Week three of the 2018 college football season was filled with breakout stars and surprising upsets all across the board. Here are the top four studs and duds from the third week of college football.
Stud: Anthony Brown
Boston College is ranked for the first time this season after a big road win over Wake Forest. The Eagles owe this victory to a very strong performance by their starting quarterback Anthony Brown.
Brown accumulated 304 yards while throwing five touchdown passes en route to a 93.3 QBR. He was in perfect sync with wideout Jeff Smith—who had a 145-yard receiving game—and the two made Wake Forest’s secondary pay for sloppy coverage.
Dud: Southern California Football
It has been a rough season thus far for the entire Pac-12, but it has been particularly awful for the two power-five programs out of LA.
USC opened the year as the 15th ranked team in the nation but has since completely fallen out of the top 25. Head coach Clay Helton was hoping JT Daniels would be able to remedy losing Sam Darnold to the NFL, but this hasn’t been the case. Daniel looks like a freshman and has already thrown three interceptions three weeks in. USC was completely outmatched by Stanford and got crushed in their upset loss in Texas.
Meanwhile at UCLA, the Chip Kelly era is off to a dreadful start. The offense is woeful and the team has suffered home losses to the likes of Cincinnati and Fresno State. It has gotten to the point where player’s parents are calling Chip Kelly out in front of the media.
It’s certainly dark times for college football in the city of Angeles.
Stud: Dwayne Haskins
The was an ugly week for the Big Ten as a whole, but Ohio State’s young quarterback was an absolute stud.
The Buckeyes’ signal-caller threw for 344 and a pair of touchdown passes against a stout TCU defense on the road. Ohio State actually trailed heading into halftime, but quality quarterback play was able to turn things around for Ohio State.
The college football world should be on notice, Ohio State isn’t all defense anymore.
Dud: The Big Ten Conference
Week three was a truly dreadful time for the Big Ten conference. Going into the season it appeared as though the conference had closed the gap with the SEC as the top power five squad, but that no longer seems to be the case.
Maryland and Rutgers were beaten by the likes of Temple and Kansas while Troy and South Florida were able to take Nebraska and Illinois Missouri beat Purdue, Akron upset Northwestern, and BYU shocked the college football world by defeating Wisconsin.
Ohio State’s big win over TCU alongside Penn State and Michigan’s blowout victories were the only bright spots for the Big Ten this week.
Stud: Ed Orgeron
It’s time to give LSU and head coach Ed Orgeron some respect after several huge wins just three weeks into the season.
The Tigers have defeated two top ten teams just three weeks in 8th ranked Miami and 7th ranked Auburn. There weren’t any notable star performances by any individual players, LSU was simply coached better than Auburn in the fourth quarter.
Auburn had the game essentially won in the fourth quarterback, but LSU was able to rally with a walk-off field goal from Cole Tracy.
Dud: Florida State
It’s hard to believe that just a season ago the season-opening matchup of Alabama and FSU was a battle of two top five teams.
Florida State has plunged even further into the basement of the ACC with a blowout loss to Syracuse—yes, you read that right.
The Seminoles are a bad team all across the board, their offense is non-existent and their defense has struggled to stop everybody.
FSU is a far cry away from the days of Jameis Winston.
Stud: Kyler Murray
Baker Mayfield might be in Cleveland trying to save the factory of sadness, but Oklahoma has found a solid replacement at quarterback. Kyler Murray gashed Iowa State with 425 yards of total offense alongside three touchdown passes.
Compared to Mayfield’s first three games last year, Murray has actually been more efficient than him through three weeks of the 2018 season. He matches Mayfield’s ten touchdowns while trailing by only 14 passing yards. Unlike Mayfield however, Murray has 169 yards on the ground compared to the -13 Baker had.
Dud: Arizona State
Saturday night was a tough times for Sun Devils fans. After a huge upset of Michigan State, the Sun Devils were ranked 23rd in the nation.
That status is already gone however as the team followed their big win with a heartbreaking loss to San Diego State. ASU quarterback Manny Wilkins has a strong performance with 341 yards and two touchdowns, but it wasn’t enough to save his team.
