Other People's Football (2015 edition)

[Mabdul Doobakus]

It didn't end his career, but remember Bill Grammatica?

Also, Kendrys Morales.

[pfrduke]

Hotty Toddy. Everything needed to break right for the Rebels to win, but win they did, and in Bryant-Denny no less. That may be the most impressive victory of the season until the playoff rolls around.

[Olympic Fan]

Hotty Toddy. Everything needed to break right for the Rebels to win, but win they did, and in Bryant-Denny no less. That may be the most impressive victory of the season until the playoff rolls around.

Having a plus five TO margin helped ... not knocking that -- great win by Ole Miss.

Watching the game and other highlights gave me one thought -- the best SEC teams are playing with ACC rejects at QB. Ole Miss-Bama was Chad Kelly (who got beat out at Clemson) vs. Jake Coker (a backup at FSU). Georgia got a great game today from Virginia reject Greyson Lambert, although it was against a terrible South Carolina team. Interesting.

Other observations:

-- The ACC won the Big Ten Challenge 3-2, even though Miami did their best to choke the game with Nebraska away. They have a 33-10 lead in the fourth quarter and they're throwing the ball all over the place, stopping the clock and giving the Huskers a chance to rally. I was also ticked off by Pitt's loss at Iowa. Two things bothered me -- first, it was when Pitt rallied from a 17-7 deficit to tie the game at 17 (on a blocked punt). They have all the momentum in the world ... they're driving for the go-ahead score with 10 minutes left. They have a fourth and six inches at the Iowa 42 ... Narduzzi sends his offense out there, then runs that BS shifting scheme to draw Iowa offside -- that never works. Pitt takes a delay penalty, punts the ball away and suddenly Iowa has all the momentum. They march down and get the go-ahead TD. Pitt has a great answering drive and they score to tie the game with under a minute left. Then they play prevent and let Iowa get in position for a 57-yard field goal. And here's the second thing that bothered me -- Narduzzi tries that NFL trick of calling a timeout just before the kick to ice the kicker. But he waits too long and the Iowa kicker essentially gets a free practice kick -- which he misses. After the time out, the kid nails the real kick. How many times have you seen that happen?

-- My heart goes out to Charlie Strong and Texas. They have a great rally to tie Cal at 45-all ... only they don't cause their placekicker misses the tying extra point. Gut-wrenching 45-44 loss.

-- Toledo, which beat Arkansas last week, beat Iowa State in double T after the ISU kicker -- supposedly a stud -- chokes a chip shot field goal at the end of regulation.

-- BYU"s Mangum finally ran out of magic. The kid with the two hail mary touchdowns in the first two weeks had BYU in the lead vs. No. 10 UCLA for most of the game. But UCLA scores with 3:21 left to go up 24-23. Mangum marches BYU from its own 15 to the UCLA 42 ... just out of field goal range. On fourth and seven with a minute left, Mangum scrambles ... and throws an interception. Too bad.

-- Obviously a great night of watching college football (with a few look-ins on the Pirates-Dodgers). The only negative was watching the ESPN crawl -- since Duke played a top 25 team, I had to be reminded every five minutes of Saturday's score ...

[BigWayne]

-- BYU"s Mangum finally ran out of magic. The kid with the two hail mary touchdowns in the first two weeks had BYU in the lead vs. No. 10 UCLA for most of the game. But UCLA scores with 3:21 left to go up 24-23. Mangum marches BYU from its own 15 to the UCLA 42 ... just out of field goal range. On fourth and seven with a minute left, Mangum scrambles ... and throws an interception. Too bad.

Yep. Just skipped to the end of this one on the DVR and saw BYU having to make a final drive again and was thinking here comes 3 in a row. Alas, the time ran out on Cinderella this time.

Thankfully, Chad Kelly did a reasonable job of filling in for this week's amazing play.

[Olympic Fan]

Anybody else watch last night's Memphis-Cincinnati game?

I know, it's not really an important game and I was planning to watch baseball. But checking in on it, I saw that something extraordinary was happening.

It was not just the final score -- Memphis won 53-46. I've seen higher scoring games. But what made this game amazing were the lead changes. There were 12 lead changes in the game. Check the scoring summary:

http://espn.go.com/college-football/...meId=400764870

I've never seen that before. The two teams passed for over 1,000 yards between them ... Cincinnati's freshman backup came in the game after Gunner Kiel was seriously hurt and threw for 554 yards. Memphis scored with 53 seconds to take the lead, but Cincinnati drove down to just inside the Memphis 20 with 25 seconds left. But on the next play, the Cincy QB throws under pressure, the ball is tipped and intercepted.

Interesting game tonight -- Boise State at Virginia. I'm very curious about Virginia ... they were good enough to take Notre Dame to the wire, but they were barely able to hang on to beat William & Mary.

[Bob Green]

Anybody else watch last night's Memphis-Cincinnati game?

I watched the start of the game before switching over to the Redskins - Giants. The hit on Kiel was questionable because Kiel had already started his slide when the Memphis defensive back hit him high with his shoulder. The hit was ruled targeting with an automatic ejection on the field but overruled on replay.

The good news is Kiel appears okay. He was released from Methodist Hospital and is back with the team.

[Wander]

Interesting game tonight -- Boise State at Virginia. I'm very curious about Virginia ... they were good enough to take Notre Dame to the wire, but they were barely able to hang on to beat William & Mary.

A nonconference schedule of UCLA, Notre Dame, and Boise State for Virginia? Geez. One of my least favorite parts of college football that doesn't get talked about is how ridiculously far in advance schedules are made. Who knows how good anyone is going to be in 10 years? I like seeing ranked teams play hard non-conference schedules, but it seems sort of brutal and pointless for a team like UVA.

[OldPhiKap]

A nonconference schedule of UCLA, Notre Dame, and Boise State for Virginia? Geez. One of my least favorite parts of college football that doesn't get talked about is how ridiculously far in advance schedules are made. Who knows how good anyone is going to be in 10 years? I like seeing ranked teams play hard non-conference schedules, but it seems sort of brutal and pointless for a team like UVA.

Especially since they told Mike London that he needs a winning season to keep his job. ND is semi-conference so you can't help that, but the other two are crazy.

[arnie]

A nonconference schedule of UCLA, Notre Dame, and Boise State for Virginia? Geez. One of my least favorite parts of college football that doesn't get talked about is how ridiculously far in advance schedules are made. Who knows how good anyone is going to be in 10 years? I like seeing ranked teams play hard non-conference schedules, but it seems sort of brutal and pointless for a team like UVA.

Of course that's the logic NC State (and others) use to defend their pitiful schedules. It's not difficult to guess that Troy, Eastern Kentucky, Old Dominion and South Alabama will be poor-to-fair in any 10 year period. Whomever set up UVA's schedule had a pretty good idea that UCLA and Boise State would be competitive. The Notre Dame game was added by the conference, which really makes it difficult. Of course, we go to Northwestern and then go to Notre Dame in consecutive weeks next year.

[Tom B.]

Interesting game tonight -- Boise State at Virginia. I'm very curious about Virginia ... they were good enough to take Notre Dame to the wire, but they were barely able to hang on to beat William & Mary.

Wow, this is ugly. Boise State is leading 49-14, and we've still got most of the fourth quarter to play. UVa has turned it over five times, including two pick-sixes. Most of the crowd has deserted the stadium -- actually, most of them left after the pick-six that made it 46-14, which was still in the third quarter.

ETA: About 30 seconds after I posted this, Boise scored again. Now 56-14.

[budwom]

Wow, this is ugly. Boise State is leading 49-14, and we've still got most of the fourth quarter to play. UVa has turned it over five times, including two pick-sixes. Most of the crowd has deserted the stadium -- actually, most of them left after the pick-six that made it 46-14, which was still in the third quarter.

ETA: About 30 seconds after I posted this, Boise scored again. Now 56-14.

Bad coach (good recruiter, but still...) + ridiculous overscheduling = disastrous outcome. Who will the next coach be?

[Tom B.]

Bad coach (good recruiter, but still...) + ridiculous overscheduling = disastrous outcome. Who will the next coach be?

This was a disaster for UVa from literally the first snap. UVa received the opening kickoff, and on its first play from scrimmage, QB Mike Johns threw a pick-six (actually it looked like he was hit as he threw and the ball kind of wobbled out, right into the arms of a defensive end who ran it back for a TD). Fifteen seconds into the game, and Boise led 7-0. And it was all downhill for UVa from there. Given the ineptitude on display last night, I have no idea how UVa almost knocked off Notre Dame.

[Tripping William]

Speaking of the Commonwealth of Virginia, VPISU is gonna need a miracle to get past the Purple Pirates.

[Wander]

Virginia Tech probably wants to stop scheduling East Carolina.

[Wander]

Addendum to above: Texas probably wants to just stop playing football entirely. (punter goofs in a tie game with like 30 seconds left to give up a sure overtime try and hand a game-winning field goal to OSU)

[Olympic Fan]

Addendum to above: Texas probably wants to just stop playing football entirely. (punter goofs in a tie game with like 30 seconds left to give up a sure overtime try and hand a game-winning field goal to OSU)

I was watching that -- it was worse than that.

Texas was up 27-24 with under two minutes left and OSU was stalled because their QB was hurt and couldn't throw and Texas was smashing he run. They get a stop near midfield, but the refs give OSU life with a bogus defensive holding call. That's bad enough, but Charlie Strong goes berzerk and draws a 15-yard penalty for screaming at a ref. That puts OSU in field goal range and after three runs net nothing, they kick the game-tying field goal with just over a minute left.

The they kick off to Texas and and the Longhorns go three and out and are going to punt it was with 20 seconds left when the punter muffs a good snap and gives them the ball inside the 20.

Final: OSU 30-Texas 27 ... a soul crushing loss.

Also, did you see that UNC's great Big Ten victim (Illinois) dodged a bullet at home to Middle Tennesee? Down 25-24, Illinois gets a 51-yard field goal with two minutes left. But Middle Tennessee drives right down -- despite some spectacular clock mismanagement -- and had a 43 yard kick with 08 seconds left to win ... and they miss it.

Well, back to TCU-Texas Tech ... that's a great one, back and forth all day.

[Tripping William]

Florida got the miracle VPI needed, keeping alive their decade-long win streak against UTK.

[Wander]

Also, did you see that UNC's great Big Ten victim (Illinois) dodged a bullet at home to Middle Tennesee? Down 25-24, Illinois gets a 51-yard field goal with two minutes left. But Middle Tennessee drives right down -- despite some spectacular clock mismanagement -- and had a 43 yard kick with 08 seconds left to win ... and they miss it.

I missed that, but I noticed Minnesota needing a last-minute touchdown to beat Ohio. I would not be surprised to see Duke-vanquisher Northwestern do far better than expected and win their Big 10 division...

[reversethepolarity]

Did anyone else see the ending of the TCU/TTU game? That was crazy, I was really hoping TTU would pull it off.

[Olympic Fan]

Did anyone else see the ending of the TCU/TTU game? That was crazy, I was really hoping TTU would pull it off.

Great game -- TCU 55, Texas Tech 52.

TCU is trailing and facing fourth and goal with under 30 seconds left ... Boykin's pass to the end zone is high, just off the receiver's fingertips. But the ball deflects to another TCU receiver in the back of the end zone for the go-ahead TD with 23 seconds left.

Texas Tech starts on its own 25 with 23 seconds and no timeouts left. They get to their 35, but on the last play, the Hail Mary try is intercepted at the goal line. But wait, TCU is called for roughing the passer, so Tech gets one untimed play from midfield. Their QB (Mahones) is limping on one leg, but he scrambles around back there like Fran Tarkenton. Finally, with a defender hanging on his leg, he finds a wide open receiver at about the TCU 35 ... the Raiders proceed to lateral the ball four times (at one point, an offensive tackle handles it), but their last ballcarrier is forced out of bounds at the TCU 10 ... and they win.

One of the most bizarre endings -- both the TCU touchdown and the near Texas Tech score.

BTW -- one week after beating Bama at Bama, Ole Miss is tied with Vanderbilt late in the third quarter.