College Football Week 10: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (Updated all day Saturday)

[caption id="attachment_26992" align="alignright" width="350"]Photo by Hoss McBain Photo by Hoss McBain[/caption] The day started poorly for the Lone Star state when Texas A&M all but dashed any hopes of reaching the College Football Playoff with a shocking loss at Mississippi State. The rest is turning out to be pretty entertaining. UTEP 42, Houston Baptist 10The Good: Aaron Jones, man. He’s the best Miner by far, but we don’t get to see him break out like this very often since, frankly, UTEP is overmatched a lot. But during a rough year, the Miners needed to hammer a weaker foe and they took care of business against the Huskies. Better yet, Jones romped, running for 228 yards and 2 scores. He averaged over 16 yards per carry, and that made life even easier for quarterback Ryan Metz, who cruised with 16 completions on 21 attempts for 191 yards and 3 touchdowns. The offense struck some semblance of balance, and that hasn’t happened much in the past couple of months. The Bad: Against a 3-5 FCS opponent, UTEP should be a lot better than this. It was a comfortable victory, for sure, but it should have been merciless domination. But the way the year has gone for the Miners, this isn’t the time for nitpicking. Party in El Paso tonight. May be the last one this season. – Max Thompson, DCTF Director of DigitalLouisiana Tech 45, North Texas 24The Good: North Texas jumped out to a strong start offensively. Quarterback Mason Fine was 16-of-18 for 147 yards and a touchdown in the first half. He ended 23-of-34 for 2017 yards, a touchdown and an interception. Running back Jeffrey Wilson led the team with 66 yards rushing and 61 yards receiving. Seven different receivers caught passes for North Texas, six with at least two. North Texas scored 14 points by early in the second quarter after being shutout in the first half of the UTSA loss last week. The Bad: North Texas’ offense struggled to find consistency. Fine was efficient as a passer. The long reception for a Mean Green receiver was 32 yards with the team averaging just nine yards per reception. Wilson, a running back, averaged a team high 15.3 yards per catch. The rest of the team averaged 7.7 yards per reception. Louisiana Tech averaged 5.7 yards per rush. The Ugly: North Texas couldn’t slow down Hutto product Ryan Higgins and the Louisiana Tech passing game. Higgins, a fifth-year senior quarterback, passed for 253 yards and four touchdowns on 30 attempts. Wide receiver Carlos Henderson was unstoppable, catching eight passes for 133 yards and all four touchdowns for the Bulldogs. – Mike Craven, DCTF Senior WriterTCU 62, Baylor 22The Good: Gary Patterson will be wondering where this team has been in big games earlier in the season. Kyle Hicks was a monster, rushing for 192 yards and five – yes, five – touchdowns. Kenny Hill’s efficiency wasn’t great, but his decision making was better than it’s been in some of the Frogs’ losses. Hill threw for 244 yards and ran for another 85, keeping drives alive with his feet when things broke down. Credit to him for bouncing back strong after getting pulled in a tough loss to Texas Tech last week. Hill and Hicks both ran for an average of around 7 yards per carry. And his defense was rocking it. TCU gave up three yards per carry to the No. 4 rushing team in the country. Seth Russell was never comfortable. It was all working. The Bad: The Bears couldn’t get out of their own way. TCU’s shown a number of flaws throughout this season, but when you commit 11 penalties for 121 yards in your eighth game of the season, you’re asking for trouble. The Bears’ normally passable defense was gouged on the ground, surrendering a whopping 431 yards to the TCU ground attack. The Ugly: Baylor is a good team, but it’s not the No. 17 team in the country. The Bears did not look like a 6-1 team unless you understand in advance that most of those wins came against featherweights. Factor in everything else swirling around the program right now and the implosion many feared possible feels imminent – if we’re not already seeing it.  – Max Thompson, DCTF Director of DigitalMemphis 51, SMU 7The Bad: This was not the follow-up the Mustangs were looking for after back-to-back victories over Houston and Tulane, but it was also never a game they were favored to win. It showed. The Tigers bludgeoned SMU to the tune of 474 total yards, with 314 through the air. No one would confused SMU’s defense for a strength, but Mike Norvell’s offense is finding its stride in Memphis, and it ruined homecoming on the Hilltop. The Ugly: The Mustangs turned the ball over three times and recorded no takeaways themselves. Quarterback Ben Hicks couldn’t get much going, throwing for just 170 yards and a score on 17-of-31 attempts. The offense only converted 6 of 16 third down attempts. Memphis averaged 4.1 yards per rush and 9.5 yards per pass. It was clinical.  – Max Thompson, DCTF Director of DigitalFlorida Atlantic 42, Rice 25The Good: The large portion of this article is going to be a liquid magma-hot indictment of the Owls, so in the interest of balance, I want to say some nice things about the Rice offense: they have some nice young pieces at the skill positions. Austin Walter (a sophomore) provides the Owls with perhaps their only true home-run threat in the running game. Kylen Granson (a freshman) and Temi Alaka (a junior) are viable weapons in the passing game. Those are pieces to build around in the future. And while senior quarterback Tyler Stehling won’t be back next year, it’s worth noting that he put together a solid effort today. The Ugly: We’re skipping over The Bad and getting straight to the worst of it: the 2016 Rice squad is a truly dreadful football team. The reasoning boils down to two units. The offensive line is a sieve. Tyler Stehling spent most of this afternoon — as he has most Saturday afternoons in the fall — fleeing for his life under the pressure of a truly ordinary pass rush. This is not some amazing Florida Atlantic defensive front; they entered the game tied for 85^th in the nation in sacks, averaging 1.88 per game. Today? Five sacks. That means that a quarter of Florida Atlantic’s sacks for the season have come against Rice. The Owls may still be recovering from that team-wide stomach bug, but there comes a point where you expect better. And then there’s the defense, which put together one of the most humiliating performances in recent Texas college football history. Florida Atlantic is an actual trash offense — 119^th in the nation in total offense, averaging just 334 yards per game. And how many yards did Florida Atlantic manage against Rice? XXX yards. Nearly twice their season average. The most yards a Florida Atlantic team has put up in nearly a decade. And it’s not like this was a matter of being horrific defending the pass or miserable defending the run. Rice managed to be both. The Owls allowed FAU quarterback Jason Driskel — the non-dairy substitute version of failed Florida quarterback Jeff Driskel — to top the 300-yard mark for just the third time in his career. The Owls also allowed FAU running back Devin Singletary — a freshman, mind you — to nearly double his season rushing total with 252 yards and three scores. It was as pathetic a defensive display as you may ever see. What’s the answer? Clearly the Owls are under-manned from a talent perspective, but there’s something else going on here. Even woefully under-manned teams don’t get embarrassed at home by the second-worst team in Conference USA. At some point, the Rice failures will fall at the feet of head coach David Bailiff. —Greg Tepper, DCTF managing editorUTSA 45, Middle Tennessee State 25 [caption id="attachment_26988" align="alignright" width="350"]Photo by Mary Scott McNabb Photo by Mary Scott McNabb[/caption] The Good: The Roadrunners earned maybe their best road win in program history. UTSA entered the game as a 20-point underdog on most books, but left one win away from bowl eligibility for the first time in program history. UTSA dominated the trenches on both sides of the ball, outrushing Middle Tennessee State 270-110 in the game. Running backs Jarveon Williams and Jalen Rhodes combined for 190 yards and four touchdowns on 39 carries. The Roadrunner defensive line racked up five sacks against a team that entered the game allowing five on the season. Five different players accounted for those five sacks. The UTSA offensive line didn’t allow a sack. MTSU quarterback Brent Stockstill was knocked out of the game in the first half after starting 8-for-11 for 98 yards and a touchdown. His replacement threw three interceptions. If things fall right, a road game against Louisiana Tech is for first place in the division. The Bad: Not much to nitpick in a 20-point victory away from home when the team enters as a 20-point underdog. The game changed when Stockstill was knocked out of the game, but he doesn’t play on the line of scrimmage and UTSA won the game there no matter who played quarterback. UTSA didn’t need much from the passing game. The leading receiver had 38 yards. Quarterback Dalton Sturm was 9-of-20 for 108 yards and two interceptions. He did account for a touchdown through the air and on the ground. – Mike Craven, DCTF Senior Writer Appalachian State 35, Texas State 10The Good: Um…Texas State’s punter and kicker had a nice game? Lumi Kaba, the Bobcats’ punter, is quietly putting together a really nice year — he ranks 20^th nationally with a 44.3 yards per punt average —and continued that today, helping to pin Appalachian State back. And Marcus Ripley represented 40 percent of Texas State’s scoring in this one, putting through a 25-yard field goal and an extra point. That’s probably the list of good things to come out of this game for the Bobcats. The Bad: Appalachian State is not an offensive powerhouse — they win with defense — which is what makes Texas State’s complete inability to stop the run so frustrating. The Mountaineers carved up Texas State’s front seven to the tune of more than 8 yards per carry, and gave up another four touchdowns through the air. Everything was working for the Mountaineers, and it started up front, as Texas State’s defensive line was completely overwhelmed. The defensive film session will not be a fun one for Everett Withers’ bunch. The Ugly: Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Texas State’s complete lack of a running game is short-circuiting the Bobcats’ attack. This was perhaps their worst outing yet (albeit against a very good Appalachian State defense): 28 carries for 14 yards…and ten of them came on a Tyler Jones scramble. Stedman Mayberry may have had the lone touchdown of the game, but the offensive line is getting throttled up front, and basically telling Tyler Jones that he has to do it himself. And as good as Tyler Jones is, he can’t be responsible for the entire offense. Texas State could see some improvement in the final four games of the season, but if they do, it’ll have to come with a renewed commitment to the ground game. – Greg Tepper, DCTF Managing Editor Texas 45, Texas Tech 37 [caption id="attachment_26986" align="alignleft" width="350"]Photo by Gary Sanderson Photo by Gary Sanderson[/caption] The Good: D’Onta Foreman went all D’Onta Foreman on Tech’s atrocious run defense, and he nearly rewrote all the Texas record books in the process. The big bruiser finished his day with 341 rushing yards on 33 carries for an average of better than 10 yards per carry and three touchdowns. The game was his 10th straight 100-yard effort, meaning he can tie Earl Campbell’s school record for consecutive 100-yard games next week. People will say, but they gave up 45 points! But you know what, Tech’s defense deserves some credit in this one for keeping Tech in the game in crucial moments. The Red Raiders forced two key turnovers, including one that was returned 100 yards for a touchdown by Douglas Coleman in a key 14-point swing in the first half. They also had a key fourth-down stop with a minute left that gave the offense a few good shots at the end zone to tie the game before Patrick Mahomes inadvertently threw into triple coverage to end the game. Da’Leon Ward continued his promising start to his career with 23 carries for 93 yards and a score as a true freshman running back trying to replace Oakland Raiders rookie De’Andre Washington. The Bad: The Longhorns had nine penalties for 99 yards, including a couple of personal fouls to extend Tech drives. They also had a blatant chop block that negated a Tyrone Swoopes touchdown pass just a couple of plays before that aforementioned Coleman 100-yard fumble return. The Red Raiders, as proficient as they are on offense, had some questionable play-calling late in the game and turned the ball over on downs with a few minutes to play after Patrick Mahomes was stuffed on fourth-and-1, just moments after he’d run the same play fourth-and-inches. Fool me once… The Ugly: It ended up all working out, but if Texas had lost this game, Charlie Strong might’ve been fired before heading back to Austin. The Longhorns’ decision to have Foreman on the sideline and call two straight 18-wheeler runs with Swoopes backfired as Tech got the ball back on a turnover on downs when the Longhorns could’ve easily run the clock out. – Adam Boedeker, DCTF ContributorMississippi State 35, Texas A&M 28 [caption id="attachment_26984" align="alignright" width="350"]Photo by Jerome Hicks Photo by Jerome Hicks[/caption] The Good: There weren’t a lot of positives in this one for the Aggies, but Christian Kirk was certainly one of the few. The explosive sophomore just about single-handedly kept A&M (7-2, 4-2) close with his playmaking ability, and took a punt return 93-yards for a touchdown just before halftime. Kirk added two 54-yard catches in the second half – one for a touchdown, and one that went down to the 14-yard line that the Aggies couldn’t capitalize on. The A&M defense had two interceptions in the end-zone, keeping the Mississippi State (4-5, 2-3) offense from scoring on two key possessions. Those plays were key to making the game close down the stretch, but in the end it wasn’t enough to overcome such a slow start to the game. The Bad: Trevor Knight started the game 0-5 through the air, and did not look good while missing several open receivers in the first quarter. Knight had 54 yards rushing and a 19-yard touchdown run, but his early struggles were over shadowed by an injury to his throwing shoulder on that run. Knight came out of the locker room in street clothes and was replaced by junior Jake Hubenak. The Aggies had a chance to tie the game with less than a minute remaining in the fourth quarter, but Hubenak was intercepted after throwing into triple coverage. The injury was bad news for A&M, and the defense is still dealing with a slowed Myles Garrett who has been dealing with an injury that’s been bothering him for several weeks now. Mississippi State dominated the Aggies defense on the ground, as sophomores Nick Fitzgerald and Aeris Williams both went for over 100 yards rushing. The Bulldogs looked dominant against what was supposed to be the second-best team in the SEC for just their second conference win this season. The Ugly: Obviously, the loss knocks the Aggies out of contention for the playoff. A lot of people were shocked with A&M being ranked No. 4 – ahead of undefeated Washington – and the Aggies justified those concerns quickly Saturday. With so many key injuries now on both sides of the ball, A&M will be lucky to finish well enough down the stretch to secure an important bowl game. – Brady Keane, DCTF Intern