Big Ten teams lost 7 nonconference games against unranked opponents Saturday, the conference's most such losses in a single day since the AP Poll debuted in 1936.— Jason Starrett (@starrettjason) September 16, 2018
Akron knocks off Northwestern 39-34 for its first win against a Big Ten team since 1894 - yes, 1894— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) September 16, 2018
Northwestern, Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers and Wisconsin.That's 7 Big Ten teams that lost to unranked non-conference opponents on Saturday.The Big Ten was 33-7 in those games all of last season. https://t.co/QFlB01LioC— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) September 16, 2018
Northwestern lost to Akron 34-39.
Illinois lost to South Florida 19-25.
Wisconsin lost to BYU 21-24.
Nebraska lost to Troy 19-24.
Purdue lost to Missouri 37-40.
For good measure in the B1G East, Kansas pasted Rutgers 55-14 and Temple thumped Maryland 35-14.
Comments
Big Ten is...not good
Once in a lifetime spectacle, right there
That's how I originally wrote it, then thought I could eliminate "got", but forgot to transpose the teams. Words, they'll get after ya.
Yeah, I was telling my buddy earlier today how damn bad the West is compared to the East.
Whoever makes the conference championship game is going to get throttled by Ohio State.
Pretty sure Akron's defense was just faking injuries. That's really the only reason Northwestern lost.
Just to make another point...
Florida State is ass.
Nebraska hasn't won yet.
Arkansas just got violated by NORTH TEXAS.
Our coaching transition was pretty damn smooth, man - if you think about it. Praise Whit.
(Sidenote: I'm pretty firm for Herm, so I was disappointed to wake up to the news that ASU lost last night)
To be fair, Beamer left Fuente building blocks to work with. Arguably the main reason Beamer's last team went 7-6 was because our starting QB was out for half the season. Also look at the game summary for that season, so many close losses where just having a little bit of an extra bump on offense could have made a huge difference to the win/loss record.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Virginia_Tech_Hokies_football_team#Sc...
edit: To be clear, I'm only making a point about our program, not saying certain coaches didn't have talent to work with.
To be fair,
Beamer leftFuente came in and used building blocks that Beamer left him to work with and played to their strengths while instilling his own O and culture.Taggart, Frost, et al don't get a pass, just because they are new coaches. FSU has sufficient talent that they should be able to do minimal prep, running virtually any O & D and still blow out the likes of Samford. Hey I get the notion that we beat them twice, but if that were the case, they wouldn't have looked like feces vs the orangeguys.
Edited to correct for fat fingers
On the FSU topic...
Did anyone else notice that Franscois is losing his mojo with the OL. It wasn't just the one play that's been shared here and on Twitter. I'm expecting a full meltdown in Tallahassee.
Taggart gets zero passes they have talent for days.
Nebraska did lose their only scholarship QB and looked pretty good against Colorado before he went down. I think they'll be okay.
I've been reading a bunch of commentary from Nebraska fans, where they say Frost's post game was "buy in or GTFO". Apparently some of the players had entitled attitudes on par with what we were reading about Texas in Mack Brown's last couple of years. That definitely is a tougher situation than I expected. Frost may get a little more of a pass than Taggart.
While I'm on the Nebraska topic, Frost may get more of a pass, since they don't get top 25 recruiting classes. Unless the players had real development, from the prior coaching staff (and it sounds like they didn't), he as a real mess to clean up.
We had a young defense in 2015 too, Motu was young, in 2016 our defense was 4 points better, that would have given us a few more wins in 2015 alone
And most of his skill players were still just sophomores.
All in all, not a bad day in college football.
Next week's slate of games looks.... Very bad.
Picking Gameday was pretty easy:
"What ranked matchups do we have?"
"There's only one."
"Pack it up and let's go."
They might go the FCS route this weekend or just stay in studio
If you're talking about week 4, they already announced they're going to Stanford at Oregon.
Week 5, they're probably targeting Ohio State at Penn State.
Phrasing. They better not be targeting.
*cries in Arizona State*
Whenever I see your comments, I have to scroll up a little to see if you're still talking to yourself.
Even me!
Thank goodness Iowa took care of business and avoided being team number 8. I like the Hawks' chances in a rematch with anOSU.
I can't say that I agree. The game will be in Ohio, and Iowa lost their star cb that killed the Buckeyes last year - Josh Jackson.
I'm not saying it'll be another blowout, and OSU probably will put more points on the board, but it'll be another long game for them if they haven't come up with an answer for Iowa's TEs since last year.
Hopefully this keeps the focus on the B1G being this year's down conference. The ACC may be topheavy this year, but the B1G is topheavy-er.
There's still a lot of football left to be played but things are setting up for the SEC to once again get 2 teams in the playoff and potentially setting up an argument for 3 given what might happen with LSU. The BigTen looks like trash, the ACC appears to be garbage (Clemson's only hope for a true statement win at this point is an undefeated VT in Charlotte) the PAC 12 can never really be trusted and outside of Oklahoma and WVU what does the B12 really have?
But I kinda want 3 SEC teams in this year. Piss off enough of the conference commissioners and force an expanded playoff with all conference champions guaranteed in.
If it means an expanded playoff, burn baby burn
This playoff already pissed off the G5 commissioners, and turning it into an SEC Invitational would get it changed fast.
Even the SEC doesn't want three SEC teams in, because that would be the end of them having the unfettered ability to get two teams in.
What's funny is that we're having this conversation in week 3, when we all KNOW that the worm is going to turn a few times more this season.
I agree with most of what you said:
-UGA has two real tests, LSU and Auburn on the road. The rest of their schedule is a cake-walk until the SECCG. LSU could legitimately end up with one loss to either Bama or UGA. Say LSU beats Bama (unlikely, but possible now that they have serviceable QB play) but loses to UGA, UGA and Bama beat Auburn, and Bama and UGA boat-race everyone else. You could then have LSU pull off a win over UGA in the SECCG, so you end up with 3 1-loss SEC teams.
-Or LSU and Auburn beat UGA, but Bama, LSU, and Auburn all end up 1-1 against each other giving all three only one loss
The committee will soil themselves in their excitement over getting to put 3 SEC teams in the CFP.
My only disagreement is that OK St gives the Big12 a third high quality team. Imagine if OK, WVU, and OK St go 1-1 against each other. Think of the mental gymnastics the committee will do to get in 2 or 3 1-loss SEC teams but only 1 or 0 1-loss Big12 teams. Throw in a 1-1 3-way tie in the B1G with anOSU, Penn St, and Missagain and all hell breaks loose. In that scenario they would most likely default to the three Conference Champs.
Of course, it will work itself out. We most likely will not get the utter chaos we crave to burn the system down and expand the playoff.
My way too early CFP prediction:
2 SEC (Bama and LSU)
1 ACC (Clemson)
1 B1G (anOSU) or 1 Big12 (OK)
seeded in that order.
-Bama goes undefeated giving LSU one loss and Auburn 2 losses. UGA loses to LSU, Auburn, and Bama in the SECCG.
-Clemson sticks with Lawrence because of the injury to Bryant and by the end of the season their offense is humming. Their dominant win over a highly ranked, 1-loss VT in the ACCCG pushes them in ahead of OK/anOSU who play lower ranked teams in their CGs.
-anOSU and OK both end up with one loss. It will all come down to the OK-TCU score. If OK dominates and wins by a more significant margin, they get the nod. If it is a close win or they lose, then anOSU gets the last spot.
I think you might be dismissing Clemson's win at Kyle Field a bit prematurely. Depending on how aTm does in conference, that might wind up being Clemson's ticket to the playoffs over a second (or third) SEC team.
Bruh...its week 3 lmao.
The SEC were "setting up" to have 4 teams in the playoffs once upon a time with Ole Miss, Miss St, LSU, and Bama. But thingd worked themselves out.
There is no chance a conference gets three teams in. No chance. No way.
For all the hand wringing about how bad the ACC looks this season, as pointed out above, all the conferences aside from the SEC seem to be suffering this problem this year. Perhaps the real problem can be stated that the CFB landscape is really top heavy this year?
Guess that's what happens when you have the same 4 teams in the playoffs every year
Unfortunately I think Bama is by far and away the best and nobody is even close. They have a very good defense and with Tua, that is the best offense I've ever seen for Bama. This might be the best Bama team in a very long time. I think they curb stomp most teams this season.
I wouldn't say nobody else is close
I think Uga, Bama, and OSU are in the same tier. It's inevitable that their paths cross this year, so we'll see how it all plays out.
reesejenks520: I was also about to say that I thought UGA was in the same category as an Alabama.
reesejenks520: Smart man.
reesejenks520: OSU can compete with them, but I think this year they're probably in the second tier with PSU, Oklahoma, and maybe even Clemson.
reesejenks520: Maybe not so smart.
reesejenks520: Eat me, reesejenks520
Alright I think I've killed this joke enough.
LMAO
...a guy replies to himself a couple times in one night and this is what he gets
love it. bring the chaos.
Yesterday was a glorious, glorious day for a non-B1GTen fan in Big Ten country. Everyone who was hassling me about the ACC being bad can go eat their words.
Though we didn't play yesterday (which is ok given the opponent), I basked in the reflected glory of Wisconsin losing. That Nebraska followed up with a loss and Northwestern (the team that Big Ten fans constantly say is a really tough out) lost too, it looks like the Big Ten West could legitimately be the worst division in the country. Wisconsin still has to play PSU and Michigan, so there is a possibility that they finish 9-3, which is music to my ears.
Actually I'd rather have Camp Randall stadium sucked into a vortex but I'm thinking 9-3 is more likely.
So as far as the ACC is concerned, it's looking like our best teams are Clemson and BC on the Atlantic side and VT, Miami, and Duke in the Coastal. I can dig this, though I'd like to see another decent team on the Atlantic side.
Maybe NCSU as the third on the Atlantic?
They really struggled to beat JMU in week 1. JMU pulled to within 4 in the 4th quarter before NCSU put it away. Though I suppose all of the other teams in contention for 3rd (Syracuse, Louisville, and Wake) each have a couple suspect games of their own.
At least I think we can agree that FSU is 7th.
JMU could contend for a top 3 finish in the B1G West or win a couple of G5 divisions. Don't sleep on them.
The thing about JMU is that you can lose to them and still win the ACC.
Hesrightyouknow.jpeg
So are they the Leaders or the Legends? Hard to keep that straight...
So hard to keep it straight that you didn't notice they switched to East/West over 4 years ago.
I guess that makes Ohio State the Leader and everyone else's success just a Legend.
I saw that, but the joke works better if you aren't pedantic, so I figured it's work better my way.
This is the result of conference expansion. You can call it dilution, but instead of 4-5 really good teams with 9-12 being lolUVA, you got 3-4 really good teams, a middle tier of 5-9, and then at least 5 lolUVA teams. More cause for bad losses, and fewer good wins.
Maybe makes the Duke win less impressive, but at least they're consistent, even with a new QB.