Week 3 College Football Awards September 16, 2014

(Note:  All rankings are current AP [week 3] unless otherwise noted.)

COACHES
Wish I were him: Steve Addazio, Boston College

Glad I’m not him: Charlie Strong, Texas
Lucky guy: Steve Spurrier, South Carolina

Poor guy: Mark Richt, Georgia
Desperately seeking a wake-up call: Bobby Petrino, Louisville
Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Ruffin McNeil, East Carolina

Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Steve Sarkisian, USC
Desperately seeking … anything:  Chuck Martin, Miami (Ohio)

TEAMS
Thought you’d kick butt, you did: No. 22 Ohio State (defeated Kent State 66-0)
Thought you’d kick butt, you didn’t: Vanderbilt (defeated UMass 34-31)

Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you did: Kent State (see first line above)

Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you didn’t:  Colorado (lost to No. 16 Arizona State 38-24)
Thought you wouldn’t kick butt, you did:  Syracuse (defeated Central Michigan 40-3)

Dang, they’re good: Oklahoma
Dang, they’re bad:  Kansas
Can’t Stand Prosperity:  Virginia Tech

Did the season start?  Texas
Can the season end?  Eastern Michigan
Can the season never end?  Ole Miss

GAMES
Play this again:  Bowling Green 45, Indiana 42

Play this again, too:  Middle Tennessee 50, Western Kentucky 47
Never play this again: No. 8 Baylor 63, Buffalo 21

Told you so:  Penn State 13, Rutgers 10

What? Virginia 23, No. 21 Louisville 21

Huh?  No. 24 South Carolina 38, No. 6 Georgia 35

Are you kidding me?  East Carolina 28, No. 17 Virginia Tech 21

Oh – my – God:  Boston College 38, No. 9 USC 31

NEXT WEEK

(rankings are current AP (post-week 3, pre-week 4)
Ticket to die for (sort of):  No. 22 Clemson @ No. 1 Florida State

Best non-Power Five vs. Power Five matchup: North Carolina @ East Carolina
Best non-Power Five matchup: Middle Tennessee @ Memphis

Upset alert: Miami (Fla.) @ No. 24 Nebraska

Must win: Southern Illinois @ Purdue

Offensive explosion: No. 2 Oregon @ Washington State

Defensive struggle: Penn State @ Rutgers
Great game no one is talking about: Virginia @ No. 21 BYU

Intriguing coaching matchup: Gus Malzahn of Auburn vs. Bill Snyder of Kansas State

Who’s bringing the body bags? No. 6 Texas A&M @ SMU

Why are they playing? Troy @ No. 13 Georgia

Plenty of good seats remaining: Idaho @ Ohio U

They shoot horses, don’t they?  Eastern Michigan @ No. 11 Michigan State

Week 3 Random Thoughts:

–  Just when you think that Louisville is rolling again under second, non-consecutive term head coach Bobby Petrino (paging Grover Cleveland), the Cards lay an egg on the road.  Virginia is not that bad of a team, but that is still no excuse for all the quarterback miscues that seemed to plague U of L throughout the game, leading to the disappointing result.  Perhaps Petrino should consider playing the freshman QB?

–  Virginia Tech seems nothing if not consistent when it comes to losing games the week after winning a big one.

–  They say that football can be a game of inches.  In the case of South Carolina upsetting intra-conference and border rival Georgia, it was a game of one inch.  Period.  Well, that and a good (favorable?) spotting of the ball by the refs after 4^th and one inch.

–  Perhaps Oregon might have been saving a little energy for future endeavors later this season.  How else might one explain a win over Wyoming by a score of only 48-12?  Given how well the Ducks have played thus far, you’d think the Cowboys got off easy.

–  Did Purdue acquit themselves against No. 11 Notre Dame, or are the Fighting Irish that mediocre?  In the wake of the Boilermakers embarrassing themselves at home last week to Central Michigan, coupled with ND demolishing Michigan, one would have thought that the annual in-state rivalry game would have meant utter demolition for Purdue.  Instead, the Boilers ended up leading, however briefly, in the first half, scoring two touchdowns on the Irish.  Such an effort compelled Notre Dame to increase their efforts, allowing them to gradually win over the course of the second half, 30-14.  The reason that so many people naturally incline towards the former answer is that they want to believe the Notre Dame hype (it sells, after all!).  But what we keep learning, and continue to have to keep learning over the past 10-15 years, is that Notre Dame is once again overrated.  The real question, therefore, to consider is, how bad is Michigan?

–  That being said, Notre Dame’s helmets for that game did look rather neat.  It is a long time coming that they incorporated a blue “ND” logo on to their gold shells.  The single, blue center stripe was a nice touch, too.  The jury is still out on the latitude-longitude, “globe lines” effect, though.  Moreover, I can do without that weird brocade effect on the shoulders of the jerseys.

–  Is Texas in trouble?  First, they lost ignominiously at home to BYU last week.  Then, they lose to an increasingly good UCLA team, ostensibly at a neutral site, though hardly anybody could consider the Horns playing in Dallas as playing on neutral turf, be it the Cotton Bowl or AT&T Stadium.  Yes, Jim Mora has truly breathed intensity into the Bruins program at Westwood, Calif., but there is still no excuse for such a proud, tradition-and-resource laden program as Texas to suffer two such consecutive losses.  Is Coach Strong in over his head at Austin?  It would be a very painful thing to acknowledge, to be sure.  The wise thing, at this point, is to allow the rest of the season (and how it plays out) to answer that question.

–  If we were to apply the law of transitive properties, just how badly would Syracuse beat Purdue if the two played each other right about now?