With just one week to go in the regular season, the intensity was high yesterday, and so was the entertainment factor. Let’s go over what we learned in Week 12 in College Football.
Things We Learned In College: Week 12 In College Football
-Penn State’s offensive line woes continue, as Michigan’s defense abused quarterback Christian Hackenberg yesterday. The Nittany Lions are tied for 121st in sacks allowed, with 37 so far. (Coincidentally, their defense is tied for first in team sacks, with 44).
-Michigan quarterback Jake Rudock has to be garnering some interest from the NFL at this point.
-Whatever Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh did to address last week’s penalty issue, it wasn’t enough. The Wolverines followed it up with 13 for 117 yards this week. Granted, I was not impressed with the officiating in this game- nor was Harbaugh. But at least some of the penalties were deserved, especially the numerous offsides/neutral zone infractions called on the defense. Penn State found that going to the hard count had the desired result, and they went back to it repeatedly.
–Harbaugh tantrum of the week and an example of the poor officiating. Harbaugh is not wrong about this call.
-I thought CBS’ Gary Danielson made a good point during the LSU-Ole Miss game: Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds deserves some Heisman consideration. He won’t win, but he should be getting enough 3rd-5th place votes to go to New York. Whether he will remains to be seen.
-Could LSU please bring back the guys who played their first six games? Especially that Fournette guy, he was fun to watch.
-I understand the frustration with Les Miles, but I don’t think firing him makes any sense at this point. Number one, $15 million for Miles and the assistants is a huge amount of money. Number two, who is available who’s a proven commodity and better than The Hat?
-No Connor Cook, no problem for Michigan State. The wind and heavy rain were a problem, but not enough of one to keep the Spartans from knocking off unbeaten Ohio State.
-I can’t imagine Urban Meyer liking the reaction from two of his star players after the game.
-Back to Heisman talk: Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey is another guy who should be on a lot of ballots. McCaffrey, son of former NFL player Ed McCaffrey, set a school record for single-game all-purpose yardage yesterday with 389. That’s a good game for an entire offense!
-I’m interested to see how low Florida drops in the polls today, after needing overtime to be Florida Atlantic and just two weeks after struggling with Vanderbilt.
-During the Baylor-Oklahoma State pregame, there was a fair amount of talk about how cold it was in Stillwater last night. A lot of players had balaclavas under their helmets, and the sideline reporter mentioned that the trainers had chicken soup and hot chocolate available for players. I was curious to see just how cold it was, and the lifelong New Englander in me (with a Canadian boyfriend, nonetheless) had to laugh when I Googled “Stillwater Oklahoma Weather” and found that it was 33 degrees. I know it’s all about what you’re used to- hell, I think the SEC players are insane to run around playing football when it’s 90 degrees with 90% humidity- but I got a good chuckle out of that.
-Having already lost starting quarterback Seth Russell a few weeks ago, Baylor fans must have been holding their collective breath as backup Jarrett Stidham (already dealing with a sore back from last week’s game) hobbled off the field at halftime. Enter third-string Chris Johnson for the win. Johnson did throw one pick, but he also passed for 138 yards and two touchdowns to get the Bears their first win in Stillwater since 1939. We’ll see how far Baylor moves back up in the polls.
-Oklahoma was dealt a similar hand as quarterback Baker Mayfield took a hit to the back of his head in the first half. He stayed in the game but had a headache at halftime and was pulled. Trevor Knight (remember him? I assumed he had graduated) took over to less success, but the Sooners hung on for the 30-29 victory.
-Notre Dame lost C.J. Procise to what looked like a foot or ankle injury yesterday. I imagine they’d really like to get him back for the Stanford game.
-Five turnovers for the Irish last night, in a scene straight out of last season.
-Congratulations to North Carolina for clinching a share of their first ACC title in a long, long time. Their last one came with Lawrence Taylor leading the Tar Heels’ defense (1980).
-I would be remiss not to also congratulate my home-state UConn Huskies for getting bowl-eligible for the first time since 2010. (When I first saw the 10-7 UConn-Houston score on the ESPN crawl yesterday, I admit, I assumed it was a basketball score).
-South Carolina beaten by- the Citadel? That game would for sure have featured some visor throws by the Head Ball Coach.
-A few uniform notes: I love the all-white on LSU, and I love the all-purple on Clemson. I like the green jerseys on Notre Dame, but I’m not sold on the green pants.
-Finally, from all of us at LWOS, congratulations to Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer on a great career. Beamer, the country’s longest-tenured head coach, coached his last home game yesterday after announcing earlier this year that 2015 would be his last season at the helm. He coached the Hokies for twenty-nine years.
That’s all for this week! Don’t forget to check back later today for the LWOS Top 25 Rankings- it should be an interesting edition.
Main Image
