The Border 8 saw a lot less teams in action than usual, but the games that did occur resulted in so much fun.

As a Lincoln native, losing to UCLA last week made me completely inconsolable. But I personally had a great weekend this go around because Iowa lost and Nebraska didn’t (the Huskers were on a bye week, but that’s completely irrelevant). Iowa had its shot at UCLA after the Hawkeyes won their last two games by a combined score of 82-24; despite having to travel to the Rose Bowl, it should have been an easy win. It was not, as UCLA seems to  really like beating teams located in states with corn, college football and not much else. Early on, Iowa looked slow, but incredibly solid. The first four drives were a UCLA interception, an Iowa touchdown, a UCLA interception and an Iowa field goal. It looked like Iowa would own this game, but  the Bruins would completely flip the script, as the next three drives would be a UCLA field goal, an Iowa lost fumble and a UCLA touchdown to knot the score up. With under a minute left in the first half, UCLA would find the end zone once more and go up 17-10. Out of the locker room, no one seemed to be able to put anything together until the Hawkeyes put together a drive that lasted half of a quarter to tie the score once again . After that, UCLA put together a nearly seven-minute drive of its own to go up 20-17. UCLA would end up leaning on its  defense and get its  third straight win, all in conference play. 

Nebraska, Illinois, and Northwestern all had the week off, probably to give their fans a break from constant heartbreak . 

Louisville also had the week off, but the Cardinals  just beat Clemson, so they just got to sit back  and watch two ranked conference foes lose to unranked teams. 

While Tennessee won the last three games of the season leading up to its matchup with Mississippi State, they had not been the prettiest of wins. In game one of its  two-game stretch against the Bulldogs, the trend continued. Mississippi State has looked like one of the worst teams in the country all season long, but it did what it could. Tennessee never trailed in this game, but Mississippi State always made sure to keep themselves in as much as they possibly could. Tennessee went up 14-0 before Mississippi State put together a nearly eight minute drive to draw within seven, but Tennessee would use the rest of the clock in the half to its  advantage. The Volunteers  managed to put together two drives that ended in field goals and held Mississippi State to -2 yards, forcing the Bulldogs to punt after 30 seconds to go up 20-7 heading  into the locker room. Mississippi State would fumble on its first drive out of the half, but held the Volunteers to another field goal and then scored a touchdown to cut the lead to  nine. Tennessee would close out the game strong on a 10-0 run, however, moving to 8-1 with a 33-14 win. My first reaction to this game was “wow, Mississippi State did a lot better than I thought they would,” which was promptly followed up by, “I feel bad for anytime that losing by three scores is not that bad.” 

After beating Texas A&M, the question for South Carolina was if the Gamecocks could replicate their success, or if  Vanderbilt was going to give them the Alabama treatment. Lucky for the Gamecocks, Vanderbilt’s only goal of the season might have been to just make it to bowl eligibility, because oh my gosh how do you go from going toe-to-toe with Texas and beating Alabama to this kind of performance. Vanderbilt never seemed to put any kind of offense together with just 274 total yards and one touchdown on the day, its  lowest scoring total of the season. With five punts, a fumble and two turnovers on downs, the smartest school in the SEC couldn’t figure out how to run an offense against the Gamecocks. LaNorris Sellers and Raheim Sanders put together a one-two punch for the ages;the two combined for 402 yards from scrimmage and four touchdowns in a roaring victory. The Gamecocks would come out with the win 28-7, and with just a few weeks left to go, may have become a sneaky Playoff team. 

Oklahoma went on the road to take on Missouri for the first time since 2010, and the game went from a Big Ten West reenactment to shootout for the ages faster than you could say “Jackson Arnold fumbled the ball again”. Coming into the game, the main headline was the fact that Drew Pyne would be starting for the Tigers after it was announced that Brady Cook would have to sit the game out with an injury. Pyne came into the game with 248 passing yards, three interceptions and no touchdowns on the season, so hopes were not exactly high amongst the MU faithful. The first half was an offensive snoozefest, as the two teams combined for 12 points, and Oklahoma led 9-3 at the break. 

In the second half, Oklahoma looked stagnant, and  Mizzou scored two touchdowns to go up 16-9, but Blake Craig would miss an extra point . With just over three minutes left, the Sooners drew up a trick play that led to a Jackson Arnold receiving touchdown to even the score at 16 . The Tigers just needed to churn some time off the clock, get into field goal range, and sneak out with an ugly 19-16 victory. Jamal Roberts would fumble the ball, however, and Billy Bowman Jr. would run it back to   give OU a 23-16 lead. Two minutes remained, and spirits were low in Columbia. Pyne had looked better than expected with two passing touchdowns, but the drives were deeply aided by the running game. He did not look like someone who could put together a game winning drive, but in 57 seconds, he led the Tigers down the field with three passes of double-digits yards and found Theo Wease Jr., the Oklahoma transfer, in the end zone to tie things up 23-23. 

With a minute left, it looked like the Tigers were just going to play for overtime, but the defense did not get the memo. With under a minute left, Arnold was sacked and lost the ball for the third time, and Zion Young picked the ball up and scored a game-winning touchdown,as the Tigers’ quest for a second straight 10-win season stayed alive. 

Kentucky and Arkansas both had the week off. I think that it was so they could watch John Calipari lose to Baylor, but I don’t think they’ll admit it (they’re lying, it’s totally the reason.)

The Oklahoma State Cowboys and the Dallas Cowboys continue to possess  a lot of similarities. Both were one of the best in their conference last year, both have experienced head coaches, and both teams just got blown out by a team that used to have Jalen Reagor and are horrendous compared to preseason expectations. Nearly two weeks into November, Oklahoma State was still scrounging tooth and nail to get its  first conference win on the road against TCU. The Horned Frogs made sure that that did not happen in a 38-13 blowout in Fort Worth. The first half was a dismantling, as the boys in purple scored 24 unanswered and forced two turnovers. Coming out of the half, TCU let up a bit, but it wasn’t going to matter. TCU still found the end zone twice and beat the Cowboys handily .. The Cowboys came in with playoff dark horse implications and now will finish with a losing record for the first time since 2005. The Cowboys have ridden that playoff dark horse directly off of a cliff and into a pit of despair. 

After a 7-0 start to the season, Iowa State was upset by Texas Tech last week. Preparing to take on Kansas at Arrowhead Stadium, it looked like the Cyclones had a chance to right the ship. The Jayhawks might have just put the Chiefs in KU uniforms though, because they put on an absolute clinic against one of the best teams in the Big 12. Jalon Daniels completed just 12 passes on the day but averaged over 24 yards per completion on the night and had two passing touchdowns. He was able to tack on another 73 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown. While Rocco Becht had solid offensive numbers, most of his production came in  garbage time . Kansas has started to look like the team the college football world expected to see early on in the season.

Kansas State took the week off to cry over the loss to Houston and struggle with the fact it  no longer controls its own destiny to make the Big 12 title game. 

Northern Illinois got to close out the first week of one of the greatest traditions in college football. MACtion. With just a lone conference victory, Northern Illinois was set to go on the road to take on a Western Michigan team that sat undefeated in conference play. The two teams traded punches and just over two minutes into the second half, the two teams combined for six touchdowns, were dead locked at 21, and neither team led by more than seven points. After Western Michigan forced said tie, Northern Illinois blew the game all the way open. Cam Thompson decided that crushing the dreams of Broncos fans all across the country would be fun and ripped off a 91 yard return that resulted in a touchdown, and the Huskies never looked back. Western Michigan would get the chance to respond, but a Jaden Dolphin interception, who, by the way, is a MASSIVE snub for the all name team, would set up another touchdown. On the next Broncos drive, Nate Valcarcel would do literally the exact same thing Dolphin did and set NIU up to take a 42-21 lead. Early in the fourth quarter, the Broncos would score, but it wouldn’t matter and NIU would win their second conference game of the season and hand the Broncos their first conference loss. 

Don’t let the final score fool you, Western Kentucky blew New Mexico State out of the water. This is not the Aggies team that once had Diego Pavia and no one will defame my glorious king Caden Veltkamp. While the day was marred by two interceptions, Veltkamp had an incredibly strong offensive showing on the day. He accounted for 271 total yards and four touchdowns; two in the air and two on the ground. While the 41-28 final score made it seem like a close contest, this was not nearly as close as the final score may have indicated. The Hilltoppers led at one point 24-7 and with just two minutes left, they were up 41-21. But noooooooooo New Mexico State had to look all fancy and score a touchdown with barely any time left to stat pad. Well they still lost, and are now bowl ineligible, and Western Kentucky is barrelling towards a conference title. Those glorious Grimace impersonators are on their way to immortality. 

Hosting a struggling Liberty team, Middle Tennessee State was looking to upset the Flames and keep themselves alive for bowl eligibility. But like many games this season, Nicholas Vattiato balled out with a great performance, but was just not given the support around him to get the win. The defense and the offensive line were not able to support him at all, and the Blue Raiders lost 37-17. Vattiato dropped 255 yards and two touchdowns, but it would have been a lot more if the junior varsity level offensive line didn’t allow five sacks. As bad as the offense was, don’t worry the defense was significantly worse. The Flames put up exactly 500 yards which I think is cool because I like round numbers, but less cool because I like the Blue Raiders. It had a 30-7 lead and were finally able to snap their two game losing streak to reach bowl eligibility. 

The last two weeks for Memphis have been subpar at best and absolutely horrendous at worst. Struggling against Charlotte and losing to a mediocre UTSA team, this did not look the same Tigers team that once was. Hosting Rice, a team that just pulled off a huge upset against Navy, things looked like they could get difficult, luckily they were up for the challenge. While Rice went up 6-0 early, the Tigers roared from then on out. They went on a 27-7 scoring run and looked incredibly strong once again. While both teams put up roughly 350 total yards, Memphis capitalized way more and was able to take a big lead. Rice scored with less than two minutes left in the game to make things a one score game, but it was not enough and Rice lost 27-20 and got knocked out of bowl eligibility.

Tulsa had a bye week before they attempt to distract the world from an NFC East matchup on Thursday. It’s not going to work, but I appreciate the effort. 

Preparing to take on Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette had been disrespected all season. Sitting at 7-1 with just a loss to Tulane, they had gotten just about zero consideration for the playoffs, the top 25 and anything else. Arkansas State had looked solid most of the season, but they looked like a DIII team against the Ragin’ Cajuns. A 55-19 final score made the Red Wolves completely helpless. Arkansas State had 401 yards, but four sacks and two interceptions made it all for not. ULL on the other hand made the opposing defense look absolutely silly. 579 total yards and six, yes SIX rushing touchdowns gave ULL their biggest win of the season. 

1. Tennessee (8-1) (2-1)
2. Memphis (8-2) (1-0)
3. Kansas State (7-2) (2-0)
4. Western Kentucky (7-2) (1-0)
5. Iowa State (7-2) (2-1)
6. Illinois (6-3) (2-0)
7. Louisville (6-3) (0-0)
8. Iowa (6-3) (1-1)
9. Vanderbilt (6-4) (1-0)
10. Arkansas State (5-4) (1-1)
11. Arkansas (5-4) (1-1)
12. Nebraska (5-4) (0-1)
13. Northern Illinois (5-4) (0-0)
14. Oklahoma (5-5) (1-1)
15. Northwestern (4-5) (0-1)
16. Kansas (3-6) (1-1)
17. Kentucky (3-6) (0-2)
18. Tulsa (3-6) (0-2)
19. Oklahoma State (3-7) (2-1)
20. MTSU (3-7) (0-2)