Let's Go Bucks!

My Oh My...

A slew of surprises on opening day, lets get started.

Utah was able to hold on and beat Michigan 25-23 in the Big House. Watching the Wolverines run the spread was surreal to say the least. Utah definitely shot themselves in the foot with 15 penalties for 137 yards, without these penalties this game might not have been close. And honestly 90% of analysts correctly picked the Utes to "upset" Rodriguez led Michigan in their home opener.
On offense Michigan struggled to run the ball only gaining 36 yards of 25 attempts, while they utilized both QB's, Threet and Sheridan. Sheridan didn't look bad he just didn't look good and turned the ball over. Threet was similar and missed wide open receivers. I think it's easy to blame the QB's, both of whom never had taken a collegiate snap until yesterday.
On defense they were less than impressive in the first half giving up nearly 300 yards but were able to shut down the Utah attack after halftime. Some say that the Utes "went conservative" but I can't agree. Utah was only up 24-10 at the half, I don't know anyone who coaches a spread offense team that would start playing conservative with only a 2TD lead, on the road.

Michigan State gave up a late 80 yard rush to allow Cal to seal the deal against the Spartans. Unfortunately I was unable to view this game, my local ABC showed Bama vs. Clemson. I know from reading the line score that MSU gave up too many points to keep up. From the beginning they were playing catch up and Dantonio had to let Hoyer throw the ball far too much (20/48 for 321 yds). For a team I had zero expectations from I found it impressive that Cal put up so many points against the MSU defense.

Illinois special teams gave up two returns for TDs to allow Missouri to pull away with a win. One thing is for certain, Juice Williams is an even better passer than what the Buckeyes saw scortch them for 4 scores last season (26/42 for 451 yds, 5 tds, 2 ints). Already that is a vast improvement on his past two seasons where he has typically thrown a pick for every touchdown, but hey, the season is young. RB Dufrene is good (avg. 5.8yds per carry), but the Mizzou defense seemed willing to shutdown the run and force Juice to pass on them. And yeah, the Illini receivers are good 3 different guys at or near 100 yards (Judson, Duvalt, and Benn). The defense was more questionable than expected, but a lot of it was due to poor tackling. I can't begin to count how many attempted arm tackles I witnessed during last nights game, wow.