Did You See That? Week 4 In the Big Ten and on Duck Hunting
College football offenses are now well-oiled, it seems. It’s not too far into the season that teams are tired and the weather is still good… but it’s been a few weeks so the kinks are worked out. Man, there were some points scored. Some monstrous blowouts and a few shootouts. Let’s get to it. Big Ten Action
Rutgers 27, Kansas 14 – Rutgers moved to 2-2 on Homecoming, but don’t get too excited Scarlet Knight fans…Kansas might be the worst team in FBS. Yes, worse than Purdue. Rutgers now gets a bye and then plays Purdue’s next opponent (MSU) on October 10. Have fun with that. Kansas, it seems, actually might be worse than when the Manatee was in charge.
Michigan 31, BYU 0 – Well, last week I mocked someone asking if Michigan football is back. I don’t think beating BYU (who is now 2-2) at home should be chalked up as beating a monster (even if they were ranked), but a 31-0 beatdown is indeed impressive. UM is now 3-1, with Big Ten play starting next week for them against Maryland.
Michigan State 30, Central Michigan 10 – MSU keeps rolling, dispatching lesser opponents with ease. Next week they get our Boilermakers, followed by Rutgers. 6-0 is not hard to envision, is what I’m saying.
Nebraska 36, Southern Miss 28 – hoo-boy….Mike Riley BP watch is on. The Huskers ran out to a 22-0 lead at halftime, only to get bum-rushed in the fourth quarter as Southern Miss closed it to eight points at 29-21 with twelve minutes to go. The Huskers held on but this looks to be a weekly show. Also worth noting that the Huskers are already to their maximum allowable losses – one more than this was the worst regular season Bo Pelini ever had there and he was fired for it.
Indiana 31, Wake Forest 24 – Sure, Wake Forest is pretty terrible. Sure, IU’s schedule hasn’t been much. However, they’re 4-0 for the first time in a quarter century. So they can at once both make you feel better and worse about Purdue football. Better because at least Purdue doesn’t go 25 years between good seasons. Worse because IU is 4-0 right now and Purdue can only dream of such a start, regardless of the competition.
West Virginia 45, Maryland 6 – I think the story here is that Maryland must be really bad. I mean, WVU isn’t bad (3-0) and as Purdue found out, neither is Bowling Green. However, both of those programs laid an absolutely whipping on the Terps. Randy Edsall, you’re on the clock, sir.
Iowa 62, North Texas 16 – Mercy. What did North Texas ever do to you, Iowa? Weren’t people talking about Iowa being one of the “maybes” on Purdue’s schedule?
Minnesota 27, Ohio 24 – Old Man Solich nearly got himself another power conference scalp, but the fightin’ Gophers held on. Minny doesn’t look real pretty doing it, but they keep on winning. 3-1 now as we enter conference play.
OSU 38, Western Michigan 12 – Another game that tells us very little about Ohio State. Only that they can avoid nodding off in the middle of a game against a MAC school.
Penn State 37, San Diego State 21 – Penn State handled SDSU at home and Christian Hackenberg finally had a good day, going 21/35 for 296 and three TDs. PSU was only able to rush for 72 yards on 34 carries, though. This could obviously hurt in conference play, but hey, guess they’re going to find out if they can rely on Hackeberg or not.
Illinois 27, Middle Tennessee State 25 – The Illini withstood a fourth quarter rally from MTSU and hung on to move to 3-1 on the season. Illinois is another one people (myself included) seem to think/hope can be an opportunity for a win. I’d feel a lot better about those prospects if Beckman were still coaching.
Northwestern 24, Ball State 19 – NW wore their blackout kitty helmets on Saturday evening and I tried to watch some of this but it was pretty boring. Ho-hum, Fitzgerald has the Cats out to another good start. They’re 4-0 and ranked 16th. But for some reason we can’t build a good program at Purdue.
Wisconsin 28, Hawaii 0 – The Badgers methodically dispatched the Rainbow Warriors with 326 yards on the ground, averaging 6 yards per carry. Hawaii is logging the miles lately, going to Columbus, Ohio and now Madison Wisconsin, with a home date against UC Davis. In fact, looking at their schedule, it must get old after a while. In one particularly weird scheduling twist, they play at Nevada and at UNLV two weeks apart, but the middle week? They’re home against Air Force. But hey, no complaining, I guess, when your home games are in paradise.
Elsewhere
Oklahoma State 30, Texas 27 – Texas has something in common with Purdue. They’re also 1-3 and they also find new and creative ways to lose every week. In the Red River Shootout, Texas was hanging tough but was punting late in the game with the score tied. And, well, here you go:
Wheeeee! That’s clever, Texas.
Notre Dame 62, UMass 27 – Notre Dame beat the ever-living sh-t out of UMass on Saturday. UND had a 35-20 lead at halftime that was 55-20 after the third quarter. For the time being, it appears that Notre Dame is handling the loss of Zaire without a problem. It helps when you rush for 457 yards on 51 carries for six TDs.
TCU 55, Texas Tech 52 – In the game of the weekend if you’re into fun games, lots of scoring and optional defense, TCU scored 55 points and yet lost ground in the polls because of how porous their defense was versus the Red Raiders. I’m a fan of Kliff Kingsbury and this game was incredible fun. TCU had over 500 yards through the air and another 247 on the ground. In fact, the total yardage was 750-607 in favor of the Horned Frogs. Defense....optional.
With under a minute to go, and down 52-48, TCU had a fourth down for the whole game and had this ridiculous deflected catch TD to take the lead. Of course, Tech got the ball to midfield and as the game seemingly ended, TCU took two penalties, leading to the Red Raiders getting an untimed down. And it turned into a 40 yard lateral play that almost worked.
Texas A&M 28, Arkansas 21 (OT) – I’ll tell you, it just absolutely never gets old seeing Bret Bielema lose. This one was much closer that some of his faceplants, but in the end, his team still blew a lead and sits at 1-3. With just a few minutes to go, the Hogs led 21-13 but then allowed a TD and 2-point conversion, followed by a TD in overtime. I have to think the end is nearing for Bielema but really, has there ever been a man more suited to coach the “Hogs”?
UCLA 56, Arizona 30 – UCLA seems to definitely be good again. They ran away and hid in a road game in the desert, ending this one by halftime with the score 42-14. The Wildcats still mustered some pride and tried to make a second half run (they actually outscored the Bruins 16-14), but as I said, it was already over.
Utah 62, Oregon 20 – You’ll recall that in previous iterations of this column, I’ve been warning of how awful the Ducks defense is. They were giving up big points and big yards to absolute nobodies, so when an actually decent team rolled into Autzen, it wasn’t pretty. Can’t say I’m too broken up about it, though. Utah really balanced out their attack, with five TDs through the air on 257 yards passing and two TDs on the ground via 273 yards rushing.
Ending these kinds of recap posts is as awkward as the morning after a one-night stand. NOT THAT I'D KNOW.
“Did You See That?” is (so far) a regular feature of Boiled Sports, in which we recap the weekend in college football and whatever else we feel like. It takes a bit of effort so make us feel like you like it. kthxbai.
