Legendary coach John Heisman once told one of his teams, \u201cGentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football.\u201d While I do not agree to the point to that level, it is nevertheless a valid argument that turning the ball over will cause your team to lose, and sometimes badly.\u00a0 To illustrate:<\/p>\n
I know that I\u2019ve already made a lot of mention of Baylor\u2019s high-flying offense this year, but special mention has to go to Corey Coleman, a wide receiver on the Bears.\u00a0 With three touchdown catches against West Virginia in last week\u2019s 62-38 win, he is up to sixteen for the year.\u00a0 Not only does that set a Baylor record for touchdown receptions in a season only halfway through the year, but it\u2019s more than 111 of the other 126 FBS teams have as a whole.\u00a0 Some truly incredible offensive numbers are being posted down in Waco.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s lost in the national hype over Ohio State and the craziness that was Michigan State-Michigan, but you might need to take a longer look at what the boys from Iowa City are doing.\u00a0 With their 40-10 win over Northwestern, Iowa has placed themselves in the driver\u2019s seat for the Big Ten West title.\u00a0 The Hawkeyes are 7-0 and rank fourth nationally in rushing defense, twelfth in total defense, and tenth in scoring defense.\u00a0 No one left on their schedule is ranked, meaning Iowa could easily be 12-0 going into the Big Ten Championship game, and if they pull the upset there, how could you leave them out of the playoff?<\/p>\n
Pity the poor Boston College defense.\u00a0 The Eagles might have the best defense in the country, according to statistics.\u00a0 They\u2019re first in rushing defense.\u00a0 They\u2019re fifth in passing yards allowed per game and in pass efficiency defense.\u00a0 They\u2019re third in opponents\u2019 third-down conversion percentage.\u00a0 They\u2019re first in total defense.\u00a0 They\u2019re fourth in scoring defense.\u00a0 They\u2019re also 3-4 and winless in the ACC.\u00a0 Take away games against FCS opponents, and they\u2019ve scored 41 points in five games.<\/p>\n
Other one-offs: with their 52-31 win over Oregon State, Washington State owns wins over both FBS teams from the state of Oregon, and a loss to the state\u2019s only FCS school, Portland State\u2026Georgia Southern is averaging one yard short of 400 in rushing offense, and still has not lost a Sun Belt Conference game since joining the conference last year (they\u2019re currently 11-0)\u2026the player with the most rushing yards in a game is not Leonard Fournette, Ezekiel Elliot, Derrick Henry, or Dalvin Cook, but Tyler Ervin of San Jose State, who had a 300-yard game against Fresno State\u2026three teams from the American conference are now ranked, as Houston, Memphis, and Temple continue to enjoy undefeated seasons.<\/p>\n
In small-school news, College Gameday, the big ESPN pregame show, makes its annual pilgrimage to a smaller school for one week.\u00a0 This year, they have chosen Harrisonburg, Virginia, home of James Madison University, for their annual rivalry game against Richmond.\u00a0 The 6-0 Dukes are an offensive juggernaut this year; they are first in FCS in total offense, third in rushing offense, and second in scoring offense.\u00a0 Richmond is not a pushover, however, as they come into the game 5-1 with their only loss to Maryland.\u00a0 The overall series is 17-15-1 in favor of Richmond, but James Madison has won the last two games.<\/p>\n
Congratulations to rocky tide<\/strong>, who wins week seven in a tie-breaker over mayhall<\/strong>!\u00a0 Each finished with 136 points. \u00a0With that win, rocky tide<\/strong> has back-to-back weekly wins! \u00a0Eric G<\/strong> was next with 135 points, and rdl4bama<\/strong> had 134.<\/p>\n Standings after seven weeks (dropping two lowest weekly scores):<\/p>\n Another nineteen games are on the slate this week as we begin the second half of the season.\u00a0 Again, note that there are three games before Saturday, so it\u2019s important to pick early and make sure you set your points on the picks!\u00a0 The first game is Temple at East Carolina, Thursday, October 22 @ 7 PM ET<\/strong>, so make sure to get your picks in by then!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Legendary coach John Heisman once told one of his teams, \u201cGentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football.\u201d While I do not agree to the point to that level, it is nevertheless a valid argument that turning the ball over will cause your team to lose, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n
\n 1st<\/sup><\/td>\n JG Bama <\/strong><\/td>\n 1114<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 2nd<\/sup><\/td>\n JagRag <\/strong><\/td>\n 1113<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 3rd<\/sup><\/td>\n AllySun <\/strong><\/td>\n 1108<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 4th<\/sup><\/td>\n rocky tide <\/strong><\/td>\n 1105<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 5th<\/sup><\/td>\n Ralphie <\/strong><\/td>\n 1104<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 6th<\/sup><\/td>\n AUsomeTiger <\/strong><\/td>\n 1099<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 7th<\/sup><\/td>\n Crimson White <\/strong><\/td>\n 1096<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n T-8th<\/sup><\/td>\n JagAL <\/strong><\/td>\n 1094<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n T-8th<\/sup><\/td>\n Jeff4Bama <\/strong><\/td>\n 1094<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 10th<\/sup><\/td>\n GatorBamaLover <\/strong><\/td>\n 1093<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n