In a week that lacked big-time games, college football found a way to still make the weekend exciting, as it always does. Many ranked teams were pushed to the test and needed all four quarters to get wins. Crazy plays and wacky ends also dominated the headlines and major upsets happened, causing even more shake-up in the polls.
Kick-Six II
Florida State entered this season having to replace Heisman trophy winner, national champion and former starting quarterback Jameis Winston. Clearly no easy task, but it became easier once former Notre Dame quarterback Everett Golson transferred over, perhaps giving the Seminoles an outside chance to make the playoffs for the second year in a row.
When Florida State and Clemson meet, it will ultimately determine the winner of the Atlantic Coast Conference and imply a potential playoff breath. But the clash of ACC heavyweights took a huge U-turn after Georgia Tech pulled off an unexpected play at the end of regulation that mirrored that of Auburn’s kick-six of Alabama a few years back.
The play ended the Seminoles’ perfect season and ended their streak of 28 straight wins against ACC opponents. Florida State will now hope that defeating Clemson and winning the ACC will boost them in the rankings, but as things stand, they are on the outside looking in.
Pac-12 upsets continue
The Bruins entered into their game against California needing a win to get their season back on track after back-to-back conference loses.
UCLA did just that with a 16-point win over the Golden Bears, as quarterback Josh Rosen had a record 34 completions and threw for nearly 400 yards. The Bruins now are ranked No. 24 and are tied for second in the Pac-12 South with a host of teams behind the Utah Utes.
Speaking of the Utes, their story book season took a huge blow as they fell to USC in a turnover filled game in which Utah quarterback Travis Wilson threw four interceptions. The loss now makes the Pac-12 South race much more interesting. Utah still has a slim lead but now has UCLA, USC, and Arizona State all right on it’s heels and the Utes still must play the Bruins. With time the division should sort itself out but currently it is a very tight race.
GameDay detour
This week ESPN’s College GameDay went off its usual FBS trail and entered in to FCS country as for the first time this season. GameDay went to Harrisonburg, Virginia to see James Madison take on Richmond and the crowd was as crazy as ever before.
The detour isn’t that strange to the crew, who in recent years has hosted GameDay at various FCS venues, the most notable being North Dakota State. The game proved to be a high scoring affair with the Spiders of Richmond wining 59-49. We will probably expect more of this to come.
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