College football preview: Week 3
A Commonwealth-centric preview of Week 3 of the 2013 college football season.
It’s college football season! Well, technically, it’s already Week 3 of the 2013 college football season, and we’ve (sadly) already experienced 13% of this year’s slate of college ball. But don’t get too bummed! There’s a ton (87%) of great football left, we just have to take it one week at a time, savoring each and every Saturday.
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Virginia Tech at ECU
FOX Sports 1 • 12:00 PM • VT -7.5
This weekend the Hokies travel to Greenville to take on the Pirates of East Carolina. For some reason, Virginia Tech and ECU have this crazy 14-year scheduling agreement–so if you’re not already tired of the matchup, you’ve got eight more years to get there.
The Pirates come in with a decently-powered offense based around QB Shane Carden. He’s completing 78% of his passes and already has 638 yards on the season after just two games. They throw the ball around a lot, so this week–like almost every week–the focus will be on Tech’s defense. While the Hokies can have two true freshman corners (Kendall Fuller and Brandon Facyson) on the field at the same time, I put my trust in Coach Bud Foster.1 It’ll probably be fine.
On the other side of the ball, Logan Thomas needs to stop throwing interceptions (he’s already got three on the season), the receivers need to start catching the ball, and running back Trey Edmunds needs to keep doing his thing.
#11 Richmond at Gardner-Webb
ESPN3 • 6:00 PM
Hey man, the Spiders might be pretty good! After a 34-0 shutout of VMI, the Spiders went down to NC State and almost pulled off the upset, losing on a last-minute field goal.
This week Richmond heads to Boiling Springs, North Carolina to take on the Gardner-Webb Bulldogs. The Bulldogs are 1-1 after beating Furman in the opening weekend and getting absolutely shellacked by Marshall, 55-0. Spider QB Michael Strauss is completing 64% of his passes and has five touchdowns on the season.
Virginia vs. Bye week
From this past Saturday’s game against Oregon, presented without comment:
UVA fans yelling at Oregon fans to stop playing catch in the parking lot …— Dinich/Adelson (@ESPN_ACC) September 7, 2013
UVA fans "this isn't a football field!" Oregon fans: it's a football game! Ducks score first points …— Dinich/Adelson (@ESPN_ACC) September 7, 2013
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National game of the week
- #1 Alabama at #6 Texas A&M • Saturday, 3:30 PM • CBS
ACC game of the week
- Duke vs. Georgia Tech • Saturday, 3:30 PM, ESPNU
- USC vs. Boston College • Saturday, 3:30 PM, Pac-12 Network
Watching guide
- #16 UCLA at #23 Nebraska • Saturday, 12:00 PM • ABC
- #13 South Carolina vs. Vanderbilt • Saturday, 7:00 PM • ESPN
- #24 TCU at Texas Tech • Thursday, 7:30 PM • ESPN
The Theoretical Playoff!
Even though the College Football Playoff won’t start for another year, it’s fun to dream about how things would shake out if we had one this season. Just two weeks in, and we have what would be a really interesting and diverse top four:
- Alabama
- Oregon
- Ohio State
- Clemson
How good would any of those games be? So good! Now if we could only give the higher seeds home-field advantage for the the first-round playoff games.
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Footnotes
- For a super interesting look at the mad genius of Bud Foster I recommend this stellar article over on The Key Play. It’s nerdy, but will give you a feel for just how crazy/beautiful that guy is. ↩
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Ross Catrow
Founder and publisher of RVANews.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
Nice Kirsten Dunst joke! Don’t think you can slip that one by me.
My question is: is Virginia actually kind of good for beating BYU, or is Texas bad for losing to BYU?
Also what are the Dukes up to? They are ranked right? We are not North Dakota or Montana, but I love that we are kind of a hotbed for 1aa football in the commonwealth.
My take is Texas is bad, but know that I didn’t watch either game.
Yeah, Dukes are ranked, William & Mary and Liberty are ARV!