Week 4 of college football action is upon us, and if it’s anything like the three weeks that preceded it, we are in for some fun.
Appalachian State got the weekend off to a thrilling start with a narrow 31-30 victory over Marshall on Thursday night, as the Mountaineers used a late field goal and a clutch drive to take — and hold on to — the lead. Camerun Peoples (three rushing touchdowns) and Nate Noel (187 yards) were a handful on the ground in the victory. App State was favored by 6.5 points heading into the game
As we focus on the rest of the weekend, let’s take a look at some of the more intriguing matchups to come.
All NCAA odds are courtesy of Tipico Sportsbook. Odds last updated Friday at 12:15pm ET.
The QB1 race in the 2022 NFL draft class is still wide open, and Virginia’s Brennan Armstrong is making a strong case
Heading into the 2021 college football season, it was a wide-open race to be the top quarterback prospect in the 2022 NFL draft class. A few games in, it’s still anybody’s guess who the first passer off the board will be come next April.
After his performance up to this point, Virginia’s Brennan Armstrong is making as strong a case as any other signal-caller in the country to claim that title.
Armstrong is lighting up opposing defenses at a ridiculous rate, and putting up video-game numbers for the Cavaliers. He’s also doing a huge chunk of his damage with deep throws, proving he’s not afraid to challenge opposing defenses down the field:
UVA QB Brennan Armstrong has been TEARING through College Football
His latest effort, despite losing a shootout to another top quarterback prospect in North Carolina’s Sam Howell, Armstrong threw for a whopping 554 yards and four touchdowns, completing 39 of his 54 pass attempts.
Production is great, but we’ve seen plenty of college passers who can light up the stat sheet, but don’t necessarily have the tools to succeed in the pros at the game’s most important position. Thankfully for Armstrong, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Listed at 6-2, 215 pounds, Armstrong doesn’t have any size concerns when projecting to the next level, and his arm appears to be capable of making every throw to all levels of the field. He’s not surrounded by superstars, and he’s still putting up big numbers and putting his team in position to win games.
There’s still plenty of season left, and the predraft process always has plenty to say about the quarterback pecking order, but Armstrong is doing everything he can on the field to be among the top players selected at his position next year.
Penn State has a long and storied history with a number of teams from the ACC, although the vast majority of that history took place before many of those schools ever joined the conference. Realignment changes over the years have given Penn State …
Penn State has a long and storied history with a number of teams from the ACC, although the vast majority of that history took place before many of those schools ever joined the conference. Realignment changes over the years have given Penn State quite a history against the ACC’s membership without having too many experiences against the conference itself.
The ACC is home to many of Penn State’s longtime regional rivals such as Pittsburgh and Syracuse. It is also home to one of the teams that was the victim of Penn State’s second national championship, the Miami Hurricanes. Penn State and Boston College also have a little bit of history. With the ACC gobbling up many of the teams from the Big East, it seems fitting that Penn State would have the most history against the ACC today. Some Penn State fans would even prefer the Nittany Lions to be an ACC member instead of the Big Ten, but don’t hold your breath on Penn State leaving behind the Big Ten for a chance to join the ACC.
Here is a look at Penn State’s all-time records against each current member of the ACC. That includes schools like Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Boston College, and Miami despite the majority of games played against those schools were played prior to their joining the ACC. Games played against longtime ACC member Maryland have been included in Penn State’s records vs. current Big Ten members.
All data referenced is credited to College Football Reference. Rankings referenced are AP Top 25 where available.
If you want more, check out Penn State’s all-time records against current members of the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC.
Note: Penn State has never faced Duke or Virginia Tech.
So far in Link Jarrett’s tenure at Notre Dame, his team’s have gotten off to fast starts. With today’s 8-3 road victory against Virginia, the Irish completed a road sweep, winning their fourth series away from South Bend in a row. A five-game winning streak now has elevated their record to 7-2.
FINAL: No. 25 Notre Dame 8, No. 21 Virginia 3
That is a road series 𝗦𝗪𝗘𝗘𝗣 for the Irish!! 🧹
They return to campus with a 5️⃣-game winning streak!!
After getting ranked for the first time this year, the Irish didn’t let that number next their name effect their game. Once again, it was the long ball that Notre Dame relied on, as first baseman Niko Kavadas, second baseman Jared Miller and shortstop Zack Prajzner all hit homers for the victorious Irish.
When the new rankings come out this week expect the Irish to be on the rise, as Virginia was ranked No. 21 coming into the weekend and couldn’t get a win on their home-field. Notre Dame won’t have a chance to extend their road series winning streak as they will host their first home series of the season against Duke starting Friday night.
The Irish baseball team once again goes into ACC foes diamond and comes homes with a series victory.
It’s time to put some respect on Link Jarrett’s team. After a fast start last year, 11-2, before the season was ended by the COVID-19 pandemic, it very much looked like Notre Dame was headed in the right direction. If the first two weekends have told us anything, it’s that the needle is still moving that way.
After taking yesterdays game 3-1 with a stellar starting performance form John Michael Bertrand, the Irish came back today and grabbed a road series win against Clemson by the score of 3-2.
Their third straight road ACC series win, brings Notre Dame’s record to 4-2 after Sunday’s contest. Pitching once again was the catalyst, as Christian Scafidi, Joe Sheridan, Liam Simon and Jack Brannigan combined to allow just 5 hits and the 2 runs.
END 7 | Big 1️⃣-2️⃣-3️⃣ inning for Simon in the seventh!!
So far in each of the first two series, the Irish have dropped the first game, then have gone on to win the next two. The fast start should put the ACC on notice that Notre Dame is here to play. The Irish will next get back on the field when they travel to Virginia for a three-game set next weekend and look to extended their ACC series win streak to four.
In its first start of the 2020-21 season, Virginia held off a deep Wake Forest team down the stretch to win the UCF Challenge by one shot.
As a member of the ACC, Virginia wasn’t allowed to compete as a team during the fall season. But after a 10-and-a-half-month hiatus, the Cavaliers returned in a big way, going head-to-head with Wake Forest, another ACC power, down the stretch at the UCF Challenge on Feb. 2 and coming up with a one-shot victory.
Virginia was 11 shots out of it with 18 holes to play, and narrowly held off a Wake Forest team that many have pegged as a preseason favorite. A year ago at its own IJGA Collegiate Invitational in Guadalajara, Mexico, Virginia made up nine shots in nine holes to win. This time, head coach Ria Scott had her team draw on that experience and also cold qualifying days back home in Charlottesville, Virginia. The result? The Cavaliers put their heads down and endured cold, windy conditions to come up with a win.
“We woke up and we were like, it’s just like a qualifying day in Charlottesville,” Scott said. “We’ve had to qualify in pretty similar conditions and low temps over the last couple of weeks. We just kept feeding it to them that there’s no one more prepared for this than you. You’ve seen it, you’ve played in it.”
Virginia held off ACC foe Wake Forest to take home the UCF Challenge title. It was the first start of the year for both teams.
ORLANDO, Fla. – How badly were Virginia golfers itching to get started this season? Senior Beth Lillie joked she’d have ridden her bicycle the 800 miles from campus to Orlando to tee it up in the season-opening UCF Challenge if she had to. It’s that kind of thinking that figured heavily into Virginia’s gutsy performance down the stretch against ACC foe Wake Forest – a team that topped many a “favorites” list – for an early spring trophy.
Crave the hard days. That’s a mindset Virginia learned from Bob Rotella, a Charlottesville, Virginia-based sports psychologist with whom the team often works. Tuesday certainly fit into the category, with a biting Florida chill and strong wind gusts.
“One of the things (Rotella) said is we should crave days that are hard because it’s the best opportunity to gain strokes on the field,” Virginia head coach Ria Scott said. “You should crave days that are hard, you should crave holes that are hard because those are where you can make a difference.”
Scott encouraged her team to look at the final round as a clean slate. Virginia was 11 shots off Houston’s lead entering the final round, but last February, in the next-to-last tournament the team played before COVID shut down the spring season, the Cavaliers made up nine shots in nine holes to win the IJGA Collegiate Invitational, an event Scott hosted at Guadalajara Country Club, Lorena Ochoa’s home course.
It took four qualifying rounds back home in Charlottesville to set the UCF Challenge lineup. The weather was hit-and-miss. That was another experience to draw on.
Virginia and Wake Forest players stand at the 18th green at the UCF Challenge.
“We woke up and we were like, it’s just like a qualifying day in Charlottesville,” Scott said. “We’ve had to qualify in pretty similar conditions and low temps over the last couple of weeks. We just kept feeding it to them that there’s no one more prepared for this than you. You’ve seen it, you’ve played in it.”
Virginia made the turn in 1 under on Tuesday to move to the top of the leaderboard, slightly ahead of Wake Forest and Houston. But the Cavaliers managed to play the back nine in even par to maintain the only under-par team score of the day. Even as Wake Forest counted nine back-nine birdies, Virginia was too far ahead and at 5 under total, won the tournament by one shot.
Sophomore Celeste Valinho, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, had been looking forward to this tournament. She couldn’t wait for warmer temperatures and Bermuda greens. As it turned out, she only got one of those things.
Valinho made the turn on Tuesday in 2 over, and was so frustrated with her play on the front nine – no putts falling and “some dumb pars” – that she wasn’t even focusing on the leaderboard. Valinho stopped worrying about making birdies and started thinking about hitting greens. She figured she’d go from there. She made eagle on the par-5 13th and birdied the par-5 18th for a closing 72.
“Everybody just stormed me – great putt, we’re in the lead,” she said of walking off No. 18. “That’s going to matter a lot.”
Ultimately it did, and Scott called Valinho the unsung hero of the week.
Valinho struggled to get through qualifying as a freshman, admitting that it was stressful for her. She’s done a better job approaching qualifiers as regular rounds, and she carried that thinking over to the UCF start. She’s also worked hard to control her body language.
“Everyone always told me your body language matters so much,” she said. “I was always like yeah, how does slapping your leg really matter that much? It really does.”
.@UVAWomensGolf has a one-shot edge on Wake Forest with last players on final hole. Team watching as Jennifer Cleary stuffs it on 18. pic.twitter.com/VEqHbD5K8H
Individually, Valinho tied her senior teammate Beth Lillie for third place. Riley Smyth tied for seventh and Jennifer Cleary finished T-10.
No one – not even Lillie – is biking home from Orlando. The Cavaliers piled in the team van instead, which is how they’ll travel all spring. Lillie felt it was a win just getting to play the UCF Challenge, let alone bring home a trophy.
“It just shows all the work we have put in even when things are uncertain and unclear, which is such a testament to the team and everything,” she said.
Lillie won the Donna Andrews Invitational in June. She flew back to her Fullerton, California, home and since a top-10 finish at the Southern California Women’s Amateur in August, hasn’t teed it up in competition until this week.
“I did feel a little bit rusty the first day here,” she said. “Like ooh, gotta get back in the mindset. But it clicked back in the second day.”
Lillie relished going head-to-head with Wake Forest. The memory of Virginia’s Guadalajara comeback rang in her brain, too.
“We did it there once so we felt like we could do it again,” she said. “I think we kind of consider ourselves, no matter how good we all think we’re playing, we kind of consider ourselves underdogs and that’s a good mindset going into a hard day like today with wind. You just have to go tough it out.”
In her return to competition this week at the Donna Andrews Invitational, Beth Lillie found herself on top.
The lost months of Beth Lillie’s junior season at the University of Virginia were spent back home in Fullerton, California, in front of a net strung between two trees in her back yard. She putted on carpet. Golfers everywhere have known this drill in 2020.
Lillie, however, had a mature mantra: “My game is my game, I’m not going to lose it just because I can’t be out on a golf course.”
Nearly four months have passed since Lillie last teed it up with Virginia at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate. In her return to competition this week at the Donna Andrews Invitational, Lillie found herself on top. The mantra proved true.
East Coast golf has blown Lillie’s mind. Perhaps more accurately, one course in particular. While spending some time with friends in Philadelphia earlier this summer, California native got a chance to tee it up at both Aronimink Golf Club and Pine Valley, an ultra-private golf gem that tops the Golfweek’s Best Classic Courses list.
Asked for more context, Lillie offered this: “Even if you’re having a bad round, you’re having a good day.” But Lillie had a good day, firing 68 there.
Lillie found golf’s hallowed ground to be good prep for the week at Boonsboro Country Club in Lynchburg, Virginia. Lillie fired rounds of 73-69-67 to win at 7 under. That was six shots better than runner-up Becca DiNunzio, who will be a sophomore at Virginia Tech.
“I’ve been striking it well for a little bit now and practicing at Pine Valley and other great courses, it makes you want to miss small and I think I did a good job of that at Boonsboro,” Lillie said. “The greens are the teeth of the course for sure.”
For a long time, Lillie was able to base her game on length, knowing she’d have wedges into greens. She’s recently focused more on placement – being accurate with those short irons and wedges in her hand. This week was the first time she’d seen Boonsboro, a classic layout in Central Virginia. She played one practice round the day before the event.
“My first round was kind of like a second practice round,” she said. “I learned a lot about the whole course.”
Lillie didn’t have a single double-bogey in 54 holes at Boonsboro, and ultimately won on the strength of a final-round 67 that included an eagle on the third hole. She drove it through the fairway and into the left rough, hit 3-wood to 12 feet and holed the downhill putt.
DiNunzio had just birdied her first three holes, so Lillie felt she needed to answer.
“I started with two pars and feeling not in the driver’s seat,” Lillie said. Three closing birdies on the back nine, including one at No. 18, greatly helped her cause.
Lillie’s game has gained another dimension as she’s played more golf on the other side of the country from her Southern California home. Often, she has noticed, East Coast courses have a bigger and grander feel, as if the course truly fits into the place carved out for it. Sometimes golf in Southern California, she says, can feel squeezed into a city or onto the side of a hill.
“It gives you a different feeling,” she said of the courses she’s experienced since branching out in the game and making a cross-country move for college golf.
Lillie played her way into the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster Country Club in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She missed the cut that week, but it remains and important part of her story.
“I was 16 when I played and was so nervous I couldn’t even think,” she said.
What sticks with her most from that week came from her dad. Have fun, he said. She would play well if she had fun.
“I think that’s something I carry with me every round.”
No one knows what’s going to happen to the 2020 college football season. We’ll take a general look at where each team stands – doing it without spring ball to go by – while crossing our fingers that we’ll all have some well-deserved fun this fall. Hoping you and yours are safe and healthy.
5. College Football News Preview 2020: Virginia Cavaliers Offense 3 Things To Know
– 1990. That was the last time a Virginia offense scored at the level of the 2019 attack. The offense might have finished eighth in the ACC, but it averaged over 32 points per game, led the conference in time of possession, and was second in third down conversions.
It did what a Bronco Mendenhall offense is supposed to do.
However, the guy who made it all go is gone. QB Bryce Perkins was the only passer – not Joe Burrow, not Jake Fromm – to hit the Florida defense for 300 passing yards, and he pulled off one of the greatest performances in ACC history in the win over Virginia Tech. Now the Cavaliers have to find another quarterback who can move the offense like Perkins could.
Sophomore Brennan Thompson has been in the system for a few years and served as the No. 2 guy last year, but in come Keytaon Thompson from Mississippi State to make a big, big push. Thompson has the size and the dual-threat abilities, but Perkins was a 65% passer last season. The sample size is limited, but Thompson only hit 48% of his throws at MSU.
CFN in 60 Video: Virginia Cavaliers Preview
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– Perkins was the team’s leading rusher, but 5-9, 210-pound Wayne Taulapapa led the team with 12 rushing scores and was second with 473 yards. PK Kier was the third-leading back, but he’s no longer with the program. Mike Hollis averaged over five yards per carry with three scores, and coming from Indiana is Ronnie Walker, a good-sized transfer who should be an instant part of the rotation.
The receiving corps loses leading receiver Hasise Dubois and the dangerous Joe Reed, but Terrell Jana can become a No. 1 target. It’s a thin group in terms of experience, but speedy Tavares Kelly came up with 14 grabs, and Dorien Goddard is a dangerous 6-3, 220-pound redshirt freshman in the mix.
– The stats don’t do the Virginia offensive line justice. There were problems in pass protection – Notre Dame seemed like it spent the whole second half jumping on Bryce Perkins’ head – overall it was a relatively effective group. Now, with all five starters expected to return, it needs to be more of a killer for the ground game and has to be tighter at keeping defenses out of the backfield.
NEXT: College Football News Preview 2020: Virginia Cavaliers Defense 3 Things To Know
