Week 2: Conclusions

Was anyone else surprised at how completely Ohio State dominated Texas in Austin? Unless you're a Buckeye fan, the game did not live up to the hype since Texas wasn't making it much of a contest. Methinks Colt McCoy's christening as "The Real" was a bit premature. He looked like a baby on Saturday night and in the end wasn't man enough to match Troy Smith who decided he wanted the game and took it like a goddamned barbarian as McCoy watched helplessly from those doe eyes of his.

Still got to hand it to Ohio State then for a solid, solid win.

I'm still not convinced of Notre Dame. I think we can assign most of this Saturday's victory to Penn State's offense not giving their a defense a chance to catch it's breath. Critical mistakes at critical times, killed a number of drives and before long the Penn State defense was tired. So it's hard to know, still, how good the Irish are. Fans will see all the affirmation they need in this victory, but I've still got my doubts.

Other Stuff

*ESPN News ran some programming that was new to me at least, called College Football Overdrive and which I found to be an excellent jump channel to supplement whatever happens to be your game of interest.

On CFO, which ran saturday from 3pm-8pm EST (and will do so again this Saturday) the ESPN programmers interrupted the normally panaceaic ESPN News coverage to jump exclusively between other relevant college football games, many of which may not be showing regionally (or only on Gameplan). Using this as my jump channel on Saturday, I was able to focus on my contests and let CFO bring me up to speed on the crucial plays in other compelling games such as Akron/NC State, Iowa/Syracuse and BC/Clemson.

I think this is an excellent application of the otherwise informative, if monotonous, ESPN News outlet, and highly recommend it as a jump channel for anyone else hoping to keep up to speed this coming Saturday.

*1 out of 3 ain't bad for the WAC, especially since that 1 was Boise State's domination of Oregon State and a good portent for a Bronco team that won't be satisfied with anything less than BCS. Fresno State lost close to a good Oregon team, while Nevada got whooped. San Jose State came out of nowhere to upset Stanford, so will call it a wash for the WAC-Pac 10 intersectionals.

*Dan Hawkins lost his second game as CU head coach managing again to score just 10 points against Colorado State who scored 13 and beat them. Still I can't imagine its all his fault when the best guy on the team is the kicker (who nailed one from like 60 yards out only to have it called back as CSU called a dubious timeout right at the snap). It's hard to imagine Hawkins can do much with the Neuheisel/Barnett waste and only half his own recruiting class of freshmen. But so far more disappointing than anyone would have anticipated.

*The only thing we know about Michigan so far is that they're much better on defense and they appear to be able to run the ball with Hart et al. But Henne, the passing game and the play calling have remained enigmatic. The word on the street is that this is all smoke and mirrors bland playcalling (pretty much off tackles with a 10-15% margin for play action passing) and that the real offense, the 'we've revamped everything after years of predictablity' offense, will be unleashed before a shocked world this saturday at Notre Dame.

*Trent Green was my Fantasy Football QB until he got murdered on the field today. At 36 I had a feeling he could be broken at any moment, but I took my chances and rolled the dice. Still it sucks to see prophesy come to fruition like that. Concern for my Fantasy Football team aside, I hope Trent's okay.