Hi gang!
We have unfortunately entered Real World Hours, in which a few of us are experiencing — you guessed it — the time in which our real lives catch up with our content production. It’s a little rude of our friends, loved ones, and work lives to ask basic things of us, frankly; we’d rather be posting. Thanks for being patient, since we started the year in midseason form, and that’s a hard task to keep up with.
Still, there’s much to catch up on here at Meet at Midfield if you’re looking for it. I’ll be your tour guide in that endeavor.
New Flipping the Field: USC Would REally Like to Go Home
The free episode of Flipping the Field is available now. Ryan self-doxxes his location and has decided to become a rugby guy. There’s also a week seven recap in there, if you want it!
I, myself, found value in selectively cutting audio of Ryan saying nice things about J.J. McCarthy. I found the parts where he said he’s tall and good at football, and trimmed the fat (“the fat” being Ryan getting a couple digs in). He is definitely tall and NOT wearing platform shoes. He’s a dude who is tall.
Ryan’s Top 25 + Fan Top 25
In lieu of Ryan’s usual Sunday Hangover, he’s provided his personal top 25 votes and some notes about them:
- Michigan
- Washington
- Oklahoma
- Ohio State
- Florida State
- Penn State
- Georgia
- Texas
- North Carolina
- Oregon
- Alabama
- Oregon State
- Ole Miss
- Utah
- Mizzou
- Louisville
- Duke
- USC
- Iowa
- James Madison
- Liberty
- Air Force
- Tulane
- Tennessee
- Notre Dame
The Top of the Rankings. Michigan continues taking care of business and stays here. I considered Washington in the one hole but they’ll have a chance to get there very shortly with the rest of their schedule. The Washington over Oklahoma choice is just an eye test thing for me, but they have the two best wins in the country so far. Washington-Oregon felt like a playoff game, but Oregon needs to go take care of business and beat some good teams.
Georgia Stuff. I relented on my hate on Georgia after the Kentucky win but that now looks a fair bit less impressive after Missouri’s comfortable road win over the Wildcats. They still play with their food week after week and I know they “turned it on” against UK but they don’t deserve a high ranking right now. They just fuck around all the time against bad teams. Until the résumé is better, I’m not moving them up.
Where’s the Cutoff? I think the 14 hole is my cutoff for teams that could feasibly make the Playoff. Anyone below that is not doing this. It’s exceedingly unlikely after No. 11.
If you love or hate what Ryan has to say, chime in on the boards!
As for the boards, we are all smarter and better than your favorite AP football writers. We released our most recent rankings (via @imrealangry) five days ago, and our own week seven poll will be released very soon.
The Coworker Game of the Week
On Friday, StatsByWill posited what he believed would be the Coworker Game of the Week (aka, the game your casual fan coworkers watch, and you decline to really comment because you don’t want them to know you’re a big, barking freak):
This week’s Coworker Game of the Week is easily USC/Notre Dame. Your coworker went apple picking with wife Linda during the noon slate. He got home in time for Oregon/Washington but turned it off after a few plays because he thought the coaches were still “not Chip Kelly, the guy after him, Mike something?” and Chris Petersen.
Your coworker turns on USC/ND because he thinks his NFL team should either tank or trade up for Caleb Williams.
Upon further review, though, we have found that Louisville-Pitt was our Coworker Game of the Week. From Cheese:
Today I asked a guy in the office how his weekend was and he said “mmmm UofL lost” so it appears the game was Louisville Pitt. Defied the odds.
And from ajoseph:
Mine was also Louisville Pitt but entirely because I’m in western PA and two of my coworkers were at the game. One coworker “heard Oregon Washington was a pretty good game” but didn’t actually watch any of it
This leads me to a minor unsolicited take: any time someone complains that college football is less engaging to watch, they simply do not know what games surround them. The football narratives around Oregon-Washington for casual football fans are at least five years old, if not older.
Forget that the NFL is a technically superior product. Forget that explosive plays are the result of younger, relatively weaker players blowing assignments. Even the most college football-pilled among us know the difference between Saturday and Sunday players. There is good in the game if you seek it out and have an open mind for sports. It’s just like how I refused to watch a minute of Monday Night Football last night — I’m sure there is value in watching that game as a fan of football, but I don’t think I was looking for it.
I have a running joke with a good friend of mine who’s just starting to get into hockey: she approaches the game with a sense of wonder. If you approach college football with a little wonder, you might have a better time. Hell, you might even watch Oregon-Washington, which is probably one of my favorite games of football in recent memory.
from the Posting trenches
As a site originally created by Ohio State and Michigan writers, they’re still our two largest fanbases on the boards. We aren’t just assholes; our boards also trend toward the right opinions on our respective teams.
Ohio State fans are reacting to the Brock Bowers injury news with some thoughts of their own on the regionally hated, nationally loved Cade Stover:
Stover’s receiving national praise that he, according to our boards, doesn’t necessarily deserve. Coaches The Athletic interviewed for their scouting report think Stover is a really good run blocker. Counterpoint: not really!
Michigan fans, meanwhile, are trying to make sense of Donovan Edwards, who hasn’t quite shown the flash that previously made him an overall offensive weapon in 2021 and 2022:
Whether it was his non-contact designation in the offseason or a lessening of his patience and vision as a runner, Edwards’ lack of production — he only got his first TD on the year against Indiana via a pseudo-tush push — is notable. We aren’t sure what to totally make of it, but we’re on it nonetheless.
Oh, and there’s also an Indiana football thread, whose posts feel evergreen at this point:
