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Hash marks and hashtags: Nov. 26

By Andrew Walker | Posted 11/27/2016

With all the excitement of college football’s annual rivalry week brewing, it was news on the coaching front that took center stage this week.

Two of the more prominent college football programs in the country had major announcements heading into Saturday’s action. LSU decided to remove the 'interim' tag from Ed Orgeron’s title and make him the team’s full-time head coach. Meanwhile, Texas announced Houston’s Tom Herman is the Longhorns’ new head coach, replacing Charlie Strong.

For both Orgeron and Herman, their new opportunities are dreams come true.

“Driving by the stadium, I just wanted to be an assistant coach. I just wanted to have my feet on the grass,” Orgeron said in his introductory press conference. “But I knew once I got here, I knew I could work up to being head coach, one step at a time. Everywhere I went, I was preparing to come home to LSU. That was my goal the whole time. Go to Miami, go to Syracuse, go to USC, be prepared. I wanted to come back and be the best coach I could be when I took this job.”

“While working as a graduate assistant coach at UT and earning my master's degree, I learned so much about college football from mentors like Mack Brown and Greg Davis,” Herman said, via Texas press release. “I had been a Division III college football player with my only coaching experience at Texas Lutheran when I was hired and UT thrust me into major college football and helped build the foundation for my career.”

Herman actually came close to going to LSU, instead of Texas. But Joe Alleva, the director of athletics at LSU, mentioned in Orgeron’s introductory press conference that, “This thing was never going to come down to a bidding war.”

So, LSU now has their man and Texas has theirs.

“We knew Coach O was never going to play games with us,” Alleva said. “We know where Coach O’s heart is. We know where his love is. We know where his passion is.”

Two other major coaching moves, meanwhile, appear to be on the horizon.

At Oregon, USA Today is reporting that school officials are “coming to terms with the necessity” of firing head coach Mark Helfrich, whose Ducks have fallen, hard, to the tune of a 4-8 final record this season, and lost to a 3-8 Oregon State team, 34-24, on Saturday.

“Nobody’s job is safe in college football,” Helfrich said after Saturday’s game. “But that’s for somebody else to decide.”

A buyout for Helfrich would cost the Oregon $11.6 million, a total that’s apparently not too steep for the school.

Meanwhile, an up-and-coming coach appears as though he could possibly be making his first major jump.

PJ Fleck, of “Row the Boat” fame at Western Michigan, where the 35-year-old has led the Broncos to a 12-0 record and No. 14 national ranking, has been linked to the head coaching position at Purdue.

Western Michigan athletic director Kathy Beauregard went to Twitter on Saturday to deny that claim:

Beauregard obviously has every right to publicly defend her football program, but this one reeks of what happened with the Ball State football program back in 2008. Then-head coach Brady Hoke led the Cardinals to a 12-0 regular-season record and a Top-15 national ranking. Hoke bolted for San Diego State right after the MAC Championship game and just before the Ball State’s bowl appearance. He eventually moved on to become the head coach at Michigan.

Will Fleck pursue a similar path for his next job? Stay tuned.

Living up to its billing

It had drama, hatred, cheers, jeers, controversy — oh, and some good football, too.

Saturday’s clash between No. 2 Ohio State and No. 3 Michigan lived up to all the hype.

In the end, the host Buckeyes survived with a 30-27 double-overtime victory. The final play of the game sent a sea of scarlet and grey onto the Ohio Stadium turf in what was one of the greatest games ever in the greatest rivalry in all of college football.

Urban Meyer, who collapsed to the ground in joy upon seeing Curtis Samuel race 15 yards into the end zone for the game-winning score, had trouble putting into words what he was feeling after such an emotional victory over the Wolverines.

“It's awesome,” the Ohio State head coach said of being part of such a terrific rivalry. “I’ve said that many, many times. I'm very humbled to be a part of it. And you can't ask for better efforts. They have great players; we have great players. They're a very well-coached team and so are we. And it's good for the country to see the Big Ten in action like that.”

But with so much on the line — most of all, one of the four potential College Football Playoff spots — it was the play before Samuel’s game-winning touchdown that has been the talk of the sports world.

Down three, 27-24, and facing a 4th and 1 from the Michigan 16-yard line, the Buckeyes decided against a potential game-tying field goal after their kicker had already missed two chip shots in regulation.

On a keeper, quarterback J.T. Barrett appeared to be oh-so-close to the first down marker. A video review confirmed the officials’ initial ruling of a first down — despite the fact there weren’t many great camera angles of the play.

So much was riding on that single call. Had the call been reversed, it would be Michigan, and not Ohio State, that is continuing in the driver’s seat for a College Football Playoff spot.

As such, Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh did not hold back in his postgame comments.

“That was not a first down,” he said. “I’m bitterly disappointed with the officiating today.”

So many coaches across the sport have been in Harbaugh’s position, where you feel snake bitten by the officials during a game that has high stakes riding on it. Sometimes, I guess it’s just hard to hold your tongue.

The odd thing about Saturday’s win for Ohio State, the Buckeyes had to wait after they beat Michigan to determine if they would advance to next week’s Big Ten title game in Indianapolis. Penn State, which had handed Ohio State its only loss of the season, was taking on Michigan State at home later in the afternoon. If the Nittany Lions could win, then they would represent the East Division.

They did just that, defeating the Spartans by the score of 45-12. The Nittany Lions will now take on West Division winner, Wisconsin, in the conference championship game.

So Ohio State, which won’t even play for a Big Ten title, should still make one of the four College Football Playoff spots.

Meanwhile, Michigan has also made a very strong case, despite its two losses, that it is still one of the four best teams in college football. However, I’d say the Wolverines’ chances of getting a playoff spot are very slim.

‘Worst to first’

How about head coach Mike MacIntyre and his Colorado Buffaloes?

Colorado downright struggled upon joining the Pac-12. From 2011 to 2015, the Buffaloes lost 40 of its first 45 league games. That included a 1-8 record in Pac-12 play just last season.

But those lulls, at least this year, are over. The Buffaloes improved to 10-2 (8-1 in the Pac-12) on the season this Saturday with a 27-22 victory over No. 22 Utah. The victory secures Colorado’s place in next week’s conference championship tilt against No. 6 Washington.

"Worst to first — not many people can say they did that," MacIntyre said, via ESPN.com. "Our young men did that and now we've got one more to do that is our ultimate, that's what we set out to do. ... We just got to go get one against Washington."

Colorado was able to top the Utes with solid defense. The Buffaloes held Utah running back Joe Williams to just 26 carries for 97 yards, which is 58 yards fewer than his season average. In all, Colorado had two huge fourth-down stops, four takeaways, broke up 10 passes and had eight tackles for loss, including three sacks.

The performance by the defense helped quarterback Sefo Liufau, who had two fumbles and completed just 23 of 44 passes for 270 yards with one touchdown, though he added 21 carries for 59 yards and a rushing touchdown on the night, as well.

But back to the coaching: you’ve got to give a ton of credit to MacIntyre and his staff for this spirited turnaround for their program. As he alluded to, worst-to-first-type seasons don’t just happen every year.

When will this one sink in for MacIntyre?

“I’ll guarantee I’ll wake up somewhere in the middle of the night and go into the den and just sit there,” he said after Saturday’s game.

Good stuff, Coach MacIntyre.

Still the frontrunner?

All season long at Hash Marks and Hashtags, we’ve touted the Heisman Trophy candidacy of Louisville sophomore quarterback Lamar Jackson, who has been a touchdown-scoring machine.

And although it’s not fair to call the Heisman Trophy the “Most Valuable Player” of college football — it’s always typically been more the best-overall player, regardless of his team’s performance — the Cardinals’ performance the past couple weeks, coupled with Jackson’s recent struggles with turnovers, has made the Heisman race much more interesting.

On Saturday, Jackson struck a Heisman pose after scoring a game-tying touchdown midway through the fourth quarter of a very entertaining back-and-forth affair. But his fumble on the Cardinals’ potential go-ahead drive at the Kentucky 10-yard line led to the Wildcats’ eventual game-winning 47-yard field goal from Austin MacGinnis. Just for good measure, Jackson was picked off on his final desperate heave of the game.

Still, Jackson finished the game with 452 total yards (281 yards passing and 171 yards rushing) and four touchdowns on the day. He broke several records on Saturday, including his school-record eighth 100-yard rushing performance, as well as the school's season record for rushing yards (which was previously held by Howard Stevens’ 1,429 yards in 1971). He also became the ACC’s single-season record holder for touchdowns.

On the year, Jackson has 51 total touchdowns (30 passing and 21 rushing) and 4,928 total yards, which averages to a mind-blowing 410 yards over his 12 games.

But as a team, No. 11 Louisville was oh-so-impressive the first 10 weeks of the season. Led by Jackson, the Cardinals won nine of those games, including a victory over then-No. 2 Florida State. The lone blemish on their record was a result of a loss to No. 5 Clemson.

But since that time, Louisville has lost twice to unranked opponents (Houston and Kentucky), which put a damper on what was shaping up to be a potentially magical season.

This should have no bearing on Jackson’s Heisman candidacy, but other candidates are not in the conversation. This includes Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson, who gets a conference title game next week for an extra opportunity to impress Heisman voters.

The Heisman winner will be announced Dec. 10.

Who’s thirsty?

No. 17 Tennessee would see a fourth-quarter lead crumble in a stunning 45-34 loss to Vanderbilt, but that’s not all that collapsed on Saturday in Nashville.

Late in the third quarter, with the Volunteers up by the score of 34-31, Tennessee running back John Kelly couldn’t stop his momentum as he took a run into the Commodores’ sideline area.

What happened next is likely hard to watch for all team hydration officials across the country:

Despite the team losing all that tacklin’ fuel, Vanderbilt was able to mount a huge comeback. Head coach Derek Mason, whose Commodores overcame a 2-4 start to finish the regular season with a 6-6 record, had plenty of reason to celebrate on the sidelines:

U.S. National Team alumni spotlight

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

This week’s spotlight is on UCF redshirt junior linebacker Shaquem Griffin, a member of the U.S. team in 2013.

Griffin has been one of the best defensive playmakers in all of college football this season, as he has racked up 85 total tackles — 19 tackles for a loss — with 11 sacks, an interception, six pass breakups, three quarterback hits, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries.

And, he’s done it all with just one hand.

Clearly, it doesn’t affect him one bit. His rise to national prominence arrived quickly. He registered just 18 total tackles and zero sacks, with an interception and a fumble recovery, as a redshirt sophomore last season.

Now are Sundays in his future? We’ll see.

We wish the best of luck to Griffin and all of the U.S. National Team alumni this season and in the future.

Notable quotables:

  • “It doesn't matter. I'm just glad the (Huskies) are there and hopefully we'll show up and play our best game of the year.” — Washington head coach Chris Petersen, whose fifth-ranked Huskies defeated Washington State, 45-17, to advance to the Pac-12 title game next week.
     
  • “We gave up big plays. I think we were horrible on third down. I’m really disappointed all the way around in all of us.” — Nebraska head coach Mike Riley, whose No. 16 Cornhuskers fell flat, 40-10, to Iowa with the possibility of an appearance in the Big Ten title game hanging in the balance.
     
  • “It's a game I thought we prepared well for and our guys were looking forward to coming in here and playing our best football. We didn't do that tonight, so a lot of disappointment in the locker room.” — Boise State head coach Bryan Harsin, whose Broncos, the 19th-ranked team in the country, saw a potential game-tying touchdown drive stuffed twice within the five-yard line late in their 27-20 loss to Air Force.
     
  • “At halftime, I guess everybody thought I was going to throw a fit, but I told them, ‘Look guys, all we've got to do is go out there and play with some poise and confidence.” — Alabama head coach Nick Saban, whose top-ranked Crimson Tide led No. 13 Auburn 13-9 at halftime, but turned it into a 30-12 win to remain undefeated at 12-0
     
  • "Offensively, those guys have had some incredible games in Death Valley. We challenged them: ‘Hey, let's make this last one the best one.’” — Clemson co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott, who saw Deshaun Watson tie a career high with six touchdown passes, three to Mike Williams, in the No. 4 Tigers’ 56-7 drubbing over South Carolina.

 

Photo courtesy of University of Texas Longhorns 

TagsFan/enthusiast College football Tackle football
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