NCAA Football 2013: Week 9 Recaps

Everything you need to know about some of the big games from Week 9 of the 2013 NCAA Football season is right here. 

Once again without their head coach, Jerry Kill, Minnesota played their best game of the season, en route to recording a surprise win against Nebraska, who had star QB Taylor Martinez back after a leg injury had kept him out of the last few games. It wasn’t enough for the Huskers to get the win up in the Twin Cities. Their defense, suspect all year, hasn’t improved over two consecutive bye weeks. They gave up 430 total yards to the Gophers, including 138 to RB David Cobb. Minnesota QB Phillip Nelson threw one touchdown and rushed for two more, as his team beat Nebraska for the first time since 1960. 

Injury? What injury? A week after looking noticeably affected by an injury that had kept him off the field for a portion of the second half, Texas A&M QB Johnny Manziel roared back with a vengeance, leading the Aggies to a commanding 56-24 victory over Vanderbilt. The reigning Heisman Trophy winner had three of his four touchdown passes in the first quarter, and, surprisingly, ran only four times for a paltry eleven yards. 

A week after being shocked on a Friday night by Central Florida, it was back to regular transmission for Teddy Bridgewater and Louisville, who rolled into Raymond James Stadium and recorded a 34-3 win against the hapless South Florida Bulls. Bridgewater, a Heisman candidate before last week’s loss, went 35-29 for 344 yards and three touchdowns. The Cardinals defense forced three turnovers, one of them a 70-yard Pick-6 by Charles Gaines.
 

Upset of the Weekend saw the fifth-ranked Missouri Tigers fall to Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina Gamecocks 27-24 in a 2OT game which ended when Mizzou’s kicker Andrew Baggett missed on an attempt from 24 yards out, finding the upright rather than sailing the football through the middle. Earlier in the second overtime frame, Elliott Fry had converted from 40 yards for the Gamecocks. Huge win for South Carolina, who move to within a game of Missouri in the SEC East race.

Ugliest win of the weekend: Duke beating Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. It was a W for the Blue Devils despite their defense giving up 387 total yards. The offense wasn’t much better, a hapless 0-11 on third down conversions whilst managing only a meagre 198 total yards of offense. Yet, four Logan Thomas turnovers allowed Duke to do just enough to eek out a 13-10 win in what was, hands down, the worst-looking game of the weekend. This was a bad loss for Frank Beamer’s squad, particularly after a resurgent season that’s brought them back towards the top of the ACC pecking order.

Ranked for only the second time in their history, the Central Florida Knights made sure they would remain in amongst the best 25 teams in America, thanks to a 63-17 throttling of Connecticut in Orlando. Like last week, it was the Blake Bortles show, the UCF signal-caller connecting on all but four pass attempts, en route to a 278 yard/4 touchdown day. As if that wasn’t enough, he ran in a third score. The Knights maintain their stranglehold on the automatic BCS bid for the American Athletic Conference.

The most exciting offense in college football continues unabated, with Baylor rolling up 500 total yards of offense in the first half alone, on their way to a 59-14 win against Big XII punching bag Kansas in Lawrence, a game in which the Bears starters saw very little game action in the second half. QB Bryce Petty threw for 430 yards and three scores, as well as one rushing touchdown, and RB Lache Seastrunk went over the century mark on the ground once more. The less said about the Jayhawks the better: they were thoroughly outplayed and have lost an abysmal twenty-five straight Big XII conference games. If Charlie Weis is still coaching there next year, the world’s gone crazy.

A 14-14 game at the half, Oregon flexed it’s considerable football muscle in the second, scoring 28 unanswered to beat UCLA 42-14 in Eugene. If there was any doubt that the Ducks are the best team in the Pac-12 – and, I think, the second best team in America, behind Alabama – this one should put said doubts to bed. Oregon have a way of wearing down opposition defenses, with multiple offensive weapons, and lightning-fast speed. They recovered from two turnovers behind usual suspects QB Marcus Mariota (230 yards and a touchdown) and RB Byron Marshall (133 yards and three scores) to hand the Bruins their second straight loss. UCLA’s defense was superb for a half. It’s hard, against Oregon, to be superb for two halves.

Earlier this week, I looked at the Ohio State vs. Penn State matchup and wondered if perhaps the Nittany Lions, on the road in hostile territory, wouldn’t perhaps be the right team to trouble Urban Meyer’s mostly-unimpressive – but still undefeated – squad. Boy, was I wrong. The Buckeyes dominated Penn State in the 63-14 shellacking. QB Braxton Miller accounted for five touchdowns (three passing, two running) and Ohio State’s oft-maligned defense forced three Penn State turnovers. This was a demoralising loss for the Nittany Lions.

Behind three touchdowns from RB Tyler Gaffney, the Stanford Cardinal handed Oregon State their first conference loss of the season, 20-12 in Corvallis, though it came right down to the minute of play, in the shadows of the Stanford end zone, when Beavers QB Sean Mannion couldn’t connect with a receiver, ending his team’s six-game winning streak. Stanford’s victory came despite an off night for QB Kevin Hogan (just 8-18 for 87 yards), and sets up a what is still very much a mouth-watering showdown with Oregon in two weeks.

One of my favourite players in the nation is Oklahoma QB Blake Bell, and it was vintage Belldozer stuff on Saturday, as the Sooners rallied to hand Texas Tech their first loss of the season, 38-30. Bell, known mostly as a running threat from quarterback before he started slinging the football about this year, accounted for 293 yards of total offense and two scores. 249 of those yards came through the air, including a giant 76-yard touchdown throw to WR Jalen Saunders. Sooner fans will doubtless be relieved to see that their high-scoring offense is back after hiccups in recent weeks. 

Tulane beat Tulsa 14-7 on Saturday, forcing four turnovers on the way. Not the most noteworthy of games on the slate, except when you dig deeper and realise that the win puts the Green Wave at 6-2 (4-0, C-USA), and makes them eligible for a Bowl game for the first time since 2002. Backup QB Devin Powell threw two touchdowns in a widely-celebrated victory that will put an end to an agonising decade of losing seasons. This is the feel-good story of the weekend.

The feel-bad story of the weekend/season: Southern Mississippi hasn’t won a football game since 2011, when they defeated Case Keenum’s record-setting Houston Cougars in the Conference USA Championship Game. The misery continued on Saturday, with North Texas pounding the Golden Eagles 55-14. There’s a very real possibility that Southern Miss will end up going two full seasons without a win. 

Northern Illinois QB Jordan Lynch can do it all. He’s a very entertaining dual-threat quarterback putting up flat-out ridiculous numbers in the high-scoring Mid-American Conference, and on Saturday, he added to his quickly-growing legend status in De Kalb, Illinois, by throwing four touchdown passes, running for a fifth and, best of all, catching a 17-yard pass in the end zone to cap off a rare trifecta. Behind that offensive explosion, the Huskies beat Eastern Michigan 59-20.