Tuesday, September 4, 2007

State of the Nation - Week 1

First things first. Michigan lost to a I-AA team (I will not call it FCS) in the greatest and most satisfying upset I've ever seen. Appy State is HOT HOT HOT! Don't believe me?



What does this mean beyond the fact that I don't have to listen to Michigan whine about not playing for the national title this year? Not much really. It was bound to happen that some I-AA team would catch lightening in a bottle and beat a power at some point. Appalachian State would probably have represented themselves well even if Michigan had been ready for them. They're a pretty good offensive team for any level of football, and Michigan's defense is other than good. Michigan took them lightly and turned what should have been a 48-23 victory into a 34-32 loss. There's not much more to it. It still makes me smile though. I'll smile even wider if Michigan manages to rebound and win the Big Televen.

Elsewhere, LSU and USC were underwhelming in their openers. Both teams are loaded on defense and a little iffy on the offensive side. They both looked it. Still, they combined to win 83-10 against MSU (the even worse one) and Idaho, respectively. I suspect USC will end up in the title game, but I just don't see LSU doing it. And not only because Les Miles is an average coach.

Tim Tebow proved he could throw the ball, and Matthew Stafford proved he could throw the ball away, leading me to the conclusion that the SEC East Champion will be decided in Jacksonville. Unfortunately that bodes ill for Georgia. Here's hoping the flawed Florida defense helps them to drop a couple of games before Oct. 27.

There wasn't much else happening this weekend. Cal got their revenge on Tennessee, who looked horrible defensively. A lot of good teams blew out a lot of bad teams, a few good teams struggled against bad teams, and Washington seemed like they might be a pretty good team with their dismantling of Syracuse. Of course, Syracuse could simply be that bad. Oh, and Duke may have established itself as the worst I-A team after losing by 31 to what should be a bad UConn team.

The September weeding process will continue next week. Here's hoping Tennessee continues a season of horrors by falling to Southern Miss.

1 comment:

Biggus Rickus said...

Awesome. We're getting spam now.