Around the Country

It was an exciting weekend in college football. The big game of the week, from a national standpoint, was No. 1 Oklahoma at No. 5 Florida State.

The game was close and very physical. It was Oklahoma’s field goal with two minutes remaining in the game to go up 23-13 that sealed the deal for the Sooners. Florida State had to finish up the game with their backup quarterback, Clint Trickett, when their starter, E.J. Emanuel, went down with a shoulder injury during the 3rd quarter.

There were also four upsets of ranked teams across the country as Notre Dame easily beat No. 15 Michigan State 31-13 at home. Miami, with several key players back from suspension including quarterback Jacory Harris, defeated No. 17 Ohio State 24-6. Clemson improved their play continuously throughout the game as they defeated No. 21 Auburn 38-24. Finally, No. 22 Arizona State was upset by unranked Illinois in a close, defensive battle in which both defenses forced three turnovers.

Everyone was blown away on Saturday when it was announced during the Pitt at Iowa game that Pitt and Syracuse had applied to join the ACC conference. Iowa won that game in classic comeback fashion. Pitt looked like the better team through the first part of the 4th quarter when they scored a touchdown to go up 27-10, but Iowa flipped a switch and scored three straight touchdowns to pull off the comeback and win it 27-31.

It was later announced that the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) had accepted Pitt and Syracuse into their conference. According to the press release on the ACC’s website, the Council of Presidents unanimously voted to accept the two universities into conference membership. That makes the ACC the only conference with more than 12 members in FBS football, as they will have 14 football teams. The nation is anxiously watching to see if anything else happens, amongst more rumors that can be feasibly tracked, in conference alignment.

Utah at BYU

The game was close and competitive in the first half, but Utah steamrolled BYU in the second half to win 54-10. http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2011/09/18/after-a-competitive-first-half-%E2%80%98holy-war%E2%80%99-becomes-big-blowout/ Utah has the week off and will be hosting Washington Oct. 1. BYU will need to turn things around quickly if they hope to beat UCF on Friday in Provo.

Dixie State

Dixie State opened conference play this weekend with a bang when they hosted Simon Fraser Saturday evening. They made a statement to the rest of the conference as they handily defeated Simon Fraser 42-7. http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2011/09/18/dsc-football-dominant-in-42-7-win-over-simon-fraser/ Dixie State has another home game this Saturday as they host Western Oregon in another conference game.

SUU

It was homecoming week in Cedar City, and the Thunderbirds wanted nothing more than to build on the momentum they established last week in their win over Sacramento State as they hosted the University of Texas-San Antonio. Both teams scored touchdowns on their opening drives and it looked early like it might be a close game, but SUU pulled away in the second quarter to take a 28-7 lead into the lockroom. Quarterback Brad Sorensen led the T-birds to a 45-22 victory completing 20 of 28 passes for 287 yards and three touchdowns. Next Saturday the T-birds will travel to Las Vegas to face UNLV.

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