By Phil Steele

GAMES NOTES:
Akron gave Toledo a game. In fact, leading 3-0 they brought in backup QB Pole on the 3rd series and Pole led them 81/14pl and UA took a 10-0 lead with 14:03 left in the 2Q. The drive began when UT was SOD on 4&2 at their 19. UT went 75/6pl and 85/8pl. Austin Dantin hit a 55 yd td pass to Pasquale and finished 29-35-327 yds. UA answered with an 81/7pl drive for a td with 5:44 left, 17-14. UT punted on their next poss but then took the momentum going 77/5pl for a td with 1:37 left in the half. At the half UT had a 295-257 yd edge. The 3Q opened with 3 punts. UA then went 46/17pl but were SOD on 4&gl from the 16. UT went 51/7pl but was int’d at the UA19 but UT went 62/12pl for a td, 28-17 (9:56) then after an int drove 25/3pl for a td with 8:19 left to go up 18 pts, 35-17. UT fmbl’d a punt with 5:59 left and UA went 45/7pl for a td with 3:30 left but UT rec’d the onside kick, got a FD to the UA36 and took a knee.

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By Phil Steele

Ka’Deem Carey had 366 yards and had 5 td’s. The old Pac-12 record was set by Washington St’s Rueben Mayes on Oct 27, 1984. Arizona was without QB Matt Scott and QB BJ Denker hit 12-14-136 and rushed for 44 on 9 carries vs Colorado. Decker fumbled the snap on the first play at his own 7 and CU got a td on the next play, 7-0. UA went 80/9pl and 64/8pl, 49/2pl for td’s on the next 3 poss with CU settling for an 18 yd FG, 21-10. CU still got a 73/13pl drive for a td with 2:44 left 1H to get to 21-17 and then Denker hit a 21 yd td pass with 1:11 left capping a 79/6pl drive. UA led 28-17 at the half with a 272-228 yd edge and UA again went 73/6pl, 49/7pl, 81/2pl for 3 td’s on 3 straight drives, 49-17. CU, trailing 56-31, was SOD on 4&gl at the UA9 with 2:54 left.

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#23 Toledo takes on Ball St today. For the Top 25 Forecast and the projections you would normally see on Friday – head on over to PhilSteele.com today!

INTERESTING NOTE:
Nine of the 15 teams that made my Most Improved List featured in this year’s magazine have already clinched bowl bids and there is still a month left!!

GAMES NOTES:

Jordan Lynch only accounted for 3 td’s for Northern Illinois despite the final being 63-0 vs overmatched Massachusetts. NI played 2 backup QB’s leaving Lynch in for just the first series of the 3Q and he left with them up 42-0. UMass went for it on 4th down 4 times in the 1H on 4&2 at the NI47, 4&9 at the NI50, 4&2 at the NI27 and 4&8 at the NI7 and all 4 times, failed. They fumbled on their first two 3Q poss and were SOD on 4&6 at the NI46.

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GAMES NOTES:

I will admit when I’m wrong and last week I thought Texas had a great situational advantage. I thought Texas, with their defense would be able to handle West Virginia at home and win the game more comfortably than most thought before a record crowd of 101,851. WV finished with a 26-21 FD edge and 460-404 yd edge. After WV had a 40 yd FG blk’d they attempted to go for it numerous times on 4th down and met with success almost every time. On their 3rd drive they converted on 4&2 at midfield then on 4&4 were stopped but UT called time-out prior and on the next play WV got a 40 yd td pass. Texas led 28-27 at half and got the ball to open the 3Q and appeared to be in good shape going 54/13pl and settled for a 36 yd FG. WV’s 2nd 3Q poss converted on 4&6 and 4&1 on a 76/12pl drive for a td, 41-38 (10:50) UT was SOD on 4&13 and then a key play happened when on 3&6 from the WV 8 the snap got past QB Ash and he fell on it for a 16 yd loss. That forced a 41 yd FG and they missed and WV went 76/8pl as UT couldn’t get them off the field. Perhaps their most impressive player in the game was Andrew Buie who constantly broke tackles and rushed for 207 yards although Geno Smith is clearly the frontrunner for the Heisman hitting 25-35-268 yards. Hats off to WV for going into a hostile environment and beating a pretty good Texas team and they deserve to be in the Top 5.

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Here are my projections for games being played on Saturday, October 6th.

I list the projected scores from my computers forecast. Another column shows you the computers yardage forecast for each game. I think it will be interesting to see who the computer picks to win the yardage battle and see if they win the game. In my College Football magazine I have the plus and minus ratings. I update them weekly and then factor in the home edge and I will show you who the Plus Minus ratings forecast. I will also list who Vegas has favored to win each week and we can see how they do picking the actual winners of games. There is also a WEEKLY POLL which you can enter for free each week.

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SECOND HIGHEST SCORING WEEKEND IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL HISTORY

This past weekend was the 2nd highest scoring weekend in college football history, with the teams combining to average 60.8 points. West Virginia and Baylor set a ton of records as WV had an 807-700 yd edge. Stedman Bailey would have set the Big 12 record with 303 yds receiving but he was actually topped by BU WR Terrance Williams who had 314. BU’s 9 game win streak came to an end as the teams combined for 1,507 yds offense and 6 rec’s had 100+ rec’s in WV’s first Big 12 game. The most previous points in a game involving a team in the AP poll was 124 set back in 1980 when Oklahoma beat Colorado 82-42. The 19 td’s combined just tied an NCAA mark which was set when Navy beat NT 74-62 in 2007. BU led 21-14 but trailed 70-56 when they got the last td with 3:08 left. WV got to the KO deep and WV got 2 FD and was able to run off the clock

Naturally a couple of SEC defenses like Tennessee and Georgia wouldn’t have had that type of game but they did. UGA had a 560-478 yd edge and Tenn a 26-20 FD edge. Tenn had a few missed opportunities as at the end of the 3Q they missed a 28 yd FG and with 5:55 left, UT at midfield was int’d at the UGA26. UT’s next poss got them to the UGA27 trailing by 7 pts but Bray was sk’d and fumbled with 1:22 left and UT’s final play was an int’d pass at the UGA48. UGA has topped over 40 pts in each of its first 5 games for the first time in school history

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2010 was a memorable year for many of the teams and players in the Mid-American Conference. The ’10 season saw the conference send four of its teams to bowl games and both MAC Championship game participants Miami, Oh and Northern Illinois each won their bowl games. Both the RedHawks and Huskies also finished in the final AP Top 30 and Miami, Ohio had one of the greatest single season turnarounds in college football history going from a 1-11 record in 2009 to a 10-4 season last year which included a MAC Championship.

2010 was also a banner year for several MAC players including Toledo WR/KR Eric Page who was named 1st-Tm All-America by several different services after avg 31.3 yds per return with 3 TD’s. Page also had 99 rec (11.2) and 8 TD’s. Read more…

From 2005-’08 I published an article titled Coaching Changes in my College Football Preview magazine. Each year I try to make the magazine a little bit bigger and a little bit better but we’re capped out at 328 pages so Coaching Changes does not appear in my 2010 magazine. We have had a lot of requests for this article and since the website has an unlimited amount of room, PhilSteele.com is a great vehicle to continue publishing this article and I will do so each year. Read more…

For the next two weeks, I will be taking a look at the conference teams of the decade for 2000-2009. Factored into my analysis will be conference win %, conference and division titles, bowl games and bowl wins. I will also include BCS bowl wins, final AP rankings and number of national championships for the major conferences. There have been several teams who have changed conferences during that time and I will include them in the analysis for any season(s) they were affiliated with that certain conference. I will also be doing a breakdown of how the conference did in bowl games during the decade and I will emphasis the overall win/loss record, the number of BCS bowl wins, and the records against Non-BCS and ranked bowl teams.

While some conferences may have no-brainers as the top team, other conferences were very competitive over the past decade. Here is the schedule for the upcoming week with the conferences I will be analyzing on each date. Read more…

2009 was a memorable year for many of the teams and players in the Mid-American Conference. The ’09 season saw the conference send five of its teams to bowl games for a 2nd straight year and league champ Central Michigan ended the conference’s 14 game bowl losing streak by defeating Troy 44-41 in 2OT in the GMAC Bowl. The Chippewas also finished in the final AP Top 25 at #23.

Temple had one of its best seasons in school history by winning 9 straight games and made their 1st bowl appearance since 1979! Temple HC Al Golden was named MAC coach of the year as the Owls have improved their win total in each of his 4 seasons as coach. With Temple breaking their bowl drought, 11 MAC teams have now been to a bowl game since 2004! 

I was very pleased with the way the East Division played out in ‘09 as my magazine was the only magazine in the country to have Ohio winning the division. Every other magazine had the Bobcats projected 4th or lower! Frank Solich has done a great job here as the Bobcats were just 11-35 in the 4 years prior to his arrival. Since 2006, Ohio is 28-24 including 2 appearances in the MAC Title game! Read more…