Last week, oh great and wonderful college football fans, the Sun Belt East took the football world by storm? However, like any Cinderella story, the clock does strike midnight. Ga Southern (2-1/80) took out Nebraska (and their head coach) last week only to fall to Conference USA’s UAB (2-1/69) 35-21. Marshall (2-1/82) upset Notre Dame last week only to lose to the MAC’s Bowling Green (1-2/94) in overtime, 34-31. App St (2-1/57) took it to Texas A&M last week and needed a last second Hail Mary that wasn’t even caught in the end zone to beat conference foe Troy (1-2/103) 32-28. In fact, the struggle was felt through the entire conference. Coming into this week, they combined for an 18-11 (.621) record and 4-8 against the Power 5. Limping in at 3-10 this week (0-4), they fall to 21-21 (.500). Still good for second best Group of 5 record, but a huge disappointment compared to expectations.
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They weren’t from the Sun Belt, but we did have some true Upsets (Power 5 losing to Group of 5 or FCS, OR Group of 5 losing to FCS). In another coach impacting game, E Michigan (2-1/89) of the MAC knocked off Arizona St (1-2/90) 30-21 costing Herm Edwards his job. Tulane (3-0/27) of the American took out Kansas St (2-1/39) 17-10. And in the biggest upset of the day S Illinois (1-2/200) of the Ohio Valley Conference got their first win of the season by taking out Northwestern (1-2/110). That was the first FCS win over a Power 5 team this year in 47 tries. There were also a bunch of near misses (all of these games were in question in the 4th quarter): Arkansas/Missouri St (FCS), Virginia/Old Dominion, Wake Forest/Liberty, Indiana/W Kentucky, UCLA/South Alabama, Rutgers/Temple, Florida/South Florida, Arizona/North Dakota St (FCS). There were expected blowouts and Vegas upsets too, for sure, but isn’t it more fun when the unexpected happens?
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Speaking of unexpected, the first GCR predictions came out with, quite frankly, better results than I would have expected at this point in the season. The FCS/FCS games gave a mediocre 21-12 (.636) result. The FBS/FBS games were much better at 38-13 (.745). I’ll take that every week (see above paragraph). Overall, we start with an acceptable 59-25 (.702).
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One oddity, in all of FBS (Power 5 and Group of 5), there is only one team that has played 3 undefeated teams. Buffalo (0-3/87) lost to Maryland (3-0/17), FCS Holy Cross (3-0/114), and Coastal Carolina (3-0/34). There is also one team whose opponents have yet to notch a win. Minnesota (3-0/7) beat New Mexico St (0-4/126), FCS W Illinois (0-3/193), and Colorado (0-3/79).
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I’ll end this with the conference summary as I do every week. This is something I’ve done for a few years but didn’t know if it would interest others. So, I’m taking a chance. Let me know if you hate it. I like to have a comparison for those ubiquitous “my conference is stronger than your conference” type argument. First the Group of 5 conferences (note: Notre Dame is included in the Independents although they are, technically, a Power 5-like team), (note the second: that is based on history and custom since BYU is playing a more difficult schedule but is considered a Group of 5 team), (note the third: the parenthetical number after the conference name is the number of conference games played so far this season), (note the fourth and final: the parenthetical numbers in the other columns are year to date)
| Conference | vs Power 5 | vs Group of 5 | vs FCS | Overall |
| American (1) | 1-4 .250 (1-10 .091) | 3-0 (9-3 .750) | 2-0 (8-2 .800) | 6-4 .600 (18-15 .545) |
| C-USA (2) | 0-3 (0-7) | 3-3 .500 (9-11 .450) | 1-0 (8-1 .889) | 4-6 .400 (17-19 .472) |
| Indies (0) | 1-4 .250 (3-6 .333) | 0-0 (3-8 .273) | 2-0 (3-0) | 3-4 .429 (9-14 .391) |
| MAC (1) | 1-5 .167 (1-15 .063) | 1-2 .333 (4-6 .400) | 3-0 (8-2 .800) | 5-7 .417 (13-23 .361) |
| MWC (2) | 0-4 (1-13 .071) | 3-1 .750 (8-4 .667) | 2-0 (9-2 .818) | 5-5 .500 (18-19 .486) |
| SUN (1) | 0-4 (4-8 .333) | 2-6 .250 (7-9 .438) | 1-0 (10-0) | 3-10 .231 (21-21 .500) |
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And now the Power 5
| Conference | vs Power 5 | vs Group of 5 | vs FCS | Overall |
| ACC (4) | 3-3 .500 (10-9 .526) | 3-0 (10-1 .909) | 4-0 (12-0) | 10-3 .769 (32-10 .762) |
| Big 12 (1) | 1-1 .500 (6-4 .600) | 4-1 .800 (9-1 .900) | 2-0 (8-0) | 7-2 .778 (23-5 .821) |
| Big Ten (3) | 2-3 .400 (8-9 .471) | 7-0 (17-2 .895) | 0-1 (7-1 .875) | 9-4 .692 (32-12 .727) |
| Pac 12 (1) | 1-2 .333 (3-8 .273) | 5-1 .833 (12-2 .857) | 2-0 (10-0) | 8-3 .727 (25-10 .714) |
| SEC (4) | 4-3 .571 (11-8 .579) | 4-0 (14-1 .933) | 3-0 (9-0) | 11-3 .786 (34-9 .791) |
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That’s it for this week. Thank for reading. If you don’t like something or have a suggestion, please comment. Because of an increase in Spam, I’ve had to put all comments on manual approve. Football/GCR comments will be approved 100% of the time even if they are a complaint or correction. If you like what you see, please forward/share with others. Have a great week as more football is teasing us in the coming days, G
