Buckeye Sunday- I Know It's Actually Wednesday Edition

Ohio State 42
Akron 0

Important Stats

Joe Bauserman: 12-16, 163 yards, 3 TDs, 1 Rushing TD

Braxton Miller: 8-12, 130 yard, TD

Jake Stoneburner: 4 receptions, 3 TDs

The season opener against Akron went as one might expect. Akron is a very poor college football team and Ohio State was able to dominate them. Given the way this game went, it's pretty surprising the scoreline wasn't worse.

I must confess that I ended up napping through most of the Forth Quarter*. So, I didn't get to see as much of Braxton Miller as I would've liked to. I thought he looked good in what I saw, after his first drive. I do know that Bauserman was very impressive and I think he deserves the starting job. There shouldn't be any splitting of the duty once the Buckeye's stop playing MAC teams. Miller can get a package or two, but it should be Bauserman's job.

Another area of question for Ohio State heading into this game was the defense. Many starters were lost after last season. It's always nice to shutout another FBS school, but Akron was largely hapless on Offense.

It's hard to get a good read on this team yet. Akron was a bad team. Ohio State should dominate that team. It's just hard to gain any relative perspective from this game. Toledo will be a better test to judge this team by, especially defensively.

The Toledo Rockets have moved away from their Air Raid style offense and now show a much more balanced attack under their Head Coach, former Ohio State Assistant Tim Beckman. They were able to drop 58 points on New Hampshire last week and clearly much more of a threat offensively than Akron. They also gave up 22 points against that team, which shows that they're lacking defensively.

Prediction:

Ohio State 55
Toledo 17

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It was a pretty typical week one around College Football with the exception of the weather. Very few upsets, a few scares and a lot of massive blowouts.

The big news this week is that Texas A&M have been invited to join by the SEC. That is pending a lawsuit filed by Baylor to stop the move. That is just desperation by Baylor, because A&M leaving will collapse the house of cards that the Big 12 became once Nebraska and Colorado left. Baylor is desperate because they would be invited to make a move to the Pac 12 with Texas and Texas Tech and could be left without a home. If I were Baylor, I would be calling the Big East, because if they're willing to take TCU they'd probably be willing to take Baylor.

I suspect the temporary break to the wave of conference expansion has ended with this move. The conference landscape could be dramatically changed at this time next year. If the Big 12 collapses, which looks very likely, there will only 5 BCS conferences. There could only be 4, if the ACC And Big East are successfully pillaged and are forced to merge.

I just find this all quite interesting. I don't know if in the end the so-called "super conferences" will be good or bad for the game, but the politics and speculation that it's taking to get there has been entertaining. Perhaps the bit I'm most curious about is the SEC. The addition of Texas A&M is an indication of their willingness to expand and they'll need at least another team to balance their division. I think Florida State, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia are all potential editions. There just has been no indication or inclination on which way these schools and where the SEC wants to go.

So here I my guesses as to what the "super conference" additions will be:

Big 10

Missouri
Pitt
Rutgers
Syracuse

SEC

Texas A&M
Florida State
Georgia Tech
West Virginia

PAC 12

Texas
Texas Tech
Oklahoma
Oklahoma St

I think at that point the ACC and Big East would merge to keeping their 16 best teams. Then I think the Mountain West will pick up the remnants of the Big 12 and in theory could get BCS status.

Thanks for reading

-Michael
*I stayed up super late the night before, because the U.S. Men's National Team had a friendly that didn't end until well after 1 am and the puppies were buttholes the next morning.