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.
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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