Real Kato Blog: College Football Recap

Michigan 34, Minnesota 10. N.C. State 29, Virginia 24.

Michigan 34, Minnesota 10. With Chad Henne and Mike Hart out of the game, Michigan still managed to stomp woeful Minnesota, though it looked ugly at the beginning. Thanks to a Ryan Mallett fumble, Michigan found itself down 10-0 early in the second quarter.

However, eventually Michigan's offensive line started to take charge, and opened up huge holes for Carlos Brown and Brandon Minor. Mallett, for his part, made some big plays to Manningham and Arrington (though, some of those were of the "throw the ball somewhere and let my superstar receivers take them away from Minnesota's freshmen cornerbacks" variety). At the end of the day, Michigan gained 561 yards on offense. The defense wasn't always stellar, but managed to hold Minnesota's spread offense to 231 with zero offensive touchdowns.

So what does this mean for Michigan? Well, we're definitely not as good without Henne and Hart in the game. Brown and Minor are finally starting to show signs of greatness, but Mallett looked a lot like a freshman in this game. He's got a cannon of an arm, but he makes questionable decisions at times, and doesn't take good care of the football. I think those are correctable problems for next year, but let's hope Henne stays healthy for Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State.

Michigan is now ranked #12 in the BCS standings. Appalachian State is not. So there.

N.C. State 29, Virginia 24. Well, whaddaya know? N.C. State not only beat a Division 1-A team, but a ranked Division 1-A team. Quarterback Daniel Evans started in place of the injured Harrison Beck, and turned in a remarkable performance, throwing for 347 yards and three touchdowns. That's his second 300-yard-plus game in a row. Is N.C. State turning things around? Possibly... though they still could improve on their 84 yards rushing, their 7 penalties for 45 yards, and their 7-for-17 third down conversion rate.

Other News

Surprisingly, there were no shocking top-ten upsets this week, though plenty of ranked teams did lose.

#1 Ohio State defeated #25 Penn State 37-17 in OSU's biggest test so far this season. I watched a lot of this game, and two things stuck out to me: first, OSU's offensive line just might be good enough to keep them #1; and second, Anthony Morelli is simply not that great a quarterback.

#2 Boston College beat #8 Virginia Tech, scoring two touchdowns in the final 2:11 of the game. Some are saying this cements Matt Ryan's place as a Heisman front-runner, but look: he sucked for 57 minutes of the game, and BC needed a miracle on-side kick recovery to win this game. Give me Mike Hart any day.

#4 Arizona State came from behind to beat #21 Cal, 31-20. ASU is having a remarkable year, but they face a stiff test next week against Oregon.

#5 Oregon beat #12 USC 24-17. Suck it, Pete Carroll. Oregon is a legitimate national championship contender; their one loss was to a pretty good Cal team,

#7 West Virginia beat Rutgers 31-3. Rutgers was highly touted this season, but it's looking like they're not as good as some people expected.

#23 Connecticut beat #10 South Florida 22-15. South Florida? Also, possibly, overrated.

#18 Georgia beat #11 Florida 42-30. I'm sure Florida fans are pointing to the quality of their SEC opponents in their three losses, but look: it's still three losses. Suddenly, all those wins against cupcake opponents aren't looking so impressive. In short: Suck it, Urban Meyer.

Mississippi State beat #14 Kentucky 31-14, and Tennessee beat #16 South Carolina, knocking off two other SEC "darlings".

Iowa beat Michigan State 34-27 in overtime. Could it be that Michigan State is going to have its annual midseason meltdown again, even with a new coach?

Eastern Michigan beat Western Michigan 19-2. Yes, "2".

Permalink 2 Comment

Posted by Ken in: sports

Comments

Comment #1 from Dan (Guest)
2007 Oct 31 - 2:45 pm : #

"Anthony Morelli is simply not that great a quarterback."

His biggest problem is that he was supposed to be Chad Henne, quite literally.

Comment #2 from Brett (Guest)
2007 Nov 6 - 5:25 pm : #

2 isn't really that bad, a safety is very difficult to come by. I give WMU props for pulling it off!

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