More College Football, More Upsets
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 16:44
Did I say in last week’s roundup that the previous weekend was the first to define and reconfigure the 2009 NCAA college football season? I stand corrected.
That weekend was nothing compared to the on we just experienced.
Seven ranked teams go down, four in the Top Ten alone. Ouch! Need I say more?
Definitely a week to look at the good, the bad and the ugly.
The Good
Now that I’ve seen Houston play, I can say that this team is for real. The drive to beat Texas Tech was an absolute beauty: ninety-five yards taking nearly five minutes off the clock, capped off with a quarterback draw run from a five-wide set. That’s the kind of drive the defines a season. Only time will tell if QB Casey Keenum can repeat such a feat in a major bowl or championship setting against top-notch competition. But even in this game, the importance of the Cougar’ poise cannot be understated–after all, for a non-BCS team, the season is on the line every single game.
The Bad
Where do I start? Last week I questioned whether Miami’s rapid ascent up the rankings was too much, too fast. It turns out it was, with the Hurricanes taking a sound beating from Virginia Tech. The same can be said for the Washington. I thought it was a nice nod from the pollsters last week to recognize the Huskies’ return to respectability, but I did have doubts that Sarkisian’s squad could maintain that quality of play week in, week out, considering how abysmal the Huskies were last year. One week later, a loss and an exit from the polls. Still, 2-2 with a victory over USC is a huge step up from Washington’s 2008 season and one of the better stories so far this year.
Speaking of events with connections to last season, the Iowa Hawkeyes upset Penn State… again. Making it an even tougher pill to swallow for the Nittany Lions, this time around the game was in Happy Valley. In my recent criticism of the Big Ten Conference I questioned the strength of Penn State’s start since they had yet to play anybody. Guess what? They played somebody. Guess what else? They lost. Iowa is now a legitimate Big Ten title contender. That also makes them the Big Ten’s last great hope for a national title contender. Not gonna happen. Big Ten is code for overrated conference.
The Ugly
It would be easy to point to Cal’s drubbing at the hands of Oregon as the ugliest. After all, it was an absolute slaughter of a Top Ten team by an unranked opponent. Doesn’t Cal do this every year? The Bears get off to a great start, everyone whispers in hushed voices, “Maybe this is the season Cal can run the table? Maybe this really is their year?” And then the Bears suffer an embarrassing defeat and everyone realizes it’s the same ol’ Cal Bears. (This is not to downplay the remarkable turnaround of the Ducks after the season opening loss to Boise State and subsequent LeGarrette Blount fiasco.)
No, the ugliest event of the college football weekend had nothing to do with the final score of any game, but the concussion suffered by Florida’s Tim Tebow. Here’s hoping that the Gator quarterback has no lingering side effects. My thoughts also go out towards USC’s Stafon Johnson for his potentially life-threatening weightlifting injury. It does now look like he will fully recover.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
