College football thoughts and musings from afternoon games October 4

Did you miss any of the afternoon games? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered!

Just in case you missed the noon kickoffs.

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Ugh. A loss is so much tougher to take when you are outcoached. Trevor Knight’s inability to throw accurate passes destroyed any chance Oklahoma might have had. It turned the offense into something completely predictable, and the TCU defense took advantage. If Knight really did have some sort of injury that was limiting his effectiveness, you owe it to the team and his future to take him out. Blake Bell beat TCU last year. Are you going to tell me that he is that out of tune with the offense less than a year later? I don’t buy it. This isn’t all on Knight though. The defense’s inability to contain Trevone Boykin threw everything off. TCU game into this game hungry and ready. Oklahoma did get outplayed at times, but the clock issues with timeouts in the second half hurt them. This was the most Knight has been pressured since, well, ever. And it showed. He was just 14-35 through the air. Which is a dismal 40% completion rate. Nobody can win with that many missed passes. Knight is not an overly accurate passer anyway. As far as TCU goes, they earned this. They stuffed the Oklahoma run game the whole second half. They were going to make Knight beat them, and he couldn’t. Just in case you needed any more proof of the coaching genius of Gary Patterson and his staff:

I can’t say I have ever seen anything like that before! I was wondering where the guy came from. This was pure genius!

I was more than a little impressed with the Texas defense. They basically held a really good Baylor offense to just 21 points. Their offense never really got anything going, but the defense looked very good.

It looks like the Notre Dame defense could be better than advertised. I know that Stanford is by no means world beaters on offense, but when you hold anyone to just 139 yards of total offense you are doing something right. The Cardinal defense traded body blows with Notre Dame until late in the fourth quarter when Everett Golson threw a touchdown pass on 4th and 11 with 61 seconds left. The Irish could have kicked a field goal to tie, but after missing two earlier in the game, they went for it. No guts, no glory, right?

Clemson recorded their first shutout since 2008 when they blanked North Carolina State 41-0. This was the first time they shut out a conference opponent since they blanked Maryland in 1998.

Florida State once again looked lethargic early, and actually trailed Wake Forest 3-0 at the end of the first quarter. They were able to turn it on, and actually cover their first spread of the season. One of these games their habit of starting slow is going to bite them.

Wisconsin finally tired of the poor play of Tanner McEvoy at quarterback. They benched him late in the second quarter for last year’s starter, Joel Stave. Stave did a better job of leading the offense, but Northwestern’s defense played well. Well enough for them to pull off their second straight conference win. Godwin Igwebuike picked off three passes in the game, including one in the end zone with five minutes left. His last one was of the one handed variety with 30 seconds remaining to secure the win. With as poorly as the Wildcats started the season, I never would have believed that they would win two conference games. Now they may have a shot at a bowl game! They still had no answer for Melvin Gordon, who ran for a career high 259 yards.

Kansas has now lost 26 consecutive road games. At least they didn’t get covered this time…..

Mississippi did what many thought was impossible. They beat Alabama for the first time since 2004, and are 5-0 for the first time since 1962. The Tide looked to be in control of the game after they forced a fumble and ran it in for a touchdown with 40 seconds left in the first half to put them up 14-3. The missed face mask penalty on the play was just bad luck for Mississippi. But Ole Miss wouldn’t go away. They didn’t give up, and the karma pendulum swung back their way in the fourth quarter when Christian Jones fumbled the kickoff return with just over five minutes left after Mississippi tied it at 17. That resulted in what would be the game winning touchdown.

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