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Obsessing over the statistical anomalies and minutiae of close and closer-than-they-looked games that could have gone the other way.

Virginia Tech 16, Nebraska 15. The 'Huskers may agonize over the defensive lapse at the end of this game, the only big pass it allowed at the worst possible time, but the first quarter was just as emblematic of the final margin as the last. Both offenses found themselves with early opportunities inside the opposing 25-yard line after big kick returns; Virginia Tech turned the field position into a touchdown, Nebraska settled for the field goal. Settling for the field goal was the theme of the Huskers' afternoon, especially in the first half, where they kicked on four consecutive possessions with the ball inside the Tech 25. With the Hokies looking thoroughly hopeless on offense, a touchdown on any of those drives might have put them away -- as would either of the touchdowns Nebraska had nullified on consecutive snaps in the third quarter (one for a holding penalty, one for failing to gain full possession with a foot down inside the baseline) before a series of penalties and sacks forced a punt on 4th-and-goal from the Hokie 37. Even a field goal there might have ultimately won it in spite of Tyrod's Taylor ad libbed, 81-yard heave to Danny Coate to set up the winning touchdown. I've highlighted Nebraska's turnovers on the right (one of them coming on a last-second hail mary on the final play), but just like South Carolina last week, the difference in a tight game was one team's inability to get the ball into the end zone when it had the chances while forcing the other to resort to kicks and a prayer. Read the rest of this entry »

The week in the undercards. And the skies opened, and the points rained down like...rain? When I exhorted readers to tune into Boise State-Fresno State last Friday in order to cram a little more football into your lives, I had no idea just how much football we'd be subjected to -- 85 points, almost 1,000 yards of offense and six touchdowns of 60-plus yards in a three-and-a-half-hour barn-burner. This was classic WACtion, video-game stuff, one of those games where you leave your booth to grab another round of drinks, hit the restroom, feed the meter, make a phone call, and return to find that maybe a minute's run off the clock. Though initially slow to catch up to the Broncos' opening lead, all credit to Fresno State for making a 51-34 loss feel like a close game. Bulldog back Ryan Mathews had 19 carries for 234 yards, most of them coming on touchdown runs of 69, 60 and 68 yards; Boise answered by averaging 10.3 yards per carry with 70-yard scoring runs by D.J. Harper and Jeremy Avery, who also took a short pass to the house from 67 yards out. Even the return men got into the game: Given a boatload of opportunities, Boise's Doug Martin and Titus Young each had 77-yard runbacks to set up quick Bronco scores. Read the rest of this entry »

Adjusting to the weekend's new realities. Washington is at least a year ahead of schedule, and probably two. Maybe quarterback Jake Locker really is the difference between the worst team in the Pac-10 in decades and a borderline bowl team, which the Huskies certainly appear to be now after one great offensive performance (a relatively prolific night against LSU) and one great defensive performance (to beat USC Saturday) against top-10 teams, with a routine blowout over a WAC patsy and a clutch comeback to actually take a win in a game they weren't clearly controlling for good measure. That never happened under Tyrone Willingham. It would be redundant to itemize the statistical improvement from last season, when Washington ranked in the bottom 20 in the country (100th or worse) in literally every significant category in all three phases, to the first three games this season. (If you must know, scoring has doubled and opponents are averaging more than two fewer touchdowns.) Steve Sarkisian's first season wasn't even supposed to be about the wins; it was just supposed to be about making the Huskies more competitive and more positive about the direction of the ship even as the bail-out effort was in full swing. But they dispatched with the "moral victory" phase against LSU and have already advanced to the "defining win" stage. Everything about UW's first three games suggests it's already on the path to being a bowl team -- and hell, according to the AP, it's already a poll team. Of course, Stanford upended USC in similar fashion off a horrendous season with an enthusiastic young coach two years ago, in L.A., and is still struggling up the slope to its first postseason bid since 2001. Washington, a program with a much greater history of Pac-10 and national success than Stanford, looks like it's better than that so far, but the oddsmakers, at least, haven't seen enough: The Cardinal open as a touchdown favorite over the Huskies Saturday in Palo Alto, a big test for both. Read the rest of this entry »

Of all the ways to go out after 41 consecutive starts, a nine-yard scramble with a 28-0 second-quarter lead against Charleston Southern isn't exactly a storybook ending. But so apparently concluded the amateur career of South Florida's Matt Grothe Saturday, when the Big East's all-time leader in total offense tore his ACL on a random run in a lopsided blowout. The Bulls went on to win, 59-0, but lost the on-field face of their nascent program. Grothe was too short and not exactly cannon-armed for a star quarterback, but he got an unusual amount of mileage out of an unhinged reckless streak, a tendency to scramble around wildly and ad lib in a way that can only be described as Favre-ian, only with better wheels than his fellow dirt artist and without the ability to rip the gloves off his receivers' hands. Most of the time, USF's offense seemed to be best defined as "Spread/Grothe Makes Something Up On the Fly," with all that entails: He led the team in rushing as well as passing in 2006, 2007 and 2008 and was responsible for a huge number of big plays with his arm and legs, including most of the ones that led to back-to-back upsets over Big East juggernaut West Virginia in 2006-07, the second of which briefly vaulted the Bulls to No. 2 in both major polls; he also has more career interceptions (44) than any other active quarterback. USF ordered its offense around Grothe and usually sank or swam with his creativity, which is likely to be as missed in the win column as it is on the random Thursday-nighter. The other big name ending his season Saturday: Notre Dame receiver Michael Floyd, the towering, acrobatic sophomore whose broken collarbone against Michigan State should send familiar shivers of regret down the collective spine of the Irish faithful. With four combined touchdowns and 100-plus-yard games against both Michigan and Nevada, Floyd was well on his way to fulfilling his recruiting hype as a giant bird of prey swooping down to devour tiny cornerbacks whole -- just as he was as a true freshman in 2008, when he averaged 15 yards per catch with seven touchdowns and four 100-yard games in five weeks before missing the final month of the season. At which point ND's offense just happened to go into a tailspin against Boston College, Navy, Syracuse and USC. Read the rest of this entry »

Snap judgments on Saturday's best. Teachers' Pet: Jahvid Best. Last week's dark horse contender for assorted college football trophies put up a hell of a statement game yesterday, and did it on national television in an early-morning slot that ensured maximum visibility. Five touchdowns later, everybody knows his name, even if half the folks on television can't seem to pronounce it. Most Likely To Succeed: Steve Sarkisian. The noted Pete Carroll prodigy interited a truly wretched Husky squad riding a losing streak for the ages and made magic in the span of mere months. He took LSU to the wire, blew out Idaho, and for his latest trick, upset his universally beloved mentor 16-13. Whatever Ty Willingham was doing in Seattle all that time, developing players wasn't it. Most Unlikely Couple: Lane Kiffin and Urban Meyer, meeting at midfield for a perfectly cordial handshake following a defensive slugfest between their respective squads. Meyer even hung around to congratulate several Tennessee players on a well-fought contest, and Kiffin had nothing but praise for Tim Tebow in postgame interviews. Drama-mongering television networks had best get to stepping if they want to manufacture a new feud in time for next week. Read the rest of this entry »

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Clemson 25, Boston College 7. I'm going to be very, very conservative here and limit my scope on this statement, but I'm pretty certain Boston College just finished what may go down as the worst offensive performance of the decade by a major college team. They had to stop the game twice in the second half, presumably to prevent B.C. partisans from losing their vision. Add it up, folks, and weep alongside the ghost of Matt Ryan: The Eagles were good for 49 total yards, four first downs, 10 punts, 12 three-and-outs or worse, one yard per play and four turnovers. After starter David Shinskie went down one pass into the game, backup Justin Tuggle came on to go 4-of-19 with three picks. Altogether, the most surprising number in the end may be seven, as in the number of points the misfits managed to put up after a Clemson turnover gave them the ball at the Tiger 12; well into the third quarter, prior to the first delay, B.C. had amassed one first down and three yards total offense thanks to going backwards on four of its last five full possessions of the first half. We all assumed the Eagles would struggle after a calamitous offseason that cost them their successful head coach and offensive coordinator and only remotely experienced quarterback. And the B.C. defense certainly held up its end of the deal, forcing three turnovers and holding the Tigers out of the end zone despite no support whatosever in terms of field position or rest. (Clemson's points came on six field goals, all on possessions beginning at their own 43 or better, and a punt return by C.J. Spiller.) But nothing could have prepared B.C. fans for this kind of catastrophe. Any prayer of bringing home a third straight Atlantic Division title died today, of a slow, excruciating death by incompletion. It can only go up from here, of course, but from the bottom of the well, it's going to be a massive undertaking to get this broken carcass back to civilization.

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California 35, Minnesota 21. It would be an insult to continue insisting Jahvid Best is an "under-the-radar" Heisman candidate, since his name can barely come up without someone asking how he'll stack up against the the holy trinity of clean-cut, aw-shucks quarterbacks. Everybody loves the guy for what he is -- the premiere home-run threat in the country -- but in this relatively pass-happy age, Best plays the wrong position for the wrong team, which only the right performance in the right game (against USC on Oct. 3) can overcome in terms of hardware. But his school-record-tying five touchdown runs today -- two in the first half of the first quarter and two more after Minnesota rallied to tie at 21-21 in the fourth -- on 150 total yards only confirmed his status as the one skill player in whose hands you want the ball more than anyone else's, under pretty much any circumstances. Best ran the gamut today, first on spectacular runs (two 25-plus-yard touchdowns, the first of which should be quickly posterized on highlight reels; see above), as a receiver and decoy who can line up all over the field and finally as a workhorse who ran eight times -- all for short gains -- with a pair of touchdowns on the Bears' icing drives in the fourth. In terms of awards, that may not get him very far; it wasn't even as dominating a performance as I predicted for him this morning. In fact, Cal fans may have left feeling better about Kevin Riley's solid, mistake-free afternoon at quarterback, the 'X-factor' when it comes to their higher Pac-10 and national ambitions. For Best, most of the afternoon was more like just another day at the office, the implications of which hopefully weren't lost on the rare national audience.

Hyper-specific predictions for the day's action. • California leads by at least two scores at the end of the first quarter and by at least 20 at halftime of a high-scoring, stat-padding rout at Minnesota, only mitigated by a few garbage-time touchdowns by the Gophers. Cal star Jahvid Best goes over 200 all-purpose yards on fewer than 25 touches. • Boston College, a touchdown underdog at Clemson, struggles on offense but holds the Tigers in check by forcing a pair of field goal attempts and at least one turnover inside the B.C. red zone, setting up a game-winning scoring drive for the Eagles in the final minutes. • Aaron Corp starts at quarterback for USC but doesn't particularly impress, throwing for one touchdown and avoiding interceptions but also failing to hit any downfield throws as the Trojan running game carries the day against Washington. No one advocates for Corp to hold on to the job ahead of Matt Barkley. • Oregon goes over 300 yards rushing on at least six yards per carry in an eye-opening win over Utah that re-establishes the Ducks as a top-20 contender and knocks the Utes out of the polls after quarterback Terrance Cain commits a pair of costly turnovers. • Freshman running backs Ryan Williams and David Wilson combine for more than 200 yards on the ground for the second straight week and Virginia Tech "wins" time of possession by at least eight minutes in a low-scoring home win over Nebraska. The Huskers never lead and don't score a touchdown until late in the third quarter. Read the rest of this entry »

• Nebraska at Virginia Tech I'm trying to come up with any reason at all that this game should be any different than last year's, won 35-30 by the Hokies in Lincoln, and the only thing I can come up with is the locale. I'm sure both teams are hoping for more from their quarterbacks, but the Va. Tech offense has continued to revolve around emerging freshman backs Ryan Williams and David Wilson, with little appreciable progress from Tyrod Taylor as a passer. And with all due respect to Zac Lee's fine start against two of the finer defenses of the Sun Belt, the next quarterback I take against a Bud Foster D in his first road start will be the first. Nebraska should have plenty of chances to pull something out here, if only because the Hokie M.O. against relative equals remains "defense, special teams, embrace the field goal." The Huskers will have the drop if they're able to score a little bit and force Taylor out of his comfort zone in an effort to pass Tech back in it, but if Williams and/or Wilson settles into a rhythm and Foster's defense is its usual, back-breaking self, that will always be the Hokies' fight. Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Paterno has known a lot of newsmen in his day, from old hacks in fedoras who know their place and their gin to timid cubs he could swear he chased off his lawn that morning. He's known 'em all, the greats and the goats. And he's here to tell ya: He sympathizes with them. He does, because they're hard-working Joes, too, and he's heard lately about newspapers struggling with those things, those boxy things the kids have nowadays in place of the telegraph, whatever those things are called:

I read the newspapers. I feel bad about the way things have gone with the newspaper business, with the guys, with the whatever they call it, computers, getting all that stuff on. Because it's taking away some of the guys, and I think some of the great guys I've known and who wrote well who set a standard for writing, people don't realize guys, they were all sports writers. They were all sports writers first. Grant Rice and those guys, and I don't know it's a different world. And I'm not part of that world. I'm really not.

Clearly: Grantland Rice died in 1954, a few years into Paterno's stint as a young Penn State assistant and more than a decade before he became head coach. From this answer, it's possible Paterno wasn't even a part of the world he helped define for a half-century. Read the rest of this entry »