Another weekend of college football is in the books, so let’s go through who was great on the gridiron with my Championship Weekend Heroes:
Marcus Mariota: The Oregon Ducks quarterback single-handedly destroyed Arizona in Friday night’s Pac-12 Championship Game at Levi’s Stadium, and probably nabbed himself the Heisman Trophy in the process.
It was a sparkling performance from Mariota, who accounted for five touchdowns in the 51-13 rout of the Wildcats. On a rainy night in the Bay Area, he passed for 303 yards and two scores, and ran in three more on a night when the Arizona defense just couldn’t get near him. Sweet revenge for the Ducks, whose sole loss of the season came in controversial fashion to these Wildcats. Oregon ran up a stupefying 640 yards and kept Arizona to just 224. Dominating effort.
Ohio State: Fair to say that not many people – myself included – gave the Buckeyes much of a chance against Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game, and I guess that was about all the inspiration the Buckeyes needed to stamp their ticket and do it emphatically, dominating the Badgers to the tune of 59-0.
The Buckeyes might be the deepest team at quarterback in the country. We all knew what Braxton Miller could do – he did it last year, before a pre-season injury put an end to his 2014 campaign – and we leaned pretty quickly that his back-up J.T. Barrett was a serious duel-threat quarterback, too.
What we didn’t count on was that Cardale Jones, third on the Buckeye depth chart heading into the season, would be as good as he was in Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday night. Just how good was he? Jones was 12-17 for 257 yards and three touchdowns. He wasn’t sacked or intercepted on the night. One hell of a debut, and the Buckeyes will need him to do it again, possibly in a National Semi-final.
Plenty of love should be given to the Buckeye defense, who bottled up Wisconsin RB Melvin Gordon, forcing the record-setting back to fumble once and limiting him to just 76 yards on 26 carries, a paltry 3.6 yards per carry, especially when you consider the sort of yards-per-carry totals that Gordon’s been putting up this season.
Special mention to Australian-born punter, Cam Johnston, who uncorked a 73-yard boomer amongst his four punts, an average of 53.0 yards.
Alabama: A week after a wild Iron Bowl that required a fairly substantial comeback, the Tide were on-song from the very beginning of the SEC Championship Game, and didn’t give Missouri a look in. Yes, the Tigers got to within one score in the third, but Alabama simply kicked it into a higher gear and ran out fairly easy winners in the Georgia Dome, 42-13.
The rest of the college football world should be worried because Alabama are peaking at just the right time. Nick Saban’s men should retain the #1 ranking when the final College Football Playoff rankings are announced tomorrow. This guarantees them a slightly easier route to the National Championship Game – possibly against Florida State – and moves them towards a possible, mouth-watering match-up with Oregon. Can you imagine an Oregon offense against an Alabama defense?
Of course, the ‘Bama offense isn’t anything to be sneezed at, either. Blake Sims looks like he’s been quarterbacking the team for five years rather than just one, and looks completely at home in the Lane Kiffin offense. He was 23-27 for 262 yards and two scores, including four connections with DeAndrew White, who enjoyed his second big game in as many weeks. The Tide just have so many weapons to confuse a defense: White, Amari Cooper, Christion Jones, T.J. Yeldon, Jalston Fowler… the list goes on.
Remember when people scoffed at the Kiffin hire? They said Nick Saban had made a mistake. Here’s something to consider: Nick Saban knows best. Yeah, this USC fan has a problem with the way Kiffin ran the Trojans, but you can’t deny the guy is an offensive genius. Any doubts of that should now be pretty much dispelled.
Boise State: The Broncos relied more on their defense than their white-hot offense on Saturday night, but the result was the same. Boise State won the Mountain West Football Championship with a 28-14 win over arch rivals Fresno State, and now look set to be the Group of Five representative in one of the New Year’s Six Bowls. Pretty good debut season for head coach Bryan Harsin. The Broncos haven’t missed a beat since Chris Petersen left the program for Washington.
Oklahoma State: An incredibly up-and-down year for the Cowboys has ended on an upswing after they recorded a dramatic 38-35 win over in-state rivals, the heavily-favoured Oklahoma Sooners.
The game-tying score was a 92-yard punt return from Tyreek Hill, a noted track athlete, and came with less than 2:00 to play. Ben Grogan won the game in overtime with a 21-yard field goal after Oklahoma kicker Michael Hunnicutt had missed from 44, capping a wild edition of the game known as Bedlam.
Central Florida: The UCF Knights won a share of the American Athletic Conference with their Thursday night win over the East Carolina Pirates, but very nearly had nothing at all. It took the a Hail Mary pass on the final play of the game – 52 yards from Justin Holman to Breshad Perriman – to give the Knights a 32-30 win over the Pirates.
Northern Illinois: A year after being beaten in the MAC Championship Game by Bowling Green, the Huskies gained at least a measure of revenge, pounding the Falcons into the Ford Field turf to the tune of 51-17.
Marshall: The one-loss Thundering Herd won the Conference USA championship on Saturday 26-23 over Louisiana Tech thanks to a late 5-yard touchdown pass from QB Rakeem Cato to Deon-Tay McManus.
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