Although they seemed finished just one month ago, Melvin Gordon’s Heisman Trophy chances have rebounded as the running back has emerged as a legitimate contender for college football’s most prestigious award.
As teams across the country enter the second half of their schedules, there might be more questions now than there were at the beginning of the season. Races for several conference titles and the Heisman Trophy remain wide open, and the College Football Playoff picture is still very much unclear thanks to a logjam in the SEC West. Here are some of the biggest games to watch this week as the college football season enters its home stretch.
It was a fairly calm week in the Big Ten with four teams on byes. Michigan State and Ohio State both won their games 56-17, Maryland looked strong and a major poll found Minnesota’s one-point win over Purdue very impressive for some reason. Here’s how that all shook it out in the rankings for eight of our voters.
Maryland is well on its way to making a bowl game for the second straight year. At 5-2, they currently sit at third in the East division of the Big Ten, coming off of a big conference win over Iowa last week.
Coming off their second and final bye week of the season, the Badgers (1-1 Big Ten, 4-2 overall) look to start the home stretch with a win against Maryland (2-1, 5-2). Let’s take a look at five things to watch during the game.
This is the sixth edition of the Heisman Watch, a weekly feature tracking the candidates for college football’s most prestigious award. For last week's rankings, click here.
Following its second bye week of the year, Wisconsin will face Maryland in the first ever meeting between the teams Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium.
I have a riddle for you.
This is the fifth edition of the Heisman Watch, a weekly feature tracking the candidates for college football’s most prestigious award. To read last week’s piece, click here.
No. 14 Kansas State at No. 11 Oklahoma
Let’s clear something up: Joel Stave is a better passer than Tanner McEvoy by a chasmic margin. There seems to be a false equivalency in the minds of some Wisconsin fans that McEvoy and Stave are both bad passers, but at least McEvoy can run. Stop it.
Saturday’s game against Illinois saw an overall decrease in the number of citations and ejections in comparison to the previous home game, UW-Madison police said in a release.
After a dreadful loss to Northwestern last week, Wisconsin (1-1 Big Ten, 4-2 overall) rebounded thanks to another big day from Heisman candidate Melvin Gordon to win 38-28 over Illinois (0-3, 3-4) at Camp Randall Saturday.
As the college football season nears the halfway mark, the contenders are beginning to separate themselves from the pretenders. The top teams are done with the easy portion of their schedules and the big-time matchups will come week-in and week-out. Heisman candidates will go head to head, and inevitably, some Top 10 teams will face defeat. Here are this week’s biggest games across the nation.
1. No. 8 Michigan State (nine first-place votes), 139 points
After beginning its season 2-0, Illinois has lost three of its last four games and will visit Madison Oct. 11 amidst an absolute free fall.
1) Rushing attack against vulnerable defense
After losing wide receiver Jared Abbrederis and linebacker Chris Borland to the NFL last spring, Wisconsin not only lost two star players but also its biggest leaders on both sides of the ball.
Wisconsin’s return to Camp Randall Stadium to take on Illinois Saturday represents an opportunity for the team to pull itself back together after being upset at Northwestern last weekend.
It’s hard to fathom that the Badgers (0-1 Big Ten, 3-2 overall) could be this weak at football’s most important position, yet here they are, sitting with a disappointing record largely because of inept quarterback play from redshirt juniors Tanner McEvoy and Joel Stave.
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