2009 NCAA Football Thread

[infrared41]

ESPN.com says Tebow was taken to the hospital (or taken to hospital for our Canadian friends.) Can't he just use his super powers on himself and heal his own injury? Or would that cause some sort of paradox?

[CMUBrent]

CMU 48

Akron 21

The Chippewas offense out-gained Akron 523-196. 326 of CMU's yards came on the ground.

FIRE UP CHIPS!

[-(dp)-]

Can someone possibly tell me how Michigan keeps getting call after call go their way when they don't deserve getting the call?

That was clearly a simultaneous catch and they both had the ball for a good 2-3 seconds before Warren got the ball.

I'm guessing Michigan pays better. Seriously, they cannot be that lucky week after week. Maybe the officials just really are that severely incompetent. Who knows?

Wow, really? You guys sound ridiculous with your conspiracy theories. The call on the interception was questionable, but what other ones are you guys referring to? Sizemorematters, please don't tell me you think that Armando Allen wasn't out of bounds. And Burgandyskins, what were these calls they were lucky on these other 3 weeks? Last week, against Eastern Michigan at home, I saw possibly the worst pass interference call I have ever seen, and it went against Michigan. This week, an Indiana player jumped offsides, so the center (who isn't a center, and had tons of bad snaps today, which kept Indiana in the game) snapped the ball really quick. Tate wasn't prepared, and the offsides wasn't called, resulting in a big loss. Stuff happens. If it wasn't called an INT, it isn't like Indiana was guaranteed a win. They had tons of chances, and Michigan kept holding them to field goals in the red zone. Michigan had tons of bad snaps, because the center was out, and a few turnovers. As much as you guys like to convince yourselves that every call goes Michigan's way, they don't.

[HedleyLamarr]

That was an ugly win....but a win is a win. The defense, once again, plays big when the game was on the line. But it'd be nice if UGA can blow out an opponent or two along the way....

[Drew22]

AJ Green is the man. Best WR in the SEC.

[oddball]

ESPN.com says Tebow was taken to the hospital (or taken to hospital for our Canadian friends.) Can't he just use his super powers on himself and heal his own injury? Or would that cause some sort of paradox?

The linemen's knee secretly had Kryptonite in it. Besides, you can't heal yourself if you don't know where you are or who you are. I heard from my top-secret sources that he was running around the sidelines saying, "I'm Batman!"

[WJMorris3]

And Purdue just beat Notre Dame, 21-17. That'll keep them out of the voting for awhile...

[GFB]

I dunno... I can't help but chuckle every time a Big Ten school lays an egg during bowl season.

When it comes to Ohio State though.. the chuckle becomes a full blown laugh/EPIC FAIL facepalm of doom combination.

Is it the BigTen's fault that almost every year their premier team usually plays in what ends up being a home game for USC at the Rose Bowl? Now, I'm not making any excuses for Ohio State and their failures in big games (except against Michigan in '06... eh.) but can you really count Illinois or Penn State or Michigan (twice) getting blasted by USC every year in the Rose Bowl as "laying eggs"?

Maybe if someone other than Oregon and Cal would challenge USC for the PAC-10 title every year, the Big Ten's bowl record doesn't look as bad.

Uh... Yeah. It's not just in the Rose Bowl, kid. It's been in ALL bowl games as of late. Let me throw some numbers at you.

First off: Last season's Bowl record for the Big Ten... 1-6. The lone win came from Iowa, who manhandled a mid-tier SEC school in South Carolina.

#2: The Big Ten has two BCS wins since 2004... You know who else has two BCS wins? The Mountain West's Utah. In the last six years, the Big Ten only has 15 bowl wins.

So check your facts before you start spouting off nonsense about the Big Ten's crapiness. Like I said, it's not just the Rose Bowl... Hell, anytime a Big Ten school faces anyone from the other BCS conferences, they get weak in the knees and get slaughtered like a pig in a butcher shop.

Really? Let's look at Michigan, just because they are normally a top-tier Big-10 team not named Ohio State.

In Michigan's last 5 bowl games they are 1-4. Not too good, right? But hell, let's actually look at the games.

2004 - Rose Bowl

USC 28 - Michigan 14.

At the Rose Bowl... Michigan was favored to win, but was let down by John Navarre (who was in my mind the worst 2+year starter in Michigan history) in his last game. Also could be considered Matt Lienart's coming out party, as he threw for 4 touchdowns.

2005 - Rose Bowl

Texas 38 - Michigan 37

Michigan lost to Texas on a last-second, partially-blocked field goal. It was considered the most entertaining bowl game of the year, and was also Vince Young's coming out party, as he threw for 180 yds and a touchdown, while running for 192 yds and 4 touchdowns. Oh, and by the way, Michigan started freshman at QB, RB, & WR.

2006 - Alamo Bowl

Nebraska 32 - Michigan 28

What was considered a down year for Michigan, filled with injuries and inconsistent play. They played an absolute horrible game, but almost won due to a series of last-second laterals. No excuses here... they should have won.

2007 - Rose Bowl

USC 32 - Michigan 18

Another home game for USC... but we'll look past that to watch USC's John David Booty burn a young Morgan Trent so much so that by the end of the game he looked like a freaking pop-tart. Look at these numbers:

John David Booty, 391 yds, 4 TDs

Dwayne Jarrett, 205 rec. yds, 2 TDs

Steve Smith, 108 rec. yds, TD

You also have to consider that Michigan had their National Championship hopes dashed in their last game at OSU and were obviously disappointed to be playing in the Rose Bowl.

2008 - Outback Bowl

Michigan 41 - Florida 35

Game was played in Orlando, which is only about an hour away from Gainesville. Add in the fact that Michigan fumbled the ball away TWICE inside the red zone and this game could have gotten ugly. Yes this is the same Tim Tebow-led Gators who won NCs in '07 and '09.

2009 - No Bowl

Don't you think that if one of the powerhouse teams in your conference have their worst year in the history of their program would result in having some of the lower level teams playing in some bowl games they really shouldn't be in?

So just to recap, Michigan's two worst losses have come by a grand total of 14 points each to what was essentially a HOME GAME for USC. They lost by 1-point to a Vince Young-led Texas team, 4 points to a bad Nebraska team on a down year, and they beat a 2-time National Championship team in their backyard... I'm not even counting the 2003 Outback Bowl victory over Florida.

And BTW, in the last 6 years only two teams have won the Rose Bowl. Southern Cal has won four times ('04, '07, '08, '09) over Illinois, Penn State, and Michigan twice. Can you guess the other team to have won a Rose Bowl? Texas. Way to represent Pac-10. In fact, the last time a Pac 10-team other than USC has won the Rose Bowl was Washington in 2001. Before that? Washington in 1992. Yes, you heard me. 1992.

Now I understand the fact that you are a Big-10 hater. I also understand the fact that you are a Pac-10 slappy. But don't make up some bull-crap that EVERY TIME a Big Ten team plays a BCS school, they get "slaughtered". How about your conference steps up instead of squatting in the shadow of USC's program?

[Spammy]

Good bye Penn State, It was fun while it lasted!

[Spammy]

And Purdue just beat Notre Dame, 21-17. That'll keep them out of the voting for awhile...

Are you sure?

[infrared41]

Can someone possibly tell me how Michigan keeps getting call after call go their way when they don't deserve getting the call?

That was clearly a simultaneous catch and they both had the ball for a good 2-3 seconds before Warren got the ball.

I'm guessing Michigan pays better. Seriously, they cannot be that lucky week after week. Maybe the officials just really are that severely incompetent. Who knows?

Wow, really? You guys sound ridiculous with your conspiracy theories. The call on the interception was questionable, but what other ones are you guys referring to? Sizemorematters, please don't tell me you think that Armando Allen wasn't out of bounds. And Burgandyskins, what were these calls they were lucky on these other 3 weeks? Last week, against Eastern Michigan at home, I saw possibly the worst pass interference call I have ever seen, and it went against Michigan. This week, an Indiana player jumped offsides, so the center (who isn't a center, and had tons of bad snaps today, which kept Indiana in the game) snapped the ball really quick. Tate wasn't prepared, and the offsides wasn't called, resulting in a big loss. Stuff happens. If it wasn't called an INT, it isn't like Indiana was guaranteed a win. They had tons of chances, and Michigan kept holding them to field goals in the red zone. Michigan had tons of bad snaps, because the center was out, and a few turnovers. As much as you guys like to convince yourselves that every call goes Michigan's way, they don't.

No kidding. The interception call was bad. The officials blew it but replay couldn't provide a good enough look to overturn it. That's all it was. The rest is just silly. -(dp)- has it right. Indiana had a ton of chances to put away that game and they couldn't do it. The better team won and has done so in all four of Michigan's games. Are they as good as they're likely going to be ranked this week? Probably not but they're still a whole lot better than last season. Luck ain't got a whole lot to do with them being 4-0. No more luck than any other team anyway. And this is an Ohio State fan saying this kids.

[Spammy]

Touchdown Notre Dame!!!! 24-21 with 20 seconds left

[Drew22]

Spammy, eventually you'll learn to not listen to anything Will says about Notre Dame.

[Spammy]

Does he hate ND? Oh and BTW Notre Dame Wins!!!

[jkrdevil]

I don't know who the Purdue coach is but he just cost his team the game against ND. They had just stopped ND on a goal to go run play with :38 seconds to go. Notre Dame would have been forced to clock the ball and then have 1 more play on 4th down. But Purdue called a time out and thus gave ND two plays. The 3rd down play was a incomplete but they scored a TD on the extra play to win it.

[NJTank]

Notre Dame could easily be 1-3 I think that seat Charlie Weis sits on may be getting even hotter soon.

[jkrdevil]

Notre Dame could easily be 1-3 I think that seat Charlie Weis sits on may be getting even hotter soon.

But they aren't 1-3. Who cares how you get there as long as you get there. It may be ugly but outside of the Michigan game (who themselves are 4-0) they have won all their games.

Elsewhere, at the end of the night your first place team in the Pac-10 will be.....Stanford.

[RyanMcD29]

The Syracuse Orange are at .500 to end September. Wow.

Now I know that Maine was leading at halftime, but the Orange made some good adjustments to pull away from them in the 2nd half and come out with a pretty large margin of victory. Can't wait to come back up this week for homecoming, and with USF beating Florida State last week this could really end up being a big game for Syracuse. Oh, and woo hoo another 30% discount at the bookstore this Monday

[infrared41]

#4 Ole Miss gets dominated by South Carolina. #5 Penn State gets manhandled at home by Iowa. #6 Cal gets blown out by Oregon. #7 LSU needs a goal line stand to get by Mississippi State. #9 Miami gets worked over by #11 Virginia Tech. #18 Florida State loses at home to unranked USF. #22 North Carolina loses to Georgia Tech. #23 Michigan has their hands full all day at home against Indiana. #24 Washington comes off their biggest win in years only to lose to Stanford.

So what have we learned here in week 4 of the 2009 college football season?

1. There should not be any polls until at least week 5 of the season because the only thing the polls in the first 4 weeks manage to accomplish is to make a lot of people look awfully stupid.

2. Writers and certain sports networks in the north east are quick to bestow greatness on teams they clearly know nothing about.

3. Coaches believe all the BS the aforementioned writers write and the aforementioned sports network carries on about.

4. Parity is alive and well in Division I football.

5. A loss in week one or two doesn't mean a team we thought was going to be pretty good really isn't. A win in week one or two doesn't mean a team we thought was going to be bad is suddenly really good.

6. We are headed for another long and nasty argument about the BCS come December.

7. That college football is far more interesting and exciting than The NFL.

Class dismissed.

[GFB]

#4 Ole Miss gets dominated by South Carolina. #5 Penn State gets manhandled at home by Iowa. #6 Cal gets blown out by Oregon. #7 LSU needs a goal line stand to get by Mississippi State. #9 Miami gets worked over by #11 Virginia Tech. #18 Florida State loses at home to unranked USF. #22 North Carolina loses to Georgia Tech. #23 Michigan has their hands full all day at home against Indiana. #24 Washington comes off their biggest win in years only to lose to Stanford.

So what have we learned here in week 4 of the 2009 college football season?

1. There should not be any polls until at least week 5 of the season because the only thing the polls in the first 4 weeks manage to accomplish is to make a lot of people look awfully stupid.

2. Writers and certain sports networks in the north east are quick to bestow greatness on teams they clearly know nothing about.

3. Coaches believe all the BS the aforementioned writers write and the aforementioned sports network carries on about.

4. Parity is alive and well in Division I football.

5. A loss in week one or two doesn't mean a team we thought was going to be pretty good really isn't. A win in week one or two doesn't mean a team we thought was going to be bad is suddenly really good.

6. We are headed for another long and nasty argument about the BCS come December.

7. That college football is far more interesting and exciting than The NFL.

Class dismissed.

Well said, Buckeye.