While this weekend was momentous in the world of Notre Dame Football, the Mid Major world decided to keep things a little low key in our last week without “weekday” football. That’s right starting this Wednesday, we will have college football on Wednesdays and Tuesdays for the month of October. Before we look ahead, let’s take one last look back at the week that was in Mid Majors.
Also Considered: Ohio, Georgia Southern, Miami (OH), UNLV
Three And Out Takeaways
First Down: The Mountain West Has Its Favorites
With Boise seemingly down (don’t worry we’ll get to them) the Mountain West always seems to be an interesting race. The top two teams of the conference seemed to separate themselves in the non-conference slate, and the first taste of conference play did not change minds. Air Force rolled over San Diego State at home 49-10. The Falcons seem to have a star in QB Zac Larrier, who is running the new version of the option for Troy Calhoun’s Falcons.
The other team is the only ranked Mid Major team the past two weeks. Fresno State, having a much more manageable schedule compared to 2022, is looking to roll through their Mountain West schedule like they did last season. The defending Conference Champions rolled over Nevada 27-9 late night. These two teams avoid each other in the regular season, so we could be looking at a collision course of clash of styles on December 2nd.
Second Down: Memphis and Tulane Have Yet to Play A Complete Game
Tulane and Memphis, out of the top Mid Major teams, had the weirdest results on the weekend. First, let’s go New Orleans, where the defending American Champions got all they could handle from newcomer UAB. Michael Pratt didn’t play awful and the run game was effective for the most part. The Blazer offense was highly effective in the first half and Tulane had to play catch up. This result is confusing and it’s hard to tell if it speaks more to UAB’s tenacity or Tulane’s drop in quality. It’s something to keep an eye on in the coming weeks.
Then, there’s the situation in Memphis. The Tigers also had a slow start against Boise State, falling to 17-0 early in the second quarter. The field goal was a chip shot as well, so it could have been much worse. Seth Hennigan and Blake Watson hit some chunk plays to get the Tigers back in the game before the tipping point. Memphis’ Geoffrey Cantin-Arku blocked, scooped, and scored on another chip shot field goal for the Broncos, giving Memphis the lead for good. Boise has yet another QB controversy on their hands and Memphis has a big swing offense. Ideally, these teams would play a pretty solid beginning to end dominant football game to separate themselves in the American, but we’ll have to wait a couple weeks to see which team has the juice as they meet in Memphis on the 13th.
Third Down: The Sun Belt is Schrodinger’s Conference
Let’s start by clarifying the title; this conference both seems wide open and seemingly wrapped up. James Madison took care of business against South Alabama 31-23. Looking around the conference the Dukes have looked head and shoulders better than any other team in the conference. However, as mentioned last week, their lack of postseason play opens a vacuum. This vacuum not only consumes the Sun Belt East, which has potential winners in Marshall, Georgia State, and a chaos App State team, but also the Sun Belt in general as Troy has shown weaknesses during the season and Louisiana and South Alabama are looming in the shadows to get their shot. This might be the most fun conference race to watch during the next two months.
Week 6 Preview
Wednesday and Thursday CUSA Action: No particular game to shout out but this is the first week of CUSA trying to get onto MACtion’s turf and doing it a week earlier. But hey, it’s football!!
Marshall @ NC State: NC State is coming off an abysmal performance against Louisville and now face an under the radar Marshall team that is firing on all cylinders. Rasheen Ali already has nine TDs on the young season and looks to replicate his 2021 season and will get his biggest platform (the CW Network) to do so.
Texas St @ Louisiana: GJ Kinne has really turned around a struggling Texas St program that already has its signature win on the season over Baylor. This will be their next big test on the season, going to Lafayette to test their mettle against a potential conference contender. Louisiana needs this game to put themselves back in the conference race and can use the positive from their loss in Minneapolis to do so.
South Florida @ UAB: I mentioned the potential tenacity in Birmingham, but there is only one team with two conference wins in the American. That team is in Tampa. They had their blip in the infamous 17-3 result against Alabama, but they have shown their offensive firepower in their other games, led by Byrum Brown. The Bulls have a manageable schedule the rest of the way, with trips to Memphis and San Antonio the biggest pitfalls. The Bulls could be a player into November in the American.
Arkansas State @ Troy: Arkansas State looked close to the worst team in FBS after their first two games. However, Butch Jones has righted the ship. Granted, the teams they beat were Stony Brook, UMass, and Southern Miss. However, this trip to Troy gives the Red Wolves a true measuring stick both for their season, and how Butch Jones is bringing this team along in his tenure.
Fresno State @ Wyoming: The game of the weekend for Mid Majors once again lies in Laramie. Wyoming struggled to put away New Mexico and are looking potentially like a paper tiger in the Mountain West, but this could be a weird game if the Bulldogs don’t do what they did to Nevada last Saturday. Something to keep an eye on in primetime.
San Jose St @ Boise State: San Jose State may be 1-4, but might be the strongest 1-4 team in the country? Their four losses are to USC, Oregon St, Toledo, and Air Force. All strong teams in their own right. The Spartans now stare down a trip to Boise, who is dealing with their own issues on offense. The loser of this game falls to 0-2 in conference play and have their conference hopes dashed way earlier than they initially expected.
I’ll be at the Wyoming – Fresno game. That Wyoming has them at home is a huge advantage for them with the elevation, however Wyoming’s success this year has been the defense, I don’t know that they have enough offensive firepower to keep up with Fresno. It will be a great game. I’ll have to keep up with Louisville- ND on my phone.
That’s awesome! I will definitely be keeping an eye on that on my laptop during the Irish game for sure. Laramie has just had some weird games this year on top Wyoming hanging with Texas for 3 quarters. Hope it’s a fun game!
The three spots the top MAC teams are in are fine, but I’d probably reverse their order. Toledo is the only one of the three that doesn’t have a P5 win, Miami (OH) won on the road at UC, and Ohio won a squeaker at home over ISU.
I’m rooting on ol’ Chuck Martin to get his second MAC title this year, but they do have the toughest remaining schedule of the three.
I definitely can see the Miami and Ohio love but I think that problem with those P5 wins is that those teams are bad Big 12 teams. Miami and Toledo will meet on the 21st so we’ll know for sure, but the advanced numbers seem to like Toledo more than the two MAC East teams. Definitely appreciate the feedback though!
Maybe someone else has done the research, but does michael pratt still have eligibility left after the season? Is he a grad transfer candidate? would he make sense?
He’s starting for his fourth year, but his freshman year doesn’t count toward eligibility because of COVID, so yes, he has one COVID year of eligibility left after this season (and could red-shirt next season and play his 5th year in 2025 if he wanted).
Whether he’d be the best available to us, I have no idea. His numbers are certainly getting better each year.
Our first few games where Angeli saw the field, i thought was fairly solid QB play. Minchey was cromulent (ha) as well. Carr coming on board, not sure we need to take a QB transfer for next season. Of course the last time I thought that, we had Pyne lead us through an offensive misery of a season.
This list from 11 months ago is fun to look back on:
https://18stripes.com/on-the-radar-the-list-of-possible-quarterback-grad-transfers-for-notre-dame/
Brennan Armstrong – Transferred to NC State and dare I say he’s really really mediocre and is below average as a passer.
Hank Bachmeier – Transferred to La Tech and is okay for that level.
Doug Brumfield – Stayed at UNLV and not playing well as a backup and/or sharing time I’m not even sure.
Zach Calzada – Transferred to Incarnate Word and that’s something a person could do.
Hudson Card – Transferred to Purdue and is doing okay but not the playmaker some thought he could be.
Jalon Daniels – Stayed at Kansas and is really good.
Max Duggan – Went to the NFL.
Dequan Finn – Stayed at Toleo and is doing well.
Sam Hartman – Described as a “long shot to come to ND” by me 🙂
Grayson McCall – Stayed at Coastal Carolina even though he tried to transfer and it’s going really badly.
Tanner McKee – Went to the NFL.
Cade McNamara – Transferred to Iowa where he’s in Iowa’s offense and currently injured.
Graham Mertz – Transferred to Florida and has been really up and down.
Michael Pratt – Stayed at Tulane and has been hurt a lot this year.
Kurtis Rourke – Stayed at Ohio after a late knee injury in 2022. He’s working his way back and hasn’t been great yet.
Garrett Shrader – Stayed at Syracuse and remains an iffy passer but good athlete.
Jeff Sims – Transferred to Nebraska where it’s not going well at all. He’s benched.
Taulia Tagovailoa – Stayed at Maryland and remains pretty good.
DJU – Transferred to Oregon State and he’s been okay at times.
Tyler Van Dyke – Stayed at Miami, currently 2nd nationally in passer rating.
That is a humbling success rate.
Saw today that NC State is benching Armstrong/going to the ever popular QB by committee
When are you getting started on the top 100 potential wr transfer prospects for next year?
As long as we get Cam Williams to transfer in from Glenbard South.
The Mountain West and Pac 12 have played ten games this year. Those may well be impacted with the dissolution of the Pac. Hawaii, for instance, over the next three years has future games with Oregon, UCLA, Stanford x 2, Arizona and Arizona State. Travel is a much discussed issue with the ex-Pac teams next year. Stanford playing in the ACC will be the longest total distances of the ex-Pac opponents for the future Hawaii game. Are they likely to drop Hawaii? Will the ACC move to a nine conference game schedule?
Of the Pac teams that will travel to Hawaii, NM State is the only one that has scheduled a thirteen game, making use of the Hawaii exemption.Hawaii’s QB Braden Schager is fourth nationally in total yards and leads G5 QBs (six games) UNLV’s win over Hawaii earned them the Island Showdown Trophy.
SJ St also has Stanford on their 2025 & ’26 schedule. San Jose They came close to a win at Toledo, losing by four. Upsets watch in conference play? SJ St is cash strapped. So the USC and Oregon State games may well have helped that. They, too, have Stanford on their ’25 and ’26 schedules. Of course, games with Oregon State and/or Washington State are possibilities.