college football recap: west coast edition

I’m blogging from the West Side in the comfort of my mom’s favorite arm chair. It feels so good to be home. Here’s the recap:

• First up, the Thursday night game was a good one—USF at Rutgers. You know, two years ago, this wouldn’t have been a very important game. But Rutgers rose in the ranks last year and became a serious contender for the Big East title. Now, USF is this year’s Rutgers and Rutgers decided they weren’t going to let the Bulls enjoy it. Rutgers squeaked out a close victory over the previously-ranked-#2 USF, 30-27. Another #2 bites the dust.
  

• #1 Ohio State won again. Big surprise. Their victim this week was Michigan State, who actually had a chance to keep it close towards the end of the game, but the Buckeyes held the Spartans to a field goal with 3 minutes remaining in the game when MSU really needed a TD.

• LSU and Auburn played a close won that was reminiscent of the LSU/Florida match up earlier this season. In both games, LSU’s opponent led for most of the game. And somehow, LSU was able to come back and seal the game in the final minutes. In this case, LSU was down by one point with a few ticks on the clock remaining. Instead of going for the field goal, which is all they needed to win, Les Miles instead drew up a play for a miracle TD. Sadly, he got it and the Tigers won, 30-24.

• Previously-ranked-#6-South Carolina was upset by Vanderbuilt in a game I didn’t watch. But I managed to catch some of the post game interviews and I was kinda impressed by how gracious S. Carolina’s coach Steve Spurrier was. He praised Vandy for being the better team and all I was thinking was, Damn, you just got beaten by Vandy and all you could do is congratulate them? That’s nice.

• USC had its annual battle with Notre Lame, this year in South Bend and apparently the Irish faithful are still not happy about the Bush Push of two years ago. They should be unhappy with how their coach sucks. But anyways, USC played flawlessly and won big, 38-0. QB Mark Sanchez started for the second time and seemed to find his rhythm, going 21-38 for 235 yards and 4 TDs. So, why did USC look so good? Sure, the Irish are especially bad this year, but USC hasn’t really played as good as it should until this game. The difference—it was the first game all season where we didn’t sustain an injury and a number of important injured started returned to the line-up, including Stanley Havili and Stafon Johnson.

Next up for VA Tech is #2 BC on Thursday. USC has a big test next Saturday against Oregon in Eugene.