FootballScoop’s ongoing weekly “They Said What?!” feature finds itself living that #blessed existence with more notable quotables than a single piece of content can spotlight.
Nonetheless, here it is following college football’s fifth full week of games and sixth overall.
Onward …
The box score shows that Sam Hartman, college football’s veteran-most quarterback, the multiple-ACC record-holder and engineer of 5-1 Notre Dame’s offense, is entering this week’s clash at nationally ranked, undefeated Louisville on the heels of his worst game as Fighting Irish quarterback.
Hartman also is coming off a 17-yard run on fourth-and-16 – fourth-and-the-season for a Notre Dame program that does not reside in a conference – that serves as penultimate moment before Audric Estimè’s game-winning touchdown run.
Ever-gracious, Hartman wasn’t in any mood to chronicle his winning moments.
He’s seeking new wheels for Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden, the former Temple and Miami Hurricanes head coach. Golden’s defense is supremely central in Notre Dame’s 5-1 blitz through the first half of its season.
“We battled all night; the defense man, Coach Golden, I just want to buy him a Ferrari or something because he kept us in this game,” Hartman said postgame, “and that defense just played their hearts out and gave us that chance. And, obviously, the last play of the game got that stop. Surreal. So proud. These games aren’t easy to win.”
HATERS IN THE BUILDING
After its darling 3-0 start, Colorado now is 3-2 and coming off consecutive losses in which the Buffaloes’ defense allowed a combined 90 points to Pac-12 foes (for these final few months, anyway) Oregon and USC.
Though Deion Sanders, aka Coach Prime, insists his program is not counting any moral victories, Deion Sanders is touting the team’s ongoing evolution as a burgeoning new-age college football force.
"If you can't see what's coming with CU football,” Coach Prime emphasized postgame Saturday, “you've lost your mind. You're just a flat-out hater if you can't see what's going on and what's going to transpire over the next several months."
Colorado has winnable games across the next 11 days, at Arizona State this week and home against Stanford Oct. 13, before an open date and then a road-trip to UCLA Oct. 28.
SUPER VOLS
South Carolina has an eye-gouging 11 double-digit losses under Shane Beamer, the son of Hall of Fame former Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer, since Beamer took over the Gamecocks’ program prior to the 2021 season.
Another of those blowout-losses unfolded Saturday night inside Neyland Stadium, where Josh Heupel and Tennessee tuned up the Gamecocks by a 41-20 final. The Vols have now obliterated Beamer’s Gamecocks by a combined 86-40 margin in their two visits to Neyland Stadium since Heupel took over the Vols prior to the 2021 campaign and simultaneous to Beamer’s arrival in Columbia, S.C.
But after South Carolina eviscerated Tennessee last year inside Williams-Brice Stadium en route to season-ending wins against Clemson and the Vols before falling to Notre Dame in the bowl game, the Gamecocks entered this game with high hopes – since dashed in double-digit losses against North Carolina, Georgia and now Tennessee.
Still, Gamecocks quarterback Spencer Rattle indicated the Vols placed inordinate magnitude on beating South Carolina.
“If you ain’t got haters, you ain’t popping,” Rattler said on the heels of his 169-yard, no-touchdown, one-interception effort against Tennessee. “It’s like their Super Bowl … so, congrats to them.”
Worth noting, the Vols are 3-1 and control their destiny in the SEC East – since they still have games against Georgia, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Missouri within the division, as well as SEC West foes Texas A&M and Alabama.
The Gamecocks, meanwhile, have quite a tough road ahead – and no more opportunities for Shane Beamer to bemoan chain crews eating hot dogs.
PEYTON’S PLACE
One of the more bizarre recruiting developments in the 2023 class centered on Peyton Bowen, the sublime talent who long was committed to Notre Dame, then was reported as committed to Dan Lanning and Oregon before Bowen finally signed with Oklahoma.
It extended beyond National Signing Day and possessed a rare level of drama in recent recruiting developments.
But Bowen is already making a tremendous impact for Brent Venables and Oklahoma, which is undefeated headed into this week’s ‘Red River Rivalry’ – formerly ‘Red River Shootout’ before political pressures caused a name-change for the venerable series.
Bowen already owns a pair of blocked punts this season for Oklahoma, including in Saturday’s 50-20 romp of Iowa State.
“The little details of the game are not too much for him,” Venables said. “A lot of times for freshmen, they are. What I love about Peyton is he comes every day and he's hungry. He wants to help in any way. He’s really a selfless guy. He’s an instinctual guy and a good football player. He just makes plays. Scheme-wise, he understands the details and the precision that is required, and then he's skilled on top of that.”
BRIAN’S BATTLES AT IOWA
As Doug Samuels continues to chronicle weekly for FootballScoop, Brian Ferentz – by Iowa’s own doing – is under immense week-after-week pressure to help ensure the Iowa Hawkeyes – for whom Ferentz is the head coach’s son and the team’s offensive coordinator – averages at least 25 points per game. This isn’t mythical; it’s in Ferentz’s contract modifications.
Entering this past Saturday’s game against Michigan State needed 41 points to have a team average of 25 points per game through the season’s first five contests, Iowa instead scored only 26 points – 12 of which game via field goals and another seven as a result of a punt return for a touchdown.
The Hawkeyes also saw their transfer-quarterback, Cade McNamara previously of Michigan, injured in the game; they finished with 15 first downs and 222 total yards’ offense.
To say Iowa’s offense continues to be garbage is, arguably, an insult to garbage.
And Hawkeyes head man Kirk Ferentz admits to hearing the boo-birds in Saturday’s win against listless Michigan State.
“Well, I mean, 3-and-out isn’t any fun for anybody,” Kirk Ferentz said when asked directly about the boos and offensive woes. “I get that.
“We're working hard to improve that and that's what we're going to do. That's what we do every year, every season.”
The Hawkeyes are clinging to a top-100 scoring offense – 22.2 points per game is good enough for 98th in FBS – and host Purdue this week in their homecoming tilt; a mere 39-point explosion is all that’s needed to get the group to a 25-point-per-game average at the season’s midpoint.