Written by Jesse Lamovsky

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The third weekend of October proved to be one filled with on-field upheaval. Two leading BCS contenders saw their hopes melt away under the heat of upside-minded opponents; one of those contenders fell on the play of the season thus far. Races in the Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 cracked wide-open. Unbeaten teams and individual records fell alike.

Amid the turmoil there was stability. LSU and Alabama won big to set up a confrontation for the ages, while fellow unbeatens Oklahoma State, Boise State, Stanford, Clemson, Kansas State and Houston held serve in style. All of this sets the stage for two weekends of season-defining games: Stanford-USC, Oklahoma-Kansas State, Michigan State-Nebraska this weekend, and the titanic showdown between LSU and Alabama next weekend.

The 2011 season is about to really take shape.

Game of the Week- Michigan State/Wisconsin: No one who watched this instant classic will ever forget it- especially the way it ended, with the 44-yard Hail Mary from Kirk Cousins to Keith Nichol shattering Wisconsin’s BCS title dreams and giving the Spartans an improbable 37-31 victory. Long before the final dramatic play this Saturday night thriller was an emotional rollercoaster: the Badgers dominating early in gaining a 14-0 lead; the Spartans scoring 23 unanswered points in the second period thanks in large part to a safety and two blocked kicks; Wisconsin fighting back to tie the score at 31-31 with a pair of fourth quarter touchdowns, the second with 1:26 left; the desperate final minute-and-a-half and, finally, the last play, which was initially ruled down at the Wisconsin one-yard line before being reviewed and (correctly) ruled a touchdown. What a night.

For Wisconsin it’s as nightmarish an end to its undefeated run as can be imagined. Haunting questions will linger. What if Russell Wilson hadn’t thrown an interception with his team up two touchdowns and driving in the first quarter? What if the Badgers didn’t have a field goal blocked and a punt blocked for a touchdown in the second quarter? What if Bret Beilema hadn’t called a timeout with thirty seconds remaining, giving Michigan State enough time to launch its Hail Mary Heard ‘Round the World? What if safety Jared Abbrederis had timed his leap better instead of jumping too early and allowing the Cousins heave to bounce off B.J. Cunningham and go straight to Keith Nichol?

What makes the loss especially galling is that the Badgers, in their first true test of the season, had all but weathered the storm. Down 31-17 early in the fourth quarter they mounted the type of comeback that makes champions, scoring two touchdowns to tie the score and, seemingly, set up overtime. Russell Wilson made big plays with his arm and legs, his receivers worked hard to get free and make big catches and the defense rose up and made the stops it absolutely had to make. Wisconsin did everything it had to do to come back and steal the game- something every team must to at some point if it wants to go undefeated and win a national championship. But all that effort, all that grit, went for naught- thanks to a one-in-a-million play.    

Later, Sooners: Wisconsin’s loss was shocking only in the way it happened, not that it happened in itself. Michigan State is a very good team, one that handed the Badgers their only-regular season loss in East Lansing last season. This was bound to be a tough game, maybe the toughest of the season for Wisconsin going in.

Far more shocking was Oklahoma’s 41-38 home loss to Texas Tech Saturday night. Playing a team that had lost two in a row and hadn’t won in Norman since 1996, the Sooners- owners of the nation’s longest home winning streak going in, at 39 games- were mesmerized by Tech’s quick, short passing attack and fell behind 31-7 in the third quarter before mounting a rally that was too little, too late. Oklahoma couldn’t stop the Red Raiders in the first half, couldn’t get a defensive stop after pulling to within seven early in the fourth quarter and couldn’t keep from, in all likelihood, falling out of the race for the BCS title.

(Honestly, though- how many of you wanted to see Oklahoma back in the BCS Championship Game against another SEC opponent? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)   

Wild Wild East: After three consecutive BCS losses by an average score of 40-17, the last thing the reeling Big East needed was another Cinderella story on the order of Connecticut in 2010. The best team in the conference- the only ranked team- going into last weekend was West Virginia; let the Mountaineers glide down the primrose path to the championship and a berth in a BCS game in which they, unlike their fellow Big East members, could match their opponent athletically.

Those hopes took a major hit in a topsy-turvy weekend. It all started Friday night with a pair of upsets. Louisville’s 16-14 squeaker over Rutgers wasn’t particularly surprising; not as surprising, at any rate, as what transpired in the Carrier Dome where resurgent Syracuse routed West Virginia, 49-23. While the aroused Orange defense harried Geno Smith, the offense rolled up and down the field to the tune of 443 total yards, 23 first downs and a 36:00-24:00 edge in time of possession. In moving to 5-2 on the season, Syracuse never trailed.

So now the race has been thrown into a cocked hat. One team remains undefeated in conference play: Cincinnati, which moved to 2-0 in the Big East and 6-1 overall after coming from behind to beat South Florida in Tampa, 37-34. Six teams have one loss in the conference, with the once-again underachieving USF Bulls bringing up the rear at 0-3. West Virginia is still arguably the most talented team in the league and still has every opportunity to win the title, but at this point just about anything is possible in a conference that is as unpredictable as any in major-college football.  

Gonna Be a Showdown: As the kids say, it’s on. Top-ranked Louisiana State and second-ranked Alabama will both be 8-0 and at the top of the BCS standings when they meet in a winner-take-all showdown in Tuscaloosa on November 5. Both entered their bye weeks in impressive fashion; LSU dominated from start to finish in a 45-10 blistering of Auburn while the Tide exploded in the second half to put away Tennessee, 37-6. Both play great defense; Alabama is tops in the nation in yards allowed while the Tigers are third. Both have speed and playmaking ability up and down the roster. They’re the two best teams in the country without a doubt, but only one can even reach the SEC Championship Game, let alone play for the BCS title. When LSU and Alabama meet, it’ll be as close to a de facto BCS Championship Game as we can get.

Record-Setters: It was a week of record-breaking passing performances in college football. Houston gunslinger Case Keenum shattered Timmy Chang’s FBS total-offense record in the first quarter of the unbeaten Cougars’ 63-28 rout of Marshall. Keenum wound up with 376 passing yards on the day, bringing his career yardage total to 17,173 and counting. It’s been a memorable run for the fifth-year senior from Abilene, who in terms of production has surpassed every other quarterback who has ever played big-time college football as well as fellow Cougar slingers Andre Ware, David Klingler and Kevin Kolb.

It was a memorable afternoon for Dominique Davis, as East Carolina’s senior quarterback completed his first 26 attempts Saturday against Navy. Added on to the ten straight he completed to end the previous week’s game against Memphis, Davis’s 36 consecutive completions shattered the mark of 23 straight set by Tee Martin (the guy who replaced Peyton Manning at Tennessee and also won a BCS Championship) and this other guy you might have heard of named Aaron Rodgers. The Pirates needed almost all of Davis’s heroics as they barely squeaked by the Midshipmen, 38-35.

Tales of the Macabre: Normally the most grotesque scenes at Akron’s Infocision Stadium are played out on the field- but not so last Saturday. Hours before the Zips and the Ohio Bobcats kicked off, the body of a 22-year old suicide victim was found inside the stadium. Reportedly the dead man was a University of Akron student. Reasons why the young man took his life are unknown. The game was played as scheduled, Akron losing to Ohio 37-20.

Winners of the Week

Stanford: A pretty good Washington team found out the hard way that the Cardinal is more than just Andrew Luck and a bunch of guys. Stanford bullied the Huskies with 446 rushing yards in a 65-21 runaway Saturday night, bringing the Cardinal to 7-0 on the season. Since the beginning of 2010 Stanford is 19-1, with all but three of the wins by margins of 23 points or more. Oregon, the one team to beat the Cardinal in that time, visits the Farm on November 12, but Luck and Co. has a more pressing matter- a trip to the Coliseum next week to play red-hot USC.

Nevada: The Wolfpack took early command of the WAC race on Saturday with their third straight win, a 45-38 shootout over Fresno State. Hawaii, the other legitimate challenger, comes to Reno in two weeks for what might be the critical showdown in the conference (such as it is.)   

Southern Miss: Lost in the buzz over Keenum and unbeaten Houston, the Golden Eagles are quietly putting together a nice season. They’re 6-1 and tied for first in Conference USA East after stifling explosive SMU, 27-3. At 18^th in the FBS total offense, 36^th in total defense, Southern Miss has the balance its pass-happy West counterpart lacks.

Western Kentucky: From 2008, when they joined the Sun Belt, through 2010, the ‘Toppers were a combined 2-22 in their new conference. In 2011 they’re 3-1 and winners of three straight overall after upsetting first-place Louisiana-Lafayette on Saturday.  

Losers of the Week

Oklahoma: BCS title hopes are probably by the boards for the Sooners after Saturday’s loss and with two road games against currently undefeated teams on theschedule- including next week’s trip to Manhattan to take on K-State- Big 12 Championship aspirations that once seemed a matter of course are now anything but.

UCLA: Rick Neuheisel’s troubled tenure hit rock-bottom in Tucson Thursday night. Not only were the Bruins belted 48-12 by struggling Arizona, they engaged in a middle-of-the-field brawl that ended with six of their players suspended. If Neuheisel’s players want him to keep his job they might want to show that kind of spirit within the rules of the game- they were trailing 42-7 when the fight broke out just before halftime.

Illinois: The bloom is now fully off the rose for the once-flying Illini. Their losing streak is now at two following a 6-0 start with a 21-14 loss at Purdue. Illinois’s offense is sluggish- a week after being nearly shut out by Ohio State, the Illini were blanked  by the Boilers for nearly three-and-a-half quarters, by which time it was 21-0. And things could get worse: the next three opponents are Penn State, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Notre Dame: So much for those dark-horse BCS aspirations. USC put a stop to that kind of thinking with a decisive 31-17 victory in South Bend Saturday night, a disappointment marred by yet another killer turnover deep in enemy territory, this a fumble from the USC one that the Trojans returned for a touchdown. At 4-3 Notre Dame needs to get healthy next week against Navy before heading to Winston-Salem for a sneaky-tough matchup with Wake Forest.

Navy: The Academy hasn’t had a losing season since 2002, but at 2-5 and in the throes of a five-game losing streak, they’re in grave danger of breaking that streak. As usual Navy is near the top of the nation in rushing offense; it’s the defense that has been an issue. The Middies are 94^th in the nation in total defense, including 103^rd against their own favorite weapon, the run.

 

Next: Wisconsin comes to Columbus Saturday night at 8:00 for a prime-time showdown in the ‘Shoe. It’ll be interesting to gauge the emotional temper of the Badgers. Will they come in pissed off and ready to take the anguish of the Michigan State loss out on the Buckeyes? Or will they be flat; a little demoralized over the way their national-title dreams ended? If it’s the latter, Ohio State will have a very real chance to win this game.