Week 4 of the college football season was a prove it week for some schools. Some teams were able to pass their challenge, while others fell flat on their face. Multiple ranked teams also went down on Saturday, as well as one on Friday Night. Let jump into the winners and losers of Week 4.
Winners:
1). The Tennessee Vols are the biggest winner of Week 4. The Vols went into Norman and defeated a top 15 Oklahoma team. The final score was only 25-15, but the game was never in jeopardy halftime. Oklahoma scored a couple of garbage time touchdowns to make it look close. Normally the Tennessee offense is the headline, but this week it was the defense. The defense forced 3 turnovers and held the Oklahoma offense to only 1.1 yards per rush. The defense was dominating Oklahoma so badly that Josh Heupel kind of just conceded on offense and just ran the ball in the second half, basically saying you can’t score on us, so we are just going to shrink the game. The offense still had its big plays though. Nico Iamaleava hit Dont’e Thornton Jr for a 66-yard touchdown on a deep in route early in the game. Iamaleava also hit Bru McCoy for a 42 yard deep ball along the sideline. The Vols on Saturday proved that this team is different from the 2022 team. It can win games in multiple ways and now they have an elite defense to pair with its elite offense. The Vols are National Title Contenders this year. I hope the rest of the nation is ready for it.
2). Michigan was able to knock off USC at home on Saturday and welcome them to Big 10 football. Not one single person in the national media predicted Michigan to knock off USC except for one person, Josh Pate. Michigan dominated both lines of scrimmage on Saturday and that was the deciding factor. Kalel Mullens had his breakout party Saturday with 17 carries for 159 yards and 2 touchdowns. One of those touchdowns was the game-winning touchdown that gave Michigan the lead with 34 seconds remaining. The move to Alex Orji at quarterback really payed off for Michigan. While he isn’t as good as a passer as Davis Warren, he did not turn the ball over. Orji only had 32 passing yards total in the game, but it was all they needed. Michigan ran for 290 yards averaging 6.3 yards per carry. Michigan's defense shut down the USC passing game for the most part. Miller Moss was getting pressured every time he dropped back it seemed and was held to only 5 yards a completion. If Michigan can maintain playing this style of football, they can definitely be a threat in the Big 10 and in the first and second round of the playoff.
3). BYU is a massive winner. BYU beat then number 14 Kansas St 38-9 at home to remain undefeated at 4-0. This win puts BYU in a really good spot in the conference as well. They only have 2 tough games remaining on the schedule. Those two are at UCF and at Utah. Every other game they should win. If they are able to win those other games they could end up losing both to UCF and Utah and get into the Big 12 championship and have a chance to make the Playoff. BYU’s defense is really impressive holding a higher-powered K-State offense to only 9 points and forcing 3 turnovers on top of that. The Cougars forced K-State QB Avery Johnson to throw 2 interceptions and then they also forced a fumble. The offense for BYU did not really have to do much tonight but they capitalized off of all the mistakes and scored when they had to. This is a really impressive win for BYU and I am really interested to see what they have in store the rest of the way.
Losers:
1). Nebraska is one cursed team man. Nebraska football had the most hype a Nebraska team has had in a long time and blew it at home against Illinois. I will say Illinois is a pretty solid football team. But, that is a game that just cannot lose if you are Nebraska. The Nebraska defense which is supposed to be the strength of the team allowed for Illinois QB Luke Altmyer to sling the ball over the yard. Altmyer threw for 4 touchdowns and the biggest one was a 4-yard touchdown pass to Pat Bryant to win the game. Nebraska’s offense had a pretty solid game. Dylan Raiola threw for 297 yards and 3 touchdowns, but he had a costly interception. I know it is one loss, but this really changes the perception of Nebraska’s season now. Going into this game everyone was saying how Nebraska was going to be undefeated going into the Ohio St game in a couple of weeks. Now that game has sort of lost all of its potential luster and Nebraska is going to be looked at as a middle-of-the-road Big 10 team in my opinion. It sucks because no fanbase deserved a truly special season more than Nebraska fans.
2). For this next one I am not going with a whole team I am just going with a unit because the defense for this team is elite. The Oklahoma offense is flat-out terrible. Terrible offensive line play, terrible quarterback play until the backup came in, and most importantly terrible scheme. Until the fourth quarter when backup quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr came in the game, Oklahoma only had 98 yards of offense in the entire game. They ended up finishing with 222 total yards. Also as I mentioned earlier when talking about the Tennessee defense, Oklahoma ran for only 1.1 yards per carry. This is where the scheme comes in. Early in the game, Oklahoma ran two jet sweeps which actually picked up yardage because they were running away from the team of the Tennessee defense, which is the front seven. But for some reason, they did not do it the rest of the game and kept trying to run inside zones up the middle and they just kept getting swallowed up. Oklahoma ran 15 first down plays. 8 of them went for a loss or no yards. They were behind the sticks from the jump and kept themselves in obvious passing downs for the Tennessee front to feast. One positive for Oklahoma at least was backup QB Michael Hawkins Jr. I believe he took the starting QB job from Jackson Arnold with the way he played last night, even though he did it in garbage time.
3). Memphis was a College Football Playoff favorite after beating Florida State. But after losing to Navy on Saturday, Memphis kind of kissed their chances to get the Group of 5 bid goodbye. Memphis’ offenses played a really good game in this one. It was the defense that put up the stinker, allowing 56 points to a Navy team that is not an explosive offense. Navy put 566 total yards of offense on Memphis. They allowed 205 passing yards to a team that does not pass the ball. I truly have no idea what to think after this game. Is Navy just a really good football team? I don’t think 56 points and 556 yards of total offense are good. Memphis is really kicking themselves for this one. If they miss the playoff because they lost to Navy after having the highest of highs after beating Florida State, they will not be able to forget this loss for years to come.
Honorable Mention Winners:
1). Utah
2). Louisville
3). Clemson
4). Rutgers
5). Iowa
Honorable Mention Losers:
1). USC
2). Oklahoma St
3). Kansas St
4). NC State
5). NIU
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