{"id":1053,"date":"2016-09-18T12:57:03","date_gmt":"2016-09-18T16:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordoncollegefootball.com\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2025-09-13T16:16:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T20:16:34","slug":"college-football-week-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2016\/09\/18\/college-football-week-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Things We Learned In College, Week Three"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Week Three of College Football: another week, another player dropping the ball before entering the end zone. In fact, this week it happened twice. Surprisingly, the refs picked up on the one I thought was borderline (by <strong>Cal&#8217;s Vic Enwere<\/strong>) and missed the one I thought was obvious (by <strong>Oklahoma&#8217;s Joe Mixon<\/strong>). The main thing I learned this week is that these guys need to learn to hold onto the ball!<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eZmi04c7Pug\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">An even bigger brain cramp<\/a> occurred in the <strong>Clemson-South Carolina State<\/strong> game. SCSU&#8217;s <strong>Ahmaad Harris<\/strong> caught a kickoff in the end zone and tossed the ball to the ref without taking a knee to stop the play. Clemson recovered the ball (if you can call it that) for a touchdown. Since the kickoff came after a Clemson score, the Tigers actually managed to score two touchdowns without taking any time off the clock.<\/p>\n<p>-Good call by the coaches to play 12-minute quarters in the second half with Clemson up 45-0. Neither team was benefiting significantly from the game at that point.<\/p>\n<p>-Another thing I learned this weekend is that <strong>Louisville<\/strong> quarterback\u00a0<strong>Lamar Jackson<\/strong> is the real deal. It was one thing to write off his first two mind-boggling performances as being, well, against <strong>Charlotte<\/strong> and <strong>Syracuse.<\/strong> But to dominate <strong>Florida State<\/strong> the way the <strong>Cardinals<\/strong> did with Jackson at the helm (he led the Cardinals in both passing and rushing, accounting for 362 yards and five TDs) takes talent. This kid is a gem. <strong>Michael Vick<\/strong> seems to be the popular comparison for the athletic, mobile Jackson, prompting\u00a0this tweet from Vick himself yesterday:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Lamar Jackson 5x better than what I was at V-Tech&#8230;.Enough said!! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/future?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#future<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mike Vick (@MikeVick) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MikeVick\/status\/777237133379592194\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 17, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>-Louisville at Clemson looked like a good game at the beginning of the season. I&#8217;d categorize it as &#8220;can&#8217;t-miss&#8221; at this point. That game is on October 1.<\/p>\n<p>-Congratulations to the <strong>North Dakota State Bison<\/strong> (that&#8217;s pronounced &#8220;BY-zen&#8221;, by the way, not &#8220;BY-son&#8221;) on their first-ever upset of a ranked <strong>FBS<\/strong> team. I admit, I was surprised to hear that, because beating FBS teams is kind of the Bisons&#8217; thing. I would not have guessed they had never beaten a ranked one before. (Side note: in 2011, <strong>NDSU<\/strong> beat <strong>Minnesota.<\/strong> I&#8217;m guessing <strong>Iowa<\/strong> fans let the <strong>Gopher<\/strong>\u00a0faithful\u00a0hear about that, and that there are some very amused people in the <strong>Twin Cities<\/strong> this weekend).<\/p>\n<p>-Much to the delight of hockey fans everywhere, the NSDU quarterback is named <strong>Easton Stick.<\/strong>\u00a0For the blissfully uninitiated, Easton is major manufacturer of hockey gear, including sticks. I have a couple of old Easton Sticks in my garage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<strong>Michigan<\/strong> woke up about four o&#8217;clock for their 3:30 game with <strong>Colorado<\/strong> and still came within five points of starting 3-0 with fifty points in each game for the first time since 190-something. (It&#8217;s in my game notes, but I can&#8217;t read my handwriting. Now I know how my teachers felt). In the first quarter, Colorado had 150 passing yards to Michigan&#8217;s three. In the second, Michigan had 121 passing yards to Colorado&#8217;s 17. Mathematically, this game was in reach for the <strong>Buffaloes<\/strong> well into the fourth quarter. Realistically, it was in reach until Michigan knocked quarterback <strong>Sefo Liufau<\/strong> out of the game, and red-shirt freshman <strong>Steven Montez<\/strong> had to replace him.<\/p>\n<p>-The <strong>Big Ten&#8217;s<\/strong> Eastern division continues to be intriguing. <strong>Michigan State<\/strong> faced their first real test against <strong>Notre Dame<\/strong> and came through with flying colors. Sparty, Michigan, and the Buckeyes are all 3-0 and in all likelihood will be until they start facing each other.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<strong>Wisconsin<\/strong> and <strong>Nebraska<\/strong> survived close games to\u00a0remain atop\u00a0the Big Ten West at 3-0. Nebraska&#8217;s victory over <strong>Oregon<\/strong> was a surprise, as was the fact that Wisconsin only beat <strong>Georgia State<\/strong> by six points. However, I still like Iowa to win the division.<\/p>\n<p><strong>-Ducks&#8217;<\/strong> running back <strong>Royce Freeman<\/strong> left the game during <strong>Oregon&#8217;s<\/strong> second possession and didn&#8217;t return. If he misses a significant amount of time, the Ducks could be in trouble.<\/p>\n<p>-Lots of scares in the <strong>SEC<\/strong> yesterday. <strong>LSU<\/strong> nearly let <strong>Mississippi State<\/strong> force overtime after having a 20-6 lead, <strong>Ole Miss<\/strong> nearly Ole Miss&#8217;ed <strong>Alabama<\/strong> for a third straight year, and <strong>South Carolina<\/strong> managed a 20-15 with over <strong>East Carolina<\/strong> despite allowing ECU receiver <strong>Zay Jones<\/strong> 22 receptions for 190 yards.<\/p>\n<p>-In three games,<strong> LSU<\/strong> has missed two extra points. They&#8217;ve won both games, but in competitive conference play that could be significant.<\/p>\n<p>-I say this at least once a year, but I don&#8217;t know how these guys in the SEC and the Pac-12 South do it. Last night in Baton Rouge, the temperature was 87 degrees, with a heat index (&#8220;feels like&#8221; temperature) of 99. Do you know what we do in New England when it feels like 99 degrees out? <em>We crank the air conditioning and stay inside.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Speaking of staying inside, I&#8217;d highly recommend it next weekend as there&#8217;s a great slate of games. Florida-Tennessee, Wisconsin-Michigan State, and Georgia-Ole Miss should all be good ones. I&#8217;ll be here next Sunday morning recapping the action. Have a great week everybody!<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/607359704\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:67.340067% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/607359704?et=sC1XKVdsRDdTbfq05gEVhg&#038;viewMoreLink=off&#038;sig=XEJk4qIteA3jYMr0T-7lSHQv0A413RyJxtGHuIPTEW4=&#038;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin:0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Week Three of College Football: another week, another player dropping the ball before entering the end zone. In fact, this week it happened twice. Surprisingly, the refs picked up on the one I thought was borderline (by Cal&#8217;s Vic Enwere) and missed the one I thought was obvious (by Oklahoma&#8217;s Joe Mixon). The main thing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":945,"featured_media":1079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2],"tags":[35,69,478,308,474,319,203,418,90,86,420,279,473,73,37,258,277,481,476,480],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fbs","category-featured","tag-alabama-crimson-tide","tag-california-golden-bears","tag-colorado-buffaloes","tag-east-carolina-pirates","tag-easton-stick","tag-iowa-hawkeyes","tag-joe-mixon","tag-lamar-jackson","tag-louisville-cardinals","tag-lsu-tigers","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-michigan-wolverines","tag-north-dakota-state-bison","tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","tag-oklahoma-sooners","tag-ole-miss-rebels","tag-oregon-ducks","tag-royce-freeman","tag-vic-enwere","tag-zay-jones"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/945"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78637,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/78637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}