(Editor’s note: Here is Regie Eller’s Monday look at the worst that college football had to offer this past weekend, with his column, “Not Good, Not Bad, Just Ugly.”)
Boomed Sooners
Coming into Saturday, the Oklahoma Sooners controlled their own destiny to the BCS Championship Game. Today, the Sooners not only are set back in the BCS, but also in the Big XII race after losing to the Red Raiders of Texas Tech, 41-38.
Texas Tech was coming into the game off two consecutive losses – versus Texas A&M (45-40) and Kansas State (41-34). The Sooners were riding high at 6-0 after destroying Kansas (47-17) and bitter rival Texas (55-17).
The Oklahoma defense had not been easily confused with an Alabama-type defense, but it had held its own, allowing under 350 total yards a game.
The Sooners were also riding a 39-game home winning streak coming into Saturday.
The Red Raiders quarterback, Seth Doege, absolutely shredded the Oklahoma Sooners secondary, throwing for 441 yards and four touchdowns.
Ugly.
Un-Holgo-like
On Friday night the confident West Virginia Mountaineers went up against the Syracuse Orange. Maybe West Virginia was too confident.
Coming into Friday, the Mountaineers were the fourth best passing offense in the country averaging 380 yards per contest. West Virginia’s opponent, the Syracuse Orange, was ranked 112th in the country in pass defense. On paper this looked like a blow out, right? Well it was. Unfortunately for the Mountaineers, they were on the wrong side of it.
West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith threw for 338 yards on 41 attempts with two touchdowns and two huge interceptions. While Smith played well at times, the Mountaineer’s inability to not only establish any semblance of a running game (a year-long problem,) as well as Syracuse senior quarterback Ryan Nassib and senior running back Antwon Bailey, did them in.
Nassib was 24-of-32 for 229 yards passing and four touchdowns on the day, while Bailey rushed for 125 yards on 22 carries in the 49-23 defeat of West Virginia.
Ugly.
“We Are Marshall. We Will Not Back Up Our Talk.”
Coming into the Houston game, the Thundering Herd of Marshall were ever so confident as they discussed trying to “kill the head of the snake,” quarterback Case Keenum.
Instead, Keenum’s 376 yards Saturday broke the NCAA record of 16,910 career passing yards set by Hawaii quarterback Timmy Chang. On the game Keenum was a lethal 24-of-28 with six touchdown passes.
Marshall did get to see Keenum’s backup, Colton Turner. Unfortunately for them, it was in garbage time. Turner himself threw for 103 yards and a touchdown in the 63-28 win.
Ugly.
Run Defense Is For Real Teams.
Good news first – at the end of the first quarter, Washington trailed Stanford 10-7. In the end, though, Stanford proved how dangerous of a team it is crushing Washington, 65-21.
To their credit, the Huskies made sure Andrew Luck did not beat them; but then again, he didn’t have to. Luck only threw 21 passes Saturday night, completing 16 of them for 169 yards and 2 touchdowns.
The story of the game was the brutal rushing attack by Stanford and Washington’s embarrassing attempts at even slowing it down. Stanford rushed for a school record 446 yards versus the Huskies. On the year, Washington fell from the 17th-ranked rush defense in the country to 57th, with junior Stepfan Taylor running 10 times for 138 yards, junior Tyler Gaffney carrying nine times for 117 yards and sophomore Anthony Wilkerson running 14 times for 93 yards. In all, Stanford put up 615 yards of total offense against Washington.
Ugly.
Ugly Hitters:
- Against TCU, New Mexico amassed 85 total yards (21 passing, 64 rushing), converted 1 of 12 third downs, fumbled three times and managed five first downs all game. Defensively, New Mexico surrendered 515 total yards (251 passing, 264 rushing) and 69 points to TCU.
- The Colorado Buffaloes scored two points versus Oregon, losing 45-2. The Buffs gave up 527 yards in a pathetically motivated performance.
- After starting 6-0, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets have forgotten how to throw a forward pass. Georgia Tech dropped its second straight game, this week to the Miami Hurricanes 24-7. Georgia Tech only managed 211 total yards, producing well below the Yellow Jackets’ rushing average with 134 yards on the ground. The leading rusher for Georgia Tech was quarterback Tevin Washington, who rushed 20 times for 36 yards.
- Tennessee was tied with Alabama, 6-6, at the half. From there, Alabama scored 31 second half points, while Tennessee managed 41 total yards. ‘Bama won 37-6, as the stage is now set for LSU vs Alabama. Oh yeah, Tennessee also burned the redshirt of quarterback Justin Worley for no reason at all.
- In the FCS, offering further proof that is basketball season for one school, the winless Valparaiso Crusaders lost 50-0 to Drake. Valpo gained 125 total yards and gave up 428.
The Bottom Five:
The five ugliest offenses in America:
116: Ole Miss – 268.71 yards per game
117: UNLV – 264.00 yards per game
118: Kentucky – 259.86 yards per game
119: Florida Atlantic – 221.00 yards per game
120: Kent State – 180.57 yards per game
The five ugliest defenses in America:
116: Ball State – 474.50 yards per game
117: UAB – 488.71 yards per game
118: Memphis – 532.00 yards per game
119: New Mexico – 532.00 yards per game
120: Kansas – 550.86 yards per game
Random Ugly Stats:
- Idaho is 23-for-105 on 3rd downs this season. (UGLY.)
- Pittsburgh has given up 34 sacks this season, which is 11 more than the next worst school.
Regie Eller writes his “Not Good, Not Bad, Just Ugly” column every Monday on Crystal Ball Run. Follow him on Twitter @CFBRocker.
