ENTHUSIAST OF ALL

An eventful week 6 of college football sorted out some mysteries, especially in the SEC. Week 7 doesn’t have quite the matchups we saw over the weekend, but it’s still college football, and as we saw, anything can happen! Here are some thoughts on the action over the weekend:

• My sleeper team for the year, the Arkansas Razorbacks, did the unthinkable and manhandled the highly touted Auburn Tigers on their home field. I knew that Arkansas was going to be good, but can’t claim I thought they could pull this off. I’ve had them in my top 20 all season, but who would have imagined this? Darren McFadden made the Auburn rush defense look much softer than what we have seen so far this year. Imagine that LSU couldn’t even score a touchdown at Auburn and Arkansas put up 27 points! It’s official, the Razorbacks are for real. This was a huge win for the program. As for Auburn, they’re down but certainly not out. Florida comes to town in this weekend’s marquee matchup as the Tigers try to get back on track.
• Florida and Tennessee seperated themselves from the rest of the SEC with convincing wins over LSU and Georgia respectively. Had I known that this was going to be the case, I would have gotten even more enjoyment out of that great Florida-Tennessee game a few weeks back. The Gators looked incredibly solid on both sides of the ball, and the dual quarterback system is working in a big way. Did everyone see that jump throw TD by freshman Tim Tebow? Crazy stuff! The Gators still have a vicious schedule ahead with Auburn, Georgia, Florida State and the SEC championship game lurking ahead. I moved them up 4 spots to #2 after their impressive victory and would have a tough time seeing them left out of the national championship if they can win out.
• You can kind of start to see Oklahoma’s season beginning to spiral downward. Okay, so they got a really, REALLY bad break in that Oregon game. Everybody knows that, everybody agrees on that. And I think everyone knew that Texas was probably a slightly better team going into Saturday. But the Sooners just looked gutless. After tying the game at 7 and actually taking a 10-7 lead at the half, Texas socred 21 unanswered points to close the game. The defense rolled over and the offense was anemic. With their only two difficult games behind them as defeats, I don’t see this team getting too inspired and wouldn’t be surprised to see them lose one to somebody they shouldn’t. Oh Sooner fans, what could have been…
• It appears that California actually is the team I thought they were at the beginning of the year. The Cal offense rolled up 45 points on Oregon as I nearly predicted the final score exactly! USC struggled mightily for the second straight week, and had a really good shot to lose at home against Washington if the Huskies had managed the clock a bit better. Right now, I really like Cal’s chances to go into the Colosseum and win in November.
• Florida State lost a big one Thursday night at NC State. It would appear that Clemson is the team to beat in the ACC now, along with Georgia Tech and Boston College. When was the last time that neither Miami or Florida State was in the Top 25? I can’t imagine it’s happened in my lifetime.
• The mighty Indiana Hoosiers took advantage of their only remaining winnable game and knocked off Illinois 34-32 in the Big Ten pillowfight of the year. The Hoosiers trailed 25-7 at the end of the first quarter and somehow came back to win. I know the game is irrelevant, but you have to give my boys their props for this one. Genius clock management and a huge leap of faith in the defense at the end of the game by Terry Hoeppner made the winning field goal a possibility.

TOP 25 OF THE MATTY, games through 10/09

1. Ohio State (6-0)
2. Florida (6-0)
3. Michigan (6-0)
4. USC (5-0)
5. West Virginia (5-0)
6. Texas (5-1)
7. Notre Dame (5-1)
8. Louisville (5-0)
9. Tennessee (5-1)
10. California (5-1)
11. Clemson (5-1)
12. Arkansas (4-1)
13. Auburn (5-1)
14. Iowa (4-1)
15. LSU (4-2)
16. Georgia (5-1)
17. Georgia Tech (5-1)
18. Oregon (5-1)
19. Nebraska (5-1)
20. Oklahoma (3-2)
21. Boise State (6-0)
22. Missouri (6-0)
23. Boston College (4-1)
24. Virginia Tech (5-1)
25. Rutgers (5-0)

HEISMAN HUNT

1. Troy Smith, Ohio State
2. Brady Quinn, Notre Dame
3. Steve Slaton, West Virginia
4. Chris Leak, Florida
5. Adrian Peterson, Oklahoma
6. Calvin Johnson, Georgia Tech
7. Garrett Wolfe, Northern Illinois
8. Mario Manningham, Michigan
9. Ted Ginn, Ohio State
10. Robert Meachem, Tennessee

GAMES TO WATCH IN WEEK 7:

Unfortunately for me, most of this week’s best games are at night, and I’ll be at a wedding and unable to watch any of them. That doesn’t mean that I can’t impart my wisdom though.

#2 FLORIDA AT #13 AUBURN, 6:45 CST, ESPN

Amazingly, this is the only game of the week that matches two top 25 teams against one another, but it should be worth the wait until the evening. Florida looked great last week coming off a pretty shaky effort against Alabama the week before. Auburn, meanwhile, couldn’t have looked worse defensively. I’m expecting this one to go down to the wire, but look for the Auburn defense to make some adjustments and create some turnovers at home. Florida’s versatile offense has been very impressive, but has struggled on the road, and this will be a big test. Florida’s defense has also looked great but will have its hands full with Kenny Irons. This will be a battle! Auburn 24, Florida 23

#3 MICHIGAN at PENN STATE, 7:00 CST, ABC

The absence of Mario Manningham doesn’t make this already difficult road test any easier for the Wolverines. On the ABC night game, I can’t think of too many more fearsome places to go than Happy Valley. Also, don’t think Penn State has forgotten about their last second loss to Michigan last year that cost them an undefeated regular season. The intensity will be high, but in the end I think Michigan just has too much offensive firepower, even without Manningham. Not only that, but Penn State hasn’t been able to produce much offensively this season, and the Michigan defense is really starting to click. Penn State should have enough energy to keep things close in the first half, but Michigan will make the plays in the second half to get the job done.

Michigan 23, Penn State 14

#1 OHIO STATE AT MICHIGAN STATE, 2:30 CST, ABC

This isn’t really much of a “big game” other than the fact that it’s the only one all I’ll be able to watch, and that it is essentially a must win for the Spartans after consecutive losses to Notre Dame, Illinois and Michigan. Unfortunately, I don’t see the Spartans jumping out to an early lead at home this time like they did against the Irish, and everyone knows how potent Ohio State is offensively no matter where they are playing. No contest here.

Ohio State 40, Michigan State 17

This entry was posted on October 12, 2006 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Sports. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.