Longhorns
Roped and Tied; Seven Games Go To Overtime
by Mike Mitchell
9/10/06
2:00 am edt
Seven games went into
extra periods on Saturday but Ohio State only needed the standard
four quarters to buck Texas.
The Buckeyes,
ranked 3rd going into the game in the CCR Top 119, bested the
Longhorns 24-7 in Austin. The win avenged Ohio State's 25-22
loss in Columbus last year. It also ended the Longhorns' 21-game
winning streak while extending the Buckeyes' string to 9 games.
More importantly, the loss put a severe hurt on Texas' chances
to repeat as college football champions, a feat it was projected
by the computer to accomplish in a rematch with USC.
Ohio State QB Troy Smith threw for 269 yards and 2 TD's, including
1 to Ted Ginn, Jr. who hauled in 5 passes for a total of 97 yards.
Redshirt freshman QB Colt McCoy threw for 154 yards, 1 INT and
a TD that tied the game at 7 in the second quarter. But Ohio
State retook the lead just before halftime on its next possession
and never looked back.
.
Texas had scored at least 40 points in 12 straight games since
their last meeting with Ohio State when the Buckeye "D"
limited them to 22 points.
OVERTIME
GAMES
No. 7 Texas Tech beat No. 54 UTEP 38-35 in overtime. The Red
Raiders intercepted a pass on UTEP's first overtime possession,
then kicked the game-winning 49-yard field goal after a touchdown
was called back for a holding penalty and an excessive celebration
penalty was tacked on, too. The Miners knotted the game at 35
with 1:04 left in regulation but a penalty-aided drive gave Texas
Tech a shot at a 51-yard field goal which missed.
A blocked extra point gave No. 19 Boston College the room it
needed to beat No. 13 Clemson 34-33 in double-overtime. The Eagles
scored on their ensuing possession and converted the PAT for
the win and their second overtime defeat of the Tigers in two
years.
No. 100 Syracuse failed to score on seven plays from the 2-yard
line in the second overtime, preserving No. 24 Iowa's 20-13 lead.
The wild road win for the Hawkeyes came without the services
of QB Drew Tate due to an abdominal injury.
No. 57 Virginia averted an 0-2 start with a 13-12 overtime win
at home over No. 64 Wyoming when the Cowboys missed an extra
point wide right that would have tied the game and sent it to
another extra period.
No. 75 Bowling Green turned back No. 114 Buffalo 48-40 in triple
overtime. Both of Buffalo's games under new head coach Turner
Gill have been decided in overtime. His team beat Temple 9-3
last week in one extra period.
In other overtime games, No. 32 Purdue turned back No. 88 Miami
(Ohio) 38-31; No. 101 Army defeated No. 113 Kent State 17-14.
LAST-SECOND
HEROICS
A 1-yard touchdown run on the game's final play gave No. 78 Akron
a 20-17 upset win at No. 52 N. C. State. The score concluded
a 67-yard drive in 1:07 after N. C. State had taken the lead
on an 11-yard touchdown pass. The lead changed hands four times
in the fourth quarter.
No. 38 Wake Forest blocked Duke's 28-yard field goal attempt
on the game's final play to preserve a 14-13 comeback victory.
The Demon Deacons had rallied to take their first lead of the
game on a touchdown with 1:28 left. The near-win for No. 117
Duke came a week after the Blue Devils were skunked 13-0 by 1-AA
Richmond.
Freshman walk-on Leigh Tiffin nailed a 47-yard field goal as
time expired to lift No. 18 Alabama to a 13-10 home win over
No. 80 Vanderbilt.
NEARLY
DEAD
(With
apologies to the writers of the movie, "The Princess Bride")
Oregon, Florida State, and Tennessee came close to being upset.
No. 9 Oregon scored the go-ahead touchdown with 4:55 left to
play at No. 21 Fresno State, then stopped the Bulldogs on two
possessions to secure the 31-24 win.
The No. 17 Seminoles avoided the upset, rallying to beat No.
96 Troy at home 24-17. The Trojans had leads of 3-0, 10-7 and
17-10. The Seminoles tied the score at 17 with 6:12 left and
scored the game-winning touchdown with 1:56 remaining.
No. 35 Tennessee beat No. 73 Air Force 31-30 when the Falcons
elected to go for two points, and failed, with 1:34 to go in
the game. Air Force had cut a 31-17 gap to 7 points on a touchdown
with 2:41 left. They recovered the following onside kick and
marched downfield again. After a sweep right was stuffed for
a 2-yard loss on the conversion try, Air Force recovered another
onside kick but was penalized for being offsides on the kick-off.
The next onside kick was recovered by Tennessee and they ran
out the clock.
THAT
HURTS
Two of the top teams in the MAC were upset as No. 53 Toledo was
whipped 31-10 by No. 92 Western Michigan, and No. 65 Northern
Illinois was beaten 35-23 by No. 86 Ohio. The computer had Toledo
projected as the MAC champs.
AMONG
OTHER HIGHLY-RANKED TEAMS
No.
4 Virginia Tech moved to 9-0 in ACC road games with a 35-10 rout
of No. 82 North Carolina. Only a late, meaningless touchdown
made the score that respectable as the Hokies led 35-3 before
giving up their first TD of the season.
No. 6 Michigan beat No. 93 Central Michigan 41-17 in just the
second meeting between the two schools since 1931. In 2003, Michigan
won 45-7.
No. 8 Louisville clobbered No. 119 Temple 62-0. No. 12 West Virginia
beat 1-AA Eastern Washington 52-3.
No. 14 Notre Dame dispatched No. 10 Penn State 41-17.
No. 12 West Virginia handled 1-AA Eastern Washington 52-3.
No. 15 Georgia handed Steve Spurrier his first shutout since
his first year at Duke (a 7-0 loss to Rutgers 193 games ago)
as the Bulldogs blanked No. 51 South Carolina 18-0. Spurrier
only lost one time in 12 games against the Bulldogs when he coached
at Florida. He's lost both meetings as the coach of South Carolina,
dropping last year's game 17-15 in Athens. The Gamecocks oddly
have a shutout win (15-0 last week at Mississippi State) and
a shutout loss in the first two games of the season.
No. 20 TCU dismissed UC-Davis, a 1-AA school, 46-13. UC-Davis
scored an upset win at Stanford last season.
No. 23 Oklahoma broke free from a 13-13 halftime tie to drop
no. 69 Washington 37-20.
No. 25 Wisconsin gained an unimpressive 34-13 win over 1-AA Western
Illinois to improve new head coach Bret Bielema's record to 2-0.
IN
OTHER ACTION
New Hampshire led almost the entire game at No. 33 Northwestern
as the 1-AA Wildcats beat the 1-A Wildcats 34-17.
Five turnovers nearly made No. 37 Navy a loser to 1-AA UMass.
The Midshipmen recovered from a 17-14 third-quarter deficit to
win 21-20.
No. 43 Cal recovered from its 35-18 loss at Tennessee last week
by dismissing No. 26 Minnesota 42-17. The loss ended the Golden
Gophers' 17-game winning streak against non-conference opponents,
most of whom have been widely considered as big-time cupcakes.
No. 45 Kansas escaped with a 21-19 home victory over No. 106
Louisiana-Monroe. The Warhawks botched an extra point after getting
to within 21-13 in the 3rd quarter. That forced them to go for
two points after a 4th-quarter score which resulted in an incomplete
pass.
No. 68 Indiana downed No. 84 Ball State 24-23 on a 35-yard field
goal with 11:35 to play. The Cardinals led 17-0 before the Hoosiers
got on the board midway through the second quarter.
No. 89 Mississippi State is 0-2 over-all, 0-2 in the SEC, and
scoreless on the season after a 34-0 drubbing at the hands of
No. 11 Auburn. The Bulldogs lost 15-0 to South Carolina last
week. Both games were played on their home field in Starkville.
No. 110 San Jose State wiped out a 34-14 second-quarter deficit
to defeat No. 72 Stanford 35-34 and drop the Cardinal to 0-2.
Stanford missed the extra point on their first touchdown and
that wound up being the difference in the ballgame - well, that
and the fact that Stanford blew a really big lead.
No. 111 FIU led No. 45 South Florida 20-14 when it fumbled at
its own 29-yard line with 2:40 remaining. The Bulls took the
lead on a 29-yard touchdown pass two plays later to win 21-20.
It was the second straight one-point loss for the Panthers to
begin the season after losing 7-6 at Middle Tennessee in the
opener.
WEEKEND
STARTERS
On Thursday night, No. 27 Boise State scored the game's final
42 points in a 42-14 crushing of No. 48 Oregon State for their
32nd straight regular season home win.
On Friday night, No. 46 Pitt turned back homestanding Cincinnati
33-15 in the Big East opener for both schools. The Bearcats were
ranked 70th.
PAC-WAC
SPLIT
The four-game showdown between PAC-10 and WAC teams was a draw.
Oregon beat Fresno State, and Arizona State drilled Nevada. For
the WAC, San Jose State rallied past Stanford, and Boise State
clobbered Oregon State.
The PAC-10 won the cumulative score, 133-121.
BIG
12 DOMINANCE
The four-game showdown between BIG 12 and SUN BELT schools was
about as lopsided as expected. The Big 12 took all four games
as Oklahoma State beat Arkansas State, Kansas State downed FAU,
Texas A&M handled Louisiana-Lafayette, and Kansas held off
Louisiana-Monroe. The game between Kansas and La.-Monroe was
the only close won as the Jayhawks eked out a 21-19 victory.
The other three games were decided by an average of 39 points.
WAKE-UP
CALL
Last
week, 1-AA Montana State celebrated a 19-10 win at Colorado.
on Saturday, the Bobcats were upended by Division 2 Chadron State
35-24.
1-A vs. 1-AA
The NCAA has officially re-named them the Bowl Division (1-A)
and the Championship Division (1-AA).
29 teams played 1-AA schools
last week and 3 were beaten. 14 1-A schools played 1-AA teams
this week and only 1 was beaten as New Hampshire pounced on Northwestern
34-17.
The 1-A schools went 52-2 in such games last year. So far, they're
39-4 this season. Since the beginning of the 2003 season, the 1-A schools are now
203-22 in games played against 1-AA schools.
Over 75 schools took the opportunity of a 12th game to schedule
a cupcake opponent during the 2006 season.
COMPUTER
HITS AND MISSES
The
computer picked the Boston College upset of Clemson. The Tigers
were favored by the Vegas lines but the computer liked the Eagles
by a mere quarter of a point. The 34-33 BC win was decided in
double-overtime.
On the other hand, the computer also liked Penn State against
8.5 odds with Notre Dame, picking the Irish to win by just 2.27
points. Instead, the Irish rolled 41-17.
STREAKS
USC was idle this week. The Trojans have won 32 straight regular
season games and also own a nation's-best streak of 27 home victories.
USC has won 23 straight games against conference foes. USC's
streak of 34 straight wins over-all came to an end in a 41-38
loss to Texas in the BCS title game at the Rose Bowl. The 34-game
over-all winning streak stands as the longest in PAC-10 history,
breaking their own record of 25 games set in 1931-1933.
Texas saw its 21-game winning streak come to a close in the 24-7
loss to Ohio State.
TCU now owns the nation's consecutive wins streak with 12 after
a 46-13 win over Cal-Davis.
Boise State has won 32 consecutive regular season home
games after its 42-14 drubbing of Oregon State on Thursday night.
The Broncos have never lost a home game to a WAC opponent (20-0).
New Mexico State ended it's nation-leading losing streak at 13
games with a 30-15 victory over 1-AA SE Louisiana in the opening
week but ran its losing streak to 1-A teams to 14 with a 34-28
loss to state rival New Mexico on Saturday.
Temple owns the nation's longest losing streak - now at 14 games
- after a 62-0 home loss to Louisville.
Syracuse has lost 11 straight after a 20-13 loss at home in 2
OT's to Iowa.
NEW
COACHES
The
2006 season introduces 11 coaching changes. Two of the new coaches
went head-to-head on opening weekend when Turner Gill and Buffalo
beat Al Golden and Temple 9-3 in overtime. We'll track the progress
of the new coaches throughout the season.
Boise State, 2-0 under Chris Petersen, beat Oregon State 42-14.
Kansas State, 2-0 under Ron Prince, beat FAU 45-0.
Wisconsin, 2-0 under Bret Bielema, beat 1-AA Western Illinois
34-10.
Buffalo, 1-1 with Turner Gill, lost to Bowling Green 48-40 in
overtime.
Middle Tennessee, 1-1 under Rick Stockstill, lost to Maryland
24-10.
Northwestern, 1-1 under Pat Fitzgerald, lost to 1-AA New Hampshire
34-17.
San Diego State, 0-1 under Chuck Long, was idle.
Colorado, 0-2 under Dan Hawkins, lost to Colorado State 14-10.
Idaho, 0-2 under Dennis Erickson, lost to Washington State 56-10.
Rice, 0-2 under Todd Graham, lost to UCLA 26-16.
Temple, 0-2 with Al Golden. lost to Louisville 62-0. |