College Football 2020: Thoughts around the nation for Week 4

A week that lacked major upsets still provided plenty of drama around the nation. Let’s share some college football thoughts from Week 3.

Week 3 was another great week of football, but the landscape of the 2020 season is about to change.

In Week 4, the SEC returns to the field. That means six top 10 teams will make their season debut this Saturday. If you include the ACC’s Virginia Tech, nine top 25 teams will play their first game this weekend.

But before we look ahead at next week, let’s look back at the week that was.

• Of course, the biggest news of the week was the return of the Big Ten to play. They’ll return on Oct. 24, one week earlier than the rumored date of Oct. 17. Quite a few things about this.

First and foremost, it’s going to be great to have Big Ten football back in action. Whether you think they should play or sit the season out, the Big Ten found enough information that in their opinion, playing is the right call. It probably would have been better for the conference as a whole if they did start Oct. 17. The conference now has eight weeks to play eight games.

If the rumored Oct. 17 start had happened, the conference could use the week before Thanksgiving as an open date for all teams. That date could be used as a safety blanket in case any games had to be postponed. Under the current format, there’s not much margin for error.

The Big 10 has a legitimate National Championship contender in Ohio State — two of you think Penn State is good enough — but what happens if one or more of their games is cancelled because of Covid? They’re already a game or two behind the other power conferences and if Ohio State only gets in six games, that would stir up a lot of debate as to whether they’re as deserving as a team that plays all nine or 10 games that only has one loss.

While on scheduling, why did the people at FOX, Big Noon Saturday and/or the Big Ten find it necessary to drag out the schedule announcement like it was the NCAA Tournament? The ACC Network did their release perfectly, it was done in two segments, not just one week quickly read in between segments that are completely irrelevant. In a few cases, a week’s worth of games was simply glossed over. A great way to get people to watch, but a very difficult watch.

• The biggest loser in this whole schedule is Nebraska. There’s not much that can be said about the Huskers schedule that hasn’t already been said, but they run quite the gauntlet early.

At Ohio State, Wisconsin, at Northwestern and Penn State in consecutive weeks is as rough a stretch as you’ll find in the conference. Illinois, Iowa, Purdue and Minnesota round out the schedule. Where’s Rutgers when you need them?

• It certainly seems the pressure is on the remaining conferences now to make decisions quickly. The PAC-12 seems to be all over the map. It seems late November/early December is the target date, but Halloween is also possible. They could also start the same day as the Big 10. Basically, any time between now and December. Thanks, Pac-12 decision makers.

The MAC higher ups met last week but no decision was made. Supposedly, they’ll meet again Friday. As for the Mountain West, commissioner Craig Thompson released the following statement:

"“Multiple subgroups within the Conference are working daily on solutions to the existing challenges in order to facilitate a return to play for Mountain West football, and other Conference sport programs, at the earliest possible opportunity.  This includes finalizing a plan for frequent, rapid response testing and continuing to monitor the status of public health directives in our MW states and communities.”"

That seems like a long winded way of saying they have no idea.

• Finally on to some actual on-field action… not to be harsh on the Big 12 again, but if Oklahoma State is supposed to be the second best team in the conference, there are going to be some problems.

After the Cowboys’ Swiss cheese offensive line got Spencer Sanders crushed into about 10 pieces and knocked out of the game, Tulsa gave Oklahoma State all it could handle. Tulsa actually led 10-3 into the fourth quarter before Chuba Hubbard scored the Cowboys’ only touchdown en route to an ugly 16-7 win. At least they didn’t suffer the same fate as Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State, but they might not have come out much more confident than any of those other teams.

• Is Marshall this year’s Group of Five New Year’s Six representative? It sure does look like it after a 17-7 upset over Appalachian State nationally broadcast on CBS. Marshall’s defense showed up big time holding App State to just 4-for-13 on third down.

The Thundering Herd rushed for 216 yards, including 138 rushing from rising superstar quarterback Braden Knox.

If the defense keeps up the solid play of this weekend and Knox continues to grow, we could very well be taking about an undefeated C-USA Marshall come December.

• It’s time to consider Miami a legitimate threat. That offense is legit and D’Eriq King showed exactly why he was such a sought after transfer out of Houston. He threw for 325 yards and 3 touchdowns in the 47-34 victory over Louisville.

The Hurricane defense might need a little bit of work after giving up 516 yards, but the offense is good enough to give them a shot in any game they play. That includes against Clemson, which is just a few short weeks away on Oct. 10. Come Oct. 11, we’ll know just how good the Hurricanes are.

Looking even further ahead, Miami closes the season against North Carolina on Dec. 5 in a game that could determine which team plays in the ACC title game. D’Eriq King vs. Sam Howell? You can almost hear the fireworks already.

• Speaking of Clemson, they smoked The Citadel as expected. It was 49-0, but here’s possibly the best stat from the game: The Citadel held Clemson scoreless in the second half. They’re the first team to do so to Clemson since… Georgia State in 2014. College football is weird.
• Last week I mentioned Will Healy from Charlotte as a great up and coming coach, but this week we need to spend some time on Billy Napier.

Napier lead his Louisiana team to a gutsy comeback win against Georgia State and kept the Ragin’ Cajuns ranked at number 19. Louisiana trailed 21-7 midway through the third quarter but fought back for a 34-31 overtime win.

Napier is now 20-10 in just over two seasons as a head coach. Prior to his arrival, Louisiana was a good Sun Belt program but had been down in the three seasons prior. They were fingertips away from winning the conference title last year, but lost to Appalachian State by a touchdown.

Napier’s only 41, which means he realistically could have another 30-plus years of coaching left in him. It’s only a matter of time before someone finds their future forever coach.

• If you like shootouts, Wake Forest/NC State was the game for you. A 45-42 Wolfpack victory that featured a pair of 14-point Wake Forest comebacks that were both foiled. Incredibly, the teams found a way to combine for 8 punts in a game that totaled 87 points. The over/under for the game was 53, meaning if you took the under, your night was over 8:56 into the third quarter. That’s a rough one.
• I saved the best for last, as in the best game of the weekend. Another incredible comeback. Tulane absolutely dominated Navy for the first 30 minutes. It was 24-0 heading into half in a game that quite honestly looked like the Green Wave were heading to a 60 point output. But Navy had other ideas.

The Midshipmen stormed back, started by a Cameron Kinley interception that likely kept Navy from going down 31-0. That was the spark Navy needed, as they scored 27 unanswered and winning on a field goal as time expired. Navy outgained Tulane by an incredible 291-82 yards in a second half that didn’t even look that close.

The Navy team that showed up against BYU and in the first half of this game and the team that played the second half here are completely different teams. The team the closed out the comeback will give fits to any team in the American and will be a team nobody wants to face.