Unfortunately I only have time to give you all the bare minimum this week and that is the scores.

Central Michigan at Indiana - Big Ten Network 12pm - Central Michigan 38-30

Wisconsin at Michigan State - ESPN 12pm - Michigan State 28-17

Northwestern at Minnesota - ESPN2 12pm - Minnesota 24-14

Michigan at Purdue - Big Ten Network 12pm - Loser cannot make a bowl game…OUCH! Purdue 17-16

Iowa at Illinois - ABC 3:30pm - Iowa 21-14

Last Week: 3-2 (.600)
Overall: 52-14 (.788)


Thursday, October 30th
South Florida at Cincinnati 7:45 pm ESPN



Friday, October 31st
Wofford at Appalachian State 8 pm ESPN2



Saturday, November 1st
Wisconsin at Michigan State 12 pm ESPN
Northwestern at Minnesota 12 pm ESPN2
Michigan at Purdue 12 pm Big 10 Network
Brown at Penn 12 pm Versus
Air Force at Army 12 pm ESPNU
Kansas State at Kansas 12 pm Fox Sport Net
San Diego State at Wyoming 2 pm Mountain West Sports
Pittsburgh at Notre Dame 2:30 pm NBC
Oregon at California 3:30 pm ABC
Florida State at Georgia Tech 3:30 pm ABC
Iowa at Illinois 3:30 pm ABC
Iowa State at Oklahoma State 3:30 pm ABC
Florida vs. Georgia 3:30 pm CBS
Clemson at Boston College 3:30 pm ESPNU
Temple at Navy 3:30 pm CBS-CSN
Washington at USC 6 pm Fox Sport Net
BYU at Colorado State 6 pm Mountain West Sports
Tennessee at South Carolina 7 pm ESPN2
Louisville at Syracuse 7 pm ESPNU
Nebraska at Oklahoma 8 pm ESPN
Texas at Texas Tech 8 pm ABC
TCU at UNLV 8 pm CBS-CSN
Utah at New Mexico 9:30 pm Mountain West Sports
Arizona State at Oregon State 10:15 pm Fox Sport Net



Sunday, November 2nd
East Carolina at Central Florida 8 pm ESPN


I just want to extend some apologies to all the readers of In The Bleachers. Most bloggers write because they love the sport and have free time to do so. But sometimes real life gets in the way. The past month has been extremely busy in the real life front and In The Bleachers has suffered, and for that I apologize. It will all be over on Friday. So starting next week, there will be more writing and even more exciting podcasts.

I thank you for your continued support of ITB.


1. James Madison Dukes (98) 7-1 2,594
2. Appalachian State Mountaineers (3) 6-2 2,457
3. Wofford Terriers (2) 6-1 2,324
4. Cal Poly Mustangs (1) 5-1 2,210
5. Northern Iowa Panthers 6-2 2,033
6. Montana Grizzlies 7-1 1,959
7. Villanova Wildcats 5-2 1,823
8. Richmond Spiders 6-3 1,778
9. New Hampshire Wildcats 6-1 1,687
10. Elon Phoenix 7-2 1,581
11. Central Arkansas Bears 7-1 1,514
12. Western Illinois Leathernecks 5-2 1,473
13. Weber State Wildcats 7-2 1,461
14. Southern Illinois Salukis 5-2 1,391
15. Massachusetts Minutemen 5-3 976
16. William & Mary Tribe 5-2 792
17. Liberty Flames 7-1 763
18. Furman Paladins 6-3 722
19. Northern Arizona Lumberjacks 6-2 715
20. McNeese State Cowboys 4-3 665
21. Lafayette Leopards 6-1 585
22. South Carolina State Bulldogs 6-2 489
23. Harvard Crimson 5-1 395
24. Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks 7-2 270
25. Tennessee State Tigers 6-2 156


10/28/08

Others receiving votes: Texas State 127, South Dakota State 95, Maine 70, Jacksonville State 67, North Dakota State 66, Prairie View 63, Georgia Southern 60, Hampton 54, Florida A&M 47, Colgate 44, Northwestern State 33, Eastern Washington 32, Grambling 27, Penn 26, Albany 25, UC Davis 25, Eastern Kentucky 24, San Diego 14, Holy Cross 11, Sacred Heart 10, Monmouth 4, North Dakota 4, Morgan State 3, Dayton 2.


Many are calling this week’s game between Penn State and Ohio State, the Big Ten Championship game. Due to the fact that my real life has me swamped…the analysis will be short and sweet this week, with scores of course.

Northwestern at Indiana - Big Ten Network 12pm - The Wildcats are better on both sides of the ball. The Hoosiers will be lucky to win a Big Ten game this year. Their best bet might be against Purdue. Northwestern 35-10

Illinois at Wisconsin - ESPN 12pm - The Badgers are looking to avoid their third straight home loss while the Illini are coming off a blow out of Indiana. The Badgers are very one dimensional and that will play into Zook’s hands. The Juice will be loose in Madison. Illinois 30-21

Minnesota at Purdue - ESPN Classic 12pm - Once a juggernaut, Purdue is really struggling this year, but their defense is much better than expected. Their defense will keep them in the game, but Minnesota is good for a reason. Good offensive balance led by Adam Weber and Eric Decker. Gophers win a close one. Minnesota 22-17

Michigan State at Michigan - ABC 3:30pm - The Wolverines can’t put two halves together. They had good halves against Penn State, Illinois, and Wisconsin, but only won one of those games. The Spartans have to bounce back after losing bad to Ohio State. Ringer will have a field day with the Wolverines lack of run defense and will carry his team to victory. Michigan State 34-17

Penn State at Ohio State - ABC 8:00pm - Adam and I broke down this game in the podcast this week. Both of us think this will be a good, tough fought game. Penn State has better balance on offense and I think they will force Pryor to throw the ball when defending him. Pryor will be great, but he isn’t there yet. The Nittany Lions post their first win at Columbus since the 70s. Penn State 28-24

Last Week: 4-1 (.800)
Overall: 49-12 (.803)

The first BCS Standings came out this week and on this week’s episode of In The Bleachers, Brian and Adam pick out a few teams that are pretenders and some other that are serious contenders in the Top 10.

Also they pick the 10 game of the week. This week they are Auburn at West Virginia, Boston College at North Carolina, Cincinnati at Connecticut, Georgia at LSU, Kentucky at Florida, USC at Arizona, Texas Tech at Kansas, Virginia Tech at Florida State, Oklahoma State at Texas, and Penn State at Ohio State.

To listen to the episode you can download it here, or subscribe as laid out below.

Remember, if you want the podcast you must subscribe to the Feedbuner but if you want to subscribe to the blog please use the RSS feed. This is for iTunes to be able to archive the shows. You can also search for “In The Bleachers” on iTunes and subscribe to the podcast that way.

Enjoy this week’s episode of In The Bleachers and if you have any questions or comments to the show please email them to inthebleachers AT gmail DOT com.

Take a snap shot at the National Polls and even some of the conference standings, and you will see some teams that have a good record, but for one reason or another are flying under the national radar. We are through 9 weeks of the college football season, so it is about time some of these teams get recognized.

Looking at the ACC Coastal Division, the Boston College Eagles are in a 4 way tie for the lead with Wake Forest, Maryland, and Florida State. The Eagles are looking to go back to the ACC Title game in consecutive years, but this year they don’t have that marquee name like they did last season with Matt Ryan. Boston College has a good defense and their coach Jeff Jagodzinski likes his chances the rest of the way.

Don’t let her fly under your radar

When you talk about offense the first team that SHOULD come to your mind is the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes. After 7 games, Tulsa has scored below 40 points once and has had games where they scored 62, 63, and 77 points. The 77 points came against UTEP and their coach Mike Price says “Their offense is one of the best offenses I’ve ever played against. They just do things right and make it look easy.”

Another Non-BCS school who is 7-0 is the Ball State Cardinals, and looking ahead at their schedule, they can legitimately run the table the rest of the way through. Will they get a BCS Bowl game? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good. The Church of Cowherd says that the downfall of Ball State will be their weak defense and will lose when facing a good rushing offense.

Two teams in the Big Ten which are near the top of the standings and still aren’t out of the Big Ten Title race are Northwestern and Minnesota. Minnesota won 1 game last season while Northwestern won 6 but didn’t go bowling. Both teams are 6-1 after 7 games and have a 99.9% chance of both going to a bowl game this year. Bad news from the Wildcats as they have lost senior LB, Malcolm Arrington for the season. On the other foot, the Minnesota Gopher fans are trying to deal with the ever changing expectations of their team.

Moving from teams flying under the radar, to players flying under…the size bar. Bruce Feldman writes in his blog about the 10 Best Little Men. Number 1 on this list is none other than Kansas’ Todd Reesing.


1. James Madison Dukes (102) 6-1 2,669
2. Appalachian State Mountaineers (3) 5-2 2,527
3. Elon Phoenix (1) 7-1 2,270
4. Wofford Terriers 5-1 2,210
5. Northern Iowa Panthers 5-2 2,033
6. Cal Poly Mustangs (1) 4-1 2,022
7. Villanova Wildcats 5-1 2,018
8. Montana Grizzlies 6-1 1,833
9. Richmond Spiders 5-3 1,746
10. New Hampshire Wildcats 5-1 1,540
11. McNeese State Cowboys 4-2 1,511
12. Western Illinois Leathernecks 5-2 1,311
13. Central Arkansas Bears 6-1 1,241
14. Southern Illinois Salukis 4-2 1,205
15. Northern Arizona Lumberjacks 6-1 1,136
16. Weber State Wildcats 6-2 1,043
17. Massachusetts Minutemen 4-3 991
18. Furman Paladins 6-2 912
19. Tennessee State Tigers 6-1 608
20. Liberty Flames 6-1 529
21. Jacksonville State Gamecocks 5-2 448
22. Hampton Pirates 5-1 392
23. William & Mary Tribe 4-2 357
24. Lafayette Leopards 5-1 244
25. Harvard Crimson 4-1 190


Others receiving votes: South Carolina State 119, North Dakota State 97, San Diego 83, Tennessee-Martin 75, South Dakota State 73, Eastern Washington 57, Georgia Southern 45, Colgate 42, Grambling 32, Florida A&M 30, Texas State 25, The Citadel 24, Maine 20, Sam Houston State 13, Eastern Illinois 12, Prairie View 12, UC Davis 10, Sacred Heart 8, Delaware 6, North Dakota 6, Albany 5, Eastern Kentucky 3, Butler 1, Central Connecticut State 1, Holy Cross 1, Penn 1.


10/21/08

I had the pleasure of interviewing Tim Layden, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated and co-author of The College Football Book. In The College Football Book, Sports Illustrated pulls articles from Tim and other authors such as Myron Cope and Rick Reilly history of college football.

The book goes the whole way back into the 1890’s and you can see how the game has matured. Each decade is capped off by an All Decade team, and the book picks an all time college football team. My favorite part of the entire book is the color illustrations that take up full pages.

To listen to the episode you can download it here, or subscribe as laid out below.

Remember, if you want the podcast you must subscribe to the Feedbuner but if you want to subscribe to the blog please use the RSS feed. This is for iTunes to be able to archive the shows. You can also search for “In The Bleachers” on iTunes and subscribe to the podcast that way.

Enjoy this week’s episode of In The Bleachers and if you have any questions or comments to the show please email them to inthebleachers AT gmail DOT com.

A quick looks at the Big Ten Standings show that there are 4 teams right now that are bowl eligible, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan State, and Minnesota. Northwestern is one win away, and Iowa is two wins away. With only 4 games remaining for most teams, a lot of these games become must wins if teams want to play in a bowl game…most notability Michigan who has 4 losses in 6 games.

Purdue at Northwestern - ESPN2 12pm - The Wildcats suffered their first loss of the season last week against Michigan State, which was not much of a surprise to me, but how will they bounce back from that loss is the big question. Purdue use to be the offensive juggernaut that each Big Ten team worried would put up 40 points on them, but not this year. The Boilermakers are averaging 21 points per game, but only 4.5 points per game in Big Ten games. Luckily for Purdue, Northwestern does not have the quality defense that the Buckeyes or Lions had, but they are still tough, but so is their defense who held Penn State to only 20 points and didn’t allow an offensive touchdown to Ohio State. This will be close game and also low scoring. It is odd for me to write this but I think Bacher and Sutton hold the edge over Painter and Sheets. Painter has been struggling this year and it has totally disrupted the Purdue offense. Northwestern in a close one. Northwestern 21-17

Wisconsin at Iowa - Big Ten Network 12pm - I saw a Wisconsin team last week (and the week prior) who has serious issues on offense, mainly the quarterback position. Allan Evridge completed half as many passes (1) to Penn State as he did to his own teammates (2). Defensively, teams are just going to load up in the to stop PJ Hill and John Clay, forcing the Badgers to consider to throw. The Hawkeyes are 1-2 in the conference but they did hold Michigan State to their lowest output of the year, as well as keep Javon Ringer under 100 yards. Offensively they are finding a little more production from Ricky Stanzi at quarterback. Running back Shonn Greene has been a bright spot for Iowa running for over 900 yards in 7 games with 6 touchdowns. We know Iowa can stop the run, and we know Wisconsin can’t throw. While Iowa does not have the horses up front that the Badgers do to run the ball, they are more balanced on offense and I think hold the edge over the Badgers’ defense. Iowa in a good old fashion Big Ten game that will feature a lot of 3 yards and a cloud of dust. Iowa 28-21

Ohio State at Michigan State - ABC 3:30pm - A statistic that totally blows my mind about the Buckeyes right now is that Brian Hartline and Brian Robiskie combined have just over 500 yards receiving. Another telling stat is since Pryor took over the quarterback the Buckeyes have the 10th-worst passing offense in the nation. Not very good if you are an Ohio State fan. I am about to put the jinx on the Spartans (see my Illinois comment last week), I think the Spartans could be the 2nd best team in the Big Ten. They run the ball on offense, make no bones about it, and take care of business each week. Defensively they are very underrated, just ask Notre Dame or Iowa. Ohio State has become an one-dimensional team and they do not run the ball well enough to rely primarily on it. Here is my upset special of the week, the Spartans get a good game from Brian Hoyer and control the clock with Ringer. Ohio State struggles again on offense and Jim Tressel wonders if he should insert Todd Boeckman to get him reps for the following week’s game against Penn State. Sparty wins! Michigan State 24-14

Michigan at Penn State - ESPN 4:30pm - In less than two months I will turn 30, why am I telling you that? To inform you that the last time Penn State beat Michigan in Beaver Stadium, I was a junior in High School. It was the infamous snow ball game. They also won the year after, but since then Michigan has won 9 straight over that 12 year period. Two of the most famous are the overtime game in Ann Arbor in 2002, and the last second Manningham catch for a victory in 2005. On paper this is a mismatch, the Wolverines are going through a transition to a new offense and have not clicked at all, while Penn State might have their best offense since their undefeated team in 1994. I’ll make this short and sweet, Penn State wins. They have too much for the Wolverines on both sides of the ball, but Michigan is a proud program and will not go down easy. I expect this game to be close for a half, until the Nittany Lions pile on in the second. Penn State 38-7

Indiana at Illinois - Big Ten Network 8:00pm - I gave the Illini the old jinx, saying that they were the second best team in the Big Ten. Their defense struggled once again and lost to Minnesota, who in hindsight is a good quality team. The Zookers won’t have to worry this week because Indiana is not good…at all. The Hoosiers are struggling on both sides of the ball and their entire success is on Kellen Lewis. He has no supporting cast to catch or run the ball so you can figure why the Hoosiers are not scoring. The Illini win this one easy. Illinois 42-20

Last Week: 4-2 (.667)
Overall: 45-11 (.803)