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By Richie Weldon
Angles
Wow, what a game between
Texas and Ohio State. Troy Smith definitely increased his
sex appeal for the Heisman voters while Mack Brown looked
rather foolish using his coaches’ challenge very early in
the game. What was even more impressive, seeing that
Godzillatron, or whatever it is called, during some of the
plays. Must be nice to win a national championship game and
have all this extra money than you know what to do with!
Last week I accurately predicted the Big Ten would
blemish its undefeated record in out-of-conference play and
that it would come at the hands of Rutgers and California.
I also stated that Virginia Tech and Oregon would find
another “W” in their standings even though each of those
teams had tough road contests. The last pat on the back
comes from the correct choice in a close game between
Clemson and Boston College.
This week the heat gets
turned up a notch. Nebraska plays at USC, Oklahoma plays at
Oregon, Maryland plays at West Virginia (Thursday night),
and Miami travels to Louisville. All these games are going
to get great attention by the media, so in hopes of starting
a tradition with this column, I’m going to ignore those
marquee match-ups and talk about some of the lesser, yet
equally important, games of note: Wake Forest at
Connecticut, Syracuse at Illinois, and Fresno State at
Washington. These games are important for all those
computers that figure out which are the strongest
conferences in all the land.
If I wasn’t headed out of
town for a wedding, rest assured I’d be at the Fresno State
at Washington game to witness the clash of the canines.
Fresno State is a team with a remarkable reputation for
being up on the big boys. Last year Pat Hill’s team was 0-2
against Pac-10 teams, but the combined 11 points they lost
by were to Oregon (34-37) and USC (42-50). Both of those
games were on the road. In 2004, the Bulldogs beat
Washington (36-16) and Kansas State (45-21). Both of those
games were on the road! (Notice the trend?) Look for Fresno
State to put a whoopin’ upon Washington to make up for the
loss against Oregon last week. There’s a trip in late
October down to Baton Rouge for the Bulldogs. It’s too
early to talk about that game, but at this point in the
season, I like their chances.
Wake Forest, which narrowly
defeated Duke last week (14-13), travels up to Connecticut
for what could turn into the best non-televised game of the
weekend. (ESPN 360 doesn’t count as being televised; it’s “webivised”!)
Randy Edsall’s team hasn’t played since Aug. 31 and you know
the Huskies are going to be fresh and fierce and ready to
sock it to the Demon Deacons. Connecticut’s first game was
against I-AA Rhode Island that went 4-7 in 2005, so it’s
hard to say just how well the team might do against a better
slew of players. So despite having the 18 days to prepare
for this one, Wake Forest will come away with the victory in
a high-scoring affair simply by having worked out all the
jitters that affect teams early on.
In an attempt to stop a
51-week losing streak, Syracuse travels to Illinois to play
a team that just got the stuffing knocked out of them by
Rutgers. We should all be thankful for ESPN-U to be
televising this contest that should be known as the “Battle
for the Worst Shade of Orange.” Syracuse is a bad team, but
managed to come real close to beating Iowa last week in
double overtime. Illinois is just laughable. Who will
win? The Magic 8-Ball has all signs pointing to … Illinois.
Dangles
Let’s get the bad stuff out
of the way: Last week I wrote that Penn State would find a
way to beat Notre Dame. I didn’t feel the Fighting Irish
were that good of a team against Georgia Tech especially
since that game was all but won by the Yellow Jackets sans a
few missed tackles and a few dropped interceptions. At home
the Irish look invincible this season, which is good for the
team as they have only two tough road games left: Sept. 23
at Michigan State and Nov. 25 at USC.
Could I be any more wrong
about Colorado? They’re my #20 team this preseason and look
to be going “o-fer” the season. What was I thinking when I
said “coach Hawkins is more known for his offense”? The
Buffs have only scored 10 points in each of their first two
games! Sheesh!
Perks
 If anyone was watching the
North Carolina game this weekend, you got to see the future
Tar Heel QB stud, and I’m not using the term “stud” loosely
here at all, Cam Sexton. This remarkable freshman came into
the game and threw for 124 yards and one touchdown against a
very stingy Virginia Tech defense. Sexton is the newest
member of my All Looks 2006 team.
In a fine display of
intrastate love between rival universities and keeping with
the UNC theme for this week’s perks, we have a wonderful
blog post from the
newsobserver.com: “The loudest cheer all day at Kenan
Stadium (not from the Virginia Tech contingent) came when
Akron scored its winning touchdown.”
Those Heels surly felt sorry for the Wolfpack!
Related:
Week
1 recap
Our Top 25
Burning questions and hot players |
