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Week One – What We Learned

Posted by mdr on September 2nd, 2008 under Football

Week One: What we learned.

It’s finally here. No more Olympics, no more baseball (for me anyway), no more scanning the Internet for a sliver of news about your favorite team. Our favorite time of the year is finally upon us again and I couldn’t be happier.

So, after one week of glorious college football, what have we learned?

1. USC is good. Really good. The showdown with the Buckeyes should almost certainly determine one half of the BCS championship game. Sanchez is better than Booty already, and may even move towards Leinart territory by the end of the year. Of course, it was just Virginia which brings me to my second point.

2. The ACC is terrible. It’s actually worse than anyone imagined. Last year’s conference champ lost to East Carolina. South Carolina blasted NC State on Thursday night. The aforementioned Virginia team couldn’t even be bothered to put up a fight against USC. And Clemson, the one supposedly bright spot in the conference, was decimated by an Alabama team that is at least two years away from even competing in the SEC.

3. Sticking with a theme here, Clemson is vastly overrated. Don’t get me wrong, they may still win the ACC. The only problem is, no one will care. This team showed nothing against the Tide. They had a national showcase in which to announce their presence this season with authority. Hey Clemson, no one respects your authority. By the way, look out for Bama this year. They could pull an upset or two out of the hat while still finishing third in their division.

4. The top teams in the country are interchangeable at this point. Yes, USC was impressive, but no one expects anything out of Virginia anyway. Ohio St, UGA, Oklahoma, Florida, and LSU all played opponents that were well below their level of talent. Not much can be determined by watching any of these games. Right now we don’t know much more than we did at this time last week about any of the top tier teams.

5. Rich Rod has a lot of work to do in Ann Arbor. A lot of work. Michigan fans are going to have to be very patient, but the man can coach and he can build. Give it time; I imagine the ride will be fun for you.

Finally, after watching the Tennessee – UCLA game, I have to say that the Vols have a potentially big problem. They are a solid defensive team with a potentially great running game. However, they completely abandoned that running game at times for no apparent reason. Crompton can be a good, solid, game managing type of quarterback. He is not going to be a stat machine, and he shouldn’t have to be. Tennessee has the backs and the line to pound it on the ground, trying to place games on Crompton’s shoulders is a major mistake. In this case, it was also completely unnecessary. This team needs to find an identity very quickly or they are in for a very long year. UCLA was impressive in the second half, but UGA, Florida, and maybe even Bama, would have torched this Tennessee team tonight. They need to get it together immediately if they hope to contend for the conference championship.

There it is. One week in the books and not too much has changed. We did get a couple of exciting games this week, including a very entertaining one Monday night. Bottom line, its the most wonderful time of the year. Enjoy it.

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7 Responses

  1. dedfischer said:

    September 3rd, 2008 at 4:01 am

    2. I think Alabama might have already arrived. They COULD have won every game last year, and holding Clemson to 0 rushing yards tells me that Saban is up to his old tricks again playing lockdown defense. They’ll lose at Georgia and at LSU finishing 10-2. Tennessee and Auburn are their only other tough games. They’re better than Tennessee and get Auburn at home.

  2. Lowery said:

    September 3rd, 2008 at 7:50 am

    They beat Tenn last year like a rented mule. Of course, they lost to Ula Monroe too.

  3. WhoooTex said:

    September 3rd, 2008 at 11:03 am

    “5. Rich Rod has a lot of work to do in Ann Arbor. A lot of work. Michigan fans are going to have to be very patient, but the man can coach and he can build. Give it time; I imagine the ride will be fun for you.”

    I have no doubt he’s going to win there, but this is not going to be fun for Michigan fans. RRod is not their King. They will not enjoy this. You’re talking about a program that hasn’t missed a bowl game since the 1974 season and, were it not for an insanely stupid Big Ten rule limiting the conference to one bowl participant per year before 1975, would have gone to a bowl every year since 1968. They’re pretty used to winning, in a Nebraska kind of way.

    Going 5-7 this year and missing a bowl game for the first time in half the fan base’s lifetime is going to suck for their fans.

    It will get better though, I agree.

  4. mdr said:

    September 3rd, 2008 at 11:09 am

    Yeah, you have a good point there. I just think that Rich Rod will bring a level of excitement to the program that has been missing for a while under Carr. But it is going to be bumpy at first and there will most likely be a firecoachrod.com in the near future. If the Michigan people can show some patience, I think they will be happy in the long run. But, much like Bama and Nebraska people, Michigan people are not known for being patient with mediocre seasons.

  5. Facebook User said:

    September 3rd, 2008 at 11:49 am

    They’re pretty used to winning, in a Nebraska kind of way.

    Or a Texas kind of way. Or a Miami kind of way. Or an OU kind of way. Or a Notre Dame kind of way.

    Apparently, nobody is immune from this cycle.

  6. WhoooTex said:

    September 3rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm

    “If the Michigan people can show some patience, I think they will be happy in the long run.”

    Agreed. No reason you can win at WVU and not Michigan.

    “But, much like Bama and Nebraska people, Michigan people are not known for being patient with mediocre seasons.”

    Actually that was sort of my point, they have almost no experience with mediocrity of the sort they’re getting this year. Bo went 6-6 in 1984 and Lloyd was 7-5 in 2005. Aside from that they’ve won eight or more games (mostly more) almost every year for nearly 40 years.

    “Apparently, nobody is immune from this cycle.”

    This is true, though I cited Nebraska because they and Michigan to me had the longest uninterrupted runs of success. NU won at least nine games every year from 1969 until 2002. Michigan’s been to almost 40 consecutive bowls. The rest of us have had our down cycles already– Michigan was the last holdout thanks to Bill Callahan.

    I think it’s UM’s turn in the barrel.

  7. srr50 said:

    September 3rd, 2008 at 12:33 pm

    Agreed. No reason you can win at WVU and not Michigan.

    Sure there is. There are a lot of very good players Rich Rod had at WVU that could never step on the Michigan campus — not unless they changed their mode of operation. He needs to prove that he can get his type of player, who also happens to be Michigan’s type of student/player.

    Also, there are the beginings of a split among the Michigan faithful. The AD is not well-liked by a significant portion of the fan base, influential alums included. They are skeptical of his management and hiring skills, (they aren’t sold on his stealing his two highest-profile hires away from West Virginia.)

    Rich Rod didn’t help his case with some Mackavician moves at the start. He didn’t embrace all the Michigan traditions right away,(he gave the #1 jersey, reserved for the best WR to a DB,and his handling of the messy divorce with WYU didn’t help.

    Michigan will put up with a 5-7 record, if there are signs of progess, and if there are no real off-the-field problems. But he had better beat Ohio State in the near future.

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