College Football: Week 4 Wrap-Up

South Carolina def. #4 Mississippi 16-10
I'm pretty sure that crash you just heard was Jevan Snead's draft stock hitting the ground and shattering into a million pieces. He was inaccurate all night, but my favorite part was near the end of the first quarter when he threw into sextuple coverage. You don't see that too often. The story of the game here was the inability of both teams to protect their quarterbacks and Houston Nutt's erroneous assumption that Snead was his playmaker instead of Dexter McCluster. Once he corrected that error, Ole Miss did just fine and essentially just ran out of time (aided by a horrific reverse call with two minutes left in the game). I thought South Carolina's inability to put the ball in the end zone despite dominating the game was going to hurt them, but I guess sometimes you can let sleeping dogs lie. I have to wonder how much Mississippi's killer previous schedule of two cream puffs and a bye week hurt them.

#23 Michigan def. Indiana 36-33
After the first week of the season, I was discussing the Big Ten scores with my family and no one could remember hearing an Indiana score. We were wondering if they still had a football team. It turns out that a) they do and b) it's not bad! They were big and strong and Ben Chappell is a more than capable quarterback. Michigan was lucky to get out of this one with a win after some major mistakes, helped immensely by the Hoosiers' inability to put the ball in the end zone (5 red zone trips, 1 touchdown generally = loss). What worried me the most was Indiana's ability to continue to gain yards after the first hit. Could Michigan's defense be too small or was it just poor tackling? I was actually a little relieved when Forcier threw that moronic interception. I was starting to wonder if the guy was human. But he bounced back to do his 4th quarter 'thang' and all was temporarily well in Wolverine-land. Speaking of Wolverine-land, is there any resident thereof who doesn't feel 700 times more confident when Forcier is in the game instead of Robinson? Robinson's fumble before the half was a perfect illustration of why great athletes don't necessarily make great quarterbacks. You have to trust him with the ball.

#11 Virginia Tech def. #9 Miami 31-7
Ouch, tough one for the 'Canes. Thanks to ABC deciding to only cover this game in low-def, I helpfully recorded an hour and a half of hi-def ESPN news and only got to watch the second half of this one. From what I saw though, Miami did not stop the run on D and the pouring rain probably hampered their pass game quite a bit. Two nearly consecutive pass drops by first year TE Jimmy Graham didn't help in this game, but I have to admit that I and the rest of the college football world may have been a little hasty in jumping on the Hurricanes bandwagon. They didn't look up to the challenge.

Iowa def. #5 Penn State 21-10
Great win for the Hawkeyes! Just like last week, Stanzi was shaky, but he made plays when he had to and the running game and the defense did the rest. As my mom says, Iowa seems to have some sort of voodoo control of Darryl Clark. He's terrific against everyone but them. He produced a stunner on the first play of the game (a gorgeous 79-yard touchdown pass to Chaz Powell) but might as well have sat on the bench for the rest of it. He didn't even bother to change his 'bye-bye national championship' face from last year's version. Iowa's defense kept 'em in it until they seized the momentum with a really timely blocked punt. Then, they were able to run at will until Penn State was out of time. And you thought smash mouth football was dead! Make no mistake though, this wasn't an upset. The Hawkeyes are for real. Stanzi's gotta pick it up a little, but if he does, they'll run the table and be a threat to play for the national championship after the SEC beats each other up.

#17 Houston def. Texas Tech 29-28
Pretty much the first call I've nailed all year (calling college games is a humbling experience). A back and forth game with better defense than I would have guessed and Houston came out on top. This game was tough to analyze, since Texas Tech generally looked unstoppable on offense, even establishing a legit rushing game for the first time all season, but then somehow you'd blink and they were punting. The best I can figure is that in a pass happy offense, you live and die with down and distance. An incomplete pass and one of their patented short yardage over the middle quick slants leaves a 3rd and 6 - one more incompletion away from a punt. Still, a very even game, Houston just had a few more breaks (a little bit of home cooking on the first touchdown - he never had that ball!), home field advantage, and one spectacular goal line stand against a much larger offensive line. Great night for Case Keenum and the Cougars, but they've got a lot of work to do in October.

This Week's 'Yell at the TV' moment brought to you by Michigan Wolverine Greg Matthews: IF YOU HAVE TO DIVE FOR THE PUNT, LET IT GO! I thought he'd left this behind last year, but apparently not.

In other news: Guess we won't have to wait for UNC's harder ACC schedule in October after they were exposed at Georgia Tech this weekend.....Did anyone else see the ref fall over backwards in the end zone in the Ole Miss game? Can't believe the announcers missed it.....At one point, the Mississippi O-line failed to protect Snead against a two man rush.....If you're super-dressed up for the game, you look super stupid when your team lays an egg. I'm talking to you, Happy Valley.....Whoever was directing the coverage of the Texas Tech-Houston game somehow failed to notice that the Cougars like to snap quickly following first downs. I can forgive a replay cutting into a play once or twice, but seven times is pretty ridiculous.....Speaking of laying an egg, what in the world happened to Cal??.....Brent Musberger wins the call of the week on an attempted Penn State field goal: "looks long enough...[five second pause]...no. [cuts to commercial]"