College football Saturday: Alabama and Notre Dame survive, Oregon splatters USC

A, B, C. As in exhibits, since something needs rebuttal and needs rebuttal now. Imagine a world where you had not watched Alabama play LSU last Saturday night, then searched “LSU prevent defense” on Twitter. You would believe, sight unseen, that LSU has lost the game by playing in a “prevent” coverage. By “prevent,” I refer to dropping seven or more players into deep coverage, and thus preventing a deep pass from beating you late in the game.

A lot of people said this, including me in a bad Arrested Development reference. Those people, including me, were all terribly wrong.

Saturday night, No. 1 Alabama took a 14-3 lead over No. 5 LSU into halftime. Anyone who has watched these teams play know that their games tend to play out as 12-9 field goal festivals, and an 11-point lead in this game seemed like a 21-point lead in any other.

To everyone’s shock, LSU scored not one, but two touchdowns in the second half. Suddenly, the Crimson Tide had to come up with a score of its own to preserve its undefeated record. What followed was one of the most memorable finishes of the 2012 college football season.

USC Athletics released some curious news tonight. The program says it relieved a Trojan student manager after finding he’d deflated footballs at the USC-Oregon game below regulation level. Officials at the game discovered that several balls had to be re-inflated before the game and at halftime.

The Pac-12 has reprimanded USC for its actions and issued a fine. Though the university denies any knowledge of the manager’s plan, and has fired him as a result of his action, it’s still the latest in a string of weird incidents involving USC and broken rules. The student manager has also confessed that he acted alone and did not collaborate with anyone on the USC football team, whether it be athlete, coach, or support staff.

As you can see at the bottom of this post, here is the current Heisman Horse Race Top 5:

Honestly, that jibes rather well with what would probably be my own top 5 list. The exception, of course: Geno Smith’s presence. In deciding to adopt the Horse Race format for this season’s Heisman columns, I somewhat neglected the possibility of a player dominating national consciousness this season, building a big lead in the Heisman race, then completely and totally falling apart.

LSU came up short against Alabama again, and managed to create the most epic jinx thread of the year in doing so:

The “I’m not a racist, but…” of threads. What say you, Tiger Droppings?

Check the national college football scoreboard right here, and look through SB Nation’s many excellent college football blogs to find your team’s community.

Via Stephen Dunn / GETTY

The Oregon State Beavers had a tough time with the Arizona State Sun Devils to start off the night in Corvallis, but rallied for an impressive second half and handled ASU with a 36-26 victory. Here are the video highlights of Oregon State’s victory.

Klein added a rushing touchdown early in the third quarter, and Oklahoma State never got within two touchdowns after that. Klein left the game with an undisclosed injury, and no one has confirmed how serious it is.

After the two teams exchanged field goals in the first overtime, neither would score in the second. Pitt would force and recover a Notre Dame fumble at the goal-line, only to miss the game-winning field goal. Pitt would then kick a field goal in the third overtime before Notre Dame drove the ball into the end zone and win it on a one yard keeper by Everett Golson.

It was a seesaw, back-and-forth affair that saw Oregon score first, and then hold onto the lead the rest of the way. The Ducks took an early 21-3 lead, saw the lead cut to three in the third quarter, but then pulled away with 21 of the next 28 points to hang on for the win.

Oregon and USC can still technically meet one more time at the Pac-12 Championship, particularly if both teams end up winning out and win their particular divisions.

But Alabama rallied, and kept their number one ranking alive as they stayed on course for Miami.

The top of this week’s bowl projections remain similar: Alabama and Oregon in the BCS National Championship, and Kansas State and Notre Dame (which will have one loss, I’ll declare) unfairly relegated to the Fiesta Bowl consolation. After Saturday night’s games, which showed the logical summits (or valleys) of both SEC and Pac-12 football, I think many, many people want to see the Ducks and Tide collide, and I think we’ll get to.

The Fiesta gets first AQ pick this year, and if Notre Dame has two or fewer losses, it is almost certainly the pick. Bowls like money.

1. Alabama. The Tigers outgained the Tide on the night. LSU QB Zach Mettenberger played the best game he will ever play as a college football player. A.J. McCarron was, for 58 minutes or so, a shambling mess with little resemblance to the efficient, error-free machine he had been in the previous eight games. The Alabama defense was, for long stretches, pushed around the field like--ewww--a college defense. This is the kind of game you expect to lose, but Les Miles isn’t about your “expectations,” kid. 21-17, Alabama. (Is Les Miles currently slashing his own tires? Yes, yes he is, because SURPRISES.)

2. Oregon. Both teams punted once each on the night in a 62-51 Oregon victory over USC. The rest: 1,357 yards of offense, 70 first downs between the two teams, and Monte Kiffin admitting afterwards that Oregon’s 730 yards of total offense was something he hadn’t ever heard of in a football game. Monte Kiffin has been coaching football since 1966. His sample size to compare this game with renders this opinion definitive. Kenjon Barner’s 321 yards and five touchdowns are just astonishing supporting evidence to add to the general case for Oregon being utterly terrifying.

Here are the Week 11 BCS rankings.

OK, who wants a piece of Alabama in the BCS title game? With their Houdini-like escape against an LSU team that outplayed them for nearly 59 minutes, the Crimson Tide emerged from their toughest game of the year more solidified than ever as the top-ranked team. Had Alabama lost, the SEC would’ve been facing the prospect of not having a team in the BCS title game for the first time in seven years.

Check the national college football scoreboard right here, and look through SB Nation’s many excellent college football blogs to find your team’s community.

Let’s take a quick lap around the UCLA sideline, where Jim Mora ordered his coaches into the locker room before the game to take care of some last minute business. That business, you ask? It was applying war paint. All of the coaches had to layer up in eye-black, along with the players.

Moderate war paint here. He went conservative.

Blame will be heaped on Les Miles, as LSU should’ve had the game locked up with minutes to go. Three strange fourth-down calls by Les Miles left at least three points, maybe many more, on the board.

Rankings ramifications: Utter mayhem would’ve befallen us all had LSU hung on. But as it is, Bama will tighten its grip on No. 1, while LSU will leave the Top 5 again.

RUH.

This was all a bit much for everyone’s favorite LSU fan to take:

UCF used a strong second-half performance to pull away from SMU on Saturday night, beating the Mustangs 42-17 at BH Networks Stadium in Orlando, Florida.

Gilbert was 16-of-29 for 133 yards and no touchdowns in the game, with SMU managing just 259 yards of total offense in the game.

UCF used a strong second-half performance to pull away from SMU on Saturday night, beating the Mustangs 42-17 at BH Networks Stadium in Orlando, Florida.

Gilbert was 16-of-29 for 133 yards and no touchdowns in the game, with SMU managing just 259 yards of total offense in the game.

Oregon’s offense is impressive enough as is, so to see what Kenjon Barner has been able to do in a Saturday night game against nationally-ranked USC is even more incredible.

With a 5-yard touchdown run, his fourth of the day, the senior running back tied LaMichael James for Oregon’s single-game rushing record. He has 288 yards on right around 9 yards a carry, and has also set the mark for most rushing yards against USC previously held by Curtis Enis.