Blanket Coverage: 'Out' in Week 4

In Happy Valley there was a "whiteout." In West Lafayette, a "blackout." In Lexington, a knockout. In Tallahassee, fallout after the mercurial (read: inconsistent) Seminoles lost at home to unranked South Florida. And in Lincoln, a combined sellout/shutout/blowout as the Cornhuskers celebrated their 300th consecutive full house at Memorial Stadium with a 55-0 pummeling of Louisiana-Lafayette.

All that and more in this week's version of Blanket Coverage ...

O Brothers
Since 2006, Ohio State and Oklahoma are a combined 0-6 in bowl games (if you see either of their coaches, be sure to remind them about it). However, the Buckeyes and Sooners have each recorded consecutive shutouts after an early September loss. This weekend Oklahoma, which boasts the nation's top-ranked scoring defense and rush defense, visits Miami. The Buckeyes, who have not yielded a point since Matt Barkley led USC on that game-winning drive in the Horseshoe Sept. 12, are at Indiana. They may no longer sport DudePerfect records, but OSU and OU have looked as good as anyone in the nation since their wake-up call defeats.

And as long as we're making an "O" face, let's not forget Oregon, which has beaten a pair of ranked schools en route to a 3-1 mark following that season-opening disaster at Boise State.

Home Schooling
Three teams in the Top 25 played their entire September slate without ever leaving campus. They are No. 14 Oklahoma State (3-1), No. 15 Penn State (3-1) and No. 22 Michigan (4-0). The Cowboys have a bye week followed by a cattle-drive to Texas A&M Oct. 10. The Nittany Lions are at Illinois this Saturday while the Wolverines, who may be awarding game balls to the video replay official in Ann Arbor, remain in-state with a bus ride to East Lansing to face Michigan State.

Eugene's House of Style
Each of the three aforementioned teams have donned the same uniform each Saturday thus far. Oregon, meanwhile, has yet to wear the same jersey or even pants in any of its four games. The Ducks have even donned three different-colored helmets through four games. For a complete photo gallery of Fall '09 Duckwear, click here ... and here ... and here ... and here.

Death Valley Bowl
Texas Christian not only earned a meaningful non-conference win in its visit to Clemson, but the No. 15 Horned Frogs also returned to Fort Worth with a a check for a Dr. Evil-like sum of $1 million. That payout was equal to or greater than the payouts of 16 of last season's 34 bowls.

Bowling Alleys
Last week, quite a few of us pundits harkened back to last season's Emerald Bowl participants -- Cal and Miami -- as an angle toward perusing the pleasant surprises of the '09 season. And why not? The Golden Bears and Hurricanes were a combined 5-0 and boasted two early season Heisman favorites in tailback Jahvid Best and quarterback Jacory Harris. But then both went on the road this past weekend. No. 6 Cal lost 42-3 at Oregon, the worst loss of the Jeff Tedford era, while No. 9 Miami quickly fell behind 21-0 at No. 11 Virginia Tech and lost 31-7.

Not to despair. This week we suggest the pundits peruse the 2008 Poinsettia Bowl, in which Texas Christian tackled Boise State 17-16. The two BCS busters are a combined 7-0. The Horned Frogs are peeking in at the Top 10 with a No. 11 ranking in the AP poll heading into a visit to UTEP, which lost 64-7 at Texas last Saturday. Boise State, meanwhile, has ascended to a school-record No. 5 ranking as it prepares to host FCS foe UC-Davis.

Because the Game Certainly Wasn't One
With the Cowboys up 35-0 at the half, injured Oklahoma State stars Dez Bryant and Kendall Hunter chose not to head to the locker room at halftime. Instead, they remained on the sidelines with two other injured starters to watch the visiting band from Grambling State perform Michael Jackson's "Thriller." The Pokes won 56-6.

Griffin Done
Add Baylor sophomore quarterback Robert Griffin to the list of marquee names (Michael Floyd at Notre Dame , Jermaine Gresham at Oklahoma and Matt Grothe at South Florida) who will miss the rest of the season. Griffin suffered an isolated tear to the ACL of his right knee in the opening series of the Bears' 68-13 win against FCS school Northwestern State. However, the former Olympic trials-level hurdler remained in the game for the entire first half before Baylor's trainers shut him down.

Asked after the game to rate his level of concern on a scale of one to 10 when he saw Griffin lying on the ground, Baylor coach Art Briles responded, "We're stopping at 10? ... I like winning football games."



Under the Radar, But Why?
There's a two-sport stud at Stanford who wears No. 7 and is a white kid from Southern California, but he doesn't play quarterback and his name is not John Elway. Last Saturday, senior tailback Toby Gerhart rushed for a career-high 200 yards in Stanford's 34-14 defeat of No. 24 Washington. Gerhart, an outfielder on the Cardinal baseball team who is 12-for-12 in his career in stolen-base attempts, is currently third in the nation in rushing with 129 yards per game. Not that this should surprise anyone. At Norco High School Gerhart rushed for 9,662 yards, which broke the California prep record by more than 1,000 yards. California, you will recall, is a state where running backs such as Marcus Allen, O.J. Simpson, Charles White, Reggie , Rashaan Salaam and Glenn Davis played high school ball. All of those players are also Heisman Trophy winners, by the way.

Red Sea Partying
As part of the Memorial Stadium celebration for Nebraska's 300th consecutive sellout dating back to 1962, the Cornhuskers wore vintage '62 uniforms. I know what you're thinking: Nebraska has uniforms even more retro than the ones they regularly wear?

Somehow, Someone Will Still Find a Way to Call the Irish Overrated
Fifteen of the 25 teams in this week's AP poll have one loss. And not one of them is Notre Dame (3-1). Not that the Irish deserve to be in the Top 25, but let's credit the voters for not fawning over them, either. Meanwhile, if Charlie Weis had called a timeout with 36.9 seconds left and his defense on the field in a third-and-goal from the 3-yard line situation, and then the Irish had lost, exactly what decibel-level would the volume of the "Fire Weis!" cries be at today? Because that is exactly what Purdue head coach Danny Hope did, providing the Irish a huge assist in Notre Dame's last-minute 24-21 victory at West Lafayette.

Cincinnati's Two-Minute Offense
The average time of Cincinnati's four touchdown drives in the Bearcats' 28-20 win against Fresno State was 2:09. By the way, three schools in this week's AP Top 10 won in the Buckeye State on Saturday: No. 5 Boise State, which destroyed Bowling Green 49-14, No. 8 Ohio State shut out Illinois 30-0, and No. 10 Cincy's defeat of Fresno State.

Tardy, Better Late than Never
Washington State avoided its second shutout at the hands of USC in as many seasons when Dwight Tardy scored from two yards out with 0:22 to play at the Coliseum. The Trojans, who drilled the Cougars 69-0 in Pullman a year ago, won 27-6.

The Show Me Some Mercy State
In the 75th "Battle for the Old Hickory Stick", FCS powerhouse Northwest Missouri State trampled Truman 70-0.

364 and Counting
Crezdon Butler. That's the answer. The question is, Who was the last person to intercept a pass thrown by North Carolina State quarterback Russell Wilson? In Saturday's 38-31 defeat of Pittsburgh, the Wolfpack sophomore attempted 35 more passes (completing 21, and four for touchdowns) without being picked off to extend his NCAA-record streak to 364. Wilson has been intercepted but once in his career, and that in the second game of his freshman season last September at Clemson by the Tigers' Butler.