The Original
College Football Czar
Week 7
Week six in review: The only whiteout that was seen last weekend was the stuff that was used to blot Penn State out of the rankings, after the Nittany Lions lost to previously winless UCLA, 42-37. Meanwhile, the ranks of the unbeatens dwindled by four, with Iowa State, Vanderbilt, Maryland and Houston each taking its first loss of the season.
Since hiring Bill Belichick, North Carolina has gotten the worst case of buyer's remorse since the time those parents mistakenly bought something called a "Tickle Me Emo" for Christmas, and unwittingly gave their child a vibrating Emo Philips, instead of the cloying character from Sesame Street. That never happened, you say? Exactly! That's just how dire the situation has become at the Chapel of Love, where the 2-3 hometown Tar Heels have lost badly to all three credible opponents.
At long last, the NCAA has narrowed the opening of the transfer portal, to the period from January 2-16. The College Football Czar would prefer to see it moved beyond the postseason altogether, but at least players no longer need to leave before their bowl games to avoid missing out on an opportunity. The spring window is closed altogether, which will grant the coaches some continuity between spring and fall practices. The Czar still believes The Powers That Be Stupid were using the December portal to deliberately euthanize the bowl games, but they really didn't expect players to begin taking a pass on the playoffs. We can't be sure exactly what prompted this decision, but there sure seemed to be a moment of panic when Penn State backup QB Beau Pribula transferred out prior to last postseason.
The College Football Czar got off to a slow start, but rallied in the Saturday night games to finish the week at 13-7. For the season, he is 71-48, for a .597 winning percentage.
Oct.
10
South Florida at North Texas
The team
from Tampa might have trouble finding its way to this game, because UNT is
located in Denton, which really is in the northern part of Texas. South Florida, by comparison, is due west of
Central Florida, which is to say, not in South Florida. So if the Bulls want to make it to the field
in time for kickoff, the first thing they need to realize is that Texan
geography is not sarcastic.
Between
these American conference opponents, the Mean Green are the ones who remain
unbeaten at this point, but that's not so great a surprise considering that
their toughest competition so far has been Army. USF, on the other hand, has already blown out
Boise State and beaten Florida, their remarkable run ending only with a loss at
Miami.
Bull
quarterback Byrum Brown is also his team's leading rusher, with at least twice
as many carries as any of the running backs.
This has got to be a little bit unsettling for his coaches, considering
the number of hits he has been taking, after missing the last eight games of
2024 with a broken leg.
His
counterpart, Drew Mestemaker, has not made very many mestemakes
so far this year. The 6-foot-4 redshirt
freshman has yet to throw an interception in 156 passes, 106 of which he has
completed, with eleven touchdowns. It helps that he doesn't have to take a lot
of chances when he's throwing to teammates like RB Caleb Hawkins, who turned a
short dump pass into a 68-yard TD to take command of last week's 36-22 win over
South Alabama.
That
game, like this one, was played at DATCU Stadium. Where will they play when the Horned Frogs
decide they want it back?
North Texas 38, South Florida 34
Rutgers at Washington
Last
season in Piscataway, the Huskies dominated in terms of total yardage
(521-299), and had no turnovers of the conventional kind. Nevertheless, they lost to RU 21-18, with
three missed field goals and two turnovers on downs. Grady Gross, who missed a 55-yard boot that
would have forced overtime, had misfired on two much shorter attempts earlier
in the game. He has had no such troubles
so far this year, going 5-for-5 in field goals, including a 51-yarder in the
Apple Cup against Washington State.
RU
quarterback Athan "the Greek Rifle" Kaliakmanis has
been playing out of his Balkan mind so far this season. The senior is more than 13 percentage points
above his career-best completion rate, and third among Big Ten QBs with 1,399
yards.
It's a
little surprising that these teams met before UW joined the conference, when
the Dogs swept a home-and-home series in 2016-17. Their 48-13 romp in the home game was a rare
West Coast trip for the Knights, who are 0-7 all-time west of the Plains
States.
How do
you know Grady is gross? If he wasn't,
Fred wouldn't have to keep telling him to quit suckin
his teeth.
Washington 33, Rutgers 20
Oct.
11
Pitt at Florida State
After two
gruesome losses in a row, Pat Narduzzi called on virtually untested freshman
quarterback Mason Heintschel against Boston College, and he responded with 323
yards and four touchdowns, in a 48-7 bombardment. It's not coincidental, however, that the
Panther coach picked BC as the opponent against which to build his young QB's
confidence. This week will be a far
greater challenge, as his penalty-prone, injury riddled offensive line tries to
stave off a Seminole defense that will provide a lot more pressure.
FSU is
0-2 in ACC play after a 28-22 loss to Miami that wasn't nearly that close. The Hurricanes led 28-3 at the end of three,
before the Noles came back to make it look more respectable than it really was. Somebody should ask QB Tommy Castellanos
whether his team needed to lose that one.
The former BC scrambler, widely celebrated for his big mouth after an
opening upset of Alabama, has already matched last year's interception total,
while throwing a third as many touchdowns as he compiled a year ago.
Why do
the fans in Tallahassee go crazy for Chief Osceola, just because he manages to
throw his spear into the ground? Even
D.J. Uiagalelei couldn't miss that.
Florida State 24, Pitt 13
Northwestern at Penn State
The way the
Nittany Lions wandered into that ambush at UCLA, you'd have thought coach James
Franklin and his staff had no awareness that they were taking on a team that
had suddenly changed its whole offensive approach. By the time they recognized the challenge
they faced, they already trailed 27-7 at halftime.
The 3-2
Wildcats have lost by 20 points each to Tulane and Oregon. They did defeat UCLA, however, 17-14 in Week
5. Fifth-year senior QB Preston Stone is
supposedly hitting his stride, but so far he has only topped the 200-yard mark
twice, against Louisiana-Monroe and Division I-AA Western Illinois.
PSU coach
James Franklin is taking full responsibility for his team's predicament. "I'm responsible. I hired the staff. We recruited the players," he explained. So he admits it's his fault that everyone
else is screwing up. Who does he think
he is, Kamala Harris? If this game was
played by passing a buck instead of a pigskin, this guy would be a coaching
legend.
Penn State 38, Northwestern 20
Indiana at Oregon
The Ducks
were lucky to have an idle week after their overtime victory at Penn
State. Perhaps that UCLA-PSU result will
pull their heads down out of the clouds and make them realize they might not be
all that they're quacked up to be.
In their
only prior visit to Eugene, in the 2004 season opener, the Hoosiers converted
five turnovers into a 23-0 lead, then held on for a massive 30-24 upset
victory. The next year, they bought
their way out of the return game in Bloomington, just because they thought
their schedule was too tough. So they
cheated their fans of a home game against UO, and instead played Division I-AA
Nicholls State, to whom they nearly lost.
This
time, an IU win would not be nearly such a surprise, with both teams currently
ranked in the Top Ten. The
candelabra-heads didn't exactly light up Iowa in their first road game of the
season, though. In that 20-15 fracas,
they took an intentional game-ending safety on a play that started at their own
40-yard-line. Okay, so it was fourth
down, meaning they had to exhaust the clock or else turn the ball over to the
Hawkeyes, but there were only three seconds left. If QB Fernando Mendoza would simply have
chucked the ball for a long incompletion, time would have expired before it hit
the ground. To make him sprint in the
wrong direction and unnecessarily give up two points reeks of one of those
clever coach calls, by which the head coach deliberately makes an
unconventional decision in order to draw attention to himself (also known as
the LaRussa effect). This is a tendency
that is bound to come back and burn Curt Cignetti at some point, by putting the
spotlight on him at a time when he would rather it not be.
When a
team wins big one week and then loses the next, lardheads
like to say they should have saved some of their points from the previous
game. Maybe Cignetti believes that by
giving up those two points there will be two fewer points-against available for
this game. And the analytics dorks
probably agree.
Oregon 39, Indiana 37
Oklahoma vs. Texas
The Red
River Rivalry returns once again to the venerable Cotton Bowl, and not to that
sensory deprivation chamber in Arlington that once tried to steal it away. Anybody who doesn't like it is a wiener, and
will continue to be a bitter wiener at least until the contract runs out in
2037.
So much
for the College Football Czar's Texas-Penn State prediction for the CFP
championship game. It was one thing for
the Horns to fall on their haunches in their opener at Ohio State, but last
week's 29-21 loss to a foundering Florida team doesn't leave much room for
optimism for the rest of the season.
OU
quarterback John Mateer is trying to return from successful hand surgery to
play in this traditional neutral-site rivalry game. The Sooners still don't have much of an idea
how they would get along without him, after sophomore Michael Hawkinsjr led
them to a completely uncompetitive 44-0 win over Kent State.
It just
doesn't figure that Longhorn QB Arch Manning would continue to play as poorly
as he has so far. For the grandson of
Archie Manning and nephew of Peyton and Eli not to be an outstanding
quarterback would be like George P. Bush being able to correctly pronounce
"nuclear."
Texas 24 Oklahoma 19
Alabama at Missouri
It might
sound dumb to suggest that the Crimson Tide could be in for a letdown after the
Vanderbilt game, but that has never deterred the College Football Czar before,
so here goes. It's hard to overestimate
the importance of last week's 30-14 victory against the team that torpedoed
their 2024 season, and for that game to follow their big win over Georgia will
make it difficult for them to carry that same kind of energy into a third game
in a row.
Mizzou is
5-0 so far, but they are just now getting to the tough part of their schedule,
with Auburn, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M and Oklahoma still waiting ahead. Furthermore, this is their sixth consecutive
home game to start the season, before having to play four of their last six on
the road. Sophomore Ahmad Hardy
currently leads the nation in rushing with 730 yards, but that factoid will
draw little more than a hardy-har-har
from the rest of the SEC until it sees how he performs against more serious
competition.
High
completion percentages do not impress the College Football Czar if most of the
passes are basically just long handoffs.
In a 42-6 massacre of Umass, Tiger QB Beau
Pribula set a team record with 21 straight completions, but they were only for
a total of 187 yards. Even Chief Osceola
could have done that.
Alabama 23, Missouri 16
Ohio State at Illinois
The
top-ranked lumpy nuts lead the nation in fewest points allowed, with an even
5.0 per game. Last Saturday, they
grounded the Golden Gophers for 162 total yards in a 42-3 thumping. During their current nine-game winning streak
against the Fighting Illini, they have yielded a per-game average of 12.2.
The
planets do not need to illin to get the Illini into
the Big Ten title game, even after they were innil-ated
by Indiana, 63-10. After this big game
with the Buckeyes, they will have a chance to go on a run against a remaining
schedule that does not include Oregon, Michigan or Penn State.
OSU's
last loss in this series was a 28-21 shocker in 2007, when they were stymied by
UI quarterback Juice Williams. Why any
football player by that time would have been okay with the nickname "Juice" is
kind of disturbing. That was even the
same year that O.J. was actually convicted of something. Talk about a makeup call.
Tucker
Carlson knows that The Juice are to blame, for everything!
Ohio State 31, Illinois 13
Georgia at Auburn
UGA could
be walking into a Tiger trap. AU may be
at the bottom of the SEC standings, but their two losses have been to Oklahoma,
24-17, and Texas A&M, 16-10. Despite
a difficult early schedule that has also included an opening win over Baylor,
the Tigers have not allowed more than 24 points in a single game.
The
Bulldogs' non-league opponents provide an example of what has brought the
College Football Czar around to favoring a nine-game conference schedule. Aside from their traditional rivalry game
against Georgia Tech, their nonconference slate consists of Marshall, Charlotte
and Division I-AA Austin Peay. It's hard
to argue against trading one of those for another SEC opponent.
If Tiger
RB Jeremiah Cobb is anything like Lee J. Cobb, he must be shouting "Gimme!" like Johnny
Friendly in On the Waterfront. The team's leading rusher has only gotten six
carries in each of the last two games, in spite of a stellar 7.4 yard-per-carry
average. The Czar would suspect an
injury, except it isn't only Cobb. Hugh
Freeze's team just isn't handing the ball off very often to anyone.
Mr.
Friendly has money riding on this game, no doubt. The only question is whether or not he's
taking the pernts.
Auburn 17, Georgia 16
Michigan at USC
With Penn
State out of the way, and either Oregon or Indiana taking a loss this week, the
Wolverines would become Big Ten contenders with a win in this matchup that
traditionally would not take place until New Year's. In ten previous clashes, these teams have met
in the Rose Bowl eight times, with Southern Cal taking six of those. The maize and blue have beaten them in the
only two previous regular season matchups, way back in 1957-58. That means SC has a 6-3 series lead in Los
Angeles, but they have dropped the only game so far in the L.A. Coliseum.
Wolverine
coach Sherrone Moore returned from his two-game suspension, and probably wished
at times that he was still able to change channels away from the boring
performance he was directing. His team
was dull, but disciplined, committing no turnovers and only one penalty in a
24-10 trudge past Wisconsin.
The
Trojans have had a week off since a tough 34-32 setback at Illinois. Trailing by 14, they pulled that analytics
move that only seems to work in games involving themselves. Their two-point conversion succeeded, pulling
them within six. They scored again on
their subsequent possession to take a one-point lead, but then allowed a field
goal on the last play of the game.
Why do
people think Randy Newman was literally singing the praises of Los Angeles in
"I Love L.A.," when he has hardly uttered a non-facetious word in his entire
life? The song doesn't mean he really
loves L.A., any more than he really thinks "short people got no reason to
live." Of course, he is perfectly aware
that they have a purpose in life.
Regular-sized people can't just go around tossing themselves, you know.
USC 23, Michigan 20
Central Florida at Cincinnati
These
former American Athletic Conference foes first met on the gridiron ten years
ago, and have played again every season since, with each team winning five
games. Last year at the Bounce House,
the offenses fell flat in a 19-13 Bearcat victory.
In
Orlando, they say don't get mad, get Tayven, and then get mad at Tayven because
he only threw for 97 yards in a 27-20 loss to Kansas. Since a successful opener against
Jacksonville State, QB Tayven Jackson has only tossed one TD pass in four
games.
The
Bearcats nearly blew a 31-7 lead against Iowa State, before hanging on by a
final of 38-30 in a jam-packed Nippert Stadium.
Scott Satterfield's team took 13 penalties for 128 yards, to make things
tougher on themselves than they should have been.
Knights
coach Scott Frost says his school must only be referred to as UCF, and calling
it "Central Florida" is disrespectful.
His pronouns are (lard/head).
Cincinnati 35, Central Florida 26
UCLA at Michigan State
A
relative of a well-known sports figure made his first appearance on the UCLA
sideline last week, and was a major factor in a monumental upset of Penn
State. No, that's not a Korda sister who
got none of the looks in the family, it's the son of former Bruin QB and
Colorado and Washington head coach Rick Neuheisel. From the appearance of new offensive
coordinator Jerry Neuheisel, you might not think a bunch of athletes would be
inclined to take him seriously, except that everything he told them seemed to
work. Although he doesn't look the part,
the younger Neuheisel was once the backup QB for the Bruins himself. After that, he played for one season with the
Obic Seagulls of the Japanese league.
In that
PSU game, Nico Iamaleava only passed for 166 yards, but he rushed for a
career-high 128, while scoring a combined total of five touchdowns. It may not be $4 million worth of offense,
but it provides some hope that the gamble might belatedly pay off.
Spartan
coach Jonathan Smith says starting QB Aidan Chiles came out of last week's loss
to Nebraska because of an undisclosed injury, and was not benched because of
poor play. It must be coincidental that
he had completed just 9 of 23 pass attempts for 85 yards and two interceptions,
and also had a heated exchange with wide receiver Nick Marsh on the
sideline. Alessio Milivejovic took some
time out from ethnic cleansing to complete 6 of 7 for 71 yards and a TD.
Sorry,
but when you have to scrounge up two Balkan jokes in the same week, quality
must necessarily suffer.
UCLA 30, Michigan State 22
TCU at Kansas State
Gee, that
jet lag from Dublin must really be stubborn, because it was still affecting the
Wildcats by Week 6, in a 35-34 last-minute loss to Baylor. Avery Johnson did not throw a very good pass midway
through the fourth quarter, when his back-footed fling was intercepted and run
back 66 yards for a touchdown.
Texas
Christian took away its game against Colorado 35-21, mostly by going plus-4 in
turnovers. Aside from making one of his
team's three interceptions, senior linebacker Namdi Obiazor forced a fumble, and recorded a sack among his ten
tackles.
The
play-by-play man for this game on Fox will be Tim Brando. That fact is sure to annoy anybody who's
watching, because of his linguistic laziness during his touchdown calls. Omitting the important words "at the," he
typically shouts, "He's twenty! He's
ten! He's five!" as if the ball carrier were
regressing through childhood as he approached the goal line. At least if that was really happening, the TD-scoring
tike would have an excuse for doing that annoying "nappy-bye" motion in the end
zone.
TCU 52, Kansas State 42
Florida at Texas A&M
It's
weirdly fitting that the ampersanders are the team
that never does enough to satisfy anyone.
So they're 2-0 in the SEC and 5-0 overall, with a nonconference road win
over Notre Dame. And? Unfortunately, this disbelief has been
well-earned, with decades of disappointing results shaping the opinions of fans
and media alike.
The
moribund Gator offense got a needed jolt with the debut of freshman wide
receiver Dallas Wilson, who had been out with a foot injury since before the
season opener. Against a top ten Texas
team, the not-far-from-Waco kid was too fast for the favored Longhorns,
catching six passes for 111 yards and two scores, in a 29-21 triumph.
Way back
in the old, old days when people used real money, it was sometimes said that
cash is king. Well, it was the return of
the king last week, when A&M defensive end Cashius Howell recorded three
sacks against Mississippi State, in a 31-9 knockaround. That effort matched his season high, which he
previously set against Utah State, when he took down the USU quarterback on
three consecutive plays in the second quarter.
It can't
be coincidental that a guy who's named after money shares a surname with
Thurston Howelliii?
Too bad he doesn't play in the Ivy League. Good heavens, Lovie, a Yale man!
Texas A&M 20, Florida 13
Nebraska at Maryland
The Terrapins
took the slow and steady approach out to a 20-0 lead last week against
Washington, only to have the Huskies sled right by them for 24 consecutive
points. That loss, their first of the
year, has the potential to snowball on them, as their remaining Big Ten
schedule looks a bit menacing, even without Ohio State, Oregon or Penn State.
The
Cornhuskers leave the confines of Memorial Stadium for the first time since a
neutral-site season opener in Kansas City against Cincinnati. They lost their last four true road games of
last season, most recently winning one at Purdue just over a year ago.
What do
Terp running backs DeJuan Williams, Nolan Ray and Iverson Howard have in
common? They all have identical,
mediocre yard-per-carry averages of 3.5, even after facing weak competition in
their first three games. If this is an
example of "running back by committee," they haven't even been able to decide
between muffins or bagels yet.
Nebraska 14, Maryland 10
Kansas at Texas Tech
The
Jayhawks (4-2, 2-1) shut out Central Florida in the second half of a 27-20
scrap in Orlando. Senior running back
Leshon Williams scored a career-high three touchdowns, as he led his team back
after spotting the Knights an early 14-0 lead.
The 5-0
Red Raiders have scored back-to-back 24-point victories against previously
unbeaten opponents Utah and Houston.
Last week, they more than doubled the offensive output of the Cougars
(552-267), in a 35-11 thumping on the road.
Tech
plays its home games at AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, not to be confused with
AT&T Stadium in Arlington, which was built by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry
Jones. The one where Tech plays, which
has nothing to do with Jones, is nevertheless the one that is officially named Jones AT&T Stadium,
if that helps, which it doesn't. If this
were any stupider, it could be an Abbott and Costello routine.
Q: Who's
on first?
A: Nobody
funny, that's for damn sure.
Texas Tech 30, Kansas 19
Miami OH at Akron
In a
28-22 win over Central Michigan, the Zips recorded their third victory in their
last four Mid-American Conference games, going back to last November. Quarterback Ben Finley, who had missed the
previous blowout loss to Toledo with a leg injury, came back to throw for 252
yards and three touchdowns.
According
to an official study (and what could be more official than a study?), the Finns
are the happiest people in the world.
Dequan Finn must be holding down their average, though, because the RedHawk quarterback only has three TDs to four
interceptions this year, whereas he had thrown for 41 scores and 14 INTs in his
two seasons at Toledo. For him to revive
his pro prospects, he will have to play a lot more consistently the way he did
in last week's 25-14 win over Northern Illinois.
What's
not to like about being a Finn? Fish
pies every day, fifty degree highs in the summer, women with no makeup and
armed Russkies right across the border. Still, you can't argue with science.
Akron 31, Miami OH 27
Arizona State at Utah
The Sun
Devils have won back-to-back games by identical 27-24 scores against
presumptive Big XII contenders Baylor and TCU.
Sophomore QB Sam Leavitt scrambled for 62 yards and a touchdown in each
of them. It's kind of like deja vu, except that it isn't French, or else it
would suck.
Just when
it looked like a damper had been put on Devon Dampier's season, the Ute QB
threw for four touchdowns and ran for one more in a 48-14 rout of West
Virginia. The ex-New Mexican now has 11
TDs to 3 INTs, after tossing 12 of each a year ago.
Whenever
the College Football Czar uses a word of foreign origin, he has to go back and
undo the "corrections" Microsoft makes, when it adds accent marks, umlauts, and
that little booger that hangs off the bottom of the letter "c." Pretty soon, it's going to start "correcting"
whole words, so that the Czar won't be able to refer to individuals with
singular pronouns anymore.
One of
these seasons, the Czar's publication will avail itself of the modern miracle
of AI, and that will save him lots of time and effort. He'll simply say, "Write something that makes
me sound like a sniveling, irritating prat."
And then he'll go to work for Sports Illustrated.
Arizona State 34, Utah 30
Navy at Temple
Senior
wide receiver Eli Heidenreich set a Naval Academy record with 243 receiving
yards in a wild 34-31 victory over rival Air Force. Blake Horvath's 339 passing yards were the
most by a Midshipmen quarterback since Jim Kubiak set the school record with
361 against Army in 1994.
The Owls
tripped up the UTSA Roadrunners 27-21 in their American Conference opener, on
the strength of a three-TD takeover in the third quarter. At 3-2 overall, their only losses have been
to undefeated teams Oklahoma and Georgia Tech.
First-year
TU coach K.C. Keeler is 66 years old, and he's had success everywhere he's
gone, starting with a stretch at Division III Rowan. The team name for that school is the Profs, which
is short for professors, as if that is supposed to distinguish it somehow. There are professors, right here at the
university? What a proud academic institution
this must be.
Temple
alumnus Bill Cosby is not a professor, but he does have a Ph.D. in education. His solipsistic, 242-page dissertation was
entitled, "An Integration of the Visual Media via Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
Into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve
Increased Learning." Anybody who
actually wants to read it would be getting his just disserts.
Temple 41, Navy 38
a sports publication from The Shinbone