After a fairly boring week six, week seven brought us several of those intriguing matchups that we are always craving for. We had four games pitting ranked teams against one another, with one of those being a top ten matchup. Some teams helped themselves and some others, not so much.
Winners
Oklahoma
The Sooners got their first signature win of the season over #11 Texas 34-27. Unlike in years past, Oklahoma actually showed some semblance of a defense against what had been a fairly productive Longhorn offense. The Sooners held Texas to just 100 rushing yards on 36 attempts and just 310 yards total. In previous years these two teams would have combined for somewhere around a 1000 yards. Could the narrative about this Sooner defense be about to shift?
Temple
The Owls hosted 23rd ranked and previously unbeaten Memphis and after jumping out to a 23-7 2nd quarter lead, held on for a 30-28 win. They were the benefactors of four Memphis turnovers, and remain tied with Cincinnati for first place atop the AAC East.
LSU
Fifth ranked LSU welcomed seventh ranked Florida into the other Death Valley in a battle of unbeatens and came away with a 42-28 win. Joe Burrow continued his impressive play, going 21-24 for 293 yards and 3 TDs, and this time did it against a legit defense. The win gives LSU the nations best resume to date, and the argument can made that they should be ranked number one in the (meaningless) polls. For what it’s worth, they did jump all the way to number two in the AP.
Wisconsin
The Badgers are the least talked about unbeaten team in the country. All they do is keep suffocating opponents with a smothering defense as evidenced by the 4 shutouts the have now pitched in just six games. This week it was Michigan State that got blanked, 38-0. They held Sparty to just 149 total yards, only 7 first downs, and 2-14 on 3rd downs. Wisconsin didn’t allow Michigan State to get anything going on the ground, holding them to a measly 30 yards, on 21 carries.
Clemson
Yes, LSU jumped them in the AP Poll but that isn’t really relevant. The Tigers needed to change the narrative that was being told and on Saturday they took the first step towards doing so. They beat Florida State 45-14, giving them 5 straight wins over the Noles and it wasn’t nearly as close as the final score might suggest. Clemson was up 21-0 before FSU had time to blink and the staff opened the playbook just enough to show the country there is still plenty of reason to fear this offense.
Losers
Georgia
The Dawgs dropped one at home 20-17 to unranked South Carolina. A team whose only FBS win had come against Kentucky, and had already lost to UNC and Mizzou, teams that had lost to App St and Wyoming respectively. To make matters worse, they lost to a UofSC team who played almost half of the game with a QB who can barely complete a forward pass. For whatever reason the Dawgs came out wanting to sling the ball all over the field. Jake Fromm had 51 pass attempts despite the fact that Georgia is winless in games in which he attempts more than 40 passes. Three of those were picked off, all by DB Israel Mukuamu, one of which he returned for a TD.
Wake Forest
The Demon Deacs were sitting at 5-0 and had just cracked the top 20. Just as fast as folks were starting to give them some props, they showed their true colors, giving up 62 points to Louisville. Wake rolled up 668 yards of offense but they also gave up 520 and that is a problem.
Notre Dame
No, the Irish didn’t lose this weekend. Despite squeaking out a 30-27 win over the real USC, that Georgia loss to UofSC hurts the Notre Dame. Their good loss in Athens doesn’t look quite so good anymore, and for a team that won, their playoff hopes took a big hit.
