Welcome to The Funvee Tailgate! Wow, what a first week! I was wrong on a lot of picks for Week 1 but I couldn’t have been more satisfied with each and every game I watched last weekend. By now you’ve seen the highlights I’ll spare you the summaries of the thrillers and provide my thoughts about the aftermath.

Perfection Didn’t Last Long For Me:

As you may recall from last week’s post: I picked Clemson, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Ohio State as my playoff teams. Well Oklahoma may have shot themselves in the foot and thus ruining my shot at going 4 for 4. Frankly, while I’m optimistic on Tennessee, they’ll need to step it up for sure. Houston is becoming pick to be the 4th team in if they can run the table. The irony of how the Playoff system works is that Houston will need Oklahoma (and Louisville, their other big non-conference opponent) to play well the rest of the season.

Here’s where the madness sets in. IF Oklahoma say, win out, then they’ll have beaten Ohio State (perennial playoff contender), Texas (now a playoff contender), and TCU on the road (also a contender). Well with those wins and a loss against a good Houston team, you could debate that Oklahoma earns a spot in the playoff over Houston because of succeeding with a harder schedule. You could also simply say Houston beat Oklahoma so the Cougars in, effectively making a Week 1 matchup a play-in game. In that scenario, I’d give 13-0 Houston (AAC has a championship game) the edge over 11-1 Oklahoma because I agree with the head-to-head argument.

But who knows, if Bama and Clemson run the table, a one-loss Pac-12 team looks STRONG after winning the conference, they’re shoe-ins. You’d have to compare a 13-0 Houston to the Big XII AND Big Ten Champs. The are plenty of other scenarios we could run through but before we stress ourselves, we need to take a step back and remember, it’s only Week 2! Kornheiser and Wilbon always say every year on PTI for both college football and college basketball that they preseason rankings should be done away because we really don’t know how a team is going to come out once the season, just look at Houston, Wisconsin, and Texas. While I see their point, the rankings are a great barometer nonetheless. So this week, root for your team and enjoy the rest of the fray.

Big Games This Week:

Friday Night:

No Thursday games and only two games tonight in the FBS: Maryland at FIU and #13 Louisville at Syracuse (8pm on ESPN2). Louisville/Cuse won’t be close, the Cards are favored 15 points on the road and have one of the better defenses in the ACC. Cuse QB Eric Dungey threw for 355 against FCS foe Colgate, definitely don’t expect anything close to those numbers against Louisville’s D.

After a Saturday For The Ages last week, this Saturday might put you to sleep:

Tomorrow gets back the “tune-up games” as my dad would call them. Most ranked teams playing tomorrow are either 20-point or higher favorites or there is no line at Vegas. Chad Kelly threw for 313 yards and 4 TDs against FSU on Monday, odds he can do that again against Wofford? Pretty high! Ohio State broke the school record for total yards gained last week against Bowling Green and could get close to doing that again against Tulsa. I could keep going about these blowouts but for the sake of your time, I won’t. The one game that is off betting boards that is worth noting is Jacksonville State at LSU (7:30pm on ESPNU). JSU has been an FCS powerhouse the past few years and was the team who took Auburn to overtime–and should have won–last season in Week 2. LSU is coming off a Week 1 that took them by complete surprise. If Les Miles doesn’t rally his troops fast, the Gamecocks could make this a fun one; they probably won’t Leonard Fournette will treat this like a track meet. Most of these “chalk games” take place early in the day so if you turn on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU/FS1/BTN/NBC, you’ll find something to watch, you just probably want to flip around. There are some notable games this Saturday though:
Arkansas at #15 TCU (7pm on ESPN)–TCU is only 7.5 point favorite here most likely due to Arkansas’ ability to upset ranked opponents when unranked (they’ve done it four times in the past two seasons). However, the Razorbacks’ defensive back-unit is one of the worst in the SEC, they won’t be able to match the speed of the TCU wideouts. TCU wins.
Iowa State at #16 Iowa (7:30pm on BTN)–the Battle for the Cy-Hawk Trophy is always close, no matter what the line is (currently Iowa -15). Iowa St. lost to FCS Northern Iowa last week after turning the ball over four times and allowing 367 yards. It’s think Iowa could overlook their in-state rival but I think the Hawkeyes pull it out by 10. Iowa wins.
Virginia Tech vs. #17 Tennessee (8pm on ABC at Bristol Motor Speedway)–yup, this game is being played at the NASCAR track. Neither Matty D nor myself would be surprise if JRod appeared in the crowd–this kind of stuff is right up his alley. Because of the fantastic teams in the Atlantic Division, the ACC’s Coastal Division can be overlooked sometimes. VaTech’s defense is decent mainly because their D-Backs are amongst the best in the entire conference. It’ll be interesting how Josh Dobbs will bounce back against the VaTech D-Backs but Jalen Hurd and the rest of the Vols’ rush attack will railroad the Hokie front seven. Tennessee wins.

Lehigh dropped their matchup with Monmouth last week 23-21. The Mountain Hawks couldn’t get it going offensively only gaining a total of 239 yards with QB Nick Shafnisky gaining 196 himself (159 in the air, 37 on the ground). The Mountain Hawks travel down to Villanova this week looking for their first win. Nova played FBS Pitt last week and lost 28-7 being thoroughly shut down by the Pitt Defense. Lehigh will need come out hot in order to keep themselves in this game. The Thundercrew will be in attendance cheering on our Mountain Hawks! Matty D, Dr. Dan, and myself will be given the personal tour of the Nova GameDay experience by Villanova legend Joseph Martinez aka “JoeyNova.”

Disagree with my picks? Did I miss a matchup you wanted me to talk about? Let me know in the comments!

(cover photo via)