LSU 41, Arkansas 17 – Things Arkansas needed to do to win: run the football to keep pressure off Tyler Wilson (56 yards, fail); protect quarterback Tyler Wilson (4 sacks, fail); win the turnover battle (lost 3-2, fail); play even on special teams (gave up punt return touchdown, fail). Given all those failures, the one thing Arkansas did well (get off the fast start: up 14-0 early, pass) didn't mean a whole lot once the momentum turned. In addition, there was another failure for Arkansas: gave up 495 yards of offense, the most LSU has had in a game since the 2007 National Championship season.
Colorado 17, Utah 14 – Good for Colorado's seniors: first road win in their career. As for the game, Utah should be embarrassed. They played horribly and made dumb mistakes in the 4th quarter, allowing their kicker to decide the game and this season, allowing your kicker to decide the game is not a good thing pretty much anywhere (except Texas, more on that later on). Because of this, UClA wins the Pac-12 South without having to beat USC. Well, that's the Pac-12 South this season.
Nebraska 20, Iowa 7 – The Blackshirts only play like the Blackshirts every so often. This was one of those times and poor Iowa had no chance against the Nebraska defense playing well (unlike last week's debacle at Michigan).
Louisville 34, South Florida 24 – Somehow, 7-5 Louisville is probably headed to the Orange Bowl. As usual, the Orange Bowl will cry and so will the people. Great coaching job by Charlie Strong but terrible job by the rest of the Big East to allow it.
Northern Illinois 18, Eastern Michigan 12 – Great job by Northern Illinois to find a way to win with the offense stopped. A trip to the MAC title game under a first year coach is a nice reward. As for Eastern Michigan, even with no bowl game (6-6 with two wins over FCS), this was a huge step forward after going 2-22 the last two years.
Houston 48, Tulsa 16 – Houston is playing with a ton of confidence. This was the toughest game so far this season (first decent road opponent) and the Cougars took them apart after a slow start.
Boston College 24, Miami 17 – Boston College finally improved a little at the end of the season, but Miami looked listless. The administration taking the bowl game carrot away really took the air out of this team in this game. When that happened and the fast start (14 first quarter points) wasn't sustained, it was only a question of if the awful Boston College offense could score enough to get back in it. The defense did.
Cal 47, Arizona St. 38 – Arizona St. was eliminated from contention in the Pac-12 South before kickoff and the defense played like it. With nothing to play for, they quit in a shameful effort that allowed Cal to go up and down the field all game long. Don't let the door hit you on the way out Dennis Erickson.
West Virginia 21, Pittsburgh 20 – Hopefully this wasn't the end of this rivalry, even if it has to move to September. That said, it was a good game because Pittsburgh's defense kept it that way. Once West Virginia figured out the Pitt offense, there was little Tino Sunseri could do (sacked 10 times).
Texas 27, Texas A&M 25 – A&M should be completely embarrassed they lost this game (and really for their season that should have been 10-2 at worst). At the same time, we know nothing more about Texas than we knew in the preseason. They have a good defense. They still have no offense (though some of that was running back injury related). That have a lot more heart and leadership than last season. This is still a rebuilding process and I think they need to go get some more players from outside Texas. They need some nastiness from guys that didn't grow up wanting to be Longhorns their whole lives. They need some mercenaries stopping over on the way to the pros. Texas really hasn't had a ton of those and it has hurt them in recent years, especially on the offensive line.
No comments:
Post a Comment