Downfield coverage: The weekend that was in college football

Talent abounds. True freshman Robert Griffin of Baylor leads all Big 12 passers in rushing yardage (334) while also ranking ninth nationally in passing efficiency. No other true freshman is rated higher.

It’s this competitive: Kansas QB Todd Reesing, whose 31.5 completions per game is second nationally, is eighth in the conference in passing efficiency. Graham Harrell of Texas, who is second in the nation in total offense (391.8 yards per game) is ninth in the Big 12 in passing efficiency.

McCoy, Bradford, Daniel, Zac Robinson of Oklahoma State, Josh Freeman of Kansas State, Joe Ganz of Nebraska, Reesing and Harrell will likely all finish their careers as their school’s record-holder for touchdown passes as well as passing yardage. Harrell, who has 101 career touchdown passes, will likely become the NCAA record-holder in that category (BYU’s Ty Detmer has the record with 121).

The biggest beneficiaries of these aerial assaults? Believe it or not, it might just be the conference’s defensive backs. By the time they arrive at the NFL Combine, they will be able to say they’ve been put through the most rigorous pre-NFL passing league of anyone in the game’s history.

Those numbers are WAC
When Luke Lippincott, the WAC’s leading rusher last season, suffered a season-ending injury in the second game, you figured that Nevada was in trouble. And, with back-to-back non-conference games against Texas Tech and Missouri, they were.

Last Saturday, though, the Wolfpack visited a team with whom they could match up, in-state rival UNLV. And that is where 6-6, 215-pound sophomore quarterback Colin Kaepernick served notice that he is the WAC’s next player worthy of Heisman chatter.

Kaepernick, who beat out incumbent Nick Graziano midway through last season, rushed 18 times for 240 yards and three touchdowns. He also was 11-16 passing for 176 yards and two touchdowns in Nevada’s 49-27 win. In total, the sophomore from Turlock, Calif., accounted for 416 total yards and five touchdowns.

Playing against those Big 12 schools two weeks in a row must have rubbed off on him.

Let’s do this again next century
Boston College and Rhode Island met for the first time since 1917 — Ruth was pitching for the Sawx — despite the fact that the two schools are located just 82 miles from one another.

With Bruce Springsteen watching from the pressbox — his son is a BC freshman, but not on the team — the Eagles head-butted the Rams 42-0.

Last Person Award
We want to launch a weekly award entitled “The Last Person You Want To Be.” This week’s winner has to be Scott Mitchell, UCLA’s assistant athletic director of marketing.

Last week, Mitchell’s department placed radio and print ads in the San Joaquin Valley urging that demographic, i.e., Fresno State fans, to purchase tickets for Saturday’s Fresno State-UCLA game at the Rose Bowl. The radio spots said, “Bulldog fans. Don't miss your chance to see history. The Bulldogs are ranked in the Top 25 and heading south this weekend looking for their first-ever win at the Rose Bowl against the Bruins of UCLA."

The print ads read, “So you can say I was there.”

Fresno State beat UCLA 36-31 in front of 73,963 fans (well below the 91,136-seat capacity), nearly half of them clad in red in support of the Bulldogs. In Mitchell’s defense, it is his job to sell tickets. On the other hand, this is the same department who last month conjured the infamous “The football monopoly in Los Angeles is over” print ads.

UCLA is 1-3, including a 59-0 loss at BYU.

Fresno State’s Pat Hill had the best take on this conflagration. “I don’t understand why more schools don’t want to play us,” said the “Anyone, Anywhere, Any Time” coach. “We have great drawing power.”

Ground Forces
A few weeks ago we told you how Air Force won a game despite having zero yards passing. On Saturday in College Station, Army nearly shocked Texas A&M, losing only by the score of 21-17, despite completing 1-of-4 passes for 4 yards.

Somehow Navy, which has the nation’s leading rushing attack, is the one service academy of the three yet to have a passing game in the single digits this season.

Major Miners
UTEP snapped the nation’s longest losing streak, nine games, with a 58-13 defeat of Central Florida. The Miners’ Jose Martinez booted a 64-yard field goal during the win.

No apology necessary
The reason we have a Tim Tebow man-crush is because, besides the Heisman Trophy winner’s prodigious talent, he seems to approach each Saturday with as much passion as anyone in football.

So it was no surprise that after Florida was shocked at the Swamp by unranked Mississippi on Saturday that Tebow would hold himself accountable.

“I’m sorry, I’m extremely sorry,” Tebow, who had 15 rushes for just 7 yards in the 31-30 loss, said afterward. “You have never seen any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of this season and you'll never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of this season, and you'll never see a team play harder than we will the rest of this season.''

Austin-tatious
The Longhorns are 4-0 after whipping Arkansas 52-10 behind Colt McCoy’s team-high 84 yards rushing. It was the third time in four games that McCoy, who was also a Sam Bradford-like 17-19 passing, has led Texas in rushing.

It was also the third time in four games the Longhorns have won by the score of 52-10.

Nice kick, bro’
It more than just felt like brother versus brother when UNLV hosted Nevada. In terms of the kicking game, it really was.

Wolfpack kicker Brett Jaekle, a senior from Las Vegas, was 7-7 on his PATs. Jaekle’s little brother, Ben, a sophomore, nailed field goals from 47 and 52 yards out.

Big brother’s team won, however, 49-27. It was Nevada’s fourth consecutive win in the Silver State rivalry

Grizzly Men
Montana, an FCS school, won its 25th consecutive regular-season game courtesy of a tie-breaking field goal with :01 remaining versus Central Washington. The Grizz have the nation’s longest such win streak in the nation among either FBS or FCS programs.

Quick Hitters
-- The bloom is off the rose in Greenville, N.C., as East Carolina lost again, this time to Houston. The Pirates are 3-2.

-- 500 was a pertinent number last Saturday. In the 500th game played at the Big House, Michigan beat Wisconsin 27-25 (the Wolverines staged their greatest home comeback ever, having trailed 19-0 at halftime). Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden, in the 500th game of his career, won 39-21 against Colorado. Bowden trails Penn State’s Joe Paterno by one on the career victories ledger, 377 to 376.

-- Rice led North Texas 28-20 before exploding for seven unanswered touchdowns to win 77-20. Quarterback Chase Clement and wideout Jaret Dillard hooked up for three touchdown passes and now hold the NCAA career record for a duo, with 41.

-- Michigan State’s Javon Ringer, who entered the game at Indiana with consecutive 200-plus yard games, rushed for 198. The Spartans took a knee at the end of their 42-29 win rather than get Ringer his last two yards.