LUKE MEREDITH
AP Sports Writer
Baylor didn’t need quarterback Bryce Petty to score.
Petty sat out a win over Northwestern State with two small broken bones in his back. So the Bears started backup Seth Russell, who threw for 438 yards and five touchdowns in a 70-6 thrashing of the FCS Demons on Saturday.
Only Illinois quarterback Wes Lunt (456 yards) threw for more than Russell, who has nine career TD passes in just 91 throws.
Some of the other standout performances from the second week of college football:
WES IS MORE: The Fighting Illini appear to have found a solution at quarterback in Lunt, the Oklahoma State transfer. He threw three TD passes in a 42-34 win over Western Kentucky on Saturday and is now fifth in the nation in passing yards with 741. Lunt has seven touchdowns against just one pick this season after a six-touchdown, seven-interception year with the Cowboys in 2012.
DIXON DASH: Minnesota’s David Cobb had the top rushing performance of the weekend with 220 yards and two touchdowns in a 35-24 win over Middle Tennessee. But the player who had perhaps the best rushing performance was Louisiana Tech’s Kenneth Dixon, who had 184 yards on just 12 carries in a 48-20 blowout of Louisiana-Lafayette. Dixon’s 15.3 yards per carry was boosted considerably by a 99-yard run in the first quarter, and he added a 32-yard TD in the fourth quarter.
AMARI THE AMAZING: Baylor’s KD Cannon was the main beneficiary of Russell’s breakout performance, with six catches for 223 yards and TD catches of 50, 81 and 42 yards in the first quarter alone. But Alabama junior Amari Cooper continued his remarkable start with 13 catches for 189 yards and a touchdown in just 3 1/2 quarters, as Alabama’s 41-0 win over Florida Atlantic was called in the fourth quarter because of lightning.
65-0: Florida and Texas State are the only teams in the country that haven’t allowed a point this season — and each have played just one game that they won 65-0. The Gators throttled Eastern Michigan by 65 points a week after their game with Idaho was canceled because of unsafe field conditions stemming from heavy rain. Texas State had the week off after pounding Arkansas-Pine Bluff 65-0 on Aug. 30. Florida gets SEC rival Kentucky and Texas State has a date with Navy next weekend, so each will be hard-pressed to match their opening-day performance.
BLOWOUT CITY: Baylor wasn’t the only team to overwhelm an opponent. Georgia Southern hung 83 points on Savannah State a week after a narrow loss to North Carolina State. Texas A&M beat Lamar 73-3 on Saturday — and is now averaging 62.5 points per game — and Arkansas State beat Nicholls State 73-7. Appalachian State took its frustrations from a blowout loss at Michigan with a 66-0 drilling of Campbell, and LSU cruised to a 56-0 over Sam Houston State.
LEAGUE SUPREMACY: Through two weeks, the SEC appears to have the upper hand in the annual argument over the nation’s top league. Only three SEC teams — Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Arkansas — have lost games, and only Vanderbilt has lost to a non-SEC opponent. Three Pac-12 teams have losses, including 0-2 Washington State, and four teams in the Big 12 have been defeated. Five of the 14 teams in the new-look ACC and Big Ten are 1-1, including Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Wisconsin.
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