Under The Radar: Non-BCS Games of Week Two

I picked some good ones last week. Temple beat Villanova by hitting a FG in the last 3 seconds of the game to take a 1 point lead before returning a fumble for a TD on the last play of the game to ice it 31-24. Troy kicked a FG with 4 seconds left to top Bowling Green 30-27. In one of the best plays of the weekend East Carolina hit a 33 yard Hail Mary as time expired to fend off an upset bid by Tulsa 51-49. So 3 out of the 4 games I brought you last week were decided in basically the last play of the game. The other pick was a sentimental pick as Bill Curry and the Georgia State Panthers had their first ever game in the history of the school and beat Shorter in a rout 41-7 in front of 30,000 fans at the Georgia Dome. I was 3-1 picking straight up with no spread as I picked Tulsa to pull the upset of East Carolina but was denied on the Hail Mary. I was going to put Central Michigan at Temple as my first "Game of Week Two" but that game is now over (Temple won 13-10 in OT by the way).

UTEP (1-0) at Houston (1-0)
Fri, Sept 10th (ESPN and ESPN3.com)
10:15 PM EST

Anybody remember last year when Houston was getting some serious buzz after beating Oklahoma State (a Top 10 team at the time) and then Texas Tech? Houston was the #12 team in the nation and UTEP was coming off of a 64-7 throttling at the hands of Texas. So what happened? Well, of course UTEP pulled the upset 58-41. UTEP finished up the year by losing 5 of their next 7 games and Houston went on to finish 10-4 despite losing their last two games. Houston will be looking for revenge but it might not be as easy as they want. In addition to losing to UTEP last year, Houston only beat UTEP by 5 points in 2008 and 3 points in 2007.

My Pick: Houston


BYU (1-0) at Air Force (1-0)
Sat, Sept 11th (Versus)
4 PM EST

Last week BYU was seen beating Washington and Heisman darling Jake Locker. Air Force but up 65 on Northwestern State. Last year BYU clipped Air Force by 17 at home. This year the game is on the road for BYU but I expect them to prevail. Watch this one to get a peak at BYU Freshman Jake Heaps. Last week he went 13 of 23 for 131 yards in his debut as a true freshman.

My Pick: BYU


Bowling Green (0-1) at Tulsa (0-1)
Sat, Sept 11th

Both of these teams played games that I listed in my column last week and both games delivered on dramatic finishes. On paper this doesn't look like the best game but both teams put up valiant fights last week and came up just short. Tulsa lost at East Carolina 51-49 because of a fluke Hail Mary play and Bowling Green lost at Troy on a last second FG. Expect both teams to play with a lot of heart and emotion.

My Pick: Tulsa