in Week 5 Dakota Allen Customized Philadelphia Eagles Jerseys , LB #40, Texas Tech (v. West Virginia, 12:00 PM EST, ESPN2)Texas Tech is rarely known for its defensive players, but Dakota Allen is a rare standout for the Red Raiders. The former “Last Chance U” star has changed his fortunes with strong play in Lubbock over the last two years, garnering All Conference honors last season. This Saturday, Allen and the Red Raiders enter into a potential shootout with the West Virginia Mountaineers.This game has the makings of a very high scoring affair, so every big play on defense will be critical. Allen will be tested by WVU’s air attack, and the coverage specialist could boost his profile by creating some turnovers that swing the game. - NatanDelvon Randall, S ,2# Temple (v. Boston College, 12:00 PM EST, ESPNU)Okay, so Rodney McLeod being injured sucks bigly. The Eagles were in need of a third safety even before McLeod’s injury, given the shaky play of Corey Graham and Tre Sullivan’s inability to garner significant reps. The answer might just be in the backyard.Randall’s had a shaky beginning of the year, but he’s widely respected in the Temple program for his leadership and film study. He’s got excellent ball skills and with great explosiveness to close on the catch point — but he needs to improve his mental processing to increase his range and become a true centerfielding safety. - SolakJuan Thornhill, S #21, Virginia (v. NC State, 12:20 PM EST, ACC Network)Yeah, another safety — had to be done! Eagles are going to be in the market for sure, and Thornhill is also a player who should be firmly on their radar. Thornhill’s a great player with a strong recruiting background, experience at cornerback, and a strong production profile. His headiness is zone translates really well to Philadelphia’s defensive scheme.Against NC State, Thornhill faces an NFL-caliber quarterback in Ryan Finley and a strong receiving corps to test him down the field. I’m looking to see him showcase a better tackling profile as a third-level defender www.eaglesauthorizedshops.com , as well as survive in man coverage reps when they arise. - SolakHakeem Butler, WR #18, Iowa State (v. TCU, 7:00 PM EST, ESPNU)Hakeem Butler has been a revelation for the otherwise anemic Cyclone offense. The junior wideout is averaging 21.21 yards per catch despite the rest of the team not even averaging 11 yards. Also, the 6’6” (!!!), 225 pound pass catcher has all three of Iowa State’s receiving touchdowns. He is a big time playmaker who can dominate at the catch point and create offense with the ball in his hands.Iowa State faces a TCU team coming off two straight big losses. The Horned Frogs will be looking for blood to recoup some national respect. Butler will be a key factor in keeping Iowa State competitive and he will have his hands full with a stingy TCU secondary. If Butler can keep his streak of big plays going against Gary Patterson’s defense, Iowa State could win an upset and Butler will keep rising in the ranks of college football receivers. - NatanMiles Sanders, RB #24, Penn State (v. Ohio State, 7:30 PM EST, ABC)No longer in the shadow of the 2018 number two overall pick, Miles Sanders has been Penn State’s catalyst on offense. After only rushing for 191 yards last year, the 5’11”, 215 pound junior is up to 495 yards and five touchdowns this year on only 71 carries. He is a shifty home run hitter and will be a huge factor in Penn State’s huge game against Ohio State.Ohio State has a few names on their defensive line who could hear their names called early in the NFL Draft over the next few years. Dre’Mont Jones and Chase Young are among the best college football has to offer and Miles Sanders will be tasked with running through them to help Penn State move the ball on Saturday. Running on Ohio State’s defense will do more than cement Sanders’ status as a legit NFL running back prospect. - NatanTe’von Coney, LB ,4# Notre Dame (v. Stanford, 7:30 PM EST, ESPN)If not for the blockbuster head-to-head between Ohio State and Penn State, no doubt would the Notre Dame/Stanford game be the talk of the week. Stanford is coming off a big win against Oregon while Notre Dame remains undefeated and ranked in the top ten. Stanford’s ground attack with Bryce Love and Cameron Scarlett remains their identity on offense, even with the emergence of their passing game. Te’von Coney is the man at the head of Notre Dame’s defense. The senior linebacker is a leader and playmaker for the Irish and he will be under the lights against the Cardinal rushing offense. Coney has been having a strong, but under the radar senior season, but it will be hard to keep the hype down with a big performance against Stanford. - NatanJJ Arcega-Whiteside, WR #19, Stanford (v. Notre Dame Philadelphia Eagles Womens T-Shirt , 7:30 PM EST, ESPN)As my esteemed colleague remarked, Notre Dame and Stanford is a huge match-up. I’ll be up in the box for the game, and my eyes will go straight to the match-up on the outside between Arcega-Whiteside and Notre Dame corner Julian Love, a strong player in his own right.Arcega-Whiteside profiles as a downfield specialist who wins with physicality and strength to box out defenders, but has the route-running and athletic prowess to truly threaten all three levels of the field. He’s been rising all season long, and could work his way into Round 1 conversation with a big performance against a top flight defense. - SolakBen Burr-Kirven, LB #20, Washington (v. BYU, 8:30 PM EST, FOX)Yo, BBK played bananas last weekend. The undersized middle linebacker for the Huskies was flying around the field against Arizona State, playing with his characteristic physicality but still finding success despite his smallish frame. 20 tackles — and a ton of them were high-quality, too.Now, he’s got BYU in a very big game for the Huskies. BYU plays a more physical brand of football than Arizona State, so if this new look Burr-Kirven really can play with the big boys, he’ll have to prove it tonight against the Cougars. - SolakGreedy Williams, CB #29, LSU (v. Ole Miss, 9:00 PM EST, ESPN)This is the second time Greedy Williams has been mentioned by me in this series, and for good reason. The 6’3”, 190 pound defensive back remains one of the best players in the country. Despite offenses avoiding the redshirt sophomore in the passing game, Williams has still picked off two passes so far into the season. Williams will have his biggest challenge of the year against Ole Miss and their talented receiving duo of AJ Brown and DK Metcalf. The two receivers are NFL prospects in their own right, so no matter who lines up across from Williams Philadelphia Eagles Hats , the match up will be must-see television. - NatanShawn Poindexter, WR #19, Arizona (v. USC 10:30 PM EST, ESPN2)Poindexter is a player I haven’t gotten eyes on yet, but I’ve been told he’s having a strong opening to the season. His 23.1 yards/catch is good for second in the Pac-12 and 10th in all of college football — and at 6-foot-5, 212 pounds, he does have the profile to win as a downfield contested catch player.Poindexter’s up against Iman Marshall this weekend — he’s a big, physical corner who wins in the press for the Trojans. Being big and tall doesn’t mean much if you can’t get off of the line against NFL talent, so Poindexter has a big box to check in his battle with USC on Saturday night. - Solak It was an ugly end to what started out as a step in the right direction on Sunday, when the Philadelphia Eagles fell to the Carolina Panthers after the visiting team launched an unanswered 21-point comeback with just over 10 minutes to play. There were some good things to come out of the Week 7 matchup, but the absolute collapse in the fourth quarter has brought to light a whole new round of questions. Head coach Doug Pederson spoke to the media on Monday and talked a bit about what went wrong, what they’re doing to fix it, and why the sky isn’t falling just yet.Here’s what the head coach had to say:On 4th quarter collapseDuring the Panthers fourth-quarter run, they averaged nine yards per snap, and Pederson was asked if that’s a scheme issue or personnel problem. After a bit of hedging, the head coach noted it wasn’t really a problem with either.He went on to explain how the pass rush was still making an impact on Cam, but sure, the team could do better with their tackling and limiting the yards after catch. Pederson also said that the guys could do a better job with situational awareness, about where they are in the game and the timing of it.Even watching the film today, the head coach said he doesn’t feel like the defense slowed down at all in the fourth quarter.He also noted that you could sit and point fingers at the defense, but the offense had a chance to win the game at the end, and they didn’t come through either — and on special teams missing that kick could have been the difference in a win as well. Pederson said there’s enough blame to pass around for the problems on Sunday.On motivating his team moving forwardPederson expanded on his post-game comments about the pressure being off of players, and wanted to clarify that by no means does that mean they aren’t going to put in the work. But rather, sometimes players and coaches put added pressure on themselves to create plays, and that’s where they have to learn you don’t have to seek out those moments Philadelphia Eagles Womens Hoodie , and instead wait for the opportunity to present itself and when it does, make the play.On why guys are putting that extra pressure on their shoulders, and Pederson noted that they are professional athletes and they have a want and need to perform — not to mention having some younger guys out there trying to earn a (more permanent) roster spot with each play.Pederson said he wanted to reiterate that to the team, to just relax and go out and play and have some fun.Later on, the head coach was asked how he can get his guys to dial back that pressure especially coming off a loss when they might feel like they need to prove themselves. Pederson said it’s about coaching them up and talking to them, he also mentioned (although emphasized it was just spit-balling) maybe scaling back the number of plays they run on offense, or scale back some of the load at practice — whatever he can do to keep the guys refreshed and energized heading into a game.On Carson Wentz and the offensePederson was asked if he thought the quarterback tried to hard to make something happen late in the game, especially when there may have been other options available. The head coach stood by Wentz and said that trying to create a big moment is in a quarterback’s nature, but at the end of the day, in those situations, Pederson wants the ball in Carson’s hands. He wants Wentz to have control of helping the team winning a football game.The head coach was asked what he sees missing personnel-wise as a play caller, and Pederson pointed out that they were facing a big and tough Carolina defense, so it was a tough team to run the ball against anyway, but that most of the runs were off RPOs.Despite the lack of the run game, the team managed 300-plus passing yards and were able to capitalize in that aspect of the offense — including big games for Alshon Jeffery and Zach Ertz. So overall, Pederson thinks the Eagles offense is right where they need to be in order to find success personnel wise.There were some questions later on about Pederson’s play calling and whether he thought he should have been more aggressive in some situations (no) and whether he thought he should have called some more deep passes (also, no). Bottom line, he called what he called and hindsight is 20/20.You can also tell that Pederson is super over answering questions about his running back room, and he emphasized again today that he has not lost confidence in the run game at all. He continued to say that the offensive line is a really talented group and the backs are as well.He’s not giving up — that’s for sure“Listen, I got so much confidence in this football team, you don’t understand.”Pederson went on to say that just the difference of 2 or 3 plays, and then Eagles would be sitting at 5-2 and the conversation around the team would be a lot different.“We’re gonna get this fixed.”