No real major upsets (Unless you count Utah’s stomping all over of Oregon an “upset”) this week in college football, which means we get to speculate EVEN MORE about the teams that haven’t exactly fallen flat on their face yet (TCU) and teams that should just sim to the next season (Texas).
1) My God, Texas – For the 2nd week in row, a special teams gaff cost the Longhorns the game. This time, it was a bobbled punt that all but sealed the game for Oklahoma State. Jerrod Heard is the answer..maybe. If you’ll notice, and what a lot of Longhorn fans won’t like to tell you, is that he failed to move the ball at all when he needed to late in the game. Charlie Strong had that dumb unsportsmanlike conduct penalty at a crucial part of the game (and yes, there’s been talks about the officiating also), but that doesn’t change the fact that Texas had a shot to put this game away, and their offense failed to deliver.
2) Vernon Adams Turned Out To Be A Bust – The real story isn’t the fact that Oregon’s defense is pretty shitty, or even that the Ducks are out of the top 25 for the first time since 2009, but just how dependent Oregon’s offensive philosophy revolves around good QB play. Year after year, the Ducks would just find “guy” after “guy” to replace the previous “guy” who would hand it off to another running back “dude” who was having a stellar career, make a few passes and break the previous “guy”s records. Pretty standard stuff here. Adams, the prized transfer from Eastern Washington has all but let everyone in Eugene down on the high expectations they had for him. In short; he’s not their guy.
3) Utah Is For Real – The Utes were a lot of people’s “dark horse” to make a run at the Pac-12 title, and now it looks like they may even make a case for the playoffs if they can get passed #24 Cal this weekend. But fuck, did we witnessed just a systematic beat down of an Oregon team that hasn’t been destroyed like that in a very long time.
4) TCU Is Finding Itself In The Same Spot As Last Year – TCU has found itself in a few more games than they should be. Granted, it made for some amazing highlights, but it did nothing for them in the polls. Ole Miss and Michigan State have already creeped ahead of the Horned Frogs. Granted, Ohio State and Michigan State will knock each other out, but if they keep this lackadaisical play up and not put teams away that they should, they’ll easily fall behind UCLA, Utah, Notre Dame, etc. and find themselves in the exact same position as they were last year.
5) Thank God That We Are Finally In The Year Of The Running Back – Last week, we had touched on Leonard Fournette’s coronation as the college running back darling of this generation. With so many schools running the spread offense, you lose that “one true back” that we’ve been waiting for out of college since Adrian Peterson. This sort of drought is all in the numbers: since 2009, a running back hasn’t won the Heisman trophy. This year you have, of course, LSU’s Fournette, Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliot, Alabama’s Xavier Henry, and Georgia’s Nick Chubb who could all potentially nab enough Heisman votes come December.
Top 5 Teams:
1) Ohio State
2) Michigan State (+1)
3) TCU (-1)
4) Ole’ Miss
5) Baylor
Heisman Watch:
1) Leonard Fournette (+3)
2) Trevone Boykin (-1)
3) Ezekiel Elliot (-1)
4) Derrick Henry (-1)
5) Cody Kessler
