Take the Ags, the Buckeyes, the Ducks and the Razorbacks
Did Idaho State really win 90-0 last weekend?
Let me tell you a little bit about the Idaho State football team.
The Bengals play indoors in beautiful Holt Arena in the charming southern Idaho town of Pocatello, known affectionately by the locals as “Pokey.”
The head coach of the Idaho State Bengals is none other than Cody Hawkins, who happened to be the offensive coordinator at UC Davis until taking the head job in Pocatello two seasons ago. His dad is Aggie alum and former UC Davis head football coach, Dan Hawkins.
Like they say, there’s always a local angle.
The Bengals had three tough losses to open the season, falling to UNLV, 38-31, Southern Utah, 46-24, and New Mexico, 32-22. That’s the same New Mexico team that crushed Big Ten member UCLA, 35-10.
Idaho State finally got on the winning side of things last weekend when they beat the Lincoln Oaklanders (yes, of nearby Oakland), 90-0.
Indeed, 90-0.
Was Idaho State running up the score to make up for that 0-3 record before an enthusiastic crowd of 6,203 Bengal Believers?
Hardly.
They led, 69-0, at halftime and could easily have broken the scoreboard, but did everything they could to keep things under 100 in the second half.
Which brings me to an important point.
You know how broadcasters on the major football networks are always blathering about how important “time of possession” is?
Well, in this game, Lincoln had the ball for 36:13 to just 23:47 for Idaho State.
That’s similar to the time of possession deficit of 36:59 to 23:01 that UC Davis “suffered” last Saturday against Southern Utah, even though the Aggies routed the Thunderbirds, 50-34.
Bottom line - can we please never again mention time of possession as an important statistic in the game of college football?
This week’s picks in an unusually difficult weekend for football forecasting, are as follows:
CAL over BOSTON COLLEGE ... The Bears rolled merrily into San Diego State with a 3-0 record as the Cinderella of college football and scored exactly zero points against the Aztecs. Was that just a blip on the radar or a sign of things to come? We’ll find out against a BC team that actually managed to lose to Stanford a couple of weeks ago. Enough said.
OREGON OVER PENN STATE ... The Nittany Lions have a long history of losing big games. The Ducks will do their best to see that streak continue.
OHIO STATE over WASHINGTON ... Three weeks ago the hometown Huskies put up 70 points on UC Davis. They should have saved some of that firepower for the big, bad Buckeyes.