BTW- Very open to someone coming up with a name for this, preferably college football oriented, especially if I decide (time permitting) to start an NFL version.
The winner will receive the TRS version of the Marvel No-Prize.
1) As bad as Tennessee football seems to have fallen after a loss to BYU that looked to have had a win in the bag followed by a blown coverage, I'm not sure if bringing Phil Fulmer in from the AD"s chair is a winning strategy.
I might buy Fulmer finishing the season if Jeremy Pruitt has to be fired (and that's not an easy thing to do when you consider the buyout), but giving the job back to Fulmer has its downside with Fulmer's age, time away from a changing game and wonders about his ability to recruit, and that's putting aside the point that Fulmer was let go eleven years ago for a losing record of 5-7.
The bigger question could be that with seemingly every national college football writer banging out notes about this topic this week is this-If Fulmer is actually considering this, could he be scared off by some of the negativity towards that idea?
2) The Mountain West continued to grab some power five scalps this week as San Diego State took out UCLA in Los Angeles and Hawaii dropped Oregon State at home.
Add to that Boise State's win on Friday over Marshall, who is one of the two favorites to win Conference USA and Fresno State's near-miss against Minnesota and I think it's pretty clear that the Mountain West might have a say this year against the American for the best conference in the group of five.
3) The LSU-Texas game was a good battle and two notes on that.
Texas may or may not be "back" but with Sam Ehlinger at quarterback, the Horns are going to score a lot of points and I'm awfully excited about Texas-Oklahoma from the Cotton Bowl on October 12th.
As for the Tigers, who grabbed a huge win on the road, this might be the first LSU team in a while that just might do more than give Alabama all they wanted on the defensive end.
LSU's defenses have battled on close terms against Bama, but haven't been able to produce on the offensive end, but with Joe Burrow maturing and a passing game that hasn't been seen in Baton Rouge since Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry were running patterns there, this could be the type of Tiger team to perhaps defeat the Crimson Tide.
4) It's only been two games, but you cannot help but be impressed by the Maryland Terrapins whipping over Syracuse.
I had questions about the hiring of Mike Locksley as their head coach after his terrible stint as head coach at New Mexico, but their squeezing of the Orangemen was not only unexpected but perhaps showed the Terrapins to be a surprise team in the making.
Maryland has scored 79 points against and 63 against Syracuse this season along with a memorable near-miss late last season against Ohio State where they scored 51 in a loss that wasn't decided until the final play in overtime.
Maryland plays at Temple this Saturday and then gets a week before a visit from Penn State in a game that might be the biggest game in College Park that's meaningful for both teams in a long time.
5) The shocker of the week would have easily been Army over Michigan, had the Cadets kicked a long field goal at the end of the game before losing in double overtime and tell me why teams decide to get cute with plays when they are dominating doing one particular thing?
Army threw a pass at Michigan's five with a chance to go up 14 in the third quarter, which of course was intercepted.
Sometimes coaches outsmart themselves.
6) SO we need a shocker of the week and let's go to Seattle, Washington as Greg Thomas hit a short field goal with eight seconds to go to give unranked California a 20-19 win over number 14 Washington.
The Cal defense looks very legitimate for a Pac 12 conference that usually isn't loaded with strong defensive clubs and they could be the surprise team in the West.
As for Washington, highly touted Georgia transfer Jacob Eason didn't set the world on fire with just 162 yards and an interception in a one-point loss and didn't look like the quarterback that had been so heralded at Georgia.
7) Since I repeated a Mountain West point from last week, here's a bonus item.
The ACC looks pretty bad.
Syracuse was thumped by Maryland, Florida State lost to Boise State and defeated UL-Monroe in overtime by a Warhawk missed extra point that would have forced a second OT, Miami is 0-2 after a loss to North Carolina and there is only one non-Clemson ranked team with Virginia at number twenty-five.
Other than the surprising 2-0 start by Mack Brown at North Carolina, the ACC doesn't have any interesting positive notes.
Could it be that Clemson's 24-10 win over Texas A&M might be their closest test of the season until the playoffs?
There is usually someone that will step up for one game, but looking at this schedule and Syracuse's, who plays Clemson this week and was thought to be the toughest opponent before being crushed by Maryland, woes- that could be the case!
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