College Football Roundup: Week 12

Welcome to the College Football Roundup Week 12 and things are starting to heat up around the college game. 5 Yard College are with you every step of the way and are here to provide the latest scores and highlights from another exciting week.

That being said Covid is still in full effect and a record 18 games were cancelled this week, 2 more than the extraordinary high 16 we saw in week 11.

So let’s get underway with those games that did go ahead and see if we had any shocks in store.

Cancellation Central

Ohio – Miami Ohio

Utah State – Wyoming

(4) Clemson – Florida State

Charlotte – (15) Marshall

Central Arkansas – (24) Lafayette

Ole Miss – (5) Texas A&M

Navy – South Florida

Michigan State – Maryland

Wake Forest – Duke

San Jose State – Fresno State

Arizona State – Colorado

Washington State – Stanford

Houston – SMU

(22) Texas – Kansas

UL-Monroe – Louisiana Tech

UNLV – Colorado State

UAB – UTEP

Georgia Tech – (12) Miami

Mid-Week Bonanza

Buffalo 42-17 Bowling Green

Akron 35-69 Kent State

Western Michigan 52- 44 Central Michigan

Toledo 45-28 Eastern Michigan

Northern Illinois 25-31 Ball State

Tulane 24-30 Tulsa

The MAC continues to entertain and this week was certainly the case with high scoring match ups in almost every game and a wild night in the Tulane-Tulsa game which was 0-0 at half time and ended in the 2nd overtime. Tulsa also came from 14-0 down with 10 minutes of regular time left and grabbed another comeback victory. Everyone loves college football and the MAC are ensuring mid week is as entertaining as saturdays.

SEC

Kentucky 3-63 (1) Alabama

LSU 27-24 Arkansas

(6) Florida 38-17 Vanderbilt

Tennessee 17-30 Auburn

Mississippi State 24-31 (13) Georgia

Mizzou 17-10 South Carolina

Mississippi State 24-31 Georgia

After weeks of lacklustre displays under centre by D’Wan Mathis & Stetson Bennett it was finally time for JT Daniels to be given his shot, a shot he has had to wait 15 months for due to a gruesome injury. He certainly made it count against Mississippi going for 28 for 38, 401 yards and 4 touchdowns in a closely fought contest. JT Daniels also became the first Georgia QB since 2013 to surpass 400 yards and the first to do so on their debut.

Freshman wide receiver Jermaine Burton was the favoured target of Daniels on the day catching 8 passes for 197 yards and 2 touchdowns and by far his best game of his early career, in his previous 6 games he had 130 yards total.

Despite now losing 4 of the last 5 games Mississippi State gave their all before Georgia scored the decisive touchdown in the 4th quarter. Freshman QB Will Rogers completed 41/52 passes for 336 yards and 1 touchdown.

This was Daniel’s night and what a debut it was for the SoCal Transfer who hasn’t played a snap since August 2019.

ACC

Virginia Tech 14-47 Pitt

(21) Liberty 14-15 NC State

Syracuse 0-30 Louisville

Abil Christian 15-55 Virginia

Liberty 14-15 NC State

Liberty were finally defeated and could see their AP ranking at risk thanks to a late 4th quarter blocked field goal by Vi Jones of NC State to see out this game. 

Despite this result Liberty can still be proud of how they have performed so far this season (8-1) and the fact they knocked off two ACC teams before succumbing to NC State. They held a 14-7 lead before forcing a safety against Liberty running back Peytton Pickett and then two field goals in the fourth quarter before the decisive blocked field goal.

Big 10

(10) Wisconsin 7-17 (19)  Northwestern

Iowa 41-21 Penn State

Illinois 41-23 Nebraska

(9) Indiana 35-42 (3) Ohio State

Michigan 48-42 Rutgers

Purdue 31-34 Minnesota

Wisconsin 7-17 Northwestern

Northwestern defence brought it in style against Wisconsin and will surely see Northwestern move up from the 19th spot in the AP rankings after seeing off the 10th seed Wisconsin on the flipside will move down, possibly even into the twenties.

Northwestern are now 5-0 on the season, the first time they have achieved this in 5 years and the first time they are 5-0 against Big Ten teams since 1996. The defence was dominant and forced a number of fumbles and multiple interceptions causing QB Graham Mertz a torrid time all game.

It was not all on the defence for Northwestern, quarterback Peyton Ramsey threw for 203 yards and 2 touchdowns, the highlight came on the go ahead touchdown when Ramsay pulled off an impressive throw to Chiaokhiao-Bowman for a 25 yard touchdown with seconds left in the first half.

Despite Northwestern’s impressive start this surely has to be one of the upsets of the week and with the upcoming opponents Michigan State & Minnesota who they should be able to see off we could be seeing Northwestern in the Big Ten title game against Ohio State.

Indiana 35-42 Ohio State

I called this being a close fought contest on last week’s pod and Indiana made sure they did in the second half despite being 35-7 down early in the third quarter to just losing out 35-42 against high flying Ohio State.

Fields threw an uncharacteristic 3 interceptions, the same amount he threw all 2019 and his first of this campaign. He still ended the day with 300 passing yards and 3 touchdowns with one of those being a rushing touchdown. It was not his best performance and could impact his Heisman Trophy push but at the end of the day Ohio still won this game and Fields did enough to help them.

Ohio’s star man was running back Master Teague who had 169 yards and 2 touchdowns on the day and took the pressure off when Field was struggling. Ohio also has an incredible wide receiver tandem of Garrett Wilson (169 yards & 2 TD’s) & Chris Olave (101 yards) who have been touted as the best wide receiver duo in college football at the moment.

Indiana quarterback Michael Penix Jr on the other hand most the day completed 27 passes for 491 yards and 5 touchdowns and took advantage of a poor Ohio State secondary who need to up their game if they are to compete with the likes of Alabama & Clemson in the playoffs. Wide receiver Ty Fryfogle was the main benefactor of Penix’s impressive game and ended his day with 218 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Indiana will likely lose their 9th ranking because of this loss but still remain a force in the Big Ten, Ohio on the other hand are unlikely to move from #3 and both Fields & the secondary need to improve if they want to make a real play in the college football playoffs.

Big 12

Kansas State 0-45 (17) Iowa State

(14) Oklahoma State 13-41 (18) Oklahoma

Oklahoma State 13-41 Oklahoma

The spoils of war in the Bedlam Series went to Oklahoma this time out with the smashing of Oklahoma State, I for one was expecting a much closer affair then we were given in this one.

Spencer Rattler has had an up and down season of sorts so far but brought it in this one with passing for 301 yards and four touchdowns whilst also rushing for another touchdown. Rattler guided Oklahoma with a night minute 21-0 lead in the first quarter with two passing and one rushing touchdown to start the game and ended the first half 21-7 up.

Oklahoma State quarterback Spencer Saunders on the other hand had a terrible start and an early exit after a brutal hit from defensive end Ronnie Perkins and sat out into the fourth quarter by which point this one was over as a contest. 

It was not just Rattler who enjoyed a good day in this matchup, Oklahoma running back Rhadmondre Stevenson had a career high 141 rushing yards and 195 total yards from scrimmage whilst Theo Wease had two receiving touchdowns out of the backfield.

The race for second place in the Big 12 is hotting up behind Iowa State who have a 1 game advantage whilst Oklahoma, Oklahoma State & Texas all having two losses, Oklahoma have the tiebreaker though with victories over both Oklahoma State & Texas heading into a deciding couple of weeks.

PAC 12

UCLA 35-38 (11) Oregon

Cal 27-31 Oregon State

Arizona 27-44 Washington

(20) USC 33-17 Utah

Best Of The Rest

North Alabama 14-66 (8) BYU

(7) Cincinnati 36-33 UCF

Massachusetts 2-24 Florida State

New Mexico 0-28 Air Force

East Carolina 28-3 Temple

App State 23-34 (15) Coastal Carolina

Georgia Southern 27-28 Army

Stephen Austin 14-56 Memphis

Rice 17-27 North Texas

FIU 21-38 Western Kentucky

UTSA 23-20 Southern Miss

Georgia State 31-14 South Alabama

Middle Tennessee 20-17 Troy

San Diego State 21-26 Nevada

Boise State 40-32 Hawaii

The ranked teams of BYU, Cincinnati & Coastal Carolina continue their unbeaten starts to the season and all have impressive men under centre performing exceptionally. None more so than Zach Wilson who continues to increase his draft stock and his bid for the Heisman Trophy with another dominant display against North Alabama by scoring 4 touchdowns and 212 yards despite only throwing 16 pass attempts (10 completed) before sitting out the whole of the second half and allowing his backup the remainder of the game. Wilson has already thrown for over 2500 yards and has a 22 touchdown to 2 interception ratio in only 8 games. Has he done himself enough to earn hearing his name in the first round come April. Wilson is may well be the best college football QB behind Fields & Lawrence on his 2020 showing.

@5yardcollege – Where Saturdays are for Rushing, Too!