This past Saturday was a lot of fun to watch, probably horrible for the gamblers and even worse for three of the teams. We saw Auburn, LSU and Oklahoma all get beat. I wouldn’t have thought it, but this is NCAA Football and anything is possible.
I have read a lot of commentaries since the games concluded, the “whys and wherefores” of the losses. The best thing I could say, “they came upon better teams”. Well, at least this past Saturday they were better.
Let’s get started with the Top 10
#1
Alabama 65 – Arkansas 31 The 35.0 spread was not covered
Regular SEC West Match-up
Alabama’s offense went crazy! They scored at will with any of the three quarterbacks that played. The running backs and receiving corp were superb. A total of 65 points against any other SEC team is amazing. Did you guys see the new plays with both Tua and Jalen on the field together? How is any other defense going to combat that? How do you game-plan that option? Who will get the ball? What will they do with it? Either can run, so will they run the wild-cat or another RPO, will they do a flea flicker? This is going to be a lot of fun for Bama fans. No fun at all for opposing teams and especially not for defensive coordinators.
Now let’s talk about the Bama defense. That was terrible. They allow Arkansas to put up 31 points against them. The Razorbacks were able to amass 405 yards total offense against the Bama defense. That is terrible!
The kicking game. I can’t go there right now. It is pathetic when a kicker misses a PAT and Bama’s kickers have missed 4 this season.
Bama plays host to Missouri on 10/13/18 at 6 pm
#2
Georgia 41 – Vanderbilt 13 The 26.5 spread was covered
Regular Season SEC East Match-up
Georgia again showed their domination in all aspects of the game.
Jake Fromm threw for 276 yards and didn’t play the 4th quarter. The Bulldog offense is as good or better than most offenses in the top 10. They are strong and fast. They can move the ball through the air or on the ground. Whatever they choose to do.
The Georgia defense is amazingly good. Of course, they are, Coach Kirby Smart is a defensive guru in his own right and then they have defensive coordinator Mel Tucker, who has had the same position in the NCAA and NFL. The man is a defensive game calling genius. The Bulldogs defensive lineman and interchangeable. They can all play all four positions on the line and they have the depth to keep all the lineman with fresh legs. Very dangerous defense.
The biggest problem for the Bulldogs this game were the penalties. There were 15 penalties for a total of 113 yards against the Dawgs. Three of these were for “Unsportsmanlike conduct”. Coach Smart called this a very sloppy game and I agree. The Bulldogs need to tighten up and cut out the penalties.
Georgia travels to Death Valley to take on LSU on 10/13/18 at 2:30 pm
#3
Ohio State 49 – Indiana 26 The 25.0 spread was not covered
Regular Season Big10 Match-up
This game gave Coach Urban Meyer a headache, literally. We all know Coach Meyer has a problem with his health when he is under stress coaching. That was his excuse for leaving the Florida Head Coaching position and Saturday he displayed more stress-related physical problems.
Ohio St. seemed to have a bit of a hangover from the previous weeks game with Penn St. They allowed the Hoosier offense to gain over 400 yards, over 300 of those yards were in the air!
The Buckeyes suffered from 3 turnovers and 82 yards in penalties. Maybe Coach Meyer needs to take more time off.
Ohio State quarterback, Dwayne Haskins, passed for 455 yards, it was a career best or him.
The Buckeyes were only leading by 8 at the half and had come from behind the Hoosiers twice in the first half. They did make adjustments and came out the 3rd quarter and took control of the rest of the game.
Ohio State welcomes Minnesota 10/13/18 at 11 am
#4
Clemson 63 – Wake Forest 3 The 18.0 spread was covered
Regular Season ACC Match-up
Clemson demoralized and demolished Wake Forest on Saturday.
Most of the Tigers offensive yardage was on the ground rolling up 471 yards rushing. Three different Clemson players had over 125 yards rushing! It was a very emotional game for the running backs as Clemson had lost the running back C.J. Fuller, who played on the National Championship team, this past week. He died suddenly at 22 years old. Fuller's aunt stated that he had chest pains, slurred speech, and a seizure.
The Clemson defense showed their might also allowed the Demon Deacons to gain on 74 yards passing and picking off one pass.
Clemson played a very clean game with only 3 penalties for 28 yards.
Wake Forest Coach Dave Clawson stated that this game was just an old-fashioned butt whipping and he was right.
Clemson has a Bye week
#5
LSU 19 – Florida 27 The 2.5 spread was not met as Florida won the game
Regular Season SEC Match-up
LSU walked into The Swamp probably a little more confident than they should have been.
Joe Burrow, the Tigers quarterback was sacked 5 times in this game. The Gators came in to play! Tim Tebow was honored by the Gators at Saturday nights game. He also spoke to the team and fired them up before the game. Coach Mullen stated they didn’t want to let Tebow down and they didn’t. Gator linebacker, Vosean Joseph had the game of his life with 2 sacks and 14 tackles.
LSU certainly played well enough to win but it was a very Gator kind of night. Since @swolesome has already written a beautiful article on this game, I'm not going to say anymore. https://scorum.com/en-us/ncaa/@swolesome/statement-in-the-swamp
LSU welcomes the Georgia Bulldogs 10/13/18 at 2:30 pm
#6
Notre Dame 45 – Virginia Tech 23 The 6.5 spread was covered
Regular Season Match-up
This game was the Dexter Williams running show! Williams had 17 carries and a total of 178 yards rushing with 2 touchdowns. Williams ran down the sideline for 97 yards to be the second-longest in Notre Dame history!
The Hokies depth on defense ran out. The Hokies have had to replace 8 starters on defense this season. They have a very young defense and they struggled throughout this game.
The Fighting Irish were nearly perfect with only 19 yards in penalties but did throw one interception.
Irish quarterback, Ian Book finished the game with 271 yards passing. Book started the game very well but struggled with over-throwing toward the end of the game.
Notre Dame will play host to Pittsburgh 10/13/18 at 1:30 pm
#7
Oklahoma 45 – Texas 48 The 8.0 spread was not met as Texas won the game.
Regular Season Big12 Match-up
The Red River Showdown did not disappoint this season!
Oklahoma certainly did enough to win this game, they had 532 total yards with 45 points on the board. They also had 3 turnovers and 73 penalty yards.
Texas looks like a new team over what they have been the last several years. They looked like the Long Horns of years past.
Texas was leading 45-24 in the 4th quarter when Oklahoma began trying to make a comeback and they were close but lost by a field goal.
Personally, I still believe in the Sooners and believe they will recover and make a run for the Big12 conference game.
Oklahoma has a bye week
#8
Auburn 9 – Mississippi State 23 The 3.5 spread was not covered as Mississippi State won the game.
Regular Season SEC West Match-up
Mississippi State held the ball almost 42 minutes to keep Auburn’s power offense off the field. If this was their game-plan it worked.
Auburn’s run game was ineffective as they were only able to rush the ball for 90 yards. The Tigers offense did not cross the goal-line and they settled for 3 field goals. Not enough.
The War Eagle couldn’t fly with over-thrown passes and a fumble just before crossing the goal-line only to be recovered by Hail State. Auburn’s offense was not consistent and they had huge mistakes that the Bulldogs took advantage of.
I don’t know how anyone heard anything in Bulldog stadium over the obnoxious cowbells. Thank goodness the NCAA has banned the State fans from bringing those horrible things to other stadiums, not if they would ban them altogether it would be much appreciated.
Auburn hosts Tennessee 10/13/18 at 11 am
#9
West Virginia 38 – Kansas 22 The 28.5 spread was not covered
Regular season Big12 Match-up
Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy game for the Hokies. This was not WVU quarterback, Will Grier’s game. He was intercepted three times. All three were either in the end-zone or near the goal-line.
Even though Kansas is having a rough year the Jay Hawks came into this game leading the Big12 in interceptions and added to that this game.
Grier not only threw 3 interceptions but also had the other turnover with a fumble in the 3rd quarter.
Even with the sloppy play, the Mountaineers were still able to build 509 total offensive yards, 332 of those in the air. Had the Kansas defense not forced the turnovers this would have been a blow away game for WVU.
West Virginia travels to Iowa State 10/13/18 at 6 pm
#10
Washington 31 – UCLA 24 The 21.0 spread was not covered
Regular Season Pac-12 Match-up
This was the Huskies first win over the Bruins in the Rose Bowl since 1995. To say the Huskies were ecstatic is an understatement.
Clock control helped UW win this game by holding the ball more than 38 minutes of this game. Other than that this game was statistically pretty evenly matched. Both teams gained greater than 400 total yards and they had one turnover each. One of the differences was Coach Petersen’s, Huskies played a near penalty free game with only one 10-yard penalty for the game.
The Bruins did have one 17 play/90-yard drive capped by a touchdown. The Huskies pass defense struggled with this drive and for most of the game. Until this game, the Huskies had allowed only one passing touchdown since they opened up against Auburn back on September 8th.
Washington travels to take on the Oregon Ducks 10/13/18 at 2:30 pm
Well, there you have it. Seven wins and three losses for this past weeks Top-10. It was a pretty rough week for some of the winners as well. There will be much room for improvement in every team.
This next week shows the first real shake-up of the Top-10. The 13th of October should be a very interesting Saturday for NCAA football.
Until next week,
Mama
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