Long Time no.... type?

Hey everyone that has read my blog before(read: my mom) the most wonderful time of the year is in full swing. That's right, College football!! Now, I know I'm a couple(4) weeks late but things have been a bit crazy in the 310 lately, work has kept me pretty busy. That's not a complaint, trust me, because in my line of work time definitely equals money.

Back to the task at hand: College Football. There have been a couple surprises, a couple things we shoulda seen coming, etc. Here are my thoughts, however unorganized they may be. Let me start with my favorite team, my Alma Mater, THE Ohio State University.(Yes, the "THE" is important.)

1. The more I think about that USC game, which I flew back to Columbus just to be on campus for, the more I know we should have won. - Let that soak in, I'm sure some, if not most people would agree with that statement. I'll say it again, Ohio State SHOULD have won that game. The Trojans are NOT who we thought they were (Dennis Green, Anyone? Bueller?). Gone, for now, are the days of putting up points on any team they want to destroy at will. The Matt "douche-face" Barkley era is upon us, which means it's time to hand the ball off for 2.5 quarters and then when the other team is a little tired maybe try throwing the ball. Ohio State kept USC's lack of offense in check for the entire game except that last drive. OSU defense played well the entire game, until they allowed Joe "Bum Beard" McKnight to scamper for a first down on a third and very long. From there is was all down hill.

Say what you want about Jim Tressel's play calling but part of you had to agree with him when he decided to put the game in the hands of our very capable defense. Sure, we could have done this or that but our D is solid, solid as a rock. Calls for coach's job are VERY premature at this point in my humble yet superior opinion.

My feelings about this game in particular are not helped out by the fact that Washington went out and beat the Trojans the very next week. Salt meet Wound.

2. How bout that Defense?! - Aside from the Navy game, Ohio State's defense has looked STACKED. Hold USC under 20pts, check. Shut out Toledo, check. Make Juice Williams look like a fool, DOUBLE CHECK. Back to back shut-outs, no matter who you play, is something to write home about.

Can they make it three in a row this weekend?

3. Shut up about play calling - That's all I'm gonna say about that for now.

4. T. Pryor - Still has some things to work on, isn't quite the return of Christ, but he's got a nice 3 game stretch here to work out the kinks, providing the right plays are called. I am interested in seeing what takes place between now and the month of November.

Big Ten Team Notes

6. Penn State - Iowa made Daryl Clark look like Juice Williams on a terrible night. All that revenge talk was bogus. Penn State could very easily be the 4th best team in the big ten, although, i still think they beat Michigan's lack of Defense all damn day. All I want to make sure of now is that Jim Tressel has a copy of this game tape. If not, I will send him what I DVR'd.

7. One more thought on this Penn State team: Apparently playing Syracuse, AkROWDY and The Mighty Owls of Temple as a warm up doesn't prepare you to play football against legit competition. Who knew? Seems to be a trend here....

8. Iowa - Good/possibly great defense. Offense, jury is still out. Plain and simple, they made Penn State look like Northwestern. No offense to Northwestern.

9. scUM - I'll give it to them that the offense looks much better than last year. However, how do you let Indiana, no matter how much the have improved, drop those kind of points on you? Shouldn't that be embarrassing? My second point about that game is that there was an obvious bad call that kept this from getting very interesting at the end.

10. scUM 2.0 - Sure, they're undefeated but they played "Directional Michigan" twice, Notre Lame(sucks) and now Indiana. Tough Slate, yawn. The real tests are straight ahead.

Teams outside of the Big Ten


11. Cal - You made me look and feel like a fool. My follow up question for Cal is since they've already dropped their annual WTF game, can they come out and beat an offensively anemic USC team this weekend at home? I'm up in the air on this. On one hand, it would be nice to see someone besides USC win the pac 10 and have all their super homer fair-weather fans that live next to me STFU, but on the other hand another USC loss makes the Buckeyes look progressively worse. Sigh...

12. Was that the oregon team that was on cover of SI before the season started? They've come a Long way since looking 2 steps too slow against Boise on that awful blue field.

13. Notre Dame Still sucks - Yay you beat Nevada! Needed Michigan State to turn the ball over to win that game, got beat by the Michigan Fightin' TaiNt Forciers and then had to score a TD to beat Purdue in the final minute last week. Charlie Cheeseburger is about to get PAID to sit at home next season.

So we're at about the 1/4 mark of the season, most teams have 8 or 9 games left to play. This season should shape up to be very interesting as the Month of November and December will be very entertaining.

I'm not going to make any bold predictions though, I don't want to jinx anything just yet...