College NCAA Football Thread 2015

[Guardsman Bass]

I figured I might as well start a dedicated thread for college football, if anyone's interested.

The Utes moved up to #4 on sunday. They sure didn't look like a #4 team to me, though, in the game against Cal - it looked like they were struggling. Lots of mistakes, at least two picks that can be laid almost entirely at Travis Wilson's feet (slow, wobby, low passes), and so forth. I'm worried they'll get absolutely killed when they go up against another decent Pac-12 team.

[Tsyroc]

My main team, the Iowa Hawkeyes, is currently undefeated. I don't expect them to stay that way but the at least appear to have some life to them, unlike last year.

The Arizona Wildcats, my other team, still have what I consider their usual built in Rich Rod issues. The offense might light it up fairly regularly but match that defense up against the right sort of offense and they are going to lose. At least they keep it interesting.

[Guardsman Bass]

Hey, the Utes won! I'm pretty happy about that, although I'm skeptical as to whether the rankings will change. OSU, Baylor, and TCU all decisively won their games as well.

[Tsyroc]

Hey, the Utes won! I'm pretty happy about that, although I'm skeptical as to whether the rankings will change. OSU, Baylor, and TCU all decisively won their games as well.

I'd kind of like to see Utah win the Pac-12 this year. I don't think Arizona (or ASU) have much of a shot left so I'd rather see one of the new teams win it. I especially like that Utah's coach has been there awhile and doesn't appear to be even considering leaving for another job.

Iowa won, and did much better than I was expecting. They still don't seem to be at a super high level in the skill positions but they are playing tough and hard and so far that has been doing it for them. They are 7-0 and off next weekend. It's not impossible to think that they could win the rest of their games and win the Big Ten West. They could even win it without going undefeated. Supposedly they have an easy schedule left but they've tended to have issues with the teams remaining, and Nebraska could be a pretty good team if they just get their shit together and finish games.

[Balrog]

Iowa won, and did much better than I was expecting. They still don't seem to be at a super high level in the skill positions but they are playing tough and hard and so far that has been doing it for them. They are 7-0 and off next weekend. It's not impossible to think that they could win the rest of their games and win the Big Ten West. They could even win it without going undefeated. Supposedly they have an easy schedule left but they've tended to have issues with the teams remaining, and Nebraska could be a pretty good team if they just get their shit together and finish games.

Nebraska is having an off-year though, so I can definitely see the Hawkeyes going perfect in the regular season. Still, even if/when they drop one or two games they'll still make it to the B1G Ten Championships, where they'll lose to either Ohio State or MSU and help pad the winner's resume for the CFP.

Speaking of MSU, but holy shit were those final ten seconds a wild ride. It's still taken me a few days to fully process what exactly happened. I was impressed that Michigan has managed to bounced back and made it a good game. They may have been on track to win the game, but that was a very evenly-matched game and it honestly could've gone to either team.

[Lord MJ]

Georgia Tech's long run of Bowl appearances looks to end this year.

Not many people think of GT when they think of major college powers. But as of today, only Florida State and Virginia Tech have longer streaks, and we are tied with Georgia.

Having the bowl streak end, particularly the year after winning an Orange Bowl is totally shocking to me.

[Guardsman Bass]

Mother-fucking-hell, Utes.

The sad thing about this is that in terms of stats, the Utes actually played well (albeit not as good as USC), with two glaring exceptions: time of possession and interceptions (of which Wilson threw four). The ones in the second quarter were entirely on him, in my opinion - they were low, shitty, slow passes just begging to be picked off by a decent defender. In fact, considering that Wilson throws passes like that all the time from prior games I've seen in him, that's unsurprising.

And that's what ultimately fucked up the Utes the most. USC got two touchdowns up just from those fucking 2nd quarter picks (one was a pick-six, the other a TD shortly thereafter), and the other two interceptions in the dismal second half of the game killed virtually any attempt that Utah might make to catch up. I'm grateful they managed to score at least one touchdown in the second half at all.

Ugh. It's not all bad - they're still in the lead in the Pac-12 South, which means they can recover, win the Pac-12 South, and then maybe the Pac-12 Conference. But they're going to drop like a fucking stone in the rankings tomorrow.

Georgia Tech's long run of Bowl appearances looks to end this year.

Well, you'll be a little bit closer to a Bowl Game after beating the #9 Seminoles today.

[Block]

I was at the game Bass. The Utes got murdered everywhere but special teams. They had nothing going all night. Hopefully for you guy Wilson's performance was an aberration because he could've easily thrown 2 more picks.

[Guardsman Bass]

I thought that too watching the game on TV, but look at the stats link I posted to. There's no question that USC outplayed the Utes, but on everything but interceptions and time of possession they were close. If Wilson hadn't thrown a bunch of shitty picks we still probably would have lost, but it would have much closer.

I'm not confident he won't do that again, either. I've seen it in his prior games - he has a bad tendency to throw low, often slow passes. It's a bit surprising he hasn't had more interceptions this season.

Bleh. At least we didn't drop as far as I thought we would - only to #14. Hopefully the Utes will pull themselves together and play better in the rest of their games.

Sorry about that injured guy, Tsyroc. I heard Iowa State had a player take a nasty injury.

[Tsyroc]

Iowa made it to 8-0 with a win over Maryland, 31-15.

What is kind of interesting is what different reporters have had to say about it. Some were kind of snotty and disparaging about it because Iowa didn't appear to crush Maryland. USA Today probably gave them a little too much credit considering the offense was pretty lame in the second half and the special teams gave up a TD on a kick return. Oh well, it's not like what is being said about the team really matters. They just need to keep winning.

I still think it's a bit of a pipe dream that they will go undefeated. They might have a chance in the regular season. I think the odds get more against them if you start thinking Big Ten championship game and beyond.

One thing I read recently that amused me had to do with Iowa (and Stanford) being two college teams that actually use fullbacks. So many teams run the spread now that the old school blocking fullback (and tightends) can be a bit of a challenge to teams who hardly see it.

[Balrog]

*holds out the Necronomicon* "klaatu barada nik*coughcough*"

We're getting close to the time when the real bowl games begin (it's extra ridicules that they let 5-7 teams in) and there are some interesting games coming up. I think Notre Dame playing THE Ohio State University will be fun to watch, as will Michigan-Florida, and of course there are the Playoffs (Go Green!)

It's been a few weeks, but I thought the MSU-Iowa game was great to watch, a classic slugfest which came down to an amazing final series of plays by the Spartans, and I'm happy that Iowa wasn't punished for their loss and will play Stanford in the Rose Bowl. I think they honestly have a damn good chance of beating them. I also think MSU has a better chance of beating 'Bama than a lot of people have said, and though it will be a close game I'm predicting they'll win in the end.