… except for two things
1. Georgia almost lost. (They squeaked it out 13-12.)
2. Tennessee scored 65 in the first half against a jobber team, including 37 in the first quarter. The jobbers in question, Kent State, are obviously gluttons for punishment, having scheduled #7 Tennessee and #10 Penn State on successive weekends. By the way, the Kent State team is called the Golden Flashes. If you knew that, you are a serious fan!
Apart from that, it was another routine week of top teams running up big victories against schmucks, and next week looks like more of the same, although Tennessee/Oklahoma should be a decent match-up. Some examples of next week’s point spreads: Ohio State 40 over Marshall, Penn State 50 over Kent State, Ole Miss 36 over Georgia Southern, Texas 45 over Louisiana-Monroe.
One thing that the conference consolidation has done is to place pressure on the big teams to extend the number of weeks when they play against patsies, because they know they could lose a lot of conference games. They need at least six wins and at least a 50-50 record to be bowl-eligible (big $$). Moreover they only get to count one win against FCS teams, so they have to seek out weak FBS programs. That’s what makes a team like Kent State (and the other MAC teams) in such great demand as patsies – they are the Iron Mike Sharpes of college football, willing to lose for a big payday.
Take a team like Oklahoma. They will play six of the nation’s current top sixteen teams in the upcoming weeks, plus two other tough teams in Auburn and South Carolina. In order to assure they are bowl eligible, they schedule four patsies, meaning that they can still get a bowl if they go 2-6 against the tough teams.
FSU is 0-3. Lost to Memphis at home.