Ahh, a chance to take a break from staring at pages of statistics and talk a little real football. It turns out tonight is Louisiana Monroe’s 6th game too, but that just puts them on a pretty tall pile at this point. Tonight those same Warhawks welcome the Arkansas State Red Wolves for a key Sun Belt matchup. And while it’s not my style to criticize*, no post specifically involving the Red Wolves can be complete without this video (not entirely safe for work, just some language, but if that’s a problem your office probably blocks Youtube anyway).
*not true.
In all some seriousness, tonight’s game is important in the Sun Belt hunt. The conference smartly chose to put four of its best teams on display for back-to-back Tuesday night games, with MTSU-Troy last week and tonight’s game. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
For our 10th report card, we look just a couple hours up the road from the last one, to the Bowling Green Falcons. This works especially well since the two schools play each other this weekend. Unlike Ball State, and most of the MAC, Bowling Green kicked off the season with a pretty big non-conference win, beating defending Sun Belt champion Troy. The MAC was winless against the Belt last year, so this looked a lot like the start of something good for the Falcons. Unfortunately, they went from there into a 4 game losing skid against a set of pretty good teams- Missouri, Marshall, Boise State, and Ohio. Last week’s last minute win over Kent State may have put them back on the right track.
Wins: D. The schedule hasn’t been easy, with 2 defending conference champs and the defending Big 12 North winner too, but 2 wins is still a disappointing start. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
Apparently the random number generator used to order these report cards has a sense of humor, because we turn from one of the elite teams in the non-BCS universe to 0-6 Ball State. While the Cardinals are not as bad as Rice, 0-6 is still 0-6. The worst part of it, is that this is the same Ball State that went 12-0 in the regular season last year, rose to #12 in the polls, but got surprised in the conference championship and went on to lose to Tulsa in the GMAC bowl.
Wins: F. Their 60 point combined margin of defeat (four losses by 7 or less) may be the lowest of the 0-6 teams, but the fact of the matter is that Ball State has lost to good teams and lost to bad teams. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
BYU has faced Oklahoma, Florida State, and four non-BCS teams…and none of it matters. Well, it does, but the second half of the season is going to be crucial for the Cougars. If they go 6-0, they may still have a shot at making a BCS game. The league title is still up for grabs as well. But this is about the first six games, not the last six.
Wins: A-. The Oklahoma upset was amazing, but what on earth happened with that FSU game? The Seminoles have shown to have little to no defense, but something just went wrong that day. Beating MWC competition in Colorado State at UNLV is a good sign for the rest of the year, and an in-state win over Utah State is never a bad thing. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
The New Mexico State Aggies are out to a pretty good start, all things considered. They’ve matched their 2008 totals for wins, both overall and in the conference, and really haven’t lost any games that they should have won. The road is going to be tougher in the second half, but for now, they should be fairly pleased to be where they are.
Wins: C-. 3-3 isn’t bad, but they won those three games by three points each, two of which were over the worst team in each of the western conferences. Their losses were each sound beatings. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
The Golden Eagles are in year two of Larry Fedora’s rebuilding program, and are still in search of the dominance they enjoyed in Conference USA before the 2005 realignment. They’re a young team this year, but had high hopes nonetheless, and build a lot of excitement just getting out to a 3-0 start. But much like Colorado State, their schedule beefed up and they couldn’t keep winning.
Sadly, reports are in now that their walk-on punter who passed away this weekend died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. I won’t try to put this into any kind of football sense, but my condolences go out to the inevitably large circle of people affected by this news.
Wins: C. 3-3, things started well with wins over division rival UCF and Virginia, but after a close loss to Kansas, two more defeats to a UAB team they’ve never lost to before, followed by a blown lead at Louisville, have been disappointing. Read Post
There wasn’t any college football last night, but I’m using the Hangover bit anyway since there was plenty of it here on the Fringe. We’ve got 5 more report cards today, hitting all four of the eligible conferences so far (no Sun Belt teams have reached six games yet). We also have an important Sun Belt [...]
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
Colorado State stormed to a 3-0 start, dispatching Colorado and Nevada along the way. They looked like one of the best non-BCS teams in the country, and might have even challenged for a top 3 slot in the Mountain West. Since then, they’ve fallen away badly, dropping 3 in a row against BYU, Idaho, and Utah. These losses are understandable, as all 3 are excellent teams. Together, they have a combined record of 14-3. Nonetheless, the Rams had hoped to be among those schools at the top, but it appears they are still about one level below.
Wins: B-. If not for the schedule, it’d be a C, since I like to see 4 wins to start handing out Bs. But beating the Buffalos and Nevada, who is suddenly unstoppable, is worth a slight upgrade. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
The Marshall Thundering Herd came into the season with a lot of question marks and fairly low expectations. Coach Mark Snyder is generally considered to be in a hot-seat season, having not led the team to more than 5 wins in his 4 seasons to this point. Things started a bit shaky, barely escaping 1-AA Southern Illinois and then suffering a blowout at the hands of Virginia Tech. Since then, though, Marshall has had a pretty good run, knocking off Bowling Green and launching their C-USA campaign at 2-1.
Wins: B. I suspect that if you offered Marshall fans 4-2 at midseason, they’d probably take it. They did let a winnable game against ECU slip away, but they’re still in the hunt for the division title. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
The Western Michigan Broncos have had a season that is nothing short of schizophrenic so far. They opened the season with some upset buzz going into their game at Michigan, but got blown off the field. They kept it closer but still lost to Indiana, then got things going with wins over Miami OH and Hofstra. The confusing part is in week 5 and 6, when they lost to Northern Illinois 38-3, then came back around and beat Toledo 58-26.
Wins: C. 3 wins, no major upsets, it’s an average start. Read Post