by Matt Fischer
Week 2 is over and it’s time to review. The weekend lacked the number of big games compared to week 1 but the games this week were great. There were some great performances and we saw some teams bounce back from disappointing losses to open the season or solidify themselves with a win this week to move to 2-0.
Jadaveon Clowney is the second most analyzed college football player this season behind Johnny Manziel. He’s been getting quite a bit of criticism to start the year but has the same stats after two games this year (6 tackles, 1 sack) that he had after 2 games last year. Has he set the bar so high after last season, he simply can’t top it? I think a lot of the media simply wants to be critical and overanalyze every single thing because they have 24 hours of channel after channel to now fill. It’s ruined sports coverage as far as I’m concerned. Clowney is still a force and I wouldn’t want to play against him. He’s going #1 in our 2014 NFL Mock Draft.
Cincinnati getting destroyed at Illinois has probably ruined any chance Louisville has at playing in the BCS Championship Game. The Bearcats needed to win that game against a middle of the pack at best Big Ten team to give the new American Athletic some credit. Instead they were dominated 45-17. It’s a joke that conference has an automatic bid.
Texas is in disarray on defense. Their defense was atrocious last year but looks to be even worse this year. BYU shredded them for over 500 yards rushing. That got Manny Diaz fired and could lead to Mack Brown heading to retirement in a few months.
Speaking of getting fired, Lane Kiffin is on the clock. That awful loss to Washington State this weekend has them restless in LA. They see UCLA on the rise and Stanford clearly ahead program wise of USC and will make a change at the end of the year if the Trojans can’t rally for a trip to the Pac-12 Championship Game.
Now for the weekly awards:
Player of the Week: Kasey Carrier (RB – New Mexico) – ran for291 yards on 41 carries (average of 7.1 yards per carry) in the Lobos win at UTEP.
Team of the Week: Baylor Bears – They dropped 56 on Buffalo in the first half. Granted Buffalo is a non-BCS team but Ohio State only put 40 on them in four quarters. The Baylor defense pitched a shutout the final three quarters as the Bears won 70-13.
Game of the Week: South Carolina at Georgia. The Bulldogs won 41-30 over the Gamecocks with great play from their offense. Aaron Murray played very well and the running game was the difference from Georgia. Gurshall played outstanding and ran all over the South Carolina defense. This was just a well played game and showed why both are contenders.
If you haven’t heard the hype building already, Alabama Crimson Tide head to College Station for the most anticipated game of the season against Johnny Football and the Texas A&M Aggies. There are some big non-conference matchups this Saturday like Wisconsin at Arizona State, UCLA at Nebraska, Mississippi at Texas, Central Florida at Penn State and Ohio State at Cal. All of these will be factors in the BCS rankings and help conferences a great deal. It’s a big weekend for the Big Ten. If they could sweep these matchups it’ll boost their profile and could give their champion the edge it needs to make a BCS Championship appearance.
Check back tomorrow for predictions for all of these games and more in our week 3 college football predictions.