Southern Discomfort

Week Two didn’t end up telling us much. Auburn was exposed and Michigan State got a big win, but neither of those teams were true front-runners to begin with. The biggest takeaway from the weekend was that the SEC wasn’t as good as the pollsters thought, but with an absurd eight teams in the top 25 that’s not exactly a shock.

The trouble with Michigan State’s nice victory over Oregon – and it was certainly a quality win – is that it doesn’t mean much in the larger context of the Big Ten season. Under normal circumstances the Spartans would rocket to the top of the polls with such an impressive early-season win, but beating the Ducks is more or less irrelevant until the Ohio State game. Everyone saw Michigan State get outclassed by the Buckeyes last season, and to this point there’s no reason to believe anything has changed in 2015.

It doesn’t seem rash at all to say that Oregon has probably taken a step back this year. The Ducks are still probably very good (they’re definitely talented and as speedy as usual), but they might be a few pieces short of legitimately competing for a title. The question then becomes, “Is Michigan State better than last season?” Based on what we saw in East Lansing on Saturday, the answer is no, or at least not definitively. Nothing in that contest – particularly the Spartans’ anemic passing attack – engendered any hope that this squad is significantly stronger or in any way ready to defeat the Buckeyes, who get MSU at home.

Thus, while the win is nice in the short-term, it’s probably not going to make a difference in the long run. There is a quirky end-of-year outcome in play, where Oregon goes on to finish 12-1 and win the Pac-12 championship while the Spartans go 11-1, losing to Ohio State and missing out on the Big Ten title game. In that scenario, MSU fans would surely assume their team’s head-to-head win would carry more weight for the Playoff committee. There’s a small chance they’d be right… but a much, much larger chance they’d be wrong, for two reasons.

First, the Pac-12 is a vastly stronger conference than the Big Ten. This is an irrefutable fact in 2015 and seems it will be the case for the next few seasons, or until the Big Ten pulls itself together. Oregon, as a potential 12-1 Pac-12 champion, would have a significantly stronger resume than an 11-1 non-champion MSU team.

Second, the final score of the game this weekend would be huge. Oregon’s win last season in Eugene came by 19 points, leaving no doubt as to which side was stronger. A three-point home win isn’t very impressive from an analytic standpoint. Remember that home field in football is valued at around three points, although it’s actually closer to 4-6 points for a big-time school like Michigan State. Bettors would look at this result and say Oregon is the stronger team on a neutral field.

Of course, all of this is very premature. We still have nearly three months of action to go before such a scenario could take place. But it’s worth pointing out now, just in case the controversy does arise.

So what’s on tap this weekend? Not much, unfortunately. There are a couple big caveats to that statement, but overall Week Three looks about as appetizing as… well, opening week. Clemson at Louisville on Thursday night probably seemed like a much bigger deal before the Cardinals went ahead and lost their first two games. Now it’s essentially a tune-up for the big plate of nothing on Saturday.

Cincinnati and Miami (OH) are on in the midday slate, renewing the third-most-played rivalry in the nation, but only a small pocket of the country cares about that game. East Carolina is at Navy for the first conference game in the Midshipmen’s history, which is exciting from a historical standpoint but little else.

Georgia Tech visits Notre Dame in one of the day’s few matchups of ranked opponents. The Yellow Jackets might upset the Fighting Irish, who are already dealing with a host of injuries. At the same time, Auburn gets a chance to prove it isn’t a fraud at LSU. That’s more than enough to keep us occupied during the midday slate; sadly, it’s also most of the quality contests of the day.

Ole Miss – Alabama in primetime should be a very good gauge of where these teams stand as SEC play opens. There are a lot of people who think the Rebels might upset the Crimson Tide for the second straight season. It’s possible, though I’m not particularly inclined to trust the Rebels until I see they’re for real. In any case, it’s one of only two decent games in the entire late afternoon/evening slate.

The other is BYU at UCLA, which features two teams with near-comical over-rankings. BYU might have been a reasonable choice for a top-25 ranking later in the season, had it not lost quarterback Taysom Hill to yet another season-ending injury. The Cougars have won two games in charmed fashion, but let’s be honest: this isn’t a top-caliber team. The same could be said of UCLA, which has ridden a pair of wins over terrible teams to a top-10 ranking. This will probably end up being a coup for the Pac-12, as the Bruins will get what amounts to a free “quality” win. If UCLA struggles here, let it be known the Bruins are, once again, not for real.

Playoff Poll

Michigan State leaps into the top tier by virtue of the win over Oregon. Keep in mind this is not a traditional poll, so I don’t actually think the Spartans are the best team in the country. Rather, it’s a ranking of where teams ought to be valued in terms of their playoff worthiness at this point.

First Tier

Michigan State

Ohio State

Alabama

Georgia

TCU

The jury is still out on TCU and Georgia, but we'll get an early read on Alabama this week versus Ole Miss.

Second Tier

USC

Baylor

Florida State

Clemson

I got to cheat a little with Clemson playing on Thursday night. Yikes. A three-point win over Louisville is decidedly not impressive.

Third Tier

Oregon

Georgia Tech

Oklahoma

The Sooners live! Oregon is too talented to drop out entirely, but the Ducks now have ground to make up. Tech has a big opportunity this weekend at Notre Dame.

Pac-12 Report

It would have been nice for the conference if Oregon had managed to eke out a win at Michigan State, but in the end a hard-fought loss isn’t the worst thing in the world. Oregon didn’t look good in Week One, so the more important thing is that the Ducks played a quality opponent close – thus indicating improvement – in a larger-scope goal of being elite by season’s end.

Utah doesn’t really blow teams out, but it was another solid week for the Utes, turning back rival Utah State and moving to 2-0 with a trip to Oregon to open conference play looming. Not much was expected of Oregon State at Michigan and the Beavers delivered, getting shut out 35-0 after scoring a touchdown on their opening drive. Washington, Colorado, Arizona, UCLA and USC all registered predictably easy wins against bad competition.

Washington State and California both came through, though in different ways. After the Cougars lost to FCS foe Portland State in their opener (and keeping in mind the ugly loss to Rutgers last season), there was little hope WSU could knock off the Scarlet Knights in a cross-country trip. Instead, Wazzu saved itself from Couging it; stuck in a back-and-forth game (and after giving the Scarlet Knights a go-ahead punt return TD), the Cougs confidently marched down the field for the winning score with 13 seconds left. It was an excellent win I had pegged as a loss since the schedule came out.

Cal got a big win of a different kind, spotting San Diego State a seven-point lead before rattling off 35 straight. It was the kind of performance to give people who think the Bears might be pretty good this year (like me!) some hope. Now, with a very interesting matchup at Texas on deck, we’ll get to see what this team is made of.

The night slate was awful for the league, as Stanford bumbled its way to a 10-point first half before putting UCF away, doing little to assuage fears that the team that got shocked last week at Northwestern is woefully undermanned to compete in the Pac-12 this season. Arizona State was even worse, looking nothing like a Power 5 team, let alone a top-25 squad, by struggling with FCS foe Cal Poly. The Sun Devils have been tremendously disappointing so far.

This week, ASU gets another chance to look like a reasonably decent FBS team against New Mexico. Oregon has Georgia State in a walkover, while Arizona hosts Northern Arizona in a similar situation. Utah State – Washington has a chance to be decent, given that USU has the chops to pull the upset in Seattle. Colorado meets rival Colorado State in Denver for the annual Rocky Mountain Showdown; sadly, I’m going with CSU there.

The afternoon slate brings the intrigue, as Cal heads to Austin to take on Texas. This has the potential to be the Golden Bears’ coming out party, as a 3-0 start entering conference play would be pretty sweet for this program. Next, we get to see once and for all whether Stanford is the fraud it’s looked in the season’s first two weeks, when the Cardinal face USC in both teams’ Pac-12 opener. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Stanford get up for this game and make SC’s job difficult. The underdog has been surprising in this series the past few years.

Oregon State and Washington State both get a shot to improve to 2-1 with not-guaranteed but eminently winnable games versus San Jose State and Wyoming, respectively. The Beavs and Cougars should be safe, but seeing as both these schools have dropped home games to FCS teams in recent years, I wouldn’t take anything for granted.

Utah is at Fresno State in a battle of old WAC foes (R.I.P., dear conference) that might have been interesting had the Bulldogs not looked so mediocre in their first two contests. The Utes should handle the crowd in Fresno fairly easily and come away 3-0 with a fun league opener at Oregon on the docket.

Finally, there’s BYU at UCLA, which could have been a really good game had BYU not suffered the aforementioned injuries. The Cougars are generally much more athletic than people realize, but unless the Bruins are significantly more overhyped than they deserve – not out of the question, to be sure – I don’t see BYU making this much of a contest.

Random Thoughts and Observations

The SEC took it on the chin in Week Two, echoing the embarrassment the Pac-12 suffered in Week One. Auburn was extremely lucky to escape Jacksonville State and tumbled in the polls as a result; Arkansas was upset at home by Toledo; Florida and Mizzou struggled to put away mid-majors, and Tennessee blew a 17-3 lead over Oklahoma to lose in overtime. Perhaps both leagues were less stacked than expected? It seems possible, though with the awful state of the Big Ten and ACC, neither will move from the top two of the unofficial conference rankings.

It’s looking more and more as if Kansas will indeed be the worst team in the Power 5 this season. One week after falling to FCS South Dakota State in their opener, the Jayhawks were clobbered by Memphis 55-23. KU’s first – and possibly only – chance at a win comes on October 3^rd, when the team travels to fellow bottom-feeder Iowa State.

2015 Stanzi Awards

It was a lovely start last week, and things only heated up in Week Two. Here are the standings thus far, with the new winners below. Auburn’s Jeremy Johnson is threatening to run away with the award, with five turnovers in two weeks and a pair of weekly Stanzis.

Jeremy Johnson, Auburn: 1

Dane Evans, Tulsa: 1

Cody Clements, South Alabama: 1

Max Wittek, Hawai’i: 1

Michael Birdsong, Marshall :1

Jeremy Johnson, Auburn

Opponent: Jacksonville State

Performance: Two INT, won in OT

Mitch Leidner, Minnesota

Opponent: Colorado State

Performance: Two FUM, won in OT

Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma

Opponent: Tennessee

Performance: Two INT, won in OT

Maty Mauk, Missouri

Opponent: Arkansas State

Performance: Two INT, won by seven

Tanner Mangum, BYU

Opponent: Boise State

Performance: Two INT, won by 11

Mmm. That’s some good Stanzi. See you after Week Three.