The Week 3 college football roundup. The 5 things that matter, winners and losers, overrated and underrated, and what it all means.
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College Football Week 3 Roundup
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College Football Playoff Chase: Who’s Still Alive?
Early Week 4 Line Lookahead & Projection
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5. Winners & Losers From Week 3
Winner: Herm Edwards
Arizona State has a struggling offense, it worked way too hard to survive against Sacramento State, and it was supposed to rebuild a bit after losing a slew of key parts while breaking in a new starting quarterback. All Edwards did was beat Michigan State for the second year in a row.
Loser: Mark Dantonio
And the reaction if a Jim Harbaugh team ended up losing because it had 12-men on the field to negate a game-tying field goal that would’ve forced overtime would be ….
Winner: Big 12
It was a rough day for the rest of the Power Five conferences in various ways, but the Big 12 stepped up going 7-2, with Baylor the only team not playing. Iowa State and Texas Tech didn’t get the memo – losing to Iowa and Arizona, respectively – but those were hardly embarrassing defeats.
It started with Kansas shocking Boston College on Friday night, was helped by Kansas State going to Mississippi State and getting the win and was punctuated by Oklahoma beating UCLA, West Virginia dominating NC State, and TCU rolling by Purdue. Most impressively, six of the nine wins were on the road.
Loser: ACC
The Boston College home loss to Kansas was awful, and Pitt’s loss to Penn State and NC State’s loss to West Virginia were rough. Throw in Georgia Tech loss to The Citadel from the FCS, and it was a rough weekend.
Winner: Washington Pac-12 teams
Washington bounced back from its loss to Cal to dominate a Hawaii team that beat Arizona and Oregon State to start the season. Washington State went on the road and got by Houston to not only stay unbeaten, but to thrust QB Anthony Gordon into the national spotlight.
Loser: Los Angeles Pac-12 teams
And it doesn’t look like it’s going to get better any time soon. UCLA didn’t look like it belonged on its own home field against Oklahoma, and USC lost late in an overtime loss to BYU. There’s a real possibility that LA will be without a bowl team for the second year in a row. However …
Winner: Ranked Pac-12 teams
The Pac-12 is loaded with ranked teams. Utah cracked the top ten of the AP poll, with Oregon at 16, Washington State 10, Washington 22, Cal 23 and Arizona State at 24. The same six teams are in the Coaches Poll, but …
Loser: The rankings misfire
The pollsters could be forgiven for missing Cal’s 20-19 win over Washington two weeks ago. Thanks to a long weather delay, the game ended past 4 am on the East Coast. Both polls last Sunday had Washington ranked with Cal not making either top 25.
So what happened this week with a chance to fix the glitch? 2-1 Washington was 23rd in the AP and 21st in the Coaches, and despite that win in Seattle, Cal was 23rd in both polls behind the Huskies, who moved up to 22nd in the AP.
Winner: The big boys
No. 1 Clemson, No. 2 Alabama, No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 LSU, No. 5 Oklahoma, No. 6 Ohio State, No. 7 Notre Dame, and No. 8 Auburn all won their respective games by at least 24 points. The eight combined to win by a total score of 428-97, or an average of 53.5 to 12. But it also meant you were a loser if you got caught …
Loser: Going with the big game underdog
Unlike two weeks ago, there was no last-gasp Texas A&M touchdown vs. Clemson or New Mexico State covering the 55.5 against Alabama.
There were crazy upsets across the board in a wild week, but out of the top eight teams, if you take out LSU – it played Northwestern State from the FCS – the big boys went 6-1 against the spread, with only Alabama failing to cover the 26.5 against South Carolina.
The Really Big Thing | Most Overrated Thing
Most Underrated Thing | What It All Means
NEXT: The really big thing was …
4. The Really Big Thing Was …
Can the Group of Five really play with the Power Five?
Short answer, not really. However, the big wins by the best Group of Five programs made a whole lot of noise.
Maryland bombed Syracuse two weeks ago with a breathtaking offensive display. One week later, Temple pulled off an upset win over the Terps with a terrific defensive performance, highlighted by two phenomenal goal line stands.
Eastern Michigan beating Illinois wasn’t a total stunner, but Air Force going to Colorado and coming away with a win over the team that beat Nebraska the week before was great. Maybe BYU isn’t technically a Group of Five program, but it’s not in the Power Five, and it beat USC.
And then there was the one that really mattered. UCF didn’t just beat Stanford, it totally dominated in a game much more lopsided than the 45-27 final score.
The Knights were up 28-7 after the first quarter and 38-10 at halftime – mission accomplished. They got a big, giant win over a brand-name Power Five team, and they get a chance to show off again next week at Pitt.
However, the same talking points are still valid. It’s one thing to get jacked up for one big game that you think will make your program a bigger deal, and it’s another to win that game, and then win another game over a team with Power Five talent, and then win another, and so on.
But UCF is the outlier.
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The Group of Five has had its moments. The Georgia State shocker over Tennessee, the Wyoming victory over Missouri, the Boise State win over Florida State, Hawaii’s wins over Arizona and Oregon State, Nevada’s upset over Purdue, and UCLA’s losses to Cincinnati and San Diego State were all interesting, but …
4-11. That’s what the Group of Five did – not counting BYU in that – against the Power Five this weekend.
Again, taking out BYU for now, but also not including anything with Notre Dame, and so far the Group of Five conferences – the American Athletic, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt – are a combined 14-51 against the Power Five programs. That’s around a 21% clip.
And that’s the giant hill of perception UCF has to still climb when it comes to respectability.
NEXT: The most overrated thing was …
3. The Most Overrated Thing Was …
The gushing over the Oklahoma offense … to a point.
686 yards and 49 points against Houston. 733 yards and 70 points against South Dakota. 611 yards and 48 points against UCLA. So far, Oklahoma is dominating the college football world with the offense working better than ever.
So far this season, the Sooners have cranked up 2,030 yards and 167 points. Last year at this time against a better first three games – only because Iowa State was in the mix – OU generated 1,654 yards and 149 points.
In the first three games of 2017, Baker Mayfield and the boys – to be fair, that team played Ohio State on the road – generated 1,797 yards and 143 points.
Sorry to lose you in the numbers, but the Oklahoma offense is humming and Jalen Hurts has the Heisman to lose. However, there hasn’t been a game yet against a team like the 2017 Buckeyes or the 2018 Cyclones, and South Dakota is currently 0-3 and getting destroyed by everyone.
Essentially, Oklahoma hasn’t played anyone so far.
Houston is nice, but LSU went to Austin and beat Texas.
UCLA in the Rose Bowl is at least a brand-name program in a big setting, but it’s not like dealing with a top-ten caliber Texas A&M team, or going to Syracuse, like Clemson has had to do.
Ohio State’s win over Indiana on the road is better than anything OU has come up with so far, as is Alabama’s win at South Carolina – go ahead and throw the victory over Duke into that mix, too.
Georgia had an SEC road game against Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame’s best win so far is at Louisville, so it’s not like all of the top teams have been pushed so far, but the Bulldogs and Irish play this weekend and Oklahoma faces an okay-not-great Texas Tech.
But now the real fun kicks in. Considering Kansas just whacked around Boston College, there isn’t a total free-space game left on the schedule – a trip to Lawrence comes up after dealing with the Red Raiders.
The Oklahoma machine won’t slow down or stop, but is this really the best O in the Riley era, and is Hurts really the best player in America?
Maybe. But we all need the Texas showdown on October 12th to do a true compare and contrast with the rest of the 2019 superstar programs.
NEXT: The most underrated thing was …
2. The Most Underrated Thing Was …
The SEC East lost another starting quarterback.
Three of the seven starting quarterbacks in the SEC East are hurt, and while Georgia would be the division’s top star no matter what, the path just got a bit easier.
For what appears to be the rest of this season, you don’t have Feleipe Franks to kick around anymore, Gator fans.
He might have thrown a bad pick against Miami, and he was much-maligned at times throughout last year, but he also grew into the starting role, the face of the franchise, and the leader under Dan Mullen.
Franks completed 76% of his passes for a top ten Gator team that’s more of a contender for the SEC East title than it’s been playing like so far. Now it’ll have to be even better with a backup leading the way.
After Franks down with a gruesome leg injury against Kentucky, junior Kyle Trask came through and saved the day in the gut-check 29-21 win. He connected on 9-of-13 passes for 126 yards, ran for a touchdown, and was able to get the job done while the team was obviously shaken after what happened to its main man under center.
On the other side, Kentucky’s Sawyer Smith was fine.
He ran for a touchdown and threw for 267 yards and two touchdowns, but he also threw three interceptions. Did the Troy transfer lose the game for the Wildcats? Absolutely not, but is this a different team if starter Terry Wilson – who went down with a season-ending knee injury against Eastern Michigan the week before – is playing? Obviously.
South Carolina star freshman Ryan Hilinski has filled in admirably so far for injured starter Jake Bentley. The Gamecocks might have been rocked by Alabama, but Hilinski held up well, throwing for 324 yards and two scores with just one pick. On the bright side, he’s the future for the program, and he’s getting his work and reps in a bit early.
All three of the new starting quarterbacks are good, and all three teams can win with them. But if you told Georgia before the season which three teams in the division would be without their starting quarterbacks after three weeks …
NEXT: What Is All Means: Week 3
1. What It All Means: Week 3
The appetizers were terrific, but now it’s on to the main course.
Week Three was so much fun.
The games involving the top-ranked teams were boring blowouts, but Florida-Kentucky – outside of the horrible injury to Gator QB Feleipe Franks – was a blast.
Maryland might have been frustrating, but Temple had something to with that in the upset win. Iowa’s win over Iowa State took forever, but that was intense, as was the Arizona-Texas Tech game that became a surprising slugfest.
Pitt-Penn State, USC-BYU, and Arizona State-Michigan State might not have been amazing football until the end, but … those endings.
There was a whole lot of entertainment and a whole slew of good games, but …
LET’S GO.
There wasn’t a killer matchup to get too fired up about – Gameday going to Iowa-Iowa State was the obvious tell – but now is when we pivot. Now is when we dive into the conference schedules along with a few College Football Playoff-level showdowns.
The 2019 college football season is for real now.
Just how good is Utah? It goes to USC on Friday night, and while that doesn’t seem like a problem, there’s history to deal with. The Utes lost 28-2 in 1925, and they haven’t beaten USC in LA – going 0-7 overall – ever since.
Michigan at Wisconsin. The Big Ten season is for real now.
Auburn at Texas A&M. The SEC West season is for real now.
Oklahoma State at Texas. The Big 12 season is for real now.
Oregon at Stanford. The Pac-12 North season started with Cal beating Washington, but the division race is about to kick in full-force.
Colorado at Arizona State. Don’t sleep on this – literally. The Pac-12 South season is about to kick in full-force.
UCF at Pitt. The Group of Five’s top hope has to win by a bajillion.
And then there’s Notre Dame going to Georgia in only the third meeting ever between the two schools.
You want electric? It’s a night game, it’s the first time the Irish have been to Athens, and it’s one of the toughest tickets to get in the history of Georgia football.
It’s Week Four of the college football season. It’s for real now.
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Coach Hot Seat Rankings | Heisman Trophy Race
College Football Playoff Chase: Who’s Still Alive?
Early Week 4 Line Lookahead & Projection
Rankings: AP | USA Today Coaches | FWAA
