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Week Zero and the Backside 10 are a wedding made in complicated, loser heaven. Simply the place did Nebraska land after their Massive Ten opening loss to Northwestern? And the place do the annual Backside 10 powerhouses rank within the preseason standings?
Inspirational considered the week:
I am unable to say that I am sorry
For the issues that we achieved
Not less than for a short time, sir,
Me and her we had us some enjoyable
— “Nebraska” Bruce Springsteen
Right here at Backside 10 Headquarters, positioned within the alley behind a Dublin pub the place a bunch of overserved Nebraska followers elected to overlook their flight and sleep it off till 2023, we spent final weekend feeling not unhappy like Massive Crimson Nation, however quite like the remainder of the faculty soccer world. Confused.
You see, the purpose round right here was to jot down and put up a preseason Backside 10 earlier than the season began, which we assumed would occur in the course of the a part of the calendar labeled “Week One.” However then we discovered too late about this “Week Zero” factor, like, late as in turned on the TV Saturday to observe Hercules on Freeform with our households solely to search out that there have been video games taking place. A complete of 11 video games in all, that includes 22 groups and … wait … Vandy at Hawai’i, a Preseason Pillow Struggle of the Week?!
Round right here we take pleasure in realizing what zero means. Most of our groups have zeros on the entrance of their win-loss data. All of them are favored in practically zero video games that they play. And even throughout a time when there are eleventy billion bowl video games, the groups of the Backside 10 yearly obtain zero invitations. Thus, we felt zero happiness as we realized that Week Zero is a factor we needs to be zeroed in on.
So, it was with zero hesitation or regret that I snatched up the distant and flipped the household room tv to school soccer, unhealthy school soccer, whilst my household rose from the couch to their toes and started to hurl their cinnamon rolls and iced coffees at my head. Defiantly, I pressed the button to search out UN vs. NU within the IRL, the press that formally began the 2022 school soccer season, departing the film simply because the gospel ladies sung to the son of Zeus: “Zero to hero, identical to that!”
https://twitter.com/ESPNMcGee/status/1563585874360557568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
With apologies to Tom Osborne, Johnny 99 and Steve Harvey, listed here are the post-Week Zero kinda sorta 2022 preseason Backside 10 rankings.
Table of Contents
Final 12 months the Minutemen scored 24 touchdowns in 12 video games, which truly makes them the Solely-1-Level-Scored-Per-Each-4-Minutesmen.
I used to get so mad at my social research trainer again in japanese North Carolina when she would pronounce the identify of the state Huh-Why-Yuh. However Saturday night time after getting steamrolled 63-10 by Backside 10 stalwart Van-duh-built, Rainbow Warriors QB-hero-turned-head coach Timmy Chang was seemingly saying it like that, too. As in “Huh, why, uh, did I come again right here?”
In the meantime, Chang’s earlier employer, Nevada, was serving to this squad get its Backside 10 title chase off on its left foot with a 23-12 win in Las Cruces. This weekend New Mexico State travels to Minnesota, the place new coach Jerry Kill faces the group he coached for half a decade, the Golden Gophers. In the event that they lose that recreation (and they’ll) then the Different Aggies might doubtlessly play in as many as 4 editions of the Pillow Struggle of the Week over the span of solely seven video games — vs. Hawai’i, FIU, New Mexico and UMass. It will be like that present Wipeout, but when the massive, lengthy cylinder was coated in that water these children are sliding round in in that Woodstock ’99 documentary.
Whereas most #MACtion groups will likely be spending their season openers on the street taking part in in opposition to Energy 5 faculties and their accountants, the Zips have elected to increase Week Zero by turning Week 1 into Week Zip, internet hosting St. Francis College from Pennsylvania, aka the Crimson Flash. The mystically correct ESPN FPI method says that Akron has an 88% likelihood of successful, so I am assuming Barry Allen is not taking part in.
The season’s first Coveted Fifth Spot goes to a college that does not area an American soccer group. However the dwelling of the Pumas does have the planet’s No. 1-ranked institute of geography and cartography. That makes them the largest losers of the offseason. Cannot you see the dean strolling into the workplace with crumpled maps of america in every hand, screaming, “How are we supposed to place Los Angeles within the Midwest?!”
The Panthers misplaced so many gamers to the trans-er portal d-r-ng the o-season that wh-le try-ng to wr-te th-s sentence the letters F, I and U all began trans-err-ng o-t o- my doc-ment.
I do know folks generally is a bit divided over the plotline of the final Star Wars movie, “The Rise of Skywalker,” however everybody will acknowledge the prescient genius in it when Randy Edsall comes again half-cloned, boney and glassy-eyed, cackling like resurrected Palpatine.
The Lobos will bounce proper into the center of their Mountain West Mountain Division calendar early, with a Week 2 go to from Boise State. However first they face off with a standard, pure and regional rival in Maine.
Final season Terry Bowden and his workers of fellow big- résumé Energy 5 coaches led the Warhawks to a four-win season after an oh-fer 2020 marketing campaign. However this 12 months they, ulm, journey to Texas, Alabama and Military, with, ulm, visits from Enjoyable Belt West favourite Louisiana and Enjoyable Belt East darlings Coastal Carolina sprinkled in between. But when Bowden ever begins feeling like the bottom beneath his toes is unsteady, he can merely look east and suppose, “Nicely, it might be worse. I might nonetheless be at Auburn.”
Talking of tolerating chaos whereas wanting again at days passed by, do you suppose that in the course of the 4,100-mile redeye flight again to Lincoln from Dublin that Scott Frost regarded round, made certain everybody else was asleep, and secretly slipped on his 2017 UCF nationwide title ring, hoping it will be like a type of Hobbit rings that would carry him mystical powers? Or at the least The Schwartz?
Ready record: Texas State Armadillos, Vanderbilt Commode Doorways, Minute Rice, Dook, Southern Missed, Temple Bowels, Kansas Nayhawks.