College Football Now

Another wild weekend of College Football and I haven’t been this confused in a while.

A week after my Buckeye’s lost a heartbreaker USC continues their habit of losing to a much less skilled Pac 10 team…

Does this mean that Ohio State is horrible for losing to USC and should of destroyed them?

No, not in my opinion… USC does this every year and it usually causes a great Trojan team to go to the Rose Bowl to play a Big Ten team they have no business playing, and it’s always a slaughter.

Washington hasn’t recieved enough credit as well, they’ve had the atheletes and now that they have a good coach they should be back to a Washington were used to seeing.

Another major question is What to make of the ACC?

Before this weekend I thought they were the second worst conference ahead of the Big East but they earned some major respect with their out of conference wins. Virginia Tech over Nebraska (Which really was Nebraska’s game), Florida State just plastering BYU who was #7 in the nation, and Miami moving up to #9 in the nation, which sets up a great match-up in Blacksburg as the Hurricanes visit the #12 Hokies.

However, the ACC also suffered big losses as Maryland lost to Middle Tennessee State for the second straight season, and Virginia lost to Southern Miss. The ACC can’t keep affording to lose to no name teams, they’ve been struggling with FCS teams as well. I don’t know what to make of the ACC right now but they are playing decent and fun to watch football. Keep an eye on Miami.

A lot of questions were answered in the Big Ten this week, mostly good but a few bad.

Ohio State bounced back from the heartbreaking loss to USC with an impressive offensive and defensive performance against Toledo. Most people may say “Oh wow, how impressive” but in reality Toledo was no pushover, and some experts even predicted Toledo to contend with Ohio State, or even upset them. Thankfully Ohio State didn’t have a slump after a huge game, and held a very potent Toledo offense to zero points. Yes, Toledo’s offense was potent as they scored 54 on Colorado, and 31 on Purdue. I can say with confidence that Ohio State’s defense has surpased most’s expectations and looks like a Championship Caliber defense.

The offense on the other hand looked great against Toledo, but i’m not sure how much you can take away since Toledo’s defense was a joke. The playcalling was satisfying though, and Terrelle Pryor made some excellent throws along with a few minor mistakes. Dane Sazenbacher continues to remind me of Anthony Gonzalez, and the runningbacks all looked pretty solid. It was great to see Terrelle’s ex-highschool teammate Jordan Hall get some reps at runningback, and he proved that he is deserving of the carries he recieved. I’ll post more in my recap that I will be posting sometime later on this week.

Minnesota looked impressive in their closely contested loss against The Jahvid Be…. (wait oops) The Cal Bears. The Gopher’s did their best to defend TCF Bank Stadium in it’s innagural season, and almost upset the #8 ranked Bears. Eric Decker continues to impress me, and honestly is one of my favorite players in college football. While the score may not indicate it Minnesota had all of the momentum with about 6-7 minutes left in the game, until Cal converted a 3rd and 12 for a thirty something odd yard gain. Cal drove down the field and put the pressure on Minnesota, and unfortunatly Weber threw an interception giving Cal a “Golden” oppurtunity to put another seven on the board. Well played Bears, you showed you can play with the big boys, Hopefully you can play with USC as they come to TCF Bank Stadium next year.

Michigan State looked to bounce back after a demoralizing loss to CMU against Notre Dame in Southbend where they have been quite successful. MSU almost defeated the Irish turning the ball over in the redzone in the final minute, as they lost 33-30. Hopefully the Spartan’s season doesn’t fall apart in a John L. Smith fashion, but I can’t see that happening under Coach Dantonio. One thing that did stand out to me in this game was Golden Tate’s touchdown celebration as he dove into the Spartan Band after scoring a touchdown. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg-76xzGABE

Purdue looked inconsistent as usual after the close loss to Oregon, and I can see their season fall apart after they lost to NIU this weekend. We’ll see how they do against Notre Dame.

Penn State looked alright against Temple, it’s hard to tell how good they are.

Iowa had a solid nonconference win over Mike Stoop’s Arizona Wildcats. This was a classic Big Ten Defense against a highpowered Pac 10 spread offense team. The Hawkeyes improved to 3-0 and won 27-10.

Michigan looked good against EMU for what its worth, Forcier is still recieving high praise as the Reincarnation of Christs from the Michigan Fans.

Northwestern disappointed me with a loss to Syracuse in the final seconds by fieldgoal, I thought they would be better than last year but the defense isn’t getting it done.

Indiana is still surprisingly undefeated, haven’t really watched them since the opening game where they looked aweful though.

Wisconsin proved that it can blow out a team, never thought they were capable of that.

The Big 12 looked good except the Loss that should of been a win for Nebraska. I still can’t beleive they gave up the game to Virginia Tech in that manner. Heartbreaker.

The SEC looked alright, I wish they would schedule more tough nonconference games.

Florida didn’t destroy Tennesee which was a major suprise to me as I expected them to win by 40+. So I was unimpressed.

Anyone who said the Mountain West was good was obviously let down as Utah lost to Oregon, and BYU was slaughtered by FSU.

Oh yeah, before I forget…

If I were handed a Heisman Ballot at this moment it would look something like this…

1. Javhid Best

2. Colt McCoy

3. Tim Tebow

4. Daryll Clark (He would move up if Penn State played someone worth a damn out of the Conference)

5. Eric Berry (The best defensive canidate at the moment)…

I’ll be posting predictions and etc. later on in the week, for now it’s time to Go watch my Fantasy football team get another win!

Until Next time…

Your host of College Football Now

- Tyler Merritt

- GO BUCKS!