Intercollegiate Tackle Football Observations, Week 3

[NAHSTE]

- Let's start with Thursday night's Texas Tech-TCU game. Holy shit the officiating was all over the place here. A TCU punt return TD was overturned due to an invalid fair catch, Texas Tech was awarded the ball at the 1 yard line after a player dropped the ball shy of the goal line (should have been a touchback) and a fumble review was completely botched. I don't think I've ever seen a game with as many head scratching decisions from the officials. Rules were seemingly being made up on the spot. TCU is really missing Pachall on offense, Boykin can't beat teams with his arm and their running back stable is just ok.

- Texas A&M-Bama lived up to the hype, but the late score by the Aggies kind of masked what really was a dominant win by the Tide. They were up by 21 for a large portion of the 2nd half and had a comfortable lead until late in the 4th. This one reminds me a bit of the 2006 Ohio State-Michigan game that is so often hailed as a classic. Like that game, this one featured neither team playing much defense, and a late score and failed onside kick attempt to end it. If both of these teams gets past LSU in November we could hear some rematch talk, like we saw after that '06 Ohio State win. The network execs certainly wouldn't mind.

- Holy shit, Texas got streamrolled by Ole Miss. Mack Brown is dunnzo. Feel free to throw out candidates to replace him below.

- The Big Ten is crappy. Maybe more so than usual. True, Wisconsin got screwed out of a late second win at Arizona State, but the fact is they were played to a standstill by a middle of the road Pac 12 club. For one of the B1G's marquee programs, they never should have been in that position. And fucking Michigan needed two goal line stops as time expired to stave off AKRON ... Had they lost, it'd probably be an even worse loss than the infamous defeat to Appy State. Akron is fucking awful.

We also had Penn State dropping a game to UCF and Nebraska jumping out to a 21-3 lead on UCLA only to give up 37 unanswered points. Yikes. At least The Purdue put a scare into Notre Dame. Anyway, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot standing in the way of Ohio State, who looked solid in a defeat of Cal without Braxton Miller.

- I know we say this every year, but looks like LSU finally has a balanced offense. Currently ranked in the top 40 in passing, rushing and scoring offense. Zach Mettenberger is 2nd in the nation in passing efficiency and is averaging 17.7 yards per completion. Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham, Jr. might be the best receiver duo in the conference, if not the nation.

[ram29jackson]

Intercollegiate Tackle Football Observations, Week 2

huh wut ?

[Mogriffjr]

UCF is a good squad.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Big Ten games are even more dry than usual.

I have a morbid fascination with BOB & Penn St, otherwise I can't leave a Big Ten game on my TV for longer than 5 minutes.

[Woy]

UCF is a good squad.

Yeah, I don't understand the LOLPSU propaganda after last Saturday's loss. UCF is the second best team in the AAC (granted, that's not saying much), and have a future NFL guy slinging the ball for them. Blake Bortles is the best QB Penn State will see all season (Braxton and Gardner are better playmakers, but neither of them are half the signal-caller Bortles is), and when you combine that with a young and already thin secondary, you're going to be in a dogfight. Disappointing, sure, but by no means is this a bad loss.

[Senser81]

- Holy shit, Texas got streamrolled by Ole Miss. Mack Brown is dunnzo. Feel free to throw out candidates to replace him below.

If ever there is a "jump the shark" moment in football coaching, its when you hire Greg Robinson as your D-Coordinator. I made a joke to a friend after BYU ran for like 500 yards on Texas that it looked like Mack Brown had Greg Robinson running the defense. A couple days later, Texas hires Greg Robinson to run the defense.

- The Big Ten is crappy. Maybe more so than usual. True, Wisconsin got screwed out of a late second win at Arizona State, but the fact is they were played to a standstill by a middle of the road Pac 12 club. For one of the B1G's marquee programs, they never should have been in that position. And fucking Michigan needed two goal line stops as time expired to stave off AKRON ... Had they lost, it'd probably be an even worse loss than the infamous defeat to Appy State. Akron is fucking awful.

We also had Penn State dropping a game to UCF and Nebraska jumping out to a 21-3 lead on UCLA only to give up 44 unanswered points. Yikes. At least The Purdue put a scare into Notre Dame. Anyway, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot standing in the way of Ohio State, who looked solid in a defeat of Cal without Braxton Miller.

Watched some of the Big10 games. IMO, Wisconsin can only blame themselves for fucking around at the end of the game instead of just kicking the FG with 16 seconds left. They had no timeouts, and the ball was relatively in the center of the field. To run another play so the QB can kneel the ball 3 yards to left was asinine. So much can go wrong.

Michigan was basically handed the game against Akron. In the 4th quarter, they had a strange "spot of the ball" replay overturn, which is something you never see. Then they were given a questionable PI penalty in the end zone which put the ball at the 1. Akron was kind of screwed at the end. They had gotten the ball inside UMs 10, and a UM player was injured. Game stops. Game restarts, and just as Akron is snapping the ball, the game is stopped again. Another bogus replay review, which changes nothing. Game restarts again...but by now 15 seconds have run off the clock as the ref has stood over the ball. Akron gets two plays at the end instead of 4. The last play there is a pretty blatant defensive hold on the targeted Akron receiver...no call. Game over.

Similar replay/officiating crap in the PSU-UCF game. Late in the game, UCF is going for the clinching TD. UCF player falls into the end zone for a TD. Replay review. Although there is no angle that shows the UCF player down short of the endzone, they overturn the TD anyways and spot the ball on the one inch line. UCF scores another TD...flag on the play for illegal formation, although it looked like UCF did have 7 men on the line. UCF settles for a FG, giving PSU one more shot at tying the game. Very strange.

[JeremyHight]

Went to the Cal-Ohio State game this weekend, so I didn't get to see much football outside of that game. Ohio State looked good despite missing their starting QB and RB. They still haven't looked great by any means, but I'll take double digit wins any day.

Cal is going to be good in a few years. They were playing with only 2 senior starters and the rest were young guys. In a few years, that team could easily be in the top 3 of the PAC-12 North and potentially even surprise someone to get into the conference championship. Oregon and Stanford are light years ahead of everyone in the conference for now, but Cal has a nice foundation.

[Jayrock]

Went to the Cal-Ohio State game this weekend, so I didn't get to see much football outside of that game. Ohio State looked good despite missing their starting QB and RB. They still haven't looked great by any means, but I'll take double digit wins any day.

Cal is going to be good in a few years. They were playing with only 2 senior starters and the rest were young guys. In a few years, that team could easily be in the top 3 of the PAC-12 North and potentially even surprise someone to get into the conference championship. Oregon and Stanford are light years ahead of everyone in the conference for now, but Cal has a nice foundation.

I was at the Northwestern-Cal game week one.

That view of Oakland-Bay Bridge-San Fran-Golden Gate is awesome.

[Jayrock]

Watched some of the Big10 games. IMO, Wisconsin can only blame themselves for fucking around at the end of the game instead of just kicking the FG with 16 seconds left. They had no timeouts, and the ball was relatively in the center of the field. To run another play so the QB can kneel the ball 3 yards to left was asinine. So much can go wrong.

Meh. I disagree. Teams do this all the time. ND did it last year against Purdue for a game winning field goal. To say Wisconsin "can only blame themselves" is pretty dumb

[Senser81]

Meh. I disagree. Teams do this all the time. ND did it last year against Purdue for a game winning field goal. To say Wisconsin "can only blame themselves" is pretty dumb

Really? Teams run one more play with 16 seconds left an no timeouts in order to move the ball 3 yards to the left all the time?

[Senser81]

Cal is going to be good in a few years.

I've heard that refrain for about 25 years now, dating back to the Troy Taylor-Russell White "halycon" days.

[JeremyHight]

I've heard that refrain for about 25 years now, dating back to the Troy Taylor-Russell White "halycon" days.

Cal has a good shot for one simple reason, no one in the PAC-12 is recruiting all that great. Even though Oregon and Stanford have been great the last few years, they are not pulling in the great classes that other schools are. Even perennial solid recruiting teams like USC and UCLA can barely crack the top 10 and aren't even at that point every year. Cal has a chance to do it if they continue with this system (which I was impressed by) and can scoop up the NorCal recruits that either go north to Oregon or south to LA. Obviously, they might flop, but they do have upgraded facilities and stadium now, which can help bring in some good local recruits.

[Senser81]

Cal has a good shot for one simple reason, no one in the PAC-12 is recruiting all that great. Even though Oregon and Stanford have been great the last few years, they are not pulling in the great classes that other schools are. Even perennial solid recruiting teams like USC and UCLA can barely crack the top 10 and aren't even at that point every year. Cal has a chance to do it if they continue with this system (which I was impressed by) and can scoop up the NorCal recruits that either go north to Oregon or south to LA. Obviously, they might flop, but they do have upgraded facilities and stadium now, which can help bring in some good local recruits.

Odd that Cal would become good while Stanford is good. One would think that Cal would do better when Stanford was down, like 5 years ago/Buddy Teevens.