Week 4 Postlude

This season continues its incessant habit of providing plenty of intrigue and excitement every week. The top 5 has been a dangerous place to hang your hat this season, with one team getting knocked off every week so far this season. The funny thing about it is that the top 2 have not changed yet this season, and those are the only spots that matter after the first weekend in December. However, considering that both Texas and Florida have pretty much gone on sabbatical for the first month of the season (fortunate for both of them, considering their flu problems), they had better get ready for what's coming in-conference.

But enough about that for now, let's talk about the weekend that was.

South Carolina over Mississippi

Well, that was certainly a surprise. Though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, strange things happen on Thursdays. But I was expecting the Rebels to at least get a couple games into the SEC schedule before they started getting ground down and dropping games. This development actually makes things look much better for Alabama, even as it makes the SEC West look like a much more open race. I expect Alabama will be able to take the divisional crown, but they are going to have to fight a little harder against teams with larger slivers of hope than they had Thursday morning.

Anyway, enough about Ole Miss. Except for the fact that everyone seems to be calling them Mississippi now. When did that happen?

Back to South Carolina. Kudos to them and their second win over a top-5 team. Think about how many teams in the SEC have been in the top-5... to say nothing of annual rival and occasional powerhouse Clemson. Two wins against top-5 teams. I'd bet even Northwestern has more than that, and they used to be synonymous with futility.

South Carolina won this game by dominating the line of scrimmage and taking advantage when Mississippi made stupid decisions (take the points on the road, dumbass!). Not a pretty game, but ugly wins are better than beautiful losses any day.

Iowa over Penn State

Okay, Penn State's difficulties with Michigan I can understand; Michigan has the most wins and best winning percentage of any college football team, and they have a winning record against, I believe, every team that they have played more than ten times. A few exceptions aside in the last few years, every team has difficulty beating Michigan. But Iowa?

I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, Kirk Ferentz was, has been, and IS a very good coach at a school that has had a lot of ups and downs in both results and talent level. But still, that's surprising to me. It didn't help Penn State that they haven't been tested yet this season, but I thought they would have more fire in the furnace than that.

Ohio State over Illinois

I was struck by something I read about Ohio State: they were planning to throw the ball all over the field all game, because they thought they had some favorable matchups against the Illinois secondary. Then they completely scrapped the plan when it started dumping down rain. Illinois planned to run a balanced attack, and tried to do so, causing a lot of dropped balls when the game was still up for grabs. Hard to tell if or how things would have turned out differently on a dry day, but they turned out badly for Illinois. I think the Illini are still a good team, but they are in the hole already this season, and they need to get things turned around fast. Ohio State should be able to beat every team on their October schedule by two touchdowns or more, so we won't hear much from them on the national level for a while. In fact, the only way they would make any sort of splash in the month of October is by losing a game before November.

Michigan over Indiana

With these close games Michigan has been playing, it is difficult to tell if the struggle is going to make them stronger or wear them down over the course of the season. They certainly won't be boring, though.

Georgia over Arizona State

See above, replacing "Michigan" with "Georgia".

Florida over Kentucky

Let's face it, the game is not what is interesting about this game. No, what is interesting is that Tim Tebow went down with a concussion. It sounds like it was a mild concussion—if there is such a thing—but it still puts Tebow into a bad position. With the way he plays the game, he takes a lot of abuse. Abuse is not the recommended treatment for a concussion. And once you get one, you tend to get more of them. I had concerns about Florida and their injuries before; but the loss of Tim Tebow is particularly huge, because the entire offense is built around a quarterback who can run the ball 15-20 times every game. There aren't a lot of quarterbacks who can take that sort of abuse. But with Florida catching a break (if you can call it that) by getting their quarterback hurt before a bye week, Tebow probably won't be out for the LSU game on October 10. I think Florida should be okay in the short term.

South Florida over Florida State

Considering the way that the Seminoles knocked around BYU last weekend, I thought they were ready to take the big step back to the big time. However, it seems that there was an unexpected delay introduced by the Bulls of South Florida. Even with the loss of Matt Grothe, who has lead this team for what seems like 8 years, South Florida was ready to play with the big boys in their backyard. I guess Florida State is farther from the pinnacle than I thought. That may not matter much in today's ACC. However, it seems that South Florida is at least dangerous, though their ability to keep it going for an entire season will be a concern until they show that they can.

Alabama over Arkansas

Well color me corrected, it seems that I was perhaps a little hasty in proclaiming the potential danger posed to Alabama by a quarterback hitting a hot streak. It seems as though Alabama is not going to be had this early. In my preseason predictions, I only expressed concern about their depth, though that tends not to make itself apparent until late in games and late in the season. So I think I will lay off picking against the Crimson Tide until late in the season, which would still be pending any events or indications that give me pause.

Houston over Texas Tech — and — TCU over Clemson

Both Houston and TCU weathered difficult tests in their out-of-conference weekends. They are both still chasing Boise State for the guaranteed spot. Either way, both teams faced tough challenges and passed. Now things get really interesting, as the conference battles begin and teams that know them very, very well start probing for weaknesses. However, I think we can say that these two teams are for real. Admittedly, the win over Texas Tech is probably more impressive than the win over Clemson, but they were still tough wins against good teams on the road. Either one would be a good choice for a BCS bowl.

USC over Washington State

It's hard to tell what to make of this game. USC might have been storing something in the tank for next weekend's foofaraw with Cal, or that win over Ohio State cost the Trojans more than expected. What I can guess is that the Trojans were likely looking ahead to their game coming up with Cal, so that might have robbed their interest in the Cougars. Either way, the rest of the schedule is not as forgiving as what should have been an easy introduction to Pac-10 play, and they need to get themselves motivated and interested again. We will learn a lot about this year's USC team in the next few weeks.