College football Week 5 roundup with the 5 things that matter, winners and losers, overrated and underrated aspects to the weekend, and what it all means
College Football Week 5 Roundup
[mm-video type=playlist id=01f1343a1wt7q817p7 player_id=none image=https://collegefootballnews.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
College Football Week 5 Roundup
CFN 1-131 Rankings | Rankings by Conference
Bowl Projections | Week 5 Scoreboard
Week 6 Early Lines | AP Rankings | Coaches Poll
Chryst, Dorrell Fired: Hot Seat Coach Rankings
What 12-Team Playoff Would Look Like
Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak
– Bryce’s shoulder One Really Big Thing
– Michigan-Iowa final score Most Overrated Thing
– Utah is going to matter Most Underrated Thing
– Optics don’t matter What It All Means, Week 5
Winners & Losers From Week 5
Winner: Illinois head coach Bret Bielema
The former Badger head coach rolled into Camp Randall Stadium, saw Chase Brown – the nation’s second leading rusher – rip into the Badgers for 129 yards and a score, wouldn’t let his team do the Jump Around, and out-Wisconsined Wisconsin before leaving with a 34-10 win.
Bielema is now 4-1 this year at Illinois. Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst was fired.
Loser: Wisconsin’s running game
The Badgers finished the game with a grand total of two rushing yards. The team has now failed to hit the 200-yard rushing mark in three of the last four games, losing all three to Washington State, Ohio State, and Illinois.
It’s 1-17 since 2009 – the lone win was 24-7 over Purdue – when failing to hit the 100-yard mark. By the way, this wasn’t even close to the biggest clunker in the last decade. 2015 Northwestern held Wisconsin to -26 net rushing yards.
Winner: UConn
UConn was 1-40 since the middle of 2017 against FBS teams – the lone exception was a 56-35 win over UMass in 2019 – and 2-56 since 2016 against them.
The last home win over an FBS team? 20-14 over Tulsa in 2017.
With a slew of banged up parts, the Huskies still managed to get by Fresno State 19-14 by allowing just 50 rushing yards on the day and pulling ahead on a 17-yard Devontae Houston run in the final few minutes.
Loser: Wagner
Wagner lost to Syracuse 59-0 on Saturday because Syracuse didn’t want it to be 100-0.
The Orange got up 49-0 at halftime and cruised from there, but not defensively. Wagner finished with 50 yards of total offense, four first downs, and completed two of six passes for 19 yards.
Winner: Boise State running game
Down 13-0 against a San Diego State that was third in the nation in rushing last season, Boise State under new offensive coordinator and former head coach Dirk Koetter ripped off big run after big run on the way to 316 yards and five scores in the 35-13 win. QB Taylor Green and RB George Holani each ran for over 100 yards.
And on the other side …
Loser: San Diego State passing attack
Against the Broncos, QB Braxton Burmeister ran well but only completed 2-of-8 passes for 33 yards and an interception before getting knocked out for the game. Backups Liu Aumavae and Kyle Crum combined to hit a grand total of none of their eight passes as Boise State rolled through the second half.
San Diego State now has the nation’s worst passing attack. averaging just under 63 yards per game.
Winner: QB Bo Nix, Oregon
It wasn’t a perfect performance, but Nix was solid in the 45-27 win over Stanford. He threw for 161 yards and two touchdowns without an interception, and led the team with 141 rushing yards and two touchdowns highlighted by an 80-yard scoring dash.
In the last five games since the blowout loss to Georgia, Nix has thrown for close to 1,100 yards with 12 touchdowns and just one pick. And then there’s his former team …
Loser: Auburn scoring offense
The Tigers are trying. They have a good-looking QB prospect in freshman Robby Ashford who threw for 337 yards and two touchdowns in the 21-17 loss to LSU. Even so, the O can’t get the points up on the board.
Over the last three games against Penn State, Missouri, and LSU, Auburn has scored a total of 46 points without more than 17 in any of the three.
The team is 1-14 in its last 15 games – the overtime survival against Missouri two weeks ago being the lone exception – when scoring fewer than 24 points.
– Bryce’s shoulder One Really Big Thing
– Michigan-Iowa final score Most Overrated Thing
– Utah is going to matter Most Underrated Thing
– Optics don’t matter What It All Means, Week 5