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Hash marks and hashtags: Oct. 22

By Andrew Walker | Posted 10/23/2016

Saturday night’s Big Ten Conference matchup between No. 2 Ohio State and host Penn State was on a national stage during primetime. Many expected the Buckeyes to defeat its unranked opponent. With 8:31 left in the third quarter it looked like it would happen as the Buckeyes forced a Nittany Lions safety to extend their lead to 14 points, at 21-7.

All signs pointed to yet another road win for Ohio State under head coach Urban Meyer.

Turns out Penn State had no interest in taking that path.

The Nittany Lions stormed back in the fourth quarter with 17 unanswered points. Late in the fourth quarter, Penn State blocked a field goal attempt, Grant Haley recovered the ball and ran 60 yards for the game-winning touchdown in a huge 24-21 upset win at Beaver Stadium. It was Ohio State’s first road loss since 2011:

Only looking at the stat sheet might cause one to believe this game turned out much differently for Ohio State. The Buckeyes (6-1, 3-1 Big Ten) won almost every statistical category, including 19 first downs compared to 13 for Penn State. The Nittany Lions were 2 of 13 on third downs while Ohio State was 9 of 22. The Buckeyes had 413 total yards compared to 276 yards for Penn State and  Ohio State possessed the ball for 37:19 compared to 22:41 for Penn State.

However, the stats don’t tell the whole story.

Penn State (5-2, 3-1), which has been hit hard by scholarship losses and national scrutiny in recent years, is back on the map for simply playing good football.

"I don't even know that you can explain it, everything this program has been through the last five years," Penn State head coach James Franklin told ESPN.com. "No one understands what we're still going through. Nobody understands, so to see us all come together as a family and as a community, we don't do that by ourselves. It took all 107,000 fans in there going crazy.

"Obviously these types of wins are important," Franklin continued. "To be honest with you, I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about the big picture right now, I just want to soak this all in. I just want to enjoy tonight."

It was quite the opposite feeling on the other sideline Saturday night. Urban Meyer, who has been a special teams guru throughout his career, saw a game-winning field goal block decided the game on Saturday. Now the Buckeyes need a little help to remain in the National Championship picture.

“Every goal is still alive,” Meyer said, via the Columbus Dispatch. “(But) we’re not a great team right now.”

Penn State hopes to keep its momentum going on the road next week as it travels to West Lafayette, Ind., to take on Purdue. The Buckeyes will host a scrappy Northwestern team next week before playing host to eighth-ranked Nebraska the following week.

A rout from the start

The first time Auburn had the ball on Saturday was an indicator of how the afternoon went for Arkansas.

The Tigers only took one play to score. Auburn handed the ball off to Eli Stove, who galloped 78-yards for a touchdown.

The 21st-ranked Tigers built a 21-0 lead after the first quarter and were up 28-3 at halftime. The team came into the second half and continued its dominance by going on a 28-0 run in the second half. Ultimately, Auburn trounced No. 17 Arkansas by the score of 56-3 on Saturday.

It’s the largest win over a ranked opponent in Auburn history.

“I told our guys that that was one of the more complete games that I think we've played since I got here,” Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn said, via AuburnTigers.com. “The good thing is that we are improving, and that's really the name of the game. I'm really happy for our guys. The crowd was unbelievable, once again. We are in a good spot moving forward.

The Tigers (5-2, 3-1 SEC) racked up 544 yards on the ground against Arkansas, the most ever recorded in regular-season SEC play. Meanwhile, Arkansas had just 25 rushing yards the whole game.

“The first play that goes to the house, you knew they couldn't wait to get off that bus and run that play,” Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema said, via AL.com. “We have to take a serious look at some of the things that we are doing, how we are making guys play and what we are asking them to do.”

The bye week comes at an ideal time for the Razorbacks (5-3, 1-3 SEC), which has played three straight games against ranked opponents. That streak continues when the bye week is over, when Arkansas plays No. 15 Florida on Nov. 5.

Welcome back

An ankle injury kept star LSU running back Leonard Fournette out of the lineup the past couple weeks.

On Saturday night, he returned to the gridiron and didn’t miss a beat.

Fournette ran 16 times for a school record 284 yards — an average of 17.8 yards per carry — and three touchdowns in the No. 25 Tigers’ huge 38-21 win against No. 23 Ole Miss.

Fournette had touchdown runs of 59, 76 and 78 yards. He also victimized Ole Miss freshman defensive back Deontay Anderson with a heavy shoulder along the sideline: 

Fournette has been hobbled by multiple injuries this season, but Derrius Guice has been able to pick up the slack for the Tigers in his absence. Guice entered Saturday’s game with 564 rushing yards on 62 carries. He also became the fastest running back to reach 1,000 career yards in relation to carries (113) in school history.

Guice accomplished the 1,000-yard feat in 18 games. Meanwhile, Fournette took 13 games and needed 184 total carries.

With Fournette running like he did on Saturday, the Tigers all of a sudden have quite the 1-2 punch at running back. After such a tough start to the season, which included the firing of head coach Les Miles, LSU seems to be getting back on track.

“Confidence, be able to hit the home run and be able to run the game — run the football in the game,” interim LSU head coach Ed Orgeron said of the Tigers’ adjustments of late. “We tried to put (Fournette) and Guice in at the same time. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn't; we wanted to try it. We are best when we can hit the short throws, take deep shots, the ball to the tight ends on crossing routes, protect the quarterback and give Leonard the ball.”

LSU moves to 5-2 (3-1 SEC) on the year and heads into its bye week. The team’s next game is a Nov. 5 home date with No. 1 Alabama staring the Tigers right in the face.

Ole Miss, meanwhile, is now under .500 at 3-4, and takes on No. 21 Auburn next week.

Houston, we have a problem

Cliché sayings aside, the 11th-ranked Cougars are searching for answers after a 38-16 loss on Saturday to SMU. The Mustangs came into the game with a 2-4 record and concluded the day with its first win over a ranked opponent in five seasons.

The start of the game was a microcosm of the issues all night for Houston (6-2), which turned the ball over two times via fumbles in the first quarter. Meanwhile, star quarterback Greg Ward Jr. couldn’t get anything going throughout the game for the Cougars. He threw for 241 yards, which is well below his season average, and ran for just three yards on 17 carries. He was also sacked seven times.

The Mustangs came out hot and quickly jumped to a 21-0 lead. The team would take a 28-7 lead into halftime. Defensive end Jarvis Pruitt was a beast the whole night, finishing with three sacks and a fumble recovery.

The Houston defense allowed 406 yards of total offense to SMU. Now with two losses, after a 46-40 loss to Navy earlier this month, the Cougars find themselves on the outside looking in when it comes to the AAC West race.

Houston hopes to get back on track next week when it hosts UCF. Two weeks later, the Cougars play host to No. 7 Louisville.

Making a statement

Fairmont State is certainly making its case to be a Top-20 Division II team when the polls are released this week.

The No. 23 Falcons had won its first seven games of the season before cracking the Top 25 rankings last week. This week, the Falcons jumped out to a 37-0 halftime lead during a dominant 58-3 victory over the University of Virginia’s College at Wise. It’s Fairmont State’s highest scoring total since reaching 67 wins over WVU Tech in 1996.

Fairmont State was effective all afternoon in all three phases of the game. The Falcons racked up 423 yards of total offense, which was led by quarterback Cooper Hibbs who completed 14-of-20 passes for 157 yards and three touchdowns. The quarterback was one of four teammates to score a rushing touchdown.

The Fairmont State defense, meanwhile, forced five turnovers and a safety to open the game, and held an opposing offense without a touchdown for the third time this season.

On special teams, the Falcons’ Laurence King returned a kickoff 82 yards for a touchdown to give Fairmont State an early 9-0 lead.

The Falcons have a short week to prepare for their next matchup on Thursday night, as they host Notre Dame College at Duvall-Rosier Field. Notre Dame College, whose mascot is also the Falcons, are also enjoying a tremendous season and bring a 7-1 record into the matchup.

Saxons surge

Alfred University in Alfred, N.Y. has quite the football team.

On Saturday, the Saxons rode junior running back Maleke Fuentes to the tune of a career-best 217 rushing yards on 21 carries and two touchdowns during a 61-12 blowout victory over Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y.

The win improved Alfred’s record to 7-0, which occurred during the same week the program jumped four places in the Division III poll to No. 21 overall.

Alfred University is the top rushing team in the Empire 8 coming into Saturday’s contest with an average of 240 rushing yards per game. The team continued to pound the ball on the ground against Hartwick and ended the day with 445 rushing yards.

But the story on Saturday was Alfred’s defense, which limited Hartwick, which is a team averaging 496 yards of total offense per game coming into the contest, to just 230 yards, including -17 yards on the ground.

The Saxons look to keep it going next week at home against the College at Brockport, which sports a 5-2 record so far this season and defeated Cortland, 21-19, on Saturday in its homecoming matchup.

U.S. National Team alumni spotlight

Each week at Hash Marks and Hashtags, we’ll put the spotlight on an alumni of the U.S. National Team.

This week’s spotlight is on Akron senior defensive lineman Se’Von Pittman, a member of the U.S. team in 2012.

Pittman on Saturday had four tackles in the Zips’ big 35-25 road victory to spoil Ball State’s homecoming in Muncie, Ind.

For the year, Pittman has played in seven games with 16 total tackles, with one tackle for a loss. A preseason second-team All-MAC selection this year, Pittman in 2015 was a huge part of the third-best rush defense in the nation, allowing 92.9 rushing yards per game. Pittman had 36 total tackles (seven for a loss) with three sacks, three hurries, two forced fumbles and two pass breakups.

Best of luck to Pittman and all of the U.S. National Team alumni this season and in the future.

Notable quotables:

  • “They persevered. They kept playing, and they did it together.” — Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst, on the 10th-ranked Badgers escaping Iowa City with a 17-9 victory over Iowa off the heels of 134 yards rushing and a touchdown from Corey Clement.
     
  • "What a great first half we played. We battled through some tough things and had fun with it and smiled about it whether things worked or not. I thought we did the same thing with our effort the second half. It's just one of those things where they made more plays than we did." — Gerad Parker, whose Boilermakers were extremely competitive in their 27-14 loss to No. 8 Nebraska in Parker’s first game as Purdue’s interim head coach.
     
  • “They kind of got after us up front and we had a couple of assignment issues. But I just thought they did a great job executing.” — Memphis head coach Mike Norvell, whose Tigers fell to No. 24 Navy, 42-28, and allowed 201 rushing yards and three touchdowns to Will Worth.
     

  • “I thought it was our most complete game. It feels good to be 6-0. It's hard to win. So when you do, you've got to enjoy it a little bit." — West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen after the 12th-ranked Mountaineers dominated TCU, 34-10, and are off to their best start since starting 7-0 in 2006.

  • "It's awesome. We've had some really good running backs come through here, and played against some inferior teams (compared to UCLA). He broke the record of all-time, and we've had a bunch of guys in the NFL, running backs that have done a lot of great things." — Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham, on running back Joe Williams’ school record 332 rushing yards with four touchdowns in the 19th-ranked Utes’ 52-45 shootout win over UCLA.
TagsFan/enthusiast College football National Team
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