It was the final week of jobber games. The big teams either had the week off or played a patsy so there’s not much to talk about. Tennessee beat Oklahoma in the most significant game.
It was not a great week for the state of North Carolina. NC State allowed 59, NC allowed 70, and the state’s lt. governor turned out to be a pro-Nazi, pro-slavery pervert.
North Carolina came into this week’s game 3-0, and probably didn’t think they were scheduling a tough game when they conceived this match-up, but … boy, were they wrong. They gave up 70 points to James Madison, including 53 in the first half. That’s the same Jemmy Madison team that barely escaped (13-6) with a win in their previous game against mighty Gardner-Webb. So, Jemmy, you score 13 against Gardner-Webb, then 70 against the Tar Heels? That’s some schizo playing right there. JM moves to 3-0.
Speaking of schizo performances … Northern Illinois was somehow ranked in the top 25 coming into this Saturday, based (I suppose) on their win over Notre Dame in South Bend. Turns out that whole Notre Dame thing was some kind of fluke, because they lost this week at home – to Buffalo. So you think maybe that’s because Buffalo is crazy good this year? Nah. When Buffalo played a real top-25 team earlier this year (Mizzou), they lost 38-zip. So I think NIU can abandon that dream of a major bowl game. As Rick Blaine might tell them, “You’ll always have South Bend.”
Brigham Young (now 4-0) might be for real this year. They were matched up against #13 Kansas State and absolutely took them to the cleaners, 38-9. KSU could not put the ball across the goal line.
I feel for those kids at Kent State. Who drew up that schedule for them? They had to play Tennessee and Penn State on successive Saturdays, resulting in a cumulative thrashing of 127-0. They mustered up only 72 yards of offense against Penn State, including a mere 18 in the air, with only two short completions in the entire game. Kent State also played Pitt in their opener, to the tune of a 55-24 loss. According to Sagarin’s computer ratings, Kent State is the worst-rated team in the FBS division, but has played the hardest schedule. OUCH! It’s the worst year for that college since 1970. Fortunately for those kids, they have only MAC games remaining. Maybe all those difficult games have toughened them up to crush some opponents in their weak conference. I’m all in favor of taking on challenges, but next year maybe they should consider balancing that out with an early home game against Bethune-Cookman.