Here’s how the top ten fared in Week 3:
- Ohio State Buckeyes – Defeated Northern Illinois 20-13 in Columbus – Let’s just be honest, the
Buckeyes did not look very good on Saturday against a pretty good Huskies team who also played pretty poorly. Ohio State finished the game with only 298 yards of total offense but had 5 turnovers courtesy of J.T. Barrett & Cardale Jones interceptions. Northern Illinois had 2 interceptions of their own and only gained 190 yards offense. The performance on the field was reflected in the weather at The Horseshoe on Saturday: bland & gloomy. The Buckeyes are in no danger of falling from their number 1 spot because of the chaos behind them but they have a lot of things to fix in 2015. Next Up: v. Western Michigan - Alabama Crimson Tide – Lost 43-37 v. (15) Ole Miss in Tuscaloosa – An early nomination for Game of
the Year, the Tide just didn’t have enough firepower to contend with Ole Miss who proved to America that their two 70+ points to start the season were legit & not just a product of poor competition. For some strange reason, Alabama went with sophomore Cooper Bateman at quarterback who looked absolutely lost for two quarters despite his high completion percentage from the game. At one point the Crimson Tide was down 43-24 halfway through the 4th quarter but Alabama did show some grit and came back to make it a ball game late in the 4th quarter. Next Up: v. UL-Monroe - TCU Horned Frogs – Defeated SMU 56-37 in Fort Worth – Its been a tough start for the Frogs in 2015
with players getting hurt, leaving the program for personal reasons and legal problems. You couple that with the performance on the field and TCU needs a big win in the worst way. SMU is improved but the Frogs shouldn’t have allowed them to keep pace for two and a half quarters like they did on Saturday. Either way, they had no answer for Horned Frogs quarterback Trevone Boykin who finished the game with 6 total touchdowns and over 500 yards of total offense. Just when it looked like TCU was going to pull away with a 42-17 lead, the Mustangs fired back with 20 unanswered points. Next Up: at Texas Tech - Michigan State Spartans – Defeated Air Force 35-21 in East Lansing – We saw what the Spartans can
do against the Ducks in Week 2 and I somewhat expected a less-than-stellar performance against the Air Force Academy this Saturday but Sparty came out and took care of business. Quarterback Conner Cook looked sharp and for the most part, the Spartan defense contained the triple option attack pretty well. Overall, Michigan State was out-gained 428 to 324 total yards wise but in the week following a big home win, I thought they played well. The only thing that might come back to haunt them this season is their inability to run the football early in the game but it’s still early. Next Up: v. Central Michigan - Baylor Bears – Bye Week
- USC Trojans – Lost 41-31 v. Stanford in Los Angeles – It’s been all roses and celebrations for the
Trojans since the 2015 season started because they didn’t have to talk about their coach’s alleged drinking problem anymore but now there is another topic to discuss: the Trojans’ inability to pressure the quarterback. The Stanford Cardinal pulled the veil off of one of USC’s biggest weeknesses on Saturday night. Stanford quarterback Kevin Hogan was 18 of 23 for 279 yards and 2 touchdowns and rarely had to move from his spot in his drop. The USC offense was as good as ever until the end when a score was absolutely necessary. Quarterback Cody Kessler & receiver Juju Smith-Schuster were in perfect rhythm with one another until the final 9 minutes when USC was down 7 and needed to score to force overtime. Next Up: at Arizona State - Georgia Bulldogs – Defeated South Carolina 52-20 in Athens – It isn’t very common for the Dawgs to
get a big win over a Steve Spurrier-coached team so Saturday night in Athens was down right euphoric for many of their fans. It was an 11 point game at the half where the Dawgs were firmly in control but the 3rd quarter was all Georgia when sophomore running back/receiver Sony Michel caught two touchdown passes and sophomore running back Nick Chubb found the end zone from 7 yards out. The Dawgs finished with over 500 yards of offense and transfer quarterback had his best game in the Red & Black having completed 23 of his 24 pass attempts for 330 yards and 3 touchdowns, setting UGA, NCAA & SEC passing records for completion percentage in a game. Next Up: v. Southern - Notre Dame Fighting Irish – Defeated (14) Georgia Tech in South Bend – In probably one of the
better coaching jobs of the young 2015 season, Irish Head Coach Brian Kelly had redshirt freshman quarterback Deshone Kizer ready to play in his first start as Notre Dame’s quarterback. I felt like he had full command of the offense and the plays called for him throughout the game and his performance reflected that with a 242 passing yard performance. He showed his youth with an interception in the game but overall, Kizer showed that he has the moxy to be a big time college quarterback. Equally as good of a coaching job by Notre Dame Defensive Coordinator Brian VanGorder who had the Yellow Jacket triple option attack hemmed up all day long. Next Up: v. Massachusetts - Florida State Seminoles – Defeated Boston College 14-0 in Chestnutt Hill – On the opening drive of
the game, the Noles marched down the field and put a touchdown on the board at took the air completely out of the stadium. Over the course of the next fifty minutes, they gave the Eagle fans plenty of reasons to get back into the ball game as that was the only offensive points put up by the three time reigning ACC champs. In what turned out to be a defensive struggle for the rest of the game, Florida State’s defense showed that they have the potential to be more like the 2013 version who held opponents to under 300 yards of offense rather than the 2014 version that allowed almost 400 yards per contest. Next Up: Bye Week - UCLA Bruins – Defeated (19) BYU 24-23 in Pasadena – It was going to happen sooner or later; true
freshman quarterback Josh Rosen was going to play like a true freshman quarterback and he did just that on Saturday night throwing 3 interceptions in the one point win. Rosen better use his laundry money to buy Bruins junior running back Paul Perkins lunch or something because he torched the Cougars of BYU for 219 yards and a touchdown. The good news for Bruins fans is that Rosen had one of the worse games at quarterback in UCLA history and the Bruins were still able to hang on and beat a really good ranked BYU team. Next Up: at (16) Arizona
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