West Virginia
(1-0) at Marshall
(0-1) 11:10 AM ESPN Why to watch:
For the first time in almost a
century, West Virginia travels
to Huntington to face Marshall
in the second annual Coal Bowl.
A genuine feeling of hatred
exists between these two
schools, but until the Herd can
close the widening gap on the
Mountaineers, the game will only
have regional appeal. West
Virginia got off to a fast start
in the opener, torching a better
Western Michigan team than the
62-24 score would indicate. As
has been the case for the past
two seasons, the catalysts were
QB Patrick White and RB Steve
Slaton, who had their hands in
seven touchdowns and enough
highlight reel plays to get the
Heisman talk rolling. The
Mountaineers remain No. 3 in the
country, waiting for either USC
or LSU to create an opening in
the top two, but they’ll need to
keep winning impressively. If
Marshall is about to inch closer
to its glory days, you wouldn’t
know it from the opener, a
listless, mistake-filled loss at
Miami. With Ahmad Bradshaw in
the NFL and Albert McClellan
injured, last year’s offensive
and defensive stars,
respectively, are no longer in
Huntington. If the Herd wants
to get back on the map for
something other than a Hollywood
flick, shocking a
heavily-favored rival would be a
great place to start. Why West Virginia might win:
As long as White and Slaton are
healthy, no one is stopping this
offense, so the way to beat the
Mountaineers is to outrace them
in a track meet. Unfortunately
for Marshall, it just doesn’t
have the pieces on offense to
stay close in a high scoring
game. The Herd managed just 234
yards and three points in the
Orange Bowl, and QB Bernard
Morris showed no signs of
snapping out of his career-long
funk. However … Why Marshall might win:
Western Michigan actually
shutdown the WVU ground game for
a quarter. The plan actually
worked, to a point, until White
showed off his passing accuracy.
If you’re going to pick your
poison, you’ll take White
throwing the ball over running
it. The main Achilles ’ heel
remains a defense that allows a
lot of big plays and is
susceptible through the air.
Morris needs to have the game of
his life, using his scrambling
ability to avoid the rush and
his big arm to find TE Cody
Slate and an improving cast of
young receivers. The Herd
should be able to move the ball,
but none of that will matter if
they can’t protect it. Don’t
discount the impact of a juiced
home crowd that’s been waiting
years for a visit from West
Virginia. Who to watch: Is anyone
in the state of West Virginia
happier these days than
Mountaineer S Ryan Mundy? Now a
key member of the Mountie
secondary, he transferred from
0-1 Michigan during the
off-season. The interior war
between Marshall C Doug Legursky
and West Virginia NG Keilen
Dykes, two future pros, is an
entertaining change-of-pace from
all the burners that’ll be in
Edwards Stadium. What will happen: Spurred
on by a geeked student section,
Marshall will hang around for 15
or 20 minutes. And then White,
Slaton or WR Darius Reynaud will
snap off a 60-yard run that
quiets the crowd. While emotion
will carry the Herd for a while,
its offense will be unable to
get it to the finish line. CFN Prediction:
West Virginia
41 ... Marshall 14
... Line: West Virginia -21 Must See Rating: (5 Mad Men - 1
Chelsea Lately)
... 2.5 Final Score:
Conference USA Saturday, September 8
North Carolina (1-0) at East Carolina
(0-1)
6:00 PM CSTV
Why to watch:
The Butch Davis era in Chapel
Hill got off to a nice start
with a shipshape 37-14 defeat of
James Madison. That’s called
progress for a program that
labored to beat I-AA Furman and
William & Mary in recent years,
and hasn’t had a winning season
since 2001. With Davis has come
a new energy and a slew of
talented underclassmen that dot
the Tar Heel two-deep. Chief
among those fresh faces is
redshirt freshman QB T.J. Yates,
who debuted by going 13-of-18
for 218 yards, three touchdowns
and a pick. If North Carolina
can keep rolling against East
Carolina, enthusiasm for the
football team will reach its
highest point since Mack Brown
was on the sidelines a decade
ago. The Pirates stepped into
an impossible situation in
Blacksburg last Saturday, and
handled themselves rather well.
Faced with being the other team
as Virginia Tech, and much of
the nation, honored its slain
students, ECU came close to
pulling off a Herculean upset.
Once the non-conference portion
of the schedule ends, the
Pirates are good enough to win
Conference USA and represent the
league in the Liberty Bowl. Why North Carolina might win:
East Carolina lacks the
playmakers on offense to take
advantage of a Tar Heel defense
that’s very green in the
secondary and about to replace
one its few veterans, injured LB
Chase Rice, with true freshman
Bruce Carter. The fact that the
Pirates managed only 261 yards
and one score last week was not
just because the Hokies were the
opponent. QB Patrick Pinkney
wouldn’t be getting his first
career start if Rob Kass hadn’t
been arrested for a DUI, and the
Pirate receivers are a
pedestrian bunch. Why East Carolina might win:
The Pirate defensive line vs.
the Tar Heel offensive line
shapes up as a potential
mismatch that’ll force Yates
into mistakes in the first road
game of his career. While ECU
was clamping down on a very good
Hokie running game last weekend,
North Carolina was struggling at
the point of attack to create
space against James Madison.
Things don’t get any easier for
the Tar Heel blockers in this
week’s trip to Greenville.
Who to watch: Lightly
recruited out of high school, LB
Quentin Cotton has emerged in
two seasons as a real find for
Skip Holtz’s defense. A sure
tackler from the weakside, he
was everywhere in the loss to
Tech, making 14 tackles and two
tackles for loss, and forcing a
fumble. With the Tar Heels
likely to play it conservative
Saturday, No. 50 will be around
the ball a lot again this week.
What will happen: While
North Carolina is clearly
heading north, it’ll struggle to
move the chains this week
against a physical, well-coached
East Carolina defense. The
Pirates will get a couple of big
plays on offense from mercurial RB Chris Johnson to
make it close, but there won't
be enough offense to win. CFN Prediction:
North Carolina
20 ... East Carolina 13... Line:
East Carolina -7 Must See Rating: (5 Mad Men - 1
Chelsea Lately)
... 2.5 Final Score:
Memphis (0-1) at Arkansas State
(0-1)
7:00 EST Why to watch:
Arkansas State nearly became the
second “ASU” of the opening
weekend to engineer a
cataclysmic upset of a top-shelf
program, losing to Texas 21-13
in Austin. Are the Longhorns
overrated or are the Indians
being overlooked out of the Sun
Belt Conference? It’s worth
monitoring Arkansas State over
the next few weeks to help
answer that question. The
Indians actually out gained the
nation’s No. 4 team, 397-340,
with a good mix of Corey
Leonard’s passing and the
running of Reggie Arnold.
Memphis began its 2007 season
with a disappointing,
error-prone loss at Ole Miss.
The Tigers showed determination
by pulling within two points in
the final minute, but fell short
when Martin Hankins’ pass for a
two-point conversion went
incomplete. Hankins is a
Memphis enigma, who’ll throw for
a ton yards, yet always seems to
connect with the opposition a
couple times a game. Last
year’s game between these two
schools was decided on a 47-yard
desperation heave from Leonard
that gave a Arkansas State a
memorable win. Why Memphis might win:
Arkansas State gained a lot of
yards last week, but sputtered
when it reached the red zone, a
recurring theme from last
season. The Indians will again
struggle to finish drives
against an improving Memphis
defense that kept BenJarvus
Green-Ellis in check, and only
allowed two offensive touchdowns
to the Rebels. Why Arkansas State might win:
The Tigers’ strength, their
passing game, will be
neutralized by an Indian
secondary that boasts five
returning fifth-year seniors,
including Tyrell Johnson, one of
the Sun Belt’s best defensive
players. Arkansas State will
contain Duke Calhoun and the
Memphis receivers, while
capitalizing on a couple of
Hankins’ errant throws. This is
the same secondary that made
Colt McCoy look ordinary less
than seven days ago. Who to watch: With steady
Joseph Doss on the shelf for the
next couple of weeks, it’ll be
up to unproven sophomores T.J.
Pitts and Miguel Barnes to spark
an anemic Memphis running game.
The Tigers need some hint of a
running game this week in order
to prevent Arkansas State from
sitting back and concentrating
solely on the pass. What will happen: While
it won’t be as dramatic as last
October, Arkansas State will
build on last week’s close call
at Texas, and grind out a
momentum-building win over
Memphis. CFN Prediction:
Arkansas State
24 ... Memphis 22
... Line: Memphis -3 Must See Rating: (5 Mad Men - 1
Chelsea Lately)
... 2 Final Score:
Rice (0-1) at Baylor
(0-1) 7:00 PM
Why to watch:
In a matchup of former Southwest
Conference rivals, the first
team to ten points might be
declared the winner. In last
week’s openers, while Baylor was
being blanked by TCU, Rice was
taking it on the chin from I-AA
Nicholls State. Although
neither program is likely to be
playing past November, the Bears
have an opportunity to get on a
mini-roll with games against
Texas State and Buffalo coming
up in the next two weeks. The
Owls looked like a shell of the
program that miraculously bowled
in 2006, even failing to get a
touchdown reception for WR
Jarett Dillard for the first
time in 15 games. If nothing
else, Saturday’s winner gets a
valuable talking point when the
two Texas schools inevitably
cross paths along the recruiting
trail later in the year.
Why Rice might win: You
can’t win if you don’t score,
and Baylor’s disjointed offense
is in a serious state of
confusion. QB Blake Szymanski
is clinging to his job after
getting picked three times in
Fort Worth, the running game is
AWOL, and an already depleted
offensive line just lost its
best blocker, LT Jason Smith.
Even the kickers were erratic in
Week One, raising legitimate
questions about how the Bears
are going to get on the board
this season. Why Baylor might win:
Lost in the Bears’ forgettable
first game was the play of a
scrappy defense that held the
ranked Horned Frogs to just 27
points, 14 through the first
three quarters. The
linebackers, led by Joe Pawelek,
are underrated, and senior CB
Josh Bell is savvy enough to
keep Dillard out of the end zone
for a second straight game.
After performing like a bumbling
mess last Saturday, Rice QB
Chase Clement will face a far
tougher defense than the one he
saw from Nicholls State. Who to watch: Unable to
count on its offense to crank
out big plays or long drives,
Baylor needs the defense to
create turnovers and short
fields. At 6-6 and 270 pounds,
DE Jason Lamb is the type of
imposing figure up front that
can pressure Clement into poor
decisions and game-changing
mistakes. What will happen: In one
of the most unappealing matchups
of Week Two, the bad team from
the Big 12 will squeak out a
close win over the bad team from
Conference USA. CFN Prediction:
Baylor
28 ... Rice 14 ... Line:
Baylor -6 Must See Rating: (5 Mad Men - 1
Chelsea Lately)
... 2 Final Score:
North Texas (0-1) at SMU (0-1)
8:00 pm Why to watch:
Talk about disappointing starts
to a season. In the debut of
Dodge Ball at North Texas, new
head coach Todd Dodge and his
Mean Green were dismantled 79-10
by Oklahoma in a game that was
every bit as one-sided as the
score indicated. Two days
later, SMU began what many
thought would be a breakthrough
season by dropping a 49-9 game
to Texas Tech. Dodge has big
plans in Denton, including the
installation of a pass-happy
spread offense, but it could
take a few years before he
begins seeing results that even
approach his success at the high
school level. While the
Mustangs weren’t supposed to
beat Texas Tech earlier in the
week, a 40-point home loss to a
team in transition was a
crushing blow. If the Mustangs
have any hope of a post-season
game or of keeping Phil Bennett
employed, they’ve got to rebound
quickly against an inferior
opponent. Why North Texas might win:
North Texas sure isn’t Texas
Tech, but it’ll throw the ball
as much, which is harrowing news
for the SMU defensive backs.
The Mustangs were smoked by
Graham Harrell and a new set of
receivers for 419 yards and four
touchdowns on Monday. SMU
tackled poorly and covered
worse, which presents an
opportunity for the Mean Green
to make a significant stride in
its new offense. Why SMU might win: At one
point Saturday night, Bob Stoops
was discouraging his Sooners
from scoring any more points.
The North Texas defense was
really that bad in the opener.
With Justin Willis at the
controls, Emmanuel Sanders
running patterns, and DeMyron
Martin running like his freshman
year, the Mustang offense will
have few problems capitalizing
on a young and vulnerable Mean
Green defense. Who to watch: Now the
face of the SMU program, it’s up
to Willis to rally the Mustangs
and bounce back from the worst
game of his young career. He
was harassed constantly by a
rebuilt Tech defense and made
too many mistakes, but will get
significantly less resistance
this Saturday night in Dallas. What will happen: After
playing one of the worst games
in Bennett’s tenure at SMU, the
Mustangs get an ideal opponent
for a feel-good game. Dodge,
who’s used to being around high
school defenses, is going to
feel as if he’s coaching one in
2007.
CFN Prediction
SMU 35 ... North Texas 16... Line:
SMU -17 Must See Rating: (5 Mad Men - 1
Chelsea Lately)
... 1.5 Final Score:
