Every Monday at noon, Luke Carlton will post an easily digestible recap of the weekend’s top news and what it means moving forward.
1. Ole Miss is absolutely legit
The Landshark defense plays with such aggression and quickness that the lack of size after their defensive line doesn’t matter.
Up front, Robert Nkemdiche proved to be a dominant disruptive force. Brother Denzel was also all over the field, flowing sideline to sideline in the run game while Tony Conner and Kendarius Webster came down from the secondary to help in the run game, with Trae Elston patrolling deep as a ball-hawking safety.
The Rebels stunned an Alabama team that still doesn’t know who their starting quarterback is or what their go to receiver looks like. Is it Oregon State graduate transfer Richard Mullaney? Is it ArDarius Stewart? Or is it even O.J. Howard from the tight end position?
Meanwhile, the Rebels offense has found a permanent Good Bo replacement in number one QB Chad “Swag” Kelly. While not a perfect performance, Kelly’s poise, decision making and, most importantly, lack of turnovers was a perfect recipe for an Ole Miss win over the Crimson Tide.
2. The Baker Mayfield and Leonard Fournette Heisman Train picks up speed
What Leonard Fournette was able to do to a poor Auburn defense was almost criminal.
Fournette runs like Adrian Peterson in his prime, just shrugging off tackles and being a menace to bring down while also providing the ability to break the big ones.
Every team LSU will face this year will know exactly what they’re going to do. And every team this year will struggle to stop it. Brandon Harris will take the snap, turn around and pitch the ball to Fournette. Give the guy the ball and he’ll make something happen.
And unfortunately for the SEC West, they’ve still got another year of Fournette, just like the SEC East has another year of Nick Chubb, who ran for 159 yards and two touchdowns this week.
Meanwhile in Norman, Oklahoma and the Big 12, the incredible story of Baker Mayfield continues to grow.
Mayfield’s 572 yards of total offense against Tulsa is a school record, as Mayfield currently stand fifth in FBS passing yards so far this year.
Oklahoma’s Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon are forced to take a back seat in Lincoln Riley’s offense, giving Mayfield the opportunity to take center stage in an Oklahoma offense that looks like it could be going places.
For Oklahoma, it’s a case of getting this the midseason schedule without any hiccups before two back-to-back clashes at Baylor and at home to TCU. This will surely decide the Big 12, and decide whether Mayfield has what it takes to be considered a serious Heisman candidate.
3. Ohio State are still #1 and don’t know who their quarterback is
We thought the Cardale or J.T. question had been answered.
We were wrong.
After two first half interceptions, Cardale Jones went from first string to second string and rightly so. He had a wide-open receiver on his second interception but tried to force the deeper and riskier throw.
Also, when you have J.T. Barrett on your bench, Urban Meyer was never going to give Jones a long leash.
Barrett came into the game and didn’t really steady the ship; he just made sure it didn’t sink in an embarrassing mess.
Credit Northern Illinois for the fantastic game they played, but this Ohio State offense wasn’t clicking at all. Ezekiel Elliott was the only consistent weapon, Braxton Miller didn’t have a single catch and Michael Thomas’ season high 60 yards is still far from impressive.
Up next for the Buckeyes is Western Michigan, who gave Michigan State a close game to open up the season.
4. We still don’t know what to make of Stanford
Here’s Quick recap of Stanford’s season.
They looked awful against Northwestern in a 16-6 opening day loss, but Northwestern is 3-0 and now a ranked team.
They returned home to beat Central Florida, which is now 0-3 after losing to FCS Furman last weekend.
Stanford went on the road as 10-point underdogs against the prolific #6 USC and beat them by 10.
Kevin Hogan dissected the Trojans defense to the tune of 18-32 while the running game continued to ground and pound opponents into submission.
The true identity of Stanford will be revealed throughout the season, but it’s difficult what to make of this so far.
5. It was a good week for UAB transfers
Highlighted by the fact that former Blazer Jordan Howard is now leading the FBS in rushing at Indiana, it’s great to see players who had their college careers turned upside down having success elsewhere.
Howard rushed for 145, 159 and 203 yards in his first three games helping Hoosiers fans forget about the loss of Tevin Coleman to the NFL. With the help of the passing game behind sneaky late round prospect Nate Sudfeld, Indiana is 3-0 for the first time since 2010.
This weekend’s win came against Western Kentucky, where Howard was up against a couple of former teammates, most notably linebacker T.J. McCollum who finished the day with 10 tackles.
Down at South Alabama, where many UAB players transferred, quarterback Cody Clements two touchdowns lead the Jaguars to a road win against San Diego State with the help of tight end Gerald Everett, who registered a career high eight catches for 140 yards.
Up to Massachusetts, where Kelton Brackett had an interception and pass defense in a near upset over the highflying Owls of Temple.
At Georgia, Jake Ganus has slotted right into a vicious Bulldog front seven; with a season high seven tackle against South Carolina.
UAB’s program has a tough job attempting to rebuild from the ground up but at the very least, they can take pride in seeing former talent succeeding elsewhere.
6. Notre Dame finally handled an option team
For the last two seasons, Notre Dame struggled mightily against Navy and their triple option attack.
Against Justin Thomas and the Yellow Jackets of Georgia Tech, they pretty much shut it down.
216 rushing yards on 46 attempts is essentially acceptable and expected against a rushing game like Georgia Tech but where Notre Dame truly excelled was they shut down Justin Thomas and the passing game.
Thomas’ eight completions did result in two touchdowns, but it’s very hard to establish a dominant offense when you’re completing 33 percent of your passes and only rushing for 4.6 yards per carry.
DeShone Kizer played a solid game and did what every good backup quarterback should: limit turnovers and get the ball to your playmakers as often as possible.
C.J. Prosise had 198 rushing yards and three touchdowns and soon to be all-everything Will Fuller blew up once again with six catches for 131 yards and Kizer’s lone touchdown.
The injury bug has bitten Notre Dame, but they still have the look of a potential playoff team. And in doing so, Brian Kelly is putting together a great showcase for NFL GMs who may be interested in swooping for the Fighting Irish head coach should he continue to work his magic.
7. Texas Tech might be the most fun team to watch in the country
Don’t believe me? Watch them next week against TCU.
Under the direction of Kliff Kingsbury, Patrick Mahomes keeps showing brief flashes of the Johnny Football we saw during his Heisman season. Mahomes makes plays with his legs and has a good enough arm to execute to Air Raid offense in Lubbock.
Receiver Jakeem Grant is lightning in a bottle. He can break a big play at any given moment. DeAndre Washington is another small and shifty back who forces teams to respect the rarely used run game with a season average of eight yards per carry.
Sure, the defense is about what you’d expect from a Texas Tech Air Raid team but it’s a slight improvement from the defense that gave up over 40 points per game last year.
TCU rolls into town and you better bet that Tech hasn’t forgotten about the 82 points the Horned Frogs hung on the Red Raiders last year.
8. Spare a thought for Pharoh Cooper
The preseason All-SEC player is being stranded in an offensive wasteland called South Carolina.
Cooper came into the season as one of the most exciting players in college football and so far hasn’t been able to show why.
In a brief breakout performance against Kentucky where they were able to get Cooper the ball, he responded with nine catches for 100 yards.
Against Georgia, Cooper had just one catch as Kerry Orth struggled greatly against the Bulldog defense.
Cooper has a lot of Randall Cobb to him, which is appropriate because South Carolina might as well start playing Copper at quarterback too.
9. BYU continues to be a big thorn in the side of every team they play
It started with beating Nebraska as underdogs. Then it progressed to beating Boise State, again as underdogs.
Then the Cougars walk into the Rose Bowl as 17-point underdogs and give a #10 ranked Bruins one of the toughest games they’ll play this year.
All while recruiting one of the smallest pools in college football.
BYU led 20-10 after a fourth quarter field goal before their run defense finally fell apart at the hands of a surprisingly dominant UCLA offensive line who have only given up one sack all year.
The Cougars first three games of the season have been tougher than Baylor’s out-of-conference schedule the last few years combined, and a trip to Ann Arbor next weekend only makes things harder.
10. Chad Morris has made SMU relevant again
SMU is fun to watch again, which is great. A former powerhouse rightfully brought to its knees and forced to build itself back up from the bottom.
The June Jones era had promise, even featuring a trip to a bowl game, but ultimately fell apart horrifically.
Chad Morris has come in and completely revitalized the program.
Holding and competing with #4 Baylor for a half was an unexpected and exciting development. Beating North Texas was an easy and important win to put the Mean Green DFW bragging right to bed. And finishing off with a tantalizing performance against #3 TCU will do wonders for recruiting and bringing prestige and respect back to a university which has been an integral part of college football history, for the right and wrong reasons.
Whether Morris can sustain the quality of play remains to be seen, but SMU is now relevant and no longer a footnote.
