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Week Four After Action Report: When Dubya Was in Office

Chad Collins

Michigan Ded

Wisconsin absolutely dominated Michigan en route to a 35-14 win in Madison. Wisconsin RB Jonathan Taylor is the first player to ever rush for 200 yards against Michigan.

In Jim Harbaugh’s fifth year, coming off a BYE week, Michigan was completely and utterly obliterated. I’m not into calling things “embarrassing” as fans. We don’t play, we don’t really have anything invested in this besides money for tickets, beer and our emotions. But, this is inexcusable. Through three games, Michigan looks as if they’ve taken thirty steps back.

It’s year five and Jim Harbaugh has absolutely nothing to show for his time in Ann Arbor. Today was a harsh reminder of that.

110

Mark Dantonio grabbed his 110th win, the most in Michigan State history, with a dominant win over Northwestern. I was bullish on Northwestern coming into this season. After losses to Michigan State and Stanford in which they looked particularly hapless, that optimism is dead and gone.

Michigan State now sits at 3-1. Aside from the frustrating loss to Arizona State, they’ve played some good football so far. What matters right now is the Spartans are 1-0 in Big Ten play with Indiana coming up next week.

Fight On…For Now

Clay Helton keeps his job for another week. Utah and USC participated in an officiating clinic on Friday night, with USC emerging victorious and the Pac-12 lamenting its dashed playoff hopes.

Michael Pittman Jr was a monster for the Trojans. Matt Fink replaced injured starter Kedon Slovis early in the first quarter and played a wonderful game. My favorite thing about Fink is he realized that USC is more athletic and talented than just about every team they play. He let his guys make plays on the deep ball all night and it worked out pretty well.

What really surprised me is just how well it did work. The Trojans had no success running the ball whatsoever. Utah held the ball for long portions of this game. It was a really weird game to watch. It felt like Utah started to get this thing under control a handful of times, but USC played their hearts out and capitalized on Utah’s mistakes. Utah has still never won at The Coliseum.

Clay Helton’s seat should not be any cooler than it was on Friday afternoon. But it certainly isn’t warmer either.

TEXAS. IS. BACK. MAYBE.

Texas impressed me a ton in their resilient win over Oklahoma State. I actually had the Pokes going into this one. It had been eleven years since Texas beat Oklahoma State at home, and the Cowboys brought America’s leading rusher and receiver to the party. I liked Oklahoma State a ton tonight, and they played pretty well.

But this is a different Texas than the one I’ve grown accustomed to over the last ten years. They didn’t crumble under pressure, no catastrophic error was committed, and they responded to adversity and overcame it. I watched Sam Ehlinger and cycled through names like Swoopes, Heard, McCoy and Ash in my head. What a ride it’s been at the quarterback position since Colt McCoy hobbled off the field during the 2009 BCS National Championship. But Sam Ehlinger is giving the Longhorns a reason to believe again.

Saturday night was an opportunity for a big statement from either team, but no huge statement was made and I’m fine with that. Going into this game, I thought Oklahoma State was pretty good, and I still do. I thought Texas was pretty good, and they obviously are.

I imagine somewhere in Norman, Alex Grinch watched this game with great interest. One of these two teams will beat Oklahoma this year.

Knights Falter

UCF’s national title hopes are finished after a stunning loss to Pitt. They trailed 21-0 and responded by ripping off 31 straight points, even taking the lead at one point. Unfortunately for them, Pitt was fully charged. There was no hope.

There’s a couple things I want to take away from this game.

That’s really it. But I’m more intrigued by the ramifications of this game more than what actually transpired this afternoon. For starters, it throws a wrench into the G5 New Years Six conversation. UCF having a loss really levels the playing field for everyone else. Boise State looks like they could run the table. What about Army? Their lone loss is in double overtime to Michigan. Tulane is really good, so is Houston*.

*-relative to their competition.

What really sucks is everything that UCF has accomplished will be mocked and, in a few years, forgotten. I’ve been on both sides of the UCF twitter war. I can see how both sides are at the end of their wits with the other. But here’s the thing–this is what it’s like playing in a Power Five conference. Stanford at home, on the road against Pitt next week, and then maybe you have a juggernaut coming to town. The one thing that UCF fans ignore about actually playing in a power conference is that it’s an absolute grind. For example, here is Michigan State’s schedule.

Say what you want about Illinois, Rutgers and Maryland. But they’ve got road trips to Michigan, Ohio State and Wisconsin. They host Penn State. Maryland certainly doesn’t look like a pushover anymore. Rutgers has improved, I promise.

UCF doesn’t play anywhere near that type of schedule.

LATE EDIT

When I started writing this, Washington State was beating UCLA 49-17. I turned off the game and didn’t think anything of it. Ten minutes later, it was 49-38. Then, 49-46. I think you’re getting the picture here. Anyway, UCLA erased a 32-point deficit and stunned Washington State. Another Pac-12 playoff hopeful goes down.

I mean, just look at the score. The second half was absolutely incredible, going back and watching that.

Random Things

Miami University jumped out to a 5-0 lead against the Buckeyes! After being poked in the eye, Ohio State went on a 76-0 run to finish the game. Justin Fields is very good.

SMU is 4-0 after a big-time win over TCU. The Skillet is headed to Dallas.

Auburn and odd-year magic. Name a more iconic duo.

Washington has been dominant in two wins since being upset by California, who also looks pretty good.

Just like I said they would, Arizona State lost. Each of the last two years they’ve beaten MSU, gotten ranked in the top-25 and lost the next week. Last year, they lost to San Diego State.

Fun Fax: 2008 Redux

The last time Texas beat Oklahoma State at home, George W Bush was president of the United States.

In 2008, American Idol was the top show on US television.

No Country For Old Men was presented the Oscar for best picture.

The champions of the four major sports were:

MLB- Philadelphia Phillies

NBA- Boston Celtics

NFL- New York Giants

NHL- Detroit Red Wings

Barack Obama was elected president of the United States of America.

Fidel Castro stepped down as Cuba’s president.

Fun Fax

Heading into Saturday, Jim Harbaugh was 4-0 in Big Ten openers as Michigan’s head coach. He’s now 4-1.

Michigan State beat Northwestern for the first time since 2013.

Utah’s last win in a road game against USC was 1916.

UCF’s last regular season loss was all the way back in 2016. The team that beat them? Willie Taggart’s USF Bulls.

Oregon’s win over Stanford is their first since 2015. The all-time series is 49-32-1 in favor of the Cardinal. Oregon won their Pac-12 opener for the first time in three years.

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