Football 2013 - Week 4

by Bill Holmes

My recap of the only football games that matter.

Let's start with some good news because by the end of this post there will be plenty of bad news. On Friday night the Bishop Kenny Crusaders beat the Wolfson Wolfpack 45-18. This is a district game against a school about five miles away. It's always nice to beat the neighboring schools. Paxon is the next opponent. In Texas high school football news, Bell had a bye week. They play Grapevine next. 

On Saturday the Gators beat the Tennessee Vols 31-17. This was the ninth straight time Florida has beaten Tennessee. In the 1990's this was the premier game in the SEC East. Not so much lately as the Vols have fallen on hard times. A couple of terrible choices of head coach have put the program in a deep hole. Nevertheless it's a conference and division win for the Gators. They started slow, but played OK most of the game. The bad news is that their starting quarterback, Jeff Driskel, is lost for the season with a broken fibula. Tyler Murphy is now the starter. He played OK in the game but has little experience. There is now absolutely no depth at the quarterback position. Maybe because of this, the Gators dropped one position in both polls even though they convincingly won the game. Next up is @ Kentucky. 

The SEC had a good week going 8-3 overall and 6-1 in non-conference games. Alabama is still firmly in the top spot in the polls. In the AP poll there are five SEC teams in the top 12 and seven in the top 25. 

The USF Bulls and TCU Horned Frogs had byes this week. That's the best news possible for USF. They are terrible this year and next up they face the Miami Hurricanes. The Canes are coming off a 77-7 win over Savannah State despite losing their starting QB in the first quarter. It could have been worse. The fourth quarter was shortened to 12 minutes and the Canes didn't score nor did they try to. Miami beat Florida a couple of weeks ago so I look for a big Bulls lose. TCU hosts SMU who just got beat 42-13 by Texas A&M. The Frogs should win.

This was a no big upsets week in college football. All top 25 teams that played won. This should be the last week for that as the meat of the schedules crank up. Good teams will be playing each other every week from now on.

Now on to the pros. How about a shutout. I always expect the Jaguars to lose and they didn't disappoint. They lost to Seattle 45-17 and didn't score until it was 31-0. Their one-time all pro running back, Maurice Jones-Drew, only gained 45 yards on 19 carries. They had three turnovers and lost all offensive statistics. This could be a winless season for the Jags. The Colts are up next.

Another team you can depend on to lose is Tampa Bay. They got beat by New England 23-3. The Cardinals come to Tampa next. That is a possible win, but don't bet the farm on it.

Now we move on to the Atlanta Falcons. They were picked by many to win the NFC and go to the Super Bowl but have managed to go 1-2 so far. They lost to the Dolphins 27-23 and host the Patriots next. It's never easy facing Tom Brady.

So my pro teams went 0-3 for the week and are 1-8 for the season. All team totals for the week were 2-3 with three byes. This is working out to be a season where byes are a positive for the records.

One other point before we leave week four. There were several disgusting blowouts this week. Top 25 teams feasting on very weak football schools. #4 Ohio St. beat Florida A&M 76-0, #7 Louisville beat Florida International 72-0, #17 Washington was able to squeak by Idaho St. 56-0, #20 Baylor barely triumphed over Louisiana-Monroe 70-7, #16 Miami was able to win 77-7 over Savannah St. and finally the #8 Seminoles beat Bethune-Cookman 54-6. There were a couple of other lopsided games but these were the worst. Total combine scores of these games was 405-20. This is ridiculous. It may be time to further divide the college football divisions and not allow the top 75 or so teams to play the bottom 50 schools or at least not count the results. I know these small schools get a big, for them, payday by playing the top teams. That part is good. The results of the games are not. They're not good for the fans and they're certainly not good for the losing team. I can't imagine that it is very satisfying to the winning team either. The chance for injury is greater too. Top 25 teams with kickers bigger than the opposing team's interior linemen is not a fair fight. 

So, on to week five. Think positive thoughts. 

GO Crusaders, Blue Raiders, Gators, Bulls, Frogs, Jags, Bucs, Falcons and SEC!

wjh