(This is a weekly article on Student Union Sports covering the most ridiculous stat lines of the week)
I don’t know about you, but I thought this was a very weird week of college football. Starting with a one-point win for Boise State on Thursday through the shocking Ohio State loss to Penn State. Add in a wild Oklahoma vs Texas Tech game (yeah, that will be mentioned a lot in this article) and a slaughtering by Auburn and it just adds up to a very… odd week. Eye-popping stat lines were everywhere, making this weeks decisions very hard. It seemed like every big game had some kind of school/national record broken. Nevertheless, we are getting down to the exciting weeks of the college football season with teams jostling for a spot in the top 4 and coaches seats getting hotter and hotter. It will be an exciting couple weeks for sure, but for now we look back at the best performances of this past week:
Offense: QB Patrick Mahomes, Texas Tech
Stats: 52-88, 734 yards, 5 TDs, 1 INT, 12 carries, 85 yards, 2 TDs
I was very, very tempted to just award four players the offensive stat line of the week. However, There was one clear winner, so I will just give mention to the other three at the end of this section. But lets just talk about Mahomes for a second. I hope he’s icing up his arm because 88 throws in one game is going to take a toll on a man. He missed out on tying the NCAA record for passes in a game by one single pass, but broke the record for most total yards by a player and tied the single game passing record with 734 yards. Not too shabby of a day for the Texas Tech QB minus the loss his team suffered despite his performance.
I feel like it would be a crime not to mention the three other out-of-this-world performances of last week. The first one was the QB opposite of Mahomes, Oklahoma QB Baker Mayfield. He threw for 545 yards and a school-record 7 TDs. The second one is Oklahoma RB Joe Mixon (hey, I told you that game was going to be mentioned a lot this article!) who ran for 263 yards with 2 TDs and had 114 receiving yards with 3 TDs. The final mention (and first who played in a different game than Oklahoma vs Texas Tech) is Utah RB Joe Williams. He was retired two weeks ago, was convinced to come back and play, and then puts up 332 rushing yards and 4 TDs. As I said before, it was a crazy week of college football.
Defense: DE Garrett Sickels, Penn State
Stats: 9 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks
Just on paper, it appears Sickels had a good, but not eye-popping game. Two reasons that is false: first, he played against a kind of decent Ohio State team. Second, he only played in one half. After serving a first half suspension. Sickels came in and put up a good game in half the time. Much like Sickels, Penn State decided the second half was a good time to ramp it up, and outscored Ohio State 17-9 through the last two quarters to pull off the upset. Safe to say that the Nittany Lions were happy to have Garrett lined back up on the field for the back stretch of that game.
Special Teams: K Austin MacGinnis, Kentucky
Stats: 4/5 field goals, 2-2 extra points, 14 points
With all of the offensive fireworks across the board this week, it did not leave very much room for special teams to shine. However, Austin MacGinnis showed up when called upon and won the honors. He missed a 28-yard field goal early in the game, so it was not a perfect game. However, he nailed field goals after that from 46, 32, and 32 before drilling a 51-yard field goal as time expired to give Kentucky the 40-38 win over Mississippi State. The Wildcats are now in surprising position near the top of the SEC East and are looking for two more wins to make them bowl eligible for the first time since 2010.
I will see you back here for week 9’s edition of On the Ball: Video Game Stats!