A fairly solid 31-21 win over Maryland leads West Virginia into their first Big 12 game of the season against Baylor. The biggest win of the week was Oregon's dominating performance over Arizona. They shut out an Arizona offense that beat Oklahoma State 59-38. There are plenty of teams that can rack up points. Oregon can score points everyone knows this. But the big difference between the SEC teams and the rest of the country has been defense. Alabama can completely shut down an offense. So when you match them up with a team that can score but can't play solid defense, Alabama wins. By shutting down Arizona, Oregon showed they can play defense. At this point if they stay undefeated and Alabama stays undefeated those two teams will play for the championship.
Another team that had a big test this last week was Florida State. They did win their game, but they allowed Clemson to score 37 points. This means Florida State is really good, but they are not on the same level as an Alabama or now an Oregon.
The other big story from the weekend in terms of the top teams was the struggle that LSU had with Auburn. Everyone remembers how awful the LSU offense looked last year in the championship game and no one wants to see that again. Struggling to score points against a not very good Auburn team was enough to drop them down the line.
We have talk a bit about the Big 12 and the Big 10. The Big 12 are in rare territory. The top two teams representing the Big 12 are the current UCFC title holders, West Virginia, and upstart Kansas State. The voters always look first to the big programs like Oklahoma and Texas and so this actually hurts the Big 12's chances of making the BCS championship game unless odd things happen.
The other team that deserves some mention here is Western Kentucky. I talked last week about coaches being the big story and part of the story was Willie Taggart. He continued to build his resume with a solid win over Southern Mississippi 42-17. I don't know how Western will close out the season, but I would not be surprised to see Taggart sign with a major program at the end of the season.
Here are the games I'm interested in this week.
Ohio State at Michigan State
I find it hard to believe, but Ohio State may end up winning the Big 10. If they knock of Michigan State I wouldn't be surprised to seem them start creeping up the polls.
Texas at Oklahoma State
As I said the pollster want a big named school to represent the Big 12. If Texas wins in a convincing manner I wouldn't be surprised to see them jump past West Virginia and Kansas State.
Oregon State at Arizona
I'm very intrigued by Oregon State and want to see them keep winning. It would be great if the Pac 12 came down to Oregon State and Oregon.
Good report. Personally, I'm keeping an eye on Notre Dame and Florida State. The Irish are 4-0 for the first time since 2002, and for only the second time since 1993. The Noles are 4-0 for the first time since 2005. These are two programs that have given SEC schools a lot of headaches in the past. If they're on the road back with their new coaches, the college football landscape will chance significantly.
ReplyDeleteI find it hard to judge Notre Dame since they have been playing so many games against the Big 10. But I have been impressed by their defensive efforts and I do believe that defense in the college game right now is very critical.
ReplyDeleteI'm really curious to see what Urban Meyer does at Ohio State.
As far as we know, WKU might be the nation's second-best team.
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