College football thoughts and musings from late games September 20

If you missed the earlier stuff, here you go:

early recaps

midday recaps

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Samaje Perine is an absolute beast! Coming into the season, I thought Keith Ford was going to be the feature back, but with his injury, Perine, the true freshman, has taken the job for his own. Alex Ross will still see his share of the touches, but Perine absolutely deserves to carry the load. Yes, even when Ford comes back. Perine ran for 242 yards and four touchdowns as the Sooners wore down the West Virginia defense. Those 242 yards are more than Ford had in three games combined. The Mountaineers played good defense for most of the first three quarters, but the Oklahoma running game owned the fourth. Perine became the first 200 yard rusher for the Sooners since DeMarco Murray in 2010. Durron Neal may be a better passer than receiver. He dropped several passes in the first half. I was impressed with K.J. Young though. Hopefully this is the start of him becoming a larger part of the offense.

Nebraska honored the 1994 team before the game with Miami in Lincoln. When the game started, the fans must have thought it was 1994 again. The Cornhuskers threw the ball only 13 times the entire game, and racked up 343 yards rushing on the Miami D. They threw it just four times in the second half. Hey, if they can’t stop the run, why should you? Ameer Abdullah had 229 of those yards, and scored three touchdowns. Much like I thought, Randy Gregory gave the Miami offensive line fits. So much so that they turned to fisticuffs because they couldn’t stop him by traditional means. The first fight broke out when Gregory was flagged for roughing the passer which negated a Nebraska interception. That one I can kind of understand. The second fight broke out about 10 (game) minutes later, again when Gregory put a shot on Brad Kaaya. This one was a clean hit, but two Miami offensive linemen took exception and tag teamed Gregory. Both of those 15 yard penalties were enforced, and forced Miami to punt when they may have elected to take a shot on fourth and short. The inability of the Miami offensive line to keep their cool cost them the game as much as their run defense did.

South Carolina did not have a good start against Vanderbilt. The Gamecocks were down 14-0 after the first quarter. Patton Robinette had to leave the game with an injury, and that slowed the Vanderbilt offense down enough for South Carolina to take control of the game in the second half. Dylan Thompson had a nice game in the win for the Gamecocks, but some of their flaws were exposed in this one. Darrius Sims returned not one, but two kickoffs for touchdowns in this game. That could hurt them in the rough-and-tumble SEC.

A non-call on what was clearly pass interference with three minutes left preserved Oregon’s perfect season. I hate it when a botched call clearly affects a game, and this was the first time that I have seen it this year. Mike Leach is not going to be happy, and he shouldn’t be. There is no excuse for that kind of a miss. Especially when it takes away 57 minutes of great play from Washington State. They harassed Mariota all game long. The Cougars sacked him a whopping seven times. Despite all of the pressure, Mariota still threw for 327 yards and five touchdowns. It was also a good game for the Cougars’ Connor Halliday. Last year he threw four interceptions against the Ducks. This year he didn’t throw any. The missed pass interference penalty would have given the Cougars a first down and extended a drive. Oregon’s defense was having a hard time stopping Washington State in the second half.

For some reason, the football Gods were on Florida State’s side. They were outplayed by a feisty Clemson team for most of the game, but a Clemson fumble with 90 seconds left on the FSU 18 yard line put the game into overtime. For all of the struggles that the Florida State offense had, the defense still played well, and came up with big plays in big situations. And if you learn anything from this game, you learned that kickers are very important. Just like in the Kansas State-Auburn game. Clemson missed two chip shots, and they had lost so much confidence in their kicker that they wouldn’t even send him in for a field goal and the lead in overtime. They went for it on fourth down and did not convert. Two plays later, the Seminoles were celebrating a hard fought win, their school-record 19th straight.

If you did not stay up late, you missed the game of the day, and possibly the game of the year. Arizona scored a school record 36 fourth quarter points to snatch victory away from a California team that led 31-13 going into the fourth quarter. Anu Solomon threw for 520 yards, and through a whopping four touchdowns in the fourth quarter alone. An onside kick and a hail mary gave Arizona an unlikely and improbable victory. This just shows that you never, ever, EVER leave a game early!