Week 5 Review/Week 6 Preview

Week 5 Review: Happy and Dry

Location: Blue recliner. (For the first half of ND game: Sarah's place, checking in on her kitteh.)

Games watched, at least partially: La. Tech-Hawaii (kinda), Colorado-West Virginia, Pitt-Louisville, Iowa-Arkansas State, Mitten State-Mitten (during commercials), ND-Washington, LSU-Georgia (during commercials), Miami-Oklahoma, Ohio State-Indiana (kinda), Auburn-Tennessee, USC-Cal (on the Internet), Idaho-Colorado State (barely, thru droopy eyes).

Iowa: I might be the only person in America to have picked Arkansas State to cover the spread. Definitely among my pick 'em group and the fans at BHGP. I just sensed that we are not a team to come out with a killer instinct and roll up a 42-0 type win. If Iowa did get up big, Ferentz would put in the reserves, keeping the score close.

But it never got there. After building a 14-0 lead, Arkansas State decided to run the UNI "How to Beat Iowa" playbook step-by-step, coming within an onside kick of a massive upset. I do think Iowa is deserving of its national ranking; I just think this team plays up or down to its competition, and needs a solid four-quarter effort against a surprisingly strong Michigan team to prove that fact. But there's no shining this shit of a game: they played well enough to get the win and not much else.


Notre Dame: Keep that Dr. Guffs canister handy: Notre Dame went down to the wire in its fourth straight game, a game that shouldn't have been this close. Instant replay karma took away a Washington TD, giving the Irish another chance to match this performance and keep it a one-score game. All I can say is, 4-1 sounds a lot better than 3-2 in the bye week. Southern Cal comes to town after the bye for the annual beatdown. Do you think there's a fifth straight close game coming?

Pick Six: Another decent week for MPF. Three wins and two byes. UCLA lost, pushing them further away from the Top 25, but I'll take five of six at this point. For TM, Cal out and Oregon up was basically a swap. Quigley has the biggest disappointment (Ole Miss) but also the biggest gainer (LSU). After a relatively quiet week, the standings are: MPF 58, Quigley 57, TM 55.

Polls: Some things in life have a way of self-correcting. Last week I was a little miffed to see who was ranked above 4-0 Iowa: Cincy, TCU, Houston? Frickin' Boise State? Could you honestly say their profile was better than Iowa, who just beat a Top 5 team on the road? This week I'm a little calmer: Houston is gone, and Miami has (grudgingly) earned their slot above the Hawkeyes. I don't know if Virginia Tech is the best one-loss team in the country--I'd give it to USC frankly--but at least Cincy has a chance to fall at South Florida this week, and as quality teams play quality opponents, hopefully midmajor distractions like Boise will fall to where they belong (oblivion or the sidestage at the very least).

So to review: Iowa, Notre Dame and Ohio all won. TM's Turtles won. Hell, even Drake and William and Mary won. Michigan lost. This week earns the:


This week's statistic of note: Scoring Defense. This will make Iowa fans happy (we're tenth in the nation, going up against No. 55) but Irish fans looking ahead to next week quite nervous (SC at third, 8.6 points per game).

Week 6 Preview: Westbound, for a Change

Notre Dame: has a bye. Getting ready for Southern Cal on Oct. 17.

Iowa: This weekend we're going back to Iowa, for a visit to the parents in the hometown. I'll be reading up on Michigan this week, trying to figure out if Iowa is the team to stop superfrosh Tate Forcier (Notre Dame wasn't, Michigan State was for a while, but not really) and if our offense can get in synch enough to score 20 or more against that blah Wolverine "D".

I want to see this again. I want to taste his tears. I want his quarterback broken into so many pieces, Quigley tries to bat at random body parts on the TV screen.

Pick Six: Now that we're into conference season, the Pick Six games get exciting, and there's more of a chance of our teams facing each other. For example, Florida vs. LSU should be a great game to watch, but it also pits TM against her kitty. If my Bruins can quack up Oregon (TM), will that get UCLA into the rankings?

Elsewhere: Nebraska (also a P6 team) plays at Missouri in the dreaded Thursday ESPN game, where the home team is something like 72-1 over the past 10 years*. I know Kelly is worried; I think the bread talk is just a cover for her nervousness about HLSE**. Bama/Ole Miss should be fun to watch; I see Saban pulling it out close. Ohio is favored at Akron. Woo Bobcats!

When else am I gonna have the chance to post a pic of a MAC kangaroo?

---

* Made up stat. Close enough.
** Husker Low Self Esteem, second-best acronym of the season thus far.