2021-22 NCAA Football (Week 6)

Games I saw (some of):

(1) Alabama 38-41 Texas A&M

Fun game! Wtf?!?! A&M was absolutely brilliant in the 1st half, (mostly sucked in the 2nd half), then reappeared down the stretch to get the needed 10 points to finish it off. Great W for A&M--probably one of the greatest in A&M history. Bama's pass rush disappeared for long stretches of time and I know everyone will blame the QB, but I thought the Tide WR's sucked until the 4th quarter--lotta drops and they just didn't make plays til too late in the match. Tide kept acting like they had the game under control even though they pretty much never did. I don't believe in A&M and I'm still not a fan of the their QB, but hey man, giant effort, made the plays, stood up to the big boys and stuck 'em in the eye. Congrats, great win, fun game. As for 'Bama, well, they gotta win out (which is what they were planning on doing anyway) and they'll still be in the playoff, right?

(4) Penn State 20-23 (3) Iowa

Fun game! In the 1st half, the Nittany Lions kept making dumb turnovers but that defense was so good they avoided too much danger and even had the lead at the half. But once their starting QB went out right before halftime, it was probably only a matter of time before the Hawkeyes clawed their way back. People will blame the backup QB but it was Penn State's O-line that fell apart (what's the record for false start penalties? Telling me that was the QB?) and they deserve the blame. But Penn State's defense still almost held up, coupla big plays late made the difference for Iowa. Iowa won on smarts (took a penalty on a 3rd down play that struck me as unnecessary, but the move worked in field position and running some clock; brilliant move). Good W for Iowa but I suspect Penn State (when healthy) is the better team and if they meet again in the B-10 finals, this game will probably be totally different.

(6) Oklahoma 55-48 (21) Texas

Fun game! (Good week!) Texas scored on the first play from scrimmage, held OU to 3-and-out, blocked a punt on the 5th play from scrimmage, then converted another TD on the 7th play of the game, putting them up 14-0 less than two minutes in (and they should've scored on plays 5 & 6). On the one hand, it was a whipsaw WTF kinda opening, on the other hand you could tell right off this was gonna be a crazy shootout game. And it was. Back and forth, loved UT's RB (Bijan Robinson--that dude can ball!), Spencer Rattler got benched for the fan friendly frosh (though they inexplicably brought him back for a 2-pt conversion), both defenses made plays and blew coverages, the scoring never stopped, breathlessly awesome action and Oklahoma finally looked like a top-10 squad (though I'm still meh on Texas). Okay, now that Oregon, Penn State and Alabama have stepped aside, Oklahoma is firmly back in control of their own destiny (and everyone's loving the frosh instead of the pre-season Heisman candidate; ouch, gonna be tough to go back to the old horse now that everyone has seen the new horse).

(9) Michigan 32-29 Nebraska

Look, Michigan needs to shine out, they need to run up some scores, get some impressive W's and take charge of games. They don't do any of that and I think they're overrated. Felt like Michigan was spinning their wheels all through this match and I think Nebraska sucks. The B-10 teams (outside of Penn State) have yet to get to the meaty parts of their schedule so they're all kinda overrated for now. And I don't see Michigan rising to the top of this conference. But we'll see.

Top 25

Handled their business

(2) Georgia, (3) Iowa, (5) Cincinnati, (6) Oklahoma, (7) Ohio State, (11) Michigan State, (14) Notre Dame, (16) Kentucky, (17) Ole Miss, (19) Wake Forest, (20) Florida, (22) Arizona State, (24) Southern Methodist, (25) San Diego State

Won but did not impress

(9) Michigan. When you get to the top-10, it's time to get signature W's, not signatures saves against weak opponents. I'm sorry but I'm still so unimpressed with Nebraska that to me this just looks like another just-good-enough kinda victory for the Wolverines and I'm still not in on them (beat the Buckeyes, Nittany Lions and Spartans an we'll see--they haven't played any of the key games on the schedule yet so why should we care?). 

Bad beat

(4) Penn State. I suspect Penn State was actually the better team and if they get their rematch with Iowa (and they will if they beat Michigan, Ohio State and Michigan State), I'd pick them to win. 

(21) Texas. Fun game, weird game, Texas came to play and they put on a good show but finally made Oklahoma look like a championship squad.

Not so good

(1) Alabama. Oof! Oh well, still gotta beat UGA, so weirdly, nothing has changed for 'Bama.

(10) Brigham Young. I feel like they just had a bad day but win or lose, they probably weren't going anywhere anyway, so they've been outed but no one's really surprised. 

Next week's interesting matchups

(12) Oklahoma State @ (25) Texas (meh, I'm not really that interested but they're both ranked and Texas looks awake now, so probably should be a fun game)

(11) Kentucky @ (1) Georgia (game o' the week! I'd be shocked if the Cats put a dent on the Dogs, but the UK defense is legit and this'll probably be Georgia's toughest match all year (hard to imagine anyone was circling that Kentucky game on the schedule, but here we are))

(5) Alabama @ Mississippi State (I'm curious to see how Bama bounces back because I still got the feeling that Miss State might actually be the 2nd best team in the SEC West, Bama better bring their A game)