18 B1G Things
- I've been told if I don't put the scores y'all won't know who I'm talking about.
- Because I may be the only one with internet access.
- And we communicate via telepathy.
- It appears the hatred transcends conferences.
- It appears USC's defense isn't fixed after all.
- Everyone else what part of a double-digit score, win or lose.
The Rundown
Will you look at that, Oregon can score again! It's the wrong PSU though, but hey, 84 points is 84 points, the other PSU, Portland State, scored zero (o).
We have no Oregon writers so I'll pretend I care enough to add a paragraph here.
Minnesota found a way to score again, they played Akron, and beat them 41-7
Where was all this firepower against Mississippi State?
WhiteSpeedReceiver: Minnesota completed the assignment successfully, but once again failed to get out of 2nd gear. We better be sandbagging when it comes to our run game, or we're in for a long season.
Penn State played Buffalo, beat them 55-13
They looked more like the team that played Marshall than the team that played Temple, so that's good. They even had three running backs go over 50 yards on the day!
Ohio State built a large enough lead this time, so Kent State, the team they played, who lost 59-3, didn't have enough time to come back
And apparently they also got the memo and threw it to someone other than Jeremiah Smith.
MaximumSam: In 2021, Columbus wisely installed a power plant that runs on anger. The Buckeyes' existence is less about football and more about generating enough content for fans to complain about. Thank you to Kent State for stopping touchdowns on two consecutive possessions in the first half - that should power the city all week.
TransientBuckeye: Good of MaximumSam to bring that up. He's got it exactly correct. The through line in the upcoming week's grousing is going to be "Have you EVER seen a team look that bad in a game they won by 56 points!?" The thing is, that criticism is not going to be entirely unfounded. The outcome of this game was never in doubt. Ohio State won the game when it was scheduled. But there was enough grit in the gears of the machine to leave OSU fans with a sense of nervousness as the team enters conference play. This is life in Buckeye world. It's insane, but you don't deal with insanity by denying its existence.
Narrator: word...
Wisconsin, in beating Eastern Michigan 54-10, seems to have also found something!
Right before they play Penn State too. Yippee!
I did not watch Illinois/Southern Illinois, but as the only person with internet, I looked up the score. It was 48-10.
Their reward? Ohio State next Saturday.
thumpasaurus: Learned nothing. Will learn nothing next week.
MNWildcat:
thumpasaurus: We are better than southern Illinois and have still never lost to an FCS team, so that’s something. Nothing that happened disabused me of the notion that this is a bottom three team in the league.
Michigan was down to UTEP at one point in the game. But I'm required to tell you the final score. It was 52-17.
Also, Oklahoma beat New Mexico 14-6. Michigan plays Iowa and Minnesota next. Good luck!
Brian Gillis: Michigan struggled early against UTEP before putting away the Miners with a five-touchdown second half. The offense showed flashes, but is still a work in progress. Next up: Iowa
Iowa scored 55 points against Northern Iowa, who scored zero (0) points.
This means they are contractually obligated to score no more than 20 against Michigan.
Death Star, meanwhile, only scored 38 against Western Kentucky, who also scored zero (0) points.
Is it time to panic in Bloomington?
BuffKomodo: Indiana wins in a sloppy, sloppy game. I mean it was sloppy for a 38-0 game where you never actually felt WKU would win if Indiana unchained itself. Hoover didn't look good. The run game was bad. The defense looks squishy at times. And Indiana missed a field goal. It is what it is, but Indiana is 3-0 with no major long term injuries and no upset scares heading into B1G play next week. I suppose that's all that matters.
IUinVA: Clunky. 145-16 in the preseason, but 0-3 ATS. The efficiency hasn't been there on offense and the havoc hasn't been there on defense. Hoover looks like he has too much going through his head and is too inaccurate with his touch. Turbo is good, but Beebe Jr is a big step down. Becker is a cheat code. Season starts for real on Friday.
Maybe D'Anton Lynn was actually good, who knows? This is in reference to Rutgers, who played USC, and had lost its previous two games against two of the worst teams in FBS, managing to score 35 in a loss. USC scored 42, so they barely came away with the win.
In fact, if Rutgers has any semblance of quarterback play, maybe they win outright.
RUReady4Brazil: Rutgers gave everything they could against USC but was just not good enough. In a vacuum, a great game for any unranked team against a superior powerhouse. Unfortunately, Rutgers hasn't beaten a ranked team since 2009 and is now 0-3. Just not good enough. The performance might have bought this coaching staff another few weeks after the bye though.
Washington finally beats someone soundly. Their opponent was Eastern Washington. The score 48-16.
We also have no Washington writers but I have no ill will toward the Huskies, who are great dogs by the way, don't let anyone tell you otherwise!
Nebraska beat North Dakota by a 27-point margin, 34-7. I am mentioning the margin for no reason whatsoever.
Not because someone one may or may not have taken them to cover 27.5. Nope. That's not it.
BigRedTwice: I half watched this game, and it was nice to see pretty much only good things going on whenever I looked.
The past three games have been pretty boring, but there are times in the not-distant past when Nebraska would have made these games interesting in a bad way, so I'll take it. I'm not sure what they'll look like on the road against a real team next week, but I suppose it is time to find out.
Northwestern does not believe! (because they beat Colorado 41-7, which means Deion Sanders is going to be mad or something, get it?)
All of a sudden, Northwestern is just, there. They don't suck, they're probably not going to contend for conference titles anytime soon. They're just there.
MNWildcat: Colorado emptied a whole-ass clip into its foot in the first half, and Northwestern did what good-aspiring teams do: they took advantage and then some.
This was genuinely fun. Aidan Chiles had a phenomenal game, making space for himself and stepping up in the pocket at the right times, throwing a few dimes, and juuuuust missing on a couple deep balls that would've helped the 'Cats blow this open even wider. As the game wore on, Griffin Wilde found his rhythm and settled in against the Colorado secondary, which also seemingly has never heard of covering a running back out of the backfield, allowing Joseph Himon II three receiving touchdowns. Meanwhile, the three-headed backfield of Komolafe, Himon, and Sawchuck found juuuuust enough space to run behind a still-suspect Northwestern offensive line, aided by the woefully undisciplined Buffs. The 'Cats emptied the bench, got a couple late field goals, and turned this into a laugher. Save completely irrational optimism, we've got reasons for good vibes in Evanston.
Room for concern? Sure. The aforementioned O-line is a worry, and the defense still looks like they'll struggle to keep up with any decent athletes. (Oh hi, Indiana, can't wait for the game next weekend.) Niki Dugandzic had a much better game punting, but we'll keep the jury out on that one, too. The 'Cats have taken advantage of an undermanned Jackrabbits squad and completely undisciplined Buffaloes team -- take a deep breath, lest you have to disappear out of shame after a blowout at Indiana.
Nonetheless, on the whole, Northwestern is 2-0, with wins over its two toughest non-conference opponents. This is the kind of performance they need to accomplish what we said in August would make this a successful season (getting to a bowl). I am thrilled. Colorado could possibly be complete ass and limp to 3-9 or something, but this is a blowout win over a P4 school, and we're not going to truther that shit. I feel better about Northwestern football than I have at any point since Peyton Ramsey was quarterback, and I dig that energy. Onto the next.
Also, I tried something new and healthy as the game was going on and made a banana bread at halftime instead of drinking 10 more beers.
The banana bread was excellent, and I drank the 10 beers in the second half instead.
HoustonBoiler: That's a good looking banana bread. Well done!
LincolnParkWildcat: Wow that was a lot of fun. It's been a while since we've had a laugher of a win. Those Colorado players should not have disrespected our temporary lakefront stadium.
I'll take a win against a p4 school any day of the week. Next week is Indiana and that’s going to be rough.
The Pat Fitzgerald is strong! Michigan State holds Notre Dame to 27, but only scored 10 themselves.
I don't know where our Michigan State writer went (not that one), so here's stuff about the Spartans are the only team to hold Notre Dame below 30 so far. Miami will probably be the other one. Maybe BYU.
Mike Locksley dug a hole early, then started chasing points, then sealed his fate. James Franklin remains salty. (the score was 35-26, Mike Locksley is the Maryland coach, and James Franklin is the Virginia Tech coach)
I guess Franklin is stronger than September.
UCLA 52, Purdue 38
That's a lot of points!
glass: Its 11:47 pm, the start of the 2nd quarter in Los Angeles, and I am going to bed. If we're not just going to crater the program entirely and funnel the extra cash to Painter and maybe volleyball, then we need to admit this hire hasnt worked, fire Odom about 4 seconds after the end of another Bucket Game blowout loss and go get David Blough.
MNWildcat: ^^ he's lying, it's only 10:47pm
Narrator: It was 11:47pm
MNWildcat: wait wait wait THAT david blough???
BoilerUp89: Blough is OC for the Commies
Narrator: I also have internet, and looked up which commies he was referring to. I won't tell you though. Can't make me.
BoilerUp89: look, Barry Odom is a better HC than Ryan Walters. He's still going to have a worse record than Walters thru 2 years at Purdue. Mostly because he was dumb enough to rehire Kevin Kane to be Purdue's DC again. I can't explain how bad of a hire that was and everyone who panned it this offseason can be comforted by the fact that they are part of the 99.99999% of the college football world that knows Kevin Kane would be a bad DC in middle school football.
THREE HUNDRED FIFTY YARDS RUSHING FOR UCLA. SIX HUNDRED YARDS OF TOTAL OFFENSE FOR UCLA. That's terribad. 52 points. zero turnovers. and that's with UCLA's QB playing hurt thru most of the game. I don't blame the players. The D-line is a bit undersized but trying. LB Correa could start at most B1G schools. It's literally that bad of defensive coaching. 9 more games this season. 9 more losses incoming. Next year will have a new DC, but not a new HC - Purdue can't be firing HCs every two years due to financials. But I don't know how Odom gets anybody to buy in coming off consecutive 2-10 and 1-11 seasons headed into year 3 in 2027. And because of that I can say Barry Odom will not be the guy to turnaround Purdue football. There's no real hope until 2028 by which point IU will be coming off a 3-peat. Once again I say: don't spend money on football, give it to Painter. Go all in on the 2027-28 bball roster. Give Painter the funds to grab a real star in the portal to add to what should be a pretty good core coming back next season.
HoustonBoiler: I thought about packing it in after the first quarter as Purdue couldn't do anything on defense while the offense had their first turnover of the season. However, Purdue managed to dig themselves out of a 14 point hole to tie the game before a UCLA field goal gave the home team the lead going into the half. Good thing I went to bed because the Purdue defense managed to become even more porous in the second half though two more turnovers by the offense definitely didn't help. BU89 already covered the disaster that is Purdue's defense. The offense has been surprising good most of the time, but still backfires, i.e., penalties, poor O-line play, and this week a new wrinkle - turnovers. They still managed to score 38, a season best, which for most teams, those with a defense, would be enough to win. Shoutout to QB Ryan Browne, whose play has been very good this season, and I admit that I was wrong about him and the WRs have been a huge upgrade from the previous season. Sadly, their efforts were for naught.
I'll add that Purdue will not fire Odom at the end of the season for a couple of reasons. Most likely Purdue cannot afford it as they will still be paying Ryan Walters $3 million next season to not coach at Purdue. Then there's the radioactive perception that a future coach will only have two years at a place where it has been historically difficult to win consistently. Then again, I would love to be a fire P2 head football coach because it's the best job.
