10/12/2021 football Edit

Three-Point Stance: Midseason thoughts, awards

Mike Farrell • Rivals.com

Rivals National Columnist

Rivals national columnist Mike Farrell is here with 10 things we would have never expected at the start of the season, his midseason All-American offense and his own Top 25 with some basis of reality.

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1. Unexpected developments

This has been a crazy college football season so far, there is little debate there. But every year there are developments that surprise me by mid-season. This year some are just more surprising.

Spencer Rattler is fighting for his job — No he’s not winning the Heisman this season as we expected; he’s losing his job to another former five-star in Caleb Williams.

Kenneth Walker leads the nation in rushing — From unknown at Wake Forest to the Heisman race, he’s even better than I thought he’d be. Much better.

Stetson Bennett could be better for UGA than JT Daniels — Did you think this question would be asked at midseason: Can Kirby Smart really replace Bennett with Daniels?

Kenny Pickett is the best quarterback in the ACC — Not Sam Howell or DJ Uiagalelei or D’Eriq King. Nope.

The Gators lead the Power Five in rushing — This was a team that struggled along the offensive line and in running last year? You wouldn’t know it.

Iowa and Penn State have top five defenses — We expected solid defenses from both but losing some key parts and recovering like this? Unexpected.

DJ Uiagalelei is 119th out of 124 quarterbacks listed in average yards per completion — Preseason Heisman talk to 5.7 yards per completion? That’s awful.

UConn and UMass have higher rated offenses than Colorado— Remember when we thought Colorado would be able to run the ball with Jarek Broussard and there was hope before JT Shrout got hurt? Now they are simply awful.

Missouri, not Vanderbilt, gives up the most points per game in the SEC — Vanderbilt was going to be horrible, we know that, but did we know Missouri would be this bad? To the tune of 37.5 points given up per game? And that’s playing a weak schedule.

Cam Rising is the best quarterback in the Pac-12 — Charlie Brewer won the job and now Rising is better than Kedon Slovis, Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Jayden Daniels since taking over at Utah? That’s odd.