Week 7 across the college football landscape brought plenty of candidates for this week’s “Good, Bad & Ugly.” From the ACC to the SEC and everywhere in between, College Sports Wire has three deserving nominees in each category.
While the College Football Playoff appears to becoming more clear by the day, the conference races are heating up. Nothing is set in stone this early but Week 7 and Week 8 will create some separation from the contenders and pretenders to the crown in 2024.
We will dive into the conference’s races at another time, for now we present the “Good, Bad & Ugly” from college football in Week 7.
The Good: Cade Klubnik’s turnaround
After the opening weekend against the Georgia Bulldogs, we were left with more questions than answers regarding the Clemson Tigers and more importantly quarterback Cade Klubnik. On that day Klubnik completely just 18 of 29 attempts for 142 yards with one interception and two sacks. The Klubnik we have seen since Week 1 has been anything but that same player.
The Tigers have won five straight games and are once again among the top 10 teams in college football. Over the last five games, Klub has thrown for 17 touchdowns with just one interception. Against Wake Forest, the Texas native threw for over 300 yards with three touchdowns as Clemson blasted the Demon Deacons 49-14 on the road.
The Tigers remained perfect in ACC play.
The Bad: The Oklahoma Sooners offense in the Red River Rivalry
For the second time in three seasons under Brent Venables, the Oklahoma Sooners were held to three or fewer points by the Texas Longhorns defense in the Red River Rivalry game. The first time it came under the guidance of former offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, who is now the head coach at Mississippi State. This time around it was co-offensive coordinator Seth Littrell calling the plays.
After taking an early 3-0 lead in the closing minutes of the first quarter, the Texas Longhorns dominated the next three quarterbacks en route to the 34-3 victory. OU’s offense never really found their footing with six punts. Of the team’s 13 drives, the Sooners saw nine ended via a punt, fumble, or turnover on downs.
After their showing for most of the Auburn game and how they looked on the field against Texas, the Sooners have a lot of soul-searching to do on that side of the ball.
The Ugly: Time Management by the Ohio State Buckeyes
It was a great matchup between the then-ranked No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes and No. 3 Oregon Ducks on Saturday night. Down by one with just 1:47 left in the game, Buckeyes quarterback Will Howard was ready to lead his team down the field for the opportunity to steal this win away from the Ducks’ hands.
The only problem is that the time management shown by Ohio State ruined any opportunity to set up the game-winning field goal attempt. With just 10 seconds left in the game, Oregon was called for 12 men on the field but it burned some time off. On the next play, Howard rushed upfield as time ran out.
What might be the most frustrating aspect of this whole sequence to end the game is that Ohio State finished the game with a timeout in their pockets.