What did we learn from the College Football Weekend #7?

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1 Florida is clearly the best of the top 3 teams. It went to LSU at night and dominated what had been an explosive offense. LSU’s QB Jefferson was 11-17 but only got 96 yards. That was just not enough. The LSU running game was also contained by the Gator D.

Gator QB Tebow looked just OK coming back from the concussion. The Florida O was limited by the LSU defense. LSU showed it deserved to be in the top 10 but was not a contender for the national championship.

As I suggested last week, 2 Texas wasn’t mentally into the game against Colorado in the first half. The team was down 14-10 at the half. But in the second half the O woke up and put another 28 points on the board. However, there are some problems with the Texas team. They can not run the ball. They averaged only 2.2 yards per attempt against a very average Colorado D. That is not going to bode well for them against Oklahoma let alone a Florida or Alabama D.

3 Alabama took the (former #4) #20 Mississippi team apart and reassembled them incorrectly. The Bama D made Ole Miss QB Snead to be a fraud as a top NFL QB prospect. He just doesn’t read coverages well or perform under duress. Snead threw 4 interceptions and there could have been a couple more. It was not his best game. But so far against a mix of decent and not so good teams Snead has 9 TDs and 9 picks. He has lost his shot at a 1st round pick in the draft.

Mississippi has no more games against ranked teams. The losses against Alabama and South Carolina have proven that the team is not a contender but a pretender.

News flash—5 Virginia Tech is really good. They did what I said they would and crushed BC. The Tech D cause 3 turnovers and did not allow a score by BC until the 4th quarter when the game was in the bag. They have now beaten 2 ranked teams after a close loss at Alabama. If they can beat Georgia Tech next week on the road, they should be able to run the table and be in the conversation for the National Championship game. But as good as they are, they won’t be able to handle Florida.

There are problems on both sides of the ball for 9 Ohio State. They never should have beaten Wisconsin. The O generated 1 drive at the end of the 1st half for a touchdown. That was all that the O did on its own. The problem is QB Pryor’s inability to be consistently accurate and the O line’s inability to protect him. The line breaks down regularly on pass protection and fails to push a good D line off the ball in the running game. The report from OSU is that Pryor asked to throw more from the pocket in a pro style O to improve his pro prospects. It isn’t working. A 5 for 13 game for 87 yards is not going to win many games.

The new WR corps is below the quality of that last year but the fact is that Pryor has not progressed. In some ways like staring down the receiver he has regressed. If OSU is going to win against Iowa and Penn State, he is going to have to get better in a hurry.

The D can’t stop a solid running game on 3rd down. The Badgers didn’t run all over the Buckeye D but they converted key 3rd and 4th downs to keep drives going. It was only when they threw the ball that the Wisconsin O ran into trouble. The OSU D is going to have to do a better job stopping the run.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for and edits https://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on and edits .

Technorati Tags: Florida,NCAA Football,National Championship chase,LSU,Tebow,Texas,Colorado,Oklahoma,Alabama,NCAA Rankings,Mississippi,Snead,Virginia Tech,Boston College,Ohio State,Wisconsin,Pryor
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1 thought on “What did we learn from the College Football Weekend #7?”

  1. Ohio State has such good athletes at their skill positions that they can get away with having some of the issues that you present. The other thing about college teams is that most of them have a list of problems in their game so it’s all relative.
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