College Football News and Notes

By guest Blogger: John April

College Football

OK, so we are roughly half way through the 2007 Season. We saw some big upsets this week, Stanford over # 2 USC 24-23, Illinois over # 5 Wisconsin 31-26, and S. Carolina beating # 8 Kentucky 38-23 all in the top 10. (AP Poll ranking)

We have also seen some up and coming teams thus far this year. And the one that strikes me boldly is # 5 South Florida (5-0). For once, I agree with the AP Poll on this one. Matt Grothe # 8, only a Sophomore, threw 17/27 for 122 yards, only to rush for an additional 120 yards. Yes, its early, but watch for this young man in the NFL Draft in a few years, I promise, he WILL be at the top.

Another team that has earned some respect is # 7 South Carolina. Spurrier’s win over a # 8 ranked Kentucky, puts the Gamecocks at (5-1), 3-1 in the SEC. That makes it, 15 consecutive wins over Kentucky. South Carolina just outplayed the Wildcats, although the stats say otherwise. South Carolina will be losing 23 seniors this year, but their present QB, # 7 Chris Smelley, is only a Freshman. I feel confident that within the next 3 years, Smelley will hone his skills and that should keep S. Carolina in the top ten for a few years to come.

Personally, I don’t believe that Notre Dame’s troubles are over. They meet # 4 Boston College, then # 10 (AP)USC, and Stanford. But, if you look at it rankings and schedule wise. Notre Dame beat UCLA, who in turn has beaten Stanford, who has beaten USC, who has beaten Nebraska. You get my drift. In other words, if anything has been proven to us this year, this year especially, is that ANY team, Appalachian State, South Florida, Colorado, etc. can beat any team. So, watch this week and see if # 81 Arizona can beat # 10 USC, or another great match-up this week is # 75 Notre Dame vs. # 4 Boston College.

Some games to watch this week are: # 6 Oklahoma at # 11 Missouri and # 1 LSU at # 17 Kentucky. Of these games, I feel that Missouri has a better passing game, Chase Daniel Missouri QB last week threw for 401 yards against a tough Nebraska, where Oklahoma’s total yards last week were only 414.

# 1 LSU, playing a determined # 17 Kentucky will be another great game to view. Don’t shut Kentucky out of this one. The Wildcats can definitely move the ball, obvious from last weeks loss to # 7 S. Carolina, where Kentucky had more first downs, more totally yards, more rushing yards and more yards on punt returns. But LSU does claim to have the No. 1 defense in the nation, I question that after Tulane move the ball a total of 227 yards, and Florida had a total of 314 yards.

All in all, this should be an interesting week. And at the end of week 7, will there be another “Biggest Upset in College Football”.