Faced with the rare combination of a Saturday with no football game to cover and a wife who has to work all day, I took the opportunity to do something I haven't done in a while: plant myself on the couch and watch college football all afternoon. Here are a few observations from a very lazy Saturday.

• The Rutgers-Illinois game was one I really wanted to see; a chance to check out UConn's biggest football rival against a Big Ten opponent. I was shocked that Illinois provided absolutely no challenge, a combo of a good Rutgers team facing a horrendous Illini squad. The Illinois punting was downright embarrassing. Their most effective punt came when the punter came within an eyelash of an alltogether whiff, but managed to get enough toe to kick the ball into the posterior of a Rutgers player on the line of scrimmage. Illinois recovered, and maintained possession. The only other time I've seen that was in a high school JV football game.

• The ESPN announcing tandem of Pam Ward and Mike Gottfried helped put me to sleep for a good hour during the Rutgers game. I have a tough time listening to female game announcers. That's a terrible thing to say, I know. But trust me, it's not because I'm a chauvanist. It's from 10 years of being forced to listen to Suzyn Waldman butcher the games of my beloved New York Yankees. It's all her fault. Any Yankees fan will back me on this. And how old is Mike Gottfried? He sounds exactly like Grandpa Simpson.

• The Kent State-Army game was shown live on ESPN Classic. Too easy to make a joke there. But Army's offensive line made three mistakes with their cadence that resulted in false starts. Mind boggling. Isn't learning to march on cadence the first thing Army cadets learn at West Point?

• Army didn't look so bad. They won't beat UConn next month, but good to see them come back to beat Kent State in overtime.

• What's going on in the ACC? Duke, shutout by Division I-AA Richmond in week one, nearly beat Wake Forest on the road. Virginia needs overtime to beat Wyoming. NC State loses to Akron (to be fair, the Zips might win the MAC this season. But still...)

• Louisville had the 40.5-point spread against Temple covered by halftime. At this point, Temple may want to look into Division I-AA.

• The Rock in a dramatic role as a high school football coach? I think I'll pass.

• More wacky scores. UMass nearly upsets Navy, New Hampshire pounds Northwestern and South Florida squeaks past Florida International.

• The new rule regarding the running clock in college football is idiotic. Phil Mushnick of the New York Post makes a couple of good points regarding the silliness.

• Syracuse coach Greg Robinson might want to incorporate the quarterback sneak into the playbook sometime soon.