Pick of the Week

Washington State at Rutgers (-2) – 3:30 on ESPNU

The Rutgers Scarlet Knights have had a rough couple of weeks. First, Head Coach Kyle Flood was involved in a procedural academic issue. After the buzz surrounding that died down a bit, news broke that five football players were arrested for their involvement in a criminal case involving robbery, armed burglary and aggravated assault. The first half against the Spartans of Norfolk State was played without star wideout Leonte Carroo and Rutgers sputtered to a 21-13 halftime lead. However, things took off when Carroo entered the game in the second half and scored three third quarter touchdowns. Rutgers racked up 539 yards and pulled away for a dominating 63-13 victory.

Meanwhile, the Washington State Cougars were stunned in their opener by an FCS squad that went 3-9 in 2014 and was given as minimal a chance as nearly any other team in the country. Portland State scored 17 unanswered points in the second half and knocked off the Cougars in Pullman, 24-17. Portland State only threw the ball for 61 yards and used a physical running game plus two Washington State turnovers to pull off the shocking upset and spoil the beginning of the 2015 season for Mike Leach’s Cougars squad.

These two teams played an exciting game in Pullman to kick off the 2014 season with Rutgers pulling out a narrow 31-28 victory. This season’s game is at Rutgers and the Scarlet Knights are my “pick of the week” at -2. It’s difficult (but extremely important) to avoid overreacting to one week of football. That being said, I had this as a win for Rutgers before the season and what I saw in week one strengthened my stance.

Rutgers isn’t certain who will be playing quarterback after both Hayden Rettig and Chris Laviano had strong performances. I happen to think Laviano gets the nod but that eventual decision doesn’t impact my opinion on this game. I believe Rutgers is better than the Cougars on both lines of scrimmage and I think Washington State is going to have a much tougher time replacing last season’s passing leader, Connor Halliday. New quarterback Luke Falk will put up massive numbers because Mike Leach’s offensive system but I don’t think all those yards end up being particularly meaningful.

For example, last season’s WSU attack ranked 89^th in points per yard. That roughly means they racked up a lot of yards but didn’t translate those yards into as many points as they should have. I’m not particularly impressed by Washington State’s receivers after losing Vince Mayle (2014’s top WR) and the defense remains incredibly questionable.

Meanwhile, Rutgers will have the best player on the field in Leonte Carroo, home field advantage and better offensive and defensive lines. If Washington State struggled with the physicality of a bad Big Sky program, how are they going to handle a B1G opponent? I think Washington State will give a much better effort this Saturday than they did in their opener but I’m taking Rutgers -2 and feeling confident they’ll win by a touchdown or more.

Upset Alert

Bowling Green (+7.5) at Maryland – Noon on BTN

There are two favorites that I think could be in some trouble on Saturday. The Indiana Hoosiers are 7-point favorites against Florida International after squeaking by Southern Illinois on Saturday and the Maryland Terrapins are 7.5 point favorites against the explosive Bowling Green Falcons. I chose to put Maryland on upset alert because IU welcomes back a handful of impact defensive players from suspension that could make a difference (but you’ve been warned Hoosiers!).

The Maryland Terrapins dispatched of Richmond in Week 1 but questions about the passing game linger after Perry Hills threw for only 138 yards and no receiver had more than 37 yards. The Terrapins got a B1G record 233 punt return yards from William Likely to help spark their victory, a feat not likely to be repeated against an FBS opponent. While I do have concerns about the Falcons rush defense (Tennessee had 399 rushing yards), I was impressed by the Bowling Green offense and the ability of quarterback Matt Johnson. Johnson threw for 424 yards and two scores as Bowling Green put up 557 yards of offense in Knoxville. I expect Maryland to eventually win a very close game but I think there’s good value on the underdog Falcons and seeing them win on Saturday wouldn’t be a shock.

Trending Up/Trending Down

As I wrote earlier, it’s unwise to jump to conclusions after only one week of college football and trends aren’t really going to develop until we have a larger sample of data to look at. However, here are a couple of things worth looking at in Week 2. 

Trending Up – Iowa’s Offense – It seems odd for me to put the normally plodding Hawkeyes into this space as something I’m optimistic about but after watching Saturday’s impressive performance against Illinois State, I can’t help myself. The Hawkeyes had 431 yards (which could have easily been more if they didn’t sleepwalk through the final quarter) of offense, CJ Beathard was efficient and averaged 8.8 yards per attempt, LeShun Daniels looked very good churning out 123 yards and Jordan Canzeri had 90 yards receiving out of the backfield. The Hawkeyes were operating at more of an uptempo pace and threw in some no-huddle series that worked well against the Illinois State defense. This was just one game against an FCS team (Illinois State finished as the runners-up in FCS in 2014) but there appears to be reason for a bit of excitement in Iowa City.

Trending Down – Penn State – Yikes. I didn’t expect the offensive line to suddenly turn into a strength but that was ridiculous. The Nittany Lions surrendered 10 sacks to the Temple Owls and were thoroughly outplayed by their in-state rivals. Freshman Brandon Polk was impressive on a couple of wide receiver sweeps but beyond that, the offense devolved into a very conservative and dysfunctional mess. Offensive coordinator John Donovan had come under a lot of fire since the opening game for failing to make adjustments and it will be interesting to watch if any changes are apparent in the upcoming weeks. The defense, which was playing extremely well during the first half, suffered a blow when star linebacker Nyeem Wartman-White was lost for the season with an injury. I still love Penn State’s defense and the schedule is still favorable but things don’t look great in State College at the moment.