Another weekend of college football is in the books, so let’s go through who let themselves down on the gridiron with my Week 11 villains.
Everett Golson
It was almost as though Tommy Rees was back behind the controls of the Notre Dame offense. You remember him, right? A maddeningly inconsistent guy who could flash brilliance followed, the very next play, by craziness.
Well, Golson took a leaf out of Rees’ book on Saturday in Tempe, throwing four interceptions, coughing up a fumble and being sacked – read: driven into the grass at Sun Devil Stadium – as the Irish came up short against Arizona State.
It was probably the worst performance we’ve seen from Golson in an otherwise strong Notre Dame career, and he’ll likely have nightmares about that ASU blitz for months to come.
Michigan State’s defence
The vaunted Spartans were torched at every opportunity by a rampant Ohio State offense, led by surprising star JT Barrett. The Buckeyes had absolutely no trouble moving the football against a unit that’s been famously staunch for the last few seasons.
The way the Buckeyes manhandled MSU, which not many teams – outside of Oregon’s lightning fast group – have been able to do for a long time makes the OSU’s 39-37 win one of the more shocking of the weekend, especially when you consider they did it by amassing 568 total yards. Didn’t see that coming!
Kaelin Clay
The Utah receiver took the football on a slant route, ran away from the Oregon defence and seemed certain to give the Utes a 14-0 lead. Except that he dropped the football just before he crossed the line. Oregon’s Erick Dargan Ducks swooped in, and took the fumble recovery 100 yards the other way for their own six-pointer to tie the game. Nothing went right for Utah after that, and they ended up losing 51-27.
Iowa
The Hawkeyes were demolished by 51-14 Minnesota in the Twin Cities – a Minnesota team that lost to Illinois last week. Iowa were insipid and uninspired, giving up 429 yards of total offense including 291 on the ground, and turned the football over three times. Quarterback Jake Rudock was sacked four times and lost a fumble along the way, too.
North Dakota State
The all-conquering Bison came down to earth with a thud this week, losing to Northern Iowa in Cedar Rapids 23-3, ending an FCS record win streak of 33, which dates way back to December of 2011, when the Bison succumbed in overtime to Eastern Washington in the FCS quarter final round.
Nick Marshall
The Auburn quarterback, the star guy on a team who had used a serious of incredible fourth-quarter occurrences to win games over the last two seasons, was on the other end of SEC weirdness this week. On two separate occasions in the waning moments of the Tigers’ game with Texas A&M, and it’s very likely that those two horrendous mistakes will cost Auburn a chance at featuring in the inaugural College Football Playoff.
West Virginia
The Mountaineers couldn’t stop Texas running back Charles Gray, who had an even 10 carries for a nearly-even 101 yards to go along with four timely scores, as the Longhorns recorded the biggest win of their season, shocking a ranked West Virginia squad 33-16. The kicker for WVU is that they outgained Texas 448-351 but couldn’t make key defensive stops or offensive conversions when it was really necessary.
Defence in the Boise State versus New Mexico Game
Defence? What defence. There wasn’t much to talk about in a game where both offenses generated more than 600 total yards of offense to go with 109 total points. Boise State ended up winning 60-49, but not before coming back from two separate 14-point deficits. A wild game for those who love plenty of attacking football, but not one for the purists among us.
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