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Sunday Morning Coming Down // Week 2

By GoForThree
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Iowa State v Iowa Photo by Matthew Holst/Getty Images

Ten B1G Things

  1. Scott Frost has got to be doing a bit. Right? RIGHT?
  2. OSU’s best special teams play all year will probably be the negated punt return that taught many of us the term “punt shield.”
  3. Cheeses christ, Wisconsin.
  4. My brothers in Chryst...what the hell was that?
  5. Has Michigan State found their next Kirk Cousins?
  6. Introducing the “Iowa Test” of offensive ineptitude, as defined by Quarters/Touchdowns. Current value is 8, also known as one Ferentz.
  7. Minnesota doing the Borat voice at 2-0: “Look at me I have a rowboat, king in the castle, king in the castle...”
  8. For a bunch of smart kids, the Wildcats sure make a lot of boneheaded mistakes
  9. Franklin discovers what Brady Hoke was after all along: play “Ohio”
  10. Blue + Orange = bad football.
  11. Maybe Indiana should only play other “I” teams?
  12. It also works for Purdue. Given the Indiana penchant for authoritarianism, I’m sure this Pro-I stance could be codified.
  13. What is a Wagner, exactly? Do they fire a powerpainter when they score a TD?
  14. Poor Hawaii...fly from paradise to southern Michigan to pick up their 3rd loss.

The Rundown

Iowa State at Iowa | Kids at hospital refuse to wave back in disgust, 10-7

What is it the pithy Iowa folks call this? El Assico? Yikes.

StewMonkey: I’ve watched a lot of Iowa football, and consequently I’ve seen a lot of very stupid football. So far this is the stupidest start to a season I think I’ve seen. The difference in quality between the offense and the defense may be the largest of any team ever. Petras is just bad at throwing in a live gave. But my goodness he’s just being hung out to dry by the coaches, too. The running game is also fundamentally broken, and that gets lost a bit with The worst passing game in the country.

Creighton: I preface all this by saying this might be the worst OL I’ve seen in two decades. Having said that:Petras can’t play division 1 football. I’m not gonna break it down, you’ve all seen him play at some point, and he hasn’t improved from whenever that wasA normal coaching staff would’ve fired Brian Ferentz by now. Nepotism is a bitch though, so Kirk’s large adult son is going to finish his task of steering into that iceberg without interruption.We’re one more game away from me finally snapping and becoming the origin story for a cool new supervillain.

Arkansas State at Ohio State | Backup Buckeyes cruise 45-12

Akransas State deserved this purely for giving us Hugh Freeze and Gus Malzahn. Also, Butch Jones looks like the bully from a 1980s high school movie all grown up and very sad.

MaximumSam: The Buckeyes had another day looking somewhat disjointed on offense. Down three of their top five receivers, they hit some big plays but also looked a little shaky at times. The defense wasn’t quite as good as they were last week, but were still very solid and gave up no touchdowns and fewer than 300 yards. In other words, this team is now officially a Jim Tressel approved team and I am here for it.

Wazoo at Wisconsin | _isconsin gives up the W, 17-14

The 4th quarter was pure Iowa football, baby.

Beez: This team is not good. Just plain not good in any aspect. Missed tackles, tons of penalties, another week with no push on the offensive line. I wrote my “who will miss bowl eligibility” answer in the mailbag and mentioned that wisconsin would struggle. Wish I’d said they just plain won’t make it. Wazzu is not good, but this team has zero discipline at all.

Georgia Southern at Nebraska | Honestly, words fail me at this point...GASO wins 45-42

BRT: Well. I haven’t really felt anything for Husker football since the MSU game last year, so I’m neither surprised nor particularly sad. I’m relieved I’ve developed a kind of detached curiosity as to how Nebraska will lose each week. I feel kind of bad for the offense, who did all they should have had to do, but who were stymied by a 7th-grade level defense. At least Frost is making his higher-ups’ decisions pretty cut and dried.In spite of Nebraska losing, I do want to note that it was an overall good day of football. A lot of teams I hate lost in hilarious fashion, and you know what? It does help a little.

deadread: If you score 42 points and produce 575 yards of offense, you should win. In fact, it would be difficult not to win. Spoiler alert: Nebby found a way. Nebraska’s “blackshirts” surrendered 642 yards to Georgia Southern from the Sun Belt Conference, at home.

In terms of self-sabotage, Scott Frost must be considered a pioneer. His five year journey into defeat will end soon, regardless of how much the rest of the conference wishes he could stay. (edited)

Akron at Michigan State | MSU enjoys a big MAC meal (with extra INTs), 52-0

Applied Komedicgifski: Well I had just a Cracker Jack day at the game, how about the rest of...

Ah. Well, nevertheless.

MSU had no trouble with Joe Moorhead’s Akron, where there’s definitely still some interesting play design happening but not…what’s the word…talent. MSU’s defense took away a pile of fumbles, though the coverage still looks kinda leaky at times. The rotation up front looks deep and formidable, though.

Thorne is starting to feel like this team’s biggest question mark, I have to be honest. I anticipated he would carry a run game that would take some time to shake out after Kenneth Walker III, but he looks like he’s forcing it - both his interceptions were awful decisions, as the majority of his picks are. Berger and Broussard look ready to hold up their end on the ground, but Thorne can’t give the ball away and sail open receivers like he has the first two games.

Still, it’s a 52-0 win with no apparent significant injuries and we got our first look at a whole bunch of freshmen. The tutorial’s over next week.

Western Illinois at Minnesota | Gophs trounce the 2nd-worst USMC-affiliated school, 62-10

WSR: Western Illinois isn’t good. Usually that means that we get a 10 point win from a bland set of offensive plays that leaves everyone unhappy and concerned. Somebody forgot to give Peej the memo, because holy shit there’s Leatherneck blood everywhere. Tanner Morgan went wild going 14 of 18 for 287 and a TD, we ran for over 300 yards and 7 TDs, and the defense was perfectly fine again. Athan Kaliakmanis came in for his first stretch of play and immediately got me excited for next year because his arm is light years better than Morgan’s

Duke at Northwestern | Folksier PE teacher defeats Smarter PE teacher (again), 31-23

MNW: Northwestern spent most of the first half with their linebackers getting lost against motion or failing to wrap up. By the time they figured their shit out, they had dug a 21-0 hole. Ryan Hilinski, asked to throw 60 times (completing 36) and Evan Hull, RB WR, admirably clawed the ‘Cats back into it, then each turned it over once in the fourth quarter, the latter on the most heartbreakingly close of runs to the end zone. Northwestern is 1-1 and roundly deserves to be 1-1, if not 0-2. They were so bad today that Scott Frost deserves to be fired on the spot. And yet they were good enough that we know there’s promise out there when Pat Fitzgerald ignores it the rest of the season in favor of believing in His Guys.

Ohio at Penn State | Lions maul Bobcats, 46-10 (No animals were harmed in the making of this film)

misdreavus79: I, and Penn State fans everywhere, got our collective wish: Drew Allar played most of the second half, Nicholas Singleton basically grabbed the starting running back spot after four quarters and a series (for those keeping track, Saquon Barkley “proved” to be the starter after game 3), and Penn State cruised to a victory that saw the Lions run for over 200 yards and and pass for another 338 and three touchdowns, and only one of those came form Sean Clifford.With the “100 yard rushing in a game” monkey off their back, maybe Penn State can now work on how they run the ball over whether they can.

Maryland at Charlotte | Terps remind everyone that east coast football is very bad, 56-21

larry31: Unlike the workmanlike snorefest against Buffalo, this game was interesting to most OTEers into the beginning minutes of the 2nd quarter and interesting to MD fans through the 3rd quarter.

The first quarter represented chaos, but on the complete opposite end of the football spectrum than the Iowa-SDSU train wreck/tragic-comedy. Charlotte rolled the dice and started their supposedly 3rd string true freshmen QB. After forcing Charlotte to punt on the first possession of the game, the Terps and Charlotte combined to scored 5 straight TDS over the next five possessions. It was 21-14 with 14:25 to go in the 2nd quarter. Ruh-roh, shaggy.

Then Maryland figured out Charlotte’s new starting QB that they had not prepared for and made the necessary defensive adjustments. Charlotte’s defense is horrible, so Maryland built that 21-14 lead into a 56-14 lead, while completely shutting down Charlotte’s offense for 2-1/2 quarters. Hooray for Brian Williams, Maryland’s new DC. He can actually make in-game adjustments. Charlotte didn’t score again until 7:49 remained in the game [with starters long gone from the game] to reduce MD’s lead from 42 points to 35 points, still comfortably beating the -28 point spread.MD plays a very potent SMU offense next week, which should be a true test to measure any improvement to its as yet unproven defense, before getting wrecked by UM in Week 4.

Virginia at Illinois | Illini double down on Terps’ conclusion, 24-3

He was a HS QB: Chase Brown is a real joy to watch. The inferior OL, oops, I meant interior OL is a sieve, but it actually works for Chase as he so dangerous when he hits the cutback lanes created by the opponents backfield penetration. There are all kinds of problems with Illinois (turnovers, penalties, place kicker, punter, etc), but at the end of the day, Illinois won and Iowa lost. And Wisconsin lost. And Northwestern lost. Suck it, losers!

Thump: Illinois made even more mistakes than they made against Indiana, but so thoroughly kicked Virginia’s ass on defense that it didn’t matter. Chattanooga will allow them a scrimmage to get the turnovers right and maybe see if the interior offensive line can do a better job. This is a good defense. This is a real Big Ten football team! Big Time Tommy is a Big Ten quarterback! We have the record I predicted us to have after three games, just with a different set of results. If we can stop being adorable in the red zone, we could actually push for 5 wins if everything breaks our way.It’s so rare to see Illinois dominate a P5 opponent so hard that I have fun in the first half. I am strongly considering going to the Iowa game.

Indiana State at Purdue | Purdue begins the quest for the Indiana Crown*, 56-0

*It’s a hat made of schnitzel, but you have to call it a pork tenderloin by Indiana law (and also take a bite to prove you aren’t Jewish...j/k...not really...but why wouldn’t you take a bite? You do eat pork, don’t you fellow citizen?)

BoilerUp89: Purdue ran the ball 15 times more than they passed - which automatically means they won since the Boilers aren’t running that much unless the game is effectively over. 4 QBs threw the ball. Still no 100-yard rusher for Purdue in the last infinity games (although over 200 from the RB committee for the game is good). Former Iowa WR Charlie Jones had 3 TDs despite only playing in the first half. For those keeping track at home, that’s 3 times as many TDs as the entire Iowa offense has in 4 halves of college football. Props to the defense - particularly the second and third stringers that held the Sycamores to nothing on the scoreboard. Lots of players played, the Irish, Badgers, and Hawkeyes lost - pretty good Saturday.

Idaho at Indiana | Indiana overcomes lightning, Indiana-ness to win 35-22

Buffkomodo: Let’s just get this out of the way. This game sucked. The first half was an embarrassment of an effort, execution, and results. Indiana lost the first half 10-0. Missed field goals, turnovers, just baaaaaaad football.

The second half was better. Indiana scored 23 unanswered and Idaho never recovered. Doesn’t mean we should feel warm and fuzzy. The line sucked. Boy…this offense….or awfense as I refer to it… looked inept in the first half. To its credit, D played fairly well and didn’t quit.

This Idaho team took Washington State to the final minutes last week. Half the conference seemed to struggle with FCS teams so just getting out alive seems like a real win all around. Boy if it isn’t frustrating though.

Wagner at Rutgers | Rutgers experiences cannon ammo shortage for first time, 66-7

Hawaii at Michigan | Michigan continues its backness, 56-10

RMB: I have a theory. Stay with me here, it’s highly original: Hawai’i might be bad at football.Michigan did pretty much whatever they wanted with JJ McCarthy at QB in the first half. His only incompletion was a drop. He completed 11/12 passes for 229 yards to 6 different receivers. He threw 3 TDs and no picks. McNamara got little protection, and then when he did, he threw a bad interception. QB “controversy” is pretty clearly over.There’s no other interesting news from the game. Michigan starters had over 400yds in the first half, and gave up 47. Next week it’s UConn, who’s almost as bad as Hawai’i. We won’t learn anything from that game, either.

Brian Gillis: For the second week in a row, Michigan overwhelmed an overmatched opponent. This week, to the tune of a 42-0 halftime lead. The second half was largely a stroll through the depth chart. If there was a takeaway from this game, it’s that Michigan’s quarterback competition isn’t very competitive. To anyone who’s watched the first two games of the season, there can’t much doubt about who the better quarterback is.

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