This past Saturday wasn’t the equivalent of the Game of Thrones royal wedding like October 4th was but it definitely had its fair share of craziness. Two top ten teams got mixed up in a shootout in Waco, a couple Dawgs took a few Tigers by the tail in Starkville & Columbia and some Ducks found their way back into the College Football Playoff discussion out in Los Angeles. Yes, it’s safe to say that so far October has been all we expected and more. Here are some winners and losers from Week 7:
WINNERS
Bulldogs in the SEC – It began at Noon when the Georgia Bulldogs kicked off in 
Columbia against Missouri and reintroduced true freshman runningback Nick Chubb to the Bulldog faithful. The Dawgs took a 20-0 lead into the halftime break but didn’t let up in the second half winning the road conference game 34-0 behind 143 rushing yards from Chubb. The clubbing of the Tigers didn’t end there as kickoff between the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Auburn Tigers got underway mid-afternoon and the Dawgs wasted no time in this one either. Mississippi State jumped out to a 21-0 lead exiting the 1st quarter and led 28-13 at the halftime break. God only knows what the score would have been without that stupid fake punt attempt-turned interception in the 2nd quarter. State rolled on to a 38-20 win over the reigning SEC champions but it was safe to say that Saturday went to the Dawgs in a hurry.
Pac-12 Road Teams – In case you’ve missed it (most people in our part of the world have) the Pac-12 has been quite topsy-turvy in 2014. The two teams who were picked to win each division were playing a College Football Playoff elimination game on Saturday and two teams who began the season with little to no praise from the national media led those divisions entering the weekend. Oh but nothing is safe in the big conference out West as the road teams in conference games are now 12-4 on the season. Oregon, Washington & USC were this week’s group of road winners as each went on the road and got convincing wins over their conference brethren.
Michigan Wolverines – It has been a rough couple of weeks for the Maize & Blue and it’s
been really easy to put them in the ‘Losers’ bracket for a solid month. Although, in the same breath I will give them credit when they gut out a good win at home. The Wolverines found themselves down 13-10 at home to the Penn State Nittany Lions and it has been in this situation all season that Michigan would fold up the tents and walk back into the locker room with another loss. Not on Saturday, October 11th. Michigan scored 8 whole points to beat Penn State 18-13 in front of their home crowd. The Wolverines have a bye week before heading to East Lansing to play Michigan State and it’s always good to go into that game with some good mojo.
LOSERS
Tigers in the SEC – It began at Noon when the Missouri Tigers decided to wet the bed against a Georgia team without their star runningback. The Tigers trailed 20-0 heading into the halftime break but didn’t show up in the second half either as they let the Dawgs score 14 more unanswered points on their way to a 34-0 loss at home in front of the largest crowd at Faurot Field this season. The clubbing of the Tigers didn’t end there as kickoff between the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Auburn Tigers got underway mid-afternoon and Auburn wasted no time in this one either. The Tigers allowed Mississippi State to jump out to a 21-0 lead exiting the 1st quarter and trailed 28-13 at the halftime break by some kind of miracle. God only knows what the score would have been without that stupid fake punt attempt-turned interception in the 2nd quarter. The Tigers finally lost 38-20 on the road to the Dawgs and it soon became obvious that Saturday was definitely not ‘Cat-urday’.
Florida State Seminoles – Heisman winning quarterback Jameis Winston looked very 
sharp in the Noles’ second true road game of the season on Saturday connecting on 30 of his 36 pass attempts for 317 yards and 3 touchdowns in Florida State’s 38-20 win over Syracuse. Starting runningback Karlos Williams was inactive for the day with an ankle injury which gave backup Mario Pender his first career start in the Garnet & Gold. Pender rushed for 46 yards and a touchdown on just 9 carries before he was injured shoving the third string and true freshman runningback Dalvin Cook into the spotlight and he made the most of it with 122 yards on 23 carries and a touchdown. The Noles had a 31-6 lead midway through the third quarter but the second string defense was unable to keep another 14 points off the scoreboard with the game finally ending with a 38-20 Florida State win. Twenty two straight victories, a National Championship and an 18 point conference win on the road weren’t enough for the reigning national champions to maintain their #1 ranking in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll. It’s going to be a dark & gloomy week in Tallahassee for sure.
Texas Longhorns – When I was watching the Red River Rivalry, it was going exactly the way that I thought it would: The Sooners playing like their hair was on fire after losing to TCU the week before and Texas laying down because they aren’t very good and also because they don’t really have a lot else to play for. Then with a little over 8 minutes to play in the 2nd quarter Longhorn quarterback Tyrone Swoopes found wide receiver John Harris open over the middle for a 38 yard touchdown to put the Longhorns within one score of Oklahoma. Texas then made a mad dash for the win in the 4th quarter with two scores but it wasn’t enough to overtake the 11th ranked Sooners in Dallas. The Longhorns are in the ‘Losers’ category today because they did everything in the game to win but not score more points than the other team. You read it here first; the Texas Longhorns just turned the corner.
Tune in to the Southern Football Report this and every Saturday morning from 10 am to Noon on Live 101.9, Rockin 106.3 & Q 92.3 to hear high school scores from Friday night as well as college football discussion, debate and previews of the games to come!
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