College Football Week 7 Recap: Texas Tech Beats West Virginia, LSU Shows Teeth Against South Carolina, Stanford Robbed Against Notre Dame, and Johnny Manziel Kills It

Lee Corso picked the Fighting Irish to beat Stanford on College Gameday. The whole time I was waiting for Vince Vaughn to state rules and scream lines from Wedding Crashers.

Texas Tech Knocks Off West Virginia

In one of the most surprising games of the day, the Tommy Tuberville-led Texas Tech Red Raiders took down #5 West Virginia.  The Mountaineers were fresh off a 48-45 win over Texas the week prior before traveling to Lubbock, Texas, where weird stuff just happens all the time.

It wasn’t even that Texas Tech just won, but it was how they won.  The score was 49-7 until West Virginia scored the second touchdown with 2:41 left in the game.  Their first touchdown was with 4:21 left in the first quarter.

The Red Raiders held Geno Smith to only one touchdown through the air and a 52.7% completion rate.  Smith looked mortal for the entire game and probably lost the driver’s seat en route to the Heisman trophy.  Texas Tech shocked Oklahoma in Norman last year so this isn’t anything new to Tuberville.

I guess you can take West Virginia out of the Big East, but you can’t take the Big East out of West Virginia.  This was a game they should have won, or at least been competitive in.

Oklahoma Embarrasses Texas in Red River Shootout

This one was over early at the Cotton Bowl.  So early that the story before the half was the camera footage focused in on the front of the stadium with fans dressed in burnt orange pouring out.

Texas was supposed to have the prime defense of the conference.  Even I had bought in to it and was a Longhorn apologizer after they gave up 48 to West Virginia.  What many interpreted as a sign of improvement for the offense should’ve been a warning sign about the defense.  The tackling that Texas showed, or didn’t show, was horrendous.  It looked like they had never played football before, much less having done tackling drills.

It was 36-2 at the half and their wasn’t a single moment of hope for Texas after the first quarter.  They looked absolutely lost. David Ash would follow up with a decent play action pass with a scramble for a fumble or an interception due to inaccuracy.  Ash’s final stat line reads 13/29 for 113 yards and 2 interceptions.

Oklahoma outgained Texas 677 yards to Texas’ 289.  Texas, a team that has tried to create a punishing rushing attack filled with tight ends, fullbacks, and extra tackles, managed a measly 74 yards rushing.  The Sooners did whatever it wanted on the ground, rushing for 343 yards.  These teams are further apart than the final score, 63-21, really shows.

Notre Dame “Beats” Stanford, or… whatever.

The biggest turnaround of any unit has to be the Notre Dame defense.  Last year they probably got hung out to dry too much by their offense, but they also didn’t look spectacular.  The defense this year has been stellar and still hasn’t allowed a rushing touchdown this season.  Stanford had four tries inside the five-yard line to score and win the game, but they couldn’t punch it in.

Officially ruled as a non-touchdown, it is pretty clear to everybody not named Lou Holtz that Stepfan Taylor did in fact cross the goal line before being down by contact.  I’m absolutely shocked that the referees blew a call that decided a game when Notre Dame was playing a big-time game.  Shocked.  That has never happened before.  Wait a minute, it happens all time!  Miami got screwed in the 80’s by the referees too!

Notre Dame has been one of the most impressive teams this season, but I just hope that people remember Stanford should have won that game if not for total incompetency.  Manti Te’o continues to be one of my projected Heisman finalists, regardless of how much the announcers try to say he’s the heart of every play on the goal line stand, when in fact for the majority of the stand he didn’t make a tackle, nor was he in the middle of the pile.

Oregon State’s Amazing Run Continues as Does Auburn’s Nightmare

Mike Riley and the Oregon State Beavers were without Sean Mannion, the starting quarterback that has led the Beavers from a laughingstock in 2011 to a top ten team in the new BCS standings released Sunday.

Cody Vaz filled in exceptionally well throwing 20/32 for 332 yards and 3 touchdowns.  Really impressive against a defense like BYU’s.  BYU’s three turnovers is what did them in and led to the nail in the coffin when Oregon State defensive back Jordan Poyer completed a pick-six to make the score 42-24 with just under 5 minutes to go.

Markus Wheaton continues to be my favorite Oregon State Beaver with his three touchdowns he scored against the BYU Cougars.  He had two receiving and one rushing off a jet sweep.  I was afraid the loss of Sean Mannion would ruin the amazing season Wheaton was having.

In-N-out was on the menu for the Beavers when they wrapped up in Provo, Utah and the “nicest guy” in college football leads his team in to another week as destiny’s favorite child.

Auburn is now winless in regulation, with their only win coming over Louisiana-Monroe.  Auburn has now lost to both Ole Miss and the dreadful 2012 Arkansas Razorbacks.  Turns out the Cam Newton investment was a better way to spend the school’s money than the contract for Gene Chizik.  Maybe Gus Malzahn had more to do with the national championship than Chizik did too.

The record without Cam Newton for Gene Chizik is too obscene to print.  It has to be seriously considered whether he should be fired because losing to Ole Miss when you are Auburn isn’t just a down year or a blip on the radar, it means something is horrifically wrong.

What great chairs you have, Les Miles!

National Title Race Narrows

The top contenders for the national title game dwindle to Alabama, Oregon, Florida, and Notre Dame.  Alabama and Florida will play each other in the SEC championship game if they are still frontrunners for the national title game and, therefore, will knock one another out.

The biggest question comes between Notre Dame and Oregon.  If both are unbeaten they will both have two common opponents, Stanford and USC.  It would be easy to transitive property both games in since they are so similar.  Notre Dame’s win over Michigan State is not impressive anymore but they still will have wins over Michigan and Oklahoma if they go unbeaten.

I’m trying to not worry about the Oregon v. Notre Dame argument yet, because as history has shown, these things almost always figure themselves out.

Johnny Football Continues His Amazing Run

Johnny Manziel led Texas A&M over Louisiana Tech in the best, stupid thing I saw all weekend.  There were 187 plays, a combined 1,293 yards of total offense, and just sheer excitement in the Aggies’ 59-57 win.

Manziel operates in one of the most sophisticated passing offenses known to mankind and Johnny just loves to test the limits of it.  He turns it in to a backyard game where everyone runs everywhere and hopefully, just maybe, somebody gets open.  It is almost like offense is too easy for him and he has to play mini-games and challenges while leading touchdown drives.

He totaled 576 yards of total offense, breaking his own SEC record, and accounted for 6 touchdowns.  He has a completion rate of 67.4%, has thrown for 14 touchdowns and only 3 interceptions with 1680 yards through the air.  On the ground he has 91 carries for 676 yards and ten touchdowns, averaging 7.4 yards a carry.  He leads the SEC in offense and rushing.

Other Notes

Derek Dooley remains 0-20 against ranked teams in his time at Tennessee.  This is probably his last year as the head coach at Tennessee unless the Volunteers beat Alabama or South Carolina.  Basically, you have a better shot at hooking up with Emma Watson.

Montee Ball returned to Heisman form with 247 yards and 3 touchdowns in a must-win game against Purdue.  Wisconsin is now in the driver seat for their division and is setting itself up for a showdown with Michigan in the Big-10 championship game.

Players of the Week

Johnny “Football” Manziel for all the reasons listed above.

Bo Wallace is the quarterback at Ole Miss.  In the Rebel’s win over the Tigers he had 226 yards and a touchdown through the air, two touchdowns on the ground, and one receiving touchdown.

Jeremy Hill had 124 rushing yards and two touchdowns against South Carolina.  With the help of his offensive line, Hill wore down the Gamecocks defense, a unit that was barely allowing 80 rushing yards a game.

Seth Doege had 499 yards passing and six touchdowns in the Red Raiders’ win over West Virginia.

Highlights of the Week

College Gameday Signs

Mark May and Rick Reilly as dumb and dumber.

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