My, my, my, what a week. Here at Heathen HQ, we view September 15 as just about a perfect football Saturday, and much comeuppance was distributed. But we get ahead of ourselves.
Up first, per the form, let’s do the math. NickyLou started strong against the Razorbacks in his first real game today, opening up 21-zip in the first quarter. It wasn’t to be a rout, however, and Saban’s squad required a nailbiter of a final drive (and an amazing pass completion from John Parker Wilson to Matt Caddell in the end zone) to finish the 16th-ranked Arkansas squad 41 to 38. Alabama improves to 3-0; Arkansas drops to 1-1. It’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out in the rankings, won’t it?
Last week’s winning point total was 60 (46 from week 1, and 14 from week 2). This time around, we add only 3, but it was enough. The week 3 Nick Saban Points Per Million is now 1.96875.
Now, on to the rest of the fun.
This week’s first surprise: MSU over Auburn, 19-14. The absurdity of this upset — which, by the way, drops the Tigers to 1-2 — is likely to save Syl Croom’s job, assuming he picks up another win or two before Christmas, and includes the rich boys from Oxford in the list. (That seems likely; see below.)
The Commodores — no, not Lionel; the ones from Vandy — gave us our second surprise this week by managing to beat the Rebs, 31-7. Who knew SAT scores could win football games? Despite being the Heathen homeland title school, we’ve always loathed Ole Miss, so we’re pretty happy about this one. Smart kids FTW!
The HUGE surprise of the week was the major upset of No. 11 UCLA by unranked Utah, 44 to 6. We don’t pay that much attention to western football, but we gotta ask: how did a nearly top-ten team get trounced like that? Are the Utes that good, or was UCLA just overrated?
The pointless matchup we mentioned before turned out worse for the Irish than we might’ve predicted. Sure, it’s the battle of the 0-2 starts, but at the end of the day Michigan competes in a real conference and plays drastically fewer creampuffs than the Irish. Lloyd Carr’s got 5 conference titles plus a national. Charlie Weis, on the other hand, is in his first top job, and has yet to win a big game, which is understandable since you generally need offensive TDs to do that, and the Irish have none so far this year. Need we mention again that Notre Dame hasn’t bagged a bowl game since 1994? If you think it might get worse for Weis, you may be right; Notre Dame faces unbeaten Michigan State next week.
(We’ll note, too, that by late in the 3rd quarter, up 38 to zip, Carr was keeping the ball on the ground playing 2nd and 3rd string. There are coaches who wouldn’t have done that.)
Dept. of Predictable and Lovely Outcomes No. 1: Florida over Tennessee by a whopping 59 to 20, which means Phil Fulmer’s having a bad year already. It couldn’t happen to a nicer asshole. It’s also telling, since it means Urban Meyer’s Gators are incredibly strong even after losing so many to the NFL after last year’s championship season. We doubt very much USC could take them (or LSU) at this point but we’re pretty sure the polls will keep USC on top this week for some reason.
Dept. of Predictable and Lovely Outcomes No. 2: We’ve said for years that the high-scoring teams of the Big East are paper tigers in a weak conference, undeserving of their rankings, and that if they played strong schools from strong conferences — like those required of real contenders in conferences like the SEC — that they wouldn’t be able to cruise to 0 or 1 loss seasons.
Turns out, we were right — and we didn’t need a strong team to do it. 9th-ranked Louisville fell to unranked SEC football weakling Kentucky in a back-and-forth battle that looked nothing at all like Louisville’s in-conference routs. Redbirds, if you’re going to pretend to be a contender, you have to beat real teams. Here’s a hint: Rutgers and UConn don’t count. Call us back when you win on a schedule with more than a couple quality squads on it.
Finally, LSU cruised to an easy win over Middle Tennessee (whom, we note, Louisville had trouble dispatching last week). USC, on the other hand, struggled early against No. 14 Nebraska, though they did manage a blowout in the end.