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"Steveo's Salvos" - October 2010 Edition

"Salvos" is presented as the editorial content of CollegeFootballFan.com focusing on current issues surrounding college football and news about some of the teams on the CFF schedule this year.  Originally from a newsletter, this web site, CollegeFootballFan.com, has evolved. 

Both sides of the mouth-   In Monday's Newark Star Ledger, Tom Luicci leads on his "5 Questions " regarding anyone from outside of Idaho thinking Boise is the best in the country ( we do and we're in Jersey, too) with "Alabama, Ohio State, and Nebraska have already lost because of the strength of the leagues the play in."  That's funny because none of them have started to play in their conferences until recently.  He gives credit to BSU for knocking off Oregon State (who had WR James Rogers healthy when they met) and Virginia Tech (5-2) whom he points out lost to FCS James Madison in a big upset. Well "looky" here: Alabama went out of their way to schedule WAC school San Jose State in their opener, a team in that Boise is chastised for playing against in the same conference.  They beat Penn State in their second game who is starting freshman at QB and LB among others.  Alabama pushed this game back from a few years ago when PSU was on the upside of their cycle.  Then they beat ACC bottom-feeder Duke.  Those three games catapulted them to No. 1.  Next they beat Arkansas and now unimpressive 4-3 Florida before falling against South Carolina. They say they're from the tough SEC, but how can anyone say the SEC is tough based on the results on the field (See SEC Scam below)? Aside from beating Miami of Florida, Ohio State beat Marshall, Ohio U. , and everybody's homecoming opponent, Eastern Michigan before whipping also-ran Illinois and doormat Indiana to earn the No. 2 slot and then jumped to No. 1.  What was so impressive about that?  Their true colors showed taking a fall against a ranked Wisconsin team. Nebraska developed its poll position  based on beating the likes on winless Western Kentucky, Idaho, struggling Washington, and FCS South Dakota State.  That's more impressive than Boise's schedule thus far?  Up comes mediocre but improving Kansas State in Big Twelve play and then down they go at home to a Texas team with three losses. They're out because of their "strength of the league they play in?" They didn't get their ranking for that reason.  Boise is chastised for the conference they're in and beating two schools in what Luicci  facetiously terms "big" wins.  However, it's okay to schedule four patsies and say you're in a tough conference when you haven't even started to play in yet to justify a ranking in the Top Ten.  At least Boise's not ducking anyone like these other phonies have - play maybe one "name" team and bunch of nobodies like the rest of your conference, market yourself as the best, have your coaches vote for your conferences affiliates based on inflated records against patsies and all the ranking are based on a lot of hot air.  In Luicci's Monday column under item No. 3, he basically states that himself: "Is it possible that Ohio State and Nebraska benefitted from their reputations and name recognition in cracking their Top Five before their losses this week?" Not only is that true Mr. Luicci, but you're one of the voters that put them in that position.  So you tell us.

SEC scam - We already analyzed Alabama's (1) non-conference schedule.  They beat Arkansas and Florida, supposedly tough SEC teams, before South Carolina "surprised" the Tide.  How did  these conference mates earn their reputation as being tough teams formulating the best conference in college football?  Let's see: wins by the Arkansas (2)  Razorbacks over FCS Tennessee Tech and UL-Monroe were worthy wins over major perennial powers.  Give them credit for scheduling Texas A&M (3-3, 0-2), 24-17.  At least they're a BCS conference team.  They beat Georgia (3-4) who's having a down year, wouldn't all SEC fans agree?  They'll confirm the dominance of the SEC as the best conference in the land with a big win over UTEP later this season.  Florida (3) thought they'd fool a lot of people by opening with a win over Miami, but we realize that it's not their hated instate rival, but the one from Ohio that finished 1-11 a year ago.  Then they knocked off Big East South Florida (yawn).  Tennessee (2-4), who's not beating anybody, became Gator prey next and Kentucky came up next for the 4-0 start before faltering when they played Bama, LSU and suddenly "tough" Mississippi State. The 4-0 record against so-so competition and their recent reputation got them ranked highly.  Come back Tim Tebow!  The Gators finish the season against FCS Appalachian State and at Florida State -interesting.  This is how the rest of the SEC proved their "toughness":          Auburn (4): Arkansas State, Clemson (ok), UL Monroe, (FCS UT Chattanooga looms big on Nov. 6 - get your tickets now); Georgia (5): UL Lafayette,  Colorado  (lost).  Idaho State? Georgia Tech (ok) ; LSU (6): North  Carolina (without 13 suspended players), Big East WVU (ok), FCS McNeese State, UL-Monroe (why don't they just join the SEC); Kentucky (7) : Big East Louisville, winless Western Kentucky, winless Akron, and watch out for Charleston Southern on Nov. 6.  That could be a real FCS challenge; Mississippi (8) : LOST to FCS Jacksonville State, Tulane, WAC Fresno - one of those schools from Boise's conference.  UL-Lafayette visits the Grove, another SEC blood donor.  By the way, Ole Miss lost to Vanderbilt already; Mississippi State (9): 1-6 Memphis, FCS Alcorn and Houston without Case Keenum.  Sun Belter UAB this weekend; South Carolina (10): Southern Miss and FCS Furman so far, Troy and Clemson (ok) finish up their season; Tennessee (11) : FCS Tenn-Martin ( a real rivalry to start the season), Oregon (lost 48-13), UAB coming up, and 1-6 Memphis awaits; Vanderbilt (12) : Northwestern (lost), Big East UConn (lost), 1-6 Eastern Michigan coming up and Wake Forest wraps up the season.  Toughest conference?  How can anyone claim that based on the bunch of mismatches scheduled here and the lack of impressive non-conference wins.  Don't be shocked when they lose a bunch of bowl games all basically scheduled as additional home games this year.  Like every year, the SEC is a bunch of hype.  Like every other major conference, sometimes they're good and sometimes they're bad, but generally the SEC gets over-rated.

RU-tude  - You know we're not big Rutgers fans, but our thoughts and prayers go out to RU DE Eric Legrand who suffered a serious spinal injury making a tackle in last Saturday's game against Army and to his family who will be there with him the whole way.  It's a shame that has to happen to any player but especially  who plays as hard as he does according to all his teammates. We love this game and hate to see this happen to any of the kids playing it anywhere.  We're praying that things turn out for him the way things did for Adam Talieffero of Penn State ten years ago.  We saw him walk out on the field o Sept 1, 2001 before the Miami game.  It was a thrill to be there.  We'd pray that we can plan to do the same when Eric walks on to the field at Rutgers Stadium.

Navy vs. Notre Dame - Both teams will be up for this one!  WR Theo Riddick is out for the Irish and Michael Floyd is questionable.  The Navy option is still not as sharp as it used to be.  We think they miss a bigger bruiser at FB than Alex Teich is.  The Irish have won four straight and Navy has won two.  A win here for them means a lot for them.  however, Brian Kelly now coaches the Irish and not Charlie Weis.  The Mids only sacked SMU's Kyle Padron once last weekend and they can't give Crist that much time despite going to second team receivers.  The Irish didn't have a lot of difficulty with the option last year, and their defense has improved this year.  We look for Notre Dame to win by two touchdowns in a hard-fought game.  We're excited to go back to see this rivalry for the first time since 1992.  

Tim Brewster rebound - Here's a thought: Jerry Jones of the Cowboys should hire Minnesota's fired Head Coach Tim Brewster and make him HC of his Dallas Cowboys.  Wade Phillips is not allowed to make any decisions on the Cowboy sideline, so make him the scapegoat, and hire Tim Brewster.  Jerry can continue to call the shots, take a little of the heat off  Phillips by letting him go, and allow Brewster to build up his resume a little more.  This move can't hurt any of them. 

D-3 - Wisconsin-Whitewater (6-0) and Mt. Union (6-0) look to be on a collision course headed for the Championship in Salem for the sixth straight year.  The teams are ranked No. 1 and No. 2 with 22 and 3 first place votes each respectively.   Montclair State (6-0) whom we saw defeat Kean earlier now sits at No. 14.     Not much change here and we don't expect any.  Misericordia College of Dallas, Pennsylvania announced that it will be adding football as a D-3 varsity sport in 2012.  They will join the Middle Atlantic Conference which includes Delaware Valley, Wilkes College, and Lycoming among others. The alma mater, Juniata College, belonged to this group up until joining the Freedom Conference a few years ago.  The Eagles, formerly Indians, continue to struggle at 0-6 this year.  The only good news from the program is that former Head Coach Rob ash has his 5-2 Montana State Bobcats ranked at No. 16 in the FCS polls.

Bowl projections - The latest for the games we plan to attend this year as predicted by ESPN.com soothsayers:   Fiesta Bowl - Oklahoma vs. West Virginia or Auburn vs. West Virginia.  Regarding either, put WVU in the Orange Bowl.  We'd love to see OU vs. AU.  We hope that our Auburn friends, the  Murrens,  can join us.  Holiday Bowl: Oklahoma State vs. Arizona or Baylor vs. Arizona.  Baylor?  We thought this was a pretty high level bowl game a good team would want to be selected for.  Arizona?  OK, but we're hoping for Stanford and that may be stretching.  Mizzou would be more favorable to us.  There's a long way to go yet.

FCS - Villanova's 4-2 now and ranked No. 6. Seven of the top 15 teams are from the Colonial Athletic Conference.  Among them, UNH is 4-3 and ranked No. 9 and Richmond is 3-3 is ranked No. 15.  The great thing about this is is that it's all in fun.  Throw the rankings out the window at the end of the season.  The FCS has brackets filled with conference champs and a few at-large bids to face each other on the gridiron in a playoff format to determine a true No. 1.  We hope to catch some of this action.  If only...

Week of Oct 23 - We'll be out of commission that week, but look for our review of the UConn-WVU game on Oct 30 and an update to Salvos shortly after.  Thanks for following along!

Predictions - We'll throw some things out just to be different than the traditional sports publications you'll read (we're keeping these posted to see how we did at the end of the season):

Boise state will be the true BCS buster and win the National Championship.  They will go undefeated.  They will play the winner of the Texas-Oklahoma game for the title.  The winner of that game finishes undefeated and beats Nebraska in the Big 12 final.  Ohio State will lose along the way when either Wisconsin or Iowa shuts down Terrelle Pryor during his worst performance of the season.  Alabama will lose their traditional Iron Bowl game to Auburn dropping from first in the poll for the first time in 2010.  Among the teams we will see:  Virginia Tech won't win the ACC.  North Carolina will get hit with more suspensions due to off the field violations.  Rutgers will lose to at least four other Big East schools to finish 7-5.  Penn State will lose to Alabama and Ohio State while Joe wins #400 at Minnesota.  Illinois will match last season's three wins and Ron Zook will be somebody's coordinator in the Mid American Conference in 2011.  Northwestern will win eight games and play in the Insight Bowl where they will defeat Kansas for their first bowl win in a long time.   Temple will win the MAC and go to its second consecutive Bowl.  Al Golden will be offered several big time HC positions but he'll stay with the Cherry and White until JoePa makes his move away from Dear old White and Blue.  Villanova comes up short of this year's FCS Championship losing to James Madison in the national semi-finals.  Navy goes 13-0 while Rick Dobbs wins the Heisman Trophy.  They'll finish 10th in the nation due to a lackluster schedule.  Their toughest  win will be  a 56-49 OT win over SMU. The Ponies will finish second in a very competitive Conference USA.  Navy will defeat Notre Dame again who will finish 7-5 as the Irish will have QB problems.  Pitt will defeat WVU in the backyard Brawl for the Big East title by one point as both they and UConn will defeat Cincinnati who will not challenge them for the this year's title.  UConn's only two losses will be against the two teams we will see them play - Pitt and WVU.  The Florida Gators will shut out the South Carolina Gamecocks so we will be able to say we've seen the Old Ball Coach get whitewashed in two of the only three shutout he ever suffered.  Lehigh will defeat Lafayette in their 146th meeting to win the Patriot League and go to the FCS play-offs.  Ohio State will beat Michigan by a field goal as the Wolverines play with joyful emotional after their former coach, Rich Rodriguez, is released before the last time the regular season rivals meet for the last time for the final game of their regular season.  Navy will defeat Army who will have another losing season.  Mt. Union will defeat Wisconsin-Whitewater for the D-3 Championship. In the Holiday Bowl, we will see Washington play Nebraska.   In the Fiesta Bowl, the Texas-Oklahoma loser will play Florida.  Of course, this is more based on what we'd like to see happen, and less on what we think will happen.

Watch for more Salvo updates throughout the season! 

- Steve Koreivo, ed.