What We Learned Yesterday

There was a theory I have had kicking around in the cranium for a bit but I needed confirmation.  And Notre Dame last night gave that to me.  The Big 12 rode fast-paced, pass-happy offenses to a lot of success in the first decade of the 21st century but are now paying the piper with defenses too soft to stop anyone tough enough to punch them in the gut.  Notre Dame ran all over the Sooners.  OU knew that Notre Dame wanted to run and they could not stop them.  ND rushed 39 times for 215y--a 5.5y average--and ran for 3 TDs including the 62y gallop by Cierre Wood in which he went right up the middle on the Sooners D with nary a touch. All of the extra cover corners Oklahoma needs when playing Texas Tech and Baylor,etc, are useless against teams like Notre Dame.
Conversely when OU tried to run they were thwarted by a defense that was much bigger than typically faced by a Big 12 offense.  The Sooners rushed 24 times for 15y.  And with the Irish defense keeping OU wideouts in front of them the longest pass completion was "only" 35y (compared to 50y for ND).  The sad reality for the Sooners and the Big 12 is that a team built to win the way OU does is not equipped to beat a top ten traditionally-built team.
The person who knows this as well as anyone is Kansas State coach Bill Snyder, who built a squad fast enough to hold Big 12 offenses in check while tough enough to win the line of scrimmage.  The problem with KSU, who has looked very impressive in conference, is that they played three out of conference games, all at home, against 3-6 Missouri State, 4-4 Miami and 3-5 North Texas.  The last out-of-conference test was in the Cotton Bowl last year, where Arkansas beat KSU 29-16.
What else did we learn yesterday?  It is tough to enter November undefeated, especially if it is not something you are used to doing.  And so Oregon State, Ohio, Rutgers and Florida all fell from the ranks of the unbeatens despite being favored yesterday while Mississippi State earned their first loss as a big dog to Alabama.  Only six unbeatens remain with Alabama (at LSU) and Oregon (at USC) having the toughest match-ups.