Dumpster Fires of the Week: Horned Frogs plagued by secondary
Things got a little froggy for TCU after a pounding in Stillwater. Balanced, quality football takes a blow to the groin. More refs issues. Finally, some really bad Beavers.
1. Trevone Boykin’s Heisman campaign
Boykin was fresh off a dismantling of the Karl Joseph-less West Virginia defense and appeared all set to lock down the Heisman with a great November. Sadly, he picked the worst time ever to play his worst game in about three years.
Boykin set the trend early with a terrible interception in the first quarter and continued the trend, throwing a virtual pick-six to start the second half. That pick pretty much ended the game.
Boykin looked confused, and his accuracy all day was terrible. Oklahoma State got into his head, and Boykin never recovered.
Can he right his Heisman ship? With Josh Doctson’s availability looking questionable, it seems like a reach.
2. TCU’s secondary
OSU’s offensive resurgence via the two-QB system seems to be working pretty well. Still, Mason Rudolph is the passing QB, and OSU is not really moving the ball on the ground without J.W. Walsh being involved. You figured that when Rudolph was in the game, TCU would be a little more pass-centric.
Nope.
TCU focused on smashing the run and left the cornerbacks on islands almost every time. Rudolph, who at times has struggled driving the field, was given the kind of pitch-and-catch, deep passing game that QBs must love. He torched the TCU secondary time after time, and the Horned Frogs never really adjusted. The Aggies' WRs were running free all over the secondary.
OU and Baylor both have better passing games than OSU, at least stat-wise. TCU’s problems in the secondary would seem to have the Horned Frogs far closer to 9-3 than 11-1.
3. Florida-Vanderbilt
Over the last eight weeks, I think that we have clearly established that Vandy is a very bad football team. Maybe not UCF or KU bad, but the Commodores are right there in the next group of shitty football teams.
UF is allegedly the 10th best team in the country, based on a variety of criteria that are not being applied evenly to different teams. One of those criteria was apparently a balanced team: productive on offense and defense.
Well, UF’s offense is so bad that the Gators nearly lost to 'Dores. They likely would have lost, except that with about 90 seconds to go, Vandy punted for 12 yards. That set up the Gators' game-winning field goal for the 9-7 win.
Vandy managed 30 passing yards in this pathetic pillow fight, while UF committed turnovers and saw its dental student kicker miss PATs and FGs. Sometimes a 9-7 score is good defense, but often it’s just terrible offense.
4. Refs behaving badly (again)
In the immortal words of Stanford coach David Shaw, Pac-12 officials are getting better.
What prompted this "compliment?" The latest Pac-12 officials' screw-up and apology.
This time, the refs gave Washington State an incorrect fifth down. On the fifth down, touchdown, Wazzu.
Big Ten refs weren't content to let their Pac-12 brethren have all the fun. At the end of the Michigan State-Nebraska game, a dubious pushed-out-of-bounds call led to a 'Husker TD and NU win. I’ve seen the replay about 10 times – it looks like the receiver went out of bounds on his own before he came back in for the winning TD.
5. Oregon State
Speaking of MIke Riley...
While Riley was able to help drag Nebraska out of the bottom of the Big Ten West to the same
level of vaunted college football powers Purdue and Illnois, his old stomping ground of Corvallis was seeing the hometown Beavers get stomped.
After being smashed by the talented, but mercurial, UCLA Bruins, Oregon State is facing the possibility of going winless in conference play. If so, the Beavers would finish 2-10 overall, with wins over Weber State and San Jose State. By losing to previous Dumpster Fire resident Colorado, Oregon State stands alone at the bottom of the Pac-12.
-Atlantasooner