Well. We put faith in Bunch. And we quickly lost it. Just sort of shows everyone why Martinez was the #1 guy coming out of camp, as if you really get technical, Bunch was looking at #4, #5 if you count Vedral has to sit out this season. Long story short, big oof. Poor decisions, costly turnovers yet again, and that's just not how you win football games. But even still, Nebraska came up one possession short in the end. The fight is there, the talent might be there in some aspects, its just that Nebraska needs to bring it all together. And looking ahead, sort of glad Nebraska has a really brutal schedule where even the best of teams would have a tough time with. At least this way us fans know we're getting murdered. The defense also kind of disappeared. Now I'm not expecting 7 sacks a game every day, but I was half expecting to see a similar intensity. It was there for the first half but it definitely looked like they got gassed coming into the second half. The bright side is, Scott Frost is right. If Nebraska really wants to not play their make up game on December 1st because they'll be in the championship, hope is not lost. Nebraska is still undefeated in conference play.
The Big Red Breakdown:
Speaking of brutal conference play, this week is the first road game, and first conference game of the season at Michigan. My optimism for this game all depends on if Martinez plays or not. If he does, Nebraska might stand a fighting chance. If Bunch is in, gg, he might actually die to that defense. But that's the thing that gives me a glimmer of hope. All Michigan is is a really great defense. Their offense is straight ass, even with their new shiny transfer quarterback. They only have one receiving threat, and the quarterback is going to need some time to hit that, which currently he has very little of. If Martinez plays, then the offense returns to life and might be able to create a spark against a stone wall defense. The other primary concern is the special teams play. Nebraska looked god awful against Troy as the Curse of Tackling still lingers in the locker room.
If Nebraska goes into Ann Arbor with some fight and hangs around, Martinez or not, this would look very promising, especially if the offense can get things going. At the same time, if the defense lays down another egg, then some new questions will rise about this team.
Nebraska O vs. Michigan D: Advantage Michigan. If Martinez plays this goes down to an Edge for Michigan as they are still completely relentless. But I do not see much happening even with him in, let alone giving Bunch the keys to the offense.
Nebraska D vs. Michigan O: Edge Nebraska. If we see the Colorado defense, then Nebraska will be in business. The Troy defense will still be serviceable, but less missed tackles please.
Special Teams: Advantage Michigan. This could be problematic between terrible punt coverage, lack of explosive returns, freshman kicker, and the fact that Michigan does all of these significantly better than Nebraska.
Prediction: Expect a low scoring game. This will be a defensively dominated game, so it could get boring to watch. At the same time, I don't expect this game to get out of hand score wise because neither offense will be able to do anything. It'll be like Troy, where we're down only by a couple touchdowns even though it felt like we were down 40. Nebraska can hang around in this game, but a win would definitely be amazing.
Michigan 20, Nebraska 10
The Rest of the World in College Football:
Regression Rankings:
The first set of the regression rankings for the year are sort of ready as a lot of teams have only played two games, but we're still rolling it out. A lot of G5 teams make their way here early, but again, expect some shake ups as the year progresses, but I don't hate how this looks considering this is supposed to reflect what the teams have done up to this point *cough AP voters cough*.
And surprise surprise, look who is still on top:
1) Alabama
2) Mississippi State
3) Central Florida
4) Georgia
5) Ohio State
6) Utah State
7) Oklahoma State
8) Penn State
9) North Texas
10) Oregon
11) Virginia Tech
12) Boston College
13) Syracuse
14) Washington State
15) West Virginia
16) Memphis
17) Fresno State
18) Oklahoma
19) Miami
20) Texas A&M
21) Cincinnati
22) Texas Tech
23) Southern Miss
24) Florida
25) Clemson
...
31) Michigan
...
99) Nebraska
...
126) UTEP
127) SMU
128) UConn
129) UTSA
130) New Mexico State
To the curious, this model has Nebraska sitting at 5 wins currently.
Over(rated)Watch:
#6 LSU - Overrated. I hate the SEC much like the rest of the nation, because they always started overrated in the preseason polls, and then one "big" win suddenly shoots them up to where ever they feel like it, and in this case LSU wound up at 6. They play Louisiana Tech so please slaughter them if you would like legitimacy.
#7 Stanford - Overrated. Much like Wisconsin, ya can't do shit if you can't run the ball. You only beat an FCS school by 20 because you didn't have your star QB. Yeesh. They get to travel to Oregon where something will happen for better or worse for my sanity.
#8 Notre Dame - Exposed. I'm sorry Notre Dame, we're revoking your legit card. Instead, we're handing you the "Last Year's Miami" card. You can't barely beat Michigan, Ball State, and Vanderbilt you just can't. If you want to be Top 10, you gotta murder these bad teams. They play Wake Forest this week, a game which they should be able to handle easily. Maybe.
#9 Auburn - Overrated. Until we get a resolution in the SEC, you'll be overrated so long as you're in the Top 10. The play Arkansas, who has already shown to be the worst team in the league, so expect a slaughterhouse.
#11 Washington - Still Being Watched. ??? What even is this team? They play Arizona State in what should be a thrilling Pac-12 showdown for legitimacy.
No teams proved their worth to get off this list
Properly taken care of and being low key watched: #18 Wisconsin. Finally.
Hot Take Central:
-WE GOT AN UPSET. Unranked BYU properly exposed #6 Wisconsin on the road for our hot take conversion of "There will be a top-10 non conference upset"
-I'm starting to think defenses don't exist anymore
-We are now down to 5 Power 5 teams without a win (North Carolina, Nebraska, Purdue, Iowa State, UCLA), and Kansas somehow has two now
-Still no fakes from Nebraska
-Conference play is just getting started, so lets get to the fun stuff!
-Yup. Big Ten is dead. Ohio State struggled to TCU, and Wisconsin finally lost. Although the ACC still doesn't look super bright either. This'll be a fun year with conference play kicking up
-Big 12 now looks firmly in for the playoffs, however the problem now leans into the wall of we probably will wind up with 2 SEC teams, but now the Big Ten and ACC are fighting for that fourth spot. Step it up Pac-12.
New Takes:
-Wisconsin will not win the Big Ten West
Prediction Center:
Yikes. For the first time in blog history we went win-less, 0-4 last week, and another blog first, we are officially under .500 with a 2-5 record AND we missed the Upset Alert last week :( Got a couple games to bounce back with this week.
#22 Texas A&M @ #1 Alabama - Alabama 49, A&M 20:
This won't even be close. A&M looked sharp against Clemson but that's basically it. Alabama has just been Bama'ing their way per usual.
#7 Stanford @ #20 Oregon - Stanford 27, Oregon 21:
I actually haven't seen anything lively out of Oregon this year. Just kinda got by with their non-conference schedule. It'll be close because Stanford is bad too, but defense usually prevails in these types of games. The computer likes Oregon but I don't want to test it yet
Upset Alert: #8 Notre Dame @ Wake Forest: Wake Forest has been a thorn in the side of the ACC lately, so I think they're on to something here with the makings of a conference run in the near future. A struggling Notre Dame cannot look foolish here if they want to be considered a Top 10 team.
No comments:
Post a Comment