This football season is
halfway over with so isn’t it time to look back and remember
what we’ve learned?
Teams that have four
turnovers in a game will rarely win. Take for example
this past Thursday’s game between Virginia Tech and Boston
College. The Hokies had four turnovers (two fumbles, two
interceptions) while Boston College had none. The game was
close until midway through the third quarter, then those
mistakes cost the Hokies an important ACC conference game.
Preseason Top 25 teams are
hard to predict. Reviewing the list of teams that were
ranked before the start of the season, we now find that
Georgia Tech, Arkansas, Boise State, Rutgers, Wisconsin,
Missouri, Wake Forest, and Boston College have played well
enough to be ranked, where as perennial Top 25 teams Miami,
Florida State, Virginia Tech, TCU, and Texas Tech are
nowhere in sight.
Instant replay is not the
panacea fans and coaches were hoping for. Remember back
to when
Oklahoma was
playing at Oregon
and the Ducks got help not once, but twice, from the PAC-10
officials and wound up winning 34-33? Remember when
Washington
was driving down the field against USC
and seemed to have enough time to get one last chance to
make it into the endz one but the referee did not get out of
the way in time once the play clock started? (Yes, that
game outcome is blamed, at least in my mind, on the Pac-10
officials responsible for instant replay.)
We’ve also learned that a
small number of football players are giving this great game
a bad reputation. There was the Northern Colorado
punter who
stabbed
his teammate.
West Virginia
and
Virginia Tech
both had players suspended when charged with DUIs. The
Miami
Hurricanes have
the attitude from their past, but none of the swagger to
back it up.
Congrats!
A number of teams have
already become bowl eligible this season and this is a
milestone these teams haven’t reached very often in the
past. These are this year’s “surprise teams” and should be
recognized.
Out of the ACC, Wake Forest
is sitting pretty at 6-1 and has two very winnable games
left on its schedule (at North Carolina, and at Maryland).
The Demon Deacons last bowl game was in 2002.
In the Big 12, Missouri has a
total of six wins and only one loss. That one loss came
against Texas A&M last weekend and was played at Kyle Field
where it is always hard for the away team to win. Missouri
should easily get to eight wins with games against Kansas
State and Kansas left on the schedule. The Tigers will make
it to their second bowl game in a row.
From the Big East, the
Rutgers Scarlet Knights are off to their best start since
color television was invented and have notched up six wins
to date. Conference play is heating up for the Scarlet
Knights with a game being played at Pittsburgh this
weekend. With games against Connecticut, Cincinnati, and
Syracuse left on the schedule, Rutgers fans should start
packing their bags with shorts and sunscreen for a New Years
Day bowl game.
Sure, there are other teams
that have notched up six or seven wins so far this season,
but those teams generally make bowl games three out of every
five years and don’t really deserve that much praise as you
pretty much expect a good season out of them. No, these
teams that were mentioned here are having pretty remarkable
seasons, especially Rutgers. And no one can deny them their
well deserved praise.
Random Predictions
Last week I didn’t do so bad
with my predictions getting six out of the eight correct.
75% in my book is pretty good! Let’s talk about some games
for this coming weekend.
Games I predicted correctly:
Clemson over Temple, USC over ASU, Michigan State over Penn
State, Louisville over Cincinnati, California over
Washington State, and Rutgers over Navy. Granted, I said
that Louisville would cream Cincinnati by four touchdowns
(final spread was six points) and that Rutgers would win by
a narrow margin (Navy failed to find the end zone!), but the
team that won was chosen correctly.
Instead of picking games
dealing with Top 25 teams this week, we’ll shake things up
and predict the games for teams currently in last place in
their conferences.
Duke hosts the much-suspended
Miami Hurricanes in what could be the Blue Devils’ best
chance ever at beating Miami for the next 50 years. UM
suspended eight players from that brawl with Florida
International last weekend, which only gives Duke’s
basketball team a fighting chance at winning. (Do you think
the football really wants to take the field against Miami?)
This game will turn into a blowout, but Duke will be able to
keep things close for perhaps 35-40 minutes.
In the Big 12, Kansas and
Iowa State both have the worst records, coming in at 0-3 in
the conference and 3-4 overall. Kansas travels to Baylor
this weekend while Iowa State hosts Texas Tech. Look for
both of these teams to continue their perfect Big 12
conference records once the clock hits 0:00 in the fourth
quarter.
It’s hard to pick the worst
team in the Big East this season as Syracuse and Cincinnati
have the same records of 3-4 overall and 0-2 in conference
while Connecticut has a 3-3 overall and a 1-3 conference
record. Both Connecticut and Syracuse have wins over a BCS
conference team, South Florida and Illinois respectively,
whereas Cincy has only lost to such teams. I guess that
makes Cincy the worst of the lot. The Bearcats should get a
little more respect after this weekend as they take on and
will beat South Florida.
Poor Minnesota. The Golden
Gophers are sitting a game behind Northwestern with a
perfect 0-4 Big Ten record. This weekends win over ND State
will help the overall record improve to 3-5, but remember
that earlier in the season ND State beat Ball State in one
of the few I-AA victories over I-A teams. It won’t be an
easy game for the Golden Gophers, but they will manage to
pull a victory out of their Gopher holes.
It doesn’t matter who they’re
playing, Stanford will ensure they do not get outdone by
Duke and ruin their perfect winless season. Stanford will
lose to team X this week in fine, Cardinal fashion.
Mississippi State Bulldogs go
on the road to take on a very angry Georgia Bulldogs team
that is reeling after two straight losses. These Bulldogs
teams are going to be fighting it out like dogs (ok,
couldn’t resist that one) and the ones that reside in Athens
will have the biggest bite, putting the ones from Starkville
out of their misery, at least for one week.
Dangles
Though there were many bad,
boring games played last weekend, only two of my picks were
wrong. The Hokies came unglued at the seams and Missouri
found a way to lose an important game with the last few
ticks of the clock. It was really hard not to pick the
Hokies over the BC Eagles as Tech previously won 12 straight
Thursday night games and only had lost one previous Thursday
night game in its history. Suffice to say, both their
Thursday night losses have now come at the hands of the BC
Eagles. As for the Missouri game, well, I wasn’t able to
watch it so I’m not sure what exactly the problem was.
Playing and winning at Kyle Field is not an easy task for
any team. The Aggies just might have outplayed the Tigers.
A few weeks back I was trying
to figure out which ACC coach would be the first to be
fired. The choices were between Chuck Amato (NC State), Al
Groh (Virginia), and John Bunting (North Carolina). Amato,
after losing three games in a row, turned around the season
after making a starting QB Change and has the Wolfpack
headed in the right direction. He seems safe with a 3-3
record, 2-1 in the ACC. Al Groh likely won’t be fired at
the end of this season as Virginia signed a salary
guaranteed contract with him at the end of last season which
gives Groh an almost $10M payout if he’s terminated for
non-justifiable reasons (losing games is not justifiable
according to the Commonwealth of Virginia law). John
Bunting, well, the only way he’ll save his butt is by
racking up consecutive wins against Virginia, #25 Wake
Forest, #10 Notre Dame, #13 Georgia Tech, and cross-Triangle
foe NC State. At this point it’s looking like the Tar Heels
will finish up 2-10 on the season with their sole wins
coming against I-AA Furman and Duke. John Bunting should
start looking for a house somewhere outside Orange County,
North Carolina.
Perks
Anyone
get a good look at Tony Gonzales in the Boston College game
last Thursday night? He's on the left in the photo. It’s a
shame if you didn’t because pictures on the Web of this Wide
Receiving stud are hard to find! On the season, #16 is
averaging almost 11 yards per reception and racked up 4 TDs
so far.
Related:
Week
6 recap
Week
5 recap
Week
4 recap
Week
3 recap
Week
2 recap
Week
1 recap
Our Top 25
Burning questions and hot players
