College Football Debriefing

Each week, after all of the games have been played, I'll re-visit some of them and give my take(synonym for biased, slightly informed opinion). It's called the debriefing because whatever happened during your chosen team's game you probably felt like you were part of a crime scene, or maybe a terrorist attack. Whether you thought you were robbed by the referees, or got to witness some WMD's exploding in your big house stadium, this is where we'll re-open fresh wounds and examine the positives and negatives. But since we're all college football fanatics, probably mostly the negatives.

LSU IS The Best Team In The Land
The Tigers totally dismantled a pretty good Virginia Tech team on Saturday night en route to a 48-7 blowout. Any hopes I had of this being a good game were pretty much gone by halftime, and were really gone in the third quarter when Ryan Perrilloux stepped in to throw a long TD to Early Doucet. The Tigers held the Hokies to just 149 net yards while racking up close to 600 net yards themselves, including almost 300 yards rushing. Right now, it looks like LSU has the inside track on the BCS title game, and they should be ranked ahead of USC which played the powerhouse that is idle! Also, Oklahoma looked pretty dominant as well. Their O-line looked as good as any in the country, and Sam Bradford played great. Don't be surprised if they creep up the rankings throughout the season.

The Upsets Continue
Last week we got Appalachian State over Michigan. This week we got Washington over Boise St., South Carolina over Georgia and USF over Auburn. The Huskies always play hard at home, and Taylor Tharp throwing 3INT's didn't help Boise State. UW could be a sleeper in the Pac-10. Spurrier finally got his win against UGA as head coach of South Carolina, and Matt Stafford appeared to have done a few too many keg lifts because he was off all night(43.2% completions). USF took down another big football school with their win over Auburn. The game probably shouldn't have even gone into overtime, but USF's kicker had a little trouble keeping it between the uprights. If the Bulls can play solid defense, they could contend for the Big East this year. Louisville and WVU haven't looked outstanding, though Rutgers has played pretty well.

Not A Fan of Upsets? What About Close Calls and High Scores?
We certainly got both of those week(end). It started out with Louisville having to score as much as they could in order to get past a gritty MTSU team(58-42). Seeing 100 total points on the board with the teams only seperated by 16 at the end of game always means that at least the viewers had fun. WVU played it a little close against Marshall in the early Saturday game(11AM only encourages breakfast drinking!), but pulled away late. Nebraska barely got past a tough Wake Forest team that was without its starting QB(20-17). Cal had to hold off a late game surge by Colorado State for their win(38-24). Texas A&M needed three OT's to get past Fresno State(47-45)(The J-Train is a beast!). Hawaii had to go to OT to defeat Louisiana Tech(45-44). Even Wisconsin had to score late to pull out their victory over UNLV(20-13).

It's Going To Be A Long Year In South Bend and Ann Arbor
We all kind of knew that ND was going to have a down year this year. The inexperience at quarterback was bound to be a problem. However, losing the first two games by a combined score of 64-13 is never fun. This week they get a Michigan team that followed up an upset by Appalachian State by getting smoked by Oregon, 39-7. After last week's loss, everyone wondered how Michigan would fare against a similar offense with faster and stronger athletes. Well we got the answer Saturday afternoon, and it was "fucking horrible". Oregon, ahem "Scoregon", put up points at will, and even used a successful statue of liberty play to set up a successful statue of liberty fake. After which, I'm surprised that Lloyd Carr didn't calmly lay his headset down on the turf, and walk out of the stadium never to be seen again.

My (insert respective team here) Did This Well
Well, the Gators ran the ball extremely well. Kestahn Moore has actually done a nice job as the starting back, and Tebow continues to stiffarm his way to the endzone.

My (insert respective team here) Didn't Do This Well
Pass defense(again) and penalties. The secondary got torched again for almost 300 yards passing and two TD's. The defense as a whole had trouble containing Omar Haugabrook in the second half. The Gators also racked up 11 penalties for 104 yards. They had the same problem last year, and I'm sure that Coach Meyer can't be happy about it carrying over into this season.

Heismens!
Colt Brennan makes his second straight appearance here after completing 43-61 for 548 yards, 4TD's and 1INT against LaTech. Hey everybody we're all gonna get leied!

Ray Rice makes his debut here after his 175 yard, 2 TD performance against Navy. Rice now leads the nation in rushing yards with 359(and 5 TD's).

Brian Brohm's passing performance lead his Louisville team to victory. His QB rating is 226.5 and he has 9TD's and 0INT's so far on the season.



Until next week, consider yourself debriefed.