Pity poor Arkansas. As of this writing, the SEC West’s seven teams have a combined record of 28-3, and the three losses are to other SEC West teams. Arkansas has two of the losses, to Auburn and Texas A&M. Every team not named Arkansas in the SEC West is currently ranked in the top 15 of the AP poll. I have never heard of one division in a single league representing so much of the top-ranked teams in college football. However, there are guaranteed to be three more SEC West losses after this Saturday – the six ranked SEC West teams all play each other.
Now that we’re mostly through the “cupcake” portion of most team’s schedules, it’s worth taking a look at just what kind of crazy numbers have been put up by teams so far. A sampling:
- Most points in a game: 77 by North Texas against Nicholls St. Seven teams scored 70+ in a game.
- Most rushing yards in a game: 644 by Wisconsin against Bowling Green. Eight teams have rushed for 450+ yards in a game, including 452 by Boston College against Southern California!
- Most passing yards in a game: 630 by Washington State against Portland State. Eight teams have passed for 500+ yards in a game.
- Most yards in a game: 789 by East Carolina against North Carolina. Thirteen teams have amassed 700+ yards in at least one game!
- Fewest yards allowed in a game: 44 by Clemson against South Carolina State. Eight teams have allowed 100 yards or fewer in a game.
- Most rushing touchdowns in a game: 8, again by Wisconsin against Bowling Green. Six other teams have 7 in a game.
- Most passing touchdowns in a game: 7, done three times, including by California and Colorado in last week’s game against each other!
Craig Bohl is the new coach at Wyoming this year. You might remember him as the previous head coach at North Dakota State, the three-time-defending FCS champion. He’s already got the Cowboys on the right track; if you believe in the transitive property of college football, they’re a better team than USC! Wyoming beat Air Force (17-13), who beat Boise State (28-14), who beat Colorado State (37-24), who beat Boston College (24-21), who beat USC (37-31)! On the other hand, Wyoming has also lost to Michigan State and Oregon by large margins, so maybe the transitive property isn’t as useful as you’d like to think…
In small-school news, Yale beat Army 49-43 in overtime. The Bulldogs, who are the winningest FCS team of all time with 879 victories, beat an FBS team for the first time since 1982. It was the first time an Ivy League team beat an FBS team since 1986. By the way, Yale, like all Ivy League schools, does not offer athletic scholarships. To beat an 85-scholarship team under those circumstances is a pretty impressive feat.
Congratulations to gatorbamalover, who wins week 5 with 169 points! They won a tiebreaker over Allison and maestro. SicEmFrogs finished one point behind with 168, and GODAWGS, Rocky Tide, JagRag, Bamagirl25, and Mayhalls picks were each one point further back with 167.
Overall standings after five weeks:
| 1st | Allison | 944 |
| 2nd | gatorbamalover | 942 |
| T-3rd | GODAWGS | 941 |
| T-3rd | maestro | 941 |
| T-3rd | SicEmFrogs | 941 |
| T-6th | pachyderm | 938 |
| T-6th | AUBrian | 938 |
| T-6th | Crimson Gator | 938 |
| 9th | JagRag | 934 |
| T-10th | bamaken | 931 |
| T-10th | Rocky Tide | 931 |
All right, playtime’s over! The first weekend of October brings six huge top-25 matchups as the conference schedules commence in earnest. It’s going to be a really important week to pick wisely and well! The first game is Arizona at Oregon, Thursday, October 2 @ 10:30 PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!