Let's start with college. I never get enough of my Notre Dame bashing. This loss officially put Notre Dame out of contention for a BCS bowl game and I couldn't be happier. The idea of Notre Dame rubs me the wrong way. The sheer hubris with which they operate their program is a real turn off. This independent deal with NBC, not joining a conference, even Touchdown Jesus. I revel in their failures and the image below usually brings a smile to my face.
That being said, Brady Hoke who is Michigan's coach, has a giant set of balls. Instead of doing what a million other coaches would do by lining up for a game tying 33 yard field goal. Hoke went for a 16 yard touchdown with 2 seconds left in the game. GIANT BALLS. I was sad Hoke left SDSU as that program was just turning around under Hoke and hadn't had anything really good happen for them since the Marshall Faulk days. But congratulations Michigan I think you just landed the coach you needed to rebuild this program.Staying with the Big 10, my pair of dark horse BCS contenders out of that conference had polar opposite games. Wisconsin at home blanked Oregon State 35-0, coming as no surprise considering Oregon State lost to D1-AA Sacramento State at home the previous week. Wisconsin continues to roll. Nebraska had a much tougher time at home against the "We will play anyone anywhere" Fresno St. Bulldogs. Don't get me wrong, FSU was picked to finish 2nd in the WAC and they can always play tough, but I expect much better out a top 10 Nebraska team at home. I might regret picking them as the Big 10 winner.
The SEC continues to be a meat grinder. Mississippi State, a team I felt had a chance to put their mark on the BCS races in the SEC, got tripped up on the road against an inferior Auburn team. This is the lesson as always, the SEC is brutal. If you come out of it unscathed you deserve an automatic shot in the title game. The good news for Mississippi State is that they have a chance to return the favor against LSU tomorrow.
South Carolina almost learned the same lesson. They have been sloppy two games in a row
Many of our contenders managed to not stumble against inferior opponents: Alabama showed that Penn State is only a middling team now, LSU, Stanford, Florida State, Oklahoma State all rolled.
Heading into this week there are two big games on the slate: LSU @ Mississippi State and Oklahoma @ Florida State. Both of these games can go a long way towards determining our entries into the national championship game.
For LSU its just another SEC hurdle that can easily trip them up. I feel like LSU might be walking into a buzzsaw in Starkville on prime time with a short week. If you like good football tune in to this one for a Thursday night treat.
For Florida State this represents their biggest hurdle to proving me right and getting into the BCS game. Florida State has gone overrated for years now but a home game against Oklahoma on primetime is what they need to throw years of mediocre football off their backs. I picked them to win this game but it should be fun to see how Oklahoma responds to the flaming spear.
In the NFL we learned very little. That's the point of the NFL. You can't tell how good or bad a team is Week 1. You need about 6 weeks before it starts to become clear. Sure we know Green Bay and New England are very good teams, but we knew that heading in. Let's focus on the unknowns:
Buffalo/Kansas City - What the hell was that? KC never loses by 34 points at Arrowhead. I understand Eric Berry is out for the season and all, but this team did not resemble what we saw last year and it is largely the same. I'll leave this as an anomaly for now and i still believe they are an 8-8 or 9-7 team. For Buffalo they took advantage first of some mistakes and then a Kansas City team that looked indifferent. There has been a lot of infighting in the organization and maybe it's come to rear its ugly head on the field.
Seattle/San Francisco - Everyone wants to know who is the contender in the shitbag NFC West. Both of these teams are bad. Seattle is bad because they lost. San Francisco is bad because Alex Smith is bad. They won't win a ton of games sending Akers out there 4 times and hoping for two special teams touchdowns. These are the two worst teams in the division, I think.
Houston/Indianapolis - I would like a mulligan on my Colts pick. I wrote it before I knew Peyton would effectively miss most of the season. You can see it on their faces, they miss their hero. This team will struggle to win 2 games without Peyton. They are suddenly a frontrunner in the Suck for Luck sweepstakes. Houston has finally turned a corner. They were dominant that whole game. For a team that lost games they shouldn't have over the last 3 years it's nice to see them take care of business.
Arizona/Carolina - Many people had Zona pegged for the title in the West and Carolina winning the Suck for Luck race. Arizona needs to play some defense if they are going to win. Cam Newton throwing for 422 yards is disgusting. They laid no pressure on him, and gave him simple man to man looks for most of the first half. The good news for Carolina, Cam Newton can hit a wide open Steve Smith. The bad news is Cam Newton is a mirage and even though they got 422 yards from him they still lost. Carolina sucks.
Cleveland/Cincinnati - I think this outcome shocked everyone, even Bengals fans. The Browns had looked poised to make a dark horse run. They came out flat against a division rival and still looked very unsteady under Shurmur's new offense. They are flashing signs of trouble. Cincinnati on the other hand came out and did the two things they were expected to do: play hard defense and run the ball 35 times. Amazingly it worked. I doubt Cincy wins many more games.
New York Giants/Washington - Everyone wanted to see how the Giants would respond with all their injuries. Poorly is how they responded. I'm very confident that this team is no better than 8-8. Everyone wanted to see if Washington's gangbusters play in the preseason was just the preseason. They came out and worked it on both sides of the ball. Has Rex Grossman grown up enough to handle the role of starting QB? We'll see, I think the jury is out on Washington, they just happened to get a mediocre, probably overrated Giants team.
Cowboys - Yeah everyone thought they'd be good, but they were a significant question mark for me. 3 essentially rookies on the O-Line, injured DBs everywhere, and they just didn't seem to have grasped Rob Ryan's schemes yet. The O-Line played pretty well, and defense looked real good until Scandrick and Jenkins went out. Playing your 4th and 5th CBs sucks. But here is the problem. Dallas has been to the Super Bowl in 15 years. In those 15 years they have developed retarded ways of losing winnable ball games. Of course, this year looks no different. The blame isn't on Tony Romo. In fact he was a big reason they were winning. It was combination of that ridiculous punt block, ridiculous play call on the goal line where Romo fumbled, super backup CBs playing and yes Tony's really bad interception. But the blame isnt on Tony, it's on a lot of people.
Lions/Bucs - How good is Detroit? They look pretty good. Stafford stayed upright and torched a decent TB pass defense. Having Calvin helps and he looks excited to have Stafford throwing to him too. If they are to be a playoff team they need to continue rolling on offense. Tampa Bay didn't play bad, but they just couldn't or wouldn't run the ball, which was a huge strength last year. In the matchup of everyone else's dark horse versus mine, I seemed to lose. But I think Tampa Bay will play tough all year.
This week gives several teams a chance to get their groove back. Pittsburgh looked worse than anyone this weekend and they get a crack at Seattle. Dallas gets to rebound and try to put the screws to a very vanilla offense and beatable defense. I think these two teams bounce back with a vengeance.
The Colts get a chance to beat someone in Cleveland, but for that to happen they need to get back to running the football. I think that game is very close with Cleveland taking it.
Chicago gets a 2nd straight chance to whoop up on the NFC South (which surprisingly went 0-4 last week). Everyone thought Chicago would fall off from last year, me included and a win here would really solidify them by taking out Atlanta and New Orleans.
Lastly, New England gets a much better test in San Diego than Miami. The Pats gave up nearly 500 yards of offense. That offense can be spectacular but to be championship worthy that defense needs to figure it out. This should be a good litmus test game for both teams. I think the Pats get edge in their home opener.
We live for the weekend this time of year lets enjoy it!
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