Hangover: Geno for Heisman

"You'll be at the JMU-WVU game today, right Chase?"
"Tony, I'm leaving the station and going to FedEx."

I looked at the clock. It was 11:51 AM. Nine minutes remained in the show.

Conversation winds down. We pick winners off air (59-24 was my call.) It's 12PM. The show ends. Start wearing purple.

Stop by apartment. I need sunglasses. Bright day.

Stop by Sheetz. I need food. Appetizer Sampler is greater than kissing babies (that reference is only for the poli-sci majors that read this blog).

Run up 81. Run down 66. Get stuck in traffic. Look up metro directions in traffic at standstill. Next train leaves for game at 3:20. It's 3:15.

Park awkwardly in Vienna Metro Parking lot. Which is next to interstate. Also heavily under construction. Am I even at the metro? I don't see any buildings or tunnels.

Stalk people to find metro. Walk into metro. I don't speak Metro-language. Take 10 minutes, learn metro-language.

It's 3:52. The 3:40 train hasn't left yet.

Get off at Armory. See sign that says "Stadium this way!" Leave metro. Wrong stadium. Pay $5 more dollars to get back into metro that I just left.

Get off in suburban Maryland. Walk to FedEx. Walk into FedEx.

WVU 7, JMU 0.


No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to get there before West Virginia scored a touchdown.

It was a feeling the JMU football players could relate to.

After all the talk of repeating 21-16, of taking down the big boys, the inevitable finally happened. JMU's defense played amazing, frankly, as good as you ever could have hoped for against a team with a Heisman frontrunner and an outside shot at an FBS national championship. Still,

I hope JMU fans and students don't feel too disappointed. West Virginia's offense is scary good, and they showed it by scoring 21 points before anyone wearing purple could blink. JMU's pass rush got through a pretty good offensive line somewhat consistently, and that's certainly going to be a strength going forward.

Of course, the Dukes' offense looked stagnant for a vast majority of the game, but WVU's run defense has looked dominant thus far in the season, so no cause for concern there. Against lesser 1-AA defenses, the offense will continue to put up monster numbers.

But the biggest takeaway from this game had less to do with James Madison, and more to do with Geno Smith. West Virginia's quarterback is following the RG3 Heisman mould to the letter. Entering week 4 of the college football season, Geno Smith has 10 total touchdowns and 9 incompletions. With Barkley playing a very mediocre game in a loss to Stanford (more on this later), most of the talking heads agree.

Three weeks in, Geno Smith is the Heisman frontrunner.



#20 Notre Dame 20, #10 Michigan State 3

I don't know what's invigorating this Notre Dame team-- it's clearly not the move to an atrocious ACC, which doesn't even apply to the Irish to begin with as far as football is concerened-- but Notre Dame has looked pretty damn good on its warpath to a 3-0 start. My eyes told me Michigan State was pretty good (or at least the hop-scotch god that Is Le'Veon Bell is), and Notre Dame handled them pretty soundly.

You could make the argument that MSU was never that great to begin with. I thought Boise State was a pretty average team, and the Greek Society against Pedophilia only beat them by four points. So is Sparty good, or should we not be that impressed by this win? It might be a statement win for Notre Dame. It might just be cause for overhype before inevitable blowouts at the hands of Oklahoma and USC. I really don't know for sure.


#13 Virginia Tech 17, Pittsburgh 35

Last week, a good friend coyly asked me how I felt about the Chokies being ranked the 13th best team in college football.

My response? "Well, I guess somebody has to be there in the poll."  And that is basically how Tech got to the 13th best ranking- not be winning, not by impressing, but my merely failing to lose.

Enter week 3. I recall saying in the spring that Tech should be weary of this game because Ray Graham is a monster and the Hokies will be offensively challenged. Well, Ray Graham was limited in those first two games- hence why Pittsburgh roughly resembled the big pile of garbage outside my apartment and down the street to this point in the season- but he looks fully recovered from the ACL tear he suffered last October, and boy did he make that super-amazing Beamer-coached defense look pretty terrible.

Both more and less surprisingly was the dominance of the Pitt defense. I know Tech's offense is about as defunct as AIG's bottom line, but seriously? This is a defense that just got torn to shreds by a converted wide receiver named after a side effect of smoking too much weed. How could you possibly be dominated by that?

Tech fans need to accept that even in a conference as week as the ACC, they are bound to have down years. Eerily similar to West Virginia fans, Tech homers have been ruined by the consistency of their program, and they've developed an obnoxiously, outrageously unrealistic expectation to win every game, every year.

The only difference is that West Virginia fans have been punched in the gut for so long in random games that we've learned to temper out expectations a bit.

If your closet is full of maroon, it might just be time to accept this is not your year. You might still win the coastal division, but don't fool yourself. This is a rebuilding year.

On the bright side, ESPN can stop shoving Logan Thomas-Matt Barkley comparisons down my throat.


#14 Texas 66, Mississippi 31

Texas is suddenly the best team in the Big 12 after dropping 60+ points on Ole Miss. Their offense hasn't looked this good in years! Great Scott!

Let's pump the breaks a little bit, guy that clearly never read Friday Night Lights despite the fact that he lives in Texas. Just because you're playing an SEC team doesn't mean you just dropped two thirds of a Satanic number on the NFL's newest expansion team. I don't care what conference they're in, Ole Miss is a bad team. Dropping a season high offensive performance on them has way more to do with their defense, and way less to do with your offense.

You won't see me on here next week proclaiming West Virginia to have the best offense in the land when they drop 400 yards and 65 points on Maryland next week.

Okay, actually you will. Bad example. Let's move on.


CAA Action

This will be a new feature of the Hangover every week, as I will recap Colonial conference play.


Villanova 31, Rhode Island 10

Villanova dominated this game. Bad news for the Rams: Nova isn't that good. JMU is, and they're coming to town this weekend. Buckle up buttercup, because 0-2 is on the way.


Towson 20, William and Mary 17

I obviously did not get to watch this game, but this is a pretty nice win for Towson to open up conference play. William and Mary is probably a .500 or above team in conference, so to win in Williamsburg is a big get for the defending champs. A loss here might have seriously jeopardized their hopes to win a second straight title, judging by how strong ODU and JMU have both looked early on.



That's it for the Hangover this week. Get some sleep and grab some Dasani. You'll need your rest for another West Virginia track meet this upcoming weekend when the Mountaineers beat down the Terps by 50, and I am forced to talk incessantly about it. Again.