College Football Instant Analysis: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly of Week 5 across Texas

[caption id="attachment_25310" align="alignright" width="350"] Photo by Graham Staniforth Week 5 of college football is here, and it's a doozy of a slate, with 11 different Texas FBS teams in action in 11 different games. We'll give you our thoughts on the best and the worst (and sometimes, the absolute worst) of the weekend. JUMP TO... Houston 42, Connecticut 14 Texas Tech 55, Kansas 19 Temple 45, SMU 20 Baylor 45, Iowa State 42 Oklahoma State 49, Texas 31 Texas A&M 24, South Carolina 13 Oklahoma 52, TCU 46 Louisiana Tech 28, UTEP 7 Middle Tennessee State 30, North Texas 13 Southern Miss 44, Rice 28 Texas State 48, Incarnate Word 17 Texas State 48, Incarnate Word 17 The Good: The Bobcats deliberately suffocated and put away the Cardinals over four quarters. This wasn’t a blowout where starters were resting the entire second half, but it was decisive in just about all the ways you’d hope. The air attack did what it does against teams with no counter, and Tyler Jones completed 31 of 40 attempts for 475 yards and 5 scores through the air. The Bad: The Bobcats entered the second quarter trailing 7-0 to a Southland Conference team. That wasn’t great, but ultimately didn’t matter. If you were hoping the Bobcats might find a nice groove running the ball against an inferior opponent, you were probably let down. Sure, Texas State mustered 130 yards on the ground, but that’s just not the kind of big night you’d expect. And if you want to really get picky, allowing 419 total yards to a Southland Conference team is not ideal, either. But hey, we’ll just let them enjoy the win. Southern Miss 44, Rice 28 The Good: Rice trailed by six points heading into halftime against the team favored to claim the Conference USA West championship. The maligned Rice defense only surrendered 13 points at half, despite giving up yards. Offensively, running back Samuel Stewart exited as the star of the game for the Owls. Stewart compiled three total touchdowns. His first came as a receiver, giving Rice its only points of the first half, while the next two came on the ground in the second half. Stewart finished with 132 yards rushing on 19 attempts. Wide receiver Temi Alaka only caught two passes, but he led the Owls with 65 yards. The Bad: The Owls don’t create points in the passing game. Even the passing touchdowns are largely built around the play-action pass or a running back coming out of the backfield. Stewart, a running back, led Rice with five receptions. Alaka had two and Zach Wright grabbed three. No one else on the team had more than one catch. The lack of diversity and big-play ability limits Rice’s offense and makes it even tougher to create plays on the ground. As a team, Rice went 18-for-22 for 166 yards and two touchdowns. The Ugly: Rice allowed 591 yards and four touchdowns through the air. Southern Miss quarterback Nick Mullens had a career performance, which included three touchdown passes for more than 60 yards. The Owls defense only allowed 13 points in the first half. Rice didn’t stop Southern Miss from moving the ball in the first half. What the Owls did do effectively for the first 30 minutes was force field goals and limit big plays. That changed in the second half and the Rice offense wasn’t equipped to outscore Southern Miss. — Mike Craven, DCTF Senior Writer Middle Tennessee State 30, North Texas 13 The Good: North Texas continued to show an immense amount of improvement on the defensive side of the ball, and forced Middle Tennessee to kick three field goals from inside the red-zone. MTSU entered as the 10th best passing offense in the country, averaging 367 yards per game, and North Texas held the Blue Raiders in check for the majority of the game despite receiving no help from the offense. The Mean Green also held MTSU scoreless in the first quarter for the first time this season, and had consistent pressure on quarterback Brent Stockstill throughout the night. The Bad: North Texas basically flipped the script from their 42-35 double overtime win over Rice last week. In that game, they found themselves down 17-0 early before storming back for a victory. Tonight, Mason Fine led the offense down the field on an 87-yard touchdown drive to open the game and give North Texas a 7-0 lead. But after that, there was no offensive rhythm at all until the last few minutes in the fourth quarter. Fine managed to throw for 303 yards, but that number was inflated with garbage time yards. The Mean Green went three-and-out six straight times beginning at the 7 minute mark in the second quarter. The Ugly: A week after rushing for 215 yards and five touchdowns, the North Texas rushing attack was non-existent. Middle Tennessee took away the bread and butter of the North Texas offense, and the Mean Green mustered just five rushing yards on 22 carries – averaging just 0.2 yards per carry – in the loss. Jeffrey Wilson, who ran for 157 yards last week, had 24 yards on 10 carries. Fine looked good on the opening drive, but with no help from the running game it was impossible for the freshman to get into any sort of rhythm until the last minute efforts in the fourth quarter. The Mean Green need to find a way to take some of the pressure off their defense moving forward in conference play. — Brady Keane, DCTF Intern Louisiana Tech 28, UTEP 7 The Good: The UTEP defense settled in after allowing 14 points in the first quarter. The Miners allowed just 14 points the rest of the way, all in the fourth quarter after it was clear the offense wasn’t capable of putting up double digits. Louisiana Tech finished with only 191 yards passing, 121 of which went to Trent Taylor. The unit allowed a lot of rushing yards and couldn’t produce big plays, but UTEP was only two possessions out of the game heading into the fourth quarter and that was only because the defense came up with stops at the right times. The Bad: The offense didn’t score until five seconds into the fourth quarter. Running back Aaron Jones was held in check, and while the passing game was improved under Ryan Metz, it wasn’t enough to produce points and salvage a respectable effort on defense. Jones averaged fewer than five yards per carry and no other rusher gained more than 10 yards. Metz was efficient, throwing just eight incompletions on 28 attempts. With no big plays in the rushing attack, he couldn’t figure out a way to turn that efficiency into enough scoring opportunities to get the upset. — Mike Craven, DCTF Senior Writer Oklahoma 52, TCU 46 The Good: Well, that was a fun comeback while it lasted. Down 49-24 entering the final quarter of the game, the Horned Frogs rallied to score 22 straight and climb within three with just over five minutes to play. Everything was clicking, the crowd at Amon G. Carter Stadium was rocking, and the Sooners were stunned. The Bad: And then Oklahoma drove to get a field goal, and blew up TCU’s attempt at a game-winning drive. All that work for naught. The huge deficit was too much to overcome in the end. By any measure, this was the deserved outcome, and TCU only has itself to blame. The Sooners had more total yards (534 vs. 514), ran for more yards (260 vs. 65), dominated possession (34:42 vs. 25:18) and committed fewer penalties (5 vs. 9). That’s not to say it was an open-and-shut game, but it’s not like the Horned Frogs got cheated. The Ugly: The utter lack of any kind of run game remains a huge problem. TCU ran 29 times and averaged just 2.2 yards per carry. It was a stark contrast to the three-headed backfield monster across the field of Mayfield-Mixon-Perine. And since both teams took turns not playing defense, like most Big 12 teams this year, that was probably the biggest difference. — Max Thompson, DCTF Director of Digital Texas A&M 24, South Carolina 13 The Good: After allowing a 75-yard touchdown on the opening play of the game and trailing 7-0 just 13 seconds in, the Aggie defense locked up South Carolina. A&M held the Gamecocks to 86 yards rushing after that play, and the secondary allowed just 217 yards passing – even without the consistent pressure of Myles Garrett, who missed the game due to an injury. If you take away trick plays, that number goes down to just 172 yards allowed through the air. Armani Watts came up with an interception on a play where he tipped the ball to himself, and Justin Evans just missed on an interception that was overturned after it was ruled he didn’t get a foot inbounds in the first quarter. The Aggies secondary entered the game ranked fourth in the nation allowing just 166 passing yards per game, and that dominance was evident again to help A&M improve to 5-0 for the third straight year. The Bad: Trevor Knight was 5-for-5 for 68 yards and added a 4-yard rushing touchdown on the opening drive, but the Aggies fast paced offense struggled after that against South Carolina’s defense. Despite the fast start, Knight finished 23-for-40 for 206 yards and an interception and didn’t throw a touchdown against a South Carolina secondary that entered the game with 15 allowed through the air. Knight had gone 109 passes without an interception, but that streak ended in the third quarter. The Aggies were missing Speedy Noil and Ricky Seals-Jones, and struggled offensively in their absence. The Ugly: The fact that this game was close throughout is ugly in and of itself. The Aggies were heavy favorites, but didn’t have any breathing room at all against a now (2-3) South Carolina team. The Gamecocks’ 75-yard touchdown on the opening play of the game made it look as though this one would be a shootout, and while the Aggies stepped up when they needed to defensively, it was the offense that underperformed. Even when Cullen Gillaspia recovered a muffed Gamecocks’ punt on the 30-yard line late in the fourth quarter, the Aggies were unable to convert the opportunity into a touchdown. A&M will need a better offensive performance next week in a top-10 matchup back at Kyle Field against a Tennessee team flying high after a stunning Hail Mary finish on the road against Georgia. — Brady Keane, DCTF Intern Oklahoma State 49, Texas 31 The Good: Well, the Texas offense had no problem putting up numbers. And per usual, it started with the Longhorns’ ground attack behind running backs Chris Warren III and D’Onta Foreman. Both backs eclipsed 100 yards with 106 and 148, respectively, as the Longhorns put up 568 yards of offense. Freshman quarterback Shane Buechele was pretty good, himself, throwing for 239 yards and a touchdown but he did get picked once. Also, how ’bout that 18-wheeler package with Tyrone Swoopes? Dude has carved out quite the niche for himself and had six carries for 24 yards with two touchdowns out of the package. The Bad: This seems like an ongoing theme, but the Longhorns simply have forgotten how to tackle on defense, especially in the secondary. To be fair, Oklahoma State seemed to have its own issues in the department, but the Longhorns were particularly bad. The Cowboys’ first two touchdowns of the day came on what should’ve been minimal gains but turned into long runs thanks to some really iffy tackling. As good as Warren III and Foreman were, they both left the game with injuries as Warren III never saw the second half after a knee injury and Foreman left the game later with a rib injury. The Ugly: Good lord. This from ESPN Stats & Info: Three blocked extra points ties the most blocked extra points in a game for any FBS team going back to at least 2004. That’s not a typo. Oklahoma State blocked three Texas extra point tries and returned one of them for two points of its own before almost doing it again. At one point, the Pokes led by five in a game that should’ve been tied. That’s bad. — Adam Boedeker, DCTF contributor Baylor 45, Iowa State 42 The Good: Shock Linwood gets to ride in the front seat on the way home from Ames. The senior from Linden pretty much single-handedly saved Baylor’s bacon in this game — when Seth Russell was missing throws and the defense couldn’t come close to a stop, it was Linwood who took over, spearheading the Bears’ ground attack that racked up an astonishing 469 yards on the ground. And his 237 yards aren’t some sort of volume play — he was simply unstoppable in the open field, changing directions and making a whole host of Iowa State defenders look silly. Honorable mentions go to Terence Williams (a mere 126 yards and two touchdowns) and Seth Russell (88 yards and two scoring plunges), but any way you slice it, Shock Linwood was the player of the game in Ames. The offense did enough to keep around a largely horrid defensive effort, and came away with a last-second win on Chris Callahan’s chip-shot field goal. The Ugly: We’re skipping “The Bad” and going straight to “The Ugly”, because this was a game in which the good was great and the bad was horrible. What was that defensive effort? Iowa State — IOWA STATE! — put up 465 yards of total offense, and Joel Lanning — JOEL LANNING! — looked like a Heisman contender. The Baylor offense has no answer for the running game led by Mike Warren, getting absolutely throttled up front by the Iowa State offensive line, and Lanning — again, JOEL LANNING! — could not be stopped, throwing for 261 yards and converting third-down after third-down. For three quarters, Baylor simply had no response for the second-worst team in the Big 12. Now, to be fair, the Bears’ defense stepped up in the fourth quarter, holding the Cyclones scoreless and giving their squad a chance to rally for the win, but this is an enormous red flag for the Bears entering conference play. Let’s put it this way: if the Bears play like that against Texas, TCU, Oklahoma or Texas Tech, rest assured that they won’t escape with the same fortunate result. — Greg Tepper, DCTF Managing Editor Temple 45, SMU 20 The Good: All things considered, the Ponies have to be pleased with their pass defense. No one is going to mistake Temple quarterback Phillip Walker for Joe Montana, but the senior had been playing much better of late, and the Mustangs defense held him in check through the air. Jordan Wyatt and Horace Richardson came up with interceptions, and combined with a forced fumble in the fourth quarter, the Ponies’ defense actually made some plays in this one. The Bad: Let’s start by saying that Ben Hicks has been put in a tough situation; the freshman from Hewitt Midway has been thrust into the starting role in the quarterback-heavy Chad Morris offense at least a year earlier than was expected. So we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s looked like a guy who’s a year too early. Hicks dropped a few dimes in this one — his 14-yard touchdown pass to James Proche across his body was particularly pretty — but he looked uncomfortable for most of the game. His two interceptions were ugly, missing the intended receivers badly, and he could never get in a rhythm. And considering the running game is officially MIA, it’s reasonable to expect the Ponies’ offense to struggle until Hicks gets his sea legs. The Ugly: All aspects of the ground game stunk for the Mustangs in this one. The running game just cannot get anything going, averaging just under 3 yards per carry (and honestly, the numbers don’t do the Ponies’ rushing