Power 5 week 10 recap: Give me a break
Michigan continues their spiral, Indiana is Squints Palledorous, and the Big 10 and Pac-12 get their usual helping of scorn.
By: The Waco Kid
The Big 10 makes me want to run into an uninhabited mountain cabin and hide with Mack Brown until collegiate teams can determine what is right and wrong in the football world. #13 Wisconsin and Michigan faced off Saturday night in Ann Arbor, where Wolverine quarterback Joe Milton started the night off 2-2. When I say 2-2, I mean he threw two interceptions to the Wisconsin defense before he completed a pass to his own team. This was a team that began the season ranked in the top 20 to start the year. I can only imagine UM fans are glad that the university never signed a lifetime deal with “Jim Reaper” Harbaugh. He comes with intentions of killing every other coach, but at the end of the day is cool with killing his own program. There’s no need to add stats to this one, the Badgers dammed up the Big House and left no way out for Michigan. Wisconsin returned to Madison with a 49-11 victory. No one knows what the future holds for Harbaugh but one thing is sure:
Photo: via AZ Quotes
Murphy’s law explained to a T…
Indiana continues their movie script season, challenging each and every opposing offense while telling them that “you play ball like a girl.” Backed by their defensive effort that has forced 12 sacks and 13 turnovers to start conference play, there have been few disputes to this claim. On Saturday, IU took on the Michigan State Spartans, and let’s just say they are not the team of years past. Indiana went into East Lansing and showed no mercy sending the home team back into the locker room with a 24 to nothing shutout.
This year the Hoosiers seem to be like something out of The Sandlot. They are underdogs but nonetheless overcome the daunting issues they face. Aligning with the progressive ideologies of this film, the Hoosier football team has come to embody a program that portrays a universal future for all adolescents in this country. It brings together all people, regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation, rural or urban, to root for a team that any other year may have been overlooked. Indiana is the Squints of the Big 10 and they may have a chance to court the most valuable of trophies this year. This is an IU team that only knows winning and Wendy Peffercorn. And if we lose either we may have truly lost our American identity.
Ohio State will always put out a good team but who knows what is going on with the rest of the conference. The OSU-Maryland game was an intriguing matchup because it featured two quarterbacks who previously led SEC teams. Justin Fields now with Ohio State and Tualia Tagovailoa with Maryland. I would have loved to see these two face off because offensively it would have been a shootout. Unfortunately, the game was cancelled due to COVID concerns. OSU will probably have an easy path into the playoffs, outside of Indiana, but it would have been interesting to see what these two quarterbacks could have done against each other.
Rant challenge accepted. Thanks to management here at B&S, you get to read about how much the Big 10 is overrated and why Wisconsin or Ohio State are nowhere near being the best teams in the country. Yes both teams are undefeated, the Badgers with an impressive two wins, while the Buckeyes have put three up of their own. But let’s take a minute to review these wins, between the five total games these two have played, their opponents have won four games out of the sixteen matchups they have been able to suit up for. Thank goodness I am not a math major or I might point out that this means the majority of Big 10 teams have a 1 in 4 chance of winning games. In this year of condensed scheduling that equates to two maybe three wins throughout the season. To put that in perspective there is only one team with under two wins in the SEC, and to no surprise that is Vanderbilt. This means that for most Big 10 teams, only playing an 8-game schedule and being 4 weeks in, the probability of the conference having more than 6 teams finishing at over .500 is very low. I may be wrong so fact check me pollsters.
We will get the chance to see just how top heavy, or poor, the conference is this week when #9 Indiana travels to Columbus to take on the #3 Buckeyes. I’m no fool, I know elite when I see it, and Justin Fields is elite, but for those of us who want to believe in an underdog; Indiana would be a hell of a team to see run the tables. Even if Indiana won, OSU would probably still make the playoffs on a technicality or an inside job. Wisconsin will hands down beat Minnesota but the rest of their games are up for grabs. We can keep them as a contender as long as possible, but if they lose one game in a 6 game season, their playoff aspirations are over.
As we know, last weekend Reggie Bush decided to put Oregon, Oklahoma State, and BYU in his top 8 playoff contenders over A&M and Cincinnati. I am by no means saying that he was wrong, I am just saying that he was not right. The only thing more expected was if USC was put in the top 8 over BYU. This is absolutely insane based off of the Pac-12 schedule that has been played to date and the upcoming schedule. You want to tell me that a team that plays 6 games is more deserving than a team that plays 8-10 with one loss? Or that an OK State team with a loss to a Texas program, that is begging anyone to be the head coach, is a quality loss? And then there's BYU - everyone wants to talk about how winning your conference is impressive, what conference do they play in? Their top opponents have been Navy or Houston and that does not scream playoff quality. I understand reaching the masses, I just think this is quite an overreach.
Hate to see bad calls, but it happens.
The Pac-12 has one team that will win out and unfortunately will be considered for the playoffs, like discussed above and it will be Oregon. The Ducks most recently beat Washington State, 43-29. It actually ended up being a 19-14 Washington State lead at halftime but Oregon came back and piled on 22 in the fourth to put away the Coogs. Quarterback Tyler Shough continued his far from reality dream of the Heisman trophy, passing for 312 yards and 4 touchdowns. Good quarterback but not enough time to gain on the others leading the Heisman race. Oregon has a brutal schedule ahead featuring four teams with a combined two wins on the season. It is beyond me why anyone would think to rank them outside of the top 5 teams in the country.
Meme via Sportige.com
USC played too and boy was I rooting for a Kevin Sumlin Arizona upset. Not only do I respect Sumlin for his time in the SEC, but he has a way of putting together offensive players that should have no chance at winning, and turning them into top notch performances. Absurd claim? Check Case Keenum, Johnny Manziel, or Mike Evans. For the majority of the Arizona-USC game this proved true. Grant Gunnell followed Sumlin to Arizona after he left A&M and has shown the poise of a top tier quarterback. In this game he threw for 286 yards, 3 touchdowns and an interception, which are good numbers for a power 5 QB. USC ultimately won on a missed interception in the red zone which led to the go ahead touchdown run of Vavae Malepeai. Arizona dropped in a heart breaker 34-30, but I think this should say more about the future of the Wildcat program than the present Trojan program.
The ACC had a few games as well, none that should have been interesting but one that was. Notre Dame took care of Boston College, in a 45-31 win. Seems closer than it should, but in reality it was not. Ian Book took care of business passing for 283 yards and 3 touchdowns and rushing for another 85 yards and a score. This game was over in the first half with Notre Dame leading, 31-16.
Sorry, this is just what comes up when you google Irish football.
Miami kept it a little too close for comfort only defeating the Virginia Tech Hokies, by one point after the go ahead Canes score in the fourth quarter to solidify the win, 25-24. Miami started the year off hot with quarterback D’Eriq King but he has seemed to take a back seat to the other top performers in the nation. It will be interesting to see if he can manage his way back into a Heisman contention. After all, his only loss is to the Clemson Tigers.
I am going to end off the night in a different way. Not with a Power 5 conference or a top ten team, but a top 25 team fighting for national recognition, after receiving the death penalty 33 years ago. Everyone remembers the SMU teams of old, Doak Walker, Eric Dickerson, Don Meredith…the Mustangs were a team to be feared year in and year out. It was a team proud in tradition and Texas football mentality. Recently, they have come close to recapturing that mind set. SMU started the year out strong but have since fallen in two games including this past weekend’s loss against Tulsa. “Ex Tex” Shane Buechele had a rough night only throwing for 200 yards and a touchdown which was highly unexpected from the SMU QB. This led to the fall of the Dallas squad, 28-24. But I am still all about it, Pony up!
Photo: via @SMU_Football
This should be a blemish on the Mustang resume, if we are going to rank Cincinnati at #7 should SMU’s only other loss really be looked at as a bad loss? I mean by the CFP mentality, Texas lost to unranked Oklahoma and TCU teams, while Oklahoma lost to unranked Iowa State and unranked Kansas State, so why should they be ranked any higher than a team that suffered a loss to an unranked team and a top 10 ranked opponent?
The SEC still rules the nation but in the upcoming weeks, we will see which teams enter the upper echelon or fall to mediocrity in conferences around the nation.
See you next week on the couch.