As I reflect back on MSU’s 17-9 win over Indiana this
weekend, a number of adjectives and metaphors come to mind: a grind, a
defensive struggle, a nail-biter, I’ve have dental procedures that were less
painful, etc. But really, it was just plain old U-G-L-Y, and it frankly did not
have an alibi. The weather was good, it wasn’t a night game, last week’s game
was a tough test, but it should not have emptied the tank. Like many out there,
I was expecting a bit of a break-through performance, especially from the QB
position. But, through about 55 minutes,
it was just a messy slog of a performance in which MSU’s D kept the game close,
and MSU’s O seemed to be stuck in neutral. At some point in the 4th
quarter, I tuned to my friends sitting next to me in Spartan Stadium and said,
“well, Brian Lewerke has never led MSU to a 4th quarter come-back
win, so maybe today is his chance.” I honestly wasn’t that serious, but
low-and-behold, he did just that. Somehow, some way, he shook off those early
game mistakes and found a way to execute in winning time. That, my friends, is
beautiful. You know what else is beautiful? A 6-1 record with the knowledge
that MSU will not be home for the holidays. Perhaps what is even more beautiful
is that we don’t really even know yet how good this MSU team can be. We have
seen flashes from the running game and flashes from the passing game, and we
know the defense is good and maybe even great, but when (if?) is it going to
all come together? Will it happen next week in Evanston? That would be a nice
warm-up to start the home stretch. Or, will it not actually happen until 2018…
or maybe even beyond? (I don’t want to sound like a Michigan fan or anything…) Who
knows? But, fortunately, we have seen this movie before, and odds are, Mark
Dantonio has a plan. This ain’t his first rodeo. He knows how to win ugly, and
he knows how to win pretty, and that is just beautiful.
National Overview:
As usual, the chart above shows the results from Week 8,
comparing the opening Vegas spread to the actual results. As expected, it was a
pretty wild weekend, with 15 total upsets (as I predicted) and I count 17 teams
that crushed the spread, including VA Tech, Central Michigan, Notre Dame, UCLA,
Mississippi State, Washington State, and Penn State. It got ugly for several
notable teams in the upset department including Boston College over Virginia,
Fresno State over SD State, Arizona State over Utah, Iowa State over Texas
Tech, Pitt over Duke, Louisville over Florida State, Arizona over Cal,
Northwestern over Iowa, Memphis over Houston, and (stops to clean glasses)
Rutgers over Purdue? Really? As for the spreadsheet, it was a sluggish
performance, much like the first 50 minutes of the MSU-IU game. My algorithm
was 4-6 for highlighted covers, 27-29 against the spread overall, and only 3-6
for upset picks. Pour Rand()y only went 4-11 on upsets. even though his
brethren correctly picked the number of upsets for the week. But, after
something like 3-4 weeks exactly matching ESPN's FPI metric against the spread,
I did edge it out this week by a single game. Ha!
Big Ten
In some regards, the results from this weekend reaffirmed a
lot of things about the conference race that we already (thought) we knew.
First, we all pretty much figured Wisconsin was going to cruise to a Division
Title out West. With the Badger’s drubbing of Maryland this weekend, they now
command a 2-game lead. If that weren’t enough, the two teams in second place
with 2-losses (Nebraska and Northwestern) have already lost to Wisconsin. So,
the Badgers would basically need to lose three of their remaining five games to
not make it to Indy this year. I don’t see that happening. It would take
something pretty ugly to ruin their beautiful season (so far). The second thing
that we learned was that Iowa and Northwestern are pretty evenly matched. Both
teams have looked good at time and bad at others, and the Hawkeyes opened as a
slim favorite, and what-do-you-know, the game went to OT, where the hometown
Wildcats prevailed. Hopefully, by the end of next weekend, the Wildcats will
share that feeling of losing to the Spartans that Iowa experienced a few weeks
back. Third, we learned that Purdue is still Purdue. Actually, this one was the
biggest surprise, because Purdue lost to Rutgers. Talk about ugly… ouch. But,
never fear, Boilermakers, as the fourth things we learned is that the worst
team in the Big Ten is, in fact, Illinois, who lost at Minnesota to drop to 2-5
overall. Which leaves us with our final lesson for the weekend, which is that
yes, James Franklin, like to run up the score, and run up the score he did.
Going into the week, I knew that the Penn State – Michigan game could get ugly,
and I knew that once it got a little ugly, it could get REALLY ugly, but a
29-point win? U-G-L-Y. It was so ugly, it was beautiful. Now, as Michigan fans
scramble with their abacuses and Big Ten tie-breakers rules to see how they
might still be relevant to the Big Ten race (hint: you’re not), I am just
wondering how many more loses we are from a very ugly Jim Harbaugh press
conference, because I just know he has it in him. SMILE!
ACC
I am pretty sure that when Clemson and NC State woke up from their Saturday afternoon bye week naps, they were pretty glad that they got to take the week off, because it got pretty ugly out there. Of the six conference games on tap, three resulted in upsets and all three occurred on the road. By one measure, the biggest upset of the weekend was Boston College’s 31-point dismantling of Virginia, in Charlottesville, although Louisville’s upset of the Seminoles might have been just as much of a surprise, as it drops the Noles to an ugly 2-4 record. On a positive note, Pitt finally got out of a rut by edging out Duke. I prefer to think that Coach Narduzzi was just channeling his inner Spartan, and was really pumped up by Midnight Madness this weekend (WE’RE COMING FOR YOU DUKE!). Despite those upsets, the overall ACC picture doesn’t really change as Miami, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech all won down in the Coastal Division and the leaders in the Atlantic Division were on a bye.
Pac 12
I am not sure if the fans of the Pac 12 realize how ugly
this weekend was for them (outside of maybe Stanford, since those folks are
pretty smart, I hear). Sure, nothing terrible happened in conference play, but
as I said in my weekly preview, the Notre Dame-USC game had the feel of a
playoff elimination game, and I think the Pac 12 just got eliminated. I mean,
if the game was close, I could maybes see it, but to have the presumed Pac 12
South champion get beat by 35? Oh, that is UGLY. Sure, the winner of the Apple
Bowl could still finish with just one loss, but that potential resume looks
like more like Mike Hart’s than Mike Ditka’s. To make matters worse, the Rose
Bowl is a Playoff game, so the conference champ looks to be a lock for the
Fiesta Bowl, which I would rank solidly in the Top 5 in prestige amongst NY6
Bowls. On a related note, it really was
only a good weekend for the state of Arizona, as both the Wildcats and Sun
Devils scored upset wins over Cal and Utah to stay relevant in the Pac 12 South
race. Sometimes you just should stop and appreciate the small beauties in life,
Pac 12 fans.
Big 12
It was a status quo type of week in the Big 12, as pretty
much all the conference contenders won, as expected. TCU hammered Kansas, while
Oklahoma (after a fashion) took care of Kansas State, and West Virginia kept
Baylor winless. Just when it looked like Longhorns might be having a midseason
resurgence, the Cowboys roped ‘em, tied em’ (in regulation), and put back in
the corral until next year. The only mild surprise was Iowa State’s upset of
Texas Tech in Lubbock to bring the Cyclones up to 3-1 in conference play. Now,
I don’t except ISU be an actual contender, but I will point out that they have
already beaten Oklahoma, and they face TCU, at WVU, and OK State in the next
three weeks. My spreadsheet also has them currently ranked #16 in the country.
#justsayin
SEC
At this point, if everyone wants to just take a quick nap
instead of reading about the SEC, I am totally cool with that. I promise to
wake you up for the Alabama-Georgia title game in a month or so. Seriously,
pretty much nothing happened down south this week. There were no upsets. Bama
and Auburn won. As expected, Kentucky got big-time exposed at Mississippi
State, and now Georgia has a 2-game lead in the East. The only minorly
interesting thing that happened was that LSU beat Ole Miss by 16. Does that
even count as interesting? I will say this though, LSU is now sitting at 6-2
and they are now ranked 23 in both polls. Huh? I mean, their two losses are to
Troy State and 30-point loss to Mississippi State. Sure, they beat Florida and
Auburn by a combined 5-points. Go buy yourself a cookie. But ranked? I mean,
imagine if MSU were to have lost by 30 to Minnesota and then to Western
Michigan, but then we beat Iowa and, say, upset Wisconsin. Would MSU be ranked?
I don’t think so… but hey, SEC, you be you.
Group of Five / Independents
The big news here, of course, was Notre Dame’s big win over
USC, which puts them at 6-1 and squarely in the discussion for a play-off bid.
The road ahead for the Irish is not exactly easy, as NC State is coming to town
next week, and road trips to Miami and Stanford loom. If the Irish can run the
table with that schedule, I think that they are in, considering a maximum of
three Power 5 teams can enter Bowl season undefeated (SEC Champ, Big Ten Champ,
and TCU). The way Notre Dame’s schedule is laid out, they could make a claim as
being better than any team from the ACC or Pac 12, and I think that would be
reasonable. The only question is, will they survive the gauntlet? A team that
certainly failed to survive (a much softer) gauntlet is San Diego State. The
Aztecs were really rolling after beating Stanford in mid-September, but they
now have lost two in a row, fell this week to Fresno State, and seem to be out
of the (Mountain) West Division race. As such, the race for the Group of Five NY6
slot looks to comes down to a 3-team race of AAC teams including South Florida
and UCF, who both survived tests this week at Tulane and at Navy, and Memphis,
who beat Houston in a mild upset to take the lead in the AAC West Division. If
you are looking for a potential spoiler, SMU is sitting at 5-2, just a half
game back of Memphis in the West, and their two loses were at the hands of TCU
and Houston. But, it SMU were somehow able to upset some teams and win the AAC,
I think a team like Toledo might be able to rocket back into play, and they are
off to a strong 3-0 start in MACtion, with only a single loss to Miami (the one
in Florida, not the one in Ohio).
And Finally, How Good is… Fresno State?
In keeping with the Group of Five theme, as I look for non-AAC
teams that could potentially spoil the NY6 party, and I keep coming back to the
5-2 Bulldogs. Sure, they got absolutely hammered by Alabama and Washington in
September, and the Mountain West outside of a couple of teams is dreadful this
year. Still, Fresno just beat one of those not-so-dreadful teams (San Diego
State) this weekend 27-3, and a week ago, they blanked New Mexico 38-0. That is
pretty darned impressive. In my current power rankings, I have the Bulldogs at
#15, which is obviously way too high, but if this team runs the table, they
should get a least a little discussion for the NY6 slot. If nothing else, they
were not in the Top 100 of any preseason ranking that I saw, so by any measure,
they are a surprise team this year.
How Bad Is… North Carolina?
Now, it’s not like the Tarheals were supposed to win the ACC
or anything this year. In fact, most preseason publications just had them in
the Top 50 or so. Still, they were ranked higher than MSU in every single
publication I track. As we close in on the end of October, UNC is 0-5 in ACC
play and 1-7 overall with a lone win over Old Dominion. I would say that they
hit rock bottom this week with a 59-7 loss to Virginia Tech, but Miami and NC
State are still on the schedule, so things likely will get even uglier. With that 7th loss, the Heals are
officially out of the running for a Bowl Game, so… I guess they just need to go
to class now? Ha! No, of course they don’t.
That is all I have for now. Go State, Beat the Wildcats.
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