College Football Insider – Week 9 Prime Time Players

Big players step up in big games, and this week, BetOnline Sportsbook takes a look at the top individual performances from last week’s games that helped you cash winning football gambling tickets against the college football point spreads…

QB Riley Dodge, North Texas Mean Green: Ok, so it was a game against Western Kentucky, but any time you account for seven touchdowns, you deserve to be recognized. Dodge missed out on North Texas’ last game and a half with a nagging injury, but he picked a good time to come back to the lineup. The Mean Green’s freshman signal caller had the best game of his career bar none, going 24/30 for 257 yards and four scores through the air. He also chipped in 73 yards and three TDs on the ground as well. Not a bad day for a guy who only had four total touchdowns to his credit before the day started, eh?

The pass defense for the TCU Horned Frogs: The Horned Frogs are doing absolutely everything they can to prove that they belong in the National Championship talk. On Saturday, they pitched a 41-0 shutout against UNLV. The TCU ‘D’ ranks #1 in the land in total defense (235.6 yards per game), sixth in pass defense (146.2 yards per game), eighth in rush defense (89.4 yards per game), and third in scoring defense (11.1 per game). No FBS team has scored more than 17 points against the Horned Frogs this year, and with four more wins, they’ll at bare minimum be playing in a BCS game.

QB Adam Weber, Minnesota Golden Gophers: With the Golden Gophers badly needing a victory to have a chance to gain bowl eligibility, Weber stepped up and had the best game of his career. The junior went 19/31 for a whopping 416 yards and five TDs against a porous Michigan State defense. The win moved Minnesota within just one victory of going to its seventh bowl game in the L/8 years.

RB LaMichael James and QB Jeremiah Masoli, Oregon Ducks: It was impossible to figure out whether James or Masoli was the most impressive player on the field for the Ducks on Saturday night, so we’ll take this moment to recognize them both. James ran for 184 yards and a touchdown on 24 carries, gashing through a disinterested looking USC defense the entire game. Meanwhile, QB Jeremiah Masoli was getting it done with his arm and with his legs. Through the air, Masoli went 19/31 for 221 yards and a score. On the ground, he rushed 13 times for 164 yards and a TD. James has now rushed for 490 yards in his L/3 games, and he’s rounding into a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate. All of this came against a USC defense that is largely accepted as one of the best in the country. Now the Ducks are the top rated one-loss team in America and may have a stake in the National Championship picture when it’s all said and done.

QB Tim Tebow, Florida Gators: Was this the game that will propel Florida’s senior QB back into the top of the Heisman discussions? Tebow went 15/21 for 164 yards and two scores and ran for another 84 yards and two TDs in the Gators’ 41-17 victory over the Dawgs. However, the most impressive part of the day was that Tebow’s first rushing touchdown of the day gave him 50 for his career to surpass UGA RB Herschel Walker for the most rushing touchdowns in the history of SEC football.