College football week 5 is in the books. After every week fans can take away things from what happened on the field. Here are 5 things learned from college football week 7.
Related: 5 Things to watch in college football week 7
The biggest game of the weekend featured Ohio State traveling to Oregon to take on the Ducks. Ohio State was favored in this game on the road. The Buckeyes returned a lot of talent, recruited well and netted some key transfers to set up their roster well for the season. In their first big game of the season, they lost by one on the road to Oregon.
While losing to a top-five team on the road is forgivable for most, Ryan Day has had his issues in big games before. There have been losses to Michigan and a close call against Georgia in the CFP following the 2022 season. Day has time to turn things around, but the trend over the last few years is concerning to say the least.
Oregon notched a big win over Ohio State to make themselves frontrunners in the Big Ten. They hadn’t played up to their potential this season so there were doubts in this game about their ability to win. The Ducks silenced the doubters and got one of the biggest wins of the college football season.
The difference for Oregon in this game as opposed to their past contests was quarterback Dillon Gabriel playing well. He had been completing a lot of his passes, but struggled in the red zone and with stretching the defense vertically in the first few weeks of the season. Gabriel finished the game with 341 passing yards and two touchdown passes. If he plays like that the rest of the season, the sky is the limit for the Ducks.
Texas was favored by over two touchdowns against Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout. These games have a tendency to be close, but that wasn’t the case this weekend. Texas won the game 34-3. Oklahoma kept things close for a while, but the talent at Texas won out.
While the loss by itself is bad enough, things are worse because there are bigger issues. Oklahoma still hasn’t figured out who their quarterback will be. Michael Hawkins and Jaxson Arnold have both started with limited success. There have been hurt receivers and an offensive line that isn’t up to the Oklahoma standard. While Oklahoma’s defense is solid, the offense needs to be fixed quickly.
Penn State started the game against USC slow. They were trailing 20-6 at halftime and really looked like they wouldn’t be able to compete. Things changed in the second half, as the Nittany Lions won 33-30 in overtime.
It was a big win for James Franklin, but offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki stole the show. There were mistakes that really prevented the offense from sustaining drives in the first half. Kotelnicki called a great game and put his offense in position to win the game in the second half. The Nittany Lions don’t have the most talented receivers and their running game was hit or miss. He had trick plays up his sleeve and utilized a matchup problem in tight end Tyler Warren. Warren finished the game with 17 catches for 224 yards and one touchdown. Kotelnicki has been creative and the Nittany Lions likely don’t win this game without him.
A couple of weeks ago, Ole Miss lost to Kentucky. They rebounded to beat South Carolina last week, setting up a big showdown against LSU in Baton Rouge for week 7. The Rebels had the lead late, but gave it up and lost to LSU in overtime.
The loss gives the Rebels two on the season. They still have a big game against Georgia. The problem for them is with another loss to Georgia, they are putting themselves in risk of not making the CFP. With three losses and wins that likely will fall short of being impressive, the CFP Committee will could very easily leave Ole Miss out.
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