Week 5 Rundown

We wanted chaos and we were so close to getting it.  In the end it doesn't matter how you put a tick mark in the W column, it matters that you got it.  Ohio State and Clemson survived their games and keep chugging along to a boring top 5.  For the second year in a row, Penn State blew a large 4th quarter lead against the Buckeyes.  When you go up by double digits with 8 minutes left, the last thing you can do is give up a quick score, and that's exactly what they did.  At that point it's a game again and they were in holding-on mode rather than trying to win.  That was an impressive win for Ohio State going on the road and beating another top 10 team.

Clemson on the other hand, was much less impressive.  They had a week of distractions with the news that Kelly Bryant is going to transfer since Trevor Lawrence was named the starter.  So of course Lawrence goes down with an injury and Clemson no longer has a stud 2nd QB to turn to.  They barely scraped out a win  at home against Syracuse.  That's not as bad as it would have been in years past, but you have to handle that game if you are Clemson much better than what they showed.  Now Lawrence could be out for the next game against a sometimes-plucky Wake Forest, so we will see if that star-studded defense can carry the team.

In the other top 10 matchup Notre Dame soundly beat Stanford.  Notre Dame's defense has been stellar all year, and with the quarterback change, maybe they have an offense that can be a little bit better now.  And as always with Notre Dame, the schedule that looked so difficult in the preseason doesn't seem too bad anymore.  Virginia Tech is inconsistent.  USC is not too scary.  Florida State is going to struggle to make a bowl.  Is their toughest remaining game against Syracuse?

In other action Kentucky is still undefeated and Florida went on the road to beat a top 25 Mississippi State.  Maybe Florida losing to Kentucky wasn't as bad a loss as we thought.  The Jacknife power rankings have a very SEC flavor to it with 5 of the top 10 from the SEC.  Alabama might be the only sure thing in college football right now.  The other teams in the top 10 make sense too except for that Cincinnati team.  Who would have thought?

Oregon didn't let Stanford beat them twice as they went on the road and beat a top 25 Cal team.  They could have easily folded after that devastating loss to Stanford, but they showed some real resolve.  West Virginia went into Lubbock and got out to a huge, early lead and won by a touchdown.  Texas beat K-State on the road which recently had been a tough place for them to get a W.  Although K-State shut them out in the second half of that game.  Michigan barely beat Northwestern.  Not sure what to make of this Michigan team.  It seems like a transfer quarterback that put up big numbers at their previous school is always supposed to give the new school a boost.  Does that ever happen?  Maybe Vernon Adams with Oregon a few years ago?  Russell Wilson even way before that?

Scoring in the Jacknife Leagues is now down to conference play levels.  It will take an awesome week by someone to get above 600 for the week now.  But there will be more opportunities for bonus points as teams start playing real teams now.  Lots of time to get back up the leaderboards.