College Football Week 3

The third week of the college football season contains several games of national consequence. In the South East Conference (SEC) defending national champion and #1 ranked Alabama, hopes to revenge their only loss of last season, when they travel to face #6 Texas A&M that is quarterbacked by last years’ Heisman trophy winner Johnny Manziel. Whichever team wins will be on the inside track to play in the SEC championship game and therefore in this season’s National Championship game. On the other hand, the loser, although not completely out of the picture, will need other teams to lose to have a shot.

Also of great importance this weekend, are numerous inter-conference games. Inter-conference games are measuring sticks used to compare a conference’s overall strength. A conference’s perceived strength has great importance with voters who determine rankings. Over the past two years, the perception that the SEC is the strongest conference has allowed Alabama to participate in the National Championship game even though it lost a game at home each season. To contrast this, last season, Oregon lost only one game, and that was in overtime to a highly ranked Stanford team, but the PAC-12 was perceived to be weaker than the SEC, so Alabama was given the privilege to play for the national championship. 

This weekend there are four games matching the PAC-12 against BIG-10. The best and most evenly balanced of these games is between #16 ranked UCLA (PAC-12) and #23 ranked Nebraska (BIG-10). These two teams played last year, with UCLA winning 36-30. The other games are #19 Washington at Illinois, #4 Ohio State at California, and #20 Wisconsin at Arizona State. As an Oregon Duck fan, one must root for the PAC-12 teams. As mentioned before, a conference’s perceived strength is most important when rankings are determined.

And speaking of the Ducks, … the #2 Oregon Ducks play host to the Tennessee Volunteers at Autzen Stadium. Because Tennessee is part of the SEC conference the Ducks are under pressure to win with style. The last time these two teams played was at Tennessee in 2010. Over 100,000 fans were in attendance. The game had a strange twist to it. The game started in a heavy rainstorm accompanied by lightning that forced the teams to temporarily leave the field. After the pause, Tennessee took a 10-3 lead. The Ducks then scored 45 unanswered points to win 48-10. They scored with a run, with a pass, an interception and a punt return. The Ducks can do it all. Here is a fun highlight video.

Last week the Oregon Ducks demolished the Virginia Cavaliers of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) 59-10 victory. The Duck’s speed was just too much for Virginia. As usual, the Blur-Offense stuck fast, and also as usual, after scoring the first touchdown, the Ducks went for two, “8 nothing … just like that.” Here are two highlight videos. The first is produced by the ACC with some humor (it shows Virginia’s touchdown run).

The second video is excellent and it is all Oregon. (Check out the Ducks new helmets)

Mike Resch reporting from Eugene Oregon where it never rains, it only pours touchdowns.

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No. 16 UCLA at No. 23 Nebraska
12:00 EST
No. 1 Alabama at No. 6 Texas A&M
15:30 EST
Tennessee at No. 2 Oregon
15:30 EST
No. 19 Washington at Illinois
18:00 EST
No. 4 Ohio State at California
19:00 EST
No. 20 Wisconsin at Arizona State
22:30 EST