A busy night of college football this Thursday that included TCU having a very easy time against West Virginia, North Carolina showing it’s time for someone to rank them at the expense of Pittsburgh and Oregon coming through a triple overtime marathon against Arizona State with their hands on top, barely.
West Virginia 10 TCU 40: The Horned Frogs did enough not just to stay in the top 5 of the rankings as we also get closer to the College Football Playoff committee publishing their first rankings, but maybe even get a boost. West Virginia? A fourth straight loss, but they might be relieved it was the most difficult part of their schedule, finishing a stretch of playing Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor and TCU in one hellish month.
Trevone Boykin passed for 388 yards and three touchdowns and ran for 84 with an impressive touchdown on his own, with Josh Doctson having another big receiving day with 183 yards and two touchdowns. The TCU defense did a very good job of stopping the Mountaineers running game, holding them to just 67 yards before contact. They averaged twice as much going into the game. They also had Skyler Howard throwing under pressure 49% of the time.
North Carolina 26 Pittsburgh 19: The picture of the Coastal division gets clearer with a big win for the Tar Heels over a ranked Pitt team. This should put North Carolina in the rankings, 7-1 this season and undefeated in the ACC (4-0), winning 7 in a row since a 13-0 loss to South Carolina. Marquise Williams threw two big touchdown passes to Ryan Switzer and Mack Hollins and also ran for 52 yards, getting help from Elijah Wood who ran for 98 yards.
While usually the focus of this conference goes to the Atlantic Division and its Clemson -Florida State struggle, there’s something very interesting brewing in the Coastal with North Carolina and Duke on a collision course. The two play each other next week and if Duke are still a one-loss team at that point, it might be the game that decides the division winner and could eventually mean a rare visit for North Carolina to the conference championship game.
Oregon 61 Arizona State 55: This isn’t Oregon’s season, not in the way we’re used to seeing from them. But that sentiment is even stronger regarding the Sun Devils, already out of the picture in the Pac-12 South despite high expectations early on. The Ducks came back from being down by 11 points in the third quarter and then seven points in the fourth quarter to improve to 5-3 this season and 3-2 in the conference before a tough finish against California, USC, Stanford and the Civil War vs Oregon State.
With 12 seconds to go in the game Vernon Adams found Dwayne Stanford with a touchdown pass to send the game into the first overtime, stunning Sun Devil Stadium. Stanford and Adams connected again for a touchdown in the first overtime, but ASU answered back. Mike Bercovici ran for 18 yards and a TD to give the Sun Devils the lead in the second overtime, but Royce Freeman punched it in from one yard to give us another. Eventually, Adams threw another touchdown pass, this time to Bralon Addison, to win the game. Adams finished with four touchdown passes, two of them in overtime.