September 5, 2006
Week 1 College Football Round-Up
Well, I went 1-3 against the spread in my picked games… Not good. But there were a lot of things I saw this week that surprised me, so here’s what I’m seeing from a few of the interesting games.
First things first, my Purdue Boilermakers started their season with a 60-35 win over Indiana State. Indiana State is a Div I-AA school that went 0-11 last year, and it’s quite a bit embarrassing to see that they put up so many points. Of course, 14 of those points were on special teams miscues, and 7 were last-minute garbage points against the 2nd-string D, but I didn’t like the 14 they earned. Purdue’s got a young defense, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a long pass for a TD on a young cornerback’s blown coverage. But ISU scored 14 points running straight at the defense. Purdue’s D should have the talent to stop that. My only consolation is that the defensive coordinator, Brock Spack, said after the game that they’d had a very vanilla gameplan, to see which of these young players would make plays. I can only hope when they start bringing the pressure and getting back to Purdue-style defense, we’ll have an improvement. On the bright side, Purdue hung 60 points on ISU, with 5 straight touchdown drives in the second half. When ISU started making it a close game, they responded with sustained drives down the field.
On to the hated rival, Notre Dame. I said they’d cover the 7-point spread, with a serious desire that my pick would be wrong. They beat Georgia Tech 14-10, and didn’t look good at all while doing it. Their defense wasn’t the key to stopping Georgia Tech, as far as I could see, it was poor playcalling and an inconsistent Reggie Ball. Even then, there were a couple of lucky breaks, including a suspect personal foul to keep ND’s second scoring drive alive, and a circus-grab on 3rd Down by Calvin Johnson of GT that was later ruled not a catch on replay, although I think there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn. Notre Dame’s offense faltered, their offensive line was unable to protect Brady Quinn, and it seemed like the loss of safety-valve tight end Anthony Fasano took away one of Quinn’s favorite targets. They way they looked, I think Penn State’s and Michigan’s defense can really shut down that offense. I think they lose their next two (at least).
The week appeared to revolve around new quarterbacks at the premier programs showing their worth. Texas had Colt McCoy out putting up huge numbers against North Texas. With a name like Colt McCoy, I think he’s suited to Texas… I thought before this week that Ohio State would be a big favorite against UT next week, but now I’m not so sure. And in a true shock, USC proved they really may be a dynasty, with new QB John David Booty putting up huge numbers while surrounded by new players at all the skill positions.
Northwestern responded to the graduation of their star starting QB, Bret Basanez, and their star MLB, Jim McGarigle (the anchor of their defense the last few years), along with the all-too-early death of head coach Randy Walker by coming out and dominating Miami (OH) with a 21-3 score. I’ve been predicting Northwestern will have a down year, so either they’re going to surprise a lot of people, or Miami is just bad. Purdue plays Miami this Saturday, and Northwestern later this year, so I’m hoping it’s a little of both.
Beyond all this, it was the usual unexpected play of week 1. Some great teams came out flat. Some mediocre teams looked a lot better than they really are. This weekend, we’ve got two big ones, Penn State @ Notre Dame, and Ohio State @ Texas. Though I’ll be in Vegas with my wife for the “family” part of her birthday celebration, I’m hoping to steal away and watch those games… 
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I hope by “watch” you mean “visit a sportsbook”. And by “rivals” you mean that Notre Dame doesn’t really care about Purdue in a rivalry sense.
I hope you are right about our D stepping up.
Sam,
I do hope when we meet Notre Dame that they’re crying in their beers over their 2-2 (or even 1-3) record, and aren’t focusing on how much we hate them. They’ll just be that much easier to beat. And Quinn is going to be sucking his thumb after Penn State & Michigan’s front 7 get done planting him on his back.
I think our D will step up. I don’t think we blitzed all game against ISU, and we learned last year that we don’t play well unless we’re attacking on defense. It’s unclear how good they’ll be, but they should be a lot better than they were last Saturday.
And have you heard? Purdue had the top-scoring offense in the country in week 1. At the very least, we should be able to get into and win a few shootouts.