College Football Week 5: What We Learned

            Oklahoma has played two ranked teams this season and failed to win either one of them.  This past week they went on the road to play Miami as a 7 point favorite and lost the game outright.  The Sooners sorely miss the reigning Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford.  Landry Jones was highly touted out of high school but simply lacks the leadership qualities that Bradford possesses.  He was unable to put up impressive numbers against the Miami defense as he went just 18 of 30 for only 188 yards.  Jones also only threw one touchdown pass in the Sooners? loss.  He beat up on Tulsa and Idaho State but was unable to be the big time playmaker that Bradford is in order to lead his team to victory against a quality defense in Miami.  If Bradford can?t get back healthy soon this Oklahoma team is in serious trouble if they expect to be in a BCS bowl game this year.  They were able to run the ball effectively but just couldn?t get enough big plays through the air to get the win.  Bradford is listed as questionable for this week?s game against Baylor.  Jones is good enough to beat Baylor but struggles against good teams.

            Illinois Head Coach, Ron Zook is benching quarterback Juice Williams this week.  This is a clear indication of just how disappointing this Illinois team has been thus far.  The Illini were picked by many experts to be the dark horse in the Big 10 and supposedly had one of the most explosive offenses in the Big 10.  Illinois is averaging just 17.8 points per game and Williams has only threw for 519 yards and 1 touchdown in the first four games.  Not only has the offense been bad but the defense has been awful as well.  They are giving up nearly 30 points and 417 yards of total offense per game to open the 2009 season.  The run defense has killed them allowing 184 yards rushing a game and 5.1 yards per carry.  This could be a very long season for the Fighting Illini and they very well could find themselves in the cellar of the Big 10 after everything is said and done.  Zooke will try to shake things up by giving new players opportunities but is very questionable if those moves will lead to improvement.

            If it weren?t for two goal line stands the Irish would have lost to the Washington Huskies at home this past Saturday.  Once again, the defense was downright awful and the offense had to outscore Washington in an overtime shootout in order to win the game.  The Irish defense gave up 457 yards of total offense and 30 points to a Washington team that is not a top tier offensive team.  The Huskies were able to run the ball very effectively as they rushed for 176 yards on 39 carries.  Jake Locker had receivers open up all game long and had himself a great game throwing the ball.  Locker was just 22-40 but threw for 281 yards and a touchdown.  If the Irish don?t get things corrected on the defensive side of the ball they could be in trouble.  You can?t be a great team if your offense hast to be depended upon to score more than 30 points in order to win ball games.