- Mizzou beat my pick, Illinois. Again here, I went with the experienced "quarterback" (loose term for this guy) in Juice Williams to beat a Missouri team that was replacing Chase Daniel, who over-performed with his teams the past few years.
- BYU over Oklahoma- didn't foresee Gresham and Bradford going down in/before this one. Huge blows to an offense that was an absolute scoring machine last year. I don't feel bad about missing this one.
- Cincy over Rutgers- never trust a team from New Jersey
- Alabama over Va Tech- I think I covered this in my opening
- Miami over FSU- see below
The Miami/Florida State game was an absolute treat for college football fans. I picked FSU simply because of, yet again, experienced quarterback play. Miami was starting a redshirt freshman, backed up by a true freshman (who was destined for a redshirt before the top two backups both transferred two weeks ago). Jacory Harris showed great poise for Miami during the pressure packed 4th quarter. He made some freshmen mistakes, as expected, but managed to keep his team in position to win the game. FSU's returning quarterback, Christian Ponder, played a decent game as well. Jarmon Fortson, FSU wideout, dropped the winning touchdown pass (although it would have been tricky, he should have held on) as time expired. Ponder played a good game but his secondary had one blown coverage after another which allowed Miami to squeak out a win. Never discount experience at the QB position when looking at games, even if you lose a few (as I did this week), most of the time you will be in good shape.
Other week one notes:
I can't imagine a single Buckeye fan that has any fingernails left after a close call with Navy. Lou Holtz says a lot of crazy things, but one thing he was dead on about this week was NEVER open the season with a team like Navy (that option offense is a lot to prepare for, especially since tOSU probably won't see another like it all year). It will be interesting to see how Ohio State does against USC next week after the Navy game.
Greg Paulus did surprisingly well in his debut as a college QB. He didn't necessarily set the world on fire, but he did enough for his team to win if the Syracuse defense didn't get torched in the fourth quarter. He had a lot of short, dump passes and screens which ideal for a guy who hasn't played a down of football in four years. I don't think he'll be going pro, but it was fun to watch.
Jonathan Dwyer is good, really good. Heisman dark horse if Georgia Tech can manage to win a lot of games this year.
The Georgia Bulldogs looked very good on the opening drive against Oklahoma State. And then, for some strange reason that escapes me, they stopped running the football and let Joe Cox go 15/30 for 162 yards, one TD and one interception. Those aren't terrible numbers, but when you go 80 yards and score on the first possession while leaning on your running game, and it works, WHY STOP RUNNING THE BALL?? This is an SEC team that should understand the importance of ball control against an Oklahoma State team that isn't known for its defense. I believe UGA could have won that game if they kept running the ball. But they didn't- so one point for the X-man's prediction.
In a game with zero national relevance, the Auburn Tigers looked much, much improved from last year's 5-7 fiasco. Auburn's offense managed 556 yards of total offense. Wait, really? If you didn't watch the game, which I suspect most who are not Auburn fans did not, you probably want to double check that number. But it is true- the Tigers ran the football for 301 yards, including an outstanding effort from freshman tailback Onterrio McCalebb who ran for 148 yards in his Auburn debut. Chris Todd looked like a new man at quarterback, throwing for 255 yards and two touchdowns with, perhaps the most important stat- ZERO interceptions. Todd will get zero respect from the common football fan after his performance during an injury riddled season last year. But if Todd can continue to build on his performance from Saturday night, this Auburn offense could shock a lot of teams this year. Any time you rush for over 300 yards you are in damn good shape.
The Auburn defense played a decent game, holding Lousiana Tech to 245 yards of total offense and just 13 points, seven of which came on their first possession when a 3rd down pass interference call and 3 facemask penalties gave the Bulldogs 60 penalty yards. Take away that possession and you are looking at a very fine performance from the Auburn defense. My original prediction for this team was 6-6, I think that number could be realistic because of the lack of depth at key positions, but the Auburn Tigers have a chance to drastically increase that number if they can continue to play like they did while nobody was watching on Saturday night.
Week two predictions are on the way- also heads up for some NFL shenanigans. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, football is back.
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