Quick Picks Recap: Week 2

One fewer game picked, one less loss. Not a bad week with a 4-2 record. Leave it to Tennessee and West Virginia to screw up a perfect week. With all the craziness going on in college football yesterday, I consider this a highly successful week. There were some real classic games, and just tons of excitement. Reason 1,321 why college football is superior to the NFL in all ways aside from the overall talent pool.


Some late game heroics by USC and Wake Forest helped push my season record to 8-5. We need to get some separation from .500 though in the coming weeks.

College Football Weekend Recap

Well, my picks weren't quite as successful as I might have hoped, but I was almost spot on. My record ended at 4-3 with the losses coming by a combined 19 points (14 by Oklahoma over UGA). Not bad considering I didn't expect Sam Bradford to blow up his throwing shoulder or for Georgia to march down the field for 7 points on their opening drive in Stillwater and then score just a field goal the rest of the game.

Brian is 2-0 and I'm 1-1 in our combined Virginia Tech/Notre Dame season predictions. We both had ND over Nevada (which was a laugher of a game I barely watched) and I had the Hokies over Alabama which turned out to be a great game but of course the Hokies fell short.

In unrelated but awesome news, William & Mary defeated Virginia in Charlottesville 26-14 Saturday. The Cavaliers turned the ball over 7 times while debuting their new spread offense. I almost picked this upset not because I thought it would happen, but because I knew it would be hilarious. Turns out I was only half right.

Al Groh Up Some Day

Oh Al Groh, that NFL savvy architect of the budding (any time now) football dynasty at the University of Virginia. While Al takes breaks from ironing his sweatshirt to continue to recruit and scheme for the 2010 national championship run that he's been building towards for nearly a decade, his team has become the worst in the ACC football conference. After losing to an up-and-coming Duke squad (that's the only non-sarcastic part of this post) this past Saturday, the 'Hoos look to rebound against a surprisingly game looking Maryland squad.

The website linked below was started by some Hokies. The aptly named, "Dontfirealgroh.com" pokes fun at one of the easiest targets in college football. Since his hiring as UVa's head football coach in 2001, Groh has helped to insure that Virginia Tech has a lockdown on recruiting in the Commonwealth of Virginia and on good football. His help will not soon be forgotten.

The website is now set up like Facebook, the comments Al's "friends" leave him are great. For example after being fired by the Oakland Raiders today, the fake Lane Kiffin had this...

Lane Kiffin Wrote: Hey, quick question...may seem out of the blue. Just out of curiosity, would you mind emailing me the dimensions of your office? Thx.


Don't Fire Al Groh

Opening Weekend Full Of Surprises

The first full weekend of college football has come and passed us by and left many impressions. Fifteen schools experienced coaching changes during the offseason, including Arkansas, Baylor, Georgia Tech, Hawaii, Houston, Michigan, Mississippi, Navy, Nebraska, Northern Illinois, Southern Methodist, Southern Mississippi, Texas A&M, UCLA, and West Virginia. With so many new faces, new schemes, and new personnel it is no surprise that the opening games for those and many other teams were a little rough. Below are some of the things that I took away from the weekend.

Big East teams were thoroughly disappointing. Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Louisville, and Rutgers all lost their openers. Pittsburgh went on top early in their match versus Bowling Green but let the Falcons take advantage miscues in the second half. Rutgers lost to a very solid Fresno State team that seems to always play the BCS schools tough despite not being able to win the WAC conference title in years. Syracuse played like an improved team, but was overwhelmingly unimpressive against the lowly Northwestern Wildcats. Louisville is in a world of a mess and have been ever since former head coach Bobby Petrino left for the Atlanta Falcons (he's now coaching the Arkansas Razorbacks after quitting on the Falcons before the end of last season). 

LSU spoiled Appalachain State's attempt to beat a preseason top 10 team for the second straight year as the Tigers rolled to a 41-13 win. Where's that Tiger? Oh wait, those Tigers crumbled on national television Nick Saban's Alabama Crimson Tide rolled all over Tommy Bowden's Clemson Tigers. It seems as though every year Clemson is bound to have a breakout year. They have the talent, but Bowden has yet to assemble an entire season of solid football. What a shame.

Michigan received a lot of press leading up to the start of the season due to numerous changes (spread offense, new conditioning coach) and drama courtesy of new coach Rich Rodriguez. The Wolverines will likely receive much more attention during the rest of the season, but for different reasons. They looked awful in their bout with the Utah Utes. Utah should have won my a much wider margin but they committed several silly penalties and switched to a prevent defense early in the second half, allowing the Wolverines to climb back in and almost tie the game late. It could be a long season for the skunkbears in Ann Arbor, perhaps reminiscent of the atrocity that was the 2007 Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Florida manhandled Hawaii 56-10. After a scoreless first quarter, the Gators exploded for 56 points in the next two quarters. Yikes. No real shock there, though, since Hawaii lost Colt Brennan to graduation and looked equally as terrible last year in the Sugar Bowl against the Georgia Bulldogs. The rest of the SEC had mixed results. Mississippi State was stunned by Louisiana Tech 22-14, Arkansas narrowly escaped Western Illinois 28-24, and South Carolina overcame a multitude of miscues in their 34-0 win over North Carolina State.

Ohio State cruised to a victory over Youngstown state, setting the stage for a matchup verse the USC Trojans on Sept 13 in what could be the best game of the entire season. USC destroyed Virginia 52-7 in their opener and have a bye this week leading up to their game against the Buckeyes.

As my esteemed colleague Justin mentioned earlier today, Virginia Tech got bit by the upset bug as the East Carolina Pirates created their own version of Beamer Ball by blocking a punt and returning it for a TD late in the game to seal the deal. Skip Holtz's crew fought hard all game, but the real story of the game was Sean Glennon's inability to distribute the ball effectively to the rest of the Hokies' offense. I bet Beamer will rethink his decision to redshit sophomore quarterback Tyrod Taylor.

Missouri and Illinois duked it out to an epic 52-42 score as the Tigers prevailed over the Illini thanks in part to Jeremy Maclin's two returns for TDs.

Arizona gets the award for biggest jerks of the weekend, as they showed no class in a dismantling of the Idaho Vandals.

All in all it was a great start to the season, but to me the real season begins this Saturday at 3:30 pm ET as the Fighting Irish take on the San Diego State Aztecs.