Week 5

Yet another week and not too many surprising outcomes. You’ll have to excuse me if this post seems a little disjointed because I’m distracted by the fact that my Atlanta Braves are unable to win one game and make it into the playoffs. Tonight is the last night of the season so its win and you’re in time for the Braves. Hopefully tomorrow I wake up a happier man and see my team headed for the first round of the playoffs.

But as far as college football goes there were a few good games on the slate but not too many that proved to be very surprising. I think that this week was just one of those weeks where the games just needed to be played to make sure that the teams that were supposed to win did. Did that make sense? I told you I’m distracted by baseball.

Some interesting facts that I saw this week: with Notre Dame’s loss to Stanford last week, they have now not beaten a ranked team since 2006. And, there are now 5 undefeated teams in the Big-12 with K-State, Missouri and Oklahoma State still unranked among those undefeated teams. But, Texas is still ranked with now two losses. We’ll get to that in a minute.

In other news apparently my mother went to her first college football game in her life yesterday. She attended the Citadel vs. Western Carolina game. Too bad the boys from Charleston’s military college lost 24-13. Don’t worry mom, with better teams come better games. Maybe in the comments section we’ll get a full report on this one.
On with the…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
Sorry SEC fans, Alabama cruising by Florida 31-6 doesn’t count as a game of the week.

#4 Oregon takes out #9 Stanford 52-31
Big big big win for Oregon. This maybe the PAC-10’s year to challenge the SEC as the nation’s top conference and Oregon looks to be the conference’s best contender. Stanford has a good squad this year and I expect that they will rebound from this nicely, but Oregon was expected to win, needed to win and did win. Having Oregon’s RB James run for 257yds and 3TDs doesn’t hurt either. The only drawback to this game was the 3 turnovers by each team. They can’t continue to do that.

#8 Oklahoma over #21 Texas 28-20
The Red River Whatever is always good even if Texas just dropped 14 spots in the rankings after last week’s loss. Do they drop out of the top 25 after this one? We shall see. Oklahoma didn’t look great and played sloppy ball, but came out with a win and really just avoided being this week’s big upset.

#24 Michigan State upsets #11 Wisconsin 34-24
This game doesn’t belong in the upset of the week because both teams came in undefeated and this was what a lot of the pundits had predicted anyway. Plus, I love to see Wisconsin lose when they’re overrated anyway. MSU has now quietly started the year 5-0 and has the emotional wave of their coach having had a heart attack but still coaching the team. Big effort from MSU’s QB Cousins who went an amazing 20 for 29 for 269yds and 3TDs and he’s also quietly putting together a nice start to this year. Too early to say he’s an early candidate? Hmmm… You heard it here first.

#12 LSU survives Tennessee 16-14
Tennessee had this game won. The clock struck zero with Tennessee ahead 14-9. Game over right? Nope. The Vols had 12 men on the field and gave LSU one more play at the one-yard-line. LSU had screwed up the snap on that play and Tennessee should have had one of their biggest road wins in the past 10 years. Instead they gave LSU one more chance and they took advantage of it. This game just goes to show that good teams capitalize on mistakes and bad teams just keep making them. But, weird ending aside, this was a great defensive battle and deserves to get one of this week’s nods. By the way, LSU is 5-0 for the second straight year and the third time in the last four seasons.

UPSET OF THE WEEK:
Unranked Washington (2-2) goes to So. Cal and takes out #18 USC 32-31
Like I said earlier, this maybe the PAC-10’s year. Washington looked bad in their two losses (especially their phenom QB Jake Locker, who I’ve made fun of on this blog before) and had many thinking they were not going to come close in this game. Others thought that USC was ranked that high on name alone, but still thought that they would have no problem with Washington at home. But, this ended up being the second straight year that Washington has upset USC and Jake Locker passed for 310yds, 1TD and rushed for 110yds in this one. Locker had a great game and the kicker did his job as time expired. A lot could be said about this game, but I’ll just say it was huge for both teams and for drastically different reasons.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
#3 Boise State over unranked New Mexico 59-0
The Lobos were involved in one of our pillow fights a few weeks back and lost to UNLV. So what happens when they play Boise State? They make another appearance on the blog in the beat down section. Boise State, like I said plays nobody the rest of the year and this is just the start of that. New Mexico managed just 208 total yards but still won the time of possession. If that’s any consolidation to them.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK:
I should give this to Michigan’s Robinson again with his 494 yards of total offense, 3 passing TDs, and 2 rushing TDs in a win over Indiana. Not too early to say this guy is the front runner for the Heisman. But, I’m going to switch and give it to Jerrod Johnson from Texas A&M even though his team lost and he threw 4INTs. Just hang with me for a second. His defense sucks and he had to throw the ball all over the field to receivers that had a lot of busted routs. He just kept throwing and kept trying to win. He went 40 for 62 for 409yds and 5TDs with those 4INTs. 62 pass attempts!!! Damn.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
I should go to Vegas and start picking these games because I’m on fire this year. Last week I picked LA Lafayette to beat North Texas and they did 28-27 in a great pillow fight.
This week I’m going to keep picking on New Mexico. It’s a classic MWC at WAC instate smack down as New Mexico (0-5) goes to New Mexico State (0-4) to settle the argument over which New Mexico team is the worst. And, I’m going to ride my hot hand and say New Mexico State wins it.

That’s it kids. I’m out of here to go pray that the Braves figure out a way to back into the playoffs.