Spec's College Nickel Package -- Week 3
1. Alabama 49, Texas A & Manziel 42
Does Nick Saban own college football like it's a family-reunion game of touch being played in his backyard?
Pretty much.
Let's see: passion, money, athletes, much-googled girlfriends? The Tide's got it all.
One thing they didn't have was a victory over Johnny Football. Now they've got that too.
Next checkpoint on the road to the three-peat?
Nov. 9 vs. LSU.
2. Duck Dynasty
New Coach Mark Helfrich and offensive coordinator Scott Frost proved that the Ducks can do their thing against an SEC school (Oregon 59, Tennessee 14), but it wasn't one of the SEC schools that really matters (sorry, Vols fans, but it's been loooong time since Peyton Manning Tee Martin had orange-clad folks dancing to Rocky Top at the title game).
Oregon is averaging 61.3 points per game, but that's only good for second in the nation. Baylor is averaging 69.5, but they did it against Wofford and Buffalo. The Ducks at least victimized a pair of major-conference teams (Virginia and Tennessee, plus Nicholls State).
The Ducks don't have emerging Arizona State on the regular schedule, but could get the Sun Devils in a Pac-12 title game.
3. Drama in the Heartland I
Sports Illustrated dropped a journalistic weapon of mass destruction on Oklahoma State, unloading the whole gamut of dark-underbelly-of-college-sports allegations: cash ... drugs ... sex ... cheating ... did we leave anything out?
And, since SI is still an old-school Time, Inc. publication (despite its lame efforts to make "Scorecard" look like ESPN The Magazine), there was, of course, an Important Message About Life in These United States (race, class, exploitation, etc.)
And ... most folks kind of gave it the shrug. OK ... college football is a big business involving young people and their ambitious leaders, all of whom are susceptible to plenty of temptations to cut corners. What else you got?
And ... if you actually read the articles, they ended up being pretty thin soup, with a striking number of people involved who were, as it happened, no longer living.
That doesn't get the Cowboys off the hook, but it does give their fans some reason to wonder why they got singled out for the Claude Rains "shocked ... shocked!" treatment.
4. Drama in the Heartland II
Meanwhile in Nebraska, there was all manner of Woodward-and-Bernstein stuff with secret tape recordings being leaked to the media by anonymous sources.
And the evidence showed ... Head Coach Bo Pelini has a temper, and uses the f-word when he doesn't know he's on an open mike.
OK then. No football coach would ever do that.
Of course, some of the f-bombs were aimed at the fans, and he had just made an impolitic remark about legendary Husker QB Tommie Frazier, and, of course, the "leak" was timed to embarrass Pelini after a brutal second-half collapse to UCLA.
But the Nebraska brass knew what they were getting in Pelini and hired him anyway, so he won't be judged on his tantrums if he can reverse his record of poor showings in big games. That's his real issue, and he hasn't made much progress in solving it.
5. I've Seen Fire and I've Seen Rain
They can't catch a break in Colorado. The Buffaloes were, truly, the worst team in a major conference in 2012. They were 117th in Division I (FBS) in scoring offense and 120th in scoring defense. Can you get worse than that?
OK, they were 21st in the nation in "net punting." There's you're glimmer of hope.
So this year they start out 2-0, doubling their win total from last year. Kudos to the folks who put Central Arkansas on the schedule, but you take what you can get. They had a chance to get to 3-0 against Fresno State, when devastating floods wiped out big portions of the area, all of which on top of wildfires that had been plaguing the state earlier.
But at least the Buffs aren't wallowing around at the very bottom of every statistical category, and maybe they'll make some progress once they finally get back on the field September 28 at Oregon State.