DOWNS - your blogger, who's been a day off all week...not because of Labor Day per se, but because he was waiting for the results of the Ohio St/VaTech game Monday night before moving on into the next week...only to then be a day behind! I'll try to make it up by getting our Prophecies column out later today!
DOWNS - the Texas Longhorn football team, who in its last three games has looked nothing like the Burnt Orange Machine of old. The loss Saturday night was almost as devastating as the humiliation to Arkansas in its bowl game last winter, where the Longhorns had one TD drive of 43 yards (two good plays), and a game-total of 25 net yards - meaning that excluding one drive towards the end of the first half, Texas had negative 18 yards of offense for the game. In fact, over the last three games, the Texas offense has been outscored by the opponents' defenses 21-20!
UPS - Temple, who beat Penn St 27-10; Northwestern, who beat Stanford 16-6, and Illinois, who overcame its coaching mess to beat Kent St 52-3. All three have far brighter prospects today than they did a week ago!
UPS - the Canadian rivalries between Calgary/Edmonton, Saskatchewan/Winnipeg, and Toronto/Hamilton. CFL scheduling is a hoot! All three pairs of rivals play home-and-home series over last weekend and this one, building a chance for animosity, bragging rights, fights, and twice as many reasons as usual to hate the other team! Going into this second weekend, let's see if Edmonton, Winnipeg, or Toronto can manage to even the scales at home!
UPS AND DOWNS - it's too early for any adjustments in our Top Eights or Bottom Fives, but here's a sneak peek at the college teams we pushed towards the "first among equals" status on one end, and the "isn't there a tier lower than this?" on the other...
POWER FIVE CONFERENCES: Alabama, Ohio State, Texas A&M, and Notre Dame all looked remarkable this weekend! Meanwhile, Washington St and Colorado lost to middling-to-poor lower level teams (Portland St and Hawai'i, respectively) and don't appear to have improved as much as we'd hoped...i.e., at all.
GROUP OF FIVE CONFERENCES: While Boise St would probably still be sitting atop this group for now, their second half was not impressive, even given the Pac-12 opponent. More impressive were the wins by Western Kentucky (against a vastly improved Vanderbilt), Appalachian St, Temple and Houston of the AAC, and we'll count BYU in this group for now on the strength of its Hail Mary victory at Nebraska. (Speaking of which, don't skip the last UP today!) Downs to the usual candidates: Idaho, Georgia St (lost to newbie Charlotte 23-20), Kent St and Tulane.
FCS CHAMPIONSHIP CONFERENCES: Southern Utah absolutely should have a win over Utah St under its belt today - they dominated the Aggies on defense (13 USU punts!) and were it not for USU's special teams (a blocked XP converted on the other end, and a 4th quarter punt return), Southern wins easily. Credit to the Missouri Valley Conference and Big Sky schools, of course, winning in FBS stadia - South Dakota St, Portland St, and North Dakota. Jacksonville's victory over Chattanooga spoke highly of the OVC. On the down side, the Colonial Athletic Association went 2-9, and it would've been ten losses had Stony Brook's game with Toledo not been cancelled before halftime with Toledo already up 16-7.
HBC CONFERENCES: Alas, off to a bad start at 6-17 across the board, and the six wins included four against lower division opponents and two against each other (Prairie View def Texas Southern; Ark-Pine Bluff lost to South Carolina State).
And finally, UPS to the Mangum family of Eagle, Idaho, who were in Pocatello watching one son make the catch of the day (according to ESPN, who made it Top Ten Play #2) for Idaho State, and were alerted that their other son was in at QB for BYU after the starter was injured, and saw him throw a Hail Mary to the end zone which gave the Cougars the 33-28 win in Nebraska - and was ESPN's Top Ten Play #1 for the day! "What are the odds?" said Dad, "We're just going to enjoy it for now!" This weekend, one parent's headed back to Pocatello and the other to Provo, so they can watch both sons play!
Showing posts with label Northwestern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Northwestern. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Weekend Wesults fur ze furst veek oon September, ya!
Hey, what an exciting weekend (so far)! What looked like a boring week in Australia ended up with a handful of routs and a handful of upsets - and telling them apart in advance was impossible! Sure, Hawthorn, Sydney, West Coast and Richmond followed the script and routed their opponents by a combined 230 points...but Port Adelaide ended up playing the Peel Thunder feeder team, rather than the parent club Fremantle, and won by well over ten goals; Brisbane and Essendon surprised and pulled off narrow upsets in close games; GWS apparently took the last week off once they were out of the playoff race and Melbourne walked all over them; and most dramatically, Geelong found their championship pride to end the run of nine straight years in the finals and three titles, sending three of their retirees off with pride in a fourth quarter rout of finals-bound Adelaide.
In the CFL, BC upset Montreal 25-20 Friday; the other games are still coming up here on Labor Day weekend.
Now, here's the opening weekend of Division I college football! In descending order of interest...
*BYU won at Nebraska (in front of a full house, as with every Nebraska game since 1962!) on a Hail Mary from a backup QB on the last play!
*Alabama looked dominant again, discovering Jake Coker as QB and whomping Wisconsin, 35-17.
*Northwestern shut down ranked Stanford 16-6, much to everybody's surprise.
*Texas A&M looked remarkable in defeating ranked Arizona State 38-17. (Our pastor's happy!)
*Notre Dame looks even better, annihilating Texas 38-3 (it wasn't that close).
*Utah did what they were supposed to, defeating Michigan in Harbaugh's debut, and giving the Pac-12 a good win.
*But elsewhere in the state, Utah State looked terrible against FCS Southern Utah, winning 12-9, but only when Andrew Rodriguez bailed them out on punt number 25 for the day by running it back 88 yards after a day of no offense and five points. (Wyoming, Army, Washington St, Kansas, and Vanderbilt weren't so lucky, losing to FCS opponents in their openers - admittedly, the last two were 'supposed' to lose. Wyoming's loss, to middling FCS North Dakota 24-13, was the worst of the lot)
*Two match-ups of bottom feeders had interesting results: First-timers Kennesaw St started their existence as a football school with a 56-16 defeat of fellow novices East Tennessee St. But the devastating loss was by Georgia State, #128 out of 128 on the FOLLOWING FOOTBALL rankings in 2014, who thought they had easy pickings against FBS novice Charlotte... who were 23-20 victors in the Georgia Dome. Panthers fans were absolutely besides themselves on social media, excoriating their football team's lack of improvement over their four years in FBS.
Other scores of interest in the FF universe:
Auburn over Louisville, 31-24...South beat North, 17-13, in the battle of the Carolinas...Indiana held off Southern Illinois 48-47: lower Big Ten versus upper Missouri Valley? That score's about right...TCU edged Minnesota 23-17 (we had the Gophers winning, but they came close)... Oklahoma struggled but won over Central Michigan, 24-13...Boise St scored 16 in the first half, Washington scored 13 in the second half and missed a last minute FG to lose by three...Temple "upset" Penn St (we bet Temple on our sheet!) 27-10...Arizona struggled with UTSA, just like last year, but won 42-32...Hawai'i over Colorado 28-20...Arkansas St and Georgia Southern both laid eggs against Power Five opponents, while Appalachian St won 49-0 against FCS Howard...After their big win against NDSU on national TV last week, Montana gave up a last second FG of their own last night to Cal Poly SLO, losing 20-19...Toledo/Stony Brook and LSU/McNeese St were both stormed out; Georgia cut its victory over UL-Monroe short because of the weather...Mostly disappointing day for the Colonial AA, going 2-9 for the weekend. William&Mary and James Madison deserved to celebrate their victories, and Towson can cheer a "good loss" to powerful East Carolina by just eight...Coastal Carolina, who announced they'll be moving to FBS next year in the Sun Belt, didn't show much muscle in beating Furman 38-35 (they were favored by 23 in Sagarin). But the Sun Belt doesn't require much muscle, either...Jacksonville State may be the class of the Ohio Valley, defeating highly-regarded Chattanooga 23-20...Not a lot to cheer about in the HBC ranks, though, with results like Grambling State's 73-14 loss at Cal-Berkeley on the board. Even our favorite team, Savannah State, failed to make headlines despite their near-complete incompetence in losing to Colorado State 65-13; Davidson managed to "downstage" them with a zero-to-69 drubbing from fellow FCS Citadel.
In the CFL, BC upset Montreal 25-20 Friday; the other games are still coming up here on Labor Day weekend.
Now, here's the opening weekend of Division I college football! In descending order of interest...
*BYU won at Nebraska (in front of a full house, as with every Nebraska game since 1962!) on a Hail Mary from a backup QB on the last play!
*Alabama looked dominant again, discovering Jake Coker as QB and whomping Wisconsin, 35-17.
*Northwestern shut down ranked Stanford 16-6, much to everybody's surprise.
*Texas A&M looked remarkable in defeating ranked Arizona State 38-17. (Our pastor's happy!)
*Notre Dame looks even better, annihilating Texas 38-3 (it wasn't that close).
*Utah did what they were supposed to, defeating Michigan in Harbaugh's debut, and giving the Pac-12 a good win.
*But elsewhere in the state, Utah State looked terrible against FCS Southern Utah, winning 12-9, but only when Andrew Rodriguez bailed them out on punt number 25 for the day by running it back 88 yards after a day of no offense and five points. (Wyoming, Army, Washington St, Kansas, and Vanderbilt weren't so lucky, losing to FCS opponents in their openers - admittedly, the last two were 'supposed' to lose. Wyoming's loss, to middling FCS North Dakota 24-13, was the worst of the lot)
*Two match-ups of bottom feeders had interesting results: First-timers Kennesaw St started their existence as a football school with a 56-16 defeat of fellow novices East Tennessee St. But the devastating loss was by Georgia State, #128 out of 128 on the FOLLOWING FOOTBALL rankings in 2014, who thought they had easy pickings against FBS novice Charlotte... who were 23-20 victors in the Georgia Dome. Panthers fans were absolutely besides themselves on social media, excoriating their football team's lack of improvement over their four years in FBS.
Other scores of interest in the FF universe:
Auburn over Louisville, 31-24...South beat North, 17-13, in the battle of the Carolinas...Indiana held off Southern Illinois 48-47: lower Big Ten versus upper Missouri Valley? That score's about right...TCU edged Minnesota 23-17 (we had the Gophers winning, but they came close)... Oklahoma struggled but won over Central Michigan, 24-13...Boise St scored 16 in the first half, Washington scored 13 in the second half and missed a last minute FG to lose by three...Temple "upset" Penn St (we bet Temple on our sheet!) 27-10...Arizona struggled with UTSA, just like last year, but won 42-32...Hawai'i over Colorado 28-20...Arkansas St and Georgia Southern both laid eggs against Power Five opponents, while Appalachian St won 49-0 against FCS Howard...After their big win against NDSU on national TV last week, Montana gave up a last second FG of their own last night to Cal Poly SLO, losing 20-19...Toledo/Stony Brook and LSU/McNeese St were both stormed out; Georgia cut its victory over UL-Monroe short because of the weather...Mostly disappointing day for the Colonial AA, going 2-9 for the weekend. William&Mary and James Madison deserved to celebrate their victories, and Towson can cheer a "good loss" to powerful East Carolina by just eight...Coastal Carolina, who announced they'll be moving to FBS next year in the Sun Belt, didn't show much muscle in beating Furman 38-35 (they were favored by 23 in Sagarin). But the Sun Belt doesn't require much muscle, either...Jacksonville State may be the class of the Ohio Valley, defeating highly-regarded Chattanooga 23-20...Not a lot to cheer about in the HBC ranks, though, with results like Grambling State's 73-14 loss at Cal-Berkeley on the board. Even our favorite team, Savannah State, failed to make headlines despite their near-complete incompetence in losing to Colorado State 65-13; Davidson managed to "downstage" them with a zero-to-69 drubbing from fellow FCS Citadel.
NEW TIERS POSTED TOMORROW in what is our regular Monday ratings feature. See you then!
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Early Game Update!
From the first set of games on this Week 12 Saturday...
- Big Ten games: except for the Gopher - Husker tussle (which ended in a Minnesota 28-24 win), it was mostly routs - Michigan St over Rutgers, 45-3; Northwestern beat Purdue 38-14, and Ohio St survived Indiana 42-27 (although the Hoosiers led 21-20 in the third). Illinois did put some fun into the afternoon, though, kicking a field goal late to win 16-14 against Penn St.
- Semi bye week in the south started with Florida over Eastern Kentucky 52-3, Georgia handled Charleston Southern 55-9, South Carolina took down South Alabama of the Sun Belt, 37-12, and Army upset FCS Fordham (in our opinion!) 42-31.
- And in other interesting games in the Bowl division, Western Kentucky took down UT-San Antonio 45-7; SMU lost their tenth of the year, 53-7, to UCF; Marshall survived UAB 23-18, thanks to a punt downed at the 1 followed by a fumble recovery in the end zone; Houston 38, Tulsa 28; and the defensive struggle that went into overtime scoreless, eventually ending in a hockey shootout - kinda, sorta. Anyway, Wake Forest's kicker made both of his attempts, and Virginia Tech's went 1-2; therefore, Demon Deacons 6, Hokies 3, in the battle of cool mascots in Winston-Salem, NC!
- The Game ended with an 80-yard drive that gave the Crimson of Harvard their 18th Ivy League title and a 31–24 comeback win over arch-nemesis Yale...Rhode Island won their first game in over a year, overcoming Towson 13-7!...And Coastal Carolina LOST their first of the year, falling to Liberty 15-14 on a late field goal to drop to 11-1.
- Big Ten games: except for the Gopher - Husker tussle (which ended in a Minnesota 28-24 win), it was mostly routs - Michigan St over Rutgers, 45-3; Northwestern beat Purdue 38-14, and Ohio St survived Indiana 42-27 (although the Hoosiers led 21-20 in the third). Illinois did put some fun into the afternoon, though, kicking a field goal late to win 16-14 against Penn St.
- Semi bye week in the south started with Florida over Eastern Kentucky 52-3, Georgia handled Charleston Southern 55-9, South Carolina took down South Alabama of the Sun Belt, 37-12, and Army upset FCS Fordham (in our opinion!) 42-31.
- And in other interesting games in the Bowl division, Western Kentucky took down UT-San Antonio 45-7; SMU lost their tenth of the year, 53-7, to UCF; Marshall survived UAB 23-18, thanks to a punt downed at the 1 followed by a fumble recovery in the end zone; Houston 38, Tulsa 28; and the defensive struggle that went into overtime scoreless, eventually ending in a hockey shootout - kinda, sorta. Anyway, Wake Forest's kicker made both of his attempts, and Virginia Tech's went 1-2; therefore, Demon Deacons 6, Hokies 3, in the battle of cool mascots in Winston-Salem, NC!
- The Game ended with an 80-yard drive that gave the Crimson of Harvard their 18th Ivy League title and a 31–24 comeback win over arch-nemesis Yale...Rhode Island won their first game in over a year, overcoming Towson 13-7!...And Coastal Carolina LOST their first of the year, falling to Liberty 15-14 on a late field goal to drop to 11-1.
Saturday, November 8, 2014
What an insane afternoon of football!!!!
Auburn, how do you fumble on a spike play? Two fumbles in the last four hikes; the first recovery may be questionable, but the second...wow, what a devastating way to lose for their center.
Here's what a bottom-feeder "come from behind victory" looks like: Appalachian St had the ball inside the twenty under two minutes, down by a point, looking to defeat UL-Monroe...and threw three straight incompletions. Made the FG, luckily.
Northwestern, and coach Pat Fitzgerald: you've got balls. Down 10-9, having scored a TD with three seconds to go in the game, they went for two and the win, not the XP and overtime. Just because it failed doesn't make it a bad decision.
Arizona St had two pick-sixes against Notre Dame, the last one ugly - Notre Dame's Corey Robinson looks away before catching the ball, and then bats the ball upwards perfectly for Lloyd Carrington to pick and six it. Under coach Todd Graham, ASU is 7-6 against ranked opponents; before that, they were 5-41!
We're not sure we're all that impressed with Ole Miss' performance against lower-level Presbyterian today: yes, seven of their drives resulted in TDs, but the others were two missed FGs, two missed fourth downs, one interception, and one which ended the game. Eh...
Michigan @ Northwestern, by the way, hit halftime tied at zero. Only three games in the FBS have had scoreless first halves this season...and two of them were at Northwestern. (The other was against Northern Illinois.) The two Wildcat scoring drives were 14 plays for 74 yards, and 19 plays for 95 yards. By the way, the 19 play drive was the field goal drive!
Texas A&M was a 23 point underdog on the road, so it was going to take some breaks to beat Auburn today. They got some late - the new definition of "buttfumble", discussed above - but also early, where they scored on a 60-yard pass on the fourth play, recovered an Auburn fumble on the fifth play, and scored on another long pass on the eighth play. 14-0. They ALSO got a break in the middle: on a long Auburn FG attempt to end the first half, a stray hand in the middle happened to hit the flight of the ball, an A&M player happened to retrieve it on the bounce, and he made it to the end zone (again, last play of the half: he had to) to switch from 28-20 to a 35-17 lead. PS: Texas A&M won by three.
The two major teams from the state of GEORGIA were insanely efficient today! For the Georgia Bulldogs, the only drives in which they did NOT score a touchdown were at the end of each half - meaning they never turned the ball over, never punted, and converted every set of downs, in winning 63-31 over Kentucky. Meanwhile, the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets went to North Carolina St and possessed the ball a mere eight times: six touchdown drives, one fumble, and one 12-play drive that ended the game. To compare, somehow the Wolfpack had eleven drives, because two of those ended in touchdowns for GT instead in the 56-23 victory.
An interesting quote from the ESPN.com coverage of Penn St's victory over Indiana 13-7: "(Bill) Belton's fifth score of the year came on a 92-yard run and was the longest rushing touchdown by a single player in Penn St history." [our emphasis]
While you ponder what that means, we read much farther down the article: "Back in 1973, the Nittany Lions scored on a 92-yard play, but that was by two players and included a fumble." OOOOOhhhhhhh....
Somehow, Baylor had not beaten a top 25 team on the road in 38 attempts, or since 1991. After Oklahoma took a 14-3 into the second quarter, the Bears scored the last 45 points to walk away with the game, 48-14.
A poignant moment: OU's quarterback Trevor Knight went out of the game in the fourth with a scary injury, undiagnosed publicly last we heard. While he was being tended to, several Baylor players (including QB Bryce Petty) went to Knight's brother Connor and prayed with him on the field.
Here's what a bottom-feeder "come from behind victory" looks like: Appalachian St had the ball inside the twenty under two minutes, down by a point, looking to defeat UL-Monroe...and threw three straight incompletions. Made the FG, luckily.
Northwestern, and coach Pat Fitzgerald: you've got balls. Down 10-9, having scored a TD with three seconds to go in the game, they went for two and the win, not the XP and overtime. Just because it failed doesn't make it a bad decision.
Arizona St had two pick-sixes against Notre Dame, the last one ugly - Notre Dame's Corey Robinson looks away before catching the ball, and then bats the ball upwards perfectly for Lloyd Carrington to pick and six it. Under coach Todd Graham, ASU is 7-6 against ranked opponents; before that, they were 5-41!
We're not sure we're all that impressed with Ole Miss' performance against lower-level Presbyterian today: yes, seven of their drives resulted in TDs, but the others were two missed FGs, two missed fourth downs, one interception, and one which ended the game. Eh...
Michigan @ Northwestern, by the way, hit halftime tied at zero. Only three games in the FBS have had scoreless first halves this season...and two of them were at Northwestern. (The other was against Northern Illinois.) The two Wildcat scoring drives were 14 plays for 74 yards, and 19 plays for 95 yards. By the way, the 19 play drive was the field goal drive!
Texas A&M was a 23 point underdog on the road, so it was going to take some breaks to beat Auburn today. They got some late - the new definition of "buttfumble", discussed above - but also early, where they scored on a 60-yard pass on the fourth play, recovered an Auburn fumble on the fifth play, and scored on another long pass on the eighth play. 14-0. They ALSO got a break in the middle: on a long Auburn FG attempt to end the first half, a stray hand in the middle happened to hit the flight of the ball, an A&M player happened to retrieve it on the bounce, and he made it to the end zone (again, last play of the half: he had to) to switch from 28-20 to a 35-17 lead. PS: Texas A&M won by three.
The two major teams from the state of GEORGIA were insanely efficient today! For the Georgia Bulldogs, the only drives in which they did NOT score a touchdown were at the end of each half - meaning they never turned the ball over, never punted, and converted every set of downs, in winning 63-31 over Kentucky. Meanwhile, the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets went to North Carolina St and possessed the ball a mere eight times: six touchdown drives, one fumble, and one 12-play drive that ended the game. To compare, somehow the Wolfpack had eleven drives, because two of those ended in touchdowns for GT instead in the 56-23 victory.
An interesting quote from the ESPN.com coverage of Penn St's victory over Indiana 13-7: "(Bill) Belton's fifth score of the year came on a 92-yard run and was the longest rushing touchdown by a single player in Penn St history." [our emphasis]
While you ponder what that means, we read much farther down the article: "Back in 1973, the Nittany Lions scored on a 92-yard play, but that was by two players and included a fumble." OOOOOhhhhhhh....
Somehow, Baylor had not beaten a top 25 team on the road in 38 attempts, or since 1991. After Oklahoma took a 14-3 into the second quarter, the Bears scored the last 45 points to walk away with the game, 48-14.
A poignant moment: OU's quarterback Trevor Knight went out of the game in the fourth with a scary injury, undiagnosed publicly last we heard. While he was being tended to, several Baylor players (including QB Bryce Petty) went to Knight's brother Connor and prayed with him on the field.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Week 9 - the "Water Tiers" (H-to-O... get it?)
Tier H: Air Force (6-2), Arkansas (4-5 in the toughest division in history), Boston College (6-3), Penn St (4-4), Stanford (5-4), and Utah St (6-3).
Tier I: Two divisions have to have seven teams to total 128 FBS teams, and right now this is one of those: Cincinnati (5-3), Northern Illinois (6-2), Oregon St (4-4). Pitt (4-5), Rutgers (5-4), Tennessee (4-5), and Chris Petersen's Washington Huskies, at 6-3 in his first season in purple.
Tier J: Houston and Memphis (both 5-3 from the AAC), Nevada (6-3), and three ACC schools: Virginia, North Carolina, and North Carolina St (the Pack is 5-4; the others are 4-5).
Tier K: Two conference leaders from the Sun Belt and Conference USA headline Tier K: Georgia Southern (7-2) and Louisiana Tech (6-3). They're joined by 5-3 Bowling Green and Temple, and 4-5 former champions Texas and Virginia Tech.
Tier L: BYU (5-4), Navy (4-5 after a great game against Notre Dame), Northwestern (freefalling at 3-5), Syracuse (3-6), and 4-5 Toledo and Louisiana-Lafayette.
Tier M: Three 5-3 teams (Central Florida, UTEP, Rice), and three Michigan teams - Central Michigan, Western Michigan, and Big Blue themselves, the Michigan Wolverines, who are NOT happy to be classified with their little brothers...
Tier N: Arkansas St (5-4), Illinois (4-5), Middle Tennessee (5-4), San Diego St (4-4), Texas Tech (3-6), and Wyoming (4-5).
AND finally, our brand new Tier O!: With seven teams in all the tiers from K-P, it was easy to separate out one more tier - we'd said we didn't know why we left out this tier last week; this must have been why! Florida Atlantic (3-6), both Fresno St (3-6) and San Jose St (3-5) from the Mountain West; Texas St (5-3) and Louisiana-Monroe (4-4) from the Sun Belt; and the Pac-12's wild guns from Washington St (2-7).
Tier I: Two divisions have to have seven teams to total 128 FBS teams, and right now this is one of those: Cincinnati (5-3), Northern Illinois (6-2), Oregon St (4-4). Pitt (4-5), Rutgers (5-4), Tennessee (4-5), and Chris Petersen's Washington Huskies, at 6-3 in his first season in purple.
Tier J: Houston and Memphis (both 5-3 from the AAC), Nevada (6-3), and three ACC schools: Virginia, North Carolina, and North Carolina St (the Pack is 5-4; the others are 4-5).
Tier K: Two conference leaders from the Sun Belt and Conference USA headline Tier K: Georgia Southern (7-2) and Louisiana Tech (6-3). They're joined by 5-3 Bowling Green and Temple, and 4-5 former champions Texas and Virginia Tech.
Tier L: BYU (5-4), Navy (4-5 after a great game against Notre Dame), Northwestern (freefalling at 3-5), Syracuse (3-6), and 4-5 Toledo and Louisiana-Lafayette.
Tier M: Three 5-3 teams (Central Florida, UTEP, Rice), and three Michigan teams - Central Michigan, Western Michigan, and Big Blue themselves, the Michigan Wolverines, who are NOT happy to be classified with their little brothers...
Tier N: Arkansas St (5-4), Illinois (4-5), Middle Tennessee (5-4), San Diego St (4-4), Texas Tech (3-6), and Wyoming (4-5).
AND finally, our brand new Tier O!: With seven teams in all the tiers from K-P, it was easy to separate out one more tier - we'd said we didn't know why we left out this tier last week; this must have been why! Florida Atlantic (3-6), both Fresno St (3-6) and San Jose St (3-5) from the Mountain West; Texas St (5-3) and Louisiana-Monroe (4-4) from the Sun Belt; and the Pac-12's wild guns from Washington St (2-7).
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