Week 3 Wrap-up:

#6 tOSU @ IU @ 11:00 on Fox - As predicted, the Buckeyes covered by half-time and never looked back.

Pitt @ #13 PSU @ 11:00 on ABC - I was correct on PSU winning but very incorrect on covering & drubbing Pitt. Chinks in the armor were exposed and it might not be a happy fall in Happy Valley.

#21 MD @ Temple @ 11:00 on CBSSN - Boy was I shocked that the Terps didn't win and cover.

ASU @ #18 MSU @ 3:00 on Fox - I caught the last 45 minutes of this game. The Sparty's D was on pace to stifle another offense, and their offense had given them a 4 point lead. Inexplicably, the D gave up a 2:44, 11 play, 75 yard TD drive to give ASU the lead. Sparties rally back and drive into field goal position with seconds remaining, and boot what was seemingly the tying FG. Turns out they had 12 men on the field so had to do it again, and this time the kicker missed his 3rd FG of the day. In other words, I was wrong on MSU winning and covering.

#19 IA @ IA ST @ 3:00 on FS1 - thanks to 2 long weather delays I didn't get to see any of this. Caught the highlights and as predicted the IA Defense made the difference and Hawkeyes won and tied the spread.

TCU @ Purdue @ 6:30 on BTN - a pathetic showing by Purdue's offense especially their rush offense which averaged 0.9 yards per carry and making 8 first downs (TCU had 23). This resulted in a 2:1 time of possession advantage for TCU, and despite a valiant first half effort (TCU lead 13-6) the defense ran out of juice and the game became a route. I'm sadly right that TCU won and covered.

No IL @ NE @ 7:00 on FS1 - I'm happy that I was wrong on NE losing and failing to cover. Always like to see the Big Ten teams win non-conference games.

Cheers:

tOSU's O. Complete domination both passing and rushing.

tOSU's D. Complete domination of line of scrimmage and held IU to 42 yards rushing on 31 carries. As far as passing, they had 5 sacks and scored as many TDs as they gave up.

IA's kicker. Young man was 4/4 on FGs and accounted for 2/3 of IA's points. Due to the weather, field conditions were not ideal for kicking so his performance is even more impressive.

NE's offensive line. The hogs lead the way for 4 rushing TDs, 238 yards rushing, 7.2 yards per carry, and gave up zero sacks which allowed 2 passing TDs and 287 yards passing.

NE's defense. Held the Huskies to 74 yards rushing and had 10 tackles for a loss. Only gave up 2 FGs.

NE's QB, Martinez. 257 yards passing, 44 yards rushing, 2 passing TDs, and zero turnovers.

Jeers:

Purdue's offense. Pathetic was the best description. Additionally, the offensive line should be ashamed of 25 rushes for 23 yards. The offense let the Defense down and the defense should kick 'em in the taint.

MSU's kicker. The guy is normally a good kicker so it was odd. To put yesterday in perspective, he only missed 4 in 2017 as well as 2018, and 50% were 50+ yards. Yesterday, he missed FGs of 47, 31, and 47 yards which caused them the game.

Terp's offense. Got off to an extremely slow start and didn't score until middle of the 3rd. They had a chance to win with first and goal, but managed more yards in penalties (5 yds) than offense (3 yds).

The Illini D. Lost to a MAC team despite their O putting up 31 points and 464 yards

My predictions. I haven't been this off in a long time.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

tOSU was really impressive. IU is a pretty good team, I think, and the Buckeyes dominated them on the ground and in the air. Barring injuries and other vagaries, the Buckeyes have a good chance at the national championship.

I love upsets and watched the Pitt @ PSU and ASU @ MSU games, while flipping to others to see what was going on.

Was hoping PSU would fold but they found a way to win.

#18 MSU, not so much...

For 6 teams the regular Big Ten season starts this weekend (hooray!). However, 5 teams have bye weeks and 3 teams are wrapping up their non-conference cream puff schedule. As with past weeks, I'm not making predictions on cream puff games.

Week 4 Predictions (all times Central time):

#11 UofM @ WI @ 11:00 on Fox - the Badgers are unanimously 3.5 point favorites. The Badger defense is leading the nation in only allowing 107.5 yards per game and 0 points per game, and they're squaring off with a struggling Wolverine offense with more questions than answers. On offense, WI has been dominating and Heisman candidate, Taylor, has been tearing it up averaging 4 TDs per game, but UofM is giving up 21 ppg to teams like Middle TN and Army. Both teams are coming off a bye week and both will be amped up for this match-up. Badgers win and cover.

#MSU @ NWU @ 11:00 on ABC - depending on which odds service you believe the Sparties are 8.5 to 9 point favorites, and the over/under is 36 to 37 points. MSU has a dominating rush D and NWU is more of a rushing team which puts the load on sophomore QB who has not thrown the ball 70 times in his career and has a miserable 3 INTs to 1 TD this season. MSU's O failed to put points on the board vs ASU, and I think defensively NWU will be as good as ASU. MSU wins but fails to cover. I posted the over/under because I'm going a step further and picking the under for this game since I'm not anticipating a high scoring game.

NE @ IL @ 7:00 on BTN - depending on which odds service you believe the Cornhuskers are 13 to 13.5 point favorites. How in the world did the BTN pick this game for prime time? Tomorrow, the Cornhuskers will expose the Illini as the worst team in the Big Ten West. For the second time in under 12 months, the Illini defensive coordinator has been fired but it won't fix their woes. This one gets ugly and the NE easily wins and covers.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

quote:

#11 UofM @ WI @ 11:00 on Fox - the Badgers are unanimously 3.5 point favorites. The Badger defense is leading the nation in only allowing 107.5 yards per game and 0 points per game, and they're squaring off with a struggling Wolverine offense with more questions than answers. On offense, WI has been dominating and Heisman candidate, Taylor, has been tearing it up averaging 4 TDs per game, but UofM is giving up 21 ppg to teams like Middle TN and Army. Both teams are coming off a bye week and both will be amped up for this match-up. Badgers win and cover.

I agree with this assessment with one caveat: Michigan's QB Shea Patterson has been playing with some level of an injury. It might be minor and insignificant. But maybe it has been more than that. After this bye week, he should be 100%. Will it make a difference? Will Michigan have a real passing offence? Spread formation without the ability to throw downfield is...well, exactly what it was against Army-- weak. If Michigan can throw deep, that in turn opens up their running game.

Michigan's first offensive series should clear this up.

Otherwise, I agree with tatortodd, and Michigan picks up its first, and not its last, defeat. If the team that played Army is the best that they've got, they are going to lose a bunch of games, and get blown out once again by the Buckeyes.

UofM’s offense is getting back their star linemen, Runyon, which should help. However, Peoples-Jones remains out and he is their best receiver.

Halftime: Wisconsin 28, Michigan, 0.

Michigan has no offence and no defence. Other than that they are playing pretty well.

Halftime for the Badgers/Wolverines game, and it’s going according to plan.

28 to nil.

Badgers D still have not been scored on this year.

Jonathan Taylor was out during 2nd quarter (cramps), but has 143yds rushing and 2 TDs on the day so far.

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“I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”

Not to be outdone, Coan has 2 rushing TDs too and has 112 yards of errorless passing.

I see Michigan has a bye this week.

The only flicker of an offence for Michigan was with about 7 minutes left when Patterson began throwing deep. Michigan scored, and then almost scored again, but the touchdown was reversed on review. For a moment, the score read Wisconsin 35, Michigan 20, and it looked like the semblance of an actual contest.

They will probably beat Rutgers next week-- though I would not bet on it-- and then after that they could lose game after game, starting with Iowa and including Penn State, Notre Dame, Michigan State, and Ohio State. Ohio State will be hard to watch unless you are a Buckeye.

Badgers helped with the Wolverines first score.
Two targeting penalties on that drive. One was BS, the other was valid, and sheer stupidity.

Definitely room for improvement.

^^^ There were two really stinking bad calls in the game. One was for "targeting" and the other was on a superb, amazing catch that on review they disallowed.

Your Wisconsin team looks great. The real proof of that to me is that when Taylor was out, the offence was still cranking and scoring touchdowns. Wisconsin v. tOSU will be a barn burner.

Michigan looked weak in its opener, pathetic against Army, and got their ass kicked by Wisconsin. But they will still be in the top 20, I bet.

I feel the rules for “Targeting” definitely need to be reviewed and modified.

I think it should be similar to how they enforce boarding or charging in hockey, where if the other player does something immediately prior to the hit that put themself in jeopardy, there should be no call.
All too often, when I see targeting called in college football, upon review, I see the other player turn, or dip their head just before contact, so the defensive player has no chance of making a tackle without contacting them in the head.

Now, the Badgers are sans 2 safeties for the next game.

quote:

Originally posted by justjoe:
The only flicker of an offence for Michigan was with about 7 minutes left when Patterson began throwing deep. Michigan scored, and then almost scored again, but the touchdown was reversed on review. For a moment, the score read Wisconsin 35, Michigan 20, and it looked like the semblance of an actual contest.

They will probably beat Rutgers next week-- though I would not bet on it-- and then after that they could lose game after game, starting with Iowa and including Penn State, Notre Dame, Michigan State, and Ohio State. Ohio State will be hard to watch unless you are a Buckeye.

Remembering how close Michigan got to the playoffs in Harbaugh's first year, I now hope he's fired before the Ohio State game. There is no excuse for this lack of preparation. Absolutely none.

Well, TTUN looked lost. Harbaugh was outcoached again.

My Buckeyes started slow and seemed confused for about 8 minutes of the first quarter. Then they woke up and put up 11 touchdowns. Wow. The Second team was grinding up yards. I know it was Miami (Oh) but there was a lot of offense.

NU was trying to let Illinois win that game!!!

quote:

Originally posted by 357fuzz:
NU was trying to let Illinois win that game!!!

Four turnovers and ten penalties, but when all was said and done, the Huskers nutted up and closed it out. They gave up three TDs on the four TOs, all drives of less than 40 yards. Their place kicker has been injured the whole season thus far; they essentially have no field goal kicker and kick offs were short line drives, making coverage tough. Still, they closed it out and won.

Blackshirts held the Illini QB to 9/21 passing for just 78 yards and total yards of 299. Nebraska racked up 700 yards of offense. Husker QB, Adrian Martinez was 22/34/0 for 327 and 3 TDs, he also rushed for 118.

Frost said it best (paraphrasing), “We could be 4-0 and you all would be telling one story, and we could be 2-2 and the story would be they’re just the same.” College Game Day will be in Lincoln next Saturday for the Ohio State game; first time back since 2007! They may not be nationally relevant yet, but that’s a sign that they are becoming so

Week 4 Wrap-up:

#11 UofM @ WI @ 11:00 on Fox - as expected, the Badgers won and covered. I just didn't expect the Badgers to dominate this much. 1st quarter was the Taylor show as he put up 2 TDs and 143 yards, and then missed the 2nd quarter with cramps. The 2nd quarter was the Coan show with his 2 rushing TDs. The 3rd quarter started off as the Taylor show as he rushed for most of the 84 yard drive and then did a little misdirection with handing the ball off to someone else to go up 35-0. They took their foot off the gas and pulled Taylor before the 3nd of the 3rd quarter and UofM picked up some garbage time points.

#MSU @ NWU @ 11:00 on ABC - I was correct on MSU winning but wrong on them failing to cover. I felt sorry for the NWU defense since their inept offense kept them on the field way too much in the first 3 quarters. MSU's dominated both sides of the ball, and only gave up the TD during garbage time (thanks for messing up my over/under prediction)

NE @ IL @ 7:00 on BTN - I was really, really wrong on NE easily winning and covering. Never would have guessed they would get off to that slow of a start and help the Illini that much with fumblitis (e.g. fumble on own 2 yard line). Chalk this up to winning the games you're supposed to win, making solid half-time adjustments (e.g. 28 point scored after half-time), and persevering until the end. Normally a QB who puts up 327 yards passing, 3 passing TDs, 0 INTs, and 118 yards rushing would end up in the kudos section but just couldn't overlook his 2 fumbles which lead to 2 Illini TDs.

Kudos:

WI's offensive line. The offense didn't miss a beat without Taylor and racked up 359 yards rushing and 5 rushing TDs. Also, only gave up 1 sack which helped Coan throw for 128 yards and 0 INTs.

WI's defense. Utter domination until garbage time. They made MI's offense looke like a division 3 team.

WI's RB, Taylor. 203 yards rushing (143 in 1st quarter alone) and 2 rushing TDs. The guy is a stud.

MSU's offensive line. They lead the way for 109 yards rushing, 1 rushing TD, 228 yards passing, 3 passing TDs, only gave up 2 sacks, and that helped Lewerke throw 0 INTs.

MSU's defense. Utter domination until garbage time. Forced 3 INTs, only let up 139 yards rushing, and 126 yards passing.

MSU's QB Lewerke. 228 yards passing, 3 passing TDs, and 0 INTs. Nice bounce back from the ASU game.

tOSU. Started off down 0-5, but man did they bounce back. Utter domination on both sides of the ball. 7 passing TDs, 4 rushing TDs, held MiOH to 130 yards of offense, and 5 sacks.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

After I posted, above, that Michigan would still be in the top 20, I thought that I had gone too far. I mean, the team has not been merely bad, they have completely sucked. Embarrassing.

And yet.

Here they are in both the AP and the Coaches Poll at #20. It will take getting beaten by Rutgers. And then they'll still be in the top 25. (Okay, too far.)

Did anyone who voted Michigan #20 actually watch the pathetic games against Middle Tennessee and Army? The debacle in Wisconsin?

https://www.cbssports.com/coll...ootball/rankings/ap/