2015 e-Systems College Football Pool – Week 3 Results

Dogs and cats living together; mass hysteria: In their storied histories, Nebraska, Texas, Alabama, and Southern California have won a total of 3,434 football games. Saturday, each of them lost, and they’re a combined 6-6 on the year so far. Indiana, Northwestern, Wake Forest, and Kansas State have lost a combined 2,566 games. Not only did each of them win on Saturday, but those four teams are a combined 11-1 at the start of the year. Sometimes, up is down in the college football universe.

When almost perfect can still be really really good: Georgia’s Grayson Lambert had one such day Saturday. In the Bulldogs 52-20 win over South Carolina, Lambert completed his first four pass attempts. His fifth was an overthrow out of the end zone in the first quarter. He didn’t miss again, completing his last twenty throws to finish at 24-for-25, good for a 96% completion rate. That is an FBS record for completion percentage in a game with at least 20 attempts. He also broke the school record for most consecutive completions in a game.

The Mid-Major no one wants to play: how about Toledo? After having their tune-up game against Stony Brook cancelled due to inclement weather, the first two games of the year for the MAC school have been against an SEC opponent (Arkansas) and a Big XII opponent (Iowa State). The Rockets won both, including a 2-OT game against Iowa State this past Saturday. Toledo has one more non-conference game against Arkansas State before starting MAC play.

Salty Defense: last week, I mentioned Boston College among one of the teams that had really impressive defensive numbers due in part to inferior competition. The Eagles stepped up against Florida State this past Friday, and while they lost 14-0, it was not due to defensive performance. They allowed one defensive touchdown (the other coming on a fumble recovery), and 217 total yards. I don’t know how many games BC will win this year, but that defense will keep them in a lot of them.

An incredible streak: Florida was able to nip Kentucky Saturday night, 14-9. It marks the 29th straight time the Gators have beaten the Wildcats, the longest current streak in the nation and the longest in-conference streak in SEC history. The Gators have a long way to go to break the record, however, which is held by Notre Dame, with 43 straight wins over Navy. The longest streak between major conference teams is Nebraska’s 36-win streak over Kansas between 1969 and 2004 while both teams played in the Big 8/12.

There’s always someone better; there’s always someone worse: Valparaiso had lost their first two games against Eastern Kentucky 52-10 and against Sacred Heart 56-3; their last game saw them beat College of Faith (Arkansas) 86-0.

In other small-school news: #StillUndefeated is the Twitter hashtag used by fans of Kennesaw State regarding their season thus far. There’s a reason for that: the Owls are 3-0 this year, their inaugural season playing football. Thus far, the Atlanta-based school has beaten East Tennessee State, Edward Waters, and Shorter College, but things look to get tougher going forward as they play Dayton and start a Big South conference schedule that includes two nationally ranked FCS programs.

Congratulations to Corn, who takes the week 3 glory with 203 points! GatorBamaLover was second with 202 points, and there was a three-way tie for third between Crimson White, AUsomeTiger, and JustGuess with 201 points.

Standings after 3 weeks (having dropped two lowest weeks):

This week sees the end of the non-conference schedule for most teams for a while, and the picks get trickier as conference rivals collide! The first game this week is Stanford at Oregon State, Friday, September 25 at 10 PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!