College Football – Page 3

Standout Player: C.J. Brown

September 10, 2013September 9, 2013 benchwarmer42Leave a comment

Rivals Rundown Standout Player

We wanted to find a player this week that has really performed above and beyond anyones expectations in their first two games of the 2013 season. While there were plenty of candidates there was only one that caught our eye and to be honest the reason this player is going to be our very first Rivals Rundown Standout Player of the Season, is because we completely overlooked them in our preseason. In fact we overlooked their team too, one that we like, albeit extremely early, to make some waves in their last year in the ACC. Our first player is: C.J. Brown, Senior QB of the Maryland Terrapins.

C.J. came on our radar last week as we randomly checked ESPN’s QBR for College QB’s after the first week of the season. We were surprised to see C.J. as the number one QB and then we saw his stat line for last weeks game:

Passing- 20 of 23 for 281 yards and 3 TD’s, no INT’s
Rushing- 11 for 105 yards and 2 TD’s QBR= 98.1

Now we understand that this was against Florida International but for whatever reason C.J. got no play nationally for what is impressive no matter who they were playing. So after last week C.J. was on our radar, which brings us to his second performance of 2013 against Old Dominion. Now, Old Dominion is in a transition year making the move to FBS and they by now means have the talent level as Maryland but let’s check our C.J.’s stat line:

Passing- 14 of 22 for 275 yards and 2 TD’s, no INT’s
Rushing- 4 for 30 yards and 2 TD’s
QBR= 95.3

Week two was a minor step back but C.J. still had a solid passer rating and accounted for 4 TD’s, 9 for the season. So let’s look at C.J. a little closer and check out what we might expect in the coming weeks from this Rivals Rundown Standout Player.

Brown came to Maryland in 2009 as a three star prospect (Rivals.com) from Seneca Valley Senior High School in Cranberry Township, PA. After a redshirt season in 2009, he played four play against Morgan State in 2010 before a broken collarbone ended his season. In 2011 he had a breakout game against Clemson where he set Maryland’s single game rushing record by a QB recording 162 yards, a record which had stood since 1950. So how did we miss this guy, well in 2012 he missed the entire season with an ACL injury and that brings us to 2013. With a match-ups against UConn and West Virginia on deck for the Terps we’ll be watching to see what Brown can do. If Brown and the Terps can win those two, setting the stage for a game at Florida State, look for the National Media to start talking about C.J. Brown vs. the Freshman Winston down in Tallahassee. We’ll be cheering for that to happen and see if C.J. Brown can steal the show.

(Stats from ESPN.com and Wikipedia)

(Photo via CSNBaltimore.com)

Rivals Rundown Top 25 – Week 3

September 9, 2013September 9, 2013 benchwarmer42Leave a comment

Week 2 of the College Football Season is now in the books and with it a couple of our 25 teams, well for now. It’s hard to imagine that one loss could end your season or at least your ranking in our Top 25 but in the cases of USC, Texas, and Cincinnati, that’s exactly what we think happened. The worst of the three by far is USC, there is no way a team with that much talent should have such a bad offense, they could pathetic not being able to move the ball against what will prove to be a week Washington State team. Anyways, here we go with our Week 3 Top 25 teams of College Football. Come back later in the week when we will do our rewind and see how this Top 25 came together.

Current Rank	Previous Week	Team
1	1	Alabama Crimson Tide
2	2	Oregon Ducks
3	3	Clemson Tigers
4	4	Ohio State Buckeyes
5	5	Louisville Cardinals
6	6	Florida State Seminoles
7	7	Oklahoma State Cowboys
8	9	LSU Tigers
9	12	Georgia Bulldogs
10	11	Nebraska Cornhuskers
11	13	Stanford Cardinal
12	20	Michigan Wolverines
13	18	Texas A&M Aggies
14	29	Miami Hurricanes
15	16	Baylor Bears
16	17	Washington Huskies
17	26	UCLA Bruins
18	15	Oklahoma Sooners
19	19	Fresno State Bulldogs
20	14	Florida Gators
21	8	South Carolina
22	22	TCU Horned Frogs
23	23	Arizona State Sun Devils
24	30	Wisconsin Badgers
25	21	Northwestern
NEXT 5-
26	27	Northern Ill Huskies
27	Unranked	Ole Miss Rebels
28	Unranked	Michigan State Spartans
29	Unranked	BYU Cougars
30	Unranked	Boise State Broncos

Week 2 Rundown – Road Warriors

September 5, 2013 benchwarmer42Leave a comment

Week 2 Rundown – Road Warriors

That’s right after one of the most exciting opening weekends in the history of College Football we are stuck at a crossroads of mediocre and FCS games. We know, we know, last week it was epic how many of these FCS teams came into BCS stadiums and caused chaos but for week two don’t count on too many FCS upsets. So looking towards kick off tonight of week two here is some quick thoughts and games to watch:

MUST WATCH GAME:

Florida Gators at University of Miami Hurricanes
After taking a break, these two teams will match up in our favorite game of week two. The current line is sitting at Florida -3 and we like the Gators to cover in this one. We think that this is going to be a break out year for Miami but in a week two match-up we think the defense of Florida will be ready based upon what we saw last week against Toledo. We will be cheering for Miami and the upset but think that Florida is better than we expected. FLORIDA COVERS

MEASUREMENT GAMES:

Cincinnati Bearcats at Illinois Fighting Illini
We are extremely high on Cincinnati this year, in a preseason research all signs pointed to a big year, only one loss to Louisville. If Louisville or Cincinnati has any hopes of crashing the BCS party they must win these games and in Cincinnati’s case they must win big. That means going into Illinois and winning by more than two touchdowns. We are taking the road favorite for this one, CINCINNATI COVERS

Bowling Green at Kent State
In week one, Bowling Green dominated a preseason favorite in Tulsa up and down the field. In week one, Kent State beat Liberty by only one touchdown. So what does that mean for these two teams in week two? Nothing according to Vegas, Bowling Green is only a -6.5 against Kent State. This game is going to measure how good Bowling Green is and give us some insight into what the Tulsa win meant. Again, we are taking the road favorite, BOWLING GREEN COVERS

Texas at BYU
Sticking with the tread and not going into any more detail, we’re taking Texas to cover over BYU in Provo. We believe this is Mack Brown’s comeback year and it really starts with this one. Look for Texas to be ready. TEXAS COVERS

COIN FLIP

This week we have two coin flip games, Notre Dame at Michigan and South Carolina at Georgia. We are staying off both these games because our research and the first week match-ups didn’t tell us enough. We do think that the Georgia-South Carolina game will be close and we like Georgia to come away with the win. Now, we like Michigan against Notre Dame and this might get us in trouble but don’t be surprised if Michigan wins by more than two touchdowns. Ok, so there you go, our week 2 Kick-Off Rundown.

And now for the Rundown…

August 30, 2013 benchwarmer42Leave a comment

Rundown of Day 1 College Football 2013

August 30^th, 2013

The 2013 College Football season is in motion and we celebrated by having over 12 hours of fantastic football. Incase you missed some of the action or highlights here are our favorite plays, moments or factoids from the Kick-Off of the 2013 Season!

Puke and Rally!

This might be the best and worst moment of the year all wrapped into one. Jordan Matthews, one of the premier receivers in all of college football and an All-SEC player made a catch coming over the middle late in the Vandy-Ole Miss game, in doing so he got absolutely crushed with a hit on his side by Ole Miss backer Cody Prewitt. As Matthews tried to get to his feet he was visibly hurt and motioned to the sidelide to come out of the game. With Vandy in hurry-up mode and not using a timeout, he was able to stand, get to the line of scrimmage for the next play. After that play, it appeared he was going to make it to the sideline, stopped and went to one knee and that when the vomit came. After Matthews was done losing his lunch, the training staff took him to the sidelines where he got some water, waited and on the next play, in classic college style Matthews puked ‘n rallied to make a huge catch on 4^th and 18 and the game on the line. Now, the problem we have, is with all of the concern about player safety at all levels of football, the Vandy staff shoul’ve never let Matthews return so quickly. There is no way they could tell what condition the player was in. They needed to let him stay on the sideline for a couple more minutes, while they professional assessed his situation but they didn’t and so we got one of the top plays of the season on day one. Here is a link from SBNation showin the Rundown of this one! http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/8/30/4674808/jordan-matthews-catch

Was that the Hoosiers or the Ducks?

In a game that only fans in Indiana watched or crazies like us watch, Indiana put an Oregon style offensive beat down to Indiana State with a final score of 73-35. After the game, the Hoosier players were upset, why? Because Indiana was within 3 points of tying or beating the all-time record for points scored in school history of 76. Now, normally we don’t agree with running the score up but when you are that close to a historical marker, kick the field goal, tie the record and give your boys something they will have for some years to come in the record book. Now, Indiana is our pick for the surprise team in the country, picking them at 9 wins, now we know this was a gimmie game but the Indiana offense looked like an experienced one firing on all cylinders, now they just have to stay healthy.

USC Might be the Boys of Troy…

This one is hard for us to swallow, we picked USC to win the PAC 12 South division but if they can’t figure out how to run an offense they might be finishing behind ASU, UCLA, and Utah. Before we get carried away reading too much into an opening day road game to Hawaii, let’s look at the positives. USC’s defense will keep them in games, at the start of the game USC looked like a classic team that thought they were going to be able to show up and win the game, it took until almost halftime for them to figure out that they were going to have to take it and no one was giving them anything. The side of the ball that changed the game was defense, they started to make plays on the ball getting 4 int. and holding the Hawaii QB to 16-41. We liked USC because they have one of the easiest schedules in the PAC 12 but if they expect to compete we are guessing they are going to have to bring a lot more then what they had in Hawaii.

GAME OF THE NIGHT!!!

No it’s not Ole Miss-Vandy for all you East Coaster Bias out there, it was Fresno State-Rutgers without a shadow of a doubt. If you missed that game because your mom wouldn’t let you stay up past your bedtime, we urge you, if you are a real college football fan, to find that game and watch it start to finish. It had more lead changes than a NASCAR race and more scores than Robin Thicke. It was from start to finish one of the best games and even had a classic OT finish of the away team going for the two-points to win!!! Freakin Classic, a QB making his outside Heisman Campaign going 52-73 456 yards and 5 touchdowns, in Derek Carr and a Rutgers team saying we might have some holes but we can score too, Nova for Rutgers also threw for 5 TD’s. This game should be on ESPN Classic sometime soon, look it up and enjoy. We’re just thankful that Fresno made it out with the win, that game is going to do wonders for their confidence and we have them winning the Mountain West over Boise State…

Rivals Rundown 2013 College Football Preseason Top 30 Teams

August 29, 2013 benchwarmer42Leave a comment

Welcome to our inaugural Rivals Rundown Preseason Top 30 Teams!!! We are excited to present this the morning of the 2013 College Football Season. We have published our Top 5 teams for all of the BCS Conferences and this is the culmination of all that research. This is not our prediction of how the season will end, this is where we rank the teams as of today. Throughout the season we will visit our Top 30 and adjust as we see fit. Sometimes the whole thing might get flipped upside down but that’s College Football. Here is our Rivals Rundown 2013 College Football Preseason Top 30!!!

1. Alabama Crimson Tide
2. Oregon Ducks
3. Ohio State Buckeyes
4. Georgia Bulldogs
5. Clemson Tigers
6. Louisville Cardinals
7. Texas Longhorns
8. Nebraska Cornhuskers
9. Florida State Seminoles
10. Oklahoma State Cowboys
11. South Carolina Gamecocks
12. LSU Tigers
13. USC Trojans
14. Stanford Cardinal
15. Florida Gators
16. Texas A&M Aggies
17. Oregon State Beavers
18. TCU Horned Frogs
19. Boise State Broncos
20. Oklahoma Sooners
21. Michigan Wolverines
22. Northwestern Wildcats
23. Arizona State Sun Devils
24. Fresno State Bulldogs
25. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
26. Baylor Bears
27. Washington Huskies
28. Northern Illinois Huskies
29 Miami Hurricanes
30. Ohio Bobcats