Thursday, October 4, 2007

There's at least one every year

That saturday where all hell breaks loose, and a bunch of ranked teams get beat.

West Virginia turns the ball over a gazillion times and loses to suddenly relevant South Florida. Auburn stuns Florida in a great game in the Swamp. Colorado comes from 17 down to beat the Sooners at the gun. Rutgers is beat at home by Maryland. USC almost loses to Washington. Cal wins at Oregon on a fumble at the goal line. Clemson pulls one of their annual "what the #$%# was that!?!?" Illinois proves that either they are for real, or Penn State really sucks. Wisconsin beats MSU in a shootout. (Ok I couldn't find any good game shots on You Tube. Memo to self - I need to make it to Madison for a game one of these days) And of course Texas craps the bed against K-State. Oh yea, Michigan wins a closer than it should have been game at Northwestern.

Some thoughts:
-Ron Prince might just earn a spot on my wish list for our next football coach. I was very impressed with his offense and his special teams against a Texas team that probably has more talent at just about every position.
-I was able to get a copy of the Michigan game at Ten Yard Torrents It was not as ugly as I was expecting based on comments I've seen on message boards. The offense was somewhat conservative, but not in the same way it was against PSU and ND. There was a lot of "long hand-offs" and quick outs to the receivers. I'd still like to see them use the middle of the field more (a slant or a dig route would be nice), and there was no play action, but I know better than to get my hopes up. The defense was disappointing in the first half (can anybody tackle?) but they seem to wear Northwestern down in the end. I think the defense can be very good when they get the opposing offense into obvious passing downs. All the more reason to open up the offense early to try and build a big lead.
-I'm sure I'll live to regret saying this, but I think Cal might be a better team right now than USC. It might just be a case of Cal being focused and USC going through the motions. Tedford is still at the top of my list.
-What the heck is going on with Iowa? Seven straight conference losses?!? Kirk Ferentz might become the first coach in college football history to take a team from 1-10 to a BCS bowl and than back to 1-10 in a span of less than ten years.