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Bill Belichick, Alabama, Penn State lead college football Week 6 winners and losers
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- Bill Belichick, Alabama, Penn State lead college football Week 6 winners and losers
Let's be honest: If Bill Belichick still had his fastball he'd be in the NFL.
North Carolina's stunning incompetence through the first five games of Belichick's debut is proof positive that college football may be too much for him, just as success in the NFL escaped his grasp after losing Tom Brady as his starting quarterback.
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After losing 38-10 to Clemson , the Tar Heels are 0-3 against Power Four competition with a losing margin of 120-33. UNC isn't just bad; this is one the worst major-conference teams in the country.
"Main thing is keep doing what we're doing and do it better," Belichick said postgame. "We're doing a lot of things. We're just not doing it well."
Yes, this is where the six-time Super Bowl champion lands in his autopsy of what ails the Tar Heels after five games: UNC has to play good football, not bad.
That doesn't inspire confidence. The 73-year-old Belichick — the oldest coach in college football — clearly has no answers for what ails a program that had made six bowl appearances in a row under former coach Mack Brown.
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And this is a new era of college football. Belichick had an entire offseason to rebuild the roster and create a two-deep based on a blueprint developed over his decades of player-personnel experience. Instead, he built a team that is inept offensively and even worse defensively.
UNC gave up 48 points and 542 yards in the season opener against TCU. Another 34 points and 366 yards against Central Florida. On Saturday, the Heels allowed the slumping Tigers to put up 488 yards on 6.9 yards per play, with quarterback Cade Klubnik completing 22 of 24 attempts for 254 yards and four touchdowns.
Clearly, the losing ways that defined Belichick's home stretch with the New England Patriots have trickled into his stunning arrival in the ACC. What's unfolding in Chapel Hill is an equally stunning repudiation of his coaching legacy.
The Tar Heels, Alabama and Penn State lead Saturday's biggest winners and losers:
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Winners
Alabama
Kalen DeBoer and the No. 11 Crimson Tide avoided a letdown after last week's emotional win against No. 10 Georgia and beat No. 17 Vanderbilt 30-14 thanks to a big day from Ty Simpson , who had 340 yards and two scores to give him 13 touchdowns and just one interception on the year. There's no going back and replaying that season-opening loss to No. 19 Florida State , which looks a little worse for the Tide after the Seminoles lost to Virginia. But Alabama has put that result in the rearview mirror with four wins in a row, two against ranked competition, and is back on track to compete for the SEC championship and one of the top playoff seeds.
Miami
Big scoring plays from Carson Beck helped overcome a weak running game and gave No. 3 Miami just enough of a buffer to beat No. 19 Florida State 28-22. Beck went 20 of 27 for 240 yards and had four touchdowns, including a pair of scores from 40 and 44 yards to freshman receiver Malachi Toney. Ahead 28-3 after Beck hit CJ Daniels from 24 yards out in the third quarter, the Hurricanes had to sweat things out after FSU made a field goal with 20 seconds left. While not a very strong performance overall, there was a stretch in the third quarter when Miami played elite football.
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Notre Dame
No. 21 Notre Dame won a third game in a row by beating Boise State 28-7, pulling away in the second half behind another strong game from redshirt freshman quarterback CJ Carr. While Carr had 189 yards and two touchdowns, maybe the most positive development from the win was the continued success of a running game that has turned the corner after losses to Miami and No. 5 Texas A&M. Jeremiyah Love had 103 yards and a score, Jadarian Prince had 83 yards on 10.4 yards per carry and the Irish ran for 200 yards overall on 6.5 yards per carry.
Cincinnati
Cincinnati's 38-30 with against No. 12 Iowa State is by far the program's biggest win to date under third-year coach Scott Satterfield, who is no longer on the hot seat thanks to the play of quarterback Brendan Sorsby and an outstanding offense. Sorsby stayed hot with 214 passing yards, 64 rushing yards and three combined touchdowns, offsetting 314 pasing yards from the Cyclones quarterback Rocco Becht. Now 4-1, the Bearcats look like one of the best teams in the Big 12 after two very weak years to start Satterfield's tenure.
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Navy
The Midshipmen took the first leg of the Commander-in-Chief's series by beating Air Force 34-31 in a game that featured three lead changes and 977 combined yards of total offense. Navy broke the last of four ties on a 34-yard field goal with 6:47 left and then forced and recovered a fumble on the Falcons' last possession. While the résumé isn't quite there at this point for a spot in the US LBM Coaches Poll, the unbeaten Midshipmen could easily crack the national rankings at some point in October.
Memphis
Memphis became the first team in the country to reach bowl eligibility after rolling past Tulsa in a 45-7 win. Even if unranked for now, the 6-0 Tigers are easily among the top four teams in the Group of Five. More importantly, they have the offense to win key games against South Florida, Tulane and Navy. (All at home, by the way.) Memphis had 457 yards against Tulsa and has gained at least 400 yards in every game this season.
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Losers
Penn State
Last Saturday's loss to No. 2 Oregon was disappointing but still expected from No. 6 Penn State, which pushed the Ducks to the limit before falling 30-24 in double overtime. Losing 42-37 to UCLA , on the other hand, is a shocking result that does permanent damage to the Nittany Lions ' reputation as one of the top teams in the Big Ten and the Bowl Subdivision. This loss, Penn State's first in 34 games against unranked competition, will be impossible for the playoff selection committee to ignore. UCLA had been awful through four games despite the offseason addition of quarterback Nico Iamaleava, leading to the firing of coach Deshaun Foster.
This began as a domination. UCLA led 27-7 at halftime after drilling a field goal as time expired, scoring on all five possessions and taking into the break a 285-92 edge in total yardage. The Nittany Lions rallied from there with a 28-point second half and had a chance to tie the game but botched a fourth-down play in the red zone to give the ball back to the Bruins with 37 seconds left. They had another shot after getting after UCLA took a safety with 23 seconds to play but did virtually nothing over three snaps. The Bruins' win was the first by an 0-4 team against a top-10 opponent since Texas-El Paso knocked off defending national champion Brigham Young in 1985.
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Texas
Losing 29-21 to reeling Florida doesn't deal a fatal blow to the No. 7 Longhorns' playoff hopes, but let's get real: Teams that lose to Florida — the Gators were 0-3 against the Bowl Subdivision before Saturday — aren't going to make the 12-team field. Arch Manning will draw the most scrutiny, as always, after throwing for 263 yards and another pair of interceptions. But blame for the loss falls on a defense that allowed 457 yards and had no answers for DJ Lagway, who threw for 298 yards on 10.6 yards per pass. After starting the year atop the Coaches Poll, Texas is in major trouble with Oklahoma next week.
Diego Pavia
Pavia should still end the regular season as Vanderbilt's strongest Heisman Trophy candidate in about 90 years. But he has to own several key mistakes in the loss to the Crimson Tide, namely a pair of red-zone turnovers that ended up making the difference in the 16-point defeat. The redshirt senior and former New Mexico State transfer finished with 198 passing yards on a season-low 5.7 yards per pass and 58 rushing yards on 12 carries.
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Wisconsin
The Badgers dropped to 2-3 overall and 0-2 in the Big Ten after losing the plot in the second half of a 24-10 loss to No. 20 Michigan. The game wasn't even as close as the 14-point margin might suggest. Wisconsin was outgained by nearly 200 yards and averaged just 2.7 yards per carry while failing to put the clamps on freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood, who threw for a career-high 270 yards on 9.6 yards per throw. The Wolverines went for 175 yards on the ground led by Justice Haynes' 117 yards and two scores.
Kansas State
The biggest flop in the Big 12 continues to pull defeat from the jaws of victory. Kansas State tossed a game-changing pick-six and was outscored 18-3 in the fourth quarter to lose 35-34 to Baylor , which drilled the go-ahead field goal from 53 yards with 31 seconds to play. The Wildcats had another shot in the final seconds but had their 56-yard attempt blocked to seal the Bears ' win. While the Big 12 no longer does a preseason poll, Kansas State was widely seen as one of the league's top contenders for the playoff. At 2-4, the rest of the year will be about salvaging a bowl bid.
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Syracuse
The Orange have gone from trendy ACC contenders to the bottom of the conference standings. After managing just a field goal in last week's loss to Duke, Syracuse was blasted by SMU in a 31-18 loss that was over at halftime, with the Mustangs scoring three times in the second quarter to bring a 24-3 lead into the break. While this drop on offense can be linked to the loss of starting quarterback Steve Angeli, the Orange are clearly not the same as the 10-win team that took the ACC by storm last season.
Maryland
And maybe the most painful loss of the day belongs to the previously unbeaten Terrapins, who led Washington 20-0 five minutes into the second half and 20-3 entering the fourth quarter but were outscored 21-0 in the final frame to lose 24-20. Maryland is a better team than expected but still has a very thin margin for error in the hunt for a bowl bid, so this come-from-ahead loss could end up meaning the difference between five and six wins.
This story was updated to change a video.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College football Week 6 winners, losers: Bill Belichick, Alabama lead
