The Over-Reaction:
- LSU pounded a team with great offense AND defense. Les Miles was the problem all along!
- Oregon's doomed! Doomed, I tell ya! Forget a New Year's Six bowl, the Ducks aren't going to any bowl after losing to Wazzou AGAIN!
- Stanford's no good - they got hammered by Washington! Meanwhile, the Huskies aren't going have a problem with anyone else this year!
- App State, Virginia Tech, Florida, and Georgia all surrendered multi-score leads to Tennessee. They're all underachievers!
- Miami's in the AP Top 10 once again. THE 'U' IS BACK!!!!
The "Wait and See" Reaction:
- How did South Alabama beat Mississippi State and a ranked San Diego State, yet find themselves 0-2 in the Sun Belt so far? Are the Jaguars a legit team to reckon with, or just a trendy upset pick?
- While Miami being "back" is indeed an over-reaction, I am genuinely interested to see just how far they've come under Mark Richt. Can the Canes beat the Seminoles for the first time since 2009?
- Baylor and West Virginia are the last two Big 12 unbeatens. They happen to play on the final day, December 3 (in Morgantown). How wild would it be for both teams to win out until then? More realistically, can they (or even one) at least make it to November without a loss?
- The last three unbeaten teams in the SEC are Alabama, Texas A&M and Tennessee. All three of these teams play round-robin style over the next three weeks (UT @ A&M this coming week, then Bama @ Tennessee, then A&M @ Bama). Will these teams split all-around, or will someone come out super-victorious?
- How about my Hokies? Newly ranked, can Justin Fuente & Company keep the good times rolling in Chapel Hill against a fellow-ranked UNC team? For what it's worth, VT has won its last three true road games against ranked teams (2014 Duke and Ohio State, 2013 Miami).
Tony's Takeaways
- The Louisville-Clemson game had to be one of the best back-and-forth affairs I've seen! ESPN gave Louisville some great props for playing so closely in the loss, and I agree. And how about those Tigers?!? A great way to come back and nail down the victory! By far the crown jewel of the "Top 10 Throwdown" weekend.
- I couldn't believe what I was seeing throughout the day with all of those missed/blocked extra points. That said, it provided for some great drama in the UNC-Florida State game.
- The Big 12 does have one thing going for it. We could be in for some high-suspense throughout the season to see just who will pull off a conference championship and net (at worst, though most likely) a Sugar Bowl berth.
- This is the time of year when ESPN, the teams, and anyone with a blog start to wonder about a slew of unbeaten teams at year's end, based on early results. Wondering/pondering is fair game - it's all in good fun. But for anyone who is worrying about total chaos, I have one word: relax. Everything will work itself out. We're not going to have 8 undefeated teams, and we'll probably have fewer than 8 undefeated+1-loss teams.
-The proper form is DA U IS BAK!!!! But I remember ESPN trying to force that narrative on a rainy day in 2009. By 7 PM or so, they quietly dropped that part of the story.
ReplyDelete-It's probably in the best interest for the CFP and NCAA for Baylor to drop a game or two. That's just a level of controversy that you just don't want to have around the championship.
-ACC refs strike again? Looked like some dirty play going on in the Louisville/Clemson game that didn't get called. I saw some blatant jersey pulling not get flagged, not to mention Boulware's chokehold of Lamar Jackson.
-The AP awarded the Beamer jersey to the entire Hokies football team.
I was a little concerned with that chokehold. But after watching it several more times, I don't think there was any malicious intent. That being said, I certainly understand Lamar's immediate reaction - after all, he had no way to know what was going on behind him. In the name of player safety, it probably wouldn't have been a bad idea to throw a Personal Foul flag - as long as it wasn't an ejection/Unsportsmanlike Conduct. I do agree that the ACC refs were playing a bit loosey goosey.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching Baylor escape Iowa State, I seriously doubt they'll get much further without a loss. The only problem with that proposition is that they have a bye coming up, then Kansas, then another bye. So "not much farther" could still mean 4-5 more weeks.