Brett Ludwiczak
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You’re Nuts: Which upset from college football on Saturday was your favorite?
Brett Ludwiczak via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images
Your (almost) daily dose of good-natured, Ohio State banter.
On Saturday, Ohio State never trailed Iowa, beating the Hawkeyes 35-7 in Columbus. A number of other ranked teams around the country weren’t as successful on the first Saturday in October. Top 10 SEC teams Alabama, Tennessee, and Missouri lost, while the Big Ten saw Michigan and USC fall. Had it not been for a comeback while most of the country was sleeping, Miami would have been knocked from the ranks of the unbeaten by Cal.
Unlike past years when Alabama’s loss to Vanderbilt would have knocked them out of the playoff, it is not quite the death sentence that it used to be. With the expansion of the College Football Playoff to 12 teams, one loss doesn’t totally eliminate a team from playoff contention, it definitely reduces the margin for error. Really the only thing to come out of Vanderbilt’s upset win will be a few days of funny jokes and an entertaining version of the Paul Finebaum Show on Monday. At least as Buckeye fans, we can thoroughly enjoy these things since Ohio State is still undefeated on the season.
With so many upsets that we saw on Saturday, we want to know which one was your favorite. There certainly will be two that will be at the top of the list, but maybe there is one that registers more for a certain reason. Who knows, somebody might really hate Missouri after the Tigers beat down Ohio State’s JV squad in the Cotton Bowl in December. There is no wrong answer to this one since other fanbases revel in the pain of Buckeye Nation, so it’s time for us to do the same.
Even though this was an NBC primetime game, it felt like not many people remembered this was a rematch of January’s title game since pretty much everyone important from both teams is now elsewhere. Jim Harbaugh is coaching the Los Angeles Chargers, Kalen DeBoer is at Alabama losing to Vanderbilt, and so on. Even Connor Stalions is probably back selling vacuums and figuring out how he can cheat while coaching high school football. About the only people from the title game who were in Washington were Sherrone Moore and Donovan Edwards, who is down bad now with the video game cover jinx.
I know a lot of people want Michigan at its best when they play Ohio State. I’m not one of those people after the last three years. I will laugh at every loss the Wolverines suffer this year even though I know their fans won’t care since they won their title, no matter what cost it came at. Thankfully Washington did their part to try and keep the Wolverines from going back-to-back. In all honesty, having Davis Warren and Alex Orji as your quarterbacks pretty much guarantees Michigan isn’t going to win a title this year, but who knows what could happen if the Wolverines were to make the playoff. Now Michigan has two losses on the season and still has to play Oregon and Ohio State. This feels like a season where the Wolverines lose at least four games.
I also enjoyed this upset because Washington is a fun team to root for. Maybe that’s just because I’ve switched into hate-Oregon mode with the Buckeyes and Ducks squaring off this week. Really though, Husky Stadium looks like a great place to take in a game and I really hope Washington finds success in the Big Ten. Hopefully, there is as much hype around Ohio State heading out to Seattle whenever they are scheduled to play in conference as there is for this week’s game in Eugene. The Big Ten needs Washington to be more like Oregon and less like the recent doormat additions like Maryland, Rutgers (although not this year!), and UCLA.
Yes, anytime that Michigan loses, especially as a favorite, that is funny and makes my heart happy. But come on, even my distaste for wolverine meat can’t overcome the absolute, unmitigated hilarity of the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide losing to the Vanderbilt Commodores for the first time in 40 years. Between 1985 and 2023, the Tide was on a 23-game winning streak against the Dores, one of the perennially worst teams in the Power 4 conferences. And yet, Vandy out-toughed the formerly top-ranked team to secure a 40-35 victory.
However, it’s not like this has been a historically great season for Vanderbilt. They lost to Georgia State just two games before beating Bama. So the fact that the Tide had to come back just to make this a one-score game is awesome, in my eyes.
But what makes it even better is how the entire college football intelligencia wet itself making Bama the No. 1 team in the country, despite blowing a 30-7 halftime lead. they only won that game because a true freshman made a freaky play and two defenders decided that they were too cool to tackle. Otherwise, Alabama would have suffered a different historically hilarious loss the week before.
One of the reasons that we all love college football is because of the chaos that it creates on a weekly basis. And those try-hards who want to tell you that the expanded College Football Playoff makes the regular season mean less are absolute idiots. Do both UGA and Bama have a shot to make the CFP despite both suffering losses? Yep. Does that make either of those games less entertaining to watch? Not unless you are trying to undermine your own entertainment.
But regardless of what it does or doesn’t mean to Alabama’s SEC or CFP chances, there is no way that you can call yourself a college football fan and utter a single word of criticism for Vandy’s upset. If you do, then you are just looking for reasons to be a contrarian, and it’s obnoxious. Stop it!
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
Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images
Your (almost) daily dose of good-natured, Ohio State banter.
On Saturday, Ohio State never trailed Iowa, beating the Hawkeyes 35-7 in Columbus. A number of other ranked teams around the country weren’t as successful on the first Saturday in October. Top 10 SEC teams Alabama, Tennessee, and Missouri lost, while the Big Ten saw Michigan and USC fall. Had it not been for a comeback while most of the country was sleeping, Miami would have been knocked from the ranks of the unbeaten by Cal.
Unlike past years when Alabama’s loss to Vanderbilt would have knocked them out of the playoff, it is not quite the death sentence that it used to be. With the expansion of the College Football Playoff to 12 teams, one loss doesn’t totally eliminate a team from playoff contention, it definitely reduces the margin for error. Really the only thing to come out of Vanderbilt’s upset win will be a few days of funny jokes and an entertaining version of the Paul Finebaum Show on Monday. At least as Buckeye fans, we can thoroughly enjoy these things since Ohio State is still undefeated on the season.
With so many upsets that we saw on Saturday, we want to know which one was your favorite. There certainly will be two that will be at the top of the list, but maybe there is one that registers more for a certain reason. Who knows, somebody might really hate Missouri after the Tigers beat down Ohio State’s JV squad in the Cotton Bowl in December. There is no wrong answer to this one since other fanbases revel in the pain of Buckeye Nation, so it’s time for us to do the same.
Today’s question: Which upset from college football on Saturday was your favorite?
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: Michigan’s loss at Washington
Even though this was an NBC primetime game, it felt like not many people remembered this was a rematch of January’s title game since pretty much everyone important from both teams is now elsewhere. Jim Harbaugh is coaching the Los Angeles Chargers, Kalen DeBoer is at Alabama losing to Vanderbilt, and so on. Even Connor Stalions is probably back selling vacuums and figuring out how he can cheat while coaching high school football. About the only people from the title game who were in Washington were Sherrone Moore and Donovan Edwards, who is down bad now with the video game cover jinx.
I know a lot of people want Michigan at its best when they play Ohio State. I’m not one of those people after the last three years. I will laugh at every loss the Wolverines suffer this year even though I know their fans won’t care since they won their title, no matter what cost it came at. Thankfully Washington did their part to try and keep the Wolverines from going back-to-back. In all honesty, having Davis Warren and Alex Orji as your quarterbacks pretty much guarantees Michigan isn’t going to win a title this year, but who knows what could happen if the Wolverines were to make the playoff. Now Michigan has two losses on the season and still has to play Oregon and Ohio State. This feels like a season where the Wolverines lose at least four games.
I also enjoyed this upset because Washington is a fun team to root for. Maybe that’s just because I’ve switched into hate-Oregon mode with the Buckeyes and Ducks squaring off this week. Really though, Husky Stadium looks like a great place to take in a game and I really hope Washington finds success in the Big Ten. Hopefully, there is as much hype around Ohio State heading out to Seattle whenever they are scheduled to play in conference as there is for this week’s game in Eugene. The Big Ten needs Washington to be more like Oregon and less like the recent doormat additions like Maryland, Rutgers (although not this year!), and UCLA.
Matt’s answer: Alabama’s loss to Vanderbilt
Yes, anytime that Michigan loses, especially as a favorite, that is funny and makes my heart happy. But come on, even my distaste for wolverine meat can’t overcome the absolute, unmitigated hilarity of the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide losing to the Vanderbilt Commodores for the first time in 40 years. Between 1985 and 2023, the Tide was on a 23-game winning streak against the Dores, one of the perennially worst teams in the Power 4 conferences. And yet, Vandy out-toughed the formerly top-ranked team to secure a 40-35 victory.
However, it’s not like this has been a historically great season for Vanderbilt. They lost to Georgia State just two games before beating Bama. So the fact that the Tide had to come back just to make this a one-score game is awesome, in my eyes.
But what makes it even better is how the entire college football intelligencia wet itself making Bama the No. 1 team in the country, despite blowing a 30-7 halftime lead. they only won that game because a true freshman made a freaky play and two defenders decided that they were too cool to tackle. Otherwise, Alabama would have suffered a different historically hilarious loss the week before.
One of the reasons that we all love college football is because of the chaos that it creates on a weekly basis. And those try-hards who want to tell you that the expanded College Football Playoff makes the regular season mean less are absolute idiots. Do both UGA and Bama have a shot to make the CFP despite both suffering losses? Yep. Does that make either of those games less entertaining to watch? Not unless you are trying to undermine your own entertainment.
But regardless of what it does or doesn’t mean to Alabama’s SEC or CFP chances, there is no way that you can call yourself a college football fan and utter a single word of criticism for Vandy’s upset. If you do, then you are just looking for reasons to be a contrarian, and it’s obnoxious. Stop it!
Continue reading...