believed there was a chance the Bears were going to pull one of the most incredible upsets in college football history. So did Arkansas fans
But then Raheim Sanders went 75 yards with a shovel pass and the Hogs returned a punt 80 yards and the whole thing fell apart and Arkansas survived to face Texas A&M without a loss on its record this season. I'm anti-Petrino. He's a hell of a coach, but he leaves disaster and scores of people who hate him everywhere he goes. I'll just put in here now, Missouri shouldn't and won't hire him. But I really included this game simply so I could link the greatest college-football related song I've ever heard.
7) Forget the near upsets, let's talk about actual upsets. Southern Illinois beat Northwestern 31-24. The Salukis came into the game riding the momentum of a tough 34-31 loss to SEMO last week. That came after opening the season with a 64-29 loss to Incarnate Word. Since beating Nebraska, the Wildcats have now lost to Duke and Southern Illinois. College football, man. I know Pat Fitzgerald's an alum and he's done a great job there, but it sure hasn't gone well the last couple of years. The Cats have lost 14 of their last 20 games dating back to the last part of the 2020 season.
8) Personally, I very much enjoyed Tulane's 17-10 win at Kansas State yesterday. Willie Fritz seems like a good enough guy and the Green Wave has great helmets, but my enjoyment of this one had absolutely nothing to do with Tulane. I've never had an issue with Kansas State fans. Always seemed to be decent folk. Kind of an enemy of my enemy is my friend type situation. They were so down for so long and then they got some success and it was really kind of a cool story and I was happy for them. And while judging a fanbase by its Twitter representation is a bad idea, it's sometimes all we have to go on. My Twitter experience with Kansas State fans was...ummmm...not super pleasant in the last week or two. They were very hard to like. So it was fun to watch them file out of the stadium in the final two minutes after their team had failed to convert a fourth down for the fifth time in six tries as their season's hopes rode a big green wave out of Manhattan back to New Orleans.
9) Under the radar development of the week: Vanderbilt may have found a quarterback. The Commodores were off to a 2-1 start and Mike Wright seemed to be doing okay, but Clark Lea made the move to true freshman AJ Swann for yesterday's game at Northern Illinois. Swann went 18-28 for 255 yards and four touchdowns in a 38-28 win over the Huskies. Don't get me wrong, it's not an incredibly impressive result overall and Vandy still has a long way to go, but the most important thing to do in establishing your program is to find your quarterback and Vandy may have done so for the next three or four years. Of course, the Dores play Alabama next week, so Swann's numbers seem likely to dip a little bit.
10) Five games I'll watch next week other than Mizzou/Auburn (honestly I won't really watch any because we'll be busy all day):
Virginia at Syracuse, 6 p.m. Friday, ESPN--I figured Dino Babers was getting fired this year but now he's 3-0. Plus, it's Friday night. What the hell else are you gonna watch?
Clemson at Wake Forest, 11 am Saturday, ABC--The Tigers were in a battle with Louisiana Tech for about two and a half quarters yesterday. I really don't think they're a top five team. But they're in the top five right now and don't have much on their schedule, so this might be the best chance they have of being knocked off.
Baylor at Iowa State, 11 am Saturday, unknown--Do I really care about this game? No. But it's not a great week next week and these teams are both at least competent.
Florida at Tennessee, 2:30 Saturday, CBS--The Vols are pretty good, guys. Florida started with a bang, but hasn't impressed anyone the last two weeks. Winner here is clearly in the top half of the East. If the Vols win, they've got a shot to be 5-0 and in the top 10 when they face Alabama on the third Saturday in October. If they lose, they could start a three-game losing streak (they're at LSU in two weeks).
Arkansas at Texas A&M, 6:00 Saturday, ESPN--This game always seems to be competitive. Both teams are capable of being pretty good and pretty bad. No idea what to expect.
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