College Football Saturday: Alabama Tramples Michigan, Oregon Scores Again

The two main highlights of the game were from Barkley’s number one target in Trojan wide reciever Marqise Lee. On the first play of the game from scrimmage, Barkley found Lee on a short comeback, but then Lee juked the Hawaii cornerback to the inside before pulling it back to the sideline, and then took off for 70 yards to put USC up 7-0. Lee then took a kickoff early in the second half that saw him receive great blocking on special teams. Lee did the rest, turning on the jets, exploding through the open hole and hitting the end zone without trouble.

Lee finished with 10 receptions for 187 yards and the 100 yard kickoff return to give him 287 all-purpose yards on the day. You can see some snippets of Lee’s great day from the official USC football YouTube channel above and via ESPN’s highlights below.

The Cougars are headed for the Big East in 2013 and had high hopes for the football program under new coach Tony Levine, yet the first game of the new era did not go according to plan when Texas State walking away with a tremendous upset victory at Robertson Stadium in Houston.

Texas State would shut down the Houston offense in the second half, with the Cougars managing just one third-down conversion on the game and only 15 first downs overall.

Okay, so the album Howard Schnellenberger’s linking to here isn’t actually that wild, but it does have this fantastic cover of Florida Atlantic’s University Press. You can read that issue of the Press here.

Get even more of your college football fix with plenty of videos from the SB Nation YouTube channel:

Despite a bevy of new starters on defense, Alabama was dominating throughout a game that never lived up to it’s hype. The Crimson Tide picked up right where they left off by beating a Big Ten team that many felt could be a dark-horse to make a run at the National Championship.

Things weren’t so rosy for Denard Robinson. The Heisman hopeful endured a miserable night completing just 11-of-26 passes for 200 yards, including two interceptions and a touchdown. He also rushed for 27 yards.

Box Score Hero: The dual-threat rushing attack of Malcolm Brown and Joe Bergeron combined for 215 yards on 29 attempts and three touchdowns.

Rankings Ramifications: The Texas standing at No. 15 should stand true again after this win, although voters may penalize the Longhorns for failing to secure a bigger win.

Box Score Hero: USC WR Marquis Lee, who finished with 290 total yards. Lee caught 10 passes for 190 yards and a touchdown, and also returned a kickoff 100 yards for a score.

Rankings Ramifications: USC should stay atop the AP poll and keeps pace with Alabama in the coaches poll.

Ultimately though, the Miami defense would hold strong with a goal-line stand that included stuffing a fourth-down quarterback sneak from the 1-yard line. Hurricanes head coach Al Golden would then run off all but four seconds on the clock before taking an intentional safety that would effectively ice the game.

Box Score Hero: The aforementioned Johnson, who had touchdown rushes of 54 and 56 yards.

Rankings Ramifications: This performance could mean that the Gators, ranked No. 23 going into this week of football, could fall into the “others receiving votes” category come next week. But, most likely, they’re not going anywhere.

But Did They Cover?: Florida was a 23-point favorite in this game, so they did not cover. The game hit the under mark of the over/under, which was set at 50.

Martinez finished with 349 yards passing, completing 26-of-34 pass attempts. He had a whopping five touchdown passes on the day. Campbell only had one for Southern Miss., along with his 69 yards passing. Along with Burkhead, Braylon Heard had a rushing touchdown for Nebraska.

Box Score Hero: Taylor Martinez and his five touchdowns -- he looked in command the entire game and really made things click. Nebraska would have taken this even without the 200-plus rushing yards.

If there is a silver lining for Buffalo, they entered Saturday’s game as 38 point underdogs.

Box Score Hero: Nassib was on fire in the second-half, throwing TD passes on four consecutive possessions to lead his team back. He was 44/64 for 472 yards in a losing effort.

Rankings Ramifications: Neither team came into this game ranked or receiving votes in the polls. Northwestern will have to continue winning to crack the rankings.

At the beginning of the season, anything is possible. No matter how grim things look, there’s always a glimmer of hope. Miracles can happen, even to Randy Edsall and the Maryland Terrapins.

Welp.

Tim Beckman’s first game as the head coach of the Illinois Fighting Illini could see a long-term loss of his starting quarterback, as Nathan Scheelhaase has left the game against the Western Michigan Broncos with an apparent ankle injury suffered in the third quarter.

Until the third quarter injury to Scheelhaase, Illinois was maintaining a double digit lead over Western Michigan. Scheelhaase was a big part of that, going 11-for-18 on the day with 126 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

I promise we’re not just gonna pick on North Carolina all day. That’s a pretty great catch.

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.

The single greatest sign in the history of GameDay has been made. I don’t know how it works, or why. It just does, and there is nothing you can do to fight it. See its full glory after the jump.

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