On Saturday,
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Now, it’d be easy enough to chalk up all the turnovers to the simple fact that Miami is a very bad football team. But that would be like suggesting there are so many “Fast and Furious” movies because Vin Diesel is America’s greatest living thespian. Both things are true, but those facts alone cannot explain such prolific output.
No, for Miami there can be but one obvious culprit: Cristobal angered the football gods, and he must now go on a mythic quest, through corridors haunted by the ghosts of Al Golden and Randy Shannon, scale the unconquerable mountains of the ACC Coastal Division and survive an epic freestyle battle with Uncle Luke to retrieve the turnover chain and return it to its rightful place on Miami’s sideline.
The whole thing is already in development at HBO.
Sanders leads Cowboys past Texas
Quinn Ewers has had some rough moments this season. His car was towed. He hurt his shoulder. He had to watch Oklahoma play for an entire game. But Saturday was his rock bottom.
Ewers completed just 19 of 49 throws and tossed three interceptions in Texas’ 41-34 loss at Oklahoma State.
The Pokes were playing with a battered offensive line, but Spencer Sanders still delivered some critical throws, tossing two touchdowns, while Jaden Nixon showed he could’ve run over Texas’ defense wearing bedroom slippers.
Jaden Nixon is literally too fast for his own shoes. pic.twitter.com/mtGP9UoQR1
— Pistols Firing (@pistolsguys) October 22, 2022
It was a huge bounce-back win for Oklahoma State after blowing a late lead against TCU Horned Frogs last week. The Cowboys are 6-1, and Sanders has firmly established himself as either the best bad QB or worst good QB in the country.
After the Longhorns lost twice without Ewers earlier this season, Saturday’s defeat can at least remove any linger “What if” debates and allow Texas to completely turn its attention to keeping trick-or-treaters safe from monkey attacks this week.
Iowa digs past rock bottom
Iowa finally benched Spencer Petras on Saturday, after he managed just eight completions — six to his team, and two to Ohio State. But honestly, benching isn’t enough salvation for Petras. It’s time Quarterback Protective Services steps in and removes him from his home. He deserves to run free on a farm upstate.
Even after Petras was benched, things didn’t get better for the Hawkeyes. Alex Padilla completed just 5-of-10 passes for 32 yards and an interception, essentially assuring Iowa’s QB depth chart is just the two Spidermans pointing at each other meme.
How bad was it?
Iowa was 1-of-13 on third down tries.
Iowa had six turnovers. (Miami can expect a thank you card from Brian Ferentz this week.)
Iowa averaged 2.2 yards per run, and yet the QBs were so bad, the Hawkeyes still chose to run it 35 times.
There’s only one logical solution to Iowa’s offensive woes at this point. It’s time for Kirk Ferentz to fire his son and hire Jeff Bowden.
Under-the-radar play of the week
If you missed the ending to Stanford vs. Arizona State, we understand. Watching that game was punishment for shoplifting in several states. And perhaps fittingly, the final moments were every bit as unfortunate as a matchup between two bad teams would suggest.
Trailing 15-14, Arizona State chucked a Hail Mary throw down the sideline on fourth-and-19, which appeared to be hauled in by Elijhah Badger to set up a game-winning field goal with just seconds remaining.
0:52
Arizona State falls to Stanford in the final seconds as Emory Jones has one foot out on the 4th-and-19 catch that would have set up a game-winning field goal.
Upon replay review, however, the call was overturned, with officials saying Badger had a toe out of bounds on the catch, allowing Stanford to snap a 10-game conference losing streak.
Under-the-radar game of the week
Rhode Island and Monmouth put on a marathon Saturday, playing seven overtimes before the Rams emerged with a 48-46 win. Not since the famed Texas A&M-LSU epic has a college football game between two teams no one cared about gone on so very, very long.
The game featured seven ties and four lead changes. Monmouth QB Tony Muskett — who also may have been a character on “Bonanza” — threw for three touchdowns in the game. Rhode Island QB Kasim Hill threw for 352 yards and three touchdowns, including a 73-yarder to Marques DeSheilds with 3:23 remaining to tie the game at 35, but he also tossed three picks.
In the first OT, both teams traded touchdowns. Both went scoreless in the second frame. Then it went to two-point tries, where the Rams and Hawks stayed even through four more frames. In the seventh OT, Rhode Island broke up a pass in the end zone, and Hill completed his throw to Ed Lee to secure the win.
Sadly, Jimbo Fisher’s nephew was not able to attend, so this seven-OT game did not end with fisticuffs, and frankly, we cannot truly embrace seven overtimes unless someone wearing khakis starts taking swings at complete strangers.
We hate to be the ones to bring this up, but it needs to be said: Liberty is 7-1.
We know, we know: When quarterback Malik Willis left, we all hoped we could safely stop paying attention to the Flames. But somehow, they’ve kept winning, including a 41-14 stomping of BYU on Saturday behind 213 rushing yards from Dae Dae Hunter.
Liberty’s lone loss came on a missed 2-point try against 6-1 Wake Forest.
Liberty has won with three different starting QBs.
Liberty is — deep breaths — good.
Is it possible Hugh Freeze is fueled by the country’s anger at him, like the emperor in “Star Wars?” (We also assume that if Twitter existed in a galaxy far, far away, Palpatine would slide into Obi-Wan’s DMs to complain about rebel criticisms too.) There’s simply no keeping the guy down (even when he is literally kept down).
Heisman Five
Even in a week in which three of the nine remaining undefeated teams lost, there wasn’t much room for shake-ups at the top of the Heisman hopeful list.
1. Tennessee Volunteers QB Hendon Hooker
Tee Martin won a national championship at Tennessee. UT Martin, on the other hand, struggled badly at Tennessee on Saturday. The Skyhawks had no answers for Hooker, who averaged more than 11 yards per throw and tossed three more touchdowns.
2. Ohio State QB C.J. Stroud
Exposure to the Hawkeyes’ offense took its toll on Stroud, who struggled through the first half, but thankfully Ryan Day was able to perform a full Iowa exorcism (it involves spewing creamed corn instead of pea soup) and Stroud rebounded with four second-half TD throws.
3. Alabama QB Bryce Young
Young did all he could to pull Alabama over the finish line last week against Tennessee, but we were still worried he might catch some strays from Saban during practice this week. Thankfully, he survived, and he returned with another strong day, throwing for 249 yards and two touchdowns in the Tide’s 30-0 win over Mississippi State.
4. USC QB Caleb Williams
USC was off on Saturday, leaving Lincoln Riley with an extra week to find some defenders in the transfer portal.
5. Wake Forest QB Sam Hartman
Wake is 6-1 after drubbing Boston College, and in the lone loss, Hartman had six touchdown passes. He nearly matched that total Saturday, throwing for five touchdowns and running for a sixth in the win. Hartman now has the third-most passing TDs in ACC history (93), trailing only Tajh Boyd and Philip Rivers, all despite also working part time as a 1920s mafia hitman.
No. 2 Sam Hartman, Wake
Really good balance between clean lines and fullness of the beard. Worked better before he cut his hair though. He looks like a shampoo commercial model now rather than last year’s Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. Borderline elite, 4.5 stars pic.twitter.com/sRh8c0Urfy
— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) July 22, 2022
The most college football thing to happen Saturday
We talk often about the plague of #CollegeKickers, with flubbed chip shots invariably costing teams a needed win on an almost weekly basis. Long-snappers, on the other hand, tend to fly below the radar.
Unfortunately for Weber State‘s Grant Sands, his Saturday will be remembered for a long time.
Sands snapped the football over the punter’s head and out of the back of the end zone for a safety four times against Montana State on Saturday, handing the Bobcats eight points in a game that Montana State ultimately won 43-38.
0:41
Weber State is on the wrong end of the record books as it surrenders four safeties on errant special teams snaps.
Big bets and bad beats
Miami has been favored to win four times this season. The Hurricanes are now 1-3 in those games after a miserable eight-turnover loss to Duke on Saturday. Miami has now lost as a 25.5-point favorite to Middle Tennessee, a 10-point favorite to Duke and a four-point favorite to North Carolina. The Hurricanes’ lone win as a favorite came against Virginia Tech, after they failed to cover a nine-point spread in a 20-14 victory.
Clemson trailed Syracuse 21-10 at the half on Saturday, which was just about the perfect spot for the Tigers — or at least for sharp bettors. The Tigers were -9.5 in the second half, and they covered that number easily, outscoring the Orange 17-0 in the final two frames. That makes Clemson coach Dabo Swinney 11-2 against the second-half spread in his career when trailing at halftime.
