Sweetest College Football Satur-(Day)

Sweetest College Football Satur-(Day)
By: Jonathan Hood

I live for Saturday’s.

I love college football because each week, there is always something to look forward to.

My college football Sweetest Day began after co-hosting Talkin’ Baseball with Bruce Levine.

# 20-Oklahoma vs. #3-Texas in the Red River Shootout

It wasn’t a great game, but I’m sure that Texas Coach Mack Brown will take the victory in one of college football’s oldest rivarly’s.

I was looking forward to a great QB matchup between The Longhorn’s Colt McCoy and Heisman Trophy winner Sooners QB Sam Bradford. Instead we saw Bradford knocked out of the game in the 1st Quarter. The Longhorns Aaron Williams sacked Bradford and he had to leave the game after re-aggravating his left shoulder. The same shoulder he injured in Oklahoma’s- BYU game in September.

As of Sunday, Sooners coach Bob Stoops said he didn’t know when or if Bradford will return.

Sooners Backup QB Landry Jones will need some seasoning as the true freshman was intercepted twice in the fourth quarter.

McCoy was good enough to help Texas win 16-13 even though he wasn’t sharp. (21 of 39(127 yards 1 TD and 1 INT.)

Oklahoma had five turnovers, there most since 2006 and was held to –16 rushing yards. With or without Bradford, the Sooners are an average team in the Big 12.

And what about Texas? They weren’t stellar against Oklahoma in a high profile game.

What does that do for the (6-0) Longhorns in the polls?

In the BCS standings, Texas is #3. Is Mack Brown’s team really the 3rd best team in college football? After watching them Saturday, it makes me wonder if they can win in convincing fashion on the road against Missouri (4-2) and #15 Oklahoma State (5-1) in back-to-back weeks?

# 6-USC 34 vs. #25-Notre Dame 27
I knew that Notre Dame was going to lose the game, I just couldn’t determine how many points. USC is a track team. The Trojans are so swift that I thought Notre Dame would grow the grass longer on their field to slow them down.
USC head coach Pete Carroll is one of the best leaders of men in college football. I really appreciate his youthful enthusiasm that he has for each game.

I thought if the Irish had any chance to win the game against the Trojans, Notre Dame QB Jimmy Clausen would have to exploit the USC secondary. In the second half, Clausen proved why he should be in New York City and be in the running for the Heisman Trophy. Clausen was 24/43 good for 260 yards and 2 TD’s. Clausen’s helped ND come from a 34-14 deficit with a 2 yard TD run and a 15 yard pass to Wide Receiver Golden Tate to make it 33- 27 with 7:28 remaining in the game. The game was very interesting throughout, especially at the end. Clausen had a chance to tie the game with 0:00 left on the clock when the pass fell incomplete.

Trojan’s QB’s Matt Barkley really impressed me. He set a career high with 380 yards passing and two touchdowns. Barkley, a true freshman is learning on the job, but he really could yet another cornerstone QB for USC. The next Mark Sanchez? The next Carson Palmer? I look forward to seeing more from Barkley in the next seven games.

#1-Florida 23-Arkansas 20

My third game that I saw was #1 Florida (6-0) against Arkansas. I wanted to know if the Gators were as mediocre as they played against LSU several weeks ago or would they come out with a superior offense against the Razorbacks.

Florida is good, but they are more survivor’s than warriors on the gridiron.

After a scoreless opening quarter, I’m thinking, ‘Oh no, not another low scoring, grind-it-out-Gators game!’ I lived that nightmare two weeks ago and was hoping for some sizzle from the #1 team in college football.

When you look at the statistics in this game, there are some similarities.

Total yards-Arkansas 357-Florida 391
Passing- Arkansas 224-Florida 255
Rushing- Arkansas 133-Florida 136

But there are two reasons why Arkansas is unranked and now (3-3) this season.

The Razorbacks couldn’t capitalize on the Gators four turnovers and they don’t have a special QB like Florida’s Tim Tebow. He rushed for 69 yards on 27 carries and the Arkansas defense looked lost. I was thinking, he’s either going to run right or run left, why couldn’t LSU or Arkansas do anything about it? Tebow and Florida coach Urban Meyer are just that good . . .so far.

I saw some weaknesses on Florida’s team that could be exposed if a team would take advantage of them. Arkansas defense is the worst in the SEC, yet they stopped Florida’s running game holding Running Back Jeff Demps to (9 carries for 54 yards, 1 TD) and their defense, at times made some big plays, but in the end Caleb Sturgis’ 27 yard field goal gave Florida there 6th win of the season.

I’m an SEC fan, so I enjoy watching two teams from the conference play, but after watching the game it made me wonder if Florida will be able to maintain their #1 spot? They appear to be a heavyweight fighter that is in round 9 of a 12 round fight and weakening.

#2- Alabama 20- #22-South Carolina 6

Nick Saban, in my view, has the number 1 team in college football right now. I know the polls don’t say that, but I’m very impressed with the Crimson Tide (7-0) so far this season.
To date, Alabama defeated 3 ranked teams convincingly.

No. 7- Virginia Tech- 34-24
No. 20- Mississippi- 22-3
No. 22- South Carolina- 20-6

The only hiccup on their schedule could be LSU on November 7th, otherwise, Alabama could run the table to a BCS National Championship game. We’ll see.

Bama’s tailback Mark Ingram had a career high 246 yards on 24 carries and 1 TD. (3rd best in Alabama history). Ingram was the only reason to watch that game last Saturday. He was awesome!

Ingram has a motor as he has rushed for 568 yards in 3 games against ranked teams.

This game didn’t have great QB play. South Carolina’s Stephen Garcia was lackluster. His first pass was an interception. Alabama’s Greg McElroy either had to get out of Ingram’s way because of the wildcat offense or just handed the ball to an electric Ingram who had some jaw dropping runs.


I saw four games that I thoroughly enjoyed. I can’t wait to see if next Saturday’s college slate will be as sweet as Sweetest Day.