1. Russell Wilson QB (Wisconsin)
Weekly stats: 10-13, 255 yards, 2 TD/0 INT/0 sacks; 62 yards rushing, 1 TD
This kid is what they call a “gamer.” Watched him play for two years at NC State where he took a mediocre team and bland coaching and made it competitive every week. Definitely not what people are used to seeing at Camp Randall, but it appears the Badger coaching staff will embrace his style and give him the green light. The Colorado Rockies’ minor league prospect now has the luxury of playing behind an offensive line that is bigger than most NFL teams. Yikes. Wisconsin will win the Big 10 and have to be considered for the national championship with Wilson.
2. Robert Griffin III QB (Baylor)
Weekly stats: 21-27, 359 yards, 5 TD/0 INT
Is Baylor the best team in Texas? We’ll find out on October 15 when the Bears travel to Texas A&M. They have a do-it-all quarterback that will make defensive gameplans crumble.
3a. Robert Woods WR (USC), 3b. Kendall Wright WR (Baylor)
Weekly stats: Woods 17 receptions, 177 yards, 3 TD; Wright 12 receptions, 189 yards, 2 TD
Good thing USC had Woods and Matt Barkley against Minnesota. They were the only Trojans to offensively participate and find the end zone in a close 19-17 win. Kendall Wright is only 5’10”?! I have to watch Baylor play more.
4. Landry Jones QB (Oklahoma)
Weekly stats: 35-47, 375 yards, 1 TD/0 INT/0 sacks
That’s pretty efficient. Jones may have a hard time staying in the top 5 because the rest of his team is so good. The Sooner backfield ran for 5 TDs in the easy win against Tulsa.
5. Kellen Moore QB (Boise State)
Weekly stats: 28-34, 261 yards, 3 TD/1 INT
Boise State does it again by beating up on a good team from a BCS conference by defeating Georgia 35-21. Boise won’t be challenged again until November 12 when #14 TCU visits the “Smurf Turf.”
6. Andrew Luck QB (Stanford)
Weekly stats: 17-26, 171 yards, 2 TD/0 INT
Stanford opened the post-Jim Harbaugh era by blasting San Jose State 57-3. The Cardinal spread the ball around offensively. Luck hopes to personify his name and produce a season like last year’s when he was projected to be the first pick of the NFL draft. Kudos for staying in school.
7. Matt Barkley QB (USC)
Weekly stats: 35-45, 304 yards, 3 TD/0 INT
Won’t Matt Barkley end up exactly like Jimmy Clausen? An overhyped college quarterback who has enough good games to ignore his bad games, gets drafted by a bad team who needs a quarterback for that season, then finds himself with a clipboard when an even better quarterback becomes available the following season?
8. Les Miles (LSU)
Weekly stats: Diverting media, damage control, beat #3 Oregon
Love him or hate him, the guy has stayed put in Baton Rouge despite many courtships and just keeps winning and churning out NFL-caliber players. How prepared did LSU look for Oregon’s offense? When a team spreads the field and makes it wider like the Ducks do, players have to be really disciplined not to swarm the ball too early. Force, cutback and contain. The Tigers looked like a picket fence out there and once one had the ball wrapped up, they converged like a pack of rabid wolves. Hats off to Les Miles who seems like he’d be fun to play for.
9. SEC football
Weekly stats: Defenses continue to stifle everybody else’s offense
How can anyone question the SEC being the best conference in the country? And please do not mention Kentucky or Vanderbilt. The SEC’s best teams beat everyone else’s best teams every year, don’t they?
10. Bernard Pierce RB (Temple)
Weekly stats: 147 yards, 7.4 average, 3 TD
Temple defeated Villanova for the Mayor’s Cup in front of a near record crowd for a Temple football game at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. This is probably a slight homer-call.
53. LaMichael James RB (Oregon)
Weekly stats: 54 yards rushing, 1 TD; 6 receptions, 61 yards
Not a great start, but there’s hope for an Oregon offense that put up unreal numbers all last season. Surely he’ll have some ridiculous 500 yard all-purpose game soon, probably against Missouri State in two weeks.
402. LaMichael James against an SEC defense (Oregon)
Weekly stats: Not great
His last two games can’t be good for an NFL application. Or maybe he could be like a Chris Johnson. Both have a knack for finding the smallest of holes to cut into as long as their team blocks well. LSU’s defense just seemed to shorten the field and penetrate the backfield too well for James to have a chance. It’s funny how a college system can make a player perform so well and simultaneously hinder his translation to the professional level of that sport.
630. Notre Dame receivers when a Dayne Crist pass is coming
Weekly stats: A few dropped passes
There were three or four passes that Crist threw that weren’t great, but still hit the hands of Irish receivers. And I think a couple of them were during a crucial third down situation. Have to adjust and make a play on a couple of those. Hey – Even Robert Griffin III, Baylor’s quarterback, made a big reception in the fourth quarter while trailing TCU.
705. Dayne Crist QB (Notre Dame)
Weekly stats: 7-15, 95 yards, 0 TD/1 INT
What is more troublesome for Notre Dame fans: The fact that Crist played so poorly or the that Brian Kelly evaluated both him and Rees in the Spring and concluded that Crist was the better player? Crist played horrible yesterday, right? A terrible interception in the Red zone on an underthrown ball, mutliple bad throws on basic routes, no gamesmanship displayed whatsoever. He was the complete opposite of Russell Wilson. On the other hand, Rees steps in and just looks comfortable in the pocket and makes timely, hard throws.
819. Contract extension negotiations between Brian Kelly and Notre Dame
Weekly stats: Lost to Skip Holtz’s South Florida team
Considering that Skip Holtz was available (I have no idea what the circumstances were in regards to this by the way, if Holtz was contacted or if he showed no interest) this has to sting more than it would have. Holtz is one of the best coaches in the country. He will have SFU atop the Big East in another couple of years.
899. Mark Richt (Georgia)
Weekly stats: Lost to Boise State in the Georgia Dome
What does Richt know about the University of Georgia’s president that is keeping him or her from firing Richt? Georgia is supposed to be good at football, right?
997. Al Golden’s optimism (Miami)
Weekly stats: Miami plays at Maryland Monday night
Depending on how the Hurricanes open the season, this ranking may be a bit too high.
I’m still not sure how Moore threaded that pass through three Georgia defenders to Shoemaker.
Golden can be optimistic that his team is still getting national TV coverage.
I would switch Pierce and Barkley.
Considering Pierce actually plays for a bowl eligible team I’m all for it.
Moore will play on Sundays and he’ll eventually be a starter. It just depends on which NFL team has the courage and foresight to give “the small slow guy” an opportunity. Very impressive effort against a Georgia team that supposedly was gonna run him down and make his life miserable.
He definitely has the poise. His interception was a bad throw into zone coverage (it looked like to me), and he walked off the field and sat down like nothing happened. Minutes later he threw for one when Boise got the ball back and continued to throw lasers the rest of the game.
Which QB does/will Moore compare most to in the NFL?
Kellen Moore reminds me of Ken Stabler … but without all the drinking and carousing. Rey … are you “experienced enough” to know about Stabler?
Or in today’s game … I see a lot of Philip Rivers in Moore. Just as much talent as Matt Leinart, but I’m sure he’s got a ton more going on upstairs. Moore sees the whole field and knows exactly where everyone is supposed to be; he’s already student of the game with a great attitude.
Haha. No, I’m not, so thank you for the Philip Rivers comparison. Rivers is a big dude though. Maybe he’ll be a bit like Montana 🙂
True … Rivers is probably 6’4″ or so, but he doesn’t have a gun by any means and he’s gonna lose a lot of footraces. But he makes the right throws and is very accurate, despite not having all those “desired QB attributes”.
Whoever drafts or signs Moore can only hope he’ll be reminding folks of Joe Cool. I don’t know if Moore is gonna be a HoFer, but I think he’ll eventually be a top 1/2 of the league starter for 6+ years.
Wally – Hope you and the fam are safely away from the fires in Texas right now. Saw this on CNN and thought about you. My geography of Texas is not very good so I don’t know if Houston is East Texas or not. Or if you’re near Austin.
Rey —
Thanks for the thoughts. There were actually some pretty severe fires yesterday in Magnolia, TX which is northwest of Houston and almost due north of where we live (Cypress). Based on the news reports and where we saw the huge smoke plume yesterday, it seemed like the Magnolia fires were maybe 7-8 miles north of us.
The situation in Basdrop is reportedly very severe … that location is about midway between Houston and Austin. Austin is about 2 1/2 hours northwest of Houston.