The Hottest and Coldest Players in College Football Post Week 10
It's a common practice to check the weather forecast to see how it may impact a college football game. This should be extended to checking the temperature of certain players, who seem to be heating up even as the weather cools while others are somehow colder than the climate.
Hot and cold streaks happen all the time, but for these players the trend up or down doesn't look to be stopping any time soon. Those on a roll look to continue carrying their teams forward, while the ones on a downward spiral are trying to figure out how to reverse the trend.
Check out our list of the hottest and coldest players in college football at this point in the season.
Hot: Joshua Dobbs, QB, Tennessee
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Trailing 13-0 almost immediately against Alabama two weeks ago, Tennessee coach Butch Jones decided it was time to give Joshua Dobbs his first action of the season. Since then, the Volunteers offense has been at another level, and the sophomore quarterback is the main reason for it.
Dobbs has accounted for 734 yards and seven touchdowns in less than two games, including 467 yards and five scores in Tennessee's 45-42 overtime win at South Carolina last week. He ran for 166 yards and three TDs against the Gamecocks, providing a level of mobility the Vols haven't had from the position all year.
"Life is good for the Tennessee quarterback," wrote ESPN.com's Greg Ostendorf. "Dobbs even got a standing ovation when he walked into one of his classes this week."
Forced into action as a freshman in 2013, he struggled for the most part. But with more seasoning and a second chance, he's thriving, and it looks like the job is his for the remainder of the season since Justin Worley had surgery to repair a torn labrum.
Cold: Kenny Hill, QB, Texas A&M
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From the trademark office to the doghouse, the fall of rise and fall of Kenny Hill has been a wild and quick one.
After his masterful performance in the season opener at South Carolina, when the sophomore quarterback threw for 511 yards and three touchdowns, Hill made a quick jump to the top of way-too-early Heisman lists. This continued for a few weeks as he kept putting up big numbers and Texas A&M kept winning, and with the Aggies off to a 5-0 start his play was making people forget who Hill was succeeding at quarterback.
So, where is Hill now? He'll be staying back in College Station this weekend as A&M visits Auburn, serving the second half of a two-game suspension for violation of team rules and athletic department policy. The suspension was revealed shortly after A&M announced true freshman Kyle Allen would start last week's game against Louisiana-Monroe, one the Aggies won yet struggled mightily in ending a three-game losing streak.
While the suspension might have forced the issue, Hill's play during the skid had shown a marked drop-off that might have led to his getting benched anyway. Six of his eight interceptions came in his last three starts, and in Hill's last outing at Alabama he threw for only 138 yards in an embarrassing 59-0 loss.
Hot: Scooby Wright, LB, Arizona
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If you're reading this on Saturday evening, there's a good chance Scooby Wright will have recorded a sack, a tackle for loss or forced a fumble before you've moved to the next slide. Possibly all of them.
The only player in FBS ranked in the top 20 in tackles (97), tackles for loss (18.5), sacks (11) and forced fumbles (five), according to Arizona's media relations Twitter account, the sophomore linebacker is coming off back-to-back performances in which he earned the Pac-12's Defensive Player of the Week honor. A semifinalist for both the Bednarik and Lombardi awards—despite not being on either's preseason watch list—Wright has been the anchor of the Wildcats defense all season.
''He's been everything and then some,'' Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez told Anthony Gimino of the Associated Press.
He's been particularly on fire of late, with 10.5 tackles for loss, six sacks and three forced fumbles in his last three games. In Arizona's win at Oregon in early October, Wright's strip-sack of Marcus Mariota in the fourth quarter sealed the upset.
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Cold: Maty Mauk, QB, Missouri
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A three-game win streak (and some help from Florida) has put Missouri back in the driver's seat for the SEC East Division title with a schedule that makes reaching the conference title game again seem very possible. Yet the Tigers' most important offensive player hasn't been a part of their push forward and hasn't been for some time.
Sophomore quarterback Maty Mauk threw 14 touchdown passes in his first four games this season, picking up where he left off in 2013 as an injury replacement for James Franklin. But in the Tigers' last five outings, Mauk's production has almost completely evaporated.
Not only are the TD passes way down—at one point, he went 14 quarters without connecting with a receiver for a score—Mauk has only completed 56 of his last 129 passes for 554 yards. He had a relatively good game last time out, comparatively, with 164 yards and two TDs in the 20-10 win over Kentucky, but that's contributed to a passing offense that ranks 116th nationally at 170.2 yards per game.
Heading into a critical three-game stretch that starts with games at Texas A&M and Tennessee, Missouri needs to be able to put up points so that its strong defense doesn't have to do it all. If Mauk doesn't heat up, though, that might not be possible.
Hot: Rashard Higgins, WR, Colorado State
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While no defensive back has been able to cool off Rashard Higgins over the past month, a shoulder injury sustained in Colorado State's most recent win might be the only thing that can stop the country's hottest wide receiver.
Higgins leads the country in yards (1,280) and touchdowns (13), and over his last five games has 39 receptions for 876 yards and nine scores as the Rams have put together an eight-game win streak to get into the conversation for the Group of Five's bid to a major bowl game. But last time out, in a 38-31 win at San Jose State, Higgins hurt his shoulder and is considered "questionable" for Saturday's game against Hawaii, according to Terry Frei of the Denver Post.
The sophomore has been one of the most unguardable receivers in the country all year, catching 87 percent of the balls thrown his direction.
Cold: Gary Nova, QB, Rutgers
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Though not completely performance-based, Gary Nova's major drop-off in production has coincided with a three-game skid for Rutgers that has turned what started as a promising debut season in the Big Ten into one headed toward a disappointing end.
Nova, a senior in his fourth year starting games for the Scarlet Knights, has been both red-hot and ice-cold this season. His 404-yard, three-touchdown performance against Michigan gave Rutgers its lone conference win, but a few weeks before that he was the exact opposite, as he threw five interceptions in a 13-10 loss to Penn State.
During the three-game losing streak, though, Nova has been mostly cold, with only one TD against three interceptions during that stretch. All told, he's completed 30 of 62 passes for 394 yards in that span, getting knocked out of the 42-24 loss at Nebraska with a knee injury and then getting pulled from the 37-0 home loss to Wisconsin after throwing for only 46 yards on 5-of-15 passing with an interception.
"As a competitor, you never want to come out of the game for any reason," Nova told Dan Duggan of NJ.com. "It's been the same repeating kind of thing these past three week. The margin of error is so small with teams like this and when you make mistakes, they tend to hop on those mistakes and make plays."
Hot: Jarvion Franklin, RB, Western Michigan
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Haven't heard of Jarvion Franklin? Don't feel bad, most people haven't.
But if the freshman running back continues on the pace he's been for a little longer, and into next season, the Mid-American Conference's best-kept secret is in line to become a household name.
Franklin leads FBS with 22 rushing touchdowns, averaging one per 11 carries while gaining 1,330 yards for Western Michigan. He's a big reason the Broncos, 1-11 a year ago, are already bowl-eligible at 6-3.
While most of his damage has come against MAC competition, Franklin had a couple of opportunities to shine against power-conference opponents. His collegiate debut, at Purdue, was 163 yards and three touchdowns in a 43-34 loss, and he scored twice in a loss at Virginia Tech in September.
Franklin has scored a TD in every game of his career, and has six three-TD games. Unfortunately, Western Michigan isn't among the teams getting a weeknight #MACtion showcase game so the next chance to see Franklin on TV will either be in the conference final—the Broncos are a game out of first in the West Division—or potentially in a bowl game.
Cold: Bill Belton, RB, Penn State
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Most of the criticism directed toward Penn State's offense has been toward the offensive line's inability to protect quarterback Christian Hackenberg, who has been sacked 30 times this season. But if the Nittany Lions were able to do anything at all with their run game, the protection issue might not be nearly as big of a deal.
Bill Belton ran for 803 yards as a junior in 2013, showing flashes of greatness, such as with a 201-yard performance in an overtime win over Illinois. Expected to be Penn State's go-to running back this season, Belton is the Lions' leading rusher...with a scant 280 yards on 3.5 yards per carry.
His best game this season was a 69-yard effort in an 18-14 loss to Michigan. In the last two games, against Ohio State and Maryland, he had 17 carries for 22 yards and no single run longer than eight yards.
Forced to devote almost everything to the pass—Penn State ranks 125th nationally with 77.1 rushing yards per game—the Lions offensive line is constantly dealing with blitzes because defenses don't have to worry about defending the run.
Statistical information provided by CFBStats.com.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
