Brett Ludwiczak
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You’re Nuts: What surprised you most from Week 1 in college football?
Brett Ludwiczak via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Your (almost) daily dose of good-natured, Ohio State banter.
The first true week of the college football season is in the books and there is a lot to unpack. Penn State looked great in their win over West Virginia, Notre Dame earned an impressive win in College Station over Texas A&M, Da U could be back after their blowout of Florida, and much more took place this week over the weekend. Some results were expected, like Ohio State’s pasting of Akron, while there were other scores that raised some eyebrows.
Today we want to know what surprised you the most out of what we saw in Week 1. Maybe it was a player that exceeded expectations or maybe failed to live up to the hype. Or it could be a team that either blew out their opponent, or they could have been a big favorite and had a hard time putting their foe away. With so many games being played from Thursday through Monday night’s contest between Boston College and Florida State, there are many routes you could take with your answer to today’s question.
Just imagine what we would be hearing from Buckeye fans if Ohio State only beat Akron by 10 points on Saturday. Ryan Day’s team beat the Zips by 46 points and there are fans out there that are probably picking the win apart and thinking the Buckeyes don’t have a shot at winning the national title because of what we saw from Ohio State in their opener. In the end, winning is all that matters, whether it be by a point or 100.
Of course, now we’ll be paying more attention to Oregon, not only because the Buckeyes will be traveling to Eugene in October, but also because the Ducks are now a conference foe. I was expecting Oregon to win by more than 10 against Idaho on Saturday, although I didn’t think the Ducks would cover the point spread, which had them as 44.5-point favorites over the former FBS member. That’s why I was a little shocked as Saturday night moved on and Oregon failed to put more distance on the Vandals.
What made the final score even stranger was Dillon Gabriel was very efficient, completing all but eight of his 49 pass attempts, finishing with 380 yards passing. When a team puts up nearly 500 yards of offense and has 31 first downs in a game, you would assume they didn’t blow out their opponents because they committed turnovers and had a bunch of penalties. That wasn’t the case for the Ducks, who only committed one turnover and had eight penalties that were marked off for 60 yards. Oregon possessed the football for nearly twice as long as Idaho did.
Oregon will have to learn quickly from their performance on Saturday, as they have games against Boise State and Oregon State coming up before they play UCLA in their Big Ten opener. Even though I want the Ducks to be at their best when Ohio State visits next month, I wouldn’t hate it if Oregon channeled some of their performance from the opener when they play the Buckeyes since I know Ohio State has a few gears Idaho doesn’t, and would likely leave Autzen Stadium with a victory.
Brett’s pick was a really good one, but the Ducks won that game, so even though the way that they played and how close the game ended up was a surprise, the ultimate outcome was not. However, when it comes to the No. 23 USC Trojans' 27-20 victory against the No. 13 LSU Tigers, I was absolutely not expecting that outcome.
The game was played in Las Vegas, which is actually a shorter drive to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum than some Southern California suburbs given LA traffic, but it was technically a neutral site game, and we know how well the Bayou Bengals travel.
The thing is, I just had no faith in Lincoln Riley and the Trojans, especially on defense. I mean, how many years did Riley voluntarily employ Alex Grinch across multiple programs? If that’s not enough to lose confidence in someone’s decision-making ability, I don’t know what is.
Last season, the Men of Troy ranked 119th in the country in total defense and 121st in scoring defense, mind you, there are only 133 teams in FBS. So, going up against LSU, which had the No. 1 offense in terms of yards and points per game last year did not bode well for the historic Big Ten powerhouse... at least not in my mind.
Obviously, the Tigers are now without Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels, so their offense was always going to look different this season, but lose-to-USC-different? I didn’t expect that.
The thing is, it’s not like USC completely shut down LSU’s offense, but it did exactly what a team with a powerful offense needs to do on defense to win games. It held the Tigers to a respectable 421 yards of total offense, but it kept the yards per play average to a workable 6.58 and turned LSU over once.
I’m not here to tell you that USC is going to have a top-tier defense this season, I just didn’t expect them to turn in any sort of performance like this against LSU. So, there’s only one thing that I can possibly say...
Continue reading...
Brett Ludwiczak via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Your (almost) daily dose of good-natured, Ohio State banter.
The first true week of the college football season is in the books and there is a lot to unpack. Penn State looked great in their win over West Virginia, Notre Dame earned an impressive win in College Station over Texas A&M, Da U could be back after their blowout of Florida, and much more took place this week over the weekend. Some results were expected, like Ohio State’s pasting of Akron, while there were other scores that raised some eyebrows.
Today we want to know what surprised you the most out of what we saw in Week 1. Maybe it was a player that exceeded expectations or maybe failed to live up to the hype. Or it could be a team that either blew out their opponent, or they could have been a big favorite and had a hard time putting their foe away. With so many games being played from Thursday through Monday night’s contest between Boston College and Florida State, there are many routes you could take with your answer to today’s question.
Today’s question: What surprised you most from Week 1 in college football?
We’d love to hear your choices. Either respond to us on Twitter at @Landgrant33 or leave your choice in the comments.
Brett’s answer: Oregon only beating Idaho by 10 points
Just imagine what we would be hearing from Buckeye fans if Ohio State only beat Akron by 10 points on Saturday. Ryan Day’s team beat the Zips by 46 points and there are fans out there that are probably picking the win apart and thinking the Buckeyes don’t have a shot at winning the national title because of what we saw from Ohio State in their opener. In the end, winning is all that matters, whether it be by a point or 100.
Of course, now we’ll be paying more attention to Oregon, not only because the Buckeyes will be traveling to Eugene in October, but also because the Ducks are now a conference foe. I was expecting Oregon to win by more than 10 against Idaho on Saturday, although I didn’t think the Ducks would cover the point spread, which had them as 44.5-point favorites over the former FBS member. That’s why I was a little shocked as Saturday night moved on and Oregon failed to put more distance on the Vandals.
What made the final score even stranger was Dillon Gabriel was very efficient, completing all but eight of his 49 pass attempts, finishing with 380 yards passing. When a team puts up nearly 500 yards of offense and has 31 first downs in a game, you would assume they didn’t blow out their opponents because they committed turnovers and had a bunch of penalties. That wasn’t the case for the Ducks, who only committed one turnover and had eight penalties that were marked off for 60 yards. Oregon possessed the football for nearly twice as long as Idaho did.
Oregon will have to learn quickly from their performance on Saturday, as they have games against Boise State and Oregon State coming up before they play UCLA in their Big Ten opener. Even though I want the Ducks to be at their best when Ohio State visits next month, I wouldn’t hate it if Oregon channeled some of their performance from the opener when they play the Buckeyes since I know Ohio State has a few gears Idaho doesn’t, and would likely leave Autzen Stadium with a victory.
Matt’s answer: USC beating LSU 27-20
Brett’s pick was a really good one, but the Ducks won that game, so even though the way that they played and how close the game ended up was a surprise, the ultimate outcome was not. However, when it comes to the No. 23 USC Trojans' 27-20 victory against the No. 13 LSU Tigers, I was absolutely not expecting that outcome.
The game was played in Las Vegas, which is actually a shorter drive to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum than some Southern California suburbs given LA traffic, but it was technically a neutral site game, and we know how well the Bayou Bengals travel.
The thing is, I just had no faith in Lincoln Riley and the Trojans, especially on defense. I mean, how many years did Riley voluntarily employ Alex Grinch across multiple programs? If that’s not enough to lose confidence in someone’s decision-making ability, I don’t know what is.
Last season, the Men of Troy ranked 119th in the country in total defense and 121st in scoring defense, mind you, there are only 133 teams in FBS. So, going up against LSU, which had the No. 1 offense in terms of yards and points per game last year did not bode well for the historic Big Ten powerhouse... at least not in my mind.
Obviously, the Tigers are now without Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels, so their offense was always going to look different this season, but lose-to-USC-different? I didn’t expect that.
The thing is, it’s not like USC completely shut down LSU’s offense, but it did exactly what a team with a powerful offense needs to do on defense to win games. It held the Tigers to a respectable 421 yards of total offense, but it kept the yards per play average to a workable 6.58 and turned LSU over once.
I’m not here to tell you that USC is going to have a top-tier defense this season, I just didn’t expect them to turn in any sort of performance like this against LSU. So, there’s only one thing that I can possibly say...
B1G! B1G! B1G!
Continue reading...