College football Week 6 thread

Not all that many intriguing games this week, though not as bad as two weeks ago.

The best of the bunch (all times EDT):

UCLA at Utah, Thursday night, Fox Sports 1

Maryland at Florida State, noon, ESPN

Ole Miss at Auburn, 7 p.m., ESPNU

Ohio State at Northwestern, 8 p.m., ABC

Washington at Stanford, 10:30 p.m., ESPN

And the early leader for WORST competitive game of the year:

FIU at Southern Miss, 4 p.m., no national TV (lucky for you) --- Both 0-4 this year. A team that has lost 16 straight hosts a team that lost by 21 to Bethune-Cookman and by 72 to Louisville.

 

just the fact Southern Miss has stooped to that level --- where it's not a 3 TD favorite at home --- is an indictment of the program.

 

Without looking it up, I'm going to guess the line on the Oregon @ Colorado game is -40.
We'll find out how good Washington truly is this year in the next two weeks: Stanford and Oregon in back-to-back weeks.

 

The power in the Pac-12 has shifted to the north, at least for the moment.

 

Has any program ever fallen as far and fast as Southern Miss. It obviously was never a major conference powerhouse or even a Boise State-level mid-major, but it was consistently solid for a long, long time and through more than one coaching staff. Then Fedora leaves and it is suddenly the worst. Just dropped off a cliff.

 

Auburn?

 

Will Missouri be 5-3 or 4-4 after eight games? Depends on if it wins at Vanderbilt.

And Steak, I'm just thankful that's not the Hasselhoff Speedo infinite gif.

 

Hey, if there's ever a good time to play South Carolina and Florida at home, it's when both quarterbacks are hurt. And Florida kind of sucks regardless of the QB. I am ever so mildly hopeful of 6-2.

 

Yeah, but Auburn has had lots of ups and downs the past 20 years. Southern Miss was about as consistent as they get.

 

I can't be confident yet, despite Franklin apparently being back to his old self. He hasn't faced an SEC defense, or any kind of a defense, really, yet this season. And the defense has not inspired confidence. Florida at home is about the best shot we have at a win among the triad of killer games coming up.

 

It has been a nightmare. Here's what I think after seeing this debacle up close and personal.

Fedora inherited a pretty good team from Jeff Bower, then he had a great recruiting class his first year. But his recruiting got progressively worse every year over the next three years, so that the 2011 team that went 12-2 and stunned Houston in the C-USA championship game was predominantly seniors, who were either from Bower's last recruiting class or Fedora's first, including a four-year starter at QB.

The rot started the day after the win over Houston. Fedora announced he was leaving for UNC and instead of getting the expected bid to the Liberty Bowl that had traditionally gone to the C-USA champion, Southern was sent off the Hawaii Bowl. The powers-that-be in Memphis invoked an obscure clause in the tie-in deal where they could opt out of the C-USA champ, then Fedora and the outgoing AD decided to parlay that into a free trip to the islands. That didn't sit well with fans or players, and the feeling grew that even when you win at Southern Miss, you're still not going to get any respect.

Then they made a spectacularly bad hire of Ellis Johnson as Fedora's replacement. Instead of a young, go-go up-and-comer running a modern up-tempo offense, they had a tired, old defense-first guy who put in a conservative offense with not one single QB who had played a down of varsity ball. Johnson hired Tommy West as his DC, then ended up with a high school coach as OC, who promptly put in his former player, a true freshman, as the starter. They also hired a strength and conditioning coach on the recommendation of Brett Favre who was awful -- USM was the weakest team, strength-wise, I've ever seen last year. Stuff started snowballing, and the result was 0-12.

They've now got the guy in as coach they should have hired a year ago, but he's saddled with one of the worst offensive lines I've ever seen play D-1 football, and a generally un-talented group of players. And it might not get much better. Southern Miss used to make a living recruiting in South Louisiana, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, getting good kids that were overlooked or passed over by Bama, LSU, FSU, etc. In fact, for a long time, they had so many players from the Mobile area that the Press-Register had a Southern Miss beat writer. Now, those players are going to South Alabama, Troy, ULL, Monroe, UCF, and USM is a non-factor in Mobile, plus they aren't getting much out of the New Orleans area any more.

Add in a semi-delusional fan base that desperately wants to get out of Conference USA and can't understand why the AD can't just wave a magic wand and make that happen. And it is frustrating to see teams that Southern used to be on equal footing with -- and used to beat with some regularity -- Virginia Tech, Louisville, Cincinnati (to name three), have all bettered themselves and become rich and famous. So instead of sitting at the adult table, they're still in the playpen with the likes of FIU, Middle Tennessee, Western Kentucky. Thus fan apathy has set in, and it has become a vicious circle.

I know that's probably more information about a team that is 0 for its last 16 than most of you might want, but it's almost fascinating in a very morbid way to see a respectable football program collapse so completely.

 

Oregon (-38) at Colorado. (That seems low.)

Anyone gonna bite on Georgia State (+56) at Alabama?