Football is Back

Back when this was a football statistics blog, I'm pretty sure there were about four or five people reading it. I'm proud to say that it's now up to about eight or nine and I feel anxious about returning to my previous topic for fear of boring the hell and losing those readers that I worked so hard to get. But back when football season ended and I decided to start writing about whatever the hell I wanted, I said I was making the conscious decision to do just that: write about whatever the hell I wanted. I wasn't going to avoid football, it's just that well, there wasn't much football to talk about.

That's all changed.

Ladies and gents, football season started up again this past weekend, and I couldn't be happier. For those of you who weren't around back in the day, let me explain how this works: I usually run through some of the notable games of the week, then rank my top 15 teams. It usually looks an awful lot like the AP and Coaches polls (the BCS poll doesn't start for another few weeks), though there are often some notable exceptions. For example, I often felt that Cinci was waaaay overrated last season; a position which I stand by, given their 28-14 loss to Fresno State this past Saturday. (I know every season brings new challenges and for them it's the loss of a star quarterback and coach, but come on. If Ohio State lost Pryor and Tressel, they still would have trampled Marshall) Then I have some kind of an explanation of my rankings.

I didn't have a lot of time to watch games this past weekend because I spent the last four days running around seven states, and most of the games were powderpuff week 1 match-ups anyway. So I'll just go straight to the rankings.

1) Alabama
2) Ohio State
3) Boise State
4) TCU
5) Oregon
6) Nebraska
7) Florida
8) Miami (FL)
9) Virginia Tech
10) Arkansas
11) Texas
11) Iowa
11) Wisconsin
11) Oklahoma
11) Georgia Tech

Ohio State and Boise    I spent a good chunk of time deciding who to put ahead of who here. On the one hand, Boise played well against a real opponent (Virginia Tech). On the other hand, Ohio State put up more points against Marshall than they did in all but one game last season (NM State). In the end I decided to give it to OSU because they played more consistently, and I like consistency in a team. We will learn a lot more about them next week against Miami, whose quarterback's 80% completion rate was only part of a squeaky-clean offensive performance.

Oregon    I don't like to reward racking up points on a weak opponent, and Oregon's 72-0 discombobulation of New Mexico certainly qualifies as just such a racking up of points. I think they're still reeling from their loss to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl and wanted to prove that they can still move the ball. But I boost them for their impressive defensive effort. They haven't held a team to single digits since October 3rd, and averaged 21.3 points allowed last season. There were 22 games played by the top 25 teams this past weekend, three of them were shutouts. This is not unusual. What is unusual is that Oregon was one of them, and nobody seems to be giving them credit for it. Credit: given.

VT    Figuring out where, exactly, to put these guys was tough. The AP and Coaches have them at 13 for their loss. But considering they came back from a 17-point deficit and fought literally to the last minute to hold their lead, I think they played a pretty good game. Considering that everyone else's games were more like scrimmages, I think we learned a great deal more about VT than most anyone else. And I think we learned that they are still a force to be reckoned with. In the coming month or so, look for them to move up in the polls and remain stationary in mine.

Texas thru GT    I could have done a top 10, but it would have been tough figuring out who to put on the cusp. So I made it a mass tie for 11th, in that they're a tier above the blob of teams that played solid "blah" games against solid "meh" opponents that I would've put in 16-25, but a tier below the teams in 1-10 that actually have discernible ranks and reasons for them.
Texas was a mess in the first half and had to stave off a comeback.
Iowa had a couple nearly-costly turnovers and was just overall boring.
Wisconsin tied Northwestern for most points allowed in the Big Ten.
Oklahoma played clumsily, and was lucky that Utah State did as well.
Georgia Tech was 2-8 passing including an interception, and averaged 6.6 yards rushing with only three runs above 20 yards. I don't honestly know how they scored 41 points, but the fact that they did intrigues me enough to keep them in the five-way tie.

One of the traditions I had here last season was the Michigan Pain Train. That is, every time Michigan lost (which was pretty damn often), I posted a picture of a train wreck. I'm happy(ish) to report that they successfully avoided failure this week. So here's a picture of a train, completely intact. Treasure this one.

Another tradition I had was the Maryland Fail Boat. That is, every time Maryland lost (which, again, was pretty damn often) I posted a picture of a shipwreck. Maryland surprised me by successfully avoided failure by, literally, something within a couple inches of the screen on which you are reading these very words. And for that impressive show goal-line defense, I present you with a picture of a boat successfully sailing the mighty seas. No word on whether or not T-Pain is aboard.

Oh football, how I've missed you.