When Finebaum’s “not buying”, who’s he kidding?  He’s selling!

And of course, he’s not buying into the Big Ten!  As usual, he’s throwing out his support to the top-heavy SEC. This guy is so one-dimensional.  He gets away with it because no other media challenges him.  We did! Does any conference other than the SEC have such a one-sided pundit who is allowed to dominate the airwaves as liberally as he does?   Why should the rest of college football, including SEC fans not of Alabama or Georgia, care about what he says right now?  No one else can express a different opinion? Talk about “unfreedom of the Press”.  We rarely do this, but here what we responded with to this article this past Monday:

Steve koreivo2d

The SEC has lost non-conference games to Penn State, UCLA, Memphis, Pitt, BC (beat Texas and NC State) and Auburn lucked out against Georgia State, Kentucky struggled against UT Chattanooga, A&M struggled with Colorado, and the conference’s automatic win, Vanderbilt, lost to ETSU. Bama’s win over Miami was played at a “neutral” site where they’ve played 17 times since Saban started. Michigan State of the Big Ten went to Miami to handle them just as easily. He’s buying into the entire SEC?  They got Bama and Georgia, but give us a break!  He’s nothing but the SEC wingman throwing up smoke and mirrors to protect the conference paying him. He wants four SEC teams in the CFP. no kidding.   Who should care what he thinks?

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They should read our Salvos

    Of course, brainwashed SECers jump to his defense, but as far as we’re concerned, they only make his case weaker.  Information we shared here the last few weeks provided the Salvos to shoot them down as well.  We look forward to the SEC championship to see what happens if Bama or Georgia dominates the other in the SEC finale to see what arguments they’ll use to justify both playing in the CFP.

    Already those two have shown how much better they are than other “SEC!SEC!” programs by whipping Ole Miss and Arkansas respectively last week, 42-14 and 37-0.  They should stop their common praise by association.  Most of the SEC can’t can compete as will be proven through the balance of this season.  Every other team in the conference, like most teams nationally, cannot compete with The Tide nor the Bulldogs.

More fine-tuning from our side

     We decided to cancel going to this Thursday night’s match-up with No. 15 Coastal Carolina playing at Arkansas State.  The timing offered us convenience to see the No. 15 team play, but as we prefer, we like to attend “competitive games.”  This counters that desire.  The Chanticleers average 48 ppg.  The Red Wolves under new HC Butch Jones, as of late Alabama’s DC a year ago, allow about that much per game.  So, a 50-0 blowout at night after a five-hour drive doesn’t thrill us. (Won by CCU, 52-20).

     Good news! We came up with a much more desirable alternative. On Wednesday, October 20, about six hours in the opposite direction from us, the Chanticleers (5-0, 1-0) visit Boone, NC to play SunBelt foe Appalachian State (4-1, 1-0) in a game with some meaning for the conference championship.  Last season, the Chants prevailed at home, 34-23, to win the conference.  This makes this change very worthwhile!

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Our Week 5 Review

     Regarding our insight for games played last week, BYU got off to a good start to defeat Utah State, 34-20, to move up three spots to No. 10 in the nation. We look forward to seeing them host UVA on October 30 for our first game ever in the state of Utah…Okay, we were fooled into thinking and hoping that the SEC was more balanced than it really is when we predicted Arkansas would give No. 2 Georgia a true fight in the loudest stadium we’ve ever been to.  Instead of competing, they just rolled over to fall, 37-0.  The Razorbacks fell from lofty No. 8 to 13.  They could fall farther if they fall big in this week’s “consolation game”.

Surprise!

     Wake Forest (5-0, 3-0) remained undefeated in a very good game down to the wire as usual with Louisville in a 37-34 win.  They have a chance at maintaining a winning streak despite games at Army and at UNC before we meet up with “Bug” and his Boys at Winston-Salem on November 13.  NC State comes calling. Having moved up from No. 24 to No. 19, Wake also sits atop the Atlantic Division of the ACC. Surprisingly, at this point, they rank highest among all ACC teams. The conference lost its top dog this year in Clemson, but overall, there’s a lot of competitive football being played within the ACC.

Bearcats football ready, but…

     And as we called it, the Cincinnati Bearcats defeated Notre Dame in South Bend to move up from No. 7 to No. 5 sending the Irish down from 9 to 14. Behind QB Desmond Ridder, this squad is focused on breaking the Power Five hold on the CFP.  They’re going to need some help even if they run the American Athletic table though.  UCF without QB Dillon Gabriel in action negates their effectiveness as seen by their loss, 34-30, to winless Navy last week.  SMU will have to continue a good showing to enable the Bearcats to pick up a quality win late in the season.  Hopefully, consideration can be made for their last-second loss, 24-21, last season to Georgia in The Peach Bowl.  

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   Oklahoma State moved up from No. 19 to 12 hanging in as we called with their 24-14 win over previously undefeated Baylor.  They have the Big Twelve gauntlet ahead of them until November 27 when they’ll host their in-state rival Oklahoma in the Bedlam Bowl.  With OU’s future move to the SEC, there’s added incentive for the Cowboys in this one.  They have a bye this week to prep for Texas the week after the Longhorns shoot it out with OU in Dallas. 

It pays off to see teams play in person

     We called it as we scouted both teams personally the two prior weeks in PSU’s defense dominating Indiana in a shutout. Winning 24-0 to maintain their No. 4 position, Iowa jumped ahead of PSU with a 51-14 win over previously unbeaten Maryland.  We’ll talk about this in our Week Six preview.  The Lions’ defense is tenacious, and its offense picks its spots.

    As stated in last week’s preview of Alabama taking on Ole Miss, we got everything but the popcorn comment correct. As stated, “The soap opera stuff gets put aside and the teams play.  Saban, the Recycler, will know how to beat Lane Kiffin.  It won’t be pretty…”  Bama dominated from the start and won more handily than the final score, 42-14, indicates. Alabama should handle struggling Texas A&M this week.  Arkansas travels to Ole Miss in the consolation round after last week as both fell hard from the undefeated ranks to Bama and UGA.  Which will recover?  We’ll go with Ole Miss in this case.

To the rear, march!

   We had to comment on these two results as our regular season ends once again this year with Army-Navy in December.  We surmised in assessing Week Four that Army would go 4-0. However, we pointed out the meat of its schedule will offer its toughest challenges the following four games.  Already, our prediction came to fruition as they lost at Ball State, 28-16.  In two weeks, the travel to Wisconsin who thrives on defense only.  We’ll be interested to see how the Badgers defense fares against Army’s potent triple option with one week to prepare.  Will the Badgers offense show up for this one?  

    In Annapolis, Navy shocked us with their 34-30 win over Central Florida.  No doubt, the Mids were helped by the Golden Knights’ loss of QB Dillon Gabriel, but more shocking, we didn’t know they had an injured QB on the sideline who came back and ran an effective triple option.  Soph QB Tai Lavatai powered the Mids triple option offense with 348 yards rushing – Navy style football. Not only does he improve it with rushing yards, but it keeps high-flying offenses like UCF’s off the field.  USNA had control of the football for 39:18 of the game.  They host No. 24 SMU this Saturday. If Navy has the QB to run this offense, they can turn the tide to make Army Navy a classic contest in The Meadowlands.

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Coming Up – Best of Week Six!

     Our game between two 3-2 ACC squads with exciting QBs should be an exciting contest to the end.  With our first trip ever to Cardinal Stadium in Louisville, dual-threat Cardinal QB Malik Cunningham will motor the Cardinal offense.  Brennen Armstrong of UVA is the second highest ranked QB in the nation with 1,973 yards passing and 14 TDs. The defenses look very even statistically ranked at the bottom of the ACC.  Louisville hung in down to the wire last week at Wake Forest while Wake doubled up the score against UVA in Charlottesville.  Close game goes to the Cardinals in a fun one for us.

Consolation game

   No. 13 Arkansas travels for the second week in a row to Ole Miss for the “consolation round” after both got slammed on the road last week ending undefeated quests to Georgia and Alabama. Both teams appeared unstoppable at home prior to running into these two behemoths on the road. Ole Miss gets the nod here being the home team once again…

Sooners due now rather than later

No. 6 Oklahoma (5-0) vs. No. 21 Texas (4-1) in the Red River Shoot-out: the Sooners have beaten four FBS teams played to date by seven points or less. UT fell on the road to Arkansas, and beat TCU in a close one at home last week. UT relies on their running game and OU relies on Spencer Rattler’s passes.  Two weeks ago, we said OU would fall to either Texas or TCU first. We look for Texas to upend the Sooners this week. OU won’t just get by in this one.

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Fatal blow for Cincinnati?

   No. 24 SMU at Navy, who comes in with a true option QB again after its upset over UCF last week, could be in for some trouble here. Navy had defeated SMU at home even in close ones the last six times these two met in Annapolis.  SMU QB Tanner Mordecai has thrown for 24 TDs already. They’ve defeated LA Tech and TCU on the road in close games.  This will be close too, but Mordecai will be able to thread passes against the Navy secondary.  The key will be how effective he can make each possession if Navy can control the clock again. The Mids pulled off a close one last week and the Brigade will be pumped in Annapolis.  We look for Navy to pull off a close upset against SMU.  Cincy will try take it out on the Mids when they meet in Annapolis on October 23.

   No. 2 Georgia plays at No. 18 Auburn in the longest rivalry in the Southeast.  Auburn will hang for a while, but in the end, we see UGA playing strong down the stretch.  The Bulldog defense has given up only 23 points in five games. AU’s defense averages giving up 23 ppg in its last three games and escaped a loss at home to 1-4 Georgia State.  Mistakes will be hard to overcome against UGA this week.

Battle for the bottom

     UCONN (0-6) at UMASS (0-5) for this year’s Bottom of the Barrel Battle.  First of all, these two programs should go back to playing in the FCS where they fit better budget-wise, geographically, recruiting-wise, and academically with the likes of the Colonial Athletic Association.  Hopefully, both administrations will consider this in the future. What value either gets from playing as Independents in the FBS has yet to be determined. The past two weeks, UCONN has “improved” losing to Wyoming (4-0) and at Vanderbilt by only two points to each. UMASS averages a losing margin by 35 points and it’s grown wider in the last two weeks against Coastal Carolina and Toledo. UCONN wins for their only win of 2021! UMASS will finish 2021 as No. 130 in the FBS.

No. 4 at No. 3?

     Penn State travels to Iowa against a team that leap-frogged them a week ago with the Hawkeyes defeating undefeated Maryland on the road, 51-14. Penn State’s been there and done that to optimistic 4-0 Maryland in 2019 to the tune of 59-0. So, we don’t put much credence into the stature of Iowa’s offensive dominance against the Terps. Both the Nittany Lions and the Hawkeyes handled Indiana already. Iowa has defeated Kent State and Colorado State at home. We think the Lions defense will show up to shut down this Iowa offense, and QB Sean Clifford will be ready to have a big day.

      The Lions have held back offensively since beating Auburn. They didn’t have to flex their muscles much against a good FCS Villanova (4-1) and put together long drives to knock off Indiana who could not score.  PSU wins this bigger than anyone expects. James Franklin’s team is focused this season.  He’ll use this leap-frog dissing as ammo and knows other challenges remain ahead.  His team has to get its foothold in the Top Four now and just ignore any comments from that SEC guru who won’t acknowledge the Lions as do many pundits. This could be their year as they take one game at time.

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