10. Sunflower beat down – Kansas St. never beat Kansas as bad as they did last Thursday even in the heyday of the Bill Snyder era from 1998-2003. 59-7 is just an amazing performance. The Wildcats really might be good again. We know the Jayhawks are awful though.
9. Talent rises to the top – The Big East has had an awful season thus far. That said, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are, along with West Virginia, the most talented teams in that league and it showed last week. Pitt smoked Syracuse while Cincy got a tough win over Louisville. Both teams showed quite well on offense and positioned themselves as the leading contenders to overwhelming favorite West Virginia.
8. Surviving adversity in the ACC – Many of the ACC's better teams had tough games against teams thought to not pose much of a threat. Miami's offense didn't do much against Duke but the Hurricane's won easily in part because of seven turnovers. Florida St. also didn't play well but got a late touchdown on an end around to survive Boston College. These are the types of games the top of the ACC has been losing over the last few years to make the conference even more irrelevant on the national scene.
7. No touchdowns allowed – TCU's shutout streak finally ended against BYU. Of course it was only a field goal and the TCU defense still has not allowed a touchdown in its last three games.
6. USC in the first half – 42-0 at halftime against a competent opponent. That gets a mention here even if that opposing team (Cal) showed up in the lowlights countdown.
5. Coming off the bench and playing great – Arkansas quarterback Tyler Wilson deserved better for his effort. He came off the bench and the Arkansas offense didn't miss a beat with Wilson in the game. Over 300 yards passing and four touchdowns for the backup, but no win because of the defense that didn't stop Auburn all game long.
4. Matchups matter – After the loss to UCLA, I said that while the Texas offense was awful, the defense getting shredded was because of a bad matchup and the Longhorns would be fine against spread offenses. Well, against the Nebraska spread running game, the Longhorn defense was stellar and Texas pulled the upset with just enough offense to get the job done.
3. Georgia Lives! - Two weeks back in SEC East play and two blowouts. Other than the Colorado loss (What was that?), a case can be made that Georgia is right where they should be considering that Mississippi St. is every bit the equal of any of the teams in the SEC East and that loss was on the road.
2. Physical Manhandling – Wisconsin played physical challenge your manhood style football against Ohio St. after being helped by a kick return touchdown to start the game. It worked as Ohio St. wilted under the pressure and never really got going in the game.
1. Cam Newton for Heisman – What more needs to be said. As long as Auburn remains undefeated and Newton remains healthy, he will be no worse than 3rd in the Heisman Trophy race and he is the likely winner.
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