As the old saying goes, "nothing good happens after 2 AM." It may not have been 2 AM local time, but it was for the bodies and minds of the MSU football team in Tempe this weekend. MSU blew a 10-point 4 quarter lead and lost on the very last play of the game to Arizona State. Thus, the string of Big Ten regular season futility out West continues. In the lead up to this game, I was pretty much on the fence if this was an actual deal or not. I mean, what happened to Wisconsin a few years ago should have no bearing on MSU in 2018, right? Then again, the stats side of my brain was telling me that even if the Big Ten team was a heavy underdog in most of these contest (which they weren't) the chances of going 0-fer is very, very small. There must be other factors that do matter, and I think those that stayed up witnessed just that on Saturday night / Sunday morning.
Honestly, I don't think MSU played that bad or even played any worse than ASU. MSU made a lot of good plays. MSU simply wasn't that sharp in key moments. Many of the things that went wrong seem correctable: mental errors and penalties. But, we said the same thing last week. Some things we also said last week were that the red zone offense needs to improve, as does the play of both lines. Well, those areas are still a concern, and now some injuries are starting to mount as well. The bottom line is you simply can't make inside the 10 yard line three times and wind up with only 6 points to show for it. Not against a P5 team, not on the road, not in the desert, and not after dark. If you play with that type of fire against the Sun Devils, you are bound to get a nasty Sun Burn, and that is exactly what happened. The worst part was that the ending was completely predictable. Despite the fact that we have become accustomed to winning these types of games under Coach Dantonio, it seemed inevitable that MSU was going to find a way to choke this one away. There were simply took many mistakes and too many intangibles working against the Spartans.
However, I can't say that this loss is going to bother me much at all. I mean, it's not like any other Big Ten team has ever been able to win there, right? Also, I think at the end of the year ASU is going to wind up being a pretty good team. If nothing else, look at the rest of the Pac 12 South. UCLA and Arizona are a mess and USC (as always) looks over-rated. The other two teams are Utah and Colorado. Do you think that scares Herm Edwards? Then again, ASU's North cross-overs are pretty nasty (including @ Washington, vs. Stanford, @ Oregon) but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the Sun Devils win the Division. As for MSU, it's time to fly home, lick their wounds, get healthy, watch some film, and get to work correcting the areas that can (and I think will) get corrected. There is a lot of football left to be played and a lot of opportunity to be had. Sun burn hurts, but it doesn't last.
National Overview
It may just be cold comfort, but MSU was not the only team that had a bad weekend. By my count, there were 16 total upsets this week, which is quite a bit higher than my prediction of only around 11. The results graph and upset table for Week 2 is shown below.
While the Spartans may have struggled, my algorithm had a solid week. Of my highlighted covers, I went 11-7 (61%), although ironically, 3 of the 7 teams that did not cover actually got upset (Memphis, Purdue, and Arkansas). Oops. In total ATS, I went 26-23 (53%), which once again exactly matched the overall performance of ESPN's FPI. As for upsets, I went 3-2 (60%) while the FPI only hit 1 of their pathetically small 3 predicted upsets.
Now, let's take a quick swing around the country to check in on the action.
Big Ten
MSU was certainly not the only B1G team to have a bit of a rough week. But, isn't wasn't all bad, I suppose, depending on where you sit. Ohio State just dominated Rutgers and Penn State bounced back to destroy Pitt. Wisconsin took care of New Mexico (although they did not quite cover), Iowa (after a fashion) downed cross-state rivals Iowa State, and even Maryland had a surprisingly strong performance against Bowling Green. Michigan also easily tamed the Broncos, which looks great (as long as you don't look at how many points Syracuse put up on Western, the final score of the Notre Dame - Ball State game, or the Wolverines still anemic yards per pass stats). The Wolverines are sort of like the classic 8th grade bully. They got beat up last week by a high school kid, so this week they found a 4th grader whom they sucker punched and then stole their lunch money. Now, they think they are the baddest kid in school. Never mind that they also just found out that the High Schooler from Week 1 is actually a Freshman and not a Junior.
Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota all managed to not embarrass themselves. But, as I mentioned in this Week's Preview, the Big Ten had six total games in which the spread was under a TD, and the Big Ten was favored in all six. Yet, the conference only went 3-3 in those games, as MSU, Nebraska, and Northwestern all dropped games. And then, there's Purdue, who much like MSU lost on a last second FG, except they did it at home to a MAC team. Two weeks ago, I pegged the Boilers as a potential B1G West dark horse. Now, not so much. The good news for MSU is that the Nebraska and Northwestern games look a little easier than they did in the summer. However, the road game at Maryland looks a bit tougher.
SEC
The SEC, on the other hand, continues to roll, with almost the whole conference taking care of business. With the exception of Arkansas's upset at the hand of Colorado State (which is fairly significant) and Texas A&M valiant effort against Clemson, the rest of the SEC rolled in non-conference play. There were a few teams I thought might struggle (I am looking at you, Vandy and Missouri) but the only real scare was Southern Illinois hanging with Ole Miss for a while, and they still would up losing by 35. Mississippi State's thrashing of Kansas State was also particularly impressive.
But the big story down south is in the SEC East where Georgia pretty much had the best week ever. I thought that South Carolina could be the story of the week if they were to have beaten UGA. Nope! Not only did the Dawgs win going away, but the preseason consensus 3rd best team in the East (Florida) lost to Kentucky for the first time since the Carter Administration. Georgia can pretty much book their hotels for the SEC Championship Game now. But, think about this. Which situation would you prefer if you were Georgia: 1) Win the East, make it to the SEC Title Game where you have to face Bama OR 2) Finish 11-1, yet lose a tiebreaker for the East and hang out at home the weekend of the SEC Title Game? Which scenario gives you a better shot at making the Playoffs?
ACC
In the ACC this week, it was a bit of a mixed bag. Sure, a lot of ACC teams beat of a lot of bad teams by a lot of points. And, Clemson went on the road and beat Texas A&M, a hurdle my preseason simulation thought that they wouldn't clear. However, I also picked the Tigers to make it to the playoffs anyway, so I am just not convinced this particular contest was really all that big in the grand scheme. The other big win of the weekend was Duke's upset of Northwestern in Evanston. It is rumored that Duke students took to the street and set a giant pile of slide-rules aflame to celebrate.
But, there were a couple other areas of concern. First, Pitt got absolutely embarrassed by Penn State, but I suppose that is more of a concern for MSU's Football Coaching Succession Planning than anything else. Second, Georgia Tech was upset at South Florida, but maybe the Bulls are just pretty good. Third, Florida State barely scrapped by FCS foe Samford (again, please refer to my note above on Pitt) suggesting the Noles are maybe not that much better than their 6-6 campaign in 2017. Fourth and last (and also least) was UNC's loss at East Carolina... by 22. East Carolina lost to North Carolina A&T last week. It is possible that the Tar-heals are at best, what, the 5th best college football team in the State? Yikes!
Big 12
We didn't learn much at all about the Big 12 this week that we didn't already know. Yes, the big guns can score a lot of points on bad teams. Yes, Oklahoma is a lot better than UCLA. Yes, Iowa State and Kansas State were not quite up to their non-conferences early tests against Iowa and Mississippi State. Yes, Texas is still not back after a close win over Tulsa. But, you know what is back and what we did learn? Kansas is once again a road warrior, beating Central Michigan in Mt. Not-So-Pleasant (for Chips fans) and breaking their 46-game road losing streak. Don't look now, but the Jayhawks next two games are vs. Rutgers and at Baylor. Could we be seeing the beginning of an amazing, magical, Cinderella.... No, of course not. They are going to finish 1-11. Snap out of it!
PAC 12
After a very rough Bowl season and a not great Week 1, the Pac 12 had what could be considered a descent Week 2. The highlights were three non-conference upset wins by ASU (boo!!!!), Cal, and Colorado, as well as the expected blowouts by Utah, the Washington schools and the Oregon schools. That said, both Arizona and UCLA had miserable weekends, both getting blow-out by similar margins to Houston and Oklahoma. Couple this fact with the fact that the Trojans got rolled by Stanford, and the race for the Pac 12 South looks wide open. A case could be made for Utah, Arizona State, or even Colorado to be the team to beat.
Independents / Group of Five
I was not expecting prior to the games that I would need to say much about the Notre Dame - Ball State game, but consider this: Ball State is considered to be a bad team, even for the MAC. My preseason simulations have them finishing dead last in the MAC West with a consensus ranking of 119 out of 130. The Irish beat Ball State 24-16 this weekend. Last week, the Irish beat Michigan 24-17. You do the math...
As for the Group of Five, Boise State remains the early favorite to claim the NY6 slot, and they took care of business this weekend, whipping UCONN 62-7. Next week, though, and the weeks to come are when we will find out if the Broncos are for real or not as they are @OK State, bye, @Wyoming, and vs. San Diego State over the next 4 weeks. If they run that gambit, there may be rumblings of a possible Playoffs berth. In other Mountain West news, Utah State did MSU's strength of schedule a bit of a favor by dispatching of New Mexico State 60-13 in some fierce Aggie-on-Aggie action.
In the American Athletic Conference, it was a rather wild weekend, with Cincinnati, East Carolina, and South Florida all scoring upset wins, and Houston thrashing Arizona. This early season, non-conference success will help the eventual AAC Champion stake a claim to the NY6 bid, even if Boise State wins the Mountain West. Also, Navy upset Memphis in the first real contest that will help to decide this eventual champ. The MAC also had a good week, as Eastern upset Purdue and Buffalo upset Temple. That said, I think Toledo is going to have to upset Miami next week (the Florida variety, not the Ohio variety) for the conference to have any shot at all at the NY6. The odds of the eventual C-USA and Sun Belt champ making it to the NY6 seems even more remote, although Florida Atlantic beating Air Force this weekend (as excepted) certainly doesn't hurt.
Finally, I will leave you with two burning questions:
How good is.... Hawaii?
The (Rainbow) Warriors were not supposed to have a good year. Their highest ranking in any of the preseason magazines that I track was 115 out of 130, and my preseason simulations said it was about 50-50 for them to reach 3 wins this year. Well, the Warriors are sitting at 3-0 before some teams have even gotten to their 2nd game. Granted, its not as though their 3 wins are all over Power 5 teams, but they beat Colorado State by 9, and the Rams then went out and beat Arkansas in Week 2. Then, Hawaii beat Navy by 18, and the Midshipman went out and beat Memphis in Week 2. This week, the Warrior beat Rice by almost exactly the same score that Houston did the week before, and the Cougars just destroyed Arizona this weekend. In other words, their resume is starting to look a lot like some of the other Group of Five teams that are in the running for a NY6 bid. And, their schedule just might be manageable, as they avoid playing Boise in the regular season. They did still have Mountain West contenders Wyoming, Fresno State, and San Diego State on the schedule, so we shall see, but for now, I have my eye on them.
How bad is... Arizona?
In the preseason, the Wildcats didn't appear in too many (read: any) preseason Top 25 polls, but they were generally considered to be in the Top 40. My preseason analysis pegged them as the 2nd most likely team to win the Pac 12 South behind USC. But, the Mildcats stumbled out of the gate in Week 1 with a 5-point loss to BYU at home and followed it up with an almost 4 TD loss in Houston. Granted, both of those teams look likely to be better than we originally thought, but Zona's expected win total, based on my math, has plummeted from a preseason value of around 8 to a current projection of just over 3, and that includes a gimme of a game next week against Southern Utah. So far, this is not a good start for the Sumlin era.
That's all for now. Stay tuned for my Week 3 Preview in a couple of days.
Honestly, I don't think MSU played that bad or even played any worse than ASU. MSU made a lot of good plays. MSU simply wasn't that sharp in key moments. Many of the things that went wrong seem correctable: mental errors and penalties. But, we said the same thing last week. Some things we also said last week were that the red zone offense needs to improve, as does the play of both lines. Well, those areas are still a concern, and now some injuries are starting to mount as well. The bottom line is you simply can't make inside the 10 yard line three times and wind up with only 6 points to show for it. Not against a P5 team, not on the road, not in the desert, and not after dark. If you play with that type of fire against the Sun Devils, you are bound to get a nasty Sun Burn, and that is exactly what happened. The worst part was that the ending was completely predictable. Despite the fact that we have become accustomed to winning these types of games under Coach Dantonio, it seemed inevitable that MSU was going to find a way to choke this one away. There were simply took many mistakes and too many intangibles working against the Spartans.
However, I can't say that this loss is going to bother me much at all. I mean, it's not like any other Big Ten team has ever been able to win there, right? Also, I think at the end of the year ASU is going to wind up being a pretty good team. If nothing else, look at the rest of the Pac 12 South. UCLA and Arizona are a mess and USC (as always) looks over-rated. The other two teams are Utah and Colorado. Do you think that scares Herm Edwards? Then again, ASU's North cross-overs are pretty nasty (including @ Washington, vs. Stanford, @ Oregon) but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the Sun Devils win the Division. As for MSU, it's time to fly home, lick their wounds, get healthy, watch some film, and get to work correcting the areas that can (and I think will) get corrected. There is a lot of football left to be played and a lot of opportunity to be had. Sun burn hurts, but it doesn't last.
National Overview
It may just be cold comfort, but MSU was not the only team that had a bad weekend. By my count, there were 16 total upsets this week, which is quite a bit higher than my prediction of only around 11. The results graph and upset table for Week 2 is shown below.
While the Spartans may have struggled, my algorithm had a solid week. Of my highlighted covers, I went 11-7 (61%), although ironically, 3 of the 7 teams that did not cover actually got upset (Memphis, Purdue, and Arkansas). Oops. In total ATS, I went 26-23 (53%), which once again exactly matched the overall performance of ESPN's FPI. As for upsets, I went 3-2 (60%) while the FPI only hit 1 of their pathetically small 3 predicted upsets.
Now, let's take a quick swing around the country to check in on the action.
Big Ten
MSU was certainly not the only B1G team to have a bit of a rough week. But, isn't wasn't all bad, I suppose, depending on where you sit. Ohio State just dominated Rutgers and Penn State bounced back to destroy Pitt. Wisconsin took care of New Mexico (although they did not quite cover), Iowa (after a fashion) downed cross-state rivals Iowa State, and even Maryland had a surprisingly strong performance against Bowling Green. Michigan also easily tamed the Broncos, which looks great (as long as you don't look at how many points Syracuse put up on Western, the final score of the Notre Dame - Ball State game, or the Wolverines still anemic yards per pass stats). The Wolverines are sort of like the classic 8th grade bully. They got beat up last week by a high school kid, so this week they found a 4th grader whom they sucker punched and then stole their lunch money. Now, they think they are the baddest kid in school. Never mind that they also just found out that the High Schooler from Week 1 is actually a Freshman and not a Junior.
Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota all managed to not embarrass themselves. But, as I mentioned in this Week's Preview, the Big Ten had six total games in which the spread was under a TD, and the Big Ten was favored in all six. Yet, the conference only went 3-3 in those games, as MSU, Nebraska, and Northwestern all dropped games. And then, there's Purdue, who much like MSU lost on a last second FG, except they did it at home to a MAC team. Two weeks ago, I pegged the Boilers as a potential B1G West dark horse. Now, not so much. The good news for MSU is that the Nebraska and Northwestern games look a little easier than they did in the summer. However, the road game at Maryland looks a bit tougher.
SEC
The SEC, on the other hand, continues to roll, with almost the whole conference taking care of business. With the exception of Arkansas's upset at the hand of Colorado State (which is fairly significant) and Texas A&M valiant effort against Clemson, the rest of the SEC rolled in non-conference play. There were a few teams I thought might struggle (I am looking at you, Vandy and Missouri) but the only real scare was Southern Illinois hanging with Ole Miss for a while, and they still would up losing by 35. Mississippi State's thrashing of Kansas State was also particularly impressive.
But the big story down south is in the SEC East where Georgia pretty much had the best week ever. I thought that South Carolina could be the story of the week if they were to have beaten UGA. Nope! Not only did the Dawgs win going away, but the preseason consensus 3rd best team in the East (Florida) lost to Kentucky for the first time since the Carter Administration. Georgia can pretty much book their hotels for the SEC Championship Game now. But, think about this. Which situation would you prefer if you were Georgia: 1) Win the East, make it to the SEC Title Game where you have to face Bama OR 2) Finish 11-1, yet lose a tiebreaker for the East and hang out at home the weekend of the SEC Title Game? Which scenario gives you a better shot at making the Playoffs?
ACC
In the ACC this week, it was a bit of a mixed bag. Sure, a lot of ACC teams beat of a lot of bad teams by a lot of points. And, Clemson went on the road and beat Texas A&M, a hurdle my preseason simulation thought that they wouldn't clear. However, I also picked the Tigers to make it to the playoffs anyway, so I am just not convinced this particular contest was really all that big in the grand scheme. The other big win of the weekend was Duke's upset of Northwestern in Evanston. It is rumored that Duke students took to the street and set a giant pile of slide-rules aflame to celebrate.
But, there were a couple other areas of concern. First, Pitt got absolutely embarrassed by Penn State, but I suppose that is more of a concern for MSU's Football Coaching Succession Planning than anything else. Second, Georgia Tech was upset at South Florida, but maybe the Bulls are just pretty good. Third, Florida State barely scrapped by FCS foe Samford (again, please refer to my note above on Pitt) suggesting the Noles are maybe not that much better than their 6-6 campaign in 2017. Fourth and last (and also least) was UNC's loss at East Carolina... by 22. East Carolina lost to North Carolina A&T last week. It is possible that the Tar-heals are at best, what, the 5th best college football team in the State? Yikes!
Big 12
We didn't learn much at all about the Big 12 this week that we didn't already know. Yes, the big guns can score a lot of points on bad teams. Yes, Oklahoma is a lot better than UCLA. Yes, Iowa State and Kansas State were not quite up to their non-conferences early tests against Iowa and Mississippi State. Yes, Texas is still not back after a close win over Tulsa. But, you know what is back and what we did learn? Kansas is once again a road warrior, beating Central Michigan in Mt. Not-So-Pleasant (for Chips fans) and breaking their 46-game road losing streak. Don't look now, but the Jayhawks next two games are vs. Rutgers and at Baylor. Could we be seeing the beginning of an amazing, magical, Cinderella.... No, of course not. They are going to finish 1-11. Snap out of it!
PAC 12
After a very rough Bowl season and a not great Week 1, the Pac 12 had what could be considered a descent Week 2. The highlights were three non-conference upset wins by ASU (boo!!!!), Cal, and Colorado, as well as the expected blowouts by Utah, the Washington schools and the Oregon schools. That said, both Arizona and UCLA had miserable weekends, both getting blow-out by similar margins to Houston and Oklahoma. Couple this fact with the fact that the Trojans got rolled by Stanford, and the race for the Pac 12 South looks wide open. A case could be made for Utah, Arizona State, or even Colorado to be the team to beat.
Independents / Group of Five
I was not expecting prior to the games that I would need to say much about the Notre Dame - Ball State game, but consider this: Ball State is considered to be a bad team, even for the MAC. My preseason simulations have them finishing dead last in the MAC West with a consensus ranking of 119 out of 130. The Irish beat Ball State 24-16 this weekend. Last week, the Irish beat Michigan 24-17. You do the math...
As for the Group of Five, Boise State remains the early favorite to claim the NY6 slot, and they took care of business this weekend, whipping UCONN 62-7. Next week, though, and the weeks to come are when we will find out if the Broncos are for real or not as they are @OK State, bye, @Wyoming, and vs. San Diego State over the next 4 weeks. If they run that gambit, there may be rumblings of a possible Playoffs berth. In other Mountain West news, Utah State did MSU's strength of schedule a bit of a favor by dispatching of New Mexico State 60-13 in some fierce Aggie-on-Aggie action.
In the American Athletic Conference, it was a rather wild weekend, with Cincinnati, East Carolina, and South Florida all scoring upset wins, and Houston thrashing Arizona. This early season, non-conference success will help the eventual AAC Champion stake a claim to the NY6 bid, even if Boise State wins the Mountain West. Also, Navy upset Memphis in the first real contest that will help to decide this eventual champ. The MAC also had a good week, as Eastern upset Purdue and Buffalo upset Temple. That said, I think Toledo is going to have to upset Miami next week (the Florida variety, not the Ohio variety) for the conference to have any shot at all at the NY6. The odds of the eventual C-USA and Sun Belt champ making it to the NY6 seems even more remote, although Florida Atlantic beating Air Force this weekend (as excepted) certainly doesn't hurt.
Finally, I will leave you with two burning questions:
How good is.... Hawaii?
The (Rainbow) Warriors were not supposed to have a good year. Their highest ranking in any of the preseason magazines that I track was 115 out of 130, and my preseason simulations said it was about 50-50 for them to reach 3 wins this year. Well, the Warriors are sitting at 3-0 before some teams have even gotten to their 2nd game. Granted, its not as though their 3 wins are all over Power 5 teams, but they beat Colorado State by 9, and the Rams then went out and beat Arkansas in Week 2. Then, Hawaii beat Navy by 18, and the Midshipman went out and beat Memphis in Week 2. This week, the Warrior beat Rice by almost exactly the same score that Houston did the week before, and the Cougars just destroyed Arizona this weekend. In other words, their resume is starting to look a lot like some of the other Group of Five teams that are in the running for a NY6 bid. And, their schedule just might be manageable, as they avoid playing Boise in the regular season. They did still have Mountain West contenders Wyoming, Fresno State, and San Diego State on the schedule, so we shall see, but for now, I have my eye on them.
How bad is... Arizona?
In the preseason, the Wildcats didn't appear in too many (read: any) preseason Top 25 polls, but they were generally considered to be in the Top 40. My preseason analysis pegged them as the 2nd most likely team to win the Pac 12 South behind USC. But, the Mildcats stumbled out of the gate in Week 1 with a 5-point loss to BYU at home and followed it up with an almost 4 TD loss in Houston. Granted, both of those teams look likely to be better than we originally thought, but Zona's expected win total, based on my math, has plummeted from a preseason value of around 8 to a current projection of just over 3, and that includes a gimme of a game next week against Southern Utah. So far, this is not a good start for the Sumlin era.
That's all for now. Stay tuned for my Week 3 Preview in a couple of days.
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