Officiating: The personal foul on Washington quarterback Jake Locker almost made me physically sick. Don’t talk to me about letter of the law...or judgment calls...or anything else. Watch as much football as I do in a weekend and tell me if Locker’s “excessive celebration” was one of the top 20...ok, 40 demonstrations or outbursts.
I don’t think so.
Ty Willingham and the Huskies are in for a tough season anyway, and they deserved a crack at overtime against BYU. No doubt about it. My sympathy to the UW fans...you got hosed.
7. EVEN THOUGH 17 IS A RANDOM NUMBER
Here’s the Top 17 ballot I submitted tonight for this site's poll. Feel free to e-mail me to argue for your favorite team before next week’s rankings.
1. USC (did you see what they did to Virginia?)
2. Georgia (I thought Central Michigan was decent...and the Dawgs demolished them.)
3. Oklahoma (They could have beaten Chattanooga 100-0 in Week One. Really.)
4. Ohio State (I dropped them because they weren’t very impressive...but if they win in the Coliseum, they’ll be No. 1 again...at least on my ballot.)
5. Florida (took care of business in the Swamp against the ‘Canes)
6. Missouri (their offense looks better than a few NFL teams I saw today)
7. Wisconsin (What did Coach Bielema say to turn a 14-0 deficit into a 51-14 win?)
8. LSU (Unscheduled off week due to Gustav. We’ll see how focused the Tigers are next weekend)
9. Auburn (I ranked them high to start the year, and they haven’t done anything to merit a drop...solid, but unspectacular)
10. East Carolina (the best pair of wins of any program in the country so far...they may not stay in the Top 10 all year, but they deserve to be rewarded today)
11. Penn State (I thought Oregon State would give them problems; credit to JoePa for keeping the team on task during all the suspensions, speculation, and dismissals)
12. Texas (I looked up late Saturday to see UTEP giving them a game...then a minute later, it wasn’t a game anymore)
13. BYU (They probably deserved to beat UW on Saturday...but we should have found out in overtime. See “Maybe Officiating is Easier Than I Thought”)
14. Kansas (Big-time test against South Florida coming up)
15. Texas Tech (Can Graham Harrell throw for 6,000 yards?)
16. Oregon (Hopefully the Ducks have gotten all their points out of the way before this weekend’s trip to West Lafayette. They hung 66 on Utah State)
17. Wake Forest (Sam Swank wins the “biggest kick of the week” award...and if you believe ESPN, the “singlehandedly saved the ACC’s reputation this week” award. Clutch kick from a clutch kicker keeps the Deacons undefeated)
8. COMING ATTRACTIONS
I don’t know why anyone would need a reason to be excited about the upcoming college football weekend. But if you do, here’s three:
a. “Worth buying a ticket for”: a matchup that deserves the hype...let’s go with Ohio State/Southern Cal. Duh. It's the most combined talent you’ll see on one field all year long (and that probably includes the national championship game).
b. “Heat check”: this team’s playing great, but faces a serious test. Fresh off a dominating performance over Marshall (which included 51 unanswered points), the Wisconsin Badgers face an extremely tough test when they head cross-country to take on Fresno State. Badgers/Bulldogs should be a great one.
c. “Diamond in the rough”: Oregon @ Purdue. Honestly, this is the game that inspired the whole “DITR” series to begin with. As a Boilermaker fan, an early matchup against a Top 20 team from a BCS conference is a highlight of the season.
The major media won’t care much...but I think this game deserves a closer look...and the Sept. 14 edition of “Carrying On About College Football” will profile the clash between the Ducks and Boilers. Don’t forget, after next week, the whole rest of the “Diamond in the Rough” schedule is open...e-mail me with which of your team’s games I should analyze and why!
Tim Cary (yes, Cary…as in “Carrying on”) is a resident of Springfield, Ohio, and a die-hard college football fan (especially when it comes to the Purdue Boilermakers). To submit thoughts, ideas, questions, arguments, or anything else for “Carrying On About College Football”, e-mail: footballcolumn@yahoo.com. Send in your ideas on Saturday...and check out the next installment of COACF on Sunday.
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