College Football Week 5 Recap

Game of the Week: Arkansas 28 vs. Texas A&M 35 OT

            Arkansas seemed to have the game locked up, but Texas A&M exhibited something that no Aggie team under Johnny Manziel had ever exhibited…toughness. That is in no way a knock on the Cleveland QB/WR/Decoy, but it was so clear just how dependent the Aggies were on Manziel bailing them out game after game. However, the A&M defense finally answered the bell by shutting down one of the most potent rushing attacks in the country. What needs to be taken out of Saturday’s game, is that head coach Kevin Sumlin just may have created his ideal team, just one season after the departure of his Heisman trophy winning quarterback. The plan was to rebuild…but instead Sumlin may have constructed an SEC winning team. If the defense can continue to get better, they may just come out on top of a wild, wide-open SEC.

Player of the Week: J.T. Barrett, QB, Ohio State (26-36, 330 yards, 4 TDS)

            This may be the game we look back at and say “This is the game Urban Meyer found his next quarterback…to contend for a title.”  Perhaps Barrett was thrust into the spotlight to quick, which explains the lackluster Ohio State offense during the first three games. But it all clicked for Barrett who was able to compete with Gunner Kiel who also threw for 300+ yards and 4 touchdowns. In all likelihood, Ohio State is out of the championship/playoff mix. But Barrett is a true freshman, and he is destined to improve. Barrett will have Buckeye fans forgetting the loss of Braxton Miller sooner rather than later.

Disappointment of the Week: Christian Hackenberg, QB, Penn State

            He has the ideal size, arm strength, and look to be not only a great college quarterback, but a great NFL prospect, however Christian Hackenburg has been a large disappointment so far this season. Completing less than 50% of his passes on more than 40 passes, resulting in Penn State losing to lowly Northwestern. Hackenburg has now gone three straight games without throwing a touchdown pass and has thrown two more interceptions on the year than touchdowns (4:6). Perhaps it is new coach James Franklin’s system that is causing the problems, but it is not as if Franklin’s spread offense has many different variations than Bill O’Brien’s spread offense had. If the issue is verbiage, or anything semantically new with the offense, that will still fall on Hackenburg’s inability to make adjustments. This once prized prospect, may not recover any time this season.

Game to Watch: The SEC West

            Texas A&M vs. Mississippi State, Ole Miss vs. Alabama, and Auburn vs. LSU, just take your pick. All of these games are must watch and will have large playoff implications!

Coach on the Hot Seat: Brady Hoke…still

            It’s as if Brady Hoke is finding new ways to fire himself, but cannot get the job down. He is even terrible at getting fired! Regress for three straight years? Nope that won’t do it. Have a losing record to your three rivals Ohio State, Michigan State, and Notre Dame? Not enough. Oh, play your prized sophomore quarterback until he gets a concussion and continue to play him? Nope, if anything that gets a vote of confidence! Brady Hoke has turned into the George Constanza of college football. It seems the only thing Hoke can do to get himself fired is to rundown Tom Brady and beat him with a cast iron statue of Gerald Ford, then celebrating by urinating the gravesite of Bo Schembechler.

Playoff Prediction: 1. Florida State  2. Alabama   3. Oregon    4. UCLA

            I am still not sold on who that fourth spot will be in the playoff. Last week was Georgia, but they look to be a quarterback away form the playoff, and I’m still not sold on Oklahoma being able to run the tables. UCLA although has finally been able to figure out the offense, and with that defense, they could lose in the PAC-12 title game and still get that last spot in the tournament.

2015 NFL Mock Draft

Pick	Team	Player	College	Position
1	Oakland	Marcus Mariota	Oregon	QB
2	St. Louis	Andrus Peat	Stanford	OT
3	Jacksonville	Todd Gurley	Georgia	RB
4	New York J	Jameis Winston	Florida State	QB
5	Tampa Bay	Randy Gregory	Nebraska	DE
6	Cleveland (from Buffalo)	Leonard Williams	USC	DE/OLB
7	Cleveland	Amari Cooper	Alabama	WR
8	Houston	P.J. Williams	Florida State	CB
9	Washington	Landon Collins	Alabama	S
10	Tennessee	Shilique Calhoun	Michigan State	DE/OLB
11	New England	Brandon Scherff	Iowa	OT
12	Minnesota	Melvin Gordon	Wisconsin	RB