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College football Week 4 roundup with the 5 things that matter, winners and losers, overrated and underrated parts of the weekend, and what it all means.

– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

College Football Week 4 Roundup

Recaps, Ranking the Games
ACC | Big 12 | SEC | Bowl Projections
Rankings AP | Coaches | CFN 1-127 Rankings
Week 5 Early Line Predictions
Hot Seat Coach Rankings
College Football Playoff Chase, Who’s Alive?
How’d We Do? Week 4 Predictions

5. Winners & Losers From Week 4

– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 4

Winner: QB Kyle Trask, Florida

So imagine you’re Kyle Trask, Florida’s excellent senior quarterback. All you did was come out and hit 30-of-42 passes for 416 yards and six touchdowns with no interceptions in a 51-35 win over Ole Miss, and absolutely no one outside of the greater Gainesville metropolitan area will remember it because of what KJ Costello did in Mississippi State’s win over LSU.

Loser: Florida State offense

The Mike Norvell offense was supposed to be fast, explosive, and ready to put up points in bunches after taking over the Florida State head coaching gig. It’s been a rough first two weeks – besides Norvell being stricken with the coronavirus – with a loss to Georgia Tech and a 52-10 whacking from Miami.

Last year, FSU struggled in its first two games, but it put up 927 yards of total offense. So far in two games, the Noles have just 637 yards and back-to-back passing games under 200 yards for the first time since late in the 2017 season.

Winner: SEC passing games

Remember when the SEC was all about defense, tough running, and hard-nosed football? That tippy-tappy passing game thing was supposed to be for the Big 12 and Pac-12. In Week 1 of the SEC season, five teams hit the 300-yard mark through the air, three of those were over 400, and everyone but Texas A&M and Vanderbilt – who played each other – got to 200 yards.

Everyone was throwing, so …

Loser: SEC running games

No SEC team ran for 200 rushing yards and five teams didn’t even hit the 100-yard mark. Alabama was the only team with over two rushing scores, and only three teams averaged over four yards per carry.

Winner: UTEP

With a 31-6 win over ULM, UTEP got to 3-1 on the season. The program’s last 3-1 start came back in 2010, and the last win over an FBS team by 25 points or more happened at the end of the 2016 season against North Texas. In the three seasons after that win from 2017 through 2019, the program went 2-34.

Loser: Kansas

Oh Kansas. At least it scored first in the 47-14 loss to Baylor.

With that defeat and the opening loss to Coastal Carolina, the program has gone nine years without starting 2-0. Worse yet, going back to last year, the Jayhawks have lost six straight games – all by double-digits – and is 1-10 since getting by Boston College in mid-September of 2019.

Winner: RB Ulysses Bentley IV, SMU

Welcome to the nation’s leading rusher in total yards.

The SMU offense is known for QB Shane Buechele and the passing attack, but the Sonny Dykes ground game has been fantastic so far with over 800 yards and 12 touchdowns in the first three games.

Bentley – a 5-10, 184-pound freshman – is averaging 10.6 yards per carry with 380 yards and seven touchdowns, coming off a six-carry, 104-yard, two-score day in the 50-7 win over Stephen F. Austin.

Loser: Oklahoma running game

Oklahoma ran for 664 yards and seven touchdown in the first two games of last season, and ran for 495 yards and nine scores to start 2018. In two games against SE Missouri State and Kansas State, the Sooners have rushed for a total of 254 yards, averaging 3.6 yards carry with two touchdowns. They ran for 130 yards in the loss to Kansas State.

– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 4

NEXT: The really big thing was …

College football Week 3 roundup with the 5 things that matter, winners and losers, overrated and underrated parts of the weekend, and what it all means.

– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

College Football Week 3 Roundup

Recaps, Ranking the Games
ACC | Group of Five
CFN 1-90 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Rankings AP | Coaches
Week 4 Early Line Predictions
Hot Seat Coach Rankings
How’d We Do? Week 3 Predictions

5. Winners & Losers From Week 1

– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 2

Winner: D’Eriq King

Well this is working out just fine.

Miami needed a top-shelf talent at quarterback again, and in came King from Houston. After two games, the Hurricanes are 2-0, he has hit 63% of his passes for 469 yards and four scores, ran for 92 yards and a touchdown, and after rolling past Louisville 47-34, the offense is working.

If he’s great against Florida State in a win this week, the October 10th game at Clemson becomes massive.

Loser: Houston football 

Houston just can’t get its football season going. It was supposed to start out its season against Rice, but that didn’t happen. It was supposed to play Memphis, and that didn’t happen. It was supposed to play Baylor, and then that had to be cancelled because the Bears weren’t able to go.

The Cougars will give it a try against North Texas this week.

Winner: Running quarterbacks

The nation’s leading rusher in yards per game is …

Liberty quarterback – and former Auburn transfer – Malik Willis, after he took off for 168 yards in the 30-24 win over WKU.

The nation’s second leading rusher in yards per game is …

Georgia Southern quarterback Shai Werts, who ran for 155 yards in the win over Campbell two weeks ago.

Granted, those two only played one game each, but those two will be yardage machines all season long.

Loser: Syracuse passing protection

Two games. 14 sacks allowed.

North Carolina came up with seven sacks in its season-opening win over Syracuse, so bad things were expected to happen when Pitt – who led the nation last season in sacks – got a turn.

The Panthers came up with seven sacks and 13 tackles for loss in the 21-10 win.

Georgia Tech is up next for Syracuse. It only has five sacks in two games.

Winner: RB Sincere McCormick, UTSA

The nation’s real leading rusher is McCormick, a 5-9, 200-pound sophomore who started the season off with 197 yards in the win over Texas State, and ran for 98 yards last week in the 24-10 victory over Stephen F. Austin.

Next up? Middle Tennessee, who currently has the nation’s third-worst run defense.

Loser: FCS teams

0-14. Including Stephen F. Austin and its loss to UTSA, FCS programs who were able to give it a go so far this season are 0-14 against the FBS teams.

UTEP won two games over the previous two seasons. It’s now 2-1 after beating SFA and Abilene Christian so far.

The Citadel got whacked around by USF and Clemson, Austin Peay has made the rounds, and Houston Baptist made things fun against North Texas and Texas Tech in losses.

All losses.

Winner: Navy (in the second half against Tulane)

Navy outscored Tulane 27-0 in the second half of its thrilling win on Saturday, closing out with a walk-off field goal. The team looked different coming out of halftime, and it needed to because …

Loser: Navy (for the first six quarters of the season)

Navy looked like it had never played football before in the brutal 55-3 loss to BYU in front of a national audience in a prime Labor Day Night spot. Head coach Ken Niumatalolo vowed the team would be different and better against Tulane after more physical practices, but it was outscored 79-3 before finally turning things around.

– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 3

NEXT: The really big thing was …