Hey everybody! Your favorite college football writer is back for The Hoosier Network, and he has another incredible week of college football to cover. Week six had several rivalry games that went down to the wire, particularly one that took place in my hometown of Dallas, and then there were some games that were complete blowouts.
And now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into what I took away from this weekend in college football!
Oklahoma is now the best team in the Big 12
Yeah. I said it.
I mean, how can anyone think otherwise after the events of this year’s Red River Rivalry? It was an instant classic, and it came down to the final drive of the game, like all the instant classics do. And in the end, Oklahoma came out with a season-defining win.
Sooners quarterback Dillon Gabriel carved up Texas’ defense with his arm and his legs, throwing for 285 yards and a touchdown and rushing for 113 yards and a touchdown. The score he threw, a four-yard strike to Nic Anderson, proved to be the game-winner and was Anderson’s first and only catch of the game.
As for the Longhorns, Quinn Ewers was very up-and-down throughout the game, as he threw for 346 yards and a touchdown, but he also threw two interceptions, including a poorly-read throw at the beginning of the game that seemed to skyrocket Oklahoma’s confidence.
A positive for Texas, however, was the play of running back Jonathan Brooks, who ran 22 times for 129 yards and a touchdown. He continues to prove why he is one of the best running backs in the country, and he basically did whatever he wanted against the Sooners’ defense, despite the fact that his team ultimately came up short in the end.
This is easily Oklahoma’s best win of the season, and now they have to be looked at as a contender for the College Football Playoff. They ascended to fifth in the AP Poll rankings, and they head home next week to take on UCF. For the ‘Horns, I don’t think you hang your head too much on this loss, but the road to the CFP just became a little more difficult.
Notre Dame is vastly overrated…
Is the term vastly too harsh? Maybe. But I was not impressed by what I saw from them for the majority of last weekend’s game against Duke, and I was not impressed by what I saw from them this weekend.
The Irish went down 33-20 to Louisville, which is currently ranked No. 14 in the AP Poll, shooting up the rankings after this massive win. But more on them in a second. I want to focus on Notre Dame first.
I was unimpressed and unmoved by Sam Hartman’s play, and for how good he looked against Navy, he has flipped the switch in a negative way during conference play. The defense also looked outmatched and prone to miscommunications, as they gave up several big plays to the Cardinals’ offense.
For Louisville, quarterback Jack Plummer’s statline doesn’t wow you or jump off the page, but he played consistently and efficiently, making good throws and not making any mistakes with the ball. The big story is, of course, the play of running back Jawhar Jordan, who thrashed the Irish defense for 143 yards and two touchdowns.
Notre Dame is still in the poll, hanging around at No. 21. Next week’s marquee matchup with Caleb Williams and USC looms large. Their College Football Playoff hopes are pretty much over at this point, but the game in Southern California next weekend will go a long way toward dictating how the rest of their season will play out.
…And North Carolina is vastly underrated
I really think that people aren’t paying enough attention to the way North Carolina has been playing this year. I don’t really know what it is. I know quarterback Drake Maye had a fantastic year last season, and he’s doing the same this year, but I just don’t think the Heels are getting that much national attention.
That should hopefully change after this week, however, because Maye and North Carolina absolutely dismantled a solid Syracuse team by a 40-7 score. Maye threw for a whopping 442 yards, an absurd number, along with three touchdowns and no interceptions. He made the easy throws, the difficult throws and the ridiculously difficult throws. Oh, and not to mention, he ran for 55 yards and another score just for good measure. In other words, he had a near-perfect day.
Maye’s receivers, as you can probably guess, had a day as well, as Nate McCollum racked up seven catches for 135 yards, and Kobe Paysour added 3 catches for 100 yards and a touchdown.
As for Syracuse, the Orange looked completely outmatched and outclassed the entire game, and they just couldn’t keep up with the Tar Heels’ aerial attack. They are still 4-2 on the year, so that’s a plus.
North Carolina slid up two spots in the latest AP Poll, so they now sit at No. 12 as they prepare to welcome No. 25 Miami to town, who just had what was easily one of the biggest gaffes to lose a game in college football’s recent history. But after this game, the Heels have a ton of momentum, and the country needs to start taking notice.
Alabama is quietly coming back into the national picture
After the drama that ensued regarding the quarterback position for Alabama a couple weeks ago, it was safe to say that there were some pretty big concerns about how the Tide would do for the rest of the season.
Well, all they’ve done is peel off three straight wins, two on the road, and the one at home was over a top-15 Ole Miss team. In this weekend’s 26-20 win over Texas A&M, quarterback Jalen Milroe looked great, throwing for 321 yards and three touchdown passes, and he’s seemed to get, at the very least, some of his confidence back.
However, I would argue that the bigger story in this game was the dominant showing from wideout Jermaine Burton, who hauled in nine catches for a ridiculous 197 yards and two touchdowns. He absolutely had his way and did practically anything he wanted against the Aggies’ secondary, and the connection he has with Milroe is legit.
Don’t look now, America, but the Tide are 5-1, and undefeated in SEC play. Assuming they don’t have a major slip-up, contention for the College Football Playoff is still very much in the picture.
Georgia (finally) looks like the top team in the country
We were waiting for a performance like this from Georgia, and this weekend, we finally got it.
The top team in the nation absolutely throttled a fellow top-25 team and SEC foe in Kentucky by a score of 51-13, and the offense and defense were firing on all cylinders throughout the game.
Quarterback Carson Beck looked fantastic, throwing for 389 yards and four touchdowns, and he looked much more confident, assertive and efficient than he had been in weeks past. Of course, it helps to have a dominant talent such as Brock Bowers, who hauled in seven catches for 132 yards and a score.
The defense also played spectacularly, bottling up the Wildcats’ normally dynamic rushing attack. Running back Ray Davis, who absolutely thrashed Florida for a whopping 280 yards and three touchdowns last weekend, only ran for a mere 59 yards this weekend.
This win was much-needed for Georgia in order to justify its top spot in the AP Poll, and because of this, more people should start considering the Bulldogs to be the best in the country, as the poll has indicated. They head to Nashville next week to take on Vanderbilt, which shouldn’t be much of a problem for a team as talented as they are. But keep this in mind: the ‘Dawgs are No. 1 for a reason.
USC is incredibly, fatally, one-dimensional
Why do I use the term “fatally”? Well, because the Trojans’ defense is the flaw that I think will keep them from making the College Football Playoff.
Normally, USC’s offense, led by Caleb Williams, is absolutely dynamic at all times, while the defense lags behind and relies on the offense to guide them to wins.
Except this week, in a home game against Arizona, their offense was stuck in neutral for the first half of the game. Williams came out flat, starting out 2-for-7, and while he managed to get it going again in the second half, it was not a normal outing for the reigning Heisman Trophy winner.
Now, as for the defense, they gave up 41 points to Arizona. That is all I really need to say. And while Arizona is not a bad team by any stretch of the imagination, this team is, frankly, too talented to be giving up 41 points to Arizona. And it is somewhat unrealistic for the defense to give up 41 points to Arizona and expect the offense to magically come back and put up even more points to carry them to the win — which USC did, winning 43-41 in triple overtime. If this defense gave up 41 points to Arizona, imagine what might happen against a team like Oregon or Washington.
The Trojans are 6-0. One might say in response to that, 6-0 is 6-0. And while that is true, the defense is absolutely a cause for concern. USC fans better hope that next weekend’s game against Notre Dame could serve as a get-right game for the defense, but the way things have looked, I wouldn’t count on that being the case.
Elms' Essentials: Week 12
