Week Two college football roundup

Well, that was more like it!  After a week one of college football action, which went straight to expectations, the second week of the best regular season in sports went, well, not so true to form.

Let's break down some of the highlights, lowlights and standout performances.

- The big headline from the weekend was the outcome of the SEC's scheduling match-ups of former Big 12 schools Missouri and Texas A&M playing at home against Georgia and Florida.  Both MU and A&M failed to hold onto leads against these traditional SEC powers and entered play in their new league with losses.  Picking MU over Georgia was the trendy pick with many pointing to the Tigers' 4-1 record against the SEC since 2000.  What that record failed to point out were that the four wins were against Ole Miss (twice), South Carolina (in a 2005 bowl game), and a 1-1 record against Arkansas--teams named Florida, LSU, Georgia and Auburn weren't on that list of recent opponents.  If you dissect the numbers heading into this weekend, Gary Pinkel has a 6-14 record over the past five years against BCS teams that finished above .500 in their conference that year.  The Tigers also have struggled against SEC-like defenses, i.e., those D's with a combination of power and speed.  Pinkel was 2-11 against Oklahoma and Texas--the only two teams in the Big 12 who typically had the defensive speed and power of teams like Alabama, LSU and the SEC in general.  It all adds up to data which supported Georgia being the favorite against Mizzou and, of course, the outcome.

- I've heard some Kansas fans saying, "well, even though we lost against Rice, we're still better than we were during Turner Gill's two years."  That may be so but there's no way to paint yesterday's game as anything but a huge disappointment.  Rice had one of the longest road losing records in college football and sported a 17-31 record since 2007.  On the plus side, this Kansas defense is more opportunistic and has caused seven turnovers after two games.  Yet, missed open field tackling continues to vex the Jayhawks and played a huge part in the loss when not one, but two, Jayhawks failed to make the tackle on a key 4th and 4 pass play by Rice in the final 1:30 of the game.  As for the offense, let's focus on how Charlie Weis trumpeted the arrival of Dayne Crist and has raised expectations about the unit's play in the spring and during fall practice.  Crist thus far has a 51.6 completion percentage, a 4.9 yards per pass average, and has thrown three picks and only two touchdowns, all against competition which pales in comparison to what begins next week when TCU comes to town.  Crist and his offensive mates could not control the ball late and then gave TCU great field position on an ill-advised throw on KU's last possession.  There is no doubt that this Kansas team is better coached than what happened under Gill.  But, candidly, couldn't we say that about most any head coach in Division I football who might've landed in Lawrence?  The loss to TCU is an enormous blow to this program as now the question is "where else this season can Kansas sneak out a victory?"

- We can officially annoint Kansas State as the third best team in the Big 12, with a bullet.  KSU laid a big hurt on Miami yesterday in Manhattan and, with Oklahoma State's loss, look to only trail Oklahoma and West Virginia in the league, with perhaps a challenge from Texas.  The 'Cats will be 3-0, after beating North Texas next week, headed into that prime-time match-up against Oklahoma in Norman on September 22.  KSU then has an open date before playing Kansas which is bad news for Weis and Company--Wildcat head coach Bill Snyder simply does not lose games played after the annual open date in his team's schedule.

- Disappointments of the weekend:  Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Colorado, Miami, Arkansas and Nebraska.

- If you're a Nebraska fan, don't you secretly wish that Frank Solich was still in Lincoln and not in Athens, OH?

- Performances of the weekend:  UCLA, Oregon State, Georgia, Sacramento State, Louisiana-Monroe, Denard Robinson of Michigan, Collin Klein of Kansas State.