Week 13 Thoughts

It all comes and goes so fast. The regular season is "unofficially" over, as the last arguably full week of college football is over. The Big Ten was off with the exception of Illinois, but the rest of the country finished up their season this week. This turned out to be the best week of the season in my opinion. Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech, and Oklahoma State all fell victim to the rivalry game and made the BCS games more clear, as the only real question remaining is Iowa or Penn State and with Oklahoma State losing it looks to be Iowa. Mark Ingram and CJ Spiller took major hits to their Heisman campaigns, but it makes me mad that people take them off the board because of one game and than a guy like Colt McCoy is miraculously atop a lot of Heisman boards. McCoy sucked at the beginning of the season. The Heisman is given to the best player in college football for the 2009 season, not the last 4 weeks of the 2009 season. So people need to take a step back off the McCoy bandwagon. And don't even get me started if you consider Tebow a contender.

Top Players of the Week
1. Colt McCoy
McCoy is the player of the last 4 weeks, he's just not the player of the year. McCoy put up POTWOTY, which is Player of the week of the year numbers, this week. He threw for 304 yards with 4 touchdowns and no picks. That is a great day at the ballpark for any quarterback playing his rival, but he wasn't done there. McCoy had 175 yards on the ground with another touchdown. For you guys not wanting to do math, that is 479 total yards and 5 touchdowns. McCoy is peaking at the right time and the Texas defense can recover from this showing, they are the favorites to win the National Championship right now. Florida and Alabama are solid teams, but not at the level Texas is playing right now.

2. Tony Pike
Cincinnati didn't look very good on defense against Illinois. Yes, one could argue the game was worse than the 13 points the score indicated, but you could argue it should have been even closer. The Cincinnati secondary was giving Juice Williams fields of room to throw to his receivers and he still couldn't hit the pass at some points. With a little better throwing quarterback, Illinois could have torched the Bearcat secondary. Tony Pike was prepared, though, to outscore whatever the Illini offense could do. Pike was a yard short of 400, but he threw an amazing 6 touchdown passes, which outdid McCoy's total touchdown effort for the week.

3. Anthony Dixon
Mississippi held Mississippi State to less than 100 yards through the air, but they couldn't handle Dixon, as he just wore the Ole Miss defense and their strong defensive line down. Dixon along with quarterback Chris Relf torched the Ole Miss defense for 264 yards and 2 touchdowns on the ground, one of those being Dixon to go along with his 133 rushing yards. Dixon had two receptions for 12 yards to put his total yards at 145 for the day. Mississippi blanked Mississippi State 45-0 last season and put 27 on the board this season. The difference was the Bulldog offense putting up 34 points of their own this time and they added a pick 6 on defense. Mississippi State broke the game open in the third quarter and Ole Miss wasn't able to fight back.

4. Ryan Williams
Virginia looked like they were going to keep it close for awhile, but Ryan Williams and Virginia Tech were just to much for Al Groh's team and Groh's job. Groh was fired today after failing to beat the instate rivals and having another subpar season. Williams had 183 yards on the ground and had 4 touchdowns, as the freshman wonder finished the regular season. Darren Evans is going to have to fight for carries next season, cause stealing them from a guy that ran for over 1500 yards and had 19 touchdowns through the regular season isn't going to be easy. Williams should pass the 20 touchdown barrier in the bowl game, and could easily finish with 1600 yards if not 1700. Before a bad stretch cost him, Williams was a Heisman candidate and he should be a candidate next year with more experience.

5. Ealey/King
Washaun Ealey and Caleb King both torched the Georgia Tech defense and it would be unfair to give the honor to one over the other. Ealey finished with 183 yards and got his carries more consistenly but failed to score a touchdown. King had 166 with 75 coming off a long run, but he finished with a pair of touchdowns. Its fair to say both had a major impact on the upset in the Georgia state rivalry game. Their output meant Joe Cox, who has had a less than stellar season, only needed to attempt 14 passes and they kept the clock moving on a team that thrives in ball control offense themselves. King lost a fumble in the game, but it shouldn't take away from what this duo acccomplished.

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