Studio Hive

[Dr. Saturday] Mid-week Madness: Tulsa ain't skeered

Come one, come all, the friendless and the shut-in and the flu-stricken and the utterly addicted. It's Wednesday night, and that means Live! Minor! Conference! Action! This week, Boise State travels to Tulsa, and we tell you why you should care.

So: what's Boise State made of?
The pieces are all there. Quarterback Kellen Moore has 13 touchdowns in five games and is on track for another 3,000-yard season with not a whole lot of stout defenses in front of him. His improvement is palpable, and so is that of his protection: Last year's 10 interceptions and 13 sacks dwarf this year's two and three at the season's midway point. The Broncos have the 27th-ranked run defense behind Jeremy Avery, and have allowed opponents to score over 16 points only once, in a 51-34 shootout with Fresno State. Those opposing teams, however, are hardly Murderers' Row: Oregon (sputtering opening-night edition), Miami (Ohio), Fresno State, Bowling Green, and UC-Davis have hardly allowed a glimpse at Boise State's true potential, however lofty or lowly.

(Read the rest at Yahoo! Sports.)

[Dr. Saturday] The Dregs: Bill Stewart goes to the Carrier Dome

West Virginia (3-1) at Syracuse (2-3)

What could we possibly have done to deserve this? The Mountaineers' last outing was enough of a box score horrorshow, but when their one-two offensive punch of "Just let Jarrett Brown make up plays on the fly while Bill Stewart wanders the stands in search of an Ovaltine vendor" and "Let Noel Devine coach the team when things go wrong" meets Syracuse and its plucky point guard-quarterback, Greg Paulus, fresh off a five-interception performance against South Florida, there are bound to be fireworks. And not the fun kind. You know when those smiley-face fireworks go off sideways and just look like fiery amorphous blobs? That's what we're in for here.

(Read the rest at Yahoo! Sports.)

[Dr. Saturday] Mid-Major Monday: What have they done with the real Houston Cougars?

Houston's El Paso bellyflop means your remaining mid-major undefeateds are Texas Christian and Boise State, both coasting Saturday to comfortable victories over SMU and UC Davis, respectively. Neither school has the easiest paths to perfect records remaining, but both are navigable. The Horned Frogs must face BYU and Utah, and after besting Colorado State -- brace yourselves -- it's more and more looking like 4-1 Idaho, off back-to-back upsets over Northern Illinois and Colorado State, is the potential trap game for the Broncos on Nov. 14. Forward, the yarbnalls!

(Read the rest at Yahoo! Sports.)

[Dr. Saturday] All Tomorrow's Parties: Miami, where it just gets hotter when the sun goes down

Our weekly tailgating guide takes you down Little Havana way ... wait, they tore down the Orange Bowl? And now we have to watch this game in a stadium named after a Jimmy Buffett-branded beer? You're killing me, Miami, and not in any of the usual ways.

The Lowdown.
Miami is a perennial lock for our list of top five favorite places to lose ten days when we meant to only stay three. However, we haven't been to a game there since they were playing in the beloved (if rickety) Orange Bowl, and while we're sure Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphins/Land Shark Stadium is very nice, we wonder how anything will ever match the creepy grandeur of that sweaty old haunt. (Unless somebody wises up and actually grafts on the giant hovering shark fin depicted here to house, I dunno, an army of SkyCam drones? Floating skyboxes? We could get on board with that.)

 Quoth a Miami grad of our acquaintance, "The days of eating arepas and meat-on-a-stick in Little Havana while drinking copious amounts of Presidente and pre-mixed Cuba Libres before fighting your way into the Orange Bowl are no more," and that's a shame, really. These days the experience is a little more generic, a little less rowdy, but far, far more comfortable. (Also much safer, if you're into that sort of thing.)

(Read the rest at Yahoo! Sports.)

[Dr. Saturday] The Dregs: If a Kragthorpe falls in the woods and no one's watching...

Pitt (3-1) at Louisville (1-2)

You like holding calls, kids? Pitt is 94th in penalties and nobody really seems to know why, and by "nobody", we mean "nobody on the coaching staff which teaches these things." And now that Dave Wannstedt's finally obliged faithful viewers with the traditional boneheaded collapse, you'd think the casual fan would lose interest, and you'd be absolutely right. "But it's the conference opener!" you squeal. And right you are! Attention must be paid. So, we have Probably Not Fired Right Now (Wannstedt) versus So, So Fired Unless He Wins Ten Games And He Won't (Kragthorpe). The suspense is ... it's surprisingly bearable, actually.

(Read the rest at Yahoo! Sports.)

[EDSBS] The Tim Tebow Concussion Watch®

[Dr. Saturday] Mid-Major Monday: Houston humbles the Big 12 South (yes, again)

Yarbnalls no more.

Who was that idiot blogger who called Idaho a "yarn ball" last week? (Actually, in my first draft, the typo charmingly read "yarbnall," which I'm trying to bring into popular usage because it sounds like something Joe Kines would say.) Anyway, the Vandals knocked off Northern Illinois and are somehow 3-1. Drink it in.

(Read the rest at Yahoo! Sports.)

Schedule of wordslinging

Now that they're all up and running, here's where to find my weekly CFB features around God's green internet:

Mondays: 

• Mid-Major Monday [Dr. Saturday], a sprawling, loosely organized overview of the top stories out of non-BCS conferences.

Thursdays:

• Upset Bait [Dr. Saturday], picking shockers of the week with Hinton, Doug, and Chris.
• The Dregs [Dr. Saturday], focusing on the week's most unappealing college football contests.

Fridays:

• All Tomorrow's Parties [Dr. Saturday], the tailgating column that started it all.
• Casting Couch Picks  [EDSBS], wherein Swindle and I stake our journalistic integrity picking games based entirely on irrationality and spite.
• Three Reasons To Watch [Dr. Saturday, and no, I don't get to come up with my own titles], spotlighting the lesser-known Friday night ESPN game.

Sundays: 

• Superlatives [Dr. Saturday], a who's-who roundup of Saturday major college football action.
• EDSBS THE MAGAZINE [EDSBS], a gleefully mean-spirited one-sheet summation of the week in college football.

[Dr. Saturday] Mid-Major Monday: Boise and Fresno bring back the WAC attack

Bye-bye, BYUbirds.
Last week's hot dish is this week's lunchmeat, and Brigham Young got their milk money stolen on their own turf by the maddeningly erratic heavy Florida State. The bloom is off the BCS-bustin' rose, and Max Hall's quietly budding Heisman hopes are fertilizer after a three-interception outing. And now that I've filled my metaphor-throttling quota for the week: This was an ugly, ugly game, is my point. Homefield advantage, all the momentum on their side -- with no discernible momentum of any kind propelling the Seminoles -- weren't enough to overcome five Cougar turnovers and, honestly, what looked like a pure speed and talent advantage on the part of Florida State. Christian Ponder is no Chris Rix, and for the first time this season I mean that in a good way. (Are the games where the 'Noles actually show up to play football the games where Bobby Bowden's alert and on top of it, or the games where he just naps under the bench for the entire second half? Legitimate question.)

(Read the rest at Yahoo! Sports.)

[EDSBS] FIVE REASONS WHY STARTING A GIANT CATFISH AT QUARTERBACK FOR TENNESSEE IS THE RIGHT CALL

1. Catfish are wily. You know why some catfish grow to be a godzillion feet long under riverbanks, undisturbed for decades on end? Because they’re clever motherfuckers, that’s why. Won’t win any Academic All-American honors, but the catfish’s ability to quickly and accurately distinguish between friend and foe would prevent situations like, say, staring down and throwing directly to a UCLA cornerback when there’s a wide-open receiver ten goddamn yards away.

(Read the rest at EDSBS.)