Week two is in the books and a pair of 2017’s best teams came away with big road victories to cement their early claim as the best teams of 2018. If you’re waiting for a shake-up at the top of the polls it may be a while.
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | LAST WEEK |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | 2-0 | 57-7 W vs. Arkansas St. |
| 2 | Georgia (+1) | 2-0 | 41-17 W vs. South Carolina |
| 3 | Clemson (-1) | 2-0 | 28-26 W vs. Texas A&M |
| 4 | Auburn | 2-0 | 63-9 W vs. Alabama St. |
| 5 | Oklahoma | 2-0 | 49-21 W vs. UCLA |
| 6 | Stanford (+2) | 2-0 | 17-3 W vs. USC |
| 7 | Ohio State (+2) | 2-0 | 52-3 W vs. Rutgers |
| 8 | Wisconsin (-1) | 2-0 | 45-14 W vs. New Mexico |
| 9 | LSU (+1) | 2-0 | 31-0 W vs. SE Louisiana |
| 10 | UCF (+1) | 2-0 | 38-0 W vs. South Carolina St. |
| 11 | TCU (+1) | 2-0 | 42-12 W vs. SMU |
| 12 | Notre Dame (-6) | 2-0 | 24-16 W vs. Ball State |
| 13 | West Virginia (+1) | 2-0 | 52-17 W vs. Youngstown St. |
| 14 | Penn State (NR) | 2-0 | 51-6 W vs. Pittsburgh |
| 15 | Washington (-5) | 1-1 | 45-3 W vs. North Dakota |
| 16 | Virginia Tech | 2-0 | 62-17 W vs. William & Mary |
| 17 | Michigan (-1) | 1-1 | 49-3 W vs. Western Michigan |
| 18 | Miss State (NR) | 2-0 | 31-10 W vs. Kansas State |
| 19 | Miami | 1-1 | 77-0 W vs. Savannah State |
| 20 | Boise State (NR) | 2-0 | 62-7 W vs. UConn |
Out: Southern Cal, Michigan State, South Carolina
In: Penn State, Mississippi State, Boise State
Somehow I don’t feel like Georgia is getting enough love and yet quietly putting South Carolina to sleep in Columbia is one heck of a performance. I have to give props to Clemson for hanging on inside the mad house that is College Station. That’s not easy (A&M might be kind of decent?) and the Tigers have made a living from gutting these road wins out under Dabo.
It’s going to be a while until we see Alabama in a truly marquee game and right now how scary is it that Tua Tagovailoa has completed 25 passes for 455 yards? How does this team lose in the regular season?
I’m moving Stanford up after they dispatched USC relatively easily. Guess what, the Cardinal defense might be pretty good and that’s bad news for the rest of the Pac-12! Although, the USC offense looks really mediocre right now.
I feel like Ohio State is undervalued to date in my rankings and we’ll get a better sense of their potential this weekend. Still, 129 points in 2 games against any Power 5 opponents is kind of scary. Buy stock in Dwayne Haskins!
The Irish get the boot down the rankings after Saturday’s pathetic performance. Let’s move on.
Last week I said it was harsh to drop Penn State from the rankings and they are back with a vengeance after embarrassing Pitt by 45 points. That renewed rivalry isn’t going too well for the Panthers.
Games to Watch
Oklahoma (-17.5) at Iowa State – I won’t take too much away from Iowa State’s 3 point performance in El Assico but it’s not super encouraging when coming up against the Sooners. Also, this game was a defeat for Oklahoma last year it’s just weird things happen in Ames and I feel like OU is due for some road struggles. Sooners win 33-24.
LSU (+9.5) at Auburn – My long-time rule is to never bet a cover on a large spread between two talented SEC teams. Both of these teams are riding high so far in 2018, too. How is this not a drag-it-out low-scoring game? War Eagle wins 17-13.
West Virginia (-4) at NC State – We know nothing about NC State after a pair of cupcakes. So far, West Virginia and Will Grier’s Heisman campaign have been on track. This smells of a dumb Holgorsen loss before conference play kicks in although I’m just not feeling that this week. Mountaineers win 29-27.
Boise State (+3) at Oklahoma State – Like NC State above, the Cowboys have played absolutely no one yet. This is a sneaky huge game for both teams! I’m generally very warm towards Okie State but I think Boise is playing really well early this season and gives us an important G5 victory. Broncos win 39-35.
*Game of the Week* Ohio State (-12.5) at TCU [Arlington, TX] – This is the spread you get when Ohio State looks unstoppable even against weak competition. We could see a whole lot of points in this one, of course trust Ohio State’s defense to make more than enough stops. Buckeyes win 38-29.
USC (+3.5) at Texas – Eh, I don’t know Texas as a favorite against a team with, at minimum, a pulse in combination with plenty of talent? Trojans win 27-21.
Arizona State (-4.5) at San Diego State – National Coach of the Year Herm Edwards can’t allow a loss out of conference. No way, not now. Sun Devils win 30-27.
Last Week:
7-2 SU, 4-5 ATS
Season: 13-5 SU, 8-10 ATS
West Virginia @ NC State (and UCF @ UNC) cancelled due to a hurricane! Novel concept!
Disagree with you in tOSU/TCU. At home, Ubs still suspended. This will be the game where that really has an affect. So far against the creampuff part of the sched, they havent needed the Urbs, but against the Frogs they’re going to notice his absence. TCU wins by 10
I’m going the other way, I think tOSU not only wins, but also covers.
Speaking of which… @Eric – I think that’s supposed to be *minus* 12.5.
Fixed!
I agree. Haskins has been very impressive and that’s the difference. Buckeyes cover.
It’s also going to be pretty close to 50/50 at Jerryworld (not at TCU’s stadium) that an away game for OSU. Lots of Buckeyes will travel, TCU not that big a school, etc etc.
Cole Kmet is doubtful for Saturday with a high ankle sprain. I’ve listed him as injured because it would be stupid to push an injured TE back when we have plenty of good options there. Pre-Vandy depth chart:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tuz1FdIW9k2JGIFk7CiWwDHx_hvHRoIqHSMGVQRiGBM/edit?usp=sharing
Is Brock Wright gonna be more than a full back this or any week? He was the higher rated recruit.
Also, if and when Kelly is ever fired, someone needs to make a supercut of him saying: “I didn’t coach them well enough”/“I need to coach them better”.
It seems like Kmet has certainly over taken Wright based on what practice comments have been made about them (and usage the last two weeks). I am hoping the fall off isn’t too significant though so that no one feels any need to rush Cole back onto the field.
Based on how NBC was talking about the injury as brutal (and not showing a replay), the usually dreaded high ankle sprain sounds pretty good. They were acting like it could have been something really gruesome.
I didn’t see it live, but was told he got rolled up on, so most of the gruesome injuries from that are torn up knees. A high ankle sprain is definitely getting off lightly when the worse alternatives are multiple ligament tears.
Eh, I dunno about that. Those high ankles tend to linger for a long time.
Yeah, it may waste most his season and that stinks- but that’s still way preferable to surgery for repairing major damage, which was how the broadcast made it seem.
#8 Notre Dame (home) vs. perennial SEC bottom-feeder Vanderbilt (whose coach famously gave ND bulletin board material): -14.5
#4 Ohio State w/o head coach @ #15 ranked TCU: -12.5
Has to be some sort of arbitrage opportunity…
I’m just here to give this wonderful blog publicity – https://notredameourblogger.com/2018/09/11/ndnation-ball-state-postmortem/
Lol, that was so terrible i couldn’t even skim the whole thing. Thanks for the laugh! Do you know if that guy is an NDN regular? or is he just familiar with them?
The Notre Dame, Our Blogger guy just wades through that swamp occasionally to find things to mock.
correct – haven’t lost my sanity yet but i’m well on my way
Hi Notre Dame, Our Blogger guy :wave:
Right on, i’ll give your work another try in that case!
He collects actual comments and pastes them together, serial-killer style, into his game recaps. They’re pretty excellent. I believe that, partly due to this but mostly due to Eric and others tweeting screen caps of the site that are then mocked endlessly, they’ve had some discussions about making the board private.
i do have a login (without posting capabilities) so hopefully that will still work lol
I like how they have beef with us. They stopped linking articles from this staff way back in the OFD days, due to outrage over being mocked in the comments sections.
>Say, how is our short yardage running game looking? F* We actually lost to Michigan In the only stat that matters.
This is gold.
I have come to believe that Andy Cross is a character, written by a committee of people at NDN.
Nevermind the score, we lost the short yardage conversion battle!
That’s not a comment, it’s performance art.
I would love their list of “stats for losers” (that don’t matter) and “stats that matter”, because I’m pretty sure they would be polar opposites of what has actually been shown to be important and actually having a cause-effect relationship to winning
For instance they seem to discount point scoring as one of the more important metrics in any game which we win.
I do think we are fast-approaching an optimal time for Kelly and Jack to ride into the sunset. That said: what the hell is wrong with those people?!
They’re just really unhappy. About everything. All the time. My favorite is when people have positive things to say about a game or the team or whatever, but in order to prevent being shouted down, they have to say it in a certain way.
“Is Brian Kelly the worst hire in the history of college sports? Absolutely. Should he probably go to prison for the Declan Sullivan tragedy? I think so. And yet… it was pretty awesome to beat Michigan, don’t you think?”
andrew from NDOB here, thanks for the shout!
Is UCF that good?
I watched UFC 228 Saturday after the ND game and it was a pretty good card, but that’s not what you were asking about after a second glance.
UCF plays Pitt on 9/29 which will be the only P5 team they face this year so it’ll be really tough to figure out how good they actually are. S&P+, which has it’s issues with early season predictions, thinks they’re currently #25 and has Memphis, Toledo, and Boise State all G5 teams ahead of them.
The Clemson-Aggie game was a little closer than this:
This video might elicit a sensible chuckle, though it lost a lot of its relevance when aTm still managed to score on the next drive and then just screwed up the 2-pt conversion.
https://youtu.be/VazXKdUQ7QQ