College football, Week 4: At least it was a Saturday

Reminder: We’re not talking about which conference is the best. We’re talking about which conference had the best weekend.

It’s conceivable that we end the regular season with a battle between an unbeaten Oregon/Stanford and an unbeaten Ohio State politicking for the other spot in the BCS Championship. An unbeaten Pac-12 champion will only benefit from weeks when UCLA, Washington, and Washington State all post blowout wins while Utah and USC win non-conference games against respectable teams. Yet again, the Pac-12 shows itself to be the nation’s second-best conference by having the best week.

A rough week on the schedule was as entertaining as football usually is. To most people. Not Mountaineer fans after WEST VIRGINIA was on the wrong end of a 37-0 beating by… Maryland? The one with Randy Edsall? This is what the internet says.

Losing to Oklahoma in dispiriting fashion is one thing; getting blanked by a rampant Terps squad dressed up like Harley Quinn is another. The natives are going to lose it over this one. They may even advocate for Terry Bowden.

The explanation, from Blue Grass Preps:

BUT HOW IS THIS LEGAL?

• Spencer Hall: Fire Week 4 into the sun

• Ranking the 29 undefeated teams by resumes

Ann Arbor. In 1957, men scheduled like men for a lot of reasons. For one, women weren’t allowed in college athletics for the most part, and certainly not anywhere near the decision-making apparatus. Another factor: the college football season at the time was a mere nine games long, making the sport 75 percent of what it is today by volume.

Just look at Michigan’s schedule for the year. Marvel at the wall-to-wall masculinity. It’s like expensive wood paneling for the eyes.

What a boring, awful weekend of college football. Favorites went 54-2 overall, and most were never in jeopardy of being upset. But boring isn’t always awful for recruiting, and the major programs winning certainly helps. Still, there were no major commitments over the weekend from 2014 prospects.

Two SEC programs had major players visiting, and came through over two rebuilding SEC schools.

For those who missed the game, here are the highlights:

Our Wisconsin blog, Bucky’s 5th Quarter, was not only impressed with the Badgers running the football for 388 yards, but with how well the defense played:

Our LSU blog, And The Valley Shook, was pleased with the final outcome, but they still feel there are a lot of question marks when it comes to their Tigers:

The folks over at College and Magnolia examined the play of quarterback Nick Marshall, who was unable to get into a groove for more than a series or two for most of the evening:

Given Murphy’s performance, it doesn’t look like Driskel’s loss will significantly damage the team’s season outlook. And as Alligator Army’s Andy Hutchins pointed out afterward, the schedule works out relatively well for Murphy’s development:

Over at SEC blog Team Speed Kills, Brandon Larrabee noted that Florida’s offense showed some life that it hadn’t in a while:

After four weeks, we are down to 29 undefeated FBS teams. Some are unbeaten because they have handled tough teams and looked great in doing so; most just haven’t played anybody yet.

So which ones should we take seriously? Instead of using advanced stats, we’re going to go in the opposite direction to get a read on each of the 29 undefeateds. Let’s create a rudimentary scoring system; we’ll grade each team’s performance (in each game) based on whether it was bad, okay, good, or very good (and came against bad, okay, good, or very good competition). This is the opposite of official, but let’s see what these grades can tell us.

Multiple players took part in a vague protest of the NCAA Saturday, wearing “APU” (for All Players United, a campaign from the National College Players Association) on their uniforms in solidarity against the treatment of athletes by the organization.

So far, there has yet to be backlash from coaches or other athletic personnel.

We already gave you the scores and results, but here’s what else happened this weekend.

With a concussion lawsuit by former players growing, current players are showing solidarity by wearing “APU” written on their gear. APU stands for All Players United and at least seven players were reported to have been sporting the message on Saturday. So far, their coaches are expressing support of their right to speak out.

Afterward, Kevin Recio of Rutgers blog On the Banks praised Nova’s effort, pointing out how well he played after a slow start:

On the other side, Razorbacks fans were understandably feeling bad about blowing a three-score lead on the road. Arkansas Fight’s Doc Harper isn’t optimistic about what lies ahead for the team in 2013 considering the schedule ahead of it:

The USA Today Coaches Poll remained largely unchanged after a week devoid of upsets. With 18 of 20 ranked teams winning, the voters opted to keep the status quo.

Alabama lost a few first-place votes, but retains the top position in this week’s USA Today Coaches Poll. After Saturday’s win over Colorado State, the Crimson Tide received 59 of the 62 available first-place votes. Oregon, which got three first-place votes despite having the week off, is ranked second. Ohio State, Clemson, and Stanford round out the top five.

After a week in which 19 of 20 ranked teams won their games, the AP Top 25 poll remained largely unchanged. Alabama remains on top, though the Tide lost three of the 59 first-place votes they held entering Saturday. Oregon stayed in the second slot, followed by Clemson, Ohio State, and Stanford. LSU, Louisville, Florida State, Georgia, and Texas A&M round out the top 10.

The full Top 25, via the AP:

The Process doesn’t sleep, but sometimes it falls asleep at the wheel and wakes up in the middle of Colorado State carjacking them. Colorado State should really consider using something other than a bubble gun in future robberies, because Alabama still won in a lackadaisical 31-6 rehearsal for next week’s game against Ole Miss.

Bye week, but still scored five or six touchdowns in a high school scrimmage because an addict can’t just quit or they’ll die.

Out of conference scheduling has been a hot button issue in college football for years. Major powers cut substantial checks for small FBS schools or FCS schools to come take a beating. One team gets a win, the other gets paid, and usually everything goes according to plan.

In the later stages of blowouts, fans will joke that a running clock would be nice, or to just end the game early. Well, both of those actually happened on Saturday. There was a running clock for roughly the last 20 minutes of the Louisville-FIU game, and Miami-Savannah State featured a 12-minute fourth quarter.

Four FBS teams scored 70 or more points on Saturday. Three of them -- Louisville, Miami, and Ohio State -- did so against hopelessly outmatched competition. The fourth won 70-7 against a preseason conference favorite, experienced bowl team, and upset specialist.

Baylor did to ULM exactly what it did to Wofford and Buffalo before it, continuing a scorching run that includes last year’s wins against then-No. 1 Kansas State, Oklahoma State, and UCLA. While that list of victims might not impress some, I’m seeing only one potential loss in the Bears’ next four games (West Virginia, at Kansas State, Iowa State, Kansas).

The game featured nine turnovers, four quarterbacks combined to go 25-of-54, only one of those passers didn’t throw a pick, and the Gators had as many defenders catch passes (four) as it did offensive players. Even the ground games were ugly, with Tennessee’s averaging 2.9 yards per carry and Florida’s 3.8.

Let’s take a look back at the heaping bounty of lowlights this game provided us.

Texas starting quarterback David Ash left during the second quarter of the Longhorns’ 31-21 victory over Kansas State on Saturday after sustaining an apparent head injury. Ash made an early departure from the Longhorns’ loss to BYU two weeks ago due to a concussion and did not play in last week’s loss to Ole Miss because of post-concussive symptoms, leading SB Nation Texas Longhorn blog Barking Carnival to question the decision to let Ash play agains the Wildcats in the first place.

In the NFL, any deviations from standard dress would have resulted in fines or suspensions, but the college game at least allows its employees to express themselves, even if it refuses to pay them.

One of the familiar tropes coming into Week 4 was that it was a generally weak slate of games and that there wouldn’t be much action. That generally held true over the course of the day, especially for the big boys; the highest-ranked team to lose was No. 23 Arizona State, who had the unlucky task of traveling to No. 5 Stanford. Similarly, the next-best team going down was Michigan State (No. 26, if you will, in the AP and No. 24 in the Coaches Poll), and the Spartans also had the rare ranked away game, with a trip to No. 22 Notre Dame.

Past that, there was a lot of interesting moving and shaking, and we should see a significantly clearer picture in the BCS computer rankings after this week.

West Virginia Mountaineer fans have had plenty of days to cheer over the past decade or so. Over the past 24 hours or so ... not so much. On Saturday, when the team traveled to Maryland to take on the Terrapins, they were embarrassed, falling by a score of 37-0.

The final outcome could’ve been even worse if Maryland didn’t let up in the second half. It was 30-0 by halftime, and the coaching staff elected to just run the clock during the final two quarters. As a team, West Virginia surrendered 330 yards of total offense.

The weekend’s only ranked matchup looked like it would be a blowout early. Stanford led 29-0 at halftime and 39-7 at the end of the third, only to let Arizona State back in it by pulling their starters a bit prematurely. The Sun Devils would rally for 21 consecutive points to make it interesting at 39-28, but Stanford would go on a 9 play, 5:47 drive that resulted in a game-icing field goal.

An illegal substitution penalty on 4th and 1 would ultimately doom the Sun Devils, allowing Stanford to shave several more minutes off the clock.

Via KREM:

It wasn’t exactly to the level of Jim Harbaugh and Jim Schwartz, but the postgame handshake between Mike Leach and Paul Petrino on Saturday wasn’t very friendly.

The Cougars’ third quarter field goal drive that cut the lead to 13-6 sucked all of the air out of LaVell Edwards Stadium and produced one the more unsettling images of Saturday’s games when BYU running back Jamaal Williams sustained an apparent neck injury on a successful fourth down conversion.

BYU had several chances to get back in the game and tie things up late, but the Cougars failed to convert on a pair of fourth down opportunities in Utah territory. A 55-yard punt return by JD Falslev put BYU inside the Utah 15-yard-line with under 10 minutes to go, but the Cougars turned it over on downs and had another drive stall out on a Taysom Hill interception. BYU also failed to convert a relatively hopeless Hail Mary attempt in the game’s final five seconds.