Sooners take wild Bedlam
STILLWATER, Okla. — Bedlam sure lived up to its name.
Baker Mayfield passed for a school-record 598 yards and No. 8 Oklahoma (8-1) outlasted No. 11 Oklahoma State, 62-52, on Saturday in one of the highest-scoring games in the history of the rivalry. Mayfield threw five touchdown passes and ran for another score to outduel Oklahoma State’s Mason Rudolph in a battle of two Heisman Trophy contenders. Rudolph passed for 448 yards and five touchdowns, but he had three turnovers in the second half.
CLEMSON 38, N.C. STATE 31: Tavien Feaster had an 89-yard touchdown run to end the third quarter and K’Von Wallace picked off Ryan Finley’s pass on the game’s final play to help No. 6 Clemson (8-1) hold off No. 20 North Carolina State (6-3) in Raleigh. MICHIGAN STATE 27, PENN STATE 24: Matt Coghlin kicked a 34-yard field goal as time expired to lift host Michigan State past No. 7 Penn State in a game delayed nearly 3½ hours by severe weather in the second quarter. ALABAMA 24, LSU 10: Jalen Hurts passed for a touchdown and ran for a score and No. 1 Alabama sweated out a bruising victory over No. 19 LSU. The Crimson Tide (9-0, 6-0 SEC) had to withstand a rare challenge this season from a league opponent. The Tigers (6-3, 3-2) kept getting stops in the fourth quarter but couldn’t muster a threat. They had to punt twice and then managed to squeeze out only a couple of first downs after taking over at their own 8 with 4:39 left.
GEORGIA 24, SOUTH CAROLINA 10: Jake Fromm completed 16 of 22 passes for 196 yards with two TD passes and no picks as No. 2 Georgia (9-0), the No. 1 team in the College Football Playoff rankings, clinched the SEC East title.
WISCONSIN 45, INDIANA 17: Jonathan Taylor rushed for 183 yards and a TD and Alec Ingold had three scores to help No. 4 Wisconsin (9-0, 6-0 Big Ten) win at Indiana.
NOTRE DAME 48, WAKE FOREST 37: Brandon Wimbush passed for a career-high 280 yards, ran for two touchdowns and shook off an injury to help No. 5 Notre Dame win its seventh straight. Wimbush was 15-of-30 passing and threw a 34-yard touchdown to sophomore Chase Claypool, who had a career-high 180 yards on nine receptions. Wimbush also had 110 yards on 12 carries and the second TD was a 50-yarder in the second quarter.
MIAMI 28, VA. TECH 10: Malik Rosier threw two touchdown passes and ran for another score and Travis Homer had a 64yard touchdown run as host No. 9 Miami (8-0) moved to the brink of clinching what would be its first spot in an ACC championship game and extended the nation’s longest current winning streak to 13 games.
TCU 24, TEXAS 7: Kyle Hicks ran for two touchdowns as No. 10 TCU (8-1) rebounded from its only loss, stayed tied for the Big 12 lead and stayed in contention for a playoff spot. —AP 2017 2016 2010 2008 Iowa 55, No. 3 Ohio State 24 Iowa 14, No. 2 Michigan 13 Iowa 37, No. 5 Michigan State 6 Iowa 24, No. 3 Penn State 23 IOWA CITY, Iowa — Big Ten teams with national title hopes should know by now to be wary of Kinnick Stadium in November.
The Ohio State Buckeyes weren’t — and their playoff aspirations are likely cooked because of it.
Nate Stanley threw for 226 yards and five touchdowns, and Iowa throttled third-ranked Ohio State 55-24 on Saturday, dealing what’s likely to be a fatal blow to the Buckeyes’ hopes of reaching college football’s Final Four.
Josh Jackson added three interceptions for the Hawkeyes (63, 3-3), who beat their fourth top-5 opponent in their last five tries at home. Iowa also knocked off unbeaten teams Michigan (2016) and Penn State (2008) in the regular season’s final month.
“I didn’t see any signs. Usually I see signs and if I do I address them,” Meyer said when asked if his team suffered a letdown after coming off an emotional 39-38 comeback win over Penn State last week.
Iowa went up 7-0 on the game’s first play — a pick-six of J.T. Barrett — and raced out to a 31-17 halftime lead on a pair of Stanley TD passes to Noah Fant.
Stanley, following a successful and highly unusual fake field goal, later fired a 2-yard TD pass with a defender hanging onto his foot that put the Hawkeyes ahead 38-17 late in the third quarter.
“Our guys played with a lot of heart and toughness,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said.
Ohio State (7-2, 5-1, No. 6 CFP) allowed its most points in a game under Meyer, and Barrett had a careerhigh four interceptions.
“They were baiting him ... that’s their coverage,” Meyer said. “We just didn’t play very well.”
Defensive end Nick Bosa was also ejected for targeting in the first half, and the Buckeyes committed nine penalties in their most lopsided defeat since last year’s 31-0 loss to eventual national champion Clemson in the playoff.
It’s almost impossible to see a path that takes the two-loss Buckeyes to the playoff after a loss like this. All Ohio State can do now is win out — and blow out an unbeaten Wisconsin in the league title game like in 2014 — and hope that enough chaos has broken out across the country that a two-loss team might get a look from the GETTY committee. But after how bad the Buckeyes looked in Iowa City, would even that be enough?
The Hawkeyes had scored just 27 points in their last two games against Northwestern and Minnesota. But weird things happen in Kinnick Stadium in November — and Iowa just changed the narrative of its entire season thanks to an afternoon Hawkeyes fans will never forget. “We’ve played like a young team for eight weeks,” Ferentz said. “When we hit adversity, which we knew was coming, we pushed past it.”
Stanley, a sophomore who didn’t win the job until the last week of fall camp, had been quietly putting up strong numbers all season. But there wasn’t anything quiet about what he did against the Buckeyes. Stanley now has 23 TD passes against just four interceptions — even tossing one to fullback Drake Kulick. “He’s been bugging me all season about that play,” Stanley joked.
Barrett also completed 18 passes for 208 yards and three TDs and ran for 63 yards.
“Kinnick Stadium, it’s got its ‘Kinnick Curse’ or whatever you want to call it,” Ohio State center Billy Price said. —AP