"Week 5 Recap”
Written by Wendi
Four top ten teams went down over the weekend. It started Friday night when 8th ranked Florida State traveled to Virginia and the Cavaliers beat them in 2OT 46-38. I have never seen a field being stormed that fast. I hope Squirrel White is ok. He got caught in all of that.
#4 LSU’s defense could not stop the Lane Train’s (# 13 Ole Miss) 484 yards of offense. With a couple of key injuries for LSU, they could not get the ground game going and like clockwork, Brian Kelly could not wait to throw Nussmeier and the rest of the team under the bus and stated he/they needed to play better. Ole Miss won 24-19.
#3 Penn State hosted #6 Oregon in their annual white out. Even Game Day hosts wore all white. They almost looked like the Backstreet Boys for a moment. It was quite a snoozer in the first half with the score tied at 3 going into halftime. But then, things got going offensively for both teams. Oregon went up by two touchdowns 17-3 but Penn State came roaring back to life to tie the game and took it to overtime. In the second overtime, Oregon scored first and intercepted Drew Allar in Penn State’s possession and the Ducks won 30-24. Big Game James at it again. How many let down’s will it take for them to fire James Franklin or will the continue and be content with winning 10-11 games a season. Franklin’s record against top 10 teams – 4-21. His record against Ohio State & Michigan – 4-17. To put things in perspective, this is his 4-21:
1-9 vs. Ohio State
0-5 vs. Michigan
0-2 vs. Michigan State
0-2 vs. Oregon
0-1 vs. Iowa
0-1 vs. Notre Dame
0-1 vs. USC
1-0 vs. Wisconsin
1-0 vs. Utah
1-0 vs. Boise State
#17 Alabama rolled into Athens and broke #5 Georgia’s home winning streak of 33. Since losing to Florida State in week 1, Alabama has continued to improve and looked pretty stellar on the road against the bulldogs. Did you know that Superman got his degree in flying at the University of Georgia? Looks like someone was trying to get the same degree late in the game and it cost him a 15-yard penalty. Dude, what? Tide rolled 24-21 and will face Dandy Vandy this weekend. I smell another upset brewing.
After their embarrassing loss last weekend to Indiana, Illinois shocked USC (and all of us) and won 34-32 by kicking a last second field goal to win. And just like Jame Franklin, Lincoln Riley hasn’t been much successful at USC. USC will have a bye this week but will host Michigan at home the following week. Should be an interesting game. As for Illinois, they have Ohio State coming to town in two weeks.
Notre Dame throttled Arkansas 56-13 and Arkansas has already fired Sam Pittman and hired Bobby Petrino (again) as the Interim Coach. I am also hearing they have fired their Defensive Coordinator, Defensive Line Coach and Co-Defensive Coordinator. There may be more to come. Arkansas has lost three in a row now and have Tennessee, Texas A&M, Auburn, Mississippi State, LSU, Texas, and Missouri left on their schedule. It is highly possible they may not get another win. Notre Dame seems to have turned things around and have won their last two games after dropping their first two. As of today, they have no more ranked teams on their schedule. Can they win out?
Oh Pittsburgh, why do you always lose a big lead? For the second game in a row, Pittsburgh has been up at least two scores scored and blew it. After being up 27-17 at the half, Louisville outscored Pitt 17-0 in the second half and went on to win 34-27. There were some questionable calls by the refs but regardless, you don’t blow a three-score lead when you are up 17-0.
Rutgers gave up 7 sacks and missed two field goals in their 31-28 loss to Minnesota. Rutgers went up quickly 14-0 against Minnesota, who was missing their top two running backs. Minnesota was able to use the passing game to control the game and came back. Rutgers missed a game tying field goal late in the fourth quarter. Utah bounced back from their devastating loss to Texas Tech last week. They went to West Virginia and won big 48-14. Utah minimized the turnovers this week and had over 530 yards of offense. Utah was up 35-0 before the Mountaineers scored. I guess it was a moral victory with Utah’s fourth stringers in.
Hawaii doesn’t seem to be the team they typically are. They beat Stanford to start the season (Stanford is 2-3 now) but it was a big win for them at the time. They lost a close game to Fresno State and just beat Air Force. For Hawaii, that is some impressive wins. I was shocked to see Air Force chucking the ball down field and being successful. Typically, they stick with the run game. The Air Force QB went 10/13 for 278 yards and three touchdowns. But with all of that, it was not enough to beat Hawaii. The Rainbow Warriors won 44-35 in a thrilling shoot out.
Kentucky did their selves no favors by throwing a pick 6 and a scoop and score in a matter of three plays. They had a total of four turnovers against South Carolina late Saturday night and lost 35-13. Kentucky started off hot 10-7 at the end of the first quarter and fell apart shortly after. Did you see where Kentucky’s running back scored their only touchdown and chucked the football into the stands only to hit South Carolina’s QB’s grandpa? Who was in a wheel chair by the way? I don’t think there was any malicious intent but come on man?
On to the Pick’ems.
How on Earth is Sam still in first place? Someone needs to dethrone him. He has a big lead at 17 points. I wonder if I can get away with not submitting his picks on Friday? HEHEHE! It is now a four-point game between 2nd and 5th place. Marc and Kim had a good week and finished second and third respectively. Marc was able to move up a few spots from 12th place.
Sean and Rick still continue to impress. Sean losing his 10 on USC hurt him a bit though. But they both tied and for the week and they both sit at 3rd and 4th place by a margin of two points. Adam is still hanging on for dear life in second place but that gap has closed in as he still continues to struggle to finish in the top the last couple of weeks. He only has a four-point lead over 3rd place.
Mike H took some gambles on Alabama and Illinois this week and it paid off but he still took a lot of losses.
Chris decided he didn’t want to be in the top three anymore and checked out. He now sits 34 points from the top.
David continues his slide further from first place. At this point in the contest, I doubt he will get above 12th place. Evelyn continues to do "Evelyn” things. She struggled again this week and has joined David at the bottom. They sit nine points from each other. Well, David was always your favorite, remember?
Noah and Mike M also continue to struggle and sit in the bottom four. As for me, looks like I am back in 5th. Ugh. But hey, there’s always 2030, right David? There is a 12-point gap between 5th and 6th place. This will be another challenging week so pull up your big boy/girl pants and don’t lose (unless your name is Samuel and David). Just kidding. Good Luck All! We need it.
Most points for the week: Only missing two games and scoring 42 points, Cindie was the big winner of $10 this week. Fluke!
Least points for the week: Dropping from 3rd place to 7th after scoring only 20 points goes to Chris. Like David says "there’s always 2026”.
Best pick of the week: Mike H picking Illinois over USC. That took the air out of some of us that went big on USC.
Worst pick of the week: For those of you who went big on Penn State (Chris, Evelyn, David, Rick). You know Big Game James can’t win the big games.
Letters to the Editor:
Will Oregon State get their first win this weekend?
<looks at picks> No - Why are they even on the picks?
Alabama is back! Or should we wait until after the Vanderbilt game to get existed?
I would wait…..
Test results are in…..Alabama IS Georgia’s Daddy!!!
You are 100% correct and I believe it is psychological.
LSU sucks.
Ehhh….maybe…too early to tell.
Will Air Force or Navy ever be a competitive team?
They have been in the past, but it’s as rare as seeing the Northern Lights in Florida.
Penn State lacks…something…just can’t put my finger on it though...
Look back at the 4-21 record I posted and look who three of those wins are to.
Here are the rankings after Week 5:
1. Sam – 186 points
2. Adam – 169 points
3. Sean – 167 points
4. Rick – 165 points
5. Wendi – 165 points
6. Mike H – 153 points
7. Chris – 152 points
8. Cindie – 151 points
9. Kim – 142 points
10. Marc – 141 points
11. Noah – 135 points
12. Mike M – 130 points
13. Evelyn – 127 points
14. David – 118 points
68 points separate first and last place!
