Friday, September 12, 2008

football: the coming weekend

Here's one for the Tech fans. Matt Hinton at Dr. Saturday (former Sunday Morning Quarterback):
Inevitable Massacre of the Week.
SMU at Texas Tech. The widest point spread of the week is North Texas at LSU (-41), and rightfully so, but I actually watched a large portion of SMU's opener at Rice, and the disaster that unfolded before me is seared into my brain. The Mustangs can only be described as "ghoulishly bad" -- they gave up 56 points and six touchdown passes in that game, largely the result of awful, cover-your-eyes turnovers, and gave up 36 points last week to I-AA Texas State and its comically-named quarterback, Clint Toon. If Toon can have his way, Graham Harrell will throw for 450 without breaking a sweat, and the Raiders can choose their number at home.

And then there's the, uh, ND-Michigan "game," generally denoted on most sports blogs in pictorial terms this year:

And I pulled this picture off of an ND fan blog!

A somewhat surprising synopsis from Dr. Saturday:
As it is, while I don't believe ghosts or echoes and generally can't believe I'm typing this, the clearest difference between one side and the other is Clausen. He's obviously rounding into something closer to his recruiting than the raw meat we saw last year, and if he has a long way to go still, at least he can put a little pressure on a defense downfield if given just a little time. Barring perfect circumstances (which does not include "facing a Jon Tenuta-coached defense") and a slew of turnovers on the other side, Michigan quarterbacks look incapable of any such thing.
ND 15 - 12 Michigan

In my opinion, the clearest difference between the two teams is the Michigan defensive line, and my calculus says:
strong def. line + ND offensive line + sophomore quarterback = turnovers by the boatload = Michigan wins by 14 on defensive points

but Hinton's the pro at this stuff.

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