’10 starts off right
by Purple Wimple on Sep 3, 2010 1:18 AM CDT
in TCU Football
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PrintCheck off that box: (underranked) Utah beat (overranked) Pitt, in a clunky overtime romp, 27-24. Somebody around here pinned the Utes higher than the Panthers on a pre-season poll... and got a little flack for it. Shameful.
Utah's win is the first of many MWC non-conference Ws that need to pile up in order for the Mountain West to be able to make the case for its champion to play for more than the Las Vegas Bowl. Sadly, New Mexico (at Oregon), UNLV (hosts Wisconsin) and Colorado State (at Colorado in Denver) probably are not going to hold up their ends of the deal. Maybe BYU (hosts Jake Locker and some team... oh, it's Washington) will help out the conference's prestige-- ironically-- but that's not a game, or a team, that the Wimple is willing to go out on a limb for.
Utah answered a few questions: yes, Wynn is improved. Yes, the defense is going to be fine. Wynn's go-to receivers appear to be Jereme Brooks (no surprise there) and DeVonte Christopher. And Matt Asiata pushed the pile around at least as well as Dion Lewis-- and managed to do so for five quarters without a season-ending injury. Look for other pollsters to join the Wimple and rank the Utes before the Rebels come to town in a week.
Other Day 1 tidbits: Nevada looks very potent on offense, and very vulnerable on defense. The Wolfpack allowed 270 passing yards, and almost a yard more per carry than its own princely 4.9 mark, to a 2A team. Perhaps SMU's torching of Kaepernick's crew was not such an abberation after all.
Look for the Jacory Harris bandwagon to get really loud in the runup to the big showdown with Slohio State next weekend; Harris put up better numbers (against a 2A team) than Terrell Heisman did (against a 1A team) lastnight.
Florida Atlantic, of the zero returning starts at o-line, eked out a win over UAB, behind the strong QB play of Jeff VanCamp.
I have no idea if North Dakota is a decent team or not, but they couldn't make Idaho's rebuilt line look bad. Hopefully CSU will be able to, in a few weeks...
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Nice wrap up, Ezra.
But, I come here to defend myself a little bit. I wasnt giving you any flack for putting Utah higher than Pitt. In fact, check out my preseason ballot as I too had Utah higher than Pitt. And I picked Utah last night as well in my post on the game.
Did I think the ballot was goofy? Sure, but what do any of us know this early anyway. I didnt think twice about where you put the Utes. My post was about all these teams that I’ve loved to play as dogs over the years are suddenly showing up as favorites in these types of games. It did not matter last night, and I couldnt have been more happy about it.
Keep up the good work, thanks for the link and good luck tomorrow night against the Beavs…….what do you guys think of that -13.5 spread?
by jamie mac on Sep 3, 2010 7:36 AM CDT reply actions
nice of you to stop by, Jamie Mac. I think it’s easy to make too much of pre-season polls, and that was most of my point. The tongue-in-cheek aspect may not have come through, but that’s OK. You’re right— what do we know this early anyway? That Pitt’s frosh QB couldn’t quite handle Utah’s D, and that’s about it.
I think the two-TD spread against Oregon State is a little generous. Patterson has been trying to lower expectations recently, and that’s not a good sign for TCU fans. CGP calls ‘em like he sees ’em, and that makes me think I oughtta stop expecting a third consecutive #1 finish for the Frogs’ defense.
I’ll take the Frogs by…
… wait— can’t tell you yet! That’s for tomorrow’s TCU preview at matchup post.
by Ezra Hood on Sep 3, 2010 10:09 AM CDT reply actions
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