College Football 2021: Thoughts from around the nation in Week 3

One of the longest slates in recent memory highlighted a fantastic Week 3 in college football.

How much fun was Saturday? We had college football on from noon until 4:04 a.m. ET and it doesn’t get much better than that.

• We have to start with Nebraska. The Huskers lost to Oklahoma as almost everyone expected, but the 23-16 final was indicative of how well Nebraska played. Oklahoma’s ability to stop the run for Nebraska was a key reason the Sooners escaped with a win. The Huskers were held to just 2.5 yards per attempt on 38 attempts.

I was really impressed with Nebraska’s Adrian Martinez, who played what I thought was his best game as a Husker. He was 19-of-25 for 289 yards and an interception. Martinez played with poise and confidence that I haven’t seen out of him in a long time.

This was a completely different Husker team than what we saw against Illinois. If Nebraska can play like this week in and week out, they can win four of their remaining eight and become bowl eligible. The true test is what happens in the final three games: Ohio State, at Wisconsin, and Iowa. There’s a long way to go to get to that point but if Nebraska can continue to get better each week as they have been, hopes will be sky-high heading into 2022.

Another thing: can you believe that Nebraska wanted to back out of this game earlier this year?

Wins are wins and losses are losses. It’s that straightforward. But this close loss on the road against Oklahoma on national TV will do more for the program than a 63-7 win over New Mexico ever would have.

• Another “moral victory” over the weekend was Florida’s two-point loss to Alabama. If you watched that game, you saw that Florida came out a completely different team in the second half and dominated Alabama.

The solid play of Florida actually started in the second quarter. You could see Florida had some nerves going in the first quarter and ultimately that came back to bite them. That’s why every minute of every game is so important. Down 21-6, from the second quarter on Florida outscored Alabama 26-10. Had the Gators been able to convert an extra point on their second-quarter touchdown, Florida wouldn’t have had to go or two late in the fourth, where they ultimately failed.

Honestly, seeing how the game went, if overtime occurred, I’m not sure Alabama comes away with the win. Florida had all of the momentum and The Swamp was as loud as it’s been in years. Florida had no quit in them and that would have carried into the overtime for sure.

• The big question coming out of that game is: Is Florida good enough to compete with Georgia?

Right now, the answer is no.

Florida has talent, that’s undeniable. Even with that talent, there’s still too much gone from last season that they still haven’t been able to replace. And unlike the Alabama game, Florida won’t have a full stadium of Florida fans with them when they travel to Jacksonville.

Florida is a good team. But there’s a reason that Georgia is a College Football Playoff pick and Florida is not. The Bulldogs’ defense is far too physical, particularly on the line.

It’s hard to see how the Gators’ offense can stack up against the Georgia defense. It’s going to be nearly impossible for Florida to win if they don’t eliminate turnovers. Florida is minus-1 in turnover margin thanks exclusively to interceptions — five to be exact. Emory Jones had a solid game against Alabama and responded well after his interception, but Florida still is not 100 percent decided on a quarterback.

You know the old adage: if you have two quarterbacks, you really don’t have any. That doesn’t bode well against a team like Georgia.

• Penn State’s win against Auburn is another great win for the program. This is the Penn State team we expected last year when they were 0-5 and looking for answers.

Penn State beat Auburn 28-20 led by Sean Clifford’s 28-for-32 performance for 280 yards and two touchdowns. Clifford’s had just about as many solid games as he’s had shaky starts, but this is definitely at the top of the list.

Beyond that, Penn State’s defense played yet another incredible game. Even though Auburn put up good numbers, this Nittany Lion defense might have actually been better here than they were against Wisconsin earlier in the season. The defense held Auburn out of the end zone late, including Auburn having a first down at the Penn State ten. Auburn got as close as the two-yard line, but couldn’t punch it in. Auburn also could only game 36 yards on the final possession, as Bo Nix couldn’t find an open guy in the end zone as time expired.

We talked about Bo Nix’s struggles in big games on the road. Nix was decent — 21-for-37 for 185 yards — but left a lot to be desired. He didn’t commit any turnovers, but still just couldn’t make the big plays necessary.

• Of course, you can’t talk about the Penn State game without mentioning the officiating. This isn’t isolated to just this game, but this was far and away the most egregious.

How, in 2021, do you lose track of what down it is? Clifford received a penalty for intentional grounding which resulted in a loss of downs. Unfortunately, the referees took away first and second down from Penn State.

Penn State was forced to punt on third down because the referees were asleep at the wheel. Somehow, the whole thing was reviewed and the refs confirmed that it was fourth down even though it clearly was not. Imagine if Penn State lost this game because of something like this.

Not only that, a targeting call against Auburn was called that yes, by definition, was targeting. But if a defender is diving at a ball carrier at the same time as the carrier is going to the ground, what is the defender supposed to do?

Again, this isn’t just an issue in this game. Memphis scored a touchdown on a punt return that shouldn’t have counted because the Tigers had two players on the field wearing the same number. Memphis went on to win the game by two points. Oh yeah, that was also an SEC officiating crew.

Look, I know piling on the refs is an easy thing to do, but this season has had some of the worst officiating I’ve ever seen.

Back to the targeting thing for a minute: if this is targeting, we need to change the rules. Why not have two different versions: one exactly as it is now, and the other for “unintentional” targeting. A player making a hit like the one above shouldn’t result in someone being ejected and suspended.

Let’s keep going. On what planet is this a catch? We’ve been playing football for 151 years. The forward pass has been around for 115 years. How do we still have zero idea what a catch is? Again, not an isolated incident. This is a chronic football problem, regardless of level.

It’s not even that these problems are occurring. It’s the level of inconsistency with which they’re happening. Things have to be cleaned up before a horrendous call ends someone’s season.

• Let’s end on a positive note: even if you’ve already heard this, you need to hear it again. Here’s Gus Johnson’s call of the play of the year, a one-handed interception from Oklahoma’s DJ Graham.

Gus Johnson is probably the most exciting announcer out there and his partner Joel Klatt is the perfect fit to be next to him. Johnson is one of those rare announcers that can make a good moment great and a great moment legendary. He and Klatt play off each other so well. Those two could probably make reading a phonebook exciting. Can we clone Gus to commentate everything?