ut UGA VI and it is important to recognize his contribution to the team. Under his reign as mascot, Georgia won two SEC championships (2002 and 2005), two Sugar Bowl victories (2003 and 2008) and more victories over ranked opponents than any other Uga. May he rest in peace.What did we learn about Matthew Stafford? He played a great game...had a career high 275 yards against a I-AA school...and still has yet to throw for 300 yards in a game. In conclusion, no insight gained here. The offensive line looked good paving the way for 6.6 yards per carry. Even against an unranked, 1-AA opponent, that's an impressive number. Then again, I have always considered their O-line to be fine. Let's briefly review last year. The O-line gave up a total of 15 sacks. If you don't think that's significant, just ask Rudy Carpenter or Jimmy Clausen for their opinions. Also, a freshman running back (i.e., Knowshon Moreno) managed to average 5.38 yards per carry, which is around the top 30 of all players if you just consider those with 150+ carries. Georgia's overall average was somewhat lower (4.53 ypc), but having a QB who rushed for negative yards on the season doesn't help that stat. As for Moreno, in this first game of 2008 he carried the ball just eight times, but three of those were for touchdowns.
2. Ohio State v. Youngstown State (43-0). Ryan Pretorius tied a school record for field goals with 5 against Youngstown State. Certainly they were playing it conservative to prevent injury (ironically, Beanie Wells left the game with an injury, came back with a boot but ultimately the results were negative). So while the offense didn't wow me, all three quarterbacks looked good and the defense is perfect in the only category that really counts, scoring.3. USC @ Virginia (52-7). This game really couldn't show us much as they were basically playing a high school team in Virginia, who only returned ten starters and 30 lettermen from last year. Mark Sanchez looked great despite favoring his knee somewhat during warm-ups. Impressive= seven different Trojans scored touchdowns. Otherwise, nothing to conclude here.
4. Oklahoma v. Chattanooga (57-2). Nothing really to learn...they played Chattanooga.
5. Florida v. Hawaii (56-10). I was impressed by the fact that Tim Tebow didn't score a rushing touchdown. Going into Saturday's game against Hawaii, he had 14 straight games with at least one rushing and one passing touchdown. If Florida wants to win another title, it can't be the Tim Tebow show. Tebow can either lead this team to another national championship or himself to another Heisman trophy, but not both. 11 different players had at lest one rush in this game and true freshman Jeffrey Demps led with 76 yards (okay, so 62 of those yards were on one touchdown play). Florida's defense showed up with two interceptions returned for touchdowns. In 13 games last season they did that just once. On a negative note, 13 penalties for 90 yards...sloppy.
6. Missouri v. Illinois (52-42). Saying that Missouri is only going to be as good as it's defense allows it to be is getting to be a little old.
So let's talk about Illinois for a moment. In last year's Rose bowl the reason Illinois struggled was because USC stopped their run game. In the first half of that game, they had multiple running plays for negative yards and just under 40 yards net rushing. In the second half they had to play catch-up and pass the ball more. They did that successfully, but without the ground game and down by three scores at the half, they were already demoralized. Something to recognize from 2007 is that Illinois averaged over 300 rushing yards per game in their 9 wins but just 134 rushing yards per game in their 4 losses. What happened on Saturday against Missouri? They had a net of negative rushing yards in the first half and had to play catch-up and pass the ball more. They did that successfully, but without a Rashard Mendenhall to power the ground game and down by three scores at the half, it made it tough to surmount the deficit despite a solid second half effort. If it sounds like I'm writing the same thing from above, I am. Illinois must run the ball successfully to win.
7. LSU v. Appalachian State (41-13). Charles Scott looked good with 144 yards and 2 touchdowns in the first half. Again, nothing new here. Les Miles is 15-0 in non-conference games and has outscored those opponents 540-123.
8. West Virginia v. Villanova (48-21). Pat White passed Marc Bulger for the most total yards in school history and became the 4th West Virginia quarterback to throw five touchdowns in a single game. He completed 25-33 passes and added another 63 yards rushing. Why I'm not convinced about his success just yet? His 6.3 yards per completion and the fact that this was against Villanova. But what I learned about Pat White this week came more from Michigan v. Utah (23-25). Rich Rodriguez may have "stepped up" to Michigan but he must be really missing White right now.
Speaking of Michigan, I was pretty surprised that their defense looked so poor despite returning
7 starters. They allowed 253 yards and a touchdown in the first half alone. This unit struggled against the spread last year, but I was surprised to see that was still the case with spread-guru-Rodriguez in place. On offense, Jake Long and Mike Hart were clearly missed as Michigan had a total of 36 rushing yards. It makes a big difference when you don't have a 100-yard-per-game rusher to rely on. On a positive note, Steven Threet looked good, despite the fact that Nick Sheridan actually had better numbers. And the defense looked much better in the second half, allowing just 50 passing yards and coming up with an interception. Utah only had a total of 36 rushing yards themselves so this defensive unit did something right. In conclusion, I don't think this loss says anything about Rodriguez or Michigan. We knew their offense was decimated and we knew this affect their defense by keeping them on the field longer (almost 36 minutes). Michigan is rebuilding and maybe this loss knocked some of the arrogance out of Rich-Rod.9. Clemson v. Alabama (10-34). No one can say that they are surprised that Alabama won this game. That was a thought in the back of everyone's mind going into it. It's just how badly they lost. But, this is the challenge for Tommy Bowden's team. The can't snap themselves out of it when things don't go their way. This game is an example and hopefully this season won't be. If they can pull a Memento here and forget this game just happened, Clemson should still be fine to win the ACC.
10. Auburn v. Louisiana-Monroe (34-0). Inconclusive. Chris Todd completed 50% of his passes for 70 yards. Hopefully he's just warming up. The rushing attack was the focus for the Tigers with 6 different players rushing for 321 yards. But the lack of offensive scoring was a bit scary. They had their only rushing touchdown while up 17-0 and their only passing touchdown while up 24-0.
Finally, the Tennesse @ UCLA (24-27 OT) game was the best game I watched all week.
Despite Jonathan Crompton's numbers (19-41, 189 yards, INT), he made good decisions at times and placed the ball downfield well...at times. But where was his offensive line? Remember, the guys who gave up just 4 sacks all of last year? Crompton was under duress for a good portion of the night and had to throw the ball away on numerous occasions. Montario Hardesty looked strong. Arian Foster also looked good despite the inopportune fumble. And at first the Volunteers secondary looked great, but they completely gave in to Norm Chow in the 4th quarter. Bruins quarterback Kevin Craft started out the game 7-18, 66 yards and 4 INTs in the first half. But his second half was a different story. He made sharp, accurate throws and completed about 75% of his passes (18-25, 193 yards, TD). This game was sloppy with many mistakes, but I think both of these teams have great potential and I was impressed overall with what I saw.
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