Game of the Week: LSU at Auburn
The first great SEC game of the year. No, South Carolina-Georgia doesn’t count. Can you feel it? Judging by how great last season’s games were, I’ve decided the conference should make it mandatory that all games go to triple overtime. LSU will always end up losing that way, but at least it will be fun to watch.
LSU is not the same national championship team it was last year, however, and opponents may not need a trio of extra periods to beat them. After losing Matt Flynn, Early Doucet, Glenn Dorsey and Jacob Hester to the NFL, defensive coordinator extraordinaire Bo Pelini to Nebraska and Ryan Perrilloux to idiocy/Jacksonville State, this team of Tigers is what Michigan would look like if they hired a coach that didn’t overhaul the system.
Speaking of coaches who use a spread offense, this Tiger v. Tiger match-up will be the first real test of the style in Tommy Tuberville’s system, brought in by new offensive coordinator Tony Franklin. The system needs to work better than last week, when it only posted three points in their victory over Mississippi State.
LSU’s defense, however, seems well adjusted. The average final of the first two games is 41-8. Thirty-three points is a large margin of victory, especially over the three-peating FCS champ Appalachian State.
This game will undoubtedly be exciting. Eleven of the last 18 meetings have been decided by less than a touchdown, including a last-second touchdown last year. But judging by the progress of the transitions each team is making, LSU seems to have the advantage.
Winner: LSU
Second-Best Game of the Week: Wake Forest at Florida State
Barring an abundance of aberrations, the ACC champion would be decided in the next three weeks if the conference hadn’t moved to the championship game format. Clemson seems to be the only other team with a legitimate chance to win the automatic BCS bid, with North Carolina hinting at some talent and next week’s match-up against Nebraska as a tell-tale sign of how good Virginia Tech actually is. Of course, the ACC surprised us with their inability to perform in week one, so they might surprise us with an inability to determine an overall “winner” as well, and may opt to give us a team that just lost fewer games than the rest. Also, Bobby Bowden is still trying to stay in the game with Joe Paterno’s career win mark, which could be tough, considering how well PSU looks in comparison with the rest of the Big Ten.
Winner: Non-ACC teams. With the ACC beating up on itself after weak non-conference play, there might as well be only five BCS conferences competing for a spot in the championship game. I vote for pitting the winner of this game against the winner of the Mountain West to see which one will be a BCS conference in 2009.
Riley Skinner and his 75 percent completion rate lead Wake Forest to the win.
Most Interesting Game People Wouldn’t Watch If It Were On Saturday: Baylor v. UConn
Last week, Baylor beat Washington State 45-17 to prop themselves up to a 2-1 start. Baylor has definitely teased their fans before – they started 3-1 last year before losing all eight conference games – but that was before they had Robert Griffin, week three’ Big 12 Player of the Week. In addition to being the nation’s 13th most efficient quarterback, Griffin ran for 217 yards and two touchdowns, shattering the previous yards per carry record with 19.7.
Connecticut, on the other hand, is trying to prove that being on the wrong side of last year’s dominations versus Cincinnati and West Virginia were flukes. The only good thing that came out of the losses that lost them an Orange Bowl trip is the series of “West Virginia just scored again” jokes. My favorites: “I just broke up with my girlfriend after finding out West Virginia just scored with her” and “West Virginia just scored on Bristol Palin.” The Huskies need to prove themselves by beating someone better than the despicable Virginia Cavaliers after their 12-9 OT near-loss to the equally horrible Temple squad.
Team I Would Love to See Win: Wyoming
It’s not that I want to see BYU lose. I’m all for busting open the BCS. It’s that something exciting needs to happen in Laramie. Nothing exciting happens there. Ever.
Team I Would Love to See Lose: Washington State
I would say Wisconsin and their DUI’d, moped-riding LB Jonathon Casillas, but they’re not playing this week, so I have to settle for Washington State. As I said before, they got blown out by the perennial doormat of the Big 12 South, and their season is headed the way of Ryan Leaf’s career, which means someone will inevitably make a terrible, terrible movie about it for the four diehard fans that still exist.
I’m not going to be entirely sadistic in my hope for Cougar self-destruction. Yes, it’s probably cruel to wish defeat on a team playing a Big Sky opponent at home, but I am rooting for them to lose by less than 39 points, the average point differential against Cal, Oklahoma State and Baylor. Plus, this loss will probably give them the motivation they need to make a run at the Rose Bowl. Am I right?
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