College football is a wild ride. Every week there are upsets. Some fan bases are elated, others are crushed. That’s why preseason polls are garbage and why you still have to show up and play the games. This weekend was chock full of those games.
Virginia Tech 16 at East Carolina 3- The Hokies got back on track Thursday night with a blue collar win against a pesky East Carolina squad. This one followed the script.
Boise State 45 at Louisiana Tech 35- Like Tulsa a couple of weeks ago Louisiana Tech gave the Broncos all they could handle for about 3 ½ quarters then let it slip away. I’ll be interested to see how this Boise team fares in the BCS. They can lobby all they want to but I don’t see them as being capable of beating any of the real heavyweights. We’ll see.
Navy 23 at Notre Dame 21- Already covered it. Scroll down a post if you are interested. In short it was brutal.
LSU 15 at Alabama 24- I tried to keep an eye on this one but with the ND game going the way it did I honestly didn’t pay too much attention to it. From what I did see it appeared to go about like I thought it would.
Ohio State 24 at Penn State 7- After all the Iowa talk the Buckeyes are back in the driver’s seat for yet another Big Ten title after this one. Strangely I had been listing Iowa on the weekly previews for a few weeks thinking they were going to get upset eventually. I left them off this week because I got fed up with it and sure enough they finally dropped one to Northwestern. As a result of the Iowa loss Ohio State can win the conference by beating Iowa next weekend at the Shoe. You can probably go ahead and put your money on Ohio State in that one.
Wake Forest 27 at Georgia Tech 30- While Paul Johnson’s former school was busy upsetting Notre Dame he was narrowly escaping Wake Forest. It wasn’t pretty but with the win the Jackets remain in control of both their ACC Championship and BCS destinies.
Oregon 42 at Stanford 51- I thought Stanford would make a game of this but I didn’t think they would hang 51 on the Ducks. Stanford is a good football team, albeit slightly inconsistent, but they showed up for this one. With the loss the Ducks are now tied with Arizona for the Pac-10 lead and the two teams face off in two weeks in what could be the de facto Pac-10 Championship.
Houston 46 at Tulsa 45- Add Houston to Tulsa’s growing list of teams they almost knocked off. It took a 51 yard field goal as time expired for the Coogs to escape the clutches of the Golden Hurricane. Houston’s offense scores at will but their defense is almost as bad as their offense is good.
UCONN 45 at Cincy 47- I thought UCONN might pick up what I see as an inevitable emotional win in Cincy but they came up just short. They are probably saving that one for Notre Dame. I’m certain that Husky QB Zach Frazier would love nothing more. Cincy is a strange team to me. You watch them play and they look pretty solid but since they never really play anybody that good I sometimes wonder if they are really that good or if they are just Purdue playing in a bad conference. Hard to say. They do have their two toughest games remaining in West Virginia and Pitt so I guess those might be the only pseudo litmus tests we’ll get prior to bowl season.
Oklahoma 3 at Nebraska 10- Two weeks removed from an embarrassing home loss to Iowa State the Husker defense showed up in force and picked up a big win against the Sooners. Strangely often burned Husker safety Matt O’Hanlon had three picks in the game. Yet one more example this week of why you play t he games. As a result of the Husker victory they are back to controlling their own destiny in the Big 12 North. Interesting turn of events in Lincoln to say the least.