College Football: Week 6 Wrap-Up

#21 Nebraska def. #24 Missouri 27-12
They should really think about canceling Thursday night college football on grounds of dreadfulness. Between Oregon-Boise State (probably the worst game of all time), Mississippi-South Carolina, and this stinker in the pouring rain, Thursday nights have been the pinnacle of awful football. Nebraska's D-line did a good job of pressuring Blaine Gabbert (his bum ankle suffered on the first drive didn't help either), but essentially, this game was won in an ugly flurry of three Nebraska touchdowns helped mightily by Gabbert's first two career interceptions. The only bright spot: national television coming out party for Husker DE Ndamukong Suh (say it with me: En-dom-ah-ken Soo) . A few more games like that and he'll be in the Heisman talk. I heard that five inches of rain fell in Columbia on Thursday - I think the Tigers drowned.

Arkansas def. #17 Auburn 44-23
So did Auburn choke or were they simply overrated to begin with? Chris Todd looked just like I remembered, totally overwhelmed, and the whole team appeared to be sleepwalking in the first half. When they finally did wake up in the third quarter, their much ballyhooed no-huddle offense looked frantic. Todd's fumbled snap under center on 4th and 1 was a pretty good summary of the Auburn's day: unprepared, unenthusiastic, ineffective. Mallet looked just like I remember him from Michigan: huge arm, huge potential, a long way to go.

#9 Ohio State def. Wisconsin 31-13
Poor, poor Badgers. They did a great job containing the Ohio State offense (most OSU points were either scored or set up by the defense and special teams) and established an effective running game (I'm not sure I've ever seen a team run an up-tempo *running* attack before), but in the end, their pass blocking didn't cut the mustard, their inexperienced QB was clearly affected by the rush, and some crucial mistakes forced them to play from behind and took the pressure off of Terrelle Pryor. Still, the Badgers weren't anywhere near as bad as this score would suggest and I'll be looking forward to their matchup with Iowa.

#1 Florida def. #4 LSU 13-3
I was really disappointed with LSU here. First of all, Florida ran the dive basically every other play and gained positive yardage nearly every time. Strike one. The Tigers offense (what is it with all Tigers teams losing this week?) was unimaginative, particularly on third down, and it's extremely odd that they run their option from six yards in the backfield. Makes for a lot of instances with a ten yard run, two broken tackles, and a two yard gain. Strike two. And, as always, Tebow did what he had to do to win. He ran when they needed him and passed efficiently when they needed that. Three strikes. On the plus side, Florida looked pretty ripe for a whoopin' from Alabama, didn't they?

#12 Iowa def. Michigan 30-28
Despite the close score, I thought Iowa pretty handily outplayed Michigan. Ricky Stanzi threw what is becoming his standard pick-six early and that plus more kick return magic from Darryl Stonum kept the Wolverines in the game even though they turned the ball over three times and allowed 200 Iowa passing yards in the first half. The Michigan defense abandoned its poor tackling long enough to get the offense the ball with a chance to win, but the Wolverines (inexplicably minus their boy wonder) couldn't quite get it done. Two down for Iowa, two (Wisconsin and Ohio State) to go. I'll be rooting for them!

This Week's 'Yell at the TV' Moment: Don't ask a flanker to do a quarterback's job. Yes, Denard Robinson led the previous touchdown drive, but did you happen to notice that he did it with his legs? You're only down two points despite being outplayed and your defense gets you the ball back in time for the two minute drill, you've got the 4th quarter kid in your quiver and you sit him...to teach him a lesson? So we get the wild Wolverine (the MaizeCat? This is harder than you would think) instead and Robinson miraculously manages to move the ball a few yards before throwing the completely predictable overthrow INT. Hey, lesson learned, RichRod.

In other news: What is with the Huskers and quarterbacks named Zac? Wasn't one of the last ones hilariously named after president Zachary Taylor? Will there be a whole flood of Zacs coming up?.....Speaking of Zac Lee, how in the world did he not recover that fumbled snap after jumping on top of it?!? They might want to check him out to make sure there's not a giant hole in his torso.....A lot of Tigers fans had clearly painted their chests with water based paints, which didn't mix well with the rain. Gotta love that Mizzou education.....Great fake FG touchdown for the Badgers, but you could definitely tell that holder/safety Chris Maragos had practiced that diving reach for the end zone move about a million times with his little friends in junior high.....The Red Lobster Scholar Athlete during the Florida-LSU game was some LSU kid with a 3.3 GPA in Kinesiology. Awesome.....In soccer news, Slovenia beat Slovakia 2-0. Gotta love the crawler.