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How good were our first 2 opponents?

C

cubsMDdmb

HB MVP
Jan 15, 2003
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With the two wins, I'm very optimistic. It's tough for anyone to really know how good their team is only 2 weeks in, but each week should make it easier to tell more about your team.

Illinois State beat Morgan State 67 to 14. Illinois State was predicted to be good in FCS but who really knows. It's good to see they destroyed a team, even if it was a bad team they beat (I'm just guessing Morgan State is bad.)

UNI played Eastern Washington and beat them in the dome 38 to 35. Eastern Washington played Oregon in week 1 and lost 61 to 42. EW was ranked #7 preseason in FCS.

So while we still don't know how good or bad our two ISU opponents are, we can already see some patterns developing in each team's opponents. Iowa State and Illinois State may very well be decent teams. Only time will tell the true story.
 
You will drive yourself crazy trying to look at how opponents did against other teams. In 2003 LSU won the title, there was a scenario that you could have made based on like opponents that Towson could have won the national title.

Kentucky beat LSU
Mississippi St beat Kentucky
W Virginia beat Mississippi St
S Florida beat W Virginia
Rutgers beat S Florida
Cincinnati beat Rutgers
Pittsburgh beat Cincinnati
Navy beat Pittsburgh
Delaware beat Navy
New Hampshire beat Delaware
James Madison beat New Hampshire
Towson beat New Hampshire

Towson finished dead last in the Colonial Athletic Conference.

It doesn't matter how good or how bad you are. It only matters how you play on game day.

I think after Maryland last year nobody thought we would destroy Northwestern the way we did. You never know how good you are, you really don't.
 
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I understand that on any week anything can happen. It doesn't keep me from seeing how other opponents do. If Illinois state and UNI had been destroyed by bad teams, that would have put more doubt in my mind I guess. It's part of what makes college football fun.
 
Well I can say that Illinois St was believed to have an explosive offense this year. They didn't do anything against us I know they hung 60 on somebody yesterday.
 
I've watched plenty of FB over the first two weeks. Right now, I'd rank our schedule like this:

1. Wisconsin
2. Minnesota
3. Nebraska
4. Northwestern
5. Pitt
6. Illinois
7. Iowa State
8. Maryland (gave up 650 yards of offense to Bowling Green...wtf?)
9. Illinois State
10. Indiana/Purdue
11. Purdue/Indiana
12. North Texas

IA State will win a few here and there. They're better and B12 is slightly down. Our schedule really isn't very good this year.
 
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Well, ISU will probably lose at Toledo next week. They'll kill Kansas, but who else is a for sure win for them? They'll have a chance in a few games (TTech, OkSt, maybe WVU), but the odds of them winning more than about 4 games are pretty small.
 
heat_dawg said:
Mississippi St beat Kentucky
W Virginia beat Mississippi St
S Florida beat W Virginia
Rutgers beat S Florida
Cincinnati beat Rutgers
Pittsburgh beat Cincinnati
Navy beat Pittsburgh
Delaware beat Navy
New Hampshire beat Delaware
James Madison beat New Hampshire
Towson beat New Hampshire
Click to expand...

tOSU lost to VA Tech
VA Tech lost to Pitt
Pitt lost to Iowa

Iowa default 2015 champs.
 
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It could be that Illinois State and Iowa State are better than Toledo, which beat Arkansas Saturday, which is in the SEC, which is the greatest collection of football teams this side of the known universe. At least according to the SEC and big Bret Bielema. We'll found out something next week when Iowa State actually plays Toledo.

You might also ask,How good is Auburn? The SEC power had to go OT to beat FCS Jacksonville State, and were lucky to win at that. Auburn, a 45-point favorite, was dominated most of the game by their FCS opponent. The game was no fluke. So if Auburn is #6, based on the head-to-head, Jacksonville St. should be #7.

Every week is a new week in college football. That's why we enjoy watching it. Ya just never know.
 
heat_dawg said:
You will drive yourself crazy trying to look at how opponents did against other teams. In 2003 LSU won the title, there was a scenario that you could have made based on like opponents that Towson could have won the national title.

Kentucky beat LSU
Mississippi St beat Kentucky
W Virginia beat Mississippi St
S Florida beat W Virginia
Rutgers beat S Florida
Cincinnati beat Rutgers
Pittsburgh beat Cincinnati
Navy beat Pittsburgh
Delaware beat Navy
New Hampshire beat Delaware
James Madison beat New Hampshire
Towson beat New Hampshire

Towson finished dead last in the Colonial Athletic Conference.

It doesn't matter how good or how bad you are. It only matters how you play on game day.

I think after Maryland last year nobody thought we would destroy Northwestern the way we did. You never know how good you are, you really don't.
Click to expand...

You aren't serious are you?

To answer OP...the first two teams you've played suck ass.

Lucky you get Pitt without their stud RB.
 
Furthermore, Jacksonville State barely beat their first opponent, Chattanooga (beat them by 3 points.) Chattanooga this week came from behind to barely beat Division II Mars Hill.

What does this say about Auburn? Who knows? Maybe Auburn is actually bad. Maybe Auburn is good but just had one of those really off games.
 
Good poonts
SpartanJD said:
You aren't serious are you?

To answer OP...the first two teams you've played suck ass.

Lucky you get Pitt without their stud RB.
Click to expand...

Sounds like Conner's back-up is pretty darn good and that the Pitt fans like him a lot. I don't know that they'll necessarily have a huge drop-off from Conner.
 
Florida really struggled with East Carolina as well as Missouri struggled with Arkansas St.

I know we had one poster around here who had bragged about how awesome Arizona St and the Pac 12 were going to be. They suck so far. 2-4 against Power 5 schools.2-3 against the awful Big 10.

The best win was Utah over Michigan.

The poster also talked about how awesome it was to see a real top 25 team practice in Arizona State. They were handled fairly easy by Texas AM and were deadlocked with Cal Poly mid way through the 4th quarter last night.

That's the problem with ranking conference and teams before the midway mark of the season. As of right now, the Big Ten seems to be ahead of the PAC 12.
 
Iowa State played a strong first half against Iowa. They forced us to contend with a mobile QB and a strong group of WRs. Also, while their OL isn't particularly great, they're a fairly experienced group overall. Thus, going against a pretty experienced OL was a good test for our DL. They're going to face an even better OL when we face Pitt next week.

The Iowa O faced a pretty salty Iowa State DL - although the chore got a little easier once Tucker got injured. Given that the ISU D has to face pass-happy Big 12 Os, their secondary could prove to be one of the better groups we face all year. They returned 3 starters in the secondary, along with 2 of their top back-up safeties from last year. ISU's LB play was "okay" ... suffering from inexperience, for the most part ... they definitely have talent. Their LBs really seemed to have trouble getting clean off of blocks. However, Iowa will be having to contend with far better LB play against Pitt.

As for the rest of the comparison game, both UNI and Illinois State should prove to be upper tier FCS teams. The very fact that Iowa had such a dominant performance over Illinois State - particularly in the first game of the year, is promising. We usually don't execute particularly cleanly at the beginning of the year. The very fact that we've been able to overcome mediocre field position has been a huge positive coming out from the O. It is particularly nice considering that the O has been contending with a number of injuries to a number of our talented skill players - both young and old. Specifically, we've been playing with a limited deck at TE with Duzey out and Kittle dinged. At RB, Mitchell had been dinged and Daniels missed half the game with an ankle injury. And lastly, at WR, Scheel has been injured - although I don't know if he'd be contending for too much playing time.

It will be intriguing to see how the O continues to grow as we're able to reincorporate guys as they return from injury. It will definitely help increase our "firepower."
 
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SpartanJD said:
You aren't serious are you?

To answer OP...the first two teams you've played suck ass.

Lucky you get Pitt without their stud RB.
Click to expand...

No, the poster was clearly poking fun at people who try to take football "transitivity" seriously.

As for your statement - you're dead wrong. One opponent very likely will again be a contender for a FCS championship AND the other opponent was a heated in-state rival. The added "rivalry" element can completely change the dynamic. Furthermore, it made the away game environment that much more hostile.

Michigan State looked AWFUL against Western Michigan ... the same team that got hammered by a rather mediocre Georgia Southern squad. For all we know, Oregon might yet prove to be grossly overrated. Thus, for all we know, Iowa's schedule might not "suck" as much as MSU's.
 
Hawk Supreme said:
Well, ISU will probably lose at Toledo next week. They'll kill Kansas, but who else is a for sure win for them? They'll have a chance in a few games (TTech, OkSt, maybe WVU), but the odds of them winning more than about 4 games are pretty small.
Click to expand...

Without having seen Toledo, I would expect the Clones to get a win there this week. They should be playing with a chip on their shoulder and the Toledo team will have had people patting them on the back all week. Perfect time to catch them in my opinion.
 
cubsMDdmb said:
SpartanJD, Why are you even on this board?
Click to expand...

I like talking college football.

In all honesty though you guys look better and ISU always plays above their heads. Solid win for Iowa. 4-0 ooc could lead to a 10-2 type season if you can avoid losing to a team like Illinois.
 
ghostOfHomer777 said:
No, the poster was clearly poking fun at people who try to take football "transitivity" seriously.

As for your statement - you're dead wrong. One opponent very likely will again be a contender for a FCS championship AND the other opponent was a heated in-state rival. The added "rivalry" element can completely change the dynamic. Furthermore, it made the away game environment that much more hostile.

Michigan State looked AWFUL against Western Michigan ... the same team that got hammered by a rather mediocre Georgia Southern squad. For all we know, Oregon might yet prove to be grossly overrated. Thus, for all we know, Iowa's schedule might not "suck" as much as MSU's.
Click to expand...

Oregon has been a national power for over a decade. Saying you play a tone close to them ooc is laughable.

However...time will tell just how good of a win vs Oregon that was for us.

The thing with MSU is we don't win pretty and people start to doubt us but all we have done lately is win. 2 of our last 3 wins have been vs Baylor and Oregon. Not too bad.
 
SpartanJD said:
Oregon has been a national power for over a decade. Saying you play a tone close to them ooc is laughable.

However...time will tell just how good of a win vs Oregon that was for us.

The thing with MSU is we don't win pretty and people start to doubt us but all we have done lately is win. 2 of our last 3 wins have been vs Baylor and Oregon. Not too bad.
Click to expand...
I agree that Oregon was a great victory for MSU. However, I was simply alluding that it's still a bit early to anoint the spartans as giant killers quite yet.

Besides, given that a MSU fan should know how heated an instate rivalry game can be ... it's in poor taste to suggest that Iowa's victory over ISU was of little value.
 
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SpartanJD said:
Oregon has been a national power for over a decade. Saying you play a tone close to them ooc is laughable.

However...time will tell just how good of a win vs Oregon that was for us.

The thing with MSU is we don't win pretty and people start to doubt us but all we have done lately is win. 2 of our last 3 wins have been vs Baylor and Oregon. Not too bad.
Click to expand...

Not bad at all, and I wish you guys were on the schedule every year. It was one of my favorite Big Ten series even if the national fanfare wasn't necessarily there. A lot of great/competitive games for a few decades now.
 
ghostOfHomer777 said:
I agree that Oregon was a great victory for MSU. However, I was simply alluding that it's still a bit early to anoint the spartans as giant killers quite yet.

Besides, given that a MSU fan should know how heated an instate rivalry game can be ... it's in poor taste to suggest that Iowa's victory over ISU was of little value.
Click to expand...

Yes I recanted my statement a little bit...ISU always plays above their heads against Iowa. On the road at ISU and you win comfortably. Solid win.

Now go beat Pitt who has some talent and more people will take notice of Iowa. However I bet Iowa has people right where they want them...underestimating them.
 
uniFIGHTuniFIGHT said:
Not bad at all, and I wish you guys were on the schedule every year. It was one of my favorite Big Ten series even if the national fanfare wasn't necessarily there. A lot of great/competitive games for a few decades now.
Click to expand...

Yes I love playing Iowa and Wisconsin. I will miss not seeing them that regularly.

Maybe we will see a higher in Indy one of these days.
 
VodkaSam said:
Without having seen Toledo, I would expect the Clones to get a win there this week. They should be playing with a chip on their shoulder and the Toledo team will have had people patting them on the back all week. Perfect time to catch them in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Toledo is currently a 7 point favorite over Clown U. Put your money where your mouth is and make a killing.
 
I believe we played the most talented ISU team in multiple seasons. They loaded up K-State style with JUCOs this past off season some of which like Tucker the DT was highly touted (one of the best JUCO DT in the nation). They changed the talent level of the first team over night in many areas. They also had some young players last year as well as guys back from injury. They have an impressive set of WR's as we know and all saw. Their OL has some experience and size. The biggest issue is their inability to run the football in a traditional sense. Running yards mostly come from a gimmicky sense or from QB runs.

Now the key for them is rebounding from the Iowa loss and beating Toledo. Toledo was thought to be a front runner in the MAC and as we saw them beat Arkansas which was eye opening. Lose this game to start 1-2 and it is hard to say where their team moral goes. Win and they remain in the bowl hunt.

The big 12 is about 2 maybe 3 teams this year. Outside of Baylor, TCU and maybe Oklahoma every other game is winnable for ISU.

I think IL State will be better than UNI this year. Not #2 FCS great but pretty good. UNI will be decent, not great. Hard to replace David Johnson productivity.

I think many underrated our non-con schedule this year. We did not have a huge marquee name but the first 3 games present major challenges and you know McCarney probably prepared his N Texas team for the Iowa game all summer. He would love nothing more than to beat us in Iowa City. Should never happen but you know how these things go.

If we find a way to beat PITT we have a chance to go 4-0 and be borderine top 25 going to Wisky.
 
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SpartanJD said:
Yes I recanted my statement a little bit...ISU always plays above their heads against Iowa. On the road at ISU and you win comfortably. Solid win.

Now go beat Pitt who has some talent and more people will take notice of Iowa. However I bet Iowa has people right where they want them...underestimating them.
Click to expand...
ISU doesn't always play above its head against Iowa.

And when the score is tied and you're inside your own five with 3 or 4 minutes to play, it isn't a comfortable win.
 
I think that is the most talented ISU team I've seen in a number of years. Except CJ and King, I didn't get the feeling that our players were substantially better. They have an outstanding WR crew and some nice juco newcomers on defense.
 
Jury is still out on Iowa State, that look better and the conference is probably worse overall. @Texas Tech, Texas, Oklahoma St and @Kansas St are all winnable. Take care of Toledo and Kansas in the next two weeks and they could still get to 6 wins. If that crowd actually shows up for the other home games it would sure help.
 
First of all, obviously Michigan State is legit and their SOS is impressive thus far. ya Western Michigan wasn't blown out but a win over the always successful Oregon means more than 10 wins over FCS/lower level competition.

But I don't think the teams we beat are slouches. Illinois State has good offense but most average Power 5 teams should beat them. Iowa state looked talented. Coaching killed them and Iowa just outplayed them to finish the game. They can get a few more wins and have a successful year (for Iowa State)
 
Lone Clone said:
ISU doesn't always play above its head against Iowa.

And when the score is tied and you're inside your own five with 3 or 4 minutes to play, it isn't a comfortable win.
Click to expand...

Ah my bad...I was tailgating the MSU game and only saw Iowa won by 14. Assumed it was a fairly comfortable win.
 
My best guess is Iowa State ends up bad but it was a rivalry game
Illinois State will be in the FCS playoffs competing for a title, so take of that what you will.

I do know Illinois State's offense worried a lot of posters and the Hawks shut them down. They hung 60 on what was probably a bad team last Saturday.
 
Lone Clone said:
ISU doesn't always play above its head against Iowa.

And when the score is tied and you're inside your own five with 3 or 4 minutes to play, it isn't a comfortable win.
Click to expand...
You are right. They have only played above their head when they have won or kept it close.
 
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