College Football Week 5 Saturday Slate- Normally in this article I’m going to highlight the five best games of the day but I really don’t think there is five games worth a full breakdown. Since that’s the case I’m going to do a quick run through of a few six o’clock games and a full preview of four others. As always any college football is good football and there are specific players and match ups worth watching.
Texas Tech at Oklahoma
At this point Oklahoma is an offense machine that is just going to reload year after year and still average over 40 a game. Lincoln Riley might be the smartest offensive mind on the planet and Jalen Hurts is really giving Oklahoma a shot at three straight Heisman Trophies. Hurts has nine touchdowns no picks and is completing over 80 percent of his passes. By the way he also has 373 yards on the ground and four touchdowns. Hurts has been the most dominate player in the country this year. The other superstars on the offense are Charleston Rambo and CeeDee Lamb both receivers are explosive athletes and make this Sooner offense must watch TV. Neville Gallimore is a player to watch on the Sooner Defense he’s a pro prospect who can disrupt an offense with his play up the middle.
Texas Tech has two players I absolutely love on their defense Jordyn Brooks and Douglas Coleman. Brooks is the leading tackler for Tech. Look for his name to be called repeatedly on Saturday and then eventually on Sundays. The most important player on the Raiders defense is going to be Douglas Coleman. Coleman is a 6’1 corner who already has two picks and twenty tackles this year. If Texas Tech wants to hang around in this one he is going to have to be able to shadow one of Oklahoma’s big wideouts. Coleman matched up with CeeDee Lamb is going to be one of the best battles of the weekend. On offense its a pretty standard Red Raiders attack but there is one really interesting player to watch. TJ Vasher is 6’6 receiver who can jump and run pretty well. He is an absolute match up nightmare, especially against a Sooners secondary that I don’t love. I think he is going to have to have an old school Micheal Crabtree 12-200 yard game with a a few scores for Tech to have a chance in this one.
This is by far the best and most interesting early game, I probably won’t even flip channels unless it gets ugly. Personally I like the Texas Tech defense and I think they actually have a pretty good team. There’s only one problem though Oklahoma is an offense juggernaut and Jalen Hurts doesn’t turn the ball over. Oklahoma wins a three score game at home and continues their roll to another Big 12 championship.
So there is a player that is being extremely underrated by everyone right now. I fully believe he is a future top 10 pick and a better player than the one he was forced out by, that player is Jacob Eason. Normally I like to breakdown multiple players but for this one I really only want to focus on him. Outside of Trevor Lawrence I believe this kid is the best NFL QB prospect in college football right now. He can make every throw, has great pocket presence, and is a sneaky athlete. The ball absolutely flies out of his hand and he has the ability to throw his guys open instead of them having to be open.
In the two GIFs above you can see a couple things I like about Eason. The first GIF shows his ability to make a difficult throw look pretty easy dropping it in between the linebackers and safety. In the second one you see his ability to slide up in the pocket and reset his feet and still deliver a strike down the field. My favorite thing about him though is that he doesn’t under throw the deep ball to open receivers. You see a lot of QB’s that get scared and make the receiver stop to catch it. Eason puts it out front and allows his guys to out run the defense.
Slovis is out, Fink is in I don’t know if I even care I think their pretty similar at this point but I do love another match up in this game. Micheal Pittman Jr gets to go up against the west coast DBU. Pittman is 6’4 215 with NFL speed and is great at angling his body to make plays on the ball. If he can put up a big day here he can really cement himself in next years draft. I think he probably ends up in the third round. Also watch out for the Huskies freshman defensive back Kyler Gordon kid is going to be special. Overall Washington actually recruits similar if not better than USC now, they have the better coach and quarterback, also their playing at home give me the Huskies by 10.
Virginia at Notre Dame
We got a top 25 match up in South Bend. Virginia has built themselves into one of the better programs in the country and probably the second best team in the ACC. Bronco Mendenhall has been successful everywhere he’s coached and if Virginia can keep him they’ll be relevant for a while. For Virginia the offense goes as far as Bryce Perkins will take it. He is a true dual threat guy and a dynamic play maker but he will turn the ball over. Joe Reed is a physical receiver on the outside look for him to have a big game if Virginia can pull this one out.
As always Mendahall coached teams are physical and well coached on defense and they might have the best linebacker trio outside of the truly elite teams. Zane Zandier is one of the leaders at middle linebacker and this kid does it all. He reads plays extremely well and gets downhill quickly in the run game and almost never misses a tackle. He leads the Cavilers in tackles, throw in two sacks and an interception and you have an elite middle linebacker. On the outsides Charles Snowden and Jordan Mack can both get after the quarterback and contain the rush game expect to hear these three called out on nearly every play on Saturday. Obviously you can’t talk about Virginia without talking about all world corner and future first round pick Bryce Hall. He has the ability to absolutely take away half of the field and make explosive plays on defense.
For Notre Dame Everything revolves around quarterback Ian Book. Book has great pocket presence and can make plays with his legs, he’s thrown for 8 touchdowns and rushed for two more. In the Gif below Book makes a throw I love seeing a college kid make. The deep out route is one of most difficult routes for a QB and he drops it in perfectly. Also i know being a leader gets tossed around a lot but i really think Book is the heart of this Notre Dame team. The only problem is I’m not a huge fan of this Notre Dame team outside of him. I’ll admit I was wrong and thought they would lose to Georgia by a million so who knows I could be way off abut this team.
Still Notre Dame always recruits at a top level and its hard to overcome a tough crowd and a leprechaun doing push ups. I think the spread is a little high in this one. I see the Irish winning a one score game here.
Night Games
To be honest the the night games aren’t great and I really don’t care about Ohio State and Nebraska but I felt like I had to write about it. Ohio State is better everywhere on the field. I see no way Nebraska can contain Justin Fields. Chase Young might murder Adrian Martinez, Ohio State in Nebraska by a billion. Under the lights in the SEC we have Auburn and Mississippi State. I don’t see how Mississippi State puts up more than 10 points in this game. Look for Marlon Davidson and Derrick Brown to dominate the State offensive line and make it impossible for them to do anything. The crowd is going to be rocking in Auburn and their just too big, too strong, too good for the Bulldogs, Auburn big. Kansas State is traveling to Stillwater to take on Oklahoma State. I absolutely love this game I think Kansas State is for real and were going to see if the Cowboys are after this one. K-State already has a win at Mississippi State this year. Another big road win puts them in a position for a big time bowl. The key to this one is if Chuba Hubbard can have a big day against a stout Kansas State defense. If he can find some space and make a couple explosive plays look out. I don’t have a strong feeling on this one either way. But I do know this will be the most entertaining game out of these three.
Washington State at Utah
Winning in Utah is one of the most difficult things to do in college football. Between the altitude and how long they like to hold the ball on offense your defense can get worn out and in a hurry. The loss to USC was actually a disappointment for the Utes which shows you how far this program has come. Washington State scored 63 last week and lost. Mike Leach teams can score any any one but this a tough defense in a hostile environment. I love this game because you have Utah trying to hold the ball and make it a 21 to 14 game. Then you have the Cougars who wouldn’t mind a game that both teams have 70. The player to watch in this one and in every Wazzu game is Max Borghi the cougar running back is absolutely explosive. He has to be the main focus for Utah’s defense. He’s dangerous on the ground and is probably the best receiving back in the country. In the game against Houston I heard him compared to Christian McCaffrey, I’m not going to go that far but I will say he’s one of the most exciting players in the country. I would love to see the Cougars win this game because I’m a huge Mike Leach guy but it’s almost impossible to go into Utah and win. Give me Utah in a 35 to 31 game.
