10 Takeaways: Week Five
Week five was college football at its best.
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10 Takeaways: Week Five
1. Long live college football
What more could you want from a single week of ball?
There were upsets (Kentucky over Ole Miss, Arizona over Utah), and near misses (Miami-Virginia Tech, Michigan-Minnesota, BYU-Baylor). Heisman contenders showed out in a way that's starting to separate them from the rest of the field (Travis Hunter, Ashton Jeanty, Jalen Milroe.) The biggest game of the week gave us an instant classic, capped by a moment that'll be talked about for decades:
This is what college football is all about. We're still less than halfway in, but this is shaping up to be an all-time season as we hit October.
2. Unpacking Miami-Virginia Tech
My heart says it was a catch.
My brain says the officials made the right call ruling it incomplete.
What do you think?
No matter where you stand, I feel like there are a few solid things to take away from the Hurricanes' 38-34 win. The first is that both teams should feel shaky coming out of it. Good on Miami for gutting out the type of game they've managed to blow so many times over the last two decades, but it didn't give me much confidence about their status as a national contender. What's supposed to be a top defensive front gave up 206 yards rushing, while allowing nine third down conversions on 14 attempts. Offensively, Cam Ward showed exactly why he's the most exciting QB in the country, yet also the most frustrating. He made three mind-numbingly bad turnovers, but also accounted for five touchdowns and an unbelievable play on Miami's go-ahead TD drive:
I've already seen pushback on this being labeled as a "Heisman moment," which unsurprisingly lacks any nuance. Did Ward make a number of mistakes that were the reason this game was as close as it was? Yep! Is Virginia Tech a bad team? Probably! But the Heisman at its best is all about moments, and Ward making arguably the play of the game in spectacular fashion is the kind of moment that can get you to New York in December.
I don't even know where to begin with the Hokies.
Brent Pry calling a fake field goal late in the third quarter up 27-17 after kicker John Love had already hit from 57 and 52 yards is the early contender for worst coaching decision of the season:
Tech went up ten again after Miami's ensuing touchdown drive, but passing up the chance to make it a 13-point game was costly. Then there was the final drive.
VT had two timeouts in their pocket and somehow wasted 23 seconds from the time receiver Da'Quan Felton caught this four yard pass to the snap of the next play:
The Hokies then wasted another eight seconds the next play from the time quarterback Kyron Drones went down on a two yard scramble to when Pry called timeout:
Letting over 30 seconds slip away when you still had two timeouts is criminal. The broadcast crew mentioned a couple times that Virginia Tech coaches and players kept telling them all week how they felt like they should've beat Vanderbilt and Rutgers. Stuff like this is exactly why they didn't, and why they're now 2-3. VT has always been a program that I root for from afar, but I can't rock with the repeated lack of attention to detail. Pry and his team need to take a serious look in the mirror about what's causing these issues before what was supposed to be a season they re-emerged as a factor in the ACC completely falls apart.
3. Alabama-Georgia was TITANIC
With due respect to everyone else, these are the two best teams in the country. I couldn't believe how effortlessly Bama jumped out to a 30-7 halftime lead, just as much as I couldn't believe how Georgia came back and damn near won after how shell shocked and scared of the moment they looked in the first half. Their 67-yard TD with 2:31 left is going down in the "plays you forgot about," Hall of Fame:
It says a lot about the Dawgs that they almost won after turning the ball over four times, but they've gotta be kicking themselves for how sloppy they played. All of this is a credit to Alabama, though.
The Tide just lost the greatest coach in the history of the sport and somehow look even better. They knocked off a team who was on winning streaks of 42 in the regular season and 28 in the nation's toughest conference. Jalen Milroe has elevated his game to an even higher plane, and they have a 17-year old receiver who has the speed of a sprinter, with the in-air body control of a figure skater:
If there was still any doubt over whether Kalen DeBoer could keep the freight train in Tuscaloosa rolling, it was obliterated on Saturday night. It was a privilege to watch this game, and I'm already starving for a rematch.
