Everything you need to know about some of the big games from Week 10 of the 2013 NCAA Football season is right here.
Going into Friday night’s game in Corvallis, Oregon State QB Sean Mannion had made a
name for himself by way of being careful with the football, rarely throwing
picks. After sixty minutes in Reser Stadium, the unheralded and depleted USC defense had forced three
interceptions, shut down OSU’s potent WR Brandin Cooks and relied on big
passing plays and a rolling ground game from it’s own offense to really dominate
the Beavers, 31-14, sending the Trojans to a 3-0 Pac-12 record under interim
head coach Ed Orgeron. It was the first win for USC in Corvallis since the
now-vacated National Championship season of 2004, and the Trojans are now
Bowl-eligible after a disastrous start to the season.
It’s been a rough week for the Pelini family, with Carl
fired from FAU amidst allegations of cocaine and marijuana use, and Bo
continuing to deal with the very high expectations in Lincoln, Nebraska, but it’s ended on something
of a high after the Cornhuskers connected on an improbable 49-yard lob to
Jordan Westerkamp for a 27-24 win over a reeling Northwestern Wildcats unit that’s dropped 5 straight after starting
4-0. The Huskers were again without star QB Taylor Martinez.
If there’s a dark horse favourite for the 2013 Heisman
Trophy, it’s Northern Illinois QB
Jordan Lynch. The Huskies star ran for 119 yards and four scores, and threw for
another in a little more than a half’s worth of action on Saturday as NIU went
on the road and blasted Massachusetts
63-19. Lynch leads the nation in rushing – he’s already over the thousand-yard
mark this year – and the Huskies remain on pace with Fresno State for the lone
BCS Buster spot.
Johnny Football did some blasting of his own on Saturday
night, leading Texas A&M to a
commanding 57-7 victory over the UTEP
Miners, who were overmatched and completely ill-equipped to deal with Manziel
and the roaring Aggie offense. Manziel ran for two touchdowns, including one
scintillating 49-yard glide towards the end zone, and passed for four more,
before taking a seat on the pine in the third quarter. It was a good day for
the beleaguered Aggie defense, too, as they held the Miners to a solitary first-quarter
score and forced UTEP QB Blaire Sullivan into three picks.
In the end, it was the game most expected: tight and close early,
but Florida State put the pedal down
in the third quarter, beating archrivals Miami
41-14 in Tallahassee, condemning the Hurricanes to their first loss of the
season, whilst continuing their own undefeated run. Seminole QB Jameis Winston
showed he was human after all, tossing two picks, which brought about the only
fourteen points for the Hurricanes. It
was the combined performances of running backs James Wilder (41 yards and two
scores) and Devonta Freeman (86 yards and two touchdowns) that sparked Florida
State to another big win on a big stage. Challenged early by Al Golden’s men,
the ‘Noles responded perfectly. Great to see this rivalry once again in the
national spotlight.
In a wild, back-and-forth game in Lubbock, TX, Oklahoma State showed their offensive
ability torching Texas Tech 52-34.
RB Desmond Roland ran for three scores, whilst QB Clint Chelf threw two and ran
for two more. On the other sideline, Red Raider QB Davis Webb threw the
football a whopping 71 times, en route to 550 total yards of offense, but not
enough to avoid their second loss of the season.
Speaking of defense, there was plenty of it from Michigan State on Saturday afternoon in
East Lansing as they blasted in-state rivals Michigan 29-6, holding the Wolverine offense to just 186 total
yards, and a woeful -48 in the rushing column, the worst in the storied and
long history of Wolverine football. The Spartans were simply too good at every
defensive position, recording seven sacks. Sparty might be the only Big Ten team to give
Ohio State a run, and it seems as though they’ll get their chance in
Indianapolis a week after Thanksgiving in the Big Ten Championship.
It was ugly, but it was a win, and that’s all that really
counts. Though, if you were looking for style points in a football game, there wasn’t
any produced by Notre Dame in their
last-gasp 38-34 victory over Navy.
The Midshipmen had the football and were driving inside the last two minutes,
but missed on a fourth-down conversion, which handed the football – and the win
– to the Irish. It was far from a convincing performance, particularly by Notre
Dame QB Tommy Rees, who turned the football over twice early. Navy’s triple
option offense ran up 417 yards on the Irish.
A week after a bad loss to South Carolina in which they gave
up a 17-point lead to lose in overtime, SEC East challengers Missouri got back on track with a 31-3
thumping of Tennessee in Columbia.
It was a banner night for the Tiger offense, which fell just one yard short of
500 on the night and a return to form for backup QB Maty Mauk, who threw for
three touchdowns and ran for 111 yards as Mizzou broke the Volunteers defense the old fashioned way, running the
football down their throats for 334 yards.
So bad is
the Big Ten that Ohio State must
absolutely belt their opponents to avoid being forgotten about when the weekly
BCS rankings are released. They did it last week, putting 63 on Penn State, and
they did it this week, holding Purdue
scoreless in a 56-0 rout in West Lafayette. Buckeye defender Doran Grant picked
off the first pass of the game, taking it back 33 yards to the house, which set
the tone for both teams. Ohio State QB Braxton Miller threw for four scores in
amongst 233 yards. The Buckeyes extended the longest win streak in the nation
with their win: they haven’t lost in 22 months. It was the most lopsided
victory in their series with Purdue, stretching back 56 games.
Quietly,
the Auburn Tigers are signaling that perhaps the Iron Bowl matchup on the
Saturday after Thanksgiving won’t be the one-way Alabama rout that it was last
year. In a remarkable comeback season under new head coach Gus Malzahn, the
Tigers, winless in SEC play a year ago, sit at 8-1, and emphatically dispatched
Arkansas 35-17 in Fayetteville. Star RB Tre Mason carried the ball 32 times for
168 yards and four scores as the Razorbacks drop to 3-5 in Bret Bielema’s first
season as coach.
Georgia scored on their first four possessions,
rolling to a 20-0 lead over Florida
in Jacksonville and needed to withstand a heap of pressure late as the Gators
came roaring back to within three points. The Bulldogs managed to hang on for a
23-20 victory, in which they looked a completely different outfit to recent
weeks thanks to RB Todd Gurley’s return from injury. He’s a vital cog in their
offense, and ran for an even hundred yards and a touchdown, as well as catching
three balls for 87 yards and one score out of the backfield. Don’t sleep on
Georgia just yet. The Gators, on the other hand, are basically done, falling to
4-4.
Air Force RB
Anthony LaCoste shredded the Army
defense to the tune of 263 yards and three touchdowns on just 23 carries as the
Falcons finally ended their seven-game losing streak with a 42-28 win. Unbelievably
, LaCoste’s performance isn’t the most rushing yards by an Air Force player.
That honour goes to Chad Hall, who ran for 275 in 2007. Even so, an incredible
performance, and perhaps the best individual effort of the weekend.
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