Let’s get right to the chase here.
Incoming Hurricanes 2, UCF’s New Year’s Six Hopes 0
That’s a little bit exaggerated but last year UCF went undefeated and caught a lot of flak for their strength of schedule. Part of that was due to inclement weather shutting down their game against Georgia Tech.
I’m not saying that North Carolina would have been the most quality win on UCF’s schedule (they did just get smoked by ECU), but losing out on that game doesn’t really help anything.
I guess the silver lining is that they now get an extra week of rest prior to facing off at home against FAU, but any time you lose out on a Power 5 opponent, whether it’s a chance for a win or a quality loss, it’s frustrating.
UConn is an absolute mess
But wait, you say, didn’t they just win?
I don’t know, do you consider beating an FCS team 56-49 at home to be a real victory?
The Huskies have played three games and have surrendered 2,020 yards and 163 points. Last season ECU was a mess because of their defense and UConn was a mess because of their offense.
In David Pindell it looks like the Huskies have finally found themselves a quarterback who is exciting and who can make things happen on offense… and have backslid so severely on defense that it won’t matter.
At the rate they’re going, they’ll be lucky to beat UMass at home and that’s probably about it. Does Edsall survive this mess?
Temple isn’t dead yet
The Owls held The Vaunted Maryland Terrapins (TM) to only 195 yards, 117 of which came in the last five minutes of a game Maryland was never really in. Ryquell Armstead cracked off 118 yards on the ground, and Temple cruised to a road win against a Big Ten opponent.
I’m not sure this changes the trajectory of Temple’s season, but it definitely alleviates a lot of the pitchfork sharpening that began last week.
We still have no idea who the best team in the conference is
- Memphis has obliterated an FCS team and Georgia State, but lost to Navy
- Navy beat Memphis and an FCS team, but looked bad against Hawai’i
- South Florida is undefeated, but had long quiet stretches against Illinois
- UCF got an unexpected bye week but didn’t look amazing against South Carolina State
- Houston dominated an FCS team but took a while to get going against Rice and couldn’t stop Texas Tech
- Cincinnati is undefeated but appears to not have really beaten anyone yet
We’ll obviously start answering these questions as the weeks go on, but next week won’t be that week outside of UCF/FAU and maybe Cincinnati hosting Ohio.
