Sometimes things get clearer, sometimes they get more muddy. Saturday’s two big upsets gave us one of each. Readers of the Triple Take might have suspected Willamette would lose — they were picked as one of the most likely Top 25 upsets — but nobody even bothered to raise the possibility Ohio Northern might beat North Central.
Is that what happens when a coach gets all offseason to game plan for one game? Or has the personnel and talent shifted so much between the programs in question?
Keith McMillan and Pat Coleman discuss that, and much, much more in this week’s first Around the Nation podcast.
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well worth the (25:08) your comment about “most improvement between week one and week two”….training camp is one thing but the first game shows what has to be fixed.. great run down top to bottom podcast
Great comments…
Franklin did show us something. There were are a large number of fans who picked BWC over Franklin in the various pick’ems. On the HCAC board, the fans went 4-4 on the Franklin/BWC game. In the CCIW pick’ems, 13 picked Franklin and 12 picked BWC. In the ASC pick’em, Franklin was picked 10 times, 11 times for BWC including the 3 indexes that the ASC Pick’ems follow.
Nice play on words about “the Fly” having “to fly” to Minnesota.
Thanks for the shout-out to McMurry and Hal Mumme’s Air Raid. I wondered how much of that was the surprise of the Air Raid, altho’ Coach Mohr could have found New Mexico State films to look at the offense or some Texas Tech films by Coach Mumme’s protege, Mike Leach.
Merchant Marine did “right the ship” against Gallaudet.
I like the comments of the Backyard Brawl between Mississippi College and Millsaps. Keith makes good remarks about Louisiana College and Hardin-Simmons.
Ditto on the comments about the week #1/week #2 openings. I want every advantage that I can gain on UW-Stevens Point.
Aside from being terribly difficult to determine without having seen anyone play, and using past performance, returning starters, etc to determine the preseason rankings, it’s hard to believe that the poll changes so much after the first week.
If Willamette was the most likely upset in week 1, why were they ranked as high as 8th to begin with? I realize they had to travel halfway across the country but they played a team that was 15-13 over the last 3 years, albeit in a very competitive conference. Now, they aren’t even ranked and neither is C-M (RV). However, same scenario, the 4th ranked team travels and loses to a team that was 5-5 last season, drops to 15th, and ONU goes from unranked (not even receiving votes) to 9th…9th?
4 teams that were ranked behind Monmouth in the preseason poll are now ranked ahead of them after the Scots won 39-20 vs. Loras. It was 32-7 at one point and 39-14 starting the 4Q. It’s not like it was a lackluster performance. Tanney threw for 341 and 4 TDs/0 Int and the Scots never led by less than 2 scores after the 1st Q. Meanwhile, W&J beats Oberlin (2-8 in 2008) 35-9, Case beats Kenyon (1-9 in 2008) 33-21, and St John’s rallies from 10 down in the 4th to beat River Falls (5-5 in 2008) 28-24. All three moved ahead of Monmouth in the next poll after being ranked behind them initially.
I know the rankings don’t mean a hill of beans, I’m just saying there seems to be a lot of waffling…I’m just saying.
Also, congrats to St Norbert for rolling up 500 yards and knocking off No. 17 Wartburg. Can’t wait for the Green Knights to come to Monmouth in week 6! Both teams should be 5-0 and the conference title will be on the line.
ONU’s reward for their big upset and jump into the rankings? MUC and LK having a whole week to prepare! Go Mount!