Posts by Brian Grummell at FanHouse

As usual, the College Football FanHouse is here to discuss the latest tension-filled Thursday night game. Amazingly, the scheduling Gods have smiled upon ESPN with five straight Thursday night upsets. Will tonight's contest between shaky Clemson and suddenly stung No. 21 Wake Forest be the sixth?

We'll be here to find out and invite you to join us. As usual it will be a fun time on what one ESPN commentator called "college football's Monday night".

Festivities begin at 7:30 PM ET after the jump.

Things were going smoothly enough in college football, and then last week happened. Down went the No. 1, 2 and 4 teams, and now it seems like we're back to the chaos of 2007. Last night did nothing to dissuade after lowly Pittsburgh pretty much took it to No. 10 South Florida all night and emerged victorious, 26-21.

So now we shift to Saturday, and the blood-thirsty college football masses will not be satisfied without a few more ranked heads rolling. It's like Rome meets the French Revolution, misplaced blood sport for the sake of pure carnage.

Well, who are we to get in your way? Let's take a look at potential messes sure to satisfy the mob.

As always we're your host for the evening. Come watch the game with the College Football FanHouse and generally spend quality electronic water cooler time with us as Pittsburgh slips further into its misery. Or will they? Thursday night games are just weird which is why we're here to keep an eye on them.

As a doubleheader of sorts, Oregon State visits Utah later in the evening, which is something we'll also be monitoring.

The live blog kicks off at 7:30 Eastern, the game's on ESPN, we're here, and the chat application is after the jump. See you there.

We could sure use it. There's an intriguing article at the numbers-heavy "Football Outsiders" website talking about applying the standardized statistical principles that are now accepted and commonplace in both baseball --remember Moneyball? And the SABR crew? -- and professional football.

College football is sort of that last statistical frontier, the Alaskan wilderness for the numbers crowd. But instead of Sarah Palin being our tour guide, we have Football Outsiders.

They begin with the obvious:

It's generally accepted that the numbers achieved in say, SEC play simply won't be on par with those in the Sun Belt or MAC. Given this, analysts and fans have adjusted as they can and the differences have been played out rhetorically in the ongoing public conversation of college football.

A new math -- similar to that which is now common for high level statistical baseball and football analysis -- may be coming to cut through some of that fog.

Sure, one can watch a team through the first few weeks of the season and compare them to arbitrary expectations or against their rankings -- assuming they were ranked to begin with. But another measure is to look at their record "against the spread". Now is particularly a good time so early in the season when the book hasn't been written about each time and the betters and oddsmakers are still catching up to performance.

For example, Vanderbilt is now 4-0 against the spread. In a very isolated sense, they continue to outperform expectations this year. So too does No. 5 Texas, who is now 4-0 against the spread. How about No. 2 Alabama? Well, they're 4-1-0 so far in beating the spread. In-state rival Auburn with their anemic offense is just 1-4-0. Another disappointing team is Clemson who is now 0-3 against the spread.

Congratulations go out to Turner Gill, coach at Buffalo whose Bulls have beaten the odds to a 4-1-0 mark so far. Similarly, coach David Cutcliffe is now 3-0 against the spread at Duke. Both are tough places to coach at and succeed, and success is sometimes more a game of beating expectation than raw victory totals.

Fresh off a BCS Championship, LSU has started the year 1-2 against the spread. Chalk this up a bit to their being a known quantity with perhaps too much respect from the oddsmakers and betters. Ohio State has failed to cover in any game and is now 0-4 ATS. Same with disappointing Pittsburgh, also at 0-4.

And finally there's No. 1 Oklahoma, who despite high standards has put on an all-out offensive blitz early in the season to cruise to a 3-0 mark against the spread.

It's deja vu all over again with highly ranked college football teams falling by the wayside. The upsets are fun but my initial instincts are "I don't like it". Whatever, we're here to talk about it with a brief chat this afternoon.

Other topics for your consideration: Alabama's revival (and Georgia's stinker), the insanity of GameDay's way-too-easy decision to go to Vanderbilt this weekend (who needs Jay Cutler?), and the upcoming sixth week of college football 2008.

It all begins at 2:30 Eastern and will last for about an hour, feel free to take a break from work (or study) and stop in, it's water cooler time among friends. Chat application after the jump.

All too often when talking about a weekend full of upsets -- and did we ever have some upsets in college football -- the talk revolves around the losers. Thing is, the nature of losing is that voids are created, voids which must be filled by someone. We can argue just how worthy those somebodies are, but if there's a top 10 you gotta put somebody in there at the end of the day.

This week's big winners are Oklahoma and Texas. Not only did they win, but they played great against name opponents. Oklahoma cruised past TCU 35-10 (darty-quick receiver Manuel Johnson blowing by the opposition above) while Texas was the latest school to ritually flog Arkansas, 52-10. Oklahoma's questionable performances in big bowl games after high rankings is well known, but by virtue of their success here they are about to be No. 1 when the rankings come out. Texas may also slide into the top five despite serious questions about their run game and ability to be a national player without Vince Young on the roster.

Conference peers Colorado and Nebraska quietly lost, but by virtue of a bye week Missouri and Texas Tech were winners as well. That means the Big 12's four best teams (and I think we can throw in one-loss Kansas) remain strong brands as we steadily march towards the midpoint of the 2008 college football season.

Scary that college football is already five weeks in. You know the drill, there's a ton of big games, headlined by Alabama's visit to Georgia (it's always about SEC football, isn't it?). We'll be talking about whatever's on in our live blog.

Things get started at noon Eastern and run all day -- we'll have a couple sodas and hopefully a beer or two later, enjoying things just like you. So uh, join us. Chat application after the jump.

Not content to let USC hog the national stage with its embarrassing nationally televised upset loss to Oregon State, Florida fell to Ole Miss today 31-30. This is starting to feel like the upset-mad 2007 season all over again, which is good for ratings but bad for "order" and the unstable tickers of college football fans throughout the country.

The game was close throughout, but Ole Miss appeared to have a breakthrough with two unanswered touchdowns to take a 24-17 lead. Florida answered with a touchdown drive and appeared to be ready to take control before Jevan Snead tossed a stunningly fast 86-yard touchdown strike that put the Gators in a 31-24 hole with 5:26 left.

The Bear died in 1982, and ever since Alabama's been yearning for a sustained national presence. Sure there was that national championship victory over Miami, but overall the program's been plagued by inconsistency, scandal, sanction and the rise of the SEC.

A victory today over Georgia would perhaps put Alabama over the hump.

Then again, they were supposedly experiencing a renaissance just a few short years ago, opening 9-0 in 2005 before finishing at 10-2. Coach Mike Shula was gone the very next year. Nick Saban and his $32 million contract have been brought in to finally turn things around.