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.
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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