Y-Option's Go Go Go Awards - Week 4
Our distinct take on college football weekly awards and as always, seen through the lens of the West Coast
Week 4 on the West Coast looked a little different this year thanks to realignment. A week that normally commenced a full slate of Pac-12 conference games instead saw Stanford and Cal played their first ever ACC conference games while USC and Washington did the same in the Big Ten. Colorado played its first Big 12 game since 2011 while Utah and Arizona State made their debuts in the conference. Meanwhile Washington State beat a Mountain West team on a Friday night, Oregon State sent a Big Ten team back to the midwest with a loss and 3 of the 4 future Pac-12 squad still currently residing in the Mountain West saw action and won (SDSU had the week off). Just all part of the new “normal” in college football.
With that, it’s time to give out our weekly awards here at Y-Option, with a very distinct West Coast flavor to them… Y-Option’s Go Go Go Awards fueled by 76.
A reminder on what these awards are: they will honor the top players and coaches of the week through the eyes of the West Coast. The 4 honors we will give out every week:
“My 5-Star QB” - whether or not you were a 5-star recruit out of high school, you played like one this weekend.
“Go Go Gone” - the most explosive player of the week. Think big chunk plays as explosives and turnovers are the biggest predictor of wins and losses.
“That Dude!” - player who made an impact on either side of the ball. Not always about your numbers on the stat sheet.
“Headset Hero” - either a head coach or assistant coach who had their team ready and/or made the right in-game adjustments
Here are our Week 4 winners…
“My 5-Star QB” - Washington State’s John Mateer
Our first repeat winner of the season of course goes to the guy who we noted in Week 2 as “coming out of high school as a 3-star recruit and the 119th ranked QB in the Class of 2022 according to the 247 Composite”. Thanks to another gutsy performance from John Mateer, Washington State is off to back-to-back 4-0 starts for the first time in more than a century.
In a 2 OT win over San Jose State, Mateer threw for a career-high 390 pass yards with 4 TDs through the air. The redshirt sophomore also ran for 111 yards, his 2nd 100+ yard game this season, with a rushing TD. In fact, Mateer is the only FBS player this season and the 1st Pac-12 player since UCLA’s Dorian Thompson-Robinson in 2020 to have 300+ pass yards and 100+ rush yards in the same game (also the 1st in school history).
While the guy he backed up last year is now the Heisman favorite in Miami, Mateer outdueled another former Wazzu QB, Emmett Brown, who threw for 375 yards and 4 scores of his own for the Spartans in the loss. Mateer now has at least 1 passing TD and 1 rushing TD in each of the 4 games this season.
“Go Go Gone” - BYU’s Parker Kingston
Parker Kingston only touched the ball once on Saturday night’s upset win over #13 Kansas State but it will likely go down as the play of the year for BYU in 2024. With the Cougars already up 24-6 in the 3rd quarter, Kingston lined up for a punt return after the BYU defense forced a 3-and-out. After initially muffing the punt reception right in front of the 20-yard line, the redshirt sophomore (who’s grandmother ran track at BYU) scooped up the ball while running back to the 10-yard line and continued back to nearly the goal line before turning up the opposite sideline and sprinting 90 yards for the score. ESPN tracked 137 total yards run by Kingston on the return.
The return was the first punt return for touchdown by a BYU player since 2013 and tied for the 3rd longest in school history (longest since at least 1996). After Keelan Marion ran back a kickoff 100 yards the previous week at Wyoming, this marks the first time since 2011 that BYU has a punt return and kickoff return TD in the same season.
Kingston’s return capped off a run of 31 unanswered points by BYU as the Cougars improved to 4-0 for the 3rd time under Kalani Sitake.
“That Dude!” - Utah’s Micah Bernard
In Utah’s first ever Rose Bowl appearance in January 2022, defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley needed help with an injury-depleted secondary. Micah Bernard, who had not played both sides of the ball since high school, wound starting that game at cornerback. Bernard recorded a team-high 10 tackles that day while also running the ball 3 times for 31 yards and grabbing 2 passes for 15 yards including an athletic 12-yard TD catch in the 1st quarter. The next season, after a 2nd Rose Bowl loss, Bernard hit the transfer portal before deciding to stay in Salt Lake. Following an injury-plagued 2023 where he only saw action in the first and last games of the season, that decision to return is finally starting to pay dividends.
The 6th year senior set career highs with both 25 carries and 182 yard on the ground as the Utes went into Stillwater to knock off #14 Oklahoma State 22-19 in the first ever meeting of 2 coaching legends in Kyle Whittingham & Mike Gundy. Bernard had the biggest highlight of the game with a 62-yard run in the 3rd quarter that setup a field goal and a 4-yard run on 3rd & 3 with under a minute to go to extinguish the flame of the Cowboys late comeback.
The analytics also spoke volumes in this game as according to PFF College, Bernard had 142 yards AFTER contact (the most in FBS this week) while also forcing 10 missed tackles (tied for the most). 119 of his 182 yards came in the 2nd half, giving him his 3rd straight game with 100+ yards and the 5th time in his career, completely outshining preseason Heisman candidate Ollie Gordon whom the Utes defense held to 42 yards on 11 carries.
“Headset Hero” - Stanford’s Troy Taylor
For their first ever ACC Conference game, Stanford traveled nearly 3,000 miles to the Carrier Dome where Syracuse was nearly a double-digit underdog. After a close loss at home to TCU in the season-opener and then a win over Cal Poly, the experts thought the Cardinal weren’t any better than the 3-9 team they had been each of the last 3 years. Especially not against a Syracuse team that had gotten off to a 2-0 start under new head coach Fran Brown, including an upset of then #23 Georgia Tech the previous week behind 4 TD passes by Ohio State transfer QB Kyle McCord.
But Troy Taylor’s squad started quickly with 9-play, 78-yard drive on their 2nd possession with an unbelievable one-handed TD grab by Elic Ayomanor, reminiscent of another #13 that plays on Sundays. By early 2nd quarter, the Cardinal held a 10-0 lead. After Syracuse dominated the 3rd quarter (but not the scoreboard), a McCord TD run closed the gap to 20-17 entering the final 15 minutes. McCord then drove the ‘Cuse for a go-ahead TD with 3:13 left which seemed to foretell a long plane ride back home to the Bay Area.
Down 24-23, Troy Taylor’s squad took over at their own 25-yard line before slowly matriculating down the field with a few intermediate passes to get into Syracuse territory. But a holding penalty pushed the Cardinal back on their own side of the field, putting a chance of victory in doubt. But on 4th and 9 from the Syracuse 45-yard line, Ashton Daniels once again found Elic Ayomanor with a back-shoulder throw to set up Emmet Kenney’s GW 39-yard field goal as the clock hit :00.
Lincoln Riley showed he is College Football's best example of 'The Peter Principle'. He should man up and turn the play calling over to someone who knows the basics of football.
Mateer sure has the moxie to be a big time quarterback. Hopefully he can learn how to pass the ball. I suspect he will approve overtime time. Go Cougs!