Mike
STOCK DOWN: Internet connectivity inside Williams-Brice Stadium. Apologies to those of you expecting posts and tweets from the game. I had it all planned out, honest. Plenty of plans, but no bars. My sightline wasn’t quite as good as Adam’s, anyway.
STOCK UP: Most other things about the place. South Carolina puts on a good show. The southern phenomenon of girls dressing up to go to football games is one of the very few things that make me question my own choice in colleges.
STOCK UP: Army. I didn’t think they could beat Northwestern. I was wrong. This wasn’t a fluke, either. Army dominated possession, 40:19-19:41, while rushing for 381 yards. This is the biggest win of Rich Ellerson’s short tenure, and the biggest win of any service academy so far this year. An 0-3 start would have been tough to recover from. At 1-2, with a win over a pretty good Big Ten team under their belt, the rest of the season looks a lot better.
STOCK DOWN: WKU. Dude.
STOCK UP: Georgia Tech. Dude.
(If you had to guess how Kansas lined up on defense, what would you think? Here’s a hint).
STOCK UP: Notre Dame. You didn’t think they were going to turn the ball over in every game the way they did in their first two, did you?
STOCK MARKET CRASH: The Big East. The conference might be able to survive in name if it can pick up what remains of the Big 12, but it won’t survive in spirit without Pitt and Syracuse. The days of the Eastern Independent were already long gone, but the Big East preserved our legacy as best it could. Now, as the game continues to evolve, what were once inter-sectional matchups are becoming conference games. The tradition of Eastern college football is officially dead.
STOCK DOWN: Thinking this means that the ACC is now immune from being pillaged by the Big Ten or SEC. It doesn’t.
STOCK UP: FIU. With all the big games in Florida over the weekend, Florida International’s 17-10 win over defending Conference-USA champion UCF should not be overlooked. The Panthers are 3-0 and have a real shot at going undefeated, with a home game against Duke probably being the toughest test they have left. Bonus points for beating George O’Leary, because I hate George O’Leary.
Adam
STOCK UP: Duke’s future bowl hopes. Well, the ACC is at it again. You can talk all you want about how great a basketball conference it’s going to be, but when you look at the football side of things, there’s just no getting around how the most underachieving AQ conference just added two shining examples of underachieving football programs in Pittsburgh and Syracuse. Heck, they’re only the addition of Connecticut and Rutgers away from giving Duke all the conference wins it needs for bowl eligibility.
STOCK DOWN: Karl Benson’s Master Plan. I’ve yet to find an administrator in college athletics who seems as genuine and as good of a guy as Karl, but even I’m starting to lose faith in his plan for the WAC. We keep hearing that the conference is going to target schools with football in their futures, but with the latest additions of Dallas Baptist and Cal State-Bakersfield being made for baseball, is it time to concede that the WAC’s football programs are doomed to sink below Sun Belt status? What’s next? Targeting competitive golf programs?
STOCK UP: Zaxby’s. I found many things overrated on my trip to cover Navy play South Carolina. The football IQ of SEC beat writers left a lot to be desired, as did the apparent scrambling ability of Stephen Garcia. But one thing which was not overrated is the southeast-based fast casual concept. Get you some chicken fingerz and crinkle fries, son.
STOCK DOWN: Western Kentucky. Really, losing to Indiana State? And getting blown out too? Sometimes, I think an actual Sycamore tree might put up more of a fight than the perennial FCS bottom feeder.
STOCK UP: The other McCoy boy. Just in case you didn’t get the memo, they apparently cloned Colt and named the slightly younger version of him Case. Not only did he hit two touchdown passes in Texas’ win at UCLA, he also managed to NOT screw up, something his predecessor, Garret Gilbert, tended to struggle with. With the Red River Rivalry looming in a few weeks and an undefeated Iowa State team on the docket for Saturday, he’s got his work cut out for him.
STOCK DOWN: Luke Kuechly’s long-term health. 25 straight games with double-digit tackles. That cannot be healthy.
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