Week One College Football Wrap Up ~ Beat By The Nudge- No, You're Dumb!

9/8/09

Week One College Football Wrap Up

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Project Echelon is a program used by the NSA to secretly eavesdrop in on any telephone conversation going on in the United States. Technically, it’s supposed to be used to try and catch terrorists as they use some key phrases and terminologies. But unbeknownst to most of us, every Sunday the fellas down at the NSA flip a switch and Echelon goes from trying to track down Bin Laden to trying to get the skinny on what’s going on in the world of college football. Hey, it’s your tax dollars at work.

This is just a sample of a couple of conversations that were overheard.

(ring, ring)
Answerer: Charlottesville Realty, this is Martha speaking.
Caller: Yes, Hi, this is Kristen Groh. I’m going to be looking to sell my house in the very near future and get the Hell out of the area and I was just wondering how long you think my house would be on the market.
Answerer: Well, when do you think you’d be looking to sell?
Caller: Well, let’s see. My husband’s team plays against TCU, Southern Miss and North Carolina in the next three weeks….so…we’ll probably be looking to move by early October. Does that sound alright?

Then there was this one overheard in a conversation in Norman, Oklahoma.

(ring, ring)
Bob Stoops: Bob Stoops speaking.
Caller: Yea Hi it’s Landry, I’m out front and I can’t seem to get into the building.
Stoops: Landry? Landry Who?
Caller: Landry Jones. You know, you’re starting quarterback.
Stoops: No, I think you’re mistaken. Our starter is a fella named Sam.
Caller: No, that was last week. This week I’m going to start for you guys.
Stoops: (overheard in the background speaking to someone else) Hey Josh, we got anyone named Landry on our squad? No!
(to the caller) Son maybe you play for Oklahoma State. You know a lot of people make that mistake.

The first week of the college football season started off Thursday night with Oregon rolling into Idaho and ended on Monday night with an instant classic between Miami and Florida State. A lot of questions were answered this week, but a lot more questions were left unchecked.

The ACC conference seemed to have a pretty tough first week with Virginia losing to lowly William and Mary, Duke losing to 1-AA powerhouse Richmond, NC State losing to South Carolina, Wake Forest losing to upstart Baylor and Virginia Tech losing to Alabama. Coming into the second week of the season, we’ll be better able to gauge the conference as a whole when the Blue Devils of Duke roll into upstate New York to take on the Cadets of Army. If Duke can’t pull out the victory, entire football operations of the Atlantic Athletic Conference should cease and desist and their automatic BCS Bowl game bid should be given to Notre Dame every year, regardless of their record. This would accomplish two things. First, it would cement the conference’s image as being a basketball only organization and secondly, it would give Bobby Bowden an out for his eventual loss to Joe Paterno in overall coaching wins. SO really, it’s a win-win situation. Go Black Kah-nigits.

The first week also gave us our first look at a couple of new quarterbacks. Matt Barkley was named as the starter for the USC Trojans early last week. He was going to be the first true freshman ever to start for the Mighty Men of Troy. Fortunately for him and Pete Carroll, USC’s first game was at home against the Spartans of San Jose State. Prior to this game, I actually thought Dick Twomey’s Spartan team was going to be competitive this year. But then the game started. The Spartan Defense was non-existent throughout the whole game. Their coverage was actually laughable at times.. I liked what Trojan offensive coordinator, John Morton did with the young kid. A lot of play action, using the established running game to set up high percentage short throws. Although the stats are going to say differently, I didn’t think Barkley looked all that good. We’ll see how he performs in this week’s marquee match-up when he rolls into the horseshoe.

Rich Rod and his Michigan Wolverines showed us his two new true freshman quarterbacks in Tate Forcier and “Shoelace” Robinson. Both youngsters looked light years ahead of last years starters Nick Sheridan and Steven Threet. Actually, Shoelace Robinson might just be the fastest player in college football right now. He had a busted play where he went the wrong way, he actually stopped, and then sprinted into the end zone from around forty yards out. I know it was against Western Michigan, but speed is speed and this kid is lights out fast. We’ll see how these two youngsters do when the wrecking ball fighting Irish defense rolls into Ann Arbor on Saturday. I think their stats might just be drastically different when they face off against an actual defensive front seven.

Other new QB’s who made some noise and looked very impressive to me in Week 1 were:
Utah- Terrance Cain
Tulsa- G.J. Kinne
Colorado State- Grant Stucker
Arkansas- Ryan Mallett
Syracuse- Greg Paulus
Mizzo- Blaine Gabbert

One more thing before I go, I was really impressed with true freshman Tennessee running back Bryce Brown. I’m aware that Western Kentucky will probably have the worst defense in all D-1 college football by the end of the season. And that judging the kid by the way he rolled through their porous defense is really not all that good of a indicator. But UT, with Brown, Hardesty and Oku is going to have a pretty good running game this year. Right now, if I’m an SEC head coach, I’m worried about the Tennessee football program.

And just remember, as the season progresses and Oklahoma starts losing more and more games because of Bradford’s injury, just remember that it was left tackle Trent Williams who missed that block on the blitzing BYU Linebacker Coleby Clawson. Prior to the year, everyone’s projected draft board had Williams going as the first or second tackle taken. Let’s see if that one play will affect his draft status in the eyes of the pundits.

That’s it, that’s all I got. I have to go polish my bronze bust of Urban Meyer that I have sitting on a pedestal in my foyer. Boy, when the sunlight hit’s the brass, it almost looks like Urban’s eyes are twinkling, shear magic.

See ya sports fans!