Home School Fans Episode 5: Week 4 - Results and Expectations

    A fourth of the season for at least half of the teams in the Football Bowl Series is in the books. For those that do not play in a championship series at the end of the season, or make a bowl, or for the odd team that plays a 13th odd game in Hawai'i, four games are played and there are eight to go. Most of them done by Thanksgiving. Navy will likely only play 12 games, unlike Army or Air Force which are better, and will be done with no bowl after the Army-Navy game around mid-December. 

    It is kind of perfect, college football. Win, lose, or draw. And draws are no longer possible since 1997 or so. I love it, despite all the crushing losses against my teams over the years, the decades. And the occasional tragedies.

    On to the games!

    Utah pastes Arizona State, one of the last games of the night. 30 something to maybe 13.

    A&M gets really lucky beating a highly ranked Arkansas, number 10, by a serendipitous bounce of the ball off the right upright. Final score 23-21, in favor of the 12th man in College Football.

    BYU wins by 14 over a tough Wyoming team. I like the Cowboys; I think they will go bowling. My daughter attended the game and sent photos! More in a second.

    UVA barely loses to hot Syracuse, 22-20. The Orange are playing clutch, kind of fun.

    Fresno State... Gets crunched by USC Trojans, ranked 7, 45-17.

    James Madison is FOR REAL

    And finally, the James Madison Dukes have the big comeback upset against the crazy exciting Appalachian State Mountaineers. JMU, the first year FBS team, is for real. They are better than many thought. I think that I had thought this. You can check my past blog posts about the Dukies... They are good. They came back from 28-3 down and won, 32-28. Quite a win. And now CBS has JMU at 50 overall, jumping 32 spots up, facing Texas St. next. TSU is ranked: 113th, and actually rose 7. (Whuh!). The Bobcats (wuh?) just beat up Houston Baptist, after being smacked first week by Nevada-Reno, beating woeful FIU, and being whomped by the Baylor Bears. 

    I think JMU is going to run the 'Cats ragged. The Dukes, depending on that score in the Sun Belt game, may rise higher than 50.

 Utah Utes are Good - Steve Hargis is Still a Dufus

    Utah is on cruise control, laying it down on the Sun Devils, who are down, anyway, and next up for Utah is: Oregon State, who is better than many expected them to be. But Utah will continue to win. Bad and sad news for the Utes, though: their all-everything Tight End, (fill-in the name later, Kuice or Keith), is hurt for the rest of the season. Utah still has a superior defense, their offense is still great, but not as great without that All-American blocker and ad hoc receiver.

    Who is Steve Hargis? The Chattanooga joker journalist who gets to vote for the top 25, weekly and had Utah out of the top 25 when they lost their first game in the Swamp to Florida in a close one. Utah is likely top 10, but they will be tested by USC and Oregon, as higher ranked PAC-12 teams, even Washington and Washington State, perhaps UCLA too. Hargis has BYU at 19 after losing to Oregon, quite stomped, which might fit for the Cougars now.

    A&M Escapes by the Upright Bounce Up and Back

    Quite a tough game; it came down to lady luck. Arkansas was a top 10 team, as explained, but the Texas A&M Aggies showed some grit and got the fairies and the 12th man to overcome. Now CBSSports.com has the Aggies ranked at 20, and next up is the Mississippi State Bulldogs rated at 37. I think that the Aggies may have found their mojo. Not undefeated (thanks Appy State!), but still pretty solid.

Cougars Outperform the Pesky Pokes, at Lavell Edwards Field

I watched the game late; I got tired a few times but stayed awake. BYU barely eked a 14-10 lead by the end of the first half, and asserted itself more in the second. But as I said, I think the Cowboys are pretty good and I like them Go Pokes! Wyoming is now ranked 71, 3-2, but I think that they may a little better. Either that or BYU has gotten quite a bit worse. A little of both. CBS has the Cougs at 23, dropping 3 spots from the week before, after getting spanked by Oregon, that rallied this past weekend to beat a plucky Washington State. In Pullman, Washington.

    Cougs get the not-so-good Aggies of Utah State tomorrow night in Provo, to avoid playing during Latter-day Saint General Conference over the weekend; they are now ranked at 124. (Yeeeegh!)

    If BYU, with some healed up guys on offense and defense who sat out the last couple games, or more, do not win by 21, I will be very chagrined. A win by only a touch down is okay, but not really.

    Go Cougs! Smash those in-state rivals that we may not play again for a long time. On to the Big-12 next season, while possibly the Aggies of USU will get a changing Mountain West Conference. Because the PAC-12 could implode...

UVA Loses to the Cuse Orange: Worse than Nearby JMU?

    The Cavaliers lost a heartbreaker to the hot Orange in the Dome. They play basketball games there, too. Purdue lost a nailbiter there, too, like the week before. Caveat emptor, ACC. 'Cuse is now ranked at 28, 4-0, while Virginia has dropped to...85. EIGHTY FIVE!??? That might be an over-reaction. However, based on the upcoming schedule, the Cavs may have a hard time getting to 6-6... More on the in-state guys across the Piedmont, after the report of the final fall of my Indiana Hoosiers. UVA takes on the number 40 Duke Blue Devils. On paper this looks like a Durham, North Carolina victory. I think Virginia is closer too Duke than many suspect. I think that the Cavs of Charlottesville may take these Blue Devils down. A ver.

Indiana Blitzed in Cincy. The Long Pass Got them Early

    IU was 3-0, with some luck over lesser teams, and needed to bring its A-game to Cincinnati to have a chance. It did not play its A-game, at least not till the 3rd quarter. The first half turned into a rout because the Bearcats went long early and often, and made it work to the detriment of the Hoosier defensive backs. Long bombs were served up quickly. They worked. A dumb offensive penalty led to another Cinny touchdown, with little time left, so it went 31-10 instead of a potential 24-17. Then a weird fumble by IU QB Bazelak led to one more Down, and the hapless Hoosiers were down 38-10. 

    Egh. 

    The third quarter saw some good production by the Indiana defense and offense, but not enough of it. Cutting the score to 38-24, with more than 10 or 11 minutes left, I thought that IU had a chance. But, the offense got stymied, the defense gave away one last TD for the final score of 45-24. 

    Cincinnati is not 3-1, ranked 27th, while Indiana drops to 72, right behind Wyoming. I hope IU could hang tight with the Pokes. Indiana next has a bruised Nebraska Cornhuskers. Should be a fight, where they lost their 5th year coach and former player Scott Frost, and are hurting at 92, 1-3. A win for Nebraska would be huge, as a win for IU, too. I really want my Hoosiers to play like they did in the third quarter of the Bearcat game.

How 'Bout them Dukes?

    As I more or less predicted, the James Madison Dukes were better than 112th, or 100th. Now they are being rated at 50th, which may be too high... but maybe not. Texas State should be the next victim. Trailing 28-3 late in the game, this was a remarkable comeback. The Mountaineers of Boone had everybody going crazy the week before, and now they are ranked 54th.

    Congrats to the fans in Harrisonburg.

    

Other notes? Navy watched East Carolina miss a makeable field goal to hang on to a vital win in Greeneville. Niumatalolo is hanging by a thread.

    The SEC powers and Big Ten powers are still there, Michigan looking the weakest against Maryland. Some fear that Turtle. IU must play them tough, like resurgent Rutgers. Maybe Michigan State is down, after losing worse than the week before, this time to the Minnesota Gophers.

    

Okay, that is all for now. Enjoy.