Football 2014 - Week 2

My recap of the only football games that matter

The NFL opened the season this week. We now have games on Thursday nights. Although CBS is making a big deal about televising those games at the beginning of the season, the first game was on NBC. It was officially called Sunday Night Football even though it was on Thursday. Carrie Underwood sang the opening song and Bob Costas did his normal very sincere commentary. Al and Chris were in the booth and what's her name contributed nothing from the sidelines. I didn't actually watch the game, those observations are an educated guess. NBC is not the only network that is calendar challenged. Any pro game that ESPN broadcasts is called Monday Night Football regardless of which day of the week it actually is. Anyway, this Sunday night game on Thursday night was the Packers at the Seahawks. I don't care about either team. One of them won and one lost.

Bishop Kenny was set to host the Hernando Leopards of Brooksville, FL. Kenny traveled to Brooksville last year for the game but it was cancelled due to weather. Well guess what, so was this game. What are the odds of that happening? I suggest that Kenny never again schedule a game with Hernando. The Crusaders remain 1-0 on the season and don't play again until 9/19 at Wolfson for the start of district play. 9/12 is an open week.

This was a big week for the LD Bell Blue Raiders. They played the Rockwall Yellowjackets Saturday afternoon at AT&T Stadium (aka Cowboys Stadium, aka JerryWorld). Unfortunately for Bell, they played the part of the Cowboys and lost 57-20. That would be 57 points in three quarters. Amazingly, Bell outgained Rockwall on the ground 302-300. The Raiders have given up 105 points in two games. May be time for some defensive adjustments. Midland comes to town next week. Bell is now 0-2 on what looks like a long season.

The Gators finally got their season started after last weeks weather cancellation. It turned out to be a very sunny and enjoyable day in Gainesville. The Gators easily won over the Eastern Michigan Eagles 65-0. They open conference play at home next week against Kentucky, not known for their SEC football dominance.  

It wasn't such good news for the USF Bulls as they hosted the Maryland Terrapins in Tampa. The Bulls led 17-14 at the half and by the same score after three quarters. Then Maryland scored 10 unanswered points in the fourth period for the win. It appears once again that USF has a decent defense but is offensively challenged. Maryland had six turnovers and still won the game. Probably going to be a long season for the Bulls. Next game is against NC State again in Tampa. 

TCU had an open week after their exhausting opening game. They next play Minnesota in Fort Worth.

The SEC had an easy week. Only one conference game and that was between Ole Miss and perennial cellar dweller Vanderbilt. No contest, the Rebels beat the Commodores 41-3. All the other SEC teams took care of business against no conference pushovers. Some of the games were embarrassing. Here are some SEC teams point totals - 41, 59, 73, 56, 49, 65 and 73, The conference went a combined 12-1 with Vanderbilt's lose to conference member Ole Miss the only blemish. The SEC has yet to lose a non-conference game.

It was mostly patsy Saturday for the colleges. There were only two top 25 match-ups. In those games #14 USC (barely) upset #13 Stanford 13-10. #3 Oregon crushed #7 Michigan State 46-27. More evidence that the Big Ten sucks. My very favorite result was the #8 Ohio State at home 35-21 lose to unranked Virginia Tech. Guess evil Urban Meyer doesn't have quite the team he thought. 

This was opening week for the NFL. As mentioned at the top, a couple of teams kicked it off Thursday but the real action was Sunday.

One of the good things was that I got to see the Jacksonville Jaguars vs Philadelphia Eagles game. We don't get to see many Jags games on TV here in Texas. They are not exactly a marque franchise. The Eagles went in as an 11½ point favorite. One of the bad things is that I got to see the Jags lose. Not an uncommon occurrence. This lose was particularly aggravating. Jax led 17-0 at the half and were still up 17-14 after three quarters. They ultimately lost 34-17. Zero points in the second half. Philly dominated the statistics. Jax had only one turnover, but they also only had 65 rushing yards. The Eagles scored 10 points in the final two minutes on a FG and a fumble recovery TD, so the Jaguars were in the game until near the end. As has been the case the last few years, they have trouble scoring points. Next week is in Washington against another offensively challenged team. It might be a 2-0 game.

Atlanta did win over New Orleans, so maybe they will come back from a miserable 2013 season. No surprise, Tampa Bay lost. There are two Monday night games but I don't care about any of those teams.

Not an overly exciting week. The college schedules should get a little better now since most big schools have already played two tuneup games against weak sisters.

See you next week.

wjh