It’s a good thing Notre Dame plays at noon this weekend because it’ll give everyone plenty of time to prepare for what really matters on Saturday: Louisville at Clemson. The Tigers host their biggest home game of their season and one that could define their season, take over the ACC, and vault themselves into national title contention.
Enemy Watch
FRIDAY
#7 Stanford (+3) at #10 Washington
SATURDAY
Virginia (+3.5) at Duke
Navy (+7.5) at Air Force
Wake Forest (+10) at NC State
#17 Michigan State (-7) at Indiana
Arizona State (+10) at USC
Nevada (-3.5) at Hawaii
This might be THE major test for Chris Petersen’s Huskies this year. They have been rolling below the radar this year–even scraping past Arizona in overtime last week–and have a big chance to step up to the plate and take over the Pac-12. This is a classic case of one team (Stanford) possibly tired and going through a tough early schedule and whether they will be fresh enough for this game or submit to too many body blows.
It’s kind of interesting to see Navy such large underdogs when they’ve won 18 out of their last 20 games.
Wasn’t it the Arizona State game that ultimately forced USC to leave Lane Kiffin at LAX? This has been a rocky start for the Trojans and somehow they are favored by double-digits? Even if it’s at home I’m having flash backs to 2013 and I wonder if USC is going to throw their name in to the coaching search to compete with LSU following a loss this weekend?
Raised Eyebrow Game
Oregon (-1.5) at Washington State
I looked to see when the last time Oregon lost 2 games in a row, got to 2008, and stopped looking. That’s a pretty amazing streak that came to an end, in Colorado, of all places. Wazzu is coming off a bye week and defeated Oregon last year. I’ve got a feeling the Cougars take this one and the heat really gets turned up on Mark Helfrich.
Double Eyebrow Game
Memphis (+14.5) at #16 Ole Miss
Everyone thought Memphis was going to slump back into irrelevance after losing their head coach and 1st round quarterback. Not so fast! The Tigers have been displaying a powerful offense once again while scoring a ludicrous 56 points in the first half against Bowling Green last week. Ole Miss is due for a let down game and may not take Memphis all that seriously. I’m looking for a shootout, granted Ole Miss is totally comfortable with that.
National Spotlight
North Carolina (+10.5) at #12 Florida State
#11 Tennessee (-3.5) at #25 Georgia
#8 Wisconsin (+10.5) at #4 Michigan
Oklahoma (-3.5) at #21 TCU
#3 Louisville (-1.5) at #5 Clemson
At the top we have a slightly intriguing ACC game where North Carolina could make a move to return to the ACC Title game for the second straight year. Meanwhile, FSU has to keep pace with the winner of the big game below. Also, would an 0-2 start in league play for the Seminoles ratchet up the Jimbo Fisher to LSU talks again?
The Vols have survived a couple early tests this year and find themselves in position this early in the season in week 5 where they’d put a stranglehold on the SEC East by defeating the Dawgs. Or maybe, Georgia comes back from their embarrassing loss and upset Tennessee to make this division completely back in play again?
Go Badgers.
Somehow Oklahoma was ranked last week. The voters corrected themselves this week although Vegas is feeling the Sooners a lot more on the road in Fort Worth. This could be a sneaky important game that gets lost this weekend but could play a huge part in deciding the Big 12.
It’s been a while since I’ve looked forward to a non-Notre Dame game than this weekend’s clash between Louisville and Clemson. On the one hand, my heart sides with Clemson for multiple reasons not the least of which is that I like Dabo Swinney a lot and Bobby Petrino a lot less so. Still, watching Lamar Jackson is like watching someone from 2048 descend upon this silly, slow game that he can take in his hand and shape any way he wants.
He’s on pace for 100 total touchdowns in the regular season alone! Louisville just needs to find any way possible to win this game and the Heisman is Jackson’s full stop. He can play mediocre and it won’t matter. Win here and Louisville is going to go no worse than 11-1, probably make the playoffs, and a Jackson will put up something in the neighborhood of 4,000+ passing yards, 1,800+ rushing yards, and 60+ total scores. And that feels really conservative right now.
It’s Lamar Jackson’s world, and we’re all just living in it. Can’t wait for that game.
Yeah, he’s incredibly fun to watch, like Rocket was, only more so. Just hope he doesn’t get hurt, he’s got those long, spindly legs and runs a lot. He’s got amazing body control though, best I think I’ve ever seen on a football field. That seems to help him avoid heavy hits. Watching him run through FSU on his 47 yard TD, at least 5 FSU guys had him lined up in their sights and he just slithered and juked through arm tackle after arm tackle.
I’m sure there will be an article on the presser but Kelly gives some more evidence that the D has been way too complicated with BVG (“we can’t have 15 different substitution packages but only a couple” or something to that effect) and was probably the best reason why some younger guys (I’m thinking of Nyles Morgan here especially) couldn’t get on the field (Kelly said it earlier that younger guys like Hayes this year had trouble getting on the field because things were too hard for him but now simplifying it he will play).
Getting the sense that BK should have known enough to fire him after last season.
It seems obvious in retrospect, but at the time we had just missed the playoff by 3 points. Is blowing up the defense and starting anew with a completely different coordinator a slam-dunk chance for improvement over a strong finish? I don’t know if I would have done it either, and I hate BVG.
Alternatively, we missed the playoffs by 3 points, and it wasn’t the fault overall of the offense. The defense giving up big plays was why many of those wins were close and not blowouts. Changing the defense would be the way to improve and potentially NOT miss the playoffs the next time.
Yeah. It was the right answer, but I don’t know that I would have done it at the time…especially since so much could have been blamed on injuries.
For me, it was the fact that there was absolutely no adjustment to those injuries. Stuff happens, and a decline in defensive performance is understandable. But we saw little attempt to simplify and focus on solid fundamentals that younger players should be able to execute well, with coaching. We saw it in 2014 when Schmidt went down and Morgan came in and the defense was lost. In 2015, rather than continue to bring Morgan along by working him in, Schmidt just never came off the field. To me, that was an indication that BVG couldn’t see past his scheme to the larger picture–“oh, Joe’s the one who makes the scheme run, so we can’t take him off the field” ignores that Joe has to leave and so someone should be learning it as the understudy, even if for a few snaps a game. It doesn’t just happen magically in spring ball. There are other examples–“oh, we lost Shawn Crawford, so we can never play nickel…” Really? Sure, you might not have someone as good, but to say you can’t play it at all? Doesn’t make sense.
Last year the whole “well, we gave up big plays, but we still won the game so there is no problem” really bothered me. It’s not okay to give up big plays–especially if you’re not getting your money’s worth in turnovers and sacks that justify the occasional big play given up when you take risks. We were “3 points away from the playoffs” but we were also 7 points away from 8-4, 14 points from 7-5….and those were games against Virginia, Temple, and BC. Only Temple of that group had any right to be remotely close to us. Not all of that’s on the defense, but all of those teams (and others we beat by wider margins) played above their season averages on offense against our D.