Brett Hundley Might Be the Nation’s MVP and Other Things We Learned in Week 5 in College Football
Top teams escaped with some big wins while the first big-name coach of the season got the axe. Here are some of the big stories from this week in college football.
Brett Hundley Might Be the Most Valuable Player in the Country
UCLA is good, don’t get me wrong. But they’re just that—good enough to win most games, but not great or solid enough to be a contender to take down Stanford or Oregon. But with a healthy Brett Hundley, the Bruins are a serious challenger in the Pac-12. After leaving last week’s game with an elbow injury, Hundley returned this week to lead UCLA to a surprisingly easy 62-27 road win over No. 15 Arizona State. Hundley was nearly perfect, throwing for 355 yards and four touchdowns on just 23 attempts.
While Hundley was certainly the catalyst for the Bruins' big win, I can’t help but think at least part of the blame should go to Arizona State’s horrendous flame helmets.
While watching the Sun Devils on the field, this is all I could think of.
The Wolfpack Almost Did it Again
North Carolina State has often served as Kryptonite to Florida State’s Superman, knocking off a Top Ten Seminoles team four times in the previous 15 years. So it wasn’t a huge surprise when Florida State fell behind early. But it still raises a red flag when the defending champs give up 24 points in the first quarter for the first time in school history and need to rally from 17 down to keep it’s school-record 20-game winning streak intact. Will Florida State be alright? Probably. Five of the Seminoles’ remaining eight games and they will face only one ranked team (No. 9 Notre Dame) the rest of the regular season. Still, FSU’s struggles the last couple of weeks put enough doubt in poll voters’ minds to cause the 'Noles to lose seven first-place votes in the AP poll and to actually drop below Alabama in the coaches’ poll.
The Best Tackle of the Weekend Wasn’t Made by a Player
You don’t expect the coaches to be making the tackles, but that’s exactly what happened in Saturday’s Ohio State/Cincinnati game. Late in the second quarter a mouth-breathing idiot "fan" ran onto the field. Before security could get to him, assistant strength coach and former Buckeye linebacker Anthony Schlegel jumped into action.
It might not exactly have been a form tackle, but it was good enough to earn the Stone Cold seal of approval.
Charlie Weis is the First Coach on the Chopping Block
The Kansas Jayhawks have mercifully pulled the plug on the Charlie Weis era, firing the coach after being shut out, 23-0, on homecoming by Texas. Under his tenure, the Jayhawks went just 6-22. They have beaten only two FBS teams and have lost 19 of 20 to Power 5 conference opponents, being held to just one touchdown in five of those last six contests.
I don’t know who will take the KU job, but I feel a little sorry for them. Jayhawk football will always play second fiddle to basketball, but the new coach will be held to unreasonably high standards left over from the Mark Mangino era.
But Brady Hoke Can’t be Far Behind
The seat under Michigan coach Brady Hoke was already getting pretty warm. But it will reach molten lava stage this week after quarterback Shane Morris was put back in the game following a hit that left him barely unable to stand under his own power. He later tried to justify his decision, saying, “Shane’s a pretty tough kid and Shane wanted to be the quarterback. Believe me, if he didn’t want to be, he would have come to the sideline, or stayed down.” (In legal circles, that's known as the "concussion schmoncussion" defense.)
While Michigan likely won’t need any additional justification to fire Hoke (three losses before October for the first time in school history, the first shutout loss in three decades, worse records each year, etc.), in this era of concussion awareness, Hoke’s obvious indifference toward player safety just gave UM administrators all the ammunition they need whenever they decide to pull the trigger.