Five things we learned in Week 10 of college football: Baylor, Mason Fine, SMU, Houston, Tarleton State

By Sherry Milliken

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Winning is all that matters, Baylor

Baylor certainly didn’t earn any style points on national television on Halloween with a 17-14 win over a terrible West Virginia team. After watching the rest of the past two weeks, moving to 8-0 and beating a lower-tier Big 12 opponent sounds pretty good. 

The Bears struggled to generate any offensive production for the first time this season. Luckily, those are issues that should be worked out, especially as the Bears get left tackle Connor Galvin and guard Xavier Newman (opted not to redshirt) back in the lineup. The Bears have the inside track to a Big 12 championship game, and nothing that happened this week changed it. 

Mason Fine is still incredible

It might have been against UTEP, but Mason Fine just keeps adding to his legend. This time, it was a seven-touchdown performance against the Miners in a dominant 52-26 victory at home, capped off by wearing an inflatable dinosaur suit to the postgame press conference. 

Fine passed some incredible names on the all-time passing list with the performance, including Carson Palmer, Russell Wilson and Drew Brees.  This season hasn’t gone quite how the Mean Green hoped, but we can’t forget that Mason Fine is an all-time great and we should feel lucky to watch him for at least three more games. 

There’s a national title contender in Stephenville

Midwestern State has been a mainstay in the Lone Star Conference for years at this point under head coach Bill Maskill. This isn’t his best squad, but the Mustangs are still a tough out every week. That is, until Tarleton State hosted them. 

Tarleton State jumped out to a 59-0 lead over the Mustangs early in the third quarter. FIFTY NINE. Quarterback Ben Holmes threw for 243 yards and four scores. Daniel McCants rushed for 202 yards and two touchdowns. It was only the latest exploits of a team that is virtually guaranteed its second straight undefeated team and Lone Star title. And then? The sky is the limit. 

Houston isn’t giving up

Rumors of Houston’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. With the exception of a bad game against UConn – with Clayton Tune out of the lineup – the Cougars have quietly put forward a handful of impressive performances against the conference’s elite. 

Houston had a lead at halftime against UCF, the standard-bearer in the conference. A week ago, the Coogs were a drive away from beating then-undefeated SMU. Before that, it was a two score game against Cincinnati and a three-touchdown win against North Texas. The Cougars aren’t good, yet, but the tide is quietly turning in the right direction, and we’re taking notice. 

Let’s talk about SMU

My thought about SMU comes down to this: The Mustangs showed every criticism of Sonny Dykes in a loss to Memphis. 

Dykes teams have been characterized by great air raid passing concepts, great receiver play, but struggles in the run game, struggles on defense and – especially – struggles on special teams. Every one of those issues showed up against the Tigers on Saturday. 

Special teams was perhaps the most glaring issue. Memphis started on average at the 40-yard line, and that’s counting two pinpoint punts by Shane Buechele, the only positive field position of the whole day. The Mustangs allowed a 97-yard kickoff return for touchdown and multiple breakaways too. 

Offensively, Shane Buechele was phenemonal with 456 yards and three touchdowns with no picks. James Proche was his usual pro-caliber self, and freshman Rashee Rice looks like the heir to Proche next season. However, the Mustangs ran the ball just 18 times between all three running backs. Granted, Memphis held Xavier Jones to just two yards per carry on 11 carries, but you have to keep pushing. This didn’t look like a Rhett Lashlee game plan. This looked like Dykes reverting to old habits. It worked at times, but you need both aspects to be an elite offense. 

Defensively, the issues were obvious. The Mustangs were disruptive. They took Kennetih Gainwell out of the game and forced Brady White to beat them. Unfortunately, that just opened the door for Antonio Gibson and Damonte Coxie to combine for 531 all-purpose yards and five combined scores. That’s just plain not good enough. 

For SMU to win the conference – which they absolutely still can – the coaching staff has to come together and cover up those issues. Dykes has done a great job of growing as a coach and allowing his staff to work through some of his historic shortcomings. There’s no reason to think that Dykes has regressed – he got his team to 8-0, for goodness sake. But with three games left, SMU has to find that balance that helped make it a top 15 team. The ceiling of this season depends on it.

College Power Poll

  1. Baylor Bears
  2. SMU Mustangs
  3. Texas A&M Aggies
  4. TCU Horned Frogs
  5. Texas Longhorns
  6. Houston Cougars
  7. North Texas Mean Green
  8. Texas Tech Red Raiders
  9. Texas State Bobcats
  10. UTSA Roadrunners
  11. UTEP Miners
  12. Rice Owls

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