College Football Week 9

The college football week started on Thursday where North Carolina impressively took down Pittsburgh 26-19. The Tar Heels are now 7-1 and will likely be ranked, their defense seems to be much improved from previous North Carolina teams, they rank 42nd nationally  in total defense. Despite being relatively even in total yards, Pitt having more first downs, and Pitt holding the ball for 11 more minutes than UNC, the Tar Heels got a victory that wasn't as close as the score makes it seem. Oklahoma State and Iowa, the two college football playoff dark horses both remained undefeated, along with  undefeated contenders TCU and Clemson. Oklahoma State beat Texas Tech 70-53 by outscoring Texas Tech 42-15 in the second half. There wasn't that much defense played, both teams accounted for over 600 yards, but this is nothing new for the Big 12. Iowa won 31-15 versus a bad Maryland team, and didn't look overly impressive doing it. As a fan who knows Iowa football, the biggest problem Maryland presented is something Iowa has struggled with over the years, a quarterback who can run the ball. On multiple occasions Maryland quarterback Perry Hills darted through holes on his way to 10 or 15 yard rushes, or simply outran Iowa linebackers on the edge. All of Maryland's points came in the fourth quarter when they finally figured out that they should just run it with their quarterback. Really if Maryland didn't turn the ball over they might have won the game, Iowa definitely has some things to figure out going down the stretch.

In the game of the week, Notre Dame vs Temple, I think Temple proved they are good to many people including me. I sarcastically picked Notre Dame to win 70-0, I didn't actually think Notre Dame would win by that much by I figured they would win handily. The Irish did win, 24-20, and they won in the final minutes on a pass from Deshone Kizer to Will Fuller. Temple might be the best non power five team in the nation, and they can still get into a good bowl game. Between beating Penn State by 17, and barely losing to Notre Dame, Temple has convinced me they are good.

Later on in the night Miami took on Duke in a game that likely didn't matter to many people until the final play. Miami beat Duke 30-27 on a crazy final play that featured eight laterals (backwards toss) and multiple questionable calls. Watch at around the 36 second mark in the video and you will see that the ball carrier appears to be down, and this picture pretty much proves that. There were also multiple questionable no calls for block in the back, at the 50 second mark #22 for Miami obviously had a block in the back. There were a couple others where they appeared to be sort of on the side, which is technically legal. Also at about the 1:05 mark you can see a 12th player, who was on the sideline, run onto the field with his helmet off as the play is still going on. That isn't exactly a penalty worthy of losing a game over, but with all the other missed calls, Duke should've won this game. It seems like every week now, I'm talking about some crazy special teams play to win the game, but that's just college football.