Once again, another great week in college football. I don't think there has ever been a week that you can say it's a bad week, unless of course you bet the farm, the pink slips to the cars, the mortgage, the kid's college funds and everything else...and lose. But as far as I know, that didn't happen and a lot of great college football was played this last week.
The first game of the week, Kansas visited South Florida and that was a barn burner! The Jayhawks lead by 10 at half and then was shut out in the third quarter while giving up 17 points to the Bulls, but they fought their way back and eventually took tied the ball game up. But, what was inevitable, happened. Todd Reesing's scramble and heave techniques caught up with him as he tried to get greedy and go for a big play downfield and was picked off, the Bulls returned it inside the Kansas 30 which led to a game winning field goal for Jim Levitt and his Bulls.
A lot more happened last week too. An overpowering Georgia Bulldogs squad came in to Columbia, South Carolina to take on the Gamecocks and for being ranked preseason #1 they sure didn't play like it, they caught a huge break inside the ten minute mark, but managed to get out of there with a seven point win. BYU absolutely blew out the Bruins of UCLA and Max Hall had a day doing it throwing for seven touchdowns (repeat to self) in a 59-0 Cougar victory. A favored Oregon Ducks team came in to Purdue and overcame a 20-6 deficit and ended up taking the game 32-26 after QB Justin Roper went down with an injured knee. Auburn went to Starkville and if we didn't know any better we would have thought it was a baseball game where these two teams literally did the best they could to not score, the Tigers won 3-2...I never thought I'd see that in my life.
As for the two games that highlighted the night, we will start off in the valley of California, Fresno to be exact. The Bulldogs of Fresno State hosted PJ Hill and the Wisconsin Badgers. Wisconsin took control early with a ten point lead and at the end of the 3rd quarter the Badgers led 13-10 and that's all they needed. Wisconsin snuck out of Fresno with a victory in a very defensive and well played game. Let's head south to Los Angeles, SoCal, the home of porn, the rich and famous, and the USC Trojans where they hosted the (overrated yet again) Ohio State Buckeyes at the LA Coliseum. As I've said repeatedly, the Trojans are too fast, much more physical, athletic, too deep and just overall better than the Buckeyes, and they showed it. Ohio State took their only lead of the game very early in the first quarter going up 3-0, but as soon as they did that USC unleashed the Trojan army on them rattling off 34 unanswered points to take the game 34-3. Everyone on all sides of the ball for the Trojans were firing on all cylinders, Mark Sanchez who was extremely efficient all game showed he could play in the big game throwing for four touchdowns, all four tailbacks from Tailback U did their part including a big game from sophomore Joe McKnight who ran for 105 yards. The Buckeyes who had some question marks coming in to the game from their past "big games" (2006 & 2007 National Championship games) left Los Angeles with even more question marks, "When is Chris Wells coming back? Is Todd Boeckman really the guy they should have at QB? Are these guys a fluke yet again?", and my answer to those three questions are, "It doesn't matter when he comes back, Ohio State is Ohio State and will continue to be Ohio State, good in the Big 10, just another team every where else they go. Should Todd Boeckman be the Buckeyes QB? Yes and no, if they utilize him and Terrell Pryor the right way, they could treat it like Florida did in '06 with Leak and Tebow, though the Bucks don't have near that team speed the Gators did. And finally, yes, they are yet again another Ohio State fluke, they will be good in the Big 10, though I think Penn State has a very serious chance of knocking them off this year, but even if that doesn't happen and Ohio State makes it to another BCS bowl game, I have no doubt in my mind whoever they play will put them in their place...again.
Moral of the story is, Ohio State is Ohio State, they have proven that the last 3 years, they aren't an extra special team, they are good in conference, but when they play a team that creates a challenge and is a top team from another conference, they fold, they get outplayed because of superior athletic ability, the other teams are too physical and way too fast for Ohio State, as USC, LSU and Florida have already shown. Even last year when Illinois beat the Buckeyes at the Horseshoe, they showed if you can outrun the Buckeyes, you can beat them. I'm just anxious to see who they will fall to next, I'm already counting on JoePa's Nittany Lions.
WEEK 4 GAMES TO WATCH
WEST VIRGINIA @ COLORADO
FLORIDA @ TENNESSEE
LSU @ AUBURN
GEORGIA @ ARIZONA STATE
VANDERBILT @ OLE MISS
UNTIL NEXT WEEK, GOOD DAY AND GOOD BETTING
BRIAN BARNES