Week three is almost as bad as week two. Many of the top teams are still rolling up overwhelming victories against hapless non-conference pushovers. Many have even taken to scheduling FCS teams.
- Oklahoma put up 66 against Tulsa
- Ohio State rolled up 63 against Western Kentucky, including 35 in the second quarter.
- Washington State put 64 on the board against winless, hapless Northern Colorado. (Northern Colorado is an FCS team that lost 42-7 last week against a team called Incarnate Word, another FCS school that I’ve never heard of. The week before that, they lost 31-11 to another FCS school. So maybe they were stretching more than a little by scheduling a nationally ranked opponent this week.)
- UCLA scored five touchdowns in the first quarter against an FCS school before they got bored and emptied the bench. They were up 14-0 in the game’s first 74 seconds. By the end of the game they had used 5 quarterbacks, not to mention 13 different ball carriers who combined for 404 rushing yards.
- Miami also curb-stomped an FCS school.
You get the idea.
I can’t say I was really impressed by any of the top teams, but none of the top ten lost. #1 Georgia had a little scare went they went to the locker room at halftime with a 14-3 deficit, but they won by shutting South Carolina out in the second half.
The most significant upset happened just below that group as #11 Tennessee lost to Florida. I’m not sure that was so much an upset as a case of an underrated team beating an overrated one, but in the words of the immortal Dalton, “Opinions vary.”
Side note: I guess my days of ragging on Rutgers are over. They improved to 3-0. I think their dream bubble may burst next week when they take on #2 Michigan in Ann Arbor, but they have come a long way since 2016, when Michigan beat them 78-0 at Rutgers! (The next time they met at Rutgers, in 2018, Michigan won by a mere 35 – not enough to cover the spread!)
Scoreboard
