Rocks, Papers, Scissors is a new weekly column for the football season which will focus on the best players and coaches of the week along with players who ended up hurting their team or didn’t add any production to their teams efforts. (Thanks to my friend, Steve Mendelsohn, who helped me out with the idea).
Rocks: This group is for the players who did nothing to help their team or themselves. Their team would have been better off without them. The player did not play up to his potential and in the end hurt his teams chances of winning.
Paper: Coaches who stuck to their game plan throughout the week and it showed off on Saturday. These coaches made sure the players were focused throughout the game and made the appropriate decisions to put their team in a better position to win.
Scissors: Players who tore it up this week with big numbers all around. Thanks to these players, they give their team a shot of being competitive and give their team opportunity to win games.
Rocks:
Colin Kaepernick, QB, Nevada- The reigning WAC Offensive Player of the year did not do anything against Notre Dame this weekend. Last year he rushed for over 1,000 yards and threw for over 2.000. This Saturday he put up no points, threw two interceptions and went 12-23 in pass attempts with only 149 yards through the air. Kaepernick averaged 3.9 yards on the ground against the Irish, but still could not find the end zone. He was also sacked twice.
Obviously this loss is not placed solely on Kaepernick, but he needs to be a lot more productive through the air and the ground if Nevada is to do well this season.
Paper:
Tie between Bronco Mendenhall at BYU and Chris Petersen at Boise State. Both coaches entered this season in the top 25, opening up against two very good teams in Oregon and Oklahoma and having high expectations to try and make it to the BCS this season.
Bronco Mendenhall, BYU- Mendenhall and the Cougars got one of the biggest wins in BYU history against Oklahoma and has put themselves in a very good position to possibly run the table and get into the BCS. He was able to keep his team focused throughout camp and instilled a sense of confidence that the Cougars can play with the top teams such as the Sooners. This coaching performance really showed the resilience of the Cougars squad as Max Hall delivered the game-winning touchdown with three minutes left to solidify the upset.
Chris Petersen, Boise State- All the talk was about if Boise State can get passed Oregon they would have a legit shot of running the table and making it to the BCS. Boise State, which is usually known for its offense, had huge plays from the defense. Peterson’s defense held Oregon to only six first downs, and 152 yards total offense. Also, kudos for coach Petersen for keeping his players emotions in check even after LeGarrette Blount sucker-punched Byron Hout.
Scissors:Max Hall, QB, BYU- The Cougars could not have pulled off the upset over the third ranked, Sooners team without Hall under center. He went 26 of 38 for 329 yards and two touchdown passes. The most important one coming late in the fourth quarter, which was the game-winning touchdown pass to McKay Jacobson. Hall displayed his maturity as a veteran quarterback as he had a short-term memory after throwing two interceptions and was poise and calm on the last drive to lock up an upset over Oklahoma..