After the Baltimore Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers in Superbowl XLVII, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh summed up his team’s win with an adage that was simple yet expressive: “It’s never pretty. It’s never perfect. But it was us,” he said.
Chaos ruled Week 11 of college football, as eight ranked teams lost and nine more won by 10 points or fewer. It was an especially rough week for teams with Tigers as mascots: Both Memphis and No. 17 LSU lost to lower-ranked teams, while No. 1 Clemson survived a scare from 3-7 Syracuse, which it fended off by just 10 points.
In 2012, the Badgers’ defense was 15th in the nation in yards per game. In 2013 it was seventh and in 2014, the Badgers finished the year ranked fourth overall. This season, the Badgers defensive continues to prove nearly impenetrable.
In some games, a team can rely on one player or one unit to carry them to victory. A running back or an impenetrable defense can win a lot of games on their own in college football. For the Wisconsin Badgers, they needed all three phases to beat the Maryland Terrapins 31-24 Saturday in College Park, MD.
When redshirt junior running back Corey Clement took the field for the Badgers just two minutes into last Saturday’s game against Rutgers, the home crowd let him have it. After he scored his first touchdown of the season just under five minutes later, he let the crowd have it back, tossing the ball in the air and earning an excessive celebration penalty.
Ever since his return last Saturday, junior running back Corey Clement has been the talk of the town.
The rain may have kept away the fans, but it didn’t keep away the Badgers (4-1 Big Ten, 7-2 overall) offense as they rolled over Rutgers (1-4, 3-5) 48-10. Getting a win is something the team wanted, but junior running back Corey Clement’s return after missing eight games was much more important.
Ohio State has been a bit of a disappointment this year. Sure, they’re still undefeated and No. 1 in both rankings, but a worrying number of games in which they failed to pull away early has created a sense that they are this year’s Florida State, a defending champ sleepwalking through the regular season and waiting to get exposed by a plucky upstart in the College Football Playoff. The most visible reason for this iffy play is at quarterback, the position considered the Buckeyes’ greatest asset in preseason.
Oregon
Rutgers football does not have a long history with the Big Ten, having joined the conference for its first season last year.
It was a rather uneventful Week 8 for the Big Ten. Ohio State and Michigan State both kept their undefeated records intact, Penn State edged past Maryland and Bart Houston laid the foundation for his 2016 Heisman campaign by helping Wisconsin best Illinois.
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