Brandon Zimmerman
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What Would Woody Watch? Week 10 Recommendations
Brandon Zimmerman via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
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Well the bye week came and passed without any major news coming out of the WHAC…wait what did you say? J.T. got a what? Cardale is back at the helm? Who is the back-up QB? We lost another DB? Oh good, but we got another DB back. WHAT? We even lost a recruit…that everyone knew was going to de-commit? Come on, OSU isn’t #1 in the poll? Who in the heck is #4? Even with one loss and no major wins? Man, let’s disregard last and consider this week the first and ONLY loss of the season for the Buckeyes. That pesky bye week can sneak up on you…
Well after that devastating loss, let’s take a look at this weekend’s games where there are many major games to look forward to. This does not even include our Buckeye brigade taking on the Gophers and their amazingly brilliant coaching staff. Let’s jump in and see what Woody is watching this weekend.
Baylor at Kansas State, Thursday, 7:30 pm
We all know the love affair with Baylor by the college football world; they score a lot of points and give up a lot of points against inferior competition. But we can’t fault them for their schedule, they have gone out and won each game pretty convincingly against teams they were supposed to do that against. This game has a little bit of heightened curiosity surrounding it though. Baylor is playing this game without star QB Seth Russell who is out for the season with a serious neck injury. In his place will be freshman Jarrett Stidham who was once a Buckeye target out of Texas. The Baylor system is designed to be plug-and-play, as seen with the transition from Bryce Petty to Russell this year, but this will be interesting to watch because going into Manhattan in a night game is not an easy task.
WACO, TX – SEPTEMBER 06: Seth Russell #17 of the Baylor Bears throws against the Northwestern State Demons at McLane Stadium on September 6, 2014 in Waco, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Kansas State comes into this game with a 3-4 record and on a four game losing streak. Two of those four losses came against TCU and Oklahoma State where they played both of those teams very close. In Stillwater, Oklahoma State needed a last second field goal to beat the Wildcats. When TCU came to town, the Wildcats gave up a 55 yard pass to the Horned Frogs with a little over a minute left to lose by seven points. With all of that said, Kansas State gave up over 700 combined passing yards to those two teams and spoiler alert… Baylor loves to throw the ball. Will the Kansas State pass defense be able to slow down the Baylor train? Can they rattle the freshman? I don’t think so.
Prediction: 42-37, Baylor
Notre Dame at Pittsburgh, Saturday, 12:00 pm
The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame come into this game at the number five spot in the initial rankings despite their 7-1 record and numerous other teams being undefeated because, well, money drives college football. Despite their injuries, Notre Dame has had a pretty decent stretch since their loss to Clemson. They have won three straight games against Navy, USC, and Temple who are all pretty good teams. For those unfamiliar with Notre Dame, a lot of their offense efficiency lays in the hands of sophomore DeShone Kizer, who is an Ohio native. Kizer was thrust into the starting role when Malik Zaire went down with an injury. Kizer has thrown for 1,669 yards and 11 touchdowns but has added 6 interceptions, including two last week against Temple. Additionally, he has been sacked 10 times in the last four games.
The Pittsburgh Panthers are a tough nut to crack; they come in at 6-2 with their two losses coming at the hands of Iowa and North Carolina. The Panther fans are going through a stressful year as every game, outside of Akron, has been within 10 points whether win or loss. This is a huge game for the future of Pittsburgh, knocking off a Top-5 opponent at home would go a long way to helping Pat Narduzzi turn Pittsburgh into a legitimate year-to-year threat. With Notre Dame coming off of a tough stretch and Narduzzi preparing a defense against the turnover prone Kizer, I think we see an upset.
Prediction: 27-24, Pitt
Florida State at Clemson, Saturday, 3:30 pm
The Clemson Tigers are riding high right now, coming into this game as the #1 ranked team in the nation; which should not have been a surprise to anyone. They are undefeated and have a pretty good looking win against Notre Dame who is #5. They are led by the man Urban Meyer wanted pretty bad out of high school, Deshaun Watson. Watson has combined for 24 touchdowns on the year and over 2,300 yards on the season. The thing with Watson is that he has disappeared at times against good competition. Against Notre Dame, for example, he only threw for 84 yards on 10-21 passing. But then Watson does some magical stuff, like he did last week against North Carolina State, when he threw for 383 yards and combined for six touchdowns. Florida State has a stingy pass defense; will they be able to stop Watson?
Florida State comes into the game ranked #16 and wielding a 7-1 record. Their only loss on the year was the field goal debacle against Georgia Tech…
This game is the entire season for Florida State. If they win, they move up the rankings and set themselves up for making the run at the playoffs just as Ohio State did from that same spot. If they lose, they are out of the playoff discussion and are looking at salvaging their season at a second-tier bowl game. Last week, both Everett Golson and Dalvin cook sat out and the nation was introduced to Jacques Patrick. He will be a nice compliment with Cook and will be a scary tandem over the next two years. I think this will be a tough game; I work with a Florida State fan that is confident so I will ride his confidence to picking an upset.
Prediction: 35-28, FSU
Texas Christian at Oklahoma State, Saturday, 3:30 pm
If you’re a fan of watching a ton of points scored, and really who isn’t, this is a game for you to watch! Offensively, TCU is averaging 48.9 points per game and Oklahoma State is averaging 44 points per game. Defensively, both teams give up an average of about 25 points per game. Last weekend, Oklahoma State scored 70 points against Texas Tech. In TCU’s last game, they went into Morgantown and scored 40 against West Virginia. This sets up to be a classic Big 12 match-up (nice way of saying no defense).
Trevone Boykin leads the Horned Frogs and should be towards the top of any Heisman list. On the season, he has thrown for 2,927 yards and 28 touchdowns. He has added 524 more yards on the ground and six touchdowns. Think about that for a second, through eight games he has almost 3,500 combined yards and 34 touchdowns.
Oklahoma State also has dual threat capabilities at quarterback but it is two different student athletes, Mason Rudolph and J.W. Walsh. Rudolph is the main quarterback and has thrown for 2,482 yards and 12 touchdowns. Mason is their running situation quarterback where he has added almost 200 yards on the ground coming off the bench. With all this being said, I really don’t think Oklahoma State is a very good football team. Their toughest win on the year is possibly Kansas State and playing TCU, Baylor, and Oklahoma in the next four weeks will probably lead to three losses.
Prediction: 45-28, TCU (Welcome to the Top-4 TCU)
Navy at Memphis, Saturday, 7 pm
Remember when Memphis beat Ole Miss? Of course you do because it has been pounded into our brains that they are good because they beat a middle of the pack SEC team. Memphis is led by their amazing QB Paxton Lynch who has thrown for over 2,700 yards and has an impressive 18 touchdowns to only one interception. Lynch really burst onto the scene by throwing for 384 yards and three touchdowns against Ole Miss. The Memphis defense will be the big question mark in this game. Sure, they have only given up 950 yards on the ground this year but how much of that is because they give up over 315 through the air each game? They are facing an entirely new beast in Navy.
Navy has quietly rolled to a 6-1 record on the year with their lone loss coming at the hands of Notre Dame. The Midshipmen do what they have always done, they run the triple option and they do it over and over. They have run it to a tune on almost 320 yards rushing per game. Against their toughest challenge in Notre Dame, they still ran for 318 yards. I really don’t think Memphis is going to be able to handle this offense.
Prediction: 34-31, Navy
#2 LSU at #4 (LOL) Alabama, Saturday, 8 pm
LSU comes rolling into this game with the #2 ranking based off of their win against #10 Florida and an undefeated record. The Tigers do not change much over the years; they have a good running game, a good defense, and shaky quarterback play. This year, they are led by one of the best running backs to play college football in a while, Leonard Fournette. Fournette has bullied his way to 1,363 yards rushing and 15 touchdowns. If the season ended today, Fournette would be holding up the Heisman Trophy. Luckily for Zeke, the season isn’t over and there is a lot of football left to play.
Everyone outside of Tuscaloosa was surprised when Alabama showed up at #4 in the rankings on Tuesday. Look, I know Bama has talent. Saban brings in top notch talent each and every year but this team has not played that great lately. They needed a last minute touchdown to beat Tennessee and lost to Ole Miss who has two losses on the year. I’m not saying Bama won’t be in the final four at the end of the season but right now, they do not deserve that spot over other undefeated teams. Defensively, they match up very well with LSU. The Tide only give up 78 yards rushing a game and this should bode well in trying to stop Fournette who averages a hair over one million yards rushing a game. This will be a classic LSU/Bama slug fest and the only real losers will be college football fans who simply watch Bama and LSU switch places in the rankings after the Bama win.
Prediction: 14-10, Bama
The post What Would Woody Watch? Week 10 Recommendations appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
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Brandon Zimmerman via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Well the bye week came and passed without any major news coming out of the WHAC…wait what did you say? J.T. got a what? Cardale is back at the helm? Who is the back-up QB? We lost another DB? Oh good, but we got another DB back. WHAT? We even lost a recruit…that everyone knew was going to de-commit? Come on, OSU isn’t #1 in the poll? Who in the heck is #4? Even with one loss and no major wins? Man, let’s disregard last and consider this week the first and ONLY loss of the season for the Buckeyes. That pesky bye week can sneak up on you…
Well after that devastating loss, let’s take a look at this weekend’s games where there are many major games to look forward to. This does not even include our Buckeye brigade taking on the Gophers and their amazingly brilliant coaching staff. Let’s jump in and see what Woody is watching this weekend.
Baylor at Kansas State, Thursday, 7:30 pm
We all know the love affair with Baylor by the college football world; they score a lot of points and give up a lot of points against inferior competition. But we can’t fault them for their schedule, they have gone out and won each game pretty convincingly against teams they were supposed to do that against. This game has a little bit of heightened curiosity surrounding it though. Baylor is playing this game without star QB Seth Russell who is out for the season with a serious neck injury. In his place will be freshman Jarrett Stidham who was once a Buckeye target out of Texas. The Baylor system is designed to be plug-and-play, as seen with the transition from Bryce Petty to Russell this year, but this will be interesting to watch because going into Manhattan in a night game is not an easy task.
WACO, TX – SEPTEMBER 06: Seth Russell #17 of the Baylor Bears throws against the Northwestern State Demons at McLane Stadium on September 6, 2014 in Waco, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Kansas State comes into this game with a 3-4 record and on a four game losing streak. Two of those four losses came against TCU and Oklahoma State where they played both of those teams very close. In Stillwater, Oklahoma State needed a last second field goal to beat the Wildcats. When TCU came to town, the Wildcats gave up a 55 yard pass to the Horned Frogs with a little over a minute left to lose by seven points. With all of that said, Kansas State gave up over 700 combined passing yards to those two teams and spoiler alert… Baylor loves to throw the ball. Will the Kansas State pass defense be able to slow down the Baylor train? Can they rattle the freshman? I don’t think so.
Prediction: 42-37, Baylor
Notre Dame at Pittsburgh, Saturday, 12:00 pm
The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame come into this game at the number five spot in the initial rankings despite their 7-1 record and numerous other teams being undefeated because, well, money drives college football. Despite their injuries, Notre Dame has had a pretty decent stretch since their loss to Clemson. They have won three straight games against Navy, USC, and Temple who are all pretty good teams. For those unfamiliar with Notre Dame, a lot of their offense efficiency lays in the hands of sophomore DeShone Kizer, who is an Ohio native. Kizer was thrust into the starting role when Malik Zaire went down with an injury. Kizer has thrown for 1,669 yards and 11 touchdowns but has added 6 interceptions, including two last week against Temple. Additionally, he has been sacked 10 times in the last four games.
The Pittsburgh Panthers are a tough nut to crack; they come in at 6-2 with their two losses coming at the hands of Iowa and North Carolina. The Panther fans are going through a stressful year as every game, outside of Akron, has been within 10 points whether win or loss. This is a huge game for the future of Pittsburgh, knocking off a Top-5 opponent at home would go a long way to helping Pat Narduzzi turn Pittsburgh into a legitimate year-to-year threat. With Notre Dame coming off of a tough stretch and Narduzzi preparing a defense against the turnover prone Kizer, I think we see an upset.
Prediction: 27-24, Pitt
Florida State at Clemson, Saturday, 3:30 pm
The Clemson Tigers are riding high right now, coming into this game as the #1 ranked team in the nation; which should not have been a surprise to anyone. They are undefeated and have a pretty good looking win against Notre Dame who is #5. They are led by the man Urban Meyer wanted pretty bad out of high school, Deshaun Watson. Watson has combined for 24 touchdowns on the year and over 2,300 yards on the season. The thing with Watson is that he has disappeared at times against good competition. Against Notre Dame, for example, he only threw for 84 yards on 10-21 passing. But then Watson does some magical stuff, like he did last week against North Carolina State, when he threw for 383 yards and combined for six touchdowns. Florida State has a stingy pass defense; will they be able to stop Watson?
Florida State comes into the game ranked #16 and wielding a 7-1 record. Their only loss on the year was the field goal debacle against Georgia Tech…
This game is the entire season for Florida State. If they win, they move up the rankings and set themselves up for making the run at the playoffs just as Ohio State did from that same spot. If they lose, they are out of the playoff discussion and are looking at salvaging their season at a second-tier bowl game. Last week, both Everett Golson and Dalvin cook sat out and the nation was introduced to Jacques Patrick. He will be a nice compliment with Cook and will be a scary tandem over the next two years. I think this will be a tough game; I work with a Florida State fan that is confident so I will ride his confidence to picking an upset.
Prediction: 35-28, FSU
Texas Christian at Oklahoma State, Saturday, 3:30 pm
If you’re a fan of watching a ton of points scored, and really who isn’t, this is a game for you to watch! Offensively, TCU is averaging 48.9 points per game and Oklahoma State is averaging 44 points per game. Defensively, both teams give up an average of about 25 points per game. Last weekend, Oklahoma State scored 70 points against Texas Tech. In TCU’s last game, they went into Morgantown and scored 40 against West Virginia. This sets up to be a classic Big 12 match-up (nice way of saying no defense).
Trevone Boykin leads the Horned Frogs and should be towards the top of any Heisman list. On the season, he has thrown for 2,927 yards and 28 touchdowns. He has added 524 more yards on the ground and six touchdowns. Think about that for a second, through eight games he has almost 3,500 combined yards and 34 touchdowns.
Oklahoma State also has dual threat capabilities at quarterback but it is two different student athletes, Mason Rudolph and J.W. Walsh. Rudolph is the main quarterback and has thrown for 2,482 yards and 12 touchdowns. Mason is their running situation quarterback where he has added almost 200 yards on the ground coming off the bench. With all this being said, I really don’t think Oklahoma State is a very good football team. Their toughest win on the year is possibly Kansas State and playing TCU, Baylor, and Oklahoma in the next four weeks will probably lead to three losses.
Prediction: 45-28, TCU (Welcome to the Top-4 TCU)
Navy at Memphis, Saturday, 7 pm
Remember when Memphis beat Ole Miss? Of course you do because it has been pounded into our brains that they are good because they beat a middle of the pack SEC team. Memphis is led by their amazing QB Paxton Lynch who has thrown for over 2,700 yards and has an impressive 18 touchdowns to only one interception. Lynch really burst onto the scene by throwing for 384 yards and three touchdowns against Ole Miss. The Memphis defense will be the big question mark in this game. Sure, they have only given up 950 yards on the ground this year but how much of that is because they give up over 315 through the air each game? They are facing an entirely new beast in Navy.
Navy has quietly rolled to a 6-1 record on the year with their lone loss coming at the hands of Notre Dame. The Midshipmen do what they have always done, they run the triple option and they do it over and over. They have run it to a tune on almost 320 yards rushing per game. Against their toughest challenge in Notre Dame, they still ran for 318 yards. I really don’t think Memphis is going to be able to handle this offense.
Prediction: 34-31, Navy
#2 LSU at #4 (LOL) Alabama, Saturday, 8 pm
LSU comes rolling into this game with the #2 ranking based off of their win against #10 Florida and an undefeated record. The Tigers do not change much over the years; they have a good running game, a good defense, and shaky quarterback play. This year, they are led by one of the best running backs to play college football in a while, Leonard Fournette. Fournette has bullied his way to 1,363 yards rushing and 15 touchdowns. If the season ended today, Fournette would be holding up the Heisman Trophy. Luckily for Zeke, the season isn’t over and there is a lot of football left to play.
Everyone outside of Tuscaloosa was surprised when Alabama showed up at #4 in the rankings on Tuesday. Look, I know Bama has talent. Saban brings in top notch talent each and every year but this team has not played that great lately. They needed a last minute touchdown to beat Tennessee and lost to Ole Miss who has two losses on the year. I’m not saying Bama won’t be in the final four at the end of the season but right now, they do not deserve that spot over other undefeated teams. Defensively, they match up very well with LSU. The Tide only give up 78 yards rushing a game and this should bode well in trying to stop Fournette who averages a hair over one million yards rushing a game. This will be a classic LSU/Bama slug fest and the only real losers will be college football fans who simply watch Bama and LSU switch places in the rankings after the Bama win.
Prediction: 14-10, Bama
The post What Would Woody Watch? Week 10 Recommendations appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
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