Where does the night go? Once again, last call is long gone. It's time to lock the doors on another Saturday. This one will be remembered for a while, however. A lot of excitement around the league on Saturday providing some good story lines. Here's a quick rundown of what transpired starting in College Station.
If only games were over at half time, Texas A&M would still be undefeated. The Aggies led Oklahoma State 20-3 at the break and looked every bit as good as advertised. Texas A&M had their way with the Cowboys up until the break but then the third quarter happened and the Aggies inexplicable meltdown began.
It was the most astonishing fact about this game; just the complete flip flop by the two teams at halftime. A&M was getting heavy pressure on Brandon Weeden and stonewalling a very good offense early in the game. Sean Porter was everywhere for the Ags defense. You could almost hear the "Man, we really do miss Dana Holgorsen," talk coming from Stillwater and the game wasn't even two quarters old.
Then the second half happened. Oklahoma State comes out and goes on an 11 play, 80 yard touchdown drive and Justin Blackmon didn't even touch the ball. The Pokes defense comes out and gets a quick stop, forcing A&M to punt.
What does the Cowboy offense do? They go on another drive, this time 12 plays covering 90 yards led by Weeden, who all of a sudden had all day to throw, capping off a great drive tossing a touchdown pass to Blackmon who made a great catch going out of bounds.
All of a sudden the Texas A&M lead is down to 20-17. How would the Aggies respond? By fumbling and throwing back-to-back interceptions on their next three drives. Ball game.
After struggling in the first half, the Pokes offensive line was impressive in the second half stonewalling any Aggie effort at getting pressure on the QB. Like the game in general, the Aggies front didn't play near as well in the second half and Tannehill wasn't near as effective as a result.
And if you're looking for another reason for Oklahoma State's success on Saturday, look no further than Weeden's distribution of the ball. Yes, Blackmon totaled his usual 11 catches, but Josh Cooper and Hubert Anyiam also had 11 and 10 catches respectively.
While Texas A&M was falling apart in College Station, Kansas State was putting together an impressive performance in south Florida against the Hurricanes.
The Wildcats came in as 12.5 point underdogs and Miami was still riding high after their impressive performance against Ohio State.
Collin Klein got the Wildcats off to a fast start scoring on a two yard run and throwing a 20 yard touchdown pass in the first quarter. Miami fought back and took a 24-21 lead into the fourth quarter but John Hubert had a fantastic day rushing for 166 yards on 18 carries (Bryce Brown who?) and scored to put K-State back in front.
That set up the dramatic goal line stand with Miami having the ball first and goal at the two yard line. The Wildcat defense and linebacker Tre Walker stopped the Hurricanes cold on four straight plays with under a minute left to preserve the win. Just to add to the excitement, the final play was ruled a TD but replay showed Jacoby Harris clearly didn't reach the end zone and the call was overturned.
If you're looking for any indication the Kansas State has improved over last year, that goal line stand is it. Their defense is light years ahead of last year and this win in the road should only build more confidence with the Big 12 schedule straight ahead.
How about Baylor and how about Robert Griffin? On one hand, no one should be surprised at what Griffin is doing. On the other hand, has any quarterback every completed 85% of his passes through three games? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that's what Griffin has done to start the season. He's 70 for 82 passing on the year and is 12 incompletions are LESS than his 13 touchdown passes. That stat is just mind numbing.
Count Rice coach David Bailiff as a fan, "Robert Griffin is one of the greatest I have ever seen as a player and a coach. What he is and what he worked himself into this season compared to last season is just frightening with where he can take his game.”
Saturday night against Rice, the Owls simply had no chance. RGIII completed 29 of 33 passes for 338 yards and five touchdowns. Kendall Wright accounted for 11 of Griffin's completions and totaled 108 yards including a touchdown.
What about the Bears defense? Not a bad night overall. Rice did pick up 416 yards overall, but 277 of those yards came in the last four drives after Baylor had already built a 49-17 lead.
Texas Tech made it interesting Saturday night scoring with 44 seconds remaining to edge Nevada, 35-34, after falling behind 28-14 in the third quarter. Tech totaled 441 yards against the Wolfpack. That isn't all that surprising. But if the Red Raiders want to have any success in the Big 12, they're going to have to shore up the defense which gave up 562 yards to Nevada. It came on the ground, through the air, and any other way you can move the ball. Nevada had two different running backs that ran for 139 yards a piece.
But Seth Doege answered the bell in the final minute when he had too, keeping Tech undefeated as they get set to head north to take on Kansas. Kansas may not be that great overall, but one thing they do well is run the ball. The Jayhaws will have a chance to hang tough if the Red Raiders don't get things figured out in the front seven this week.
The night cap for the evening came in Norman. I like Missouri's team, but I expected Oklahoma to have an easy time of it on their home field. Oklahoma may have been sleep walking coming into this game after last week's win over Florida State, but it didn't take long for the Sooners to get a wakeup call from Mizzou.
After James Franklin hit L'Damian Washington for a 45 yard touchdown pass, the Tigers led 14-3 in the first quarter. The Tigers obviously weren't going to be intimidated by their surroundings. After that score, however, Oklahoma found their rhythm and scored the next 28 points before Missouri would find the end zone again in the fourth quarter. It might not have been the dominant performance some OU fans were expecting, but give the Tigers credit. Missouri isn't a team that's going to get dominated very often this year. They put up 532 yards on the Sooners including 241 yards on the ground.
Much like Robert Griffin for Baylor, what else can you say about Ryan Broyles? The guy just continues to make play after play after play. Saturday night he added 13 more catches to his career resume and three of those catches went for touchdowns. Watching him and Landry Jones play together is simply a "How to play quarterback and wide receiver clinic," held on a weekly basis.
After back-to-back tilts against Florida State and Missouri, the Sooners get a bit of a break this week finishing up their non conference schedule with Ball State.
So that's it for the week. Hard to believe week number four in already in the books. Here's my best attempt at summing up the weekend in one sentence.
OU stays number one (in the coaches poll, at least), the Cowboy pass a major test, Robert Griffin is really good, Kansas State continues to surprise, and Tech's defense needs to get much better. There you have it.
As always, travel safe on your way home and thanks for stopping by. We're all finished here, until next time, that is.
