2022-23 NCAA Football (Week 3)

Games I saw (some of):

Youngstown St 0-31 Kentucky

Convincing W for the Wildcats. Youngstown was feisty early on, but UK was in control by halftime and ran it up nicely in the 2nd half. More a defensive show than on the offense side, in the SEC that's probably a good thing. I'm skeptical of Kentucky beating UGA, but Ole Miss and Tennessee will be competitive, action-packed games and we haven't seen that in Lexington in a while. (*)

Top 25

Handled their business

(1) Georgia, (2) Alabama, (3) Ohio State, (4) Michigan, (5) Clemson, (6) Oklahoma, (7) Southern Cal, (8) Oklahoma State, (9) Kentucky, (14) Utah, (15) Tennessee, (16) North Carolina State, (17) Baylor, (20) Mississippi, (21) Texas, (22) Penn State, (23) Pittsburgh, (24) Texas A&M, (25) Oregon

Won but did not impress

(10) Arkansas. Big bad top ten SEC West squads should get easy wind over lesser competition. Or perhaps we just grade too hard. A W is the outcome and if scrambling late is what it takes, well, they get it done. 

(18) Florida. Scrambling at home to secure a W against South Florida makes the Gators look kinda shakey. On the other hand, they got the win and that's what matters, can't ding them too hard.

(19) Wake Forest. On the one hand, I'm inclined to think that Liberty is actually a pretty feisty squad; on the other hand, I suspect Wake is overrated anyway. So....does that makes this a nice win against a tough squad or a disappointing scramble against inferior talent? I have no idea. Perhaps Clemson will let us know next week. 

Bad beat

(12) Brigham Young. I kinda thought BYU was balling and Oregon might be ripe picking, but Ducks showed up and got it done. Rather than bash BYU, I think it's a balls out good win for Oregon. Now we'll see if they can keep that momentum going. 

(13) Miami. Felt like they could've won, maybe they bungled it, maybe they should've been better, I dunno. On the road at A&M is not an easy task. 

Not so good

(11) Michigan State. The score is respectable but they kinda got smoked by Washington. The Huskies are formidable squad but Sparty goes on the road out of conference to get good wins and it did not happen this Saturday.

Next week's matchups:

(5) Clemson @ (21) Wake Forest (okay....we'll see if either of these teams are what we think they are)

(17) Baylor @ Iowa State (Iowa State loves to play spoiler, they're the rich kids in the fat camp on the other side of the lake and while those guys always lose in the movies, they don't always lose in real life; we'll see if Baylor understands the true meaning of Xmas)

(20) Florida @ (11) Tennessee (I think this game revolves around Florida's QB (Richardson): if that kid balls out, they can win by 3 TD's; if he has a bad day, they could get rolled by halftime. No idea how this game, it's all on him)

(10) Arkansas @ (23) Texas A&M (both teams squeaked by last week, not sure what that means)

Wisconsin @ (3) Ohio State (I feel like the Buckeyes are gonna lay an old fashioned beatdown on the Badgers)

(*) I'm good with the 4-team playoff, I think the way it works now is the perfect end to the college football season. But it'll go to 8 teams and then 12 eventually and though I don't need it, I have no plans to resist it. They will play the games and I will watch the games. 

The reason to expand out to 12 teams--though 6-7 or at least have absolutely no shot of winning it all--is because you draw in teams like Kentucky, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, even Boise State and Central Florida, etc. And, again, though those squads are years away from winning a championship, their fanbases will at least have seasons of pretending like they matter and, well, Americans love that shit. It's unnecessary overkill (Americans love that shit, too) but I am a loyal consumer and I'll grow into one of those guys that fondly look back on the good ol' days while I'm every bit as riveted by the present.