Each week, I’ll cast my eye over the upcoming slate of games, and provide a few storylines worth keeping an eye on.
Auburn’s defense: Will Muschamp, the defensive coordinator for the Tigers, is the highest-paid assistant coach anywhere in the country, which, of course, means that the pressure is turned all the way up because his players gave up 45 points and 485 yards to a rampant Louisiana State squad last Saturday in Death Valley.
As you probably know, the bulk of that yardage – 228, to be exact – and three touchdowns came from star back Leonard Fournette, who Auburn defenders had previously said would be easy to tackle. Leaving a player bulletin board material is never a smart idea, particularly not when said player is of Fournette’s ilk. Auburn were embarrassed in many ways, and drop way out of the AP Top 25 rankings this week.
The Tigers get a chance to make amends for an inept defensive performance this weekend, when Mississippi State come in to Jordan-Hare Stadium. Whilst it’s not the FCS squad Auburn were probably wishing was on their schedule now, the Tigers must go out and show some improvement defensively.
It won’t be an easy task, and if Auburn’s D mails it in again this week, there’ll be plenty of criticism – probably warranted – directed at Will Muschamp thereafter. He’s simply not earning his salary at the moment.
Arkansas: After talking up the SEC’s schedule compared to that of Ohio State and the Big Ten, Bret Bielema’s ranked squad lost first to Toledo and Texas Tech, and Bielema himself engaged – not for the first time, it has to be said – in a verbal sparring contest, this time with Tech’s Ryan Gosling-lookalike coach Kliff Kingsbury. That’s Bielema’s style, no doubt, and one of the reasons why a lot of his coaching brethren in the Big Ten had little time for him, and weren’t too disappointed when he left.
The road doesn’t get much easier for the Razorbacks, who travel to Dallas, Texas, and face a rejuvenated Texas A&M squad on neutral ground. Arkansas really need a good showing against the Aggies, but if the Hogs play the way they have over the last two weeks, it could be a long day in the House that Jerry Jones built. The vaunted Arkansas run game has scarcely surfaced in their two losses, and their offense isn’t built around twenty or thirty pass plays.
Expect Bielema to be answering even more tough questions if Arkansas aren’t at least competitive against Kevin Sumlin’s men.
USC: The Trojans were smashed square in the mouth by a committed Stanford offense that they were powerless to stop for most of the game last Saturday at the Coliseum. Worse than the loss, rumours circulated that players were fighting with one another heading up the tunnel after the game.
Serious conflict in the locker room is never a good look, and it gives USC the sort of dysfunctional feel fans thought they’d left behind when Lane Kiffin departed. Ironically, that happened two years’ ago, late at night, when the Trojans got home from a walloping at the hands of – yep, you guessed it, Arizona State.
Defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox is trying to fix troubles with the defense, which looked at sea for all but the opening quarter, and, let’s be honest, he has a lot of work to do. It was tough to watch the Trojan D get dominated by that Cardinal run game.
Steve Sarkisian’s squad now head out into the desert to take on an Arizona State squad that’s fallen outside the AP Top 25 national rankings, and the Trojans need a win to take some of the heat off their woes. It won’t be an easy game to win, with the Sun Devils also looking to get a one-loss season back on track.
The Trojans can kiss goodbye their Pac-12 or national playoff hopes if they don’t win this weekend, and extract a little revenge for being embarrassed by ASU the last time these two met in Tempe. The offense was pretty good against Stanford – they put up 31 – and you expect that the same against the Sun Devils. All eyes will be on Wilcox’s defense.
Cardale Jones: Nothing like a good quarterback controversy, is there? The National Championship-winning quarterback for Ohio State had his worst career outing last weekend against Northern Illinois – one of the shocks of the weekend was how hard NIU made the defending champions battle for their win. He completed just 4-9 for 36 yards and two interceptions.
That displeased Buckeye head coach Urban Meyer, who removed Jones in favour of J.T. Barrett – remember the two duelled pretty seriously for the starting gig in camp – who wasn't that much better, but at least he threw a touchdown.
Meyer has announced that Jones will get the start, and will be the guy under centre unless he starts playing poorly against Western Michigan as he did against the Huskies. We’ll see whether Jones reverts to his old self, proving true the adage that even champions have a bad day every now and again, or whether Barrett gets the chance to make that starting position his own. Who ever thought we’d see so much intrigue in a game featuring the top-ranked team in the country and a middling MAC squad!
UCLA: the Bruins lost their star linebacker Myles Jack for the season to what coach Jim Mora called a “significant” knee injury. The two-way player has been amongst the Bruins’ best this season, and sealed their last-start win against Brigham Young with an interception of Tanner Mangum as the Cougars were driving. Jack was a key cog in the Bruins defensive machine, and seeing how they adapt to life without him will be very interesting, as they face a pretty good Arizona Wildcat squad.
Enjoy your football weekend, everyone!
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