Here’s the update from this weekend’s college football action. (And yes, I do realize it’s September 24th, but for the purposes of consistency, across the season, I’m keeping the title…)
OSU Opponent Watch
- Youngstown State (3-1) – Played Lock Haven at home, won 35-3. Conclusion: Expected Win
- Akron (2-2) – Played Kent State at home, won 27-20. Conclusion: Good Win
- Washington (2-2) – Played UCLA, on the road, 31-44. Conclusion: Hangover Loss
- Northwestern (2-2) – See game recap, destroyed at Ohio State 7-58. Conclusion: Expected Loss
- Minnesota (1-3) – Played Purdue at home, lost 31-45. Conclusion: Expected Loss
- Purdue (4-0) – Played Minnesota on the road, won 45-31. Conclusion: Expected Win
- Kent State (2-2) – Played Akron on the road, lost 20-27. Conclusion: Tough Loss
- Michigan State (4-0) – Played Notre Dame on the road, won 31-14. Conclusion: Expected Win
- Penn State (3-1) – Played Michigan on the road, lost 9-14. Conclusion: Unexpected Loss
- Wisconsin (4-0) – Played Iowa at home, won 17-14. Conclusion: More difficult than expected Win.
- Illinois (3-1) – Played Indiana on the road, won 27-14. Conclusion: Good Win
- Michigan (2-2) – Played Penn State at home, won 14-9. Conclusion: Unexpected Win
Buckeye opponent’s records after the fourth week, 32-16, a respectable .667 winning percentage. With the first week in the book of Big 10 play, the conference favorites are Ohio State and Wisconsin, with Purdue as a dark horse contender. I believe the Boilermaker’s defense is suspect and will be exposed. The Badgers are living on the edge, and will fall. Anyone playing Michigan needs to spread the field. The first two weeks of the season showed that dramatically and the win over Penn State simply reinforces that power football allows Michigan to compete. Spread football confounds them. Note to coaches: Play spread against Michigan until they prove they can slow it down. Despite being 1-0 in conference play, I’m highly skeptical of this Michigan team.
Quick Hits from Around College Football
Teams that look like mythical national championship (MNC) contenders from week 4: LSU, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and USC.
The jury is out on these teams who are technically still in the running, but their play to-date leaves room for doubt: Florida, Ohio State, Rutgers, Clemson, Oregon, Boston College, Michigan State, California, and Texas.
These teams stand virtually no chance of contending for the MNC, but still looked good in week four: Cincinnati, Wisconsin, Kansas, Purdue, Arizona State, Kentucky, Missouri, Connecticut, South Florida, and Hawaii.
Game of the week, Georgia beat Alabama on the road in overtime, 26-23.
Mismatch of the week, Hawaii beat down Charlston Southern at home, 66-10. At least the Charleston players got to go to Hawaii!
My Special Top 12 rankings: (Why Top 12? That’s where you need to be to get into BCS contention.)
- LSU – A quality win over South Carolina, when will they face a tough offense? In a story no one is talking about, the SEC is down this year. More on this at a later date…
- USC – Continues to roll, looks pretty strong throughout the phases.
- Oklahoma – The class of an extremely weak Big 12, the Miami win looks a little better this week.
- West Virginia – A complete win over an opponent that has given them fits in the past.
- Florida – The Gators were lucky to escape the Grove with a W over a bad Mississippi team.
- California – Beat up on Arizona, gave up 27 points to Arizona, defense is suspect.
- Ohio State – The class of an average Big 10, need to see the offense produce against a good defense.
- Oregon – Love the offense, but to give up 31 points to Stanford (junior college?)
- Texas – Just what the ‘Horns ordered, a get well game vs. Rice.
- Boston College – Seems to be the class of a very weak ACC this year.
- Clemson – Replaces Wisconsin.
- Rutgers – Speaking of cupcakes…wake me when they play someone.
My Special Bottom 5 rankings: (Why bottom 5? If you finish there you should be relegated to I-AA)
- Notre Dame – Our long national tragedy is over, ND scored not one offensive touchdown, but two! Too bad the defense gave up four and a field goal…
- Rice – Has the lowest rating of any 1A football program according to Sagarin.
- Marshall – Stays here until they win a game.
- Temple – The move to the MAC hasn’t helped.
- Utah State – Awful, just awful.
In the coming week I’ll post an Minnesota/OSU preview, a game review of Minnesota/OSU, and a Weekend Update Sports edition.
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Hello,
I thought it might be hard for the following to be true after just 4 weeks of the season… unless the Buckeye’s opponents started playing in July:
“Buckeye opponent’s records after the fourth week, 32-16, a respectable .667 winning percentage.”
So, I checked…it’s actually 9-7 for a .563 winning percentage.
Oregon State University opponents this season have a 10-5 record for a .667 winning percentage.
My alma mater, THE OSU located in Stillwater, Oklahoma, has an opponent’s winning record of 11-5 for .687 winning percentage. In addition, the OSU Cowboys did not play against an opponent from the former 1-AA division now known as the Division 1 Championship Subdivision as did the other 2 OSU’s.
Clearly, we need to redefine which school is the REAL OSU. I vote for my Cowboys!!
BTW, I really like your blog!
Oops…although technically I am still correct, the OSU Cowboys have an upcoming game with the Sam Houston State Bearkats (what is a Bearkat?) who happen to be a Division 1 Championship Subdivision team. I just hope that we avoid a “Michigan Meltdown”.
BTW, Sam Houston State has the former OU Sooner quarterback, Rhett Bomar. It might be an interesting game after all.
Hi Kent, glad you enjoy the blog. Yeah, OSU is overloaded for sure! I was thinking that your defense would get an upgrade with the former Ohio State cornerbacks coaching taking over as D-Coordinator. That hasn’t happened yet, but give him time, he’s a good coach.
Bomar, that’s an interesting subplot, didn’t know about that one, thanks for bringing it up.
Re. the winning %, it’s the full season’s opponent’s current win percentage, not just the clubs they’ve played to date. Sorry for the vagueness. Cheers.