By Flint Wheeler
The weekend that was on the NCAA gridirons, and a sorting through of some of the key issues to find opportunities on the games to come.
It’s late November now
One of the reasons why college football can bring such major edges is that a season is actually several different acts played out across the stage, each bringing their own unique elements of both comedy and drama. Now it is time for one of the major ones, that closing stretch in which the weather gets colder, the wind begins blowing a bit more, tired bodies wear down, and the playing of the game moves closer to the middle of the field, the ability to run and defend the run taking on larger roles. It is not just tactics now, but also a matter of wills, and knowing which teams still have something left is of tantamount importance as the power ratings get adjusted.
Fatigue has been written about often here this season, with some difficult schedules having major impacts on the way certain teams have crumbled. How can a 7.5-point home favorite lose a game 42-14? They can if it happens to be a Hawaii team playing for the 11th straight week without a bye, and having had six separate trips to the mainland built in to that (yet shockingly the betting markets were all over the Warriors in that game). Which also leads to the counter of just how much does one upgrade Fresno State, which exceeded the market expectations by five touchdowns, but did it against such a worn down opponent.
So as the final three Saturdays approach, this week already being the last for a few teams, measuring what’s left in the tank is essential, first appreciating the toll that a season takes, then also how the bleakness of November across much of the landscape itself can exacerbate that. I cannot imagine a better way to set the mood for this than “November” by Tom Waits, part of the under-appreciated stage musical “The Black Rider”, which he co-wrote with William S. Burroughs, with Robert Wilson as director.
As days get shorter, colder and grayer, you can imagine the toll it takes on a battered team that has not been having a very good season.
But there is also a flip side, which can matter across this board – there are several teams that are coming off of byes, and have a chance to be physically invigorated a bit, if the will is still there: Ball State, Boston College, Connecticut, East Carolina, Louisiana Tech, Mississippi, Penn State, UCF (though in this instance down time might hurt more than help), Western Kentucky and Wisconsin. A good team off of a bye can bring an added step, and you can sort through Southern Mississippi’s domination of Rice as a textbook example of that.
Florida State showed some pedigree (beating the spread by 9.5 when you are -4 in turnovers is huge)
Another team in the ACC also deserves some plaudits from Saturday, under the circumstances of both the setting, and the early game flow. Having lost out on any chance to win the conference at Clemson the previous Saturday, the game marked the first time that many players on the Florida State roster were out of the National Championship hunt. It was a common discussion across the Sports Mediaverse, in particular the betting community, and you can read a sampling of that from Corey Clark of the Tallahassee Democrat here – “It’s been four years since FSU was in a game like this.” It would make logical sense that a letdown would be in order, but only by judging the cover of the book, without reading it. Many in the betting markets did that, with the Seminoles available for as low as -7 on game-day, after -9.5 had been common earlier in the week. And when the game started a series of turnovers dug an early 17-7 deficit, and those projecting the Seminoles to be flat would have certainly felt confident. If the team truly was down, it could have easily been time to quit.
