Week 6 Is Why We Love College Football
Matt Dominique | October 8, 2024
There was one single matchup of ranked opponents of college football’s Week 6 schedule. Just a kind of ho-hum Saturday for college football fans. It seems like it’s always those Saturdays that give us the biggest thrills.
Five of the nation’s top 11 teams would lose. Four of them lost to unranked opponents and it was likely the craziest day in college football since November 12, 2016, when five top 10 teams all lost to unranked opponents. This is why we love college football.
Career Day for Texas A&M QB
This is not the same Texas A&M team that had 246 yards and scored 13 points in a season-opening loss to Notre Dame. Aggies QB Connor Weigman returned from a shoulder injury and had the best game of his career in a 41-10 beatdown of No. 9 Missouri. Weigman, whose career hasn’t really panned out the way anyone wanted, went 18-of-22 for 276 yards.
The Aggies defense was outstanding, limiting a very talented Missouri offense to just 10 points. Texas A&M recorded six sacks of Tigers QB Brady Cook, who wound up just 13-of-31 for 186 yards. Don’t look now, but Texas A&M is 5-1 and with LSU waiting in two weeks, the Aggies can still sneak into the College Football Playoff picture.
A Monumental Upset
Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban once said that the transfer portal would only help the rich get richer. Saban, who never lost to Vanderbilt, might want to rethink that statement. Vanderbilt had never beaten an AP Top 5 team since the AP started ranking teams. The Commodores were 0-60 in games against Top 5 teams.
Compounding the magnitude of this upset is Vandy’s record so far this decade – 11-38. Vandy head coach Clark Lea, an alum, has built a solid program. His team beat Virginia Tech this year and took Missouri to overtime. The only reason he was able to do so was because he padded this season’s roster with 22 transfers.
The biggest of those was QB Diego Pavia, who played last year at New Mexico State. When Lea saw the Aggies beat Auburn last year, he knew exactly what he wanted. He hired NMSU’s offensive coordinator Tim Beck. Pavia followed as did TE Eli Stowers. Both were integral parts of Vandy’s 40-35 upset of Alabama last week. Pavia went 16-for-20 for 252 yards and he ran for 56 more. Stowers caught six passes for 113 yards on Saturday.
Vanderbilt fans would bring down the goalposts and then march them through the city of Nashville. The goalposts ended up in the Cumberland River. This is why we love college football.
Rocky Top Gets Razorbacked
In two weeks, Tennessee will host Alabama. The loser of that game is probably out of the CFP race. That’s because the Volunteers ran into a stubborn Arkansas defense and fell victim to the upset. The Razorbacks beat Tennessee 19-14. It was Arkansas’ first Top 5 upset in 17 years.
Razorbacks head coach Sam Pittman was on one of the hotter coaching seats in the country entering the 2024 season. Arkansas is now 4-2 and Pittman is back on solid ground. The Razorbacks dismantled the nation’s leading scoring offense. Tennessee came into the game averaging 54 points.
What’s even more incredible is that Arkansas finished the job with a freshman quarterback. Starter Taylen Green got hurt in the fourth quarter. Freshman Malachi Singleton led Arkansas’ go-ahead scoring drive that culminated with 1:22 remaining in the game. Gotta love college football!
Cross Country Big Ten
The Big Ten now spans from the East Coast to the West Coast. So far this season, there have been nine games with schools at least two time zones apart. The road team is 1-8 SU in those games. New Big Ten member USC (3-2) became the latest victim. The Trojans had already lost at Michigan then made too many mistakes and lost to Minnesota last week.
The Gophers drove 75 yards to go ahead 24-17 with 56 seconds remaining in the game. Then, Minnesota’s Koi Perich picked off Miller Moss to preserve the win. It was Moss’ second pick of the fourth quarter. The 17 points were the fewest scored by USC since head coach Lincoln Riley’s first season.
USC hosts No. 4 Penn State this week in a must-win game. The two storied programs meet for the just the 11th time in the history of college football. USC has won the last three meetings, the most recent of which was in the Rose Bowl at the end of the 2016 season. The Trojans rallied from a 14-point fourth quarter deficit to win a shootout 52-49. Will we see another thriller on Saturday? Who knows, but we’ll watch because we love college football.
