A lot of big things happened this past week of college football, so we'll work our way from the inside out. First up was the second headline ACC matchup in just four days. We all know how spectacularly Miami and FSU played, despite not being ranked very high (or at all), as do the ratings since it was the second highest rated ESPN college football game behind the same matchup in 2006. While the Georgia Tech - Clemson matchup wasn't nearly as exciting as the Miami - FSU one, it did prove to be one of the better games of the weekends, making the ACC two for two.
Georgia Tech, for the second game in a row, seemed unable to close the deal after going up 24-0 early. Yes, Clemson really stepped its game up defensively, and found some offense, but the seeming inability for Georgia Tech to score any points beyond the first quarter is now becoming worrisome for fans, coaches, and players alike. While Georgia Tech did somehow pull out the win, coupled with FSU's struggles against Jacksonville State, Clemson is really showing it could be the dark horse we all knew they were capable of if they could pull everything together.
The rest of the ACC, like Georgia Tech, had a similarly deceptively good looking weekend. In all the ACC went 8-1 in it's OOC games, but both Maryland and FSU were just that close to tacking on another two D1AA losses to the ACCs repertoire. UNC and Wake also experienced late game squeakers past teams that are probably at best middling in their own respective conferences, and UNC, at least, has hopes of going to the ACC CG.
In all, though, things could have been so much worse for the ACC. Those four games get dropped and you're looking at a 4-5 OOC record, and all the work that the Miami-FSU game did to help the ACC's image minimally would have been erased with FSU losing to Jax St.
This also comes on the heels of other conferences really taking big hits. The Big 12, and Big Ten are in a battle for hardest hit at the moment. On the plate for the Big Ten are near losses for Northwestern and Indiana to Eastern and Western Michigan respectively, a near loss by Wisconsin to Fresno State, Michigan State losing to D1AA Central Michigan, loss by Purdue to Oregon, and of course the marquee loss of OSU to USC. The only thing in their favor was the HUGE win by Michigan over the possibly overrated Irish. Penn State held serve against a better than expected Syracuse team, and a few other expected wins. In all they finished a respectable 8-3
The Big 12, meanwhile, seems to be taking the lead in taking big hits. ACC reigned supreme, once again, week one with two losses to D1AA teams, but the Big 12 has officially one upped them. Colorado got absolutely blasted by Toledo, as did Iowa State against Iowa. Oklahoma State had an embarrassing loss to Houston after finally cracking the top 5. Missouri barely escaped with a win over Bowling green, and KSU provided the final embarrassment by losing to LA-Lafayette. The rest of the Big 12 was able to take care of business where it should, and Oklahoma took out its frustrations on Idaho State, but the Big 12 finished the day 6-4, and the Oklahoma loss really adds to all of that.
The Big East did nothing more than prove it's as mediocre as everyone believed them to be as there were no big marquee matchups or victories to be had, but also no surprising and upsetting losses. It's tough to have more match ups when you only have one team ranked, and only 8 teams total, going against conferences that have a minimum of 10 teams, most having 12.
The Mountain West Conference, they're making it really difficult not to talk about them. Three ranked teams, no embarrassing losses, and consistently good play from the upper half of their conference is giving them a leg up on most of the other "Big Six" conferences despite having not one convincing victory (though the BYU victory over Oklahoma comes damn close as they held that offense in check even with Bradford in, they would have lost if he were playing though since their offense did equally well, or not as it were). There's nothing exciting to report here, and this year that's proving to be good news.
The Pac 10 is finally interesting...somewhat. Instead of being just USC and everyone else, it's now USC, Cal, and everyone else. I wouldn't even necessarily put it in that order. While everyone else is kneeling before the Trojans in the media, Cal has been playing fantastic football. Their offense looks far more dynamic than USC's, and they also have a much more experienced quarter back. Forget playing at the shoe, if I were Pete and the Trojans, that date at Berkley is looking damn scary. Oregon's loss the previous week, and the general mediocrity and struggles of the rest of the conference, means Cal looks to be the team to beat, even for USC. The bright notes are the betterment of the conference from the bottom up, with the exception of Wazu.
The SEC is still the SEC, and looks like it has three or four teams that could play for the national title, and three of those four reside in the SEC West. Ole Miss had the week off, but LSU and Alabama looked really good in easy victories over Vandy and FIU respectively. Florida is, unsurprisingly, still rolling, and Auburn is looking to get itself ranked, while Georgia is trying to lose its way out of the top 25. The only "blemish" was Tennessee losing to UCLA, which really proved nothing other than Lane really is full of crap.
In the end, there were some close calls in the top 25, but only two losses to be considered upsets (playing teams outside the top 25), but somehow many conferences still had some really embarrassing losses. Are the lesser teams getting better, or are the better teams just not preparing well for these games? Duke showed it's a better team than the one that played Richmond, and I really don't think Michigan State is that bad, so I'm really in a toss up as to which is true.
