College football thoughts and musings from midday September 13

Since I forgot to put Thursday’s and Friday’s in with the noon kickoffs, I will add them here.

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The one-man gang (not the wrestler, I’m talking about BYU quarterback Taysom Hill) was at it again against Houston. He accounted for 360 yards (200 passing, 160 rushing) and two touchdowns. That said, you have to give credit to Houston. They could have folded, like they did against UTSA in the opener, when they were down 23-0 early in the second quarter. They battled back to make this a one score game on the road.

Notre Dame transfer Gunner Keil tied a Cincinnati record with six touchdown passes in his debut. There is a reason that he is starting over Munchie Legaux. He has the arm to take advantage of Tommy Tuberville’s offense. If he does this in his debut, what will he do for an encore? Who knows, but he can’t play Toledo every week. Missouri’s Maty Mauk lit up the Rockets for four touchdowns through the air last week….

It doesn’t look like Baylor quarterback Bryce Petty is feeling any ill effects from the cracked vertebrae he suffered agianst SMU in the opener. He torched Buffalo for 416 yards and four touchdowns. In case you’re wondering, he only threw for 338 and two TD’s against the Bulls last year, but he threw just 16 times in that game.

So much for the improvement of the Kansas team. They got skunked by Duke. The Jayhawks were just 4-19 on third and fourth downs in the game, and they absolutely could not stop Duke RB Shaun Wilson. He had 245 rushing yards on just 12 carries!

North Carolina State finally realized that the season has started. After two lackluster performances, they headed to Tampa and clobbered an improving South Florida team.

If you want a clinic on how to close out a game, watch what Arkansas did to Texas Tech. The Razorbacks ran for an astonishing 438 yards, and scored all seven of their touchdowns on the ground. As you might expect, they dominated time of possession. The Razorbacks had the ball for more than two thirds of the game! Texas Tech only had the ball for 19:21. Not only does that not give your potent offense enough scoring chances, it wears out your defense. Take for example Arkansas’ second half. They only attempted two passes in the half to 40 run plays. 40! They did not attempt a pass after 8:05 in the third quarter. Sometimes you see coaches get too caught up in trying to balance the offense, but there is no need to if the other team can’t stop what you’re doing!

The last two times that Georgia has lost to South Carolina, they have gone on to win the SEC East. When the Dawgs beat SC last year, they lost the SEC East. So maybe the heartbreaking loss is a good omen. The bad part of this was that South Carolina held Todd Gurley to just 131 yards on 20 carries. The defense that was lost against Texas A&M has made some huge strides since. They contained East Carolina for the most part, and did the same to Georgia. Is this a good omen for the Bulldogs? I guess only time will tell!

I won’t really consider Minnesota’s loss to TCU as a bad loss for the conference. That said, if the Big Ten(14) wants to be considered as a top conference, they need to win in games like this. These two teams should not be as far apart as they were on the scoreboard.

Washington finally showed some of that offense that everyone thought they would have. They ran over Illinois for 246 yards. An astonishing nine players had carries for the Huskies in their rout of Illinois. The Huskies needed a game like this. If the offense catches up to the defense, they could make some noise in the Pac 12.

For those of you coaches that have to play an option offense on your schedule, watch Stanford‘s defense against Army.

Stay tuned for the rundowns of the late games, my Top 25, picks for ESPN Pick Em and College Football Challenge. And last but not least, the odds and predictions! We have a full week ahead!