Overall, Andrew Walter has had better games. His performance in the fourth quarter against UCLA, however, was as good as it gets.
The senior threw for 415 yards and six touchdowns, three to Derek Hagan and two in a late rally, to lead No. 21 Arizona State to a 48-42 victory Saturday.
“I saw some people clearing out with seven minutes, two scores down, and that kind of got me fired up,” Walter said. “Maybe they should do that every game.
“All it was was a matter of time and, thank God, finally it came around to our time.”
Walter tied Danny White (1971) for the second-most TD passes in a game by an Arizona State quarterback, and his 76 career scoring throws is one shy of John Elway’s 22-year-old Pac-10 record.
Safety first
Penn State scored all its points on safeties in a 6-4 loss to No. 25 Iowa. The Nittany Lions took a 2-0 lead on the first possession–Penn State’s first lead in a Big Ten game this season–when the snap went over Iowa punter David Bradley’s head into the end zone. Iowa conceded a safety instead of punting from its own end zone late in the fourth.
Steady diet of Pearman
Alvin Pearman hit every hole and bounced off defenders for big gains, coming just short of running into the Virginia record book. The senior ran for a career-high 223 yards and a touchdown as the No. 14 Cavaliers beat Duke 37-16.
Pearman finished 1 yard shy of tying John Papit’s single-game school record set against Washington & Lee in 1948.
“He was hot,” Virginia coach Al Groh said. “He had a lot of heart today. … He put his pads down and knocked down quite a few guys.”
Pearman, who was one short of a school record with 38 carries, came in with 256 yards rushing this season. At one point late in the third quarter Saturday, Pearman had more total yards (203) than Duke (188).
Quotable
“We’ve got players who talk during the week [who] weren’t ready today. There’s going to be heat on coach [Ron] Zook, but he puts players on the field to make things happen, and we didn’t make things happen.”
–Florida running back Ciatrick Fason after the Gators lost 38-31 to 24 1/2-point underdog Mississippi State.
This and that
– Wake Forest’s Jason Anderson had six catches for 99 yards to become the only active player in the ACC to go over 2,000 yards receiving.
– With 16-13 defeat of Stanford, Mike Bellotti earned his 100th career victory in 15 years at Oregon and Chico State.
– Brock Berlin’s five touchdown passes tied a Miami record held by Bernie Kosar, Steve Walsh and Ken Dorsey.
– Texas’ Vince Young had a career-high 300 yards of total offense, ran for four touchdowns and threw for another.
– Iowa State ended its 13-game Big 12 losing streak with a 26-25 win at Baylor, which took over the league’s longest streak by losing its 11th.
– Darren Sproles broke the Kansas State career record with his 41st TD and raised his career all-purpose yards total to 6,010, breaking the Big 12 record held by former Texas running back Ricky Williams.
– Lester Ricard set a Tulane mark with six TD passes and also had 417 passing yards in a 59-55 upset of UAB.
I thought we were pals
Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops–possibly with the Bowl Championship Series standings in mind–poured it on his former assistant with Jason White’s 8-yard scoring pass with 35 seconds left to make it 41-10 over Kansas.
Oklahoma was close behind second-place Miami in the initial BCS standings earlier this week.
“I don’t blame Oklahoma at all,” Kansas coach and former Sooners offensive coordinator Mark Mangino said. “With the quest of having just one national champion, there’s going to be some casualties along the way.”
More on the Sooners
With the Kansas defense smothering No. 2 Oklahoma’s Heisman hopeful, last year’s Heisman winner White took over and threw for 389 yards and four touchdowns against a defense geared up to stop Adrian Peterson.
White threw touchdowns of 69, 61, 41 and eight yards.
“Kansas was determined early to take the running game away, but he (White) made some great throws, some great plays and we were just on the verge of making some others,” Stoops said.
Peterson, needing 99 yards to tie Emmitt Smith and Marshall Faulk as the quickest freshmen to gain 1,000 yards, gained 126 yards on 22 carries–all but 23 coming in the fourth quarter. Peterson now has 1,027 yards.
“I knew they couldn’t stop us both,” Peterson said. “The pass opened up the run game.”
Naughty boys
Ohio State coach Jim Tressel isn’t sure how long Lydell Ross will be suspended after the starting tailback got into trouble at a local strip club.
“We were busy with other agendas when it came up and we’ll address that at the proper time,” Tressel said.
Ross was suspended Friday by Tressel for one game with the no details given as to why. He was not on the Ohio State sideline during the game.
– Tennessee freshman tight end Chris Brown, who started the last two games, was held out of the Vols’ victory over Alabama after he was charged with shoplifting Friday night, coach Phillip Fulmer said.
