College Football Saturday- Week 1 Open Thread

General79

I thought I’d put this up to leave a place for folks to comment on the first Saturday of college football. If you’re like me, this marks the first of many Saturdays filled with grilled food and the beverage of your choice.

Plenty of action today, VT and ECU are at it now, and in a surprise Hawaii and Florida are in a low scoring game in the Swamp. Later in the day we get Virginia/USC (the Yankees of college football- read into that what you will) and Clemson/Alabama in a night game. Plus a smattering of other games, some more interesting than others. (Me for example, I’m enjoying Wisconsin vs. partial qualifier university, err, Akron.)

Have at it.

About Dr. BadgerPack

NCSU Class of 99 and PhD University of Wisconsin, 2006... Which should adequately explain the screen name I chose at 2am one Saturday...

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79 Responses to College Football Saturday- Week 1 Open Thread

  1. packville 08/30/2008 at 8:56 PM #

    Crapel Hill up 21-20 late in the 3rd over Mcneese St.

  2. DuPack 08/30/2008 at 9:05 PM #

    As of today the criticism of Coach Fowler must end. Expand your brand increase revenue into the stratosphere and all the while your product begins slow arc into mediocrity. ACC football is taking it on the chin every way you turn this weekend and the media is not letting it go without comment. Coach is just following what appears to be the ACC pattern. The only question now is if or when will the financial bubble burst.

  3. Greywolf 08/30/2008 at 9:09 PM #

    “Regarding my post about the OL readhisrts, I’m watching Daquan Bowers running rough shod in Clemson’s defense against Alabama. I don’t see much difference between his 18-year-old body and those of juniors and seniors.”

    Excuse me but DaQuan Bowers nor anybody else that I could see was “running rough shod” against Alabama. If anything it was the other way around.

    Bowers is a DE, not an OL. Speed and quickness make a difference at DE. (USCs DE who late hit Wilson was a freshman DE.) Exceptions don’t make the rule but if we had a stud like Bowers he would be playing.

  4. Dogbreath 08/30/2008 at 9:09 PM #

    “The only question now is if or when will the financial bubble burst.”

    The financial bubble will burst when the ACC is dropped from the BCS, which is easily justifiable at this point.

  5. DuPack 08/30/2008 at 9:28 PM #

    Swofford is a tarhole. Probably won’t embarrass UNX by dropping the ACC on his watch. Maybe they better give him a “contract for life.”

  6. EverettBeez 08/30/2008 at 9:38 PM #

    App winning another nat’l championship matters to me, and lots of other folks. No, its not D-1, but why insult it?

    Can Clemson rally? Please rally. I don’t want a team picked to finish #4 or #5 in the SEC WEST to beat the team picked to win the ACC. By the way, we can only hope Bama will finish that low. One of my drinking buddies is at the game. I was singing the Tiger Rag last night, and we brought the Bama fight song into the bar and had them play it, lol. (this is a small town, all 12 of us in there know each other well).

    As bad as the ACC is looking, we’ll be lucky if we get as many people to watch this years Conference Championship as we got at the game last year. Pray they don’t counter-program with something like the Mountain West. We’ll be toast.

  7. phillypacker 08/30/2008 at 9:43 PM #

    Greywolf, just don’t buy the distinction between DE’s and OL’s. Xavier Nixon should probably start very soon, if he comes here. If we have potential freshmen who could develop into something better than the crap we have now, we should do it. Apparently we don’t. It wouldn’t take a stud to be an improvement on these linemen.

  8. Dr. BadgerPack 08/30/2008 at 9:46 PM #

    4 Words: Wisconsin Badgers Smash Mouth. Yes, Wisconsin has 0 champioships in the BCS era. But, if you watch the games and the style– they “beat themselves” (sound familiar??)

    Power. Running. Game. Start there– and with the line recruits; we should be on the way. Unfortunately, it will take a year or two.

  9. b 08/30/2008 at 10:16 PM #

    The primary distinction between OL and DL, especially DE, is the mental part of the game.

    You can tell a DE, don’t let anyone get outside you and rush the QB like he smacked your moms. And he can be very effective. You may have to understand line stunts, but any third grader can pick that stuff up.

    An OL has to know where the play is going, who is the focus of the attack, may have to understand a line call if there is a blitz coming, needs to understand the audible and recognize the hot call. All this with that other guy who only has to attack going full bore. Top that off, he’s usually faster and more explosive than you are.

    More importantly, OL need time in the conditioning program, because very often they are just big bodies in HS and early in college and don’t encounter anyone strong enough to move them until they get to college. There is the occasional Vermiglio or Antoine Smith at Bama who’s ready right away, but those are rare talents. You’re better served to build them up and let them get used to the talent change on the scout team, rather than against a top flight defense.

  10. phillypacker 08/30/2008 at 10:26 PM #

    I agree that it is better to let younger players season for awhile before you put them in. No argument there. I just hope some of them can pick up the system more quickly given the quality of what’s in there on the O line right now.

    Has anybody heard any details about the men’s basketball game tonight?

  11. Ismael 08/30/2008 at 10:37 PM #

    DAMangum – i was exaggerating, a little. But i just wanted to make sure I was understood that i didn’t think it’d be close.

    Why insult the FCS champion? Its like two teams playing for 3rd place, except the NCAA has the nerve to call it a championship. EverettBeez, u live in Alabama right? You have to experience AppSt. fans who think they belong…they don’t belong.

  12. redfred2 08/30/2008 at 10:38 PM #

    I’m glad the emphasis in recent years has been placed on ACC football. The product sucks, and it’s more embarassing than it is fun to watch, but it sure pays well.

    Thanks Commissioner Swofford.

  13. highstick 08/30/2008 at 10:46 PM #

    Obviously Clemson doesn’t belong either.

    Was watching the game flipping between the South Carolina site and the North Carolina site. The Tarhole fans were really giving it to Woody Durham. Think he got in the sauce too much and kept calling McNeese State, Memphis State!

    ACC football has gone in the tank and recruiting is going to just get tougher.

  14. wolfpackdawg 08/31/2008 at 7:11 AM #

    The ACC really sucks…Tarholes appear to be overrated…LOL..Who would have thought that?

    The wife and I attended the Georgia Southern – UGA game..She fainted in the 4th from the heat 🙁

  15. Wulfpack 08/31/2008 at 8:17 AM #

    Combined scores of the four marquee games the ACC played this week (So. Carolina/NCSU, ECU/VT, USC/UVA, Bama/Clemson):

    Opponents 147, ACC 39

    Well at least we still have Wake.

  16. Noah 08/31/2008 at 9:13 AM #

    DaQuan Bowers was one of the top-five recruits in the nation last year. Not top-five in the state or at his position…but overall. If we had signed a left tackle who was one of the top-five players overall, I imagine he’d be playing.

    We did not. We didn’t sign any OL who were ranked in the top-250. The highest regarded OL was RJ Mattes. He’s going to be good, but not today. For the future, the left side of our line with Mattes and Zach Allen looks very good. We’ve got to shore up the right side and find a center.

  17. EverettBeez 08/31/2008 at 9:19 AM #

    Ismael – its not anything like 2 teams fighting for third – neither of the teams playing for the D-AA Championship this December in Chattanooga are anything like the top 25 in D-1. Its a whole different animal, and entirely different beast.

    App fans who have been giving you a hard time are just over exuberant. App made the decision not to move up, and it was a good one. Look at what’s happen to Marshall. All the smack talk you’ve had to put with is annoying, especially considering how poorly State’s been playing. But don’t minimize the fact that D-AA has some great players and some good teams. App beat Michigan playing 27 players. That is a real accomplishment, without question. If you are running into ungracious folks, I don’t see why you should become ungracious yourself.

    There is a whole long list of D-1 schools that App could take to the woodshed and beat the dickens out of. I am afraid that list includes several ACC schools. But you put App against Troy, Marshall, Western Kentucky . . . Being the top division is no magic badge.

    Of course we were out manned at LSU, and the only way we win that game is a miracle. It didn’t happen. On to conference play.

  18. ChiefJoJo 08/31/2008 at 9:37 AM #

    Well, I had imagined the ACC would have a bad year, but not this bad. It’s unfortunate for us, because this year really looks like a wide-open ACC race, but we are not in position to take it. I think Miami plays UF next week, so that, along with FSU, might be the ACC’s last chance to field a BCS-caliber team, but I’m not holding my breath.

    My theory is that the SEC just has a better group of quality linemen across the board. Sure, the ACC can point to Chris Long, Mario, Gosder Cherilus, Ferguson, Kentwan Balmer, John McCargo, etc, in the past few years, but I don’t think that ACC teams have consistently been able to recruit & develop 15+ quality linemen each year that it takes to play good top notch BCS-caliber football.

    Brent Musburger was talking up Davis & Spiller last night for Clemson, but I knew by the 2nd quarter that Clemson had little hope of coming back from the way they were getting manhandled at the LOS. I don’t think the vaunted Clemson defense forced a negative play until the mid-3rd quarter (really bad sign). Hell, our defense looked much better than Clemson, albeit against probably a weaker opponent (SC).

    Somebody said this above, but I don’t think the ACC has even deserved to be in the BCS the past few years, and this year will probably be no different.

  19. phillypacker 08/31/2008 at 11:27 AM #

    So how quickly can someone return from a grade 3 concussion?

  20. Greywolf 08/31/2008 at 12:17 PM #

    Noah
    Aug 31st, 2008 at 9:13 am
    … “If we had signed a left tackle who was one of the top-five players overall, I imagine he’d be playing.

    We did not. We didn’t sign any OL who were ranked in the top-250. The highest regarded OL was RJ Mattes. He’s going to be good, but not today. For the future, the left side of our line with Mattes and Zach Allen looks very good. We’ve got to shore up the right side and find a center.”

    Noah, you probably would have included needing quality depth in your assessment of the OL of the future if the thread were the OL. One of those guys goes down and we are in the same soup as we are now.

    Sitting in our chairs at home it is easy to say, “we should do this or that.” Nobody (who was out of HS at the time) was saying “WTF, why are we moving Dmen to the OL when Locklear and Riggs were kicking ass and taking names after their switch from DL to OL. Least we forget, phillypacker, the reason for the move is, according to TOB who ought to know, to get some aggressiveness on the OL. I don’t think the freshmen recruits we have fill that bill. If they did they would be playing. There is a reason freshmen aren’t playing and it isn’t because we are saving them. The point in redshirting them for most teams is to give them time to mature both physically and mentally.

    To complete this OL bit, Larsen must be quite a bit more aggressive than what ever else we have on the OL for him to be kept in after those 2 snaps that went awry. There’s a reason Brown averaged 5yds a carry and I suspect the blocking of Larsen had something to do with it.

  21. b 08/31/2008 at 12:49 PM #

    Here’s a little blurb on Wilson from the Gamecocks site.
    http://www.thestate.com/gogamecocks/football/story/507898.html

    Run blocking for a 220 pund TB who runs 4.4 or less is not nearly so hard as you might think. He only needs you to occupy half of the player for the instant he hits the hole and he can do the rest. He was running hard and not as much east and west as he used to.

    The center position is a grave concern, but the guards and tackles got beat and quickly far to often as well. When the leak springs on every play, but from a different position each time, it is impossible for any QB to look downfield. Much more for an undertalented, virtually immobile QB. One weak link can be accounted for, five of them and you have 49 yards passing. Hopefully Crouch can get his head on straight, he should make a slight difference.

    The fact that Clemson had similar problems to State with better recruits, emphasizes the importance of line development. Bama’s got a tough D, but those two backs should never be held down that badly. I’d actually go as far as to say South Carolina has a better D than Bama and State was better on the LOS than Clemson on both sides of the ball. We just don’t have the receivers or QB that Clemson does, which was even more of an indictment of their poor lineplay.

    And I loved Bama’s offense, no tricks, no gimmicky formations. We are going straight ahead and throwing to the TE, bet you can’t stop it. Bowers was okay, but not quite the game changer they made him out to be. Bama has a serious O-line, they lost their best lineman and didn’t miss a beat.

  22. EverettBeez 08/31/2008 at 3:48 PM #

    Excellent question Phillypacker – how long is the return time from a Cat 3? I am sure there a numerous variables, but what are we looking at for Wilson?

  23. Wolf Dog 08/31/2008 at 5:46 PM #

    We don’t have the best team but as I have said the ACC is weak so that gives us a chance at a bowl this year. One game does not make a season luckly for us this year. TOB will regroup and we will improve quicker than last year.

    UNC was overated. Tommy Bowden been trying to tell anyone that will listen that his O line is young and a weakness. Wake is the real deal with a good QB. Ga. Tech is talented but lacks depth and we don’t have to play them. UVA is just not a talented ball club. Va. Tech is a young team in a rebuilding year for them. FSU is a mystery team that if they can survive before they get all their players back should win the ACC, by far most talented team in ACC. Miami has talent but who knows what they will do with it. Maryland has average talent, probably be the big mans last year. His assistants already been hitting the door, one was on the Gamecocks staff Thursday night. Duke has a good coach they will be improved. BC still got some talent on the team and most likely a bowl bound team. No doubt ACC down this year but will be very good in a couple of years. Lots of young teams in ACC and coaching talent has improved.

    We need to go 2-2 non conference and at least 4-4 or 5-3 in conference for a bowl. We ran the ball on SC so we should be able to run on most of these ACC teams, with a very good defensive front, getting some people back, and improving week to week. We got a chance at doing going 4-4or 5-3 in conference. Duke, BC, UNC, UVa, and maryland all winable games. We got a young team and still a lot to cheer for.

  24. highstick 08/31/2008 at 7:15 PM #

    I’ve got no reason to not believe him, but a UNC friend of mine just called who was at their game last night. Seems as if a skydiver was supposed to jump into Kenan and give Butchy the game ball. The skydiver messed up and landed in Duke’s stadium.

    So much for the improvements at Kenan!! And maybe that’s an omen for UNC’s football season!

  25. highstick 08/31/2008 at 7:54 PM #

    Game ball delivered to Butch at Wallace Wade!

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