If you mean the second-best conference in the nation, the Big 10, then no.
Actually nobody knows where the hell Missouri is going. They sure were expecting to get the Big 10 invite, which makes their pre-emptive burning of Big 12 bridges so deliciously hilarious. Now they're the chump trying to hang out with his former friends after ripping them a new one when he thought he was moving to a new school. Oops.
One thing I noticed this weekend was there were an unusual number of horrible QB-center snaps, a lot even leading directly to safeties. Obviously it's the first game of the season and if those were going to happen, it'd have been this weekend, but it seemed every game I watched had at least one out-the-back-of-the-endzone safety and at least two bad center snaps.
Liked, didn't love the Michigan game. I've seen a lot of blogs and message board posts exclaiming both surprise at Michigan's performance and certainty that Michigan is back. Really, I don't know why people are surprised at Michigan's performance. It wasn't the offense that sunk us last year, it was the defense. The horribly putrid, useless defense. And yesterday the offense did what I expected. Keep in mind that outside the Ohio State debacle, they had been scoring in bunches last year with a far less dynamic QB at the helm. With Denard and the O-Line getting more reps under their belt, things were only going to get better. The surprise (but still a question) was the defense. It's here where I question people thinking Michigan is back. It didn't matter what formation they were in last year, they were always caught off-guard and in bad positions and made poor tackles. Switching to a 3-3-5 raised a bunch of eyebrows during the offseason, since this is...y'know....the Big 10, and yesterday was going to be the big test of its effectiveness against the run. Because say what you will about UConn, they have a sick running attack. It's really all they do. And the defense, a 3-3-5, actually held its own. That was incredibly surprising. There were slips, sure, but it held up. The question now is, can they stop being the world's largest sieve against a passing attack? We'll see.
Boise friggin' State. I honestly want to know what more BCS-backers want these guys to do before they get their shot at the championship. First, it was "you need to go undefeated". Then it was "you don't play anybody of worth". What excuse is going to be next? That they didn't play VaTech in Blacksburg, even though that "neutral" field basically was Lane Stadium? When Boise goes undefeated again and a 1-loss Big 12/SEC gets in ahead of them, I can't wait to hear what the BCS-backers come up with this time.
Because this game was damn good, especially for a first game of the season for both teams. There were the usual undisciplined plays as befits a first game, and yet again the center-QB snap reared its ugly head, but there was also a lot of great play. Boise dominated until the weather and VaTech's talent balanced the scales again. And VaTech wasn't the patsy of the past few years in this first marquee game; after the 1st quarter drubbing, they showed up big time. It's a shame they had to lose this game because while it goes into the books as another first game loss that knocks them out of title contention, they have the talent and the heart to be a championship team.
Even if they don't have the uniforms for it. Good god those things were hideous. I get the whole "logo in the numbers" thing, but it looked like someone puked bright orange onto otherwise decent all-black uni's. And while Boise's were better, the random dark grey spots everywhere were odd. It made them look like they had all sweat-stained their uniforms even before kickoff. And just having the blue spot on one shoulder was distracting, almost to the point of inducing a headache. But with just those things modified, those Boise uniforms were great. VaTech, not so much.
