College Football: Week 3 Recap

Written by Josh Cohron | 21 September 2009

Let's take a look back on a weekend of college football that left a lot to be desired...

• For the second year in a row, USC lost after beating Ohio State. The Trojans went to Washington and lost to their former offensive coordinator and now Huskies head man, Steve Sarkisian. The Trojans were without QB Matt Barkley and FS Taylor Mays, but there is just no excuse for this loss. USC's second string should be able to beat a roster of Ty Willingham's recruits. No one will ever argue how great of a recruiter Pete Carroll is, but some of his decisions make you scratch your head during games. Unless a lot of teams lose, USC looks to be out of the BCS title picture... again.
• Charlie Weis just barely held onto his job for another week. The Irish eked one out against Michigan State (who had been beaten by Central Michigan the week before) 33-30 on Saturday. If they hadn't been able to hold on, many speculate that Weis might be in the same boat that roughly 12% (a stat I made up) of his countrymen are in, the unemployed one. The Irish will most likely be without WR Michael Floyd for the rest of the season and everyone's favorite Clausen named Jimmy may not be at full strength when ND travels to Purdue this week.
• Another Big 10 team lost to an awful football team. This week, Purdue decided to lay down against Northern Illinois... at home. For a conference needing all the good publicity it can get, losses like this certainly don't help. The only shot the Big 10 has at getting a team in the BCS title game is for Penn State to go undefeated. A one-loss team from this awful conference absolutely will not be in the running.
• Tennessee fans felt a lot better after watching a loss. No one likes to admit a loss is a good thing, but the Vols surprised almost everyone in The Swamp on Saturday. They were coming off a loss to a mediocre UCLA team, were (at least) 4 TD underdogs and their head coach had made some less than flattering comments about the Gators in his short college career. They played extremely well, considering the circumstances, holding the Gators to 23 points. UT's next three games are all at home, and should be on the good side of .500 before heading to Tuscaloosa in about a month.
• Kentucky fans don't know what to think after beating Louisville. Most people I talked to before the UL/UK game assumed the Wildcats would absolutely throttle the Cardinals. Justin Burke played well at QB for Louisville and almost snuck into his hometown and got a win. Is Kentucky any good? Who knows? They host #1 Florida and #3 Alabama the next two weeks. They will then travel to South Carolina (Steve Spurrier has never lost to Kentucky) and Auburn. It could be a while before Cats fans see another win.
• Michigan did what was needed to beat Ron English's Eastern Michigan squad. Was it pretty? Not really. Did EMU have the ball twice as long as the Wolverines? Yes. But, those numbers may be skewed a bit as the Wolverines had three offensive drives that lasted 41 seconds or less. Rich Rodriguez's team is 3-0 and the talk of violations seems like ancient history. It's amazing what winning can do for a program, especially when the Wolves won 3 games total last year. Indiana comes to town Saturday, so 4-0 appears to be likely in Ann Arbor.

Week 4 brings us another slate of games that we'll watch just because there is nothing else on. There is only one matchup pitting ranked teams against one another, but it's football, so we'll take it.