Week 3 Rundown

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me three times, it's not a fluke anymore?  Not sure if that is how the saying goes, but maybe it should be the saying about trends.  After 3 weeks you can start to make more certain assessments of the teams going forward.  Most teams have played at least one decent opponent at this point and some have even started conference play.  Alabama - scary good.  Ohio State - very good, but beatable.  Georgia - quietest dominating start to a season.  Florida State - who bought the firewillietaggert.com domain name?  The presumed top teams have pretty much performed like that so far.  The SEC west division runner ups from last year look unbeatable right now.  They are pretty much Alabama minus anything for betting purposes right now.  The Ohio State-TCU game was quite the roller coaster.  TCU had about a 5 minute disasterous stretch that turned an 8 point lead into a 12 point deficit.  It showed that TCU is able to compete with the top teams, and Ohio State better be on their game or they can get beat in conference play by either Penn State or Michigan.

LSU-Auburn had one of their typical crazy games.  LSU came out on top with a last second field goal 22-21.  It always seems like these two teams play close games.  LSU is now 3-0 into their super, super tough schedule for the season.  They have already beaten Miami and Auburn.  They still have Georgia, Mississippi State, and Alabama as ranked teams to play.  And they also have Florida and Texas A&M which could be tough depending on which version of those teams shows up.  Wisconsin suffered a tough loss against BYU.  That all but torpedoes their Playoff chances unless a lot of things happen ahead of them.  The Big 10 west is no gauntlet this year and won't get them the quality wins they need.  Oklahoma State beat a very good Boise State team.  Oklahoma exacted revenge on Iowa State.  Texas beat USC.  Texas Tech squashed Houston.  Kansas beat down Rutgers.  It was a good day for the Big XII.

Out west Washington won at always tough Utah.  Arizona State suffered a loss to San Diego State after entering the top 25.  UCLA is not going to have a good first year under Chip Kelly as they lost to Fresno State.  It just has not been a good year for first year coaches as Scott Frost's Nebraska Cornhuskers fell to 0-2 for the first time in forever.

The scoring across the leagues was down a tad as there were less FCS foes on the schedule.  Now we are entering the conference season pretty heavy.  Teams will have chances to earn some quality wins, but the weeks of having myriad teams scoring over 100 points is probably over.  There is still a lot of season left to go though.  Those Group of 5 teams that were getting beat up by the Power 5 will now get to go into their own conferences and possibly go on a run of points for you.