40 Acres Sports

Not really all that surprising. They may take away his Heisman though.

While the first “Game of the Year” of the year was last week, this week features several very interesting games. Seven games feature a pair of ranked teams facing off, including four matchups I’d classify as big games. I’ll be at the Texas versus Rice game, but I will definitely find a way to be in front of a TV for Michigan at Notre Dame and LSU at Auburn games at 2:30 CST.

Should be a great Saturday of football, here are our picks for this weekend:

Related Links

• Last week’s winners
• SI.com Top 25 Scoreboard
• SI.com Big 12 Scoreboard

Rice has actually played pretty decent this year. All because of Major?

Our Thoughts

Brian – So much for Jamaal Charles or any other Longhorns making a run at the Heisman trophy this season. He was a long shot anyways and now with Texas losing to Ohio State and Selvin Young is still looking pretty darn good he has essentially no chance. Troy Smith’s second straight very strong performance in a big game against a (supposedly) good defense moves him up over Brady Quinn and has him as my number one quarterback. He’s gaining quickly on Adrian Peterson. The Sooners are working Peterson to death and he’s putting up solid, but not ridiculous numbers. It’s becoming a very interesting race.

Matt – If Troy Smith has another big game like he did against Texas, I just might have to move him up above Adrian Peterson. I hadn’t really watched much of Smith, but I must say that I was very impressed. Chris Leak has already throw for 7 touchdowns in his first two games. I am definitely going to watch him this weak as he faces his first major test against Tennessee. Brady Quinn still isn’t performing where I think he should, so I am leaving him in the #4 spot. And Garrett Wolfe is having a major start to his senior season, averaging over 180 yards rushing per game.

Related Links

• Last week’s poll

Man, this was one of the crazier tailgates that I have ever been a part of. We camped out starting Thursday night around 8pm and finally left Sunday around noon.

There were a total of 9 kegs at the tailgate, of which 6 we floated on Saturday (pretty impressive if I do say so). Everyone seemed to have a good time and everyone else that was tailgating in the lot were extremely friendly.

I took plenty of photos which you can check out in our gallery. I have also included some pictures below that I thought were the highlights. Just click on them to enlarge.

All in all I would say it was a success. And please let me know if you stopped by and had a good time.

In what could be consider too little too late, both Tarell Brown and Tyrell Gatewood have been reinstated after their drug charges have been dropped. Brown’s weapon charge is still pending, but his lawyer is confident that will also soon be dropped.

There will be a few stipulations, including a strict curfew and not being allowed to represent the team to the media. Obviously we will never know just how big of an impact Tarell’s absence had on the outcome of the Ohio State game, but I would have to think Gonzalez wouldn’t have been so wide open the whole night.

Our Thoughts

Brian – Despite the measley seven points the Longhorns were able to score against the Ohio State defense Saturday night, I’m still not convinced the Buckeyes’ D will win them a national title. For now at least they stay behind Auburn as both teams move up one to take over the top two spots.

A lot of shuffling throughout my poll as I think the second week of games revealed some things about several teams. Iowa and Florida State both barely survived scares and despite cominig out on top fall a little in my ranking. As stubborn as I am about them, LSU looked impressive this weekend against Pac 10 opponent Arizona and got a five spot bump this week up to number 8.

Matt – Texas’ loss was tough to take this weekend, but Ohio State clearly showed they are the #1 team in the nation right now. Texas didn’t play their best, but they are still better than most teams out there so I only dropped them down to #7.

As for the rest of my poll, I really didn’t move it around too much this week, mainly just dropping a couple teams down because of performance. After everyone thought Tennessee were world beaters (including myself) when they dominated Cal, they proved they are just a decent team who deserves to be in the top 20.

For the Big 12, I am adding newcomer Texas A&M at #23. They don’t have a real test until Week 5 against Texas Tech, so I will have these guys on notice. Rounding out the Big 12, I have Nebraska at #16, Oklahoma at #19, and Texas Tech at #22.

Related Links

• Last week’s rankings
• AP Top 25
• USA Today Coaches Top 25

Not like this should really be any surprise. All of the coaches hate it.

The hype surrounding this game was unreal. The atmosphere in Austin before the game was incredible. The tailgating was off the charts (more pictures and details of that to come later). Too bad the game let us down. Texas looked like they came out with the same lack of effort as they did against North Texas. The only guy on the team that looked like he was working hard was Selvin Young.

And I still don’t understand why we stopped running the ball? We were absolutely killing them on the run, yet I don’t know how many times we threw a pass on first down or some little weak screen. Why not run the ball until they prove they can stop it? All in all, we definitely got outplayed and had poor execution of game plan (if there was one). [tag]Ohio State[/tag] doesn’t look unbeatable, but they were the far better team this past Saturday.

Now for the breakdown of I how I graded the positions:

Quarterback – Overall Grade: C

[tag]Colt McCoy[/tag] came back down to reality this week in the first big game of his career. You shouldn’t expect too much from a freshman quarterback playing his second game in college against the #1 team in the nation, and he proved why. Colt never really made a big mistake (except for that interception), but he never did anything good either. And I know this isn’t really his fault, but the amount of screens and 5 yard passes he threw just got ridiculous. Can we please see a 30 yard pass? The one positive thing I have to say about Colt though, is that everytime he was hit (and he got hit hard) he bounced right back up and didn’t let it affect him.

Running Backs – Overall Grade: A-

You definitely can’t blame the running backs for this loss. Texas rushed for 172 yards and averaged 6 yards per carry. [tag]Selvin Young[/tag] continues to show that he worked hard over the summer and ran for 94 yards for an impressive 8.5 yards per carry. Jamaal had a pretty good night as well, going for 70 yards. The only problem was out of their control, they simply did not get the ball enough. When you are averaging 6 yards per carry, you don’t throw the ball 32 times. Make Ohio State stop the running attack, then throw the ball down-field.

Wide Receivers – Overall Grade: C-

I think the receivers saw a lot more action than they were expecting. Most of the time you would think they would like that. However I doubt they really enjoyed catching a screen or 5 yard pass and then getting nailed by the defense. Ohio State really concentrated their efforts on Sweed and had some extra coverage on him most of the night, although when he was actually able to break away he did make some good plays. But with a play-maker like that you need to figure out a way to get him the ball.

Pittman’s fumble came about as bad a time as possible. Texas was pounding the ball down the Buckeyes throat, about to score, and Pittman fumbles the ball at the 2. Imagine how pumped the crowd would be scoring first, instead Ohio State is scoring 5 plays later. And where is Jermichael Finley? He needs to figure out a way to get the ball more and make the catch when it finally does come to him.

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It looks like the gun charges on Brown still remain though.