Go figure, Miami faces four ranked teams to start the season (Florida State, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and Oklahoma), manages to win three of those games, but then suffers its second loss of the season to an unranked Clemson team at home.

A pesky Tigers team knocked off the No. 10 Hurricanes 40-37 in overtime on Saturday, thanks in large part to Kyle Parker’s big passing day. The freshman quarterback completed 25 of his 37 pass attempts for 326 yards with three touchdowns and one interception. His 26-yard touchdown pass to Jacoby Ford in overtime gave Clemson the victory.

Heisman candidate Jacory Harris made a slew of mistakes in this game and just couldn’t recover. He threw for 256 yards and two touchdowns, but his three interceptions doomed Miami as the Canes turned the ball over a total of four times.

With Miami’s loss, Georgia Tech now becomes the outright leader in the Coastal Division by a wide margin. The defeat also opens the door for the Yellow Jackets to leapfrog the Hurricanes in the BCS standings, which is obviously critical.

The “O” word will start to be thrown around Miami now. Their win over Florida State at the start of the season doesn’t look as impressive now as it did then given how the ‘Noles have stumbled. Of course, their win over Georgia Tech holds strong, especially considering how the Jackets continue to climb the rankings.

Still, with two losses in the ACC, the Hurricanes look rather average right now, don’t they?

In their Week 5 recap of college football, the Draft Zoo writes that Miami’s Jacory Harris and Minnesota’s Eric Decker are risers in this year’s Heisman race.

3.) Jacory Harris, QB, Miami
He’s back too. Harris was wiped from this list after a poor performance in a loss to Virginia Tech, but he rebounded in a big way. His second half against OU was a microcosm for his season. Despite rugged starts, he’s coming through in a big way for his team. Beating OU was a signature moment for Harris.

Week 5 Stats: 19/28 202 yards 3 TD 2 INT, 4 carries -30 yards

5.) Eric Decker, WR, Minnesota
I don’t care that he has no chance to actually win the award. I don’t care that receivers are an afterthought. And I don’t care that Minnesota is no place for a Heisman candidate to call home. Decker is the most consistently uncoverable wideout in the country, and he is single handedly making the Golden Gophers an interesting team. He hasn’t caught fewer than eight passes in a single game this season.

Week 5 Stats: 8 catches 140 yards 1 TD

Outside of Miami’s Week 4 loss to Virginia Tech when the Hokies constantly harassed him with pressure, Harris has been outstanding this season. He just doesn’t panic and with him under center, the Canes have a shot every week.

I absolutely love Decker and I couldn’t agree more with the guys at the Draft Zoo. If you haven’t watched this kid play, you’re truly missing out because he is Minnesota’s offense.

Every time the Golden Gophers need a play in the passing game, he’s there. Every time they need a huge first down in the second half, Decker is the one making the catch. He has NFL-caliber skills and I can’t wait to see what he does on Sundays.

The only knock on him is that he’s a tad injury-prone. But he’s a tough kid and he’s always giving up his body to make a catch.

Jacory Harris is special.

A week after completing just nine of 25 passes for 150 yards and an interception in a loss to Virginia Tech, Harris bounced back to lead Miami to a 21-20 win over Oklahoma on Saturday night.

Harris was far from perfect as he threw two interceptions and took four sacks. But he also threw three touchdown passes while completing 19 of his 28 pass attempts for 202 yards.

How the Canes won this game is a bit of a shock. They were penalized 12 times for 115 yards, turned the ball over twice and trailed 10-7 at halftime.

But Miami opened the second half by marching down the field and capping the drive off with a Dedrick Epps’ 11-yard touchdown pass from Harris. Midway through the third quarter, Harris struck again, this time on a 38-yard touchdown pass to Travis Benjamin.

The Sooners railed with 10 points of their own, but the Canes managed to play keep-a-way for the final four minutes and 18 seconds to secure the win. In a murderers’ row of games, Miami was able to knock off ranked opponents Florida State, Georgia Tech and Oklahoma, with its only loss coming against Virginia Tech last week. The Canes will gladly welcome Florida A&M next week.

OU freshman quarterback Landry Jones didn’t make many mistakes, but he didn’t do enough in the second half to lift the Sooners to a victory. He finished 18-of-30 for 188 yards and a touchdown, but his average pass went for just 6.3 yards and he only had three completions for over 20 yards. (Miami also sacked him three times.)

It’ll be interesting to see what Bob Stoops and Oklahoma plan to do with Sam Bradford. The season certainly isn’t over, but with two losses already on their belt, it’s highly unlikely that the Sooners will be playing for a national championship again. So is there any rush to bring Bradford back? With a home game next week against Baylor coming up, it might be wise to give Bradford another week off.

Then again, with Texas coming up on October 24, Bradford might need to face Baylor to shake off the rust. It’s an interesting dilemma for Stoops and the Sooners.

Perhaps some thought Oregon could pull off an upset by a few points, but nobody expected a blowout by these proportions. While Oregon did everything right, Cal just didn’t do much of anything. It’s strange to think the score was tied at three apiece after the first quarter. From then on, Cal decided to completely stop playing. It’s hard to even point out their mistakes. What’s obvious is that Oregon knew exactly what to do against their opponents on both ends of the field. After Oregon’s opening day loss to Boise, coach Chip Kelly is slowly getting this team back on track. This doesn’t mean he’s through refunding distraught fans, but Oregon football should definitely feel good about this win. We knew Oregon had talent — it was just a matter of when they would devour a high-ranking team.

Oregon seamlessly shut down Cal’s touted combination of quarterback Kevin Riley and running back Jahvid Best. This was the finest defensive effort of the day as Riley had trouble finding anyone open on every possession and potential Heisman candidate Best was limited to 55 yards rushing. Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, however, couldn’t have been better, completing 21 of 25 passes for 253 yards and three touchdowns. Funny enough, Masoli came into this game without a single passing score. Obviously, this is quite a turn around. And who caught all of those touchdown passes? Just Ed Dickson. In a truly remarkable performance, Ed Dickson caught 11 passes for 148 yards.

Everything fell into place today with Chip Kelly’s Ducks. On the other hand, Jeff Tedford’s Golden Bears are left wondering how everything fell apart.

The last time the Miami Hurricanes started a season 2-0, they finished 9-3 and thumped Florida in the Peach Bowl.

Thanks to a head coach who has brought swagger back to the program and a playmaker at quarterback, Miami has started 2-0 for the first time since 2004. With their 33-17 win over Georgia Tech on Thursday night, the Hurricanes have started their ’09 season by beating two ranked opponents. (The first was Florida State, whom Miami beat 38-34 on September 7.)

Randy Shannon has made his mark on a Hurricane team that is playing more inspired and focused than in years past. And it’s clear that with Jacory Harris under center, Miami finally has a quarterback that can make plays in the passing game and keep the chains moving.

In the victory over Tech last night, Harris completed 20 of his 25 pass attempts for 270 yards and three touchdowns. He’s just a sophomore, but he shows a calm, cool demeanor in the pocket and doesn’t appear to get rattled when a play breaks down. As long as he continues to mature as a passer, he’s going to be a Heisman candidate in the near future.

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