by Michelle Richardson

Stanford (4-2)34 vs. Washington St (2-5) 17: The Cougars are 2-5 but I’m going to tell you why that this is a young team that you’ve got to watch. The Cougars have a great quarterback in Connor Halliday. For Stanford although they won it 34-17 on Friday night the Cardinal defense really had to stop that young quarterback. Halliday next season is going to be the guy to watch in the Pac 12.

Halliday has some targets and he’s got some action, Washington State scored in the first quarter and they scored in all but the second quarter. Total they had two touchdowns and a field goal. Stanford a couple of years ago was in the top of the heap in the Pac 12, Stanford did a good job but the Cougars did a good job too and the reason why Stanford won this game is because they held the ball longer.

The Cardinal did better things with the football and they got 20 first downs, 477 total yards, 284 yards passing, their rushing game was on point with 109 yards. Whereas Wash St had 126 yards rushing. For any team to be successful you have to have a balance attack you can’t have one part working, like having the passing game working and the running game not working.

Florida (6-0) 38 vs. Syracuse (2-3) 20: The Florida State Seminoles are doing well but their first real test will be next week when they face undefeated Notre Dame (6-0) which comes to Florida State at Doak Campbell Stadium. That game is going to be crazy. Florida St is going to show up and the thing is Notre Dame fans do travel and the Fighting Irish is one of those schools that have fans that really travel with their team, not just a few of them, a lot of them.

It’s going to be very, very interesting to see how this happens. I can guarantee you there will be a ton of Notre Dame fans down there. Their going to get tickets and their going to show up at Campbell Stadium and their going to support the Irish. This will be the Seminoles real first test, they had their real first test earlier this year with Clemson.

For the Seminoles it will not be quite the test they’ll get from Notre Dame, the Irish had a game against the University of North Carolina (2-4) they played Notre Dame really, really tight. The game was at Notre Dame and NC lost it but by a close margin 50-43.

Auburn (5-1) 23 vs. Mississipi State (6-0) 38: This was a game where number three beat number two. For the Miss St Bulldogs they remain undefeated. Bulldogs quarterback Dak Prescott threw for 246 yards, 18-34, one touchdown and two interceptions. The Bulldogs wasted no time going to work on the Tigers scoring 21 points in the first quarter and ten more in the fourth. The Bulldogs head coach Dan Mullen walked off the field pumping his fist in the air satisfied that the school was able to win in what would have been a tough game but the Miss St defense was able to contain Auburn.

Once again Prescott is back in the Heisman Award discussion agian with his very satisfying win over a tough Auburn school, “everytime we needed to make a play, a guy stepped up and made a play, we always wondered how to take the next step in this league, that’s it” said Mullen. Mullen was also happy with the Bulldogs defense stopping Auburn in the red zone and forcing turnovers so the offense could get back out on the field.

For Miss St this is their ninth consecutive win which stretches into last season and beating Auburn was huge because they were the SEC Champion from last season. For Auburn they pulled within eight points 28-20 to try and get something going but couldn’t catch Miss St as Auburn quarterback Nick Marshall who threw for 209 yards, two interceptions and had 100 yards rushing.

Michelle Richardson does NCAA Football commentary each week on http://www.sportsradioservice.com

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