NFL Rookie Report (after almost 4 weeks)

St. Louis’ Donnie Avery was targeted 7 times yesterday—but had just 3 catches for 22 yards. What impressed me most was his one and only carry of the game that went for 37 yards for a touchdown. He looked really fast and his score provided the Rams with their first 1^st quarter points of the season—as well as their first lead this year. It didn’t last though. Although Steven Jackson had a big day going over 100 yards and a scoring a touchdown himself, perhaps utilizing Avery more would help—the Rams are ranked at the bottom of the league in rushing offense (29^th) and not too far ahead in passing offense (25^th). Trent Green cannot be the answer and clearly Scott Linehan wasn’t either. It should be interesting to see what happens as Jim Haslett takes over the team for the interim. And Avery is someone to keep watching. He was the first receiver taken in the 2008 NFL draft so someone thought he was worth it.

DeSean Jackson had some big plays for Philadelphia last night and some really bad plays. Good passes by McNabb at times contributed to that—and poor passes by McNabb at times hurt him. He had the first touchdown of his NFL career (as we all know, it would have been his second, but he dropped the first one in premature celebration against Dallas). Sure Jackson made some mistakes (like fumbling a punt on his own 24 yard line)—but these guys need to be humbled every now and then. After that, he looked somewhat hesitant on punt returns and let the next one bounce past him to give the Eagles poor field position on the 4-yard line. Ironically, this guy was a great punt returner in college as he holds the Pac-10 record for the most punt returns for touchdowns (6). However, most of his brilliance came in 2006—four of his returns went for touchdowns that year. In his first two years at Cal he had almost a 20% rate of returns for touchdowns. But last year he didn’t have a single return for a touchdown after the first game of the year. Perhaps it was due to teams kicking away from him—or partially because of Cal’s monumental collapse, losing six of their last seven games. But the Eagles got to see both sides of Desean Jackson last night—the confident, cocky player—and the uncertain one who makes mistakes and fails to make plays. Luckily for them, having watched this guy play for three years in college and the first few games this year—I think he’s the former.

Another rookie in that Bears v. Eagles game was Matt Forte. While his numbers weren’t good this week—in fact, his worst numbers yet—his plays were great. Especially at the end of the game, he was able to get crucial movement and first downs for Chicago. He also has established himself as a receiver. After Reggie Bush and Steven Jackson, he’s next on the list in terms of backs who are looked to for the passing game. Of course, Kyle Orton is going to need to stop overthrowing the ball so much if those numbers are going to improve.

For Houston, rookie running back Steve Slaton was targeted 8 times and had 8 receptions. So in a week like this where Houston struggled to run the ball against a pretty decent Jaguar rush defense (of course, when you’re Houston weeks like this happen all of the time. They’re just 22^nd in rushing offense and have the second least number of rushing touchdowns in the league). With that said, Slaton is getting most of the carries so I expect that number to improve as the Texans find some balance and get their passing game going. They did that this week and lost by just three points—their smallest margin of defeat all year. Andre Johnson hasn’t helped matters by being completely unreliable the last two weeks-- catching just around 25% of balls thrown his way. Either he will help out the offense or perhaps Slaton will become even more involved. Not sure if next week is the week for the passing game to flourish though when the Colts come to town with the 2^nd best passing defense in the league. However, Slaton may be the key as Indianapolis also happens to hold the 2^nd worst rushing defense in the league.

Perhaps somewhat expected, Tennessee’s Chris Johnson had his least productive game moving the ball against Minnesota’s 4^th best rushing defense in the league. He had just 61 yards. However, he did earn his first two rushing touchdowns of the year and his NFL career (not his first touchdown though as that was a reception in Week 1). Again—somewhat expected since when it comes to rushing touchdowns, the Vikings defense is one of the worst. According to Fantasy stats so far this year, Johnson is bordering on being a number one back. Of course—a lot can change over the next few months. I might wait to start him next week against Baltimore until I see how the rookie Rashard Mendenhall handles the Ravens Defense tonight.

Denver’s Eddie Royal—who happened to be just the 3^rd best receiver at Virginia Tech last year in receiving yards per game—has led the Broncos in receiving yards in two of their four games this year. This week he had his second 100+ yard game. He has two touchdowns already and I like his chances to score next week against Tampa Bay.

Jonathan Stewart may not get a lot of carries for the Carolina Panthers with DeAngelo Williams there (he’s averaging just 11 per game). The good news is that it looks like he’s at least splitting carries with Williams and he already has four touchdowns on the year. That’s the second most in the league—and tied with LT.

If Dallas wasn’t sure how to lose a game (other than allowing Tony Romo to be distracted by Jessica Simpson), they learned last night—just don’t run the ball...at all. Rookie Felix Jones didn’t have a single carry in the game. While Jones is simply there to complement Marion Barber—he can’t do much if Barber himself is only getting eight carries, as he did on Sunday against Washington. From a fantasy perspective, Jones will be helpful as long as he continues to score and make the most of the few carries that he does see.

As for the guy who ran ahead of Jones at Arkansas, Darren McFadden was impressive in the first two weeks. But a toe injury has decreased his production the past two weeks and his yards per carry have declined. With Justin Fargas out that leaves Michael Bush, who technically isn’t a rookie, but was recovering all of last year on the PUP list from the broken tibia injury that sidelined him for his entire senior season at Louisville (other than the first game) and ended his college career. But it looks like McFadden and Fargas are expected to return after next week’s bye so it will be important to keep an eye on how and when Bush is used.

Finally, on Monday Night Football, we have Rashard Mendenhall for the Steelers against a Raven’s 3^rd ranked rushing defense that hasn’t allowed a touchdown in two games. And Joe Flacco faces the 6^th best passing defense that has only given up two passing touchdowns this year. At least we’ll find out what these rookies are made of tonight. By the way, I hate the Steelers and the Ravens so other than scouting fantasy players, there's not much for me to enjoy tonight.

Week 5 College Football: The Fall to the Unranked

#1USC@Oregon State (21-27). USC had no answer for the Rodgers brothers and were consistently beat at the line—both lines. Maybe they did lose something last year when seven of their players were chosen in the first two rounds of the NFL Draft? They only returned 4 starters on offense and 7 starters on defense. Mark Sanchez was pressured all night and he struggled all night. But most importantly, Oregon State’s Jacquizz Rodgers ran for 186 yards and 2 touchdowns behind a strong offensive line and slippery moves that evaded the USC defenders. Yes, this was the same Oregon State team that was demolished by Penn State just one week ago 45-14.

And now that Duke beat UVA 31-3, it puts USC’s win over UVA in Week 1 into perspective. Perhaps if people had realized earlier this year that Virginia’s team had been completely depleted, they wouldn’t have put so much value on USC’s 52-7 victory over them and wouldn’t have moved them to the number one spot and then the number one team in the nation wouldn’t have been defeated by an unranked opponent this week. This is why pre-season rankings and early season rankings are so meaningless.

Maryland@#20Clemson (20-17). Last year in their three losses, Clemson was held to a net of 30 yards rushing per game. And in their loss to Alabama this year, they had a net of 0 rushing yards. It seemed that the key to winning was making sure James Davis and CJ Spiller could run. Unfortunately, that was not the answer as today Spiller and Davis each had over 100 yards rushing in their 20-17 loss to Maryland. Part of the problem was Clemson’s three turnovers. And Cullen Harper passed for just 151 yards, no touchdowns and an interception. On the year he has just three touchdowns to five interceptions. For Maryland, this was their 4^th straight win over an AP ranked opponent.

Ole Miss@#4 Florida (31-30). Last year 13 top 5 teams fell to unranked opponents. This week so far we have #1 USC and now #4 Florida thanks to a missed extra point, three turnovers (for 10 points) and a huge stop on 4^th and 1. Then again, Florida has done this 6 of the past 7 years—in six of the last seven years they were ranked yet fell to unranked opponents (including twice to Ole Miss):

2007 lost to Auburn

2005 lost to South Carolina

2004 lost to Mississippi St.

2003 lost to Ole Miss

2002 lost to Ole Miss

#9 Wisconsin@Michigan (25-27). Wisconsin was beating Michigan 19-0 but allowed the Wolverines to come back—their biggest comeback in the Big House ever. Michigan won 27-25 thanks to a failed two-point conversion by Wisconsin. Initially it was successful but called back due to an illegal man downfield.

Navy@#16Wake Forest (24-17). Wake Forest entered this game #1 in the nation in turnover margin. They had six turnovers in this game, good for 17 Navy points.

Houston@# 23East Carolina (42-21). After beating two ranked opponents in weeks one and two and starting off the season 3-0, ECU has now lost two in a row.

College Football Week 5 Preview of Alabama@Georgia

Alabama@Georgia (-6.5). Is it possible that USC and Georgia could go down in the same week? Yes, although it's not probable, it is possible. The fact is that these teams have a lot of similarities. Despite all the talking we do about Knowshon Moreno, Alabama is the team leading the SEC in rushing offense thanks to Glenn Coffee and Mark Ingram. When it comes to scoring and rushing defense, these teams are at the top of the game, yet neither of them can brag about their passing defense. They're about equal in the turnover game as well. And most importantly, I happen to dislike both of their quarterbacks even in light of the fact that John Parker Wilson will leave Alabama will all sorts of records and Matthew Stafford will be an over-inflated first round pick in the NFL Draft. But don't get me wrong, if I had to pick one, it's obviously Stafford. His passing efficiency is much improved so far this year. And at least Stafford has an arm on him: 20 passes over 15 yards and 11 passes over 25 yards. He's strongest in the 2nd and 4th quarters, but not on third down (just hitting 50% of his passes). And he leads the top total offense in the SEC. But how is Georgia's young and ever-changing O-line going to hold up against Alabama's defense? They've already allowed 6 sacks this year after giving up a total of just 15 all of last year. And from what we saw in the USC-Oregon State game--it was all about blocking on the line. On a positive note for the Bulldogs, Alabama doesn't have a fantastic passing defense--nowhere near South Carolina's number one ranked unit that held Stafford to just 146 yards and no scores. But, what about true freshman kicker Blair Walsh--he's at 71.4% so far this year in successful field goals so that could be a factor (his predecessor Brandon Coutu was successful on 79% of his career field goals and 100% of his extra points). Could special team make a differnce?

Oddly enough while John Parker Wilson's biggest struggle last year was on 3rd down, completing just 43.9% of those passes, this year he is at his best in that situation (61.8% and 3 TDs this year). Last year Alabama had one of the worst red-zone defenses in the country--this year they've only given up 2 touchdowns in 7 tries. I point this out because while Georgia's passing game has "appeared" to improve--Alabama has also improved in a lot of categories as well. They only lost last year to Georgia by 3 points in overtime so these things could make the difference. Plus, who the hell is going to block Mount Cody for Georgia? Finally, Georgia is the most penalized team in the country and Alabama is one of the least.

My big question for this game is which team is going to be able to run the ball most successfully today? As Alabama has improved under Saban, they may lose, but not by much (largest losing margin in 2007 was 7). So taking Alabama +6.5 isn't a bad idea.

Some other thoughts:
* Georgia has won the last three in the series and is currently holding an 11-game winning streak.
* For Georgia, Knowshon Moreno is averaging 6.6 yards per rush and even more importantly, he already has 9 touchdowns this year. For Alabama, Glenn Coffee has averaged 8.6 yards per rush, but only has 2 touchdowns. But neither have faced worthy opponents on the defensive side of the ball.
* Alabama may have beaten the top ranked rushing defense in Conference USA, but that's a far cry from the top ranked rushing defense in the SEC.

A Girl's Fantasy Week 4

Despite his five rushing touchdowns this weekend, there is a very good reason not to like Ronnie Brown and that’s if you were playing against him or, like Red Dogs owner, Sarah, you benched him against the Patriots. But was it really that unreasonable not to start him against a rushing defense that hadn’t given up a single touchdown in the last nine games? Miss Shortcake owner Alexandra, who played Sarah this week (and beat Sarah this week thanks to that “unfortunate” decision) doesn’t think so. And for those of you out there like me, who can sympathize with Sarah, this weekend brought up some painful memories. Sadly enough, it took me back to September 26, 2004 when Javon Walker had 200 yards receiving and three touchdowns…out of nowhere…and on my bench. He hadn’t had a single touchdown all year and two weeks before that had put up just 37 yards. As a warning to Brown owners, don’t get your hopes up because Walker had just 37 yards and one touchdown the week following his break out performance. And I was never able to redeem myself in that fantasy season---failing to make the playoffs or reap the benefit of Walker’s potential. Walker didn’t put up anywhere close to 200 yards again that season nor did he have three touchdowns again in a single game. And he hasn’t done it since. But, I will never forget it.

Brown has a bye this week so Sarah has an extra week to think about what happened. But for this week, she has to find a flex player out of either Brandon LLoyd or Lee Evans. Evans may not have found the end zone yet in 2008, but he is facing the Rams, currently boasting the worst scoring defense in the league. And while Lloyd has only improved each week, he does face a nice looking Philadelphia defense in week 4. If they sacked Ben Roethlisberger eight times last week, what the hell is Kyle Orton going to do? Then again, it’s not like the Steelers excel when it comes to pass protection. And while Chicago hasn't fared much better, they are improving somewhat now that they finally got rid of that terrible Florida quarterback. The fact is that both Evans and Lloyd have seen about the same number of passes this year, so this one should really come down to which defense she prefers to face and I think it’s an obvious choice.

Strawberry Shortcake (and, yes, our league has divisions called "hot" and "pink" as well as teams named after dolls...and serial killers...and several teams named after people's pets) has already put LaDainian Tomlinson back in her line-up after benching him for Darren Sproles last week. She was scared off by the “not-100%” rumors, but the fact is that LT at 40% is still a beast.

Claudia finally redeemed the Fighting Turtles this week by beating the always-solid Golden Rules. The Turtles have been beyond pathetic this year so my advice to her: 1) drop your defensive back-ups. In leagues where you use independent defensive players there’s no reason to hoard them on your bench because they don’t score enough points alone; 2) Take Maurice Jones-Drew off of Injured Reserve before the Moral Commissioner fines you and replace DeAngelo Williams with him in your line up and 3) As long as you have Donte' Stallworth on IR you should pick up someone to replace him because our league allows that.

Golden Rules owner Melanie will be replacing Peyton Manning with Aaron Rodgers this week and starting the 4th best quarterback in A Girls’ Fantasy points instead of the 13th isn’t too bad of an option. Rodgers is a decent start against Tampa Bay who’s pass defense is struggling and the Buccaneers haven’t given up a single rushing touchdown all year so it’s a lot more likely the Packers will score through the air. Although, please see the Ronnie Brown disclaimer above as I’m only talking about trends not certainties.

Fellow-blogger Leila (see Not Jennifer Aniston) has six players on bye this week so her line-up decisions for Big Cats have already been made by the NFL-scheduling gods. Plus she has Michael Turner who helped her kick my ass last week. Unfortunately for the Black Widows and my own team, the Blonde Devils, life isn’t as simple. We are both in running back hell and should probably be fighting the free agent wires for some players. Christina is looking to start either Jamal Lewis or Rashard Mendenhall this week and I need to decide whether to stick with Ryan Grant and Earnest Graham, who’s teams face each other this week or replace them with rookies Steve Slaton or Johathan Stewart. I like Stewart’s match-up against Atlanta (they’ve allowed a 100+yard rusher in the last two games) but Slaton faces a slightly tougher rush defense in Jacksonville. For Christina, the fact that Mendenhall will be getting the start in place of an injured Willie Parker is negated by the unfortunate match-up against the Ravens. Lewis, on the otherhand, is in the opposite situation. The Bengals are pretty easy to run against and if the Browns actually go through on replacing Derek Anderson with Brady Quinn, they’re going to need to rely on Lewis a little bit more—someone give this guy 20 carries please! And if that happens Purple Haze will have to decide on a replacement for Derek Anderson between Matt Ryan and Trent Edwards. The rookie is still only a "play if the match up is right"guy so she should stick with Edwards against the Rams 30th ranked pass defense.

Speaking of free agent pick-ups, Dientes Locos’ reserve players absolutely suck! Sharon needs to join Christina and me in fighting for some free agents. Maybe we’ll all mud wrestle for them. (Just kidding ladies—was only adding a gratuitous girls fantasy reference for the guys).

Simy Says (Amy--what does that mean, anyway?) will be replacing her bye-week starters with Antwaan Randle-El and Warrick Dunn. The Redskins will need to get creative to beat Dallas and utilizing Randle-El for his many different skills, including quarterback, just might be part of their game plan. In addition, he has the second most receptions for Washington behind Santana Moss. As for Dunn, he sees more receptions than Earnest Graham and is getting around the same number of carries (which isn’t saying much), except for last week when he had less than half the carries, but more yards. And Green Bay has struggled against the run this year so there’s even more potential this week.

H-Town Cagedancers (again—what does that mean?) has to deal with a few byes all at once so unfortunately she is going to have to play Hines Ward against Baltimore this week. She also will have to use Selvin Young at running back against Kansas City, but she should be doing that anyway. The Chiefs along with the Lions are the only two teams in the league currently giving up over 200 yards per game on the ground.

And finally, Frog Legs will be starting one of her two Arizona running backs this week against the Jets, which may be pretty tough for a bottom third rushing team. But she doesn’t really have a choice. And if you’re wondering about the origin of Sarah L’s team name, just know that I bestowed this name upon her as punishment for not giving her team a name before the beginning of the season…completely unaware of the fact that she harbors an intense fear of frogs.

Good luck in Week 4 ; )

College Football Week 4...looking at the SEC (and OSU)...

LSU@Auburn (26-21). For what it’s worth, the winner of this game has gone on to win the SEC West and play in the SEC Championship game in six of the past eight years. Of course, if that’s going to be LSU they’re going to have to find a way to move the ball into the red zone—just ten attempts in three games so far. And while Auburn’s issue typically isn’t getter there, it’s scoring there, this past Saturday they took a page from LSU’s book and their offense only even traveled into LSU territory four times. While Chris Todd looked okay, Ben Tate couldn’t get anything going on the ground. LSU had the opposite problem—Charles Scott was solid and set up their offense with 132 yards rushing. He didn’t average the 11.4 yards per carry had had coming into this game, but he was enough of a threat to detract from the inexperienced LSU quarterbacks (thanks to Ryan Perrilloux).

Perhaps the fact that none of the LSU quarterbacks have ever played a true college road game is why both Andrew Hatch and Jarrett Lee had such a rough welcome to the hostile environment called an SEC Road game, and in particular, Jordan-Hare Statidum. Hatch started the game but flip flopped with Lee and was eventually replaced by him. Lee was 0-5 in the first half, with his fifth attempt going for an interception. But the second half was a different story as he found rhythm (at times) and threw for two touchdowns. Worth noting: he didn’t have a single rushing attempt in the game.

Georgia@Arizona State (27-10). Arizona State looked pretty good at the beginning of this game—the very beggining. They came out playing fast and hard. They entered with the top passing offense in the Pac-10 against the 2^nd worst pass defense in the SEC (against mediocre teams). Of course the idea was to try to pass the ball, which they did. But if you seriously can’t run at all, you can’t possibly beat a top-ranked team (PLEASE NOTE: under no circumstances do I believe Georgia is the top team in the country or the SEC and exactly where I see them ranked will not be discussed until October, when it’s no longer just pure speculation). What can one of the worst rushing offenses in the nation do against one of the best rushing defenses? Nothing. The Sun Devils had a net 4 yards and averaged .2 yards per carry. But, then again, this team lost to UNLV last week. Maybe they actually need Keegan Herring the way Ohio State needs Beanie Wells?

As for Georgia, for those who feel so badly for Matthew Stafford and his “terrible” offensive line, you should note that he was sacked just once in this game, as opposed to Rudy Carpenter who had four. Also note that Stafford had negative yards rushing and just one touchdown pass. But, I will acknowledge, as I have in the past, that this guy can really make some great plays when pressured and while I don’t love the way he manages a game, he does have a good panic button when under pressure.

Troy@Ohio State (10-28). Ohio State entered this game at the bottom of the Big Ten in passing offense, sacks allowed, scoring offense and total offense. Enter Terrelle Pryor.

Yes, they were playing Troy, but this was the first true freshman to start at Ohio State in 30 years. Pryor looked good with 4 touchdowns and his only INT was a hail mary to end the first half. His passes looked effortless. So for a team that only had two passes go for over 15 yards in last two weeks, the Todd Boeckman issue has now been solved. Again, it was against Troy, but it was nice to finally see the Buckeyes hit some touchdowns in the red zone (first three games they had three touchdowns in ten trips—in this game they were 2-2). They were working with a short field on several occasions, which would explain why Pryor had just 139 yards passing yet four touchdowns. He also added 66 yards rushing.

The defense looked shabby at first and in addition to some poor tackling, the Buckeyes allowed Troy to have 150 yards passing in the first half. That changed in the second half though when Ohio State went to four defensive ends to stop the spread and held Troy to just 70 yards passing.

So we know now that Ohio State is not as good as we once thought they were, but that’s also in part due to the fact that they aren’t as experienced as we once thought. For the first time in Buckeye history, a true freshman snapped the ball to a true freshman. And a red-shirt freshman running the ball and this offense is still using training wheels. Their goal, as always, is to win the Big Ten...and they have some big challenges ahead with Wisconsin and Penn State.

It’s not the quantity of yards—it’s the quality.

Now for the sloppy...

Alabama@Arkansas (49-14)

Florida@Tennessee ( 30-6)

Alabama and Florida both looked great on Saturday, but that was thanks in large part to the mistakes of their opponents. One might expect the road team in SEC games to struggle somewhat, but it was the opposite at Razorback and Neyland Stadiums this week. Arkansas outgained Alabama in the first half of the game even though the Tide led 36-7 going into halftime. Quarterback Casey Dick may have passed for 190 yards, but he threw three interceptions—two which were taken directly in for scores. Their four team interceptions led to 21 Crimson Tide points. What was impressive about Alabama? Not John Parker Wilson. He was just 6-14, 74 yards and a touchdown (although that touchdown was his 42^nd did set a new school record as it was his 42^nd career touchdown pass). But their running game, led by Glenn Coffee accumulated 328 yards. Coffee averaged 16.2 yards. Alabama is now 4-0 going into next week’s game against Georgia.

As for that other game, Urban Meyer is now 4-0 against Tennessee. Tennessee looked horrible. Tim Tebow didn’t even have to do much (just 8-15, 96 yards, 2 TDs). Both of the touchdown drives started in Volunteer territory. Tennessee fumbled at their own 30, had a pick go for a touchdown and gave up a punt return for a touchdown.

A Girl's Fantasy vs. A Guy's...fantasy?

I have the pleasure of playing in two completely different fantasy football leagues this fall, one all women, the other, all men (with the exception of me, of course). So far the differences have been vast. In the women's league, our draft took 1 hour and 50 minutes, and that was only because we paused it several times for computer crashes so as not to have technology interfere with the competitive edge of the league. In the guys' league, our draft took 3 hours and 12 minutes. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. In the girls' league, our names are a little too innocent. But, the guys league more than makes up for it. My favorite "I impregnated Bristol Palin." In the girls' league, I trust everyone to pay up so I don't collect the money until after the season is over. In the guys' league, if your dues aren't paid by week 2, your line-up is frozen until payment is made in full. In the women's league, the draft was all business. In the guys' league, it was all talk...discussing what they wouldn't turn down, amongst other things which I won't include here. (Ironic that these guys describe it like that when, from what I hear, the number of women they wouldn't turn down is infinite.) Best comment of the draft is when they were all crying about how long in took and I chimed in...afterward, the comment was "Even the girl thinks it's too long!" Somehow entering a guy's fantasy football league is liking stumbling and falling back into the 1950's. They don't realize that we play this game (we, being women) and we do it just as well, if not better. They can't fathom that a woman could watch football and analyze the stats better than they can. Well, to all of those doubters, consider this: many of us women are actually far superior to you when it comes to math. And, afterall, that's what this game is all about...numbers (and instinct, which is supposed to be our domain anyway).

Week 3: a Big Blow to the Big TEN...but not a bad day

Despite what some may think, the Big Ten actually had a very good day last Saturday (9/13/08). More than we can say about the Pac-10, which lost 70% of it’s games, including four shockers: Washington State to Baylor, California to Maryland, Arizona State to UNLV and UCLA to BYU (okay, so they weren’t expected to win, but they lost by 59 points!) Every team in the Big Ten did exactly what they were supposed to do. Purdue even had a 17-point lead over a far superior Oregon team in the first half. They may have lost that game, but it took the Ducks going to over-time to do it. Michigan State's Javon Ringer put up 282 yards rushing. Wisconsin beat a Fresno State team whom many expected them to lose to and moved up to the Top 10 in the AP Rankings. And the fact is that Michigan v. Notre Dame was a toss up (the spread was an indicator of confusion as to who should win as opposed to what the score the be). Now, as to what happened to Ohio State? Nothing. They just aren’t as good of a team as we expected them to be after last year. While the entire team is to blame for this loss, it is worthwhile to mention that Todd Boeckman most certainly did not do his job, unless of course he was working for USC and then a meager 84 yards coupled with no scores and three turnovers would most certainly have qualified. Number seven was supposed to be the leader of the offense—a guy who you rely on to make good decisions—the man charged with spreading out the USC defense to diffuse their speed and set up the run. Not so much. Okay, so he hasn’t always been the best quarterback, but last weekend’s game he had the second worse passer rating of his career. And for those of you SEC fans who think his lowest must have been against LSU, just know that he had a rating of almost 135 in that game. It was last year’s Michigan game where he really stumbled. And as uninteresting as Ohio State’s defense has looked in 2008, I don’t even blame them for this loss. They were constantly forced to deal with short field positions (including two drives starting within their own 40 yard line). USC only had 350 total yards in this game.

But I’m not convinced that USC is the best football team in the country just yet. I liked their defense and if you look at their last two games against Big Ten opponents (Illinois 1/01/08 and last week’s miserable game), it’s pretty obvious that a team without a strong passing game has no chance to set up the run against them. I think we were all guilty of giving Ohio State too much credit. Last year was a down year for the Big Ten and being the best of the worst doesn’t really say much. (Please note, I am in no way supporting the SEC bandwagon that they are far superior and the Big Ten is weak, I am just stating the obvious, that they had a down year. Nothing more to read into that.). Sanchez looked good against a tired OSU defense but didn’t really bear the burden of moving the ball for 60 minutes. And this is a sloppy Trojan team in their first two games with the high amount of penalties and penalty yards they’ve incurred.

And yet, I stand by my initial belief that the winner of this game plays for the National Title against Oklahoma.

And to my friend Eric, who likes to argue with me for no apparent reason, I’ve dedicated this “Ode to the Gambler” to you. You need to understand that these "odds" don't reflect how good a team is supposed to be, especially in the opening weeks of college football when we essentially know nothing. And I’m sure you already know this, but just wanted to give me a hard time about the Big Ten even though they won the majority of their games, which is more than can be said about the Pac-10. But let me remind you, that the odds simply reflect what "you" think of the teams and how they are going to do. Luckily “you” the gambler will get smarter as the year goes on, just as we all will. Afterall, the information out there right now is pure speculation. Seriously, can pre-season rankings be more of a joke? They're only published because it’s good television and it makes money. It just doesn't make sense to have rankings this early in the year and that's why my rankings, will not be out until October.

By the way, Terrelle Pryor completed almost 80% of his passes.

What We Learned from Week 2 of College Football

While no two ranked opponents faced off in Week 2, there were still some interesting things to learn. But for those of you who think you learned anything watching Ohio State sleepwalk against Ohio University, you need to re-evaluate for college football watching skills. And please keep in mind that this Ohio State team can be very ugly at times. Please see eg., Ohio State v. Akron U., 9/08/2007 and Ohio State@ Washington, 9/15/2007. The Buckeyes rebounded in the 3rd quarter of those games, as opposed to the 4th quarter last week, but still only had three points in the first halves of both of those games.

Miami @ Florida was actually a pleasant surprise with Florida up by just 6 points with 13:25 left in the 4th quarter. On the next play Percy Harvin zoomed around and into the end zone for a two yard touchdown behind the effort of some pretty amazing and absolutely crucial blocks. Game over after that. And even though Tim Tebow was not the main factor in that play, which was possibly the most critical play of the game, he did obviously have a significant role in the game with over 300 all-purpose yards and 2 touchdowns. But, seriously, Musburger, did you really have to call Florida "the Tebows?"

West Virginia @ East Carolina. Was anyone really shocked about this one? Yes, it's a great win. It's just that it wasn't completely inconceivable. I think 2007 may have numbed many of us to the idea of unranked teams defeating ranked opponents. And for those of you calling ECU this year's Hawaii, that's such a meaningless term and really the equivalent of calling them this year's BCS-Impostor (i.e., a team that could go undefeated, yet un-proven and end up in a BCS Bowl game where they will be exposed for the non-BCS team that they truly are). Let's review the 2007 Hawaii team for a moment. Hawaii beat not three, not two, but just one ranked team. That would be Boise State. And just how good was that 19th-ranked-Boise State team (that would eventually end the season unranked)? Well, they didn't beat a single ranked opponent all year and they only entered the top-25 in November after waiting around for all of the ranked teams to kill each other off. And for what it's worth, Boise State finished the year with a loss to East Carolina in the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl Game (I won't even comment on that ridiculous name for now). But if you're going to give credit to Hawaii for beating Boise, then I suppose credit must also be given to ECU since the Broncos were actually ranked 24th at the time. ECU has now beaten two more ranked opponents back-to-back (#17 Virginia Tech and #8 West Virginia) and is reminding me of their 1999 squad, but better. Can't we just call them this year's BCS-Wildcard? I find that much less insulting.

What we learned the first week of College Football

1. Georgia v. Georgia Southern (45-21). First and most importantly, this is the first game for Georgia without 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.