“Past performance is no guarantee of future success.” I can’t find who this quote is attributed to, but I’m going to take a gander and say, -some idiot. You know how to tell if your team is going to be ready to rock for the game this weekend? If they were ready to rock last weekend, seems like a pretty good indicator to me! Let’s take a look at the games from last weekend and see if it provides any writing on the wall for this week.
Last Week: Arizona 41 @ USC 43 & Notre Dame 20 @ Louisville 33
This Week: USC @ Notre Dame 7:30p.m.
I think USC and Notre Dame played equally poor games, ND just had a bit of a better opponent to stink against. Much like when my 4 year old says she is too tired to put on her socks, it does not give me a lot of confidence for the immediate future. Are these teams good?! USC has the best player on the field, but they don’t play a lick of defense, I’ve seen NFL Blitz games with better defensive gameplans (Safe Cover and Near Zone). Notre Dame seems like a solid team who can’t get it done when it matters most. I don’t think they will be able to stand up to Caleb Williams and ND fans might find themselves saying, “another touchdown? Jesus help us” before the game is over. Or maybe they will in fact “play like a champion today”.
USC 37 – ND 28
Last Week: Maryland 17 @ Ohio State 37
This Week: Ohio State @ Purdue 12:00p.m.
With the game tied at half, I think Ohio State fans found themselves getting ready for another nail biter against a vastly inferior team. These are the kind of games that Ohio State just usually dominates. But we haven’t seen as much domination as we are used to from them. I can’t decide if this OSU teams is slightly weaker than what we are used to, (please let that be it) or if they are coasting a bit as they gear up for the tougher back half of their schedule (much more likely). Playing @ Purdue is spooky, particularly for the Buckeyes, but we would be foolish if didn’t reference Purdue’s last week performance as well.
Last Week: Purdue 14 @ Iowa 20
This Purdue team stinks, if Ohio State can’t crush them convincingly I will start to believe that maybe they were born on third and just got thrown out trying to lead off.
Ohio State 47 – Purdue 14
Last Week: Washington Off Week & Oregon Off Week
This Week: Oregon @ Washington 3:30p.m.
Having an extra week to prepare is always a good sign, until it isn’t. If these College kids are anything like myself, they are 4 days away from the due date and they’ve had two weeks to get ready, so they are probably just getting ready, to start… thinking about starting. Hopefully Washington doesn’t just hand in the rough draft and call it a day, because who would be lazy enough to do that? I’ve realized in my older years that I may have a pretty solid case of undiagnosed ADHD, and it does sort of put things into perspective of how I live and behave on a day to day basis. I saw a post describing ADHD as erectile dysfunction of the brain, that often despite having everything around you telling you to make this happen, your brain just is incapable of sinking into the task at hand to achieve what it wants. And oh man, did that hit hard, (not the ED part specifically, just the analogy…). Winner of this game finds themselves Pac-12 champs and eventually in the college playoff, I will watch this one with great interest. Did I leave the Iron on? (Another joke, do people even own irons any more? Has clothing evolved past ironing?)
Oregon 27 – Washington 28
Last Week: Michigan 52 @ Minnesota 10
This Week: Indiana @ Michigan 12:00p.m.
Middle of the road, red, Big 10 team, with Coach who can be… at times annoying, but respected. Gets murdered by Michigan particularly in the trenches and loses convincingly. Michigan is bound to have a game where they struggle against an inferior team but it’s much more likely to be Michigan State or Maryland.
Michigan 42 – Indiana 10
Harbaugh’s search for the perfect Wolverine QB:
Last Week: Georgia Tech 23 @ Miami Chernobyl 20 & Syracuse a little @ UNC a lot
This Week: Miami @ UNC 7:30p.m.
I used to play a lot of NCAA College Football on the Xbox as a kid. There is a line the announcers say when you make a boneheaded decision. I think specifically it triggers when you kick an onside kick when you are up big. Kirk Herbstreit just uncorks on the user for doing something so dumb. “This is something you don’t do, I am not second guessing I am first guessing, I am just beside myself with this level of decision making.” Miami’s decision to not kneel the ball and instead fumble the game away, will follow the program around for the rest of Cristobal’s tenure. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch it. If you have, maybe watch it again just to remind yourself you could be having a worse day. But don’t watch it too many times, it’s going to be on every YouTube compilation and lowlight montage for the rest of our lives. Right after trouble with the snap… sigh. You know that embarrassing thing you did as a kid? For me, it was trying to act like a hot shot marksman around some real country boys when we were shooting guns for fun. When finally pressured into taking some shots, my aim was not nearly as impressive as I had boasted. In fact it was much worse. All because for some reason I felt this tremendous pressure to be some version of myself I thought I had needed to become. I think about that moment like twice a week, maybe more, right before bed. I am going to take some solace tonight when I recall that memory, and remind myself that my night-time “total-recall-masochism” can’t be nearly as bad Cristobal’s. They say comparison is the thief of joy, I am hoping it can be the thief of shame as well. TAKE THIS BURDEN FROM ME MIAMI.
UNC 38 – Miami 28
Yes this is a second NFL Blitz reference.
Last Week: Oregon State 52 @ California 40 & Washington State 17 @ UCLA 25
This Week: UCLA @ Oregon State 8:00p.m.
You know what is super weird? The fact that UCLA is really good at defense, that just doesn’t make any sense. What the heck is happening here? Like what if UCLA is taking NFL caliber adults and dressing them in college jerseys and then just running them out on the field and dominating on D? Who would notice? More investigation will be required from me this weekend, I will be checking ID at the door, you expect me to believe this is real? Your names are Laiatu Latu and Oluwafemi Oladejo? Did your fake ID printer break? Must’ve glitched out after Gary Smith and John Humphrey (these are “legitimate names” of starters on the UCLA front 7).
UCLA 24 – Oregon State 23
Last Week: Tennessee Off Week & Alabama 26 @ Texas A&M 20
This Week: Texas A&M @ Tennessee 3:30p.m.
These are two teams that should be hypothetically good. Much like how every new Call of Duty should be hypothetically good, but it’s not. A&M fought valiantly against the Crimson Sabans but came up short, and last we saw Tennessee they were putting what must have been a cathartic whoopin’ on South Carolina. One team loses and their whole season pretty much goes up in flames, and the other, unfortunately…. wins. I think a game like this is a pretty solid case for the expanded playoff format coming next year. It will be exciting for College Football, this is a game that would have incredible stakes if this was the case.
A&M 22 – Tennessee 30
There is larger point to be made here, about how NIL and transfer rules seem to be actually increasing parity in college football. And with mega conferences coming and an expanded playoff, there is actually hope for what College Football might look like in the short term. In a season in which Michigan hasn’t been tested once, and has essentially 3.5 big games between them and returning to the playoffs, just look at this BEAST of a schedule they have loaded up for next year.
-GN
Gamenotes 