2018 e-Systems College Football Pool – Week 3 Results

You have seen me discuss the concept of “paycheck games” often in this space: a team from a Group of 5 league or FCS is paid a large sum to come to a Power 5 school’s stadium for a game. Generally, the formula goes “little school comes in, little school gets drubbed by big school, little school licks its wounds and subsidizes its athletic department.” Sometimes, however, you get teams that don’t go along with the script. Take Troy, for example. The Trojans took a $1.15 million payday from Nebraska, took a trip to Lincoln, then took a 24-19 win back home to Troy. They’ve now pulled off $2 million worth of “paycheck game” upsets in the last two years (having earned $985,000 last year for beating LSU). While Troy celebrates, Nebraska ponders unfamiliar territory, as the Cornhuskers are 0-2 for the first time since 1957. They might not be in this position if their season opener against Akron hadn’t been canceled. Then again, Akron beat Northwestern 39-34 this weekend (their first win over a Big Ten team since 1894!), so one never can be too sure…

At this point in the season, most teams have played three games, and it’s interesting to see some of the gaudy statistics that some teams have piled up. For example:

• Alabama, who normally is one of the highest-ranked teams in scoring defense, currently leads the nation in scoring offense, at 56.7 points per game. (Bama is 8th in the country in scoring defense, at 9.3 points per game, so it’s not like the Tide has fallen off of the map there.)
• Texas Tech is the national leader in yards per game, at 624.4. While the Red Raiders also lead the country in passing offense, they are gaining 175.7 per game on the ground as well.
• One can argue about the quality of the Power 5 opponents they’ve faced, but Ohio State has played all Power 5 opposition to this point, and the Buckeyes have rolled up 608 yards and 56.3 points per game against them.
• The national leader in scoring defense? Stanford, at 7.7 points per game. The Cardinal have not allowed more than ten points in a game so far this year.
• You might think the nation’s best quarterback in terms of passing efficiency might be Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa, or Will Grier from West Virginia, or Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray, or perhaps even someone like Georgia’s Jake Fromm. While all four of those are in the top six, the #1 spot actually belongs to Anthony Brown from Boston College, who sports a nifty 240.2 rating.
• There’s a reason that Kansas has been able to win two games after losing to Nicholls State in their opener: turnovers. The Jayhawks are ballhawks, sporting a +12 turnover margin after three games. Only one other team (Fresno State) has even gained twelve turnovers this season.

In small-school news, the FCS Davidson Wildcats met the Division III Guilford Quakers last Thursday night.  The teams proceeded to go full ham for the next 60 minutes, resulting in a 91-61 Davidson win. Here are just three of the records that were broken:

• Davidson gained 964 total yards, breaking the 27-year-old FCS record held by Weber State and the school record, which was set 72 years ago. (Guilford gained 698 yards of their own – pretty good for a Division III school playing two levels up!)
• 685 of of the Wildcats’ yards were rushing yards, which breaks the FCS record by four yards. (Their old school record of 587 rushing yards was set in 1921.) Davidson scored 10 rushing touchdowns.
• Davidson averaged 15.5 yards per play, destroying their school record of 8.3 per play, set in 1979. Contributing to that were eight – count ’em, eight – touchdown plays of 50 yards or more!

Congratulations to JagRag, who wins week 3 in a tie-breaker over AllySun! Both finished with 215 points. Ralphie, bamaken, and Crimson Gator each finished with 213 points.

Standings after three weeks:

The upcoming weekend is a big one points-wise, as not many top-25 matchups are on the list. But the conference season has begun in earnest, so the games should be getting tougher for the ranked teams! The first game this week is Florida Atlantic at Central Florida, Friday, September 21st @ 7 PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!