Blowout: It's a good thing, kinda

Published online on Saturday, Sep. 05, 2009

If today you're saying, "Well, it was only UC Davis," then at least contemplate whether you'd rather have a football team that beat Davis 51-0 or one that, well, didn't.

Are the Aggies that bad, or are the Bulldogs that good? Hey, at least the question is there to ponder.

Maybe this win doesn't mean much, but tell that to Iowa, which had to block two late field goals to beat I-AA Northern Iowa.

Tell it to East Carolina. It almost got Appalachian-Stated by Appalachian State on Saturday. Kansas State barely beat UMass. Virginia lost to William & Mary.

OK, I'll stop. I'm just pointing out that it's football. Weird things happen. I-AA teams cause problems. Underdogs sometimes do not realize they are supposed to give up.

It's been far too long since Fresno State dominated like it did Saturday night, owned a team in every way, let the starters relax with the water buckets for most of the second half. And when you've had Idaho, Utah State, New Mexico State and Sacramento State on the schedule, there have been opportunities.

Wins like Saturday's are how you avoid twisted knees and high ankle sprains and how you get to a Wisconsin game without an injury report. Think of the paper that was saved. Trees, rejoice.

I'm still not entirely convinced the Ebahn Feathers-at-quarterback option is for real. I hope it is, because it looks like it would be fun to watch and delightful in the spirit of giving other teams things to worry about. We saw it Saturday, or at least a simplified version of it, but only after it was 28-0. Feathers threw for a first down. He ran for a 20-yard touchdown. It worked. But then again, everything worked.

Blowouts: Good for confidence. Not as good for meaningful evaluation.

Feathers didn't come in as a changeup Saturday, he was working of his own volition. He was leading his own drives, not supplementing the starter, which makes you wonder if he'll really be involved when the games are close, or this option thing was just something fun to talk about.

But he played and looked comfortable. The option will be an option, if the people in charge decide to press the buttons.

The starting quarterback, Ryan Colburn, threw a couple of beautiful passes. He threw a couple of iffy passes. Mostly, he handed off. For every possession of the first half but the last, the Bulldogs offense looked a lot like Pat Hill offenses of yesteryear, except with a lefty quarterback.

It will take more than this game to convince the whole of Bulldog nation that they've entered a new offensive era. Is this really change, or the kind the politicians preach about?

Again, though, we're not going to ignore this win when it's so fresh from the oven. You can only judge what you've seen and so far that is 51-0, a shutout, a blowout, an undefeated team with a small sample size. Any thought of Davis being in the game disappeared when Nico Herron jumped in front of a pass, intercepted it and ran it 94 yards to the other end zone.

"I was tired when I got there," said Herron, beaming like a little kid holding a big fish.

He had so many blockers, he could probably have taken that football for a 5K. It had been too long for that, too, an interception that changed a game, the kind the good teams always seem to get and the mediocre teams pine for.

Everyone wanted to be a part of that runback. So many guys went after Davis quarterback Greg Denham, the only Aggie in the area, that he had to lie down for safety purposes.

What kind of team will the Bulldogs be? That's a discussion waiting for more evidence. Today, we can say the Bulldogs are much, much better than UC Davis, and maybe that isn't significant on a grand college football scale, but it shouldn't be completely dismissed.

Beating any college football team that soundly isn't easy. Certainly not as easy as it looked.