CFB Week 3 Review

Lots to cover, but I must first give a shout-out to The Dude and his beloved Airborne, aka the Duke Blue Devils as they were victorious over Northwestern, thus putting an end to their impressive 22-game losing streak. Now, onto the week in review.

ACC - Through the first three weeks, Boston College has set itself up as the team to beat in the Atlantic Division of the ACC with a big time victory over the GT Yellow Jackets. Of course, none of the other teams looked that impressive in either victory or defeat. This is a weak conference from top to bottom.

Big 12 - Nebraska got throttled by USC. Oklahoma and A&M looked good over inferior opponents. Texas once again better do something quickly before that matchup with Oklahoma in a few weeks because they looked very average against an ok Central Florida team opening up its new on-campus stadium. Also, I am somewhat disappointed that Texas Tech could only muster 59 points against Rice. Oklahoma State is officially on the Suckdar.

Big East - Rutgers, West Virginia, Cincinnati and South Florida look good, but Louisville's terribly poor defense caught up with them as they blew a coverage very very late in the 4th quarter and were upset by Kentucky, whose defense is not that much better. Just think Syracuse fans, only a few weeks until the basketball team starts practicing.

Big 10 - Teams that look decent - Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan State and Purdue. Wisconsin struggled mightily again this week with, of all teams, the Citadel. Michigan took Notre Dame to out back and went Old Yeller and the Golden Domers. Iowa and Minnesota both screwed the pooch as the former lost to Iowa State (who came into the game 0-2 with a loss to Div. I-AA Northern Iowa) and the latter losing to Sun Belt representative Florida Atlantic (first ever loss by Minny against a SBC team).

C-USA - How bout them Coogs beating Tulane for the 4th straight year by more than 21 points each time. Also, Southern Miss took hold of the top spot in the East Division of C-USA by beating ECU 28-21. Todd "I f'ed Rice over big time" Graham's Tulsa team defeated BYU in a high scoring game that nobody really cared about. UH and Tulsa are the teams to beat in the West. Props to UCF hanging tough against the Longhorns and opening that new stadium on campus (I have attended a handful of UCF games at the Citrus Bowl and am very happy the students have a new stadium right on campus instead of having to drive and pay tolls just to watch a football game - watch attendance start to rise).

Independents - Ouchtown, population Notre Dame.

MAC - I don't know, but judging by records, not so good.

MWC - Air Force pulled off a major upset on Thursday night against TCU, who have now lost 2 in a row despite being everyone's BCS-buster pick this year. Not much else to say here, except how bout them Utes completely upsetting and destroying UCLA 44-6 (Utah came into the game 0-2 having been beaten pretty soundly in each of those two games).

Pac-10 - UCLA, ouch. USC, WOW! Cal, Oregon and ASU, keep up the good work, but conference still goes through Los Angeles. USC went into Lincoln and crushed Nebraska, just as they did with Arkansas the year before. Granted, this is not your older brother's Nebraska team, but they will still contend for the Big XII North title. It will be interesting to see how Nebraska rebounds.

SEC - My fantasy team's namesake Houston Nutt and his coaching staff cost his team the game against Alabama after they clawed their way back to take the lead. With about 2 and a half minutes to go in the game, Arkansas faced a 3rd and 12 on their own side of the field with a 4 point lead. At this point, Saban's boys were out of timeouts and when Arkansas punted, the Tide would have to go the length of the field (in reality, about 73 yards). As many of you know or should know, there are not many plays scripted for 3rd and 12. In fact, during a game, most coaches will run a draw play and then simply punt. Had Arkansas just run up the middle, even if for no gain, the Tide would have had under 2 minutes to go to score. Instead, because of Nutt calling a pass play that ended in an imcompletion, the Tide had 2:13 to take the ball and score, which they did with only a few seconds to spare. Had the Razorbacks just run the ball up the middle for no gain, the Tide would not have had enough time to score (this same thing happened in the Buffalo Bills-Denver Broncos game last week, so it is not just endemic to colleges). Props to Alabama on the comeback (after having given up their own huge leads during the game). On the bright side, Florida and LSU are the teams to beat in the SEC, but the Cocks and the Tide are making some noise. The Cocks play the Bayou Bengals this Saturday. What in the heck happened to Auburn. Geez.

Sun Belt - Big props to Schnellenberger and FAU for defeating a Big 10 team for the first time in school history and from building this team from nothing a few years ago and being forced to recruit against Miami, FSU, UF, USF, UCF and FIU, let alone the non-Florida schools. Troy gets into the win column with a victory over Okie State and Arkansas State looked good in their win over SMU.

WAC - When does Hawaii play Boise State? Because that is the only game that matters in this league.

Big games this week: Texas A&M @ Miami (Thursday night), South Carolina @ LSU, Georgia @ Alabama, Colorado State @ Houston