2016 e-Systems College Football Pool – Week 3 Results

First off, I feel compelled to tell everyone (even myself)…I tried to warn you about North Dakota State. The Bison did it yet again, beating #13 Iowa (and taking home half a million dollars from the Hawkeyes in the process), 23-21 on a last-second field goal.  That makes it six in a row for the boys from Fargo over FBS competition, with over $2,000,000 in so-called “paycheck” games from their vanquished foes.  The next FBS opponent currently on the Bison’s schedule is Oregon, in 2020, so fans of NDSU have four years to revel in this extremely impressive streak.

Drop the ball (North American phrase of drop, informal): make a mistake; mishandle things. “I really dropped the ball on this one.”

What is it with players trying to look cool by dropping the football as close as they can to the front line of the end zone, only to mistime it and drop it at the 1 yard line? It’s happened multiple times in recent memory, and twice more this past Saturday.  Oklahoma’s Joe Mixon returned an Ohio State kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown…or rather, 96 yards before “fumbling”.  The officials and review team didn’t spot it, and Oklahoma kept the touchdown, although Ohio State ended up winning 45-24.  Perhaps even more difficult to swallow was what happened in the California-Texas game.  With 1:30 to go, and Cal hanging on to a seven point lead, running back Vic Enwere broke through Texas’ defense for 53 yards and a score…or rather, 52 yards and a fumble.  This time, the reviewers noticed it, but claimed Texas didn’t immediately recover, and so Cal kept the ball at the 1 yard line and was able to run out the clock and preserve the win. Coaches – tell your guys to hang on to the ball!  Whatever style points they might hope to gain by doing this celebration aren’t worth possibly losing the six actual points.

Another trend for this past week was teams running out to large leads, then losing them or hanging on for dear life.  Michigan State enjoyed a 36-7 lead over Notre Dame at one point, then had to withstand a furious comeback by the Irish before prevailing 36-28.  Alabama and Ole Miss swapped roles in the same game, with the Crimson Tide overcoming a 24-3 deficit to take a 48-30 lead with five minutes to go, then watching the Rebels score 13 points in eight seconds and being forced to grind out the clock to preserve a 48-43 win.  LSU had a 23-6 lead over Mississippi State with four minutes to go in the game before the Bulldogs scored two quick touchdowns and forced a three-and-out, getting the ball back with one last chance to win or tie. LSU recovered a fumble and ran out the clock to survive, 23-20.

The two-point conversion has always been an interesting quirk when it comes to football.  It usually only becomes a factor late in a game, in specific situations where the reward of an additional point outweighs the risk of not gaining the almost-automatic extra point kick.  But Oregon didn’t do things normally in Saturday’s game against Nebraska.  The Ducks scored five touchdowns – and went for two after each.  However, they only converted one of the five. Nebraska’s five touchdowns were each followed by a standard extra point, which proved to be the difference in the game, as the Cornhuskers won 35-32.

Quick notes: Western Michigan University, located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, has had an excellent showing so far against teams from Illinois.  After knocking off Northwestern 22-21 in week one, the Broncos went to Champaign and beat Illinois 34-10 this past week. If WMU can knock off Northern Illinois on October 8, they’d have a good argument for being crowned champions of Illinois…no one has beaten a service academy team yet – Army, Navy, and Air Force are a combined 8-0…Donnel Pumphrey of San Diego State has 599 yards rushing after three games.  That’s more than 83 FBS teams…Louisville, after three games, has 1,000 yards rushing (one of only 3 FBS teams) and 1,038 yards passing (one of only 13 FBS teams)…Utah, whose punter won the Ray Guy award for best punter the last two years, then graduated, has a new punter, Mitch Wishnowsky. All he’s doing is leading the nation in punting average, at 52.6 yards per punt…eighty-one FBS teams average 389 yards or more per game. Florida’s defense has given up 389 yards – total – in three games.

Congratulations to Tex Duck, who wins week three with 205 points!  In Accord was second with 204, and Crimson Gator took third with 203.

Standings after three weeks:

We are finally in the thick of the conference season! Of the games involving ranked teams, only five are not conference games.  That usually has the side effect of making the games trickier to pick, so be on your game!  The first game this week is Clemson at Georgia Tech, Thursday, September 22 @ 7:30 ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!