Air Force football team takes control on the ground

And you thought the goal of the Air Force was to control the air.

Well, turns out, the Air Force football team does a pretty good job on the ground. The Falcons went into Saturday’s game against No. 7 Oklahoma averaging an NCAA-best 423 yards rushing a game.

Against a Sooners defense that has been ranked in the national top 20 against the run for nine consecutive seasons, Air Force kept right on rolling, too, finishing with 351 yards rushing in a 27-24 loss.

Air Force pulled within three points with 3 minutes 39 seconds remaining in the game but couldn’t get the ball back as Oklahoma earned two first downs and ran out the clock.

Still, the Falcons made an impression.

“I never want to see this kind of offense again,” Oklahoma linebacker Travis Lewis told reporters. “I love Coach [Bob] Stoops and the way he schedules our nonconference, the tough ones. But not this one.”

Bush comments

Washington Coach Steve Sarkisian said he learned a lesson this week: “… what things get said around media, they’re live.”

Um, yeah.

ESPN.com reported Friday that Sarkisian said this about Reggie Bush, whom he coached at USC, giving back the Heisman Trophy: “He had a chance to apologize, look like the good guy. But in giving it back and not apologizing, he just looks like an idiot again.”

Sarkisian’s explanation was that he said what he said during a production meeting, and he didn’t believe his comments would be published.

You again?

Wisconsin is surely happy it won’t see Steven Threet as the opposing quarterback anytime soon.

Threet on Saturday nearly came away with his second come-from-behind victory in three years over the Badgers, leading a nine-play, 77-yard fourth-quarter drive that pulled Arizona State within a point.

Wisconsin, ranked 11th, held on for a 20-19 win by blocking the conversion kick.

Two years ago, Threet rallied Michigan from a 19-point deficit to a 27-25 win over a Wisconsin team ranked in the top 10.

Threet started eight games for the Wolverines in 2008 but, knowing he wasn’t a great fit for Rich Rodriguez’s offense, he transferred after the season. On Saturday, the Michigan native completed 21 of 33 passes for 211 yards.

That was fast

Reigning Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram made his season debut for top-ranked Alabama, and it took him three carries to reach triple digits in rushing against Duke.

Ingram, who missed the Crimson Tide’s first two games while recovering from a knee injury, busted off a 48-yard run the first time he touched the ball. Then, after a three-yard pickup, he broke loose on a 50-yard run.

He finished for 151 yards and two touchdowns in nine carries as the Tide rolled, 62-13.

Streaking

A couple of streaks came out of Ohio State’s 43-7 win over Ohio.

The Buckeyes’ Terrelle Pryor completed a school-record 16 consecutive passes, and Ohio State kept its haven’t-been-defeated-by-another-team-from-Ohio-since-1921 streak going.

Ohio State also hasn’t lost a nonconference home game to an unranked team since 1982.

Another milestone

Penn State’s 24-0 win over Kent State was the Nittany Lions’ 500th victory since Joe Paterno joined the football coaching staff.

Paterno, who started at Penn State as an assistant in 1950, has been the head coach since 1966. His 396 wins, the most for any major-college head coach, include 41 shutouts.

Another close one

Surprised that unheralded Massachusetts of the Football Championship Subdivision played Michigan close, losing, 42-37?

Actually, that was pretty much par for the course. UMass has now lost five of its last six games against upper-level teams by 10 or fewer points.

mike.hiserman@latimes.com