In the whimsical world of college football this week, we had: a monumental upset on a Wednesday, coaches talking shit in the media, rivals fighting before and after games, and yours truly having to eat a bit of crow.
That’s where I come in! I, Troy the Panda, shall to take you through that whimsical world of college football, as we explore and recap what happened in this week’s action!
ACC
#19 Pitt 41 Syracuse 13
Louisville 31 Boston College 27
#6 Miami (FL) 36 Florida State 14
#22 SMU 28 Duke 27 (F/OT)
Virginia Tech 21 Georgia Tech 6
North Carolina 41 Virginia 14
Wake Forest 27 Stanford 24
Cal 44 Oregon State 7
What happened in the ACC this week, Panda?
Kyle McCord threw three touchdown passes against Pitt. The problem was, the three touchdown passes were to Pitt cornerbacks!
Boston College had a 20 point lead on Louisville… and then it was gone. Now, Boston College is on a 3 game losing streak and have been outscored 46-0 in the 4th quarter of those games.
The Miami Hurricanes figuratively made a statement by dominating their rivals Florida State on the field. Mario Cristobal literally made a statement about dominating their rivals in the media.
SMU tried to give Duke the game by turning the ball over SIX times, but Duke refused to take it. The Blue Devils got a game-winning field goal blocked before going to overtime and failed a two-point conversion attempt when they could’ve just kicked the extra point and continued play into a second overtime. So, SMU had to accept the win.
Georgia Tech is really missing their starting quarterback Haynes King and Clemson is at home on a bye week praying that Virginia Tech doesn’t beat Syracuse on the road.
Virginia decided to let North Carolina get their first ACC win of the year by not showing up to a game in their own house.
Wake Forest went over 2,700 miles (for a conference game) to nearly blow two double digit leads, only to eek out a game winning field goal with 1:38 left, to secure a victory.
And Cal picked up a dominating non-conference victory over Oregon State. This is not a typo.
Big 12
#11 BYU 37 UCF 24
#16 Kansas State 29 Kansas 27
Baylor 38 Oklahoma State 28
TCU 35 Texas Tech 34
West Virginia 31 Arizona 26
Houston 17 Utah 14
Colorado 34 Cincinnati 23
What happened in the Big 12 this week, Panda?
BYU and their fans fly over 2,300 miles (for a conference game) to the Magic Kingdom to dominate a disappointing UCF team on the field and in the crowd. I don’t know if Gus Malzahn is on the hot seat or not but, he should at least have a seat warmer or something. The few UCF fans that were there seem to agree with me as well.
History keeps repeating itself for Kansas, as they have blown a 4th quarter lead in all six of their losses this season and have now lost to Kansas State for the 16th year in a row.
Oklahoma State, who many had regarded as one of the favorites to win the Big 12 this season because they returned all five of their starting offensive lineman and their Doak Walker Award winning running back, are now 0-5 in the Big 12, and 115th in country (14th in the Big 12) in rushing offense. Oklahoma State is living proof that all of us so called “experts” don’t know shit!
(Note: Really the Big 12 as a whole is proof we don’t know shit considering every preseason favorite in this conference is doing really bad)
TCU blew a 11 point lead before half time, so Texas Tech raised the Horned Frogs by blowing a 17 point lead to lose the game. Safe to say, Texas Tech won the battle.
Since beating #10 Utah (at the time) on the road on September 28th, the Arizona Wildcats have lost four straight games with three of the four being at home. To be fair, Utah hasn’t won a game since that loss to Arizona either…
Which includes a Utah loss on the road at Houston. If this is how Kyle Whittingham is going to go out then this is truly sad. Kyle Whittingham is better than this.
Travis Hunter should be your Heisman Favorite. Deion Sanders should be in consideration for at least Big 12 Coach of the Year. And the Colorado Buffaloes are going bowling! I’ve been hyper critical of Deion in the recent past. I can honestly say, I did NOT believe. But with what he and defensive coordinator Robert Livingston has done with this defense may not show up in the stats, but if you watch the games and see how well Colorado adjusts defensively in the 2nd half of games, it has been nothing short of spectacular! Deion as a coach has absolutely made me eat my words. Great job, Coach Prime!
Big Ten
USC 42 Rutgers 20
#1 Oregon 38 #20 Illinois 9
#3 Penn State 28 Wisconsin 13
#4 Ohio State 21 Nebraska 17
#13 Indiana 31 Washington 17
Iowa 40 Northwestern 14
Minnesota 48 Maryland 23
Michigan 24 Michigan State 17
What happened in the Big Ten this week, Panda?
On a Friday night, where they were completely overshadowed in their own city by the Dodgers in the World Series and LeBron facing off with KD, USC beat Rutgers, and looked pretty good doing it.
Oregon may have proved that they are legitimately the #1 team in the country by dominating a pesky Illinois team at home.
Penn State won the battle by going into Camp Randall and beating an upset-minded Wisconsin team before hosting the Buckeyes next week, but did they lose the war with Drew Allar getting hurt?
Ohio State barely won the battle by holding off Nebraska in Columbus, but did they lose the war with ANOTHER left tackle getting hurt, and he wasn’t even playing well to begin with?
Either way, we should be setup with ANOTHER Top 5 matchup with Ohio State and Penn State and we should be excited to see how it unfolds next week!
Indiana hosts College GameDay, Lee Corso comes home, Memorial Stadium was sold out, Indiana is 8-0 and has still never trailed this season. The best news of all? Kurtis Rourke could be back next week against Michigan State!
Iowa has now scored 40 points in three games this year, the same amount of 40 point scoring performances for Ohio State this season. Take with that information what you will.
Not sure if Minnesota is playing some really good football right now or if this is the beginning of the end for Mike Locksley at Maryland. We can’t say for sure with Maryland going into a bye before going to Eugene, but we can find out if Minnesota is the real deal next week when they go to Champaign to take on Illinois.
Michigan went through the quarterback circle of life, and are back to their original starting QB Davis Warren, and it paid off with their third straight victory over in-state rival Michigan State. Then, in typical little brother fashion, Michigan State started a fight at the end of the game. Little bro is gonna do little bro things, right Colston Loveland?
SEC
#5 Texas 27 #25 Vanderbilt 24
#14 Texas A&M 38 #8 LSU 23
#15 Alabama 34 #21 Missouri 0
#18 Ole Miss 26 Oklahoma 14
Arkansas 58 Mississippi State 25
Auburn 24 Kentucky 10
What happened in the SEC this week, Panda?
Texas barely beats Vanderbilt, and some media pundits are ready to jump on the Texas is overrated bandwagon. I however, am ready to jump on the Vandy is legitimately good bandwagon! (though it stinks they will probably be dropping out of the Top 25) I still am scratching my head as to how this Commodore team has lost to Georgia State and Missouri? Vanderbilt should really be 7-1.
After a fun little pre-game scuffle and an early LSU lead, Texas A&M decides to bench Connor Weigman mid-game for Marcel Reed. This proved to be the right move as the Texas A&M offense took off and the Aggies came back to beat LSU at home, pretty handily. Now Texas A&M is all alone atop the SEC. Head coach Mike Elko wasted no time to talk his shit right afterward! (Who do you think he is referring to?)
Alabama puts the nail in the proverbial coffin of something we all were pretty aware of. Missouri, even at #21, was completely overrated and we should not see them back in the Top 25 again this season.
Oklahoma raised eyebrows for a bit in the 1st half. But the 2nd half proved there’s only so much a firing of the offensive coordinator can do for this team, as they were blanked in the 2nd half and Ole Miss took control of the game.
Arkansas recorded +600 yards of total offense for the second time this season, but this time they actually won.
Hugh Freeze finally won an SEC Game and didn’t end the night on Message Board Geniuses. Freeze and the Auburn Tigers did begin the day on the comical website though.
Independents and Group of 5
What happened elsewhere in college football, Panda?
Kennesaw State 27 Liberty 24
Winless Kennesaw State, a program that is new to the FBS, and was 0-10 vs. the FBS coming into the game, upset undefeated Liberty. A Liberty program on a 19 game regular season winning streak coming into the game. This is arguably the biggest upset of the season thus far.
Old Dominion 47 Georgia Southern 19
Georgia Southern had a chance to take a firm grasp of the East division of the Sun Belt Conference, but the defense was a complete no show once again in a loss. Don’t ask why, but I looked into Georgia Southern’s season, and I found out something quite fascinating!
In Georgia Southern’s five wins, the Eagles are giving up 17.8 points per game (ppg), and 368.6 yards per game (ypg) defensively, which would rank 14th and 70th nationally respectively.
In the Eagles three losses, the Eagles are giving up 51.6 ppg and 606 ypg (!!!) which would both rank DEAD LAST nationally. So if Georgia Southern’s defense could just avoid being the worst defense in the country each week, they might be fine!
#17 Boise State 29 UNLV 24
Boise State goes to Sin City and knocks off UNLV in a great Friday night game, in front of a sold out Allegiant Stadium crowd. Boise State is now firmly in the driver seat for the Group of 5 Auto-bid, and while the Rebels came up short, it was probably the best atmosphere a UNLV game has ever had. UNLV showed that under head coach Barry Odom, they belong. This will likely be a rematch in the Mountain West Championship Game.
#12 Notre Dame 51 #24 Navy 14
Navy turned the ball over SIX times against Notre Dame. Navy only turned the ball over TWO times all season prior to that game. I think this what Josh Pate would call a “padlock stat”.
Memphis 33 Charlotte 28
Memphis blew a 14 point 3rd quarter lead, only to take it back in the last 31 seconds of the game, and even threw a safety on the end for insurance. This keeps Memphis still in the AAC hunt, even if they are on the outside looking in.
Tulane 45 North Texas 37
Tulane went on the road to Denton, Texas, and played a fun high scoring game with North Texas. North Texas tried to make it interesting late, with two 4th quarter touchdowns, but ultimately Tulane prevailed and remain with the military academies atop the AAC.
Ball State 25 Northern Illinois 23
Since beating (at the time) #5 Notre Dame in South Bend, Northern Illinois has been 2-4, and 1-3 in the MAC.
Western Michigan 52 Kent State 21
In a battle of black head coaches going in opposite directions, the Western Michigan Broncos remain the only unbeaten team in the MAC, while Kent State is the only winless team left in college football. Golden Flashes head coach Kenni Burns has only one win in two years so far at Kent State. I’m rootin’ for you, brothas, but it’s not lookin good for Brotha Burns.
Tulsa 46 UTSA 45
Tulsa overcame a 35-7 halftime deficit to come from behind and beat UTSA in a wild one which included Tulsa outscoring UTSA 22-3 in the 4th quarter. Who said a game between two 3-5 teams can’t be fun to watch?
Washington State 29 San Diego State 26
After overcoming a 12 point 4th quarter deficit, the Washington State Cougars now sit at 7-1. With wins over Texas Tech and Washington and their lone loss being at Boise State… what in the world do we do with this team?
And there you have it, another wonderful week in the whimsical world of college football! What do you think they’ll come up with next? Guess we’ll have to watch and found out next week!
Panda Just Talkin 