1 Football Recruit 2009

College Football Week Wrap-up 5 - Only a Baker's dozen teams are still undefeated

Copyright © 2009 Ed Bagley

Only 13 of the 120 major teams remain undefeated after the 5th week of the college football season of 16 weeks. They are Florida, Texas, Alabama, LSU, Boise State, Cincinnati, TCU, Iowa, Kansas, Auburn, South Florida, Missouri and Wisconsin.

On the other hand, only 7 teams have yet to win a game - Rice, New Mexico, Eastern Michigan, Florida International University, Florida Atlantic, Western Kentucky and Miami (OH). Thus, ironically, 20 teams still have perfect records - 13 are excellent and 7 are terrible.

Considering that most teams are playing a game of 12 - year, we have overcome the mark of a third at the finish. Many fans may have thought that Virginia Tech, USC, Ohio State, BYU, Oklahoma and Mississippi, may even remain undefeated. Not so.

The biggest surprise of the week belonged to the 123rd in the ranking of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) Miners who survived and overcame to the 12th ranking of Houston Cougars, 58-41, in a barn-burner of competition emotion. With the score tied at 17 in the first half, Houston out too early as UTEP won the 2nd half 41-24.

Miners coach Mike Price could only muster 53 yards of total offense in losing 64-7 to Texas 2 ranking last week on the road, but arose out of the humiliation to accumulate 581 yards of offense at home. Buckram Donald picked up 262 yards rushing and scored 4 touchdowns. UTEP really found his mojo in the second half, putting 20 points on the scoreboard in the 3rd quarter and 21 in the 4th.

Houston high-powered offense led by quarterback with Case Keenum 536 yards and 5 touchdowns, could not keep pace with UTEP on the scoreboard. The loss was the Cougars first after scoring 55, 45 and 29 points in his first 3 wins and, unfortunately, this had to happen because Houston has 11 players on defense, just not playing good defense, averaging 32 points per game.

If Houston coach Kevin Sumlin ever decide to hire a good defensive coordinator and recruit some players from the Houston defensive player will become a much more important against quality competition.

The second largest was upset 17th ranked Miami (FL) to overcome the 31-7 away loss last week to 6 Ranking Virginia Tech to get home to beat the 8th ranked Oklahoma 21-20. The Hurricanes led 21-17 after 3 quarters and managed to keep the Sooners to a goal field in the fourth quarter to win.

Graduation Michigan State, which looks awful, with 3 losses in the last 3 weeks, defended its territory successfully upending 22nd ranked Michigan 26-20 in overtime. The defeat was the first for the Wolverines, who were behind 10-6 at halftime, but managed send the game into OT at 20-20. The Spartans freshman "true running back Larry Caper rushed 23 meters, avoiding at least 2 tacklers on the way to score the winning touchdown for the State of Michigan.

Who said it is very hard to win victories on the way forgot to say most of the quality teams. Of the 12 qualified teams playing away from home this week, only 3 - Oklahoma, Houston and Michigan - lost while 9 animals. The winners were:

In third place Alabama beat Kentucky 38-20 ranking, ranked 4th LSU needed two touchdowns in the last 2:53 of the game to cut 18th ranked Georgia 20-13, and 6th in the ranking Virginia Tech won by a 97th ranked Duke team 34-26, a very unimpressive win despite being on the road. Giving up 26 points to Duke, is how to carry your sister to the prom. Seventh-ranked Southern California have destroyed the 24th ranking California Bears, 30-3, the Bears seem times each season, and sometimes even this early.

Ninth ranked Ohio State traveled to Indiana and won 33-14. It appears, continue to play football in Indiana, but with Hoosiers, sometimes it's hard to say. Cincinnati is ranked tenth-ranked 150th and without a win (you read that right) from Miami of Ohio 37-13. Another less than impressive performance of a highly classified. Fifteenth 85th ranked Penn State defeated Illinois 35-17 in the ranking, at least the Nittany Lions were not playing a school 1-AA this week.

Twenty-first ranking Mississippi, most of the touted new "good" team of the season, left the 77 classified Vanderbilt, 23-7, the score was 23-7 after the 3rd quarter, both teams decided to walk in the 4th quarter, save some energy for the match ahead. Twenty-fifth-placed Georgia Tech beat Mississippi State 42-31, which show that 25 best teams can give up too many crossing points to an opponent and still win with little effect on the defensive side of the ball.

Five teams ranked scored other victories at home. Among them 11-ranked TCU Ranking 117th over SMU 39-14, ranking 16th most inept Oregon, ranking 101 of the disgraceful state of Washington, Oregon 52-6-led 42-0 at halftime, an early rain and still won by 46 and ranking 20th of BYU had an unimpressive ranking 119th victory over Utah State 35-17.

Ranking fifth in the Boise State scored a ridiculous 34-16 victory over 139th-ranked 1-AA at the University of California at Davis (UC Davis), another part of the cream puff Broncos (Some say Powder Puff) schedule. The 13th in the ranking of Iowa Hawkeyes, who beat 5 of the ranking of Penn State 21-10 in an away game last week, was the descent of the feared and ends to achieve by ranking 125th of Arkansas State, 24-21. The Hawkeye defense, apparently out of plumb tuckered their effort in Happy Valley, left Arkansas State score 14 points in the fourth quarter to be too close. Without a 4th quarter field goal, Iowa would have gone into overtime.

Three teams were unranked 5-0 in his attempt to enter the AP Top 25 Poll. Among them Wisconsin on the road, 31-28 over Minnesota, South Florida on the road over 95th-ranked Syracuse 34-20 and 26-22 Auburn over Tennessee.

Other unclassified eight teams went on to win 4-1. Notre Dame had to go into overtime at home to return to Washington, 37-30, marking the 3rd consecutive game that the Irish fight have won in the last 60 seconds. Do not call the luck of the Irish for nothing. Idaho, ranked 89, beat visiting Colorado, ranked 62nd, 31-29. Florida State beat Boston College 28-21 at home.

Louisville traveled to Pittsburgh and won 35-10, the Central Michigan Chippewas traveled to Buffalo and beat the Bulls 20-13 127 ranking, South Carolina won at home for the ranking 158th in the state 1-AA rival South Carolina State 38-14, and Tulsa and Rice traveled to beat the inept, unlucky, winless Owls 27-10. The owls do not eat rice, which are only apparently called the Rice Owls, maybe they are smart birds who do not earn much.

Stanford also beat visiting UCLA 24-16 to go 4-1.

Six Top 25 teams were idle this week-No. 1 Florida, No. 2 Texas, No. 12 Oklahoma State, Kansas, No. 16, No. 23 Missouri and No. 24 Nebraska.

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