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| "Egg Drop," Andrew Magill. Licensed from Flickr: CC BY 2.0 |
(The Drop will be a nearly-weekly recap of interesting bits from the previous weekend of college football. I say "nearly-weekly" because I'm on the road next week and won't be able to write it. You'll be lucky to get The Sweep for week 3!)
Here is the complete list of what you know about the college football world after Week 1:
- Some games have been played.
- Some teams lost.
- Some teams won.
Remember Deion Sanders's debut as Colorado's head coach? The Buffs are back, bay-bee! Except, of course, they weren't. So let's not give up on these four, specifically, quite yet:
- Arch Manning. Yes, he's overhyped. How could he not be? Any talk of his Heisman campaign -- which shouldn't have even been a thing in, you know, August -- being over now is nuts. I'm not saying he'll win it. I'm saying talking about anybody winning the Heisman before the season even starts is a desperate attempt at filling airtime, at the expense of someone with a famous last name.
- Mark Gronowski. Amazingly did not look like the second coming of Chuck Long in Iowa's slow-burn 34-7 beatdown of Albany, though that is what too many fans expected of him. What was it I wrote in my Iowa preview? "I'm just not sure it ever really matters who's playing quarterback for Kirk Ferentz." I stand by those words. Ferentzball is designed so that no single player can win or lose the game.
- Luke Fickell. Beating Fake Miami by the underwhelming score of 17-0 is not at all a good look, but the defense was solid. There is still a chance (though not a great one) that the Badgers can figure it out.
- Kalen DeBoer. It might be that Florida State is actually good. We can't say for sure, because we don't know anything yet. There are eleven games for him to make his case, but the rule remains: Never follow The Guy. Follow the guy who follows The Guy.
The Hidden Game of Football: We all watched the season opener, Iowa State's squeaker over Kansas State in Dublin. The Cyclopaths followed that up with a 55-7 pummeling of South Dakota (not South Dakota State), a team with a brand-new head coach. Looks pretty good for ISU in the week leading up to the CyHawk game, no?
Well ...
As it turns out, Kansas State followed up with its own game against a perennial FCS also-ran from the Dakotas with a brand-new coach. In this case it was against North Dakota (not North Dakota State) and the Wildcats needed a touchdown in the last two minutes to win the game. Two games isn't a lot more evidence than one game, but based on losing the first and having to come back against the Alexa What Do They Call The UND Teams Nows, it's at least possible that K-State isn't going to be that good this season. ISU fans had better beware of hubris because it's highly possible they've beaten two "meh" opponents and haven't really been tested yet.
Speaking of hubris: Northwestern refused to allow Tulane to wear its white uniforms in memory of the twenty-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking New Orleans. This just made Tulane mad and, apparently, you don't want to make Tulane mad. Or the Wildcats aren't any good. Or ... maybe both? Either way, yikes.
And lastly: "El Assico." Funny when Spencer Hall said it, tiresome when an army keeps repeating it.
What did you think of Gronowski's first-half inability to get a pass into the general area of his receiver? Just a case of first game jitters with a new team? He's a very big guy, obviously strong and capable of power runs, but a quarterback who could place a pass within 5 yards of his intended receiver would be a real treat for an Iowa fan.
ReplyDeleteI think "first-game jitters" is the most likely reason. There's a difference between playing in front of 12,000 people in Brookings, SD, and playing in front of 70,000 at Kinnick. Even a friendly crowd can be intimidating. I expect Gronowski to look better this week -- and he'll have to.
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