With gratuitous Bullwinkle image.OK, Week 1 is now officially behind us. There is no more Week 1, except in retrospective. Preparation for Week 2 is upon us in earnest. Here is your preview of the coming week. After this paragraph, I won't mention cupcake games like Florida v. Troy and Kentucky v. Kent State again.
OK, I'll mention Kentucky v. Kent State again. Didn't Kent State change its name to Kent? Is it sort of like "Siamese Twins" where people know that isn't their real name but simply refuse to call them by their real name? Anyway, I shouldn't call this a cupcake game. Kent beat Iowa State last week. But anyway, that's the last you'll hear of that.
Teams Hoping to Get A Rare Win
Mississippi State at Tulane: Who did Tulane have to kill to get two SEC teams to go on the road to play them? Having no idea how good Tulane is, MSU had still better beat this team, because I'm doubtful they'll be able to win any SEC game.
Ole Miss at Missouri: Whenever I was watching Mizzou v. Illinois, Mizzou looked great. Chase Daniel looked llike a skilled QB with good receivers. Whenever I changed to channel to watch another game, Illinois scored points. It was the strangest thing. Illinois looked completely overmatched every time I was watching them play, yet almost won the game. Anyway, if Ole Miss is going to be competitive against the good teams of the SEC, they had better beat Mizzou pretty convincingly.
TV Guide
Alabama at Vandy, 11:30am Lincoln-Financial: To me, this is the most anticipated game of the early season schedule. Here is what I keep telling anyone who'll listen (so I've told like 2 or 3 people). Vandy's best five or six players are just as good as Bama's best five or six players. Earl Bennett is just as good as DJ Hall. Chris Nickson is just as good as John Parker Wilson. Chris Williams is just as good as Andre Smith. Jonathan Goff is just as good as Simeone Castille. Brian Stamper is just as good as Antoine Caldwell. I don't know how the rest of Bama's team stacks up to the rest of Vandy's team, but the best players are pretty much even. As far as I can tell then, these two teams are evenly matched. And it's being played in Nashville. Watch out.
Once again, there is no 2:30pm game. When does that start?
South Carolina at Georgia, 5:45 ESPN2: I've been hyping up SC for a while, but I'm not feeling good about that right now. ULL played Carolina tough, and Georgia looked surprisingly good against Oklahoma State. Unless Blake Mitchell comes back and makes this team a lot better (possible), Georgia sure looks like the superior team right now.
Virginia Tech at LSU, 8:15 ESPN: OK, we all know about this one. It's a matchup of two top-10 teams out of conference. We've already talked about this pretty extensively, but I'll say something else right now. Watch out for Virginia Tech's tight ends. They made a lot of catches against ECU, and their wideouts pretty much disappeared. We don't play a lot of SEC teams that emphasize the tight end in the passing game, so we better have a plan for it. Of course, if their offensive line doesn't do better, it probably won't matter. Then again, the same can be said of us.
South Florida at Auburn, 8:00 ESPN2: Why do we keep doing this? Why do we keep scheduling quality SEC football games against each other? Is it Auburn's fault? It has to be because they've been involved in it twice in the first two weeks. They say that a team makes its biggest improvement between Week 1 and Week 2. Auburn had better hope that's true, because they were lucky to escape last week with a win. If their OL doesn't improve, Brandon Cox won't be their QB for long, and I wouldn't want to be the guy who replaces him.
Other Games
Southern Miss at Tennessee, not on television: Trap game! Tennessee faces a half-decent mid-major between their loss to Cal and their traditional rivalry with Florida.
TCU at Texas, CSTV 6:00pm: I think I have the TV outlet right, but I might not. These are two ranked teams, and TCU is supposed to be legitimately good. If SC vs Georgia looks like a laugher, change over to this one and see if an upset is possible.
Middle Tennessee State at Louisville, 6:00pm Thursday, ESPN: If you feel the need to scout MTSU, a future LSU opponent, check out this game. They lost 27-14 to Florida Atlantic last week. That's all I really need to know, but I might watch some of it anyway.
4 comments:
First off, I'm a huge believer in UGa. On the TD.com poll, of which I have a ballot, I'm ranking them #5, and was preseason as well. I never understood why people didn't expect Stafford to get better with experience. So a UGa win doesn't reflect poorly on SC, who I think is a really good team.
Secondly, Texas beat Arkansas St 21-13 and TCU beat Baylor 27-0. Say what you will about Baylor, they are better than ASU. TCU looked better in week one, just to point that out. Warnings about week one and transitive properties of football games apply.
Third, VT's run game looks God awful. More on that later.
I knew Stafford would be good. I'm surprised their OL protected him. I'm also surprised he had half-decent receivers. On paper, their offense looks like it consists of Thomas Brown, Matt Stafford, and a bunch of bums. And their defense looks, on paper, pretty pedestrian. I didn't keep a close eye on that game, but I'd like to see the next one.
I know it's a family affair for you, but Bama looked pretty good on Saturday. Could they sneak up on a few teams and wind up in the top ten or fifteen by year's end?
We know next to nothing about Bama right now. They played a Division I-AA team that had a losing record last year. They just had a ton more talent all over the field. It's likely that not a single player on W. Carolina would be in the 2-deep at bama. We'll know more after this week.
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