It was an Albert Einstein weekend in college football, with the bending of time and space in places like Morgantown and Athens.</p><p>That is, nobody could tackle in space, and time stood still for defenses that gave up points in record numbers.</p><p>The college football weekend was a delight or an abomination, depending on the title of the office door in the football complex. If it says defensive coordinator, you&#x92;re knocking out another pot of coffee trying to determine what the heck went wrong.</p><p>According to Elias Sports Bureau, college football is coming off the second-highest-scoring weekend since 1937. Teams in the 52 Football Bowl Subdivision (Division I-A) games averaged a combined 60.8 points. So, your average score was 31-30.</p><p>That wasn&#x92;t even the halftime tally at West Virginia, where the Mountaineers and Baylor forged a 35-35 deadlock on the way to a 70-63 conquest by the home team. And the Bears left points on the field, missing two field goals.</p><p>This 19-touchdown game produced mind-boggling statistics, like West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith&#x92;s eight touchdowns with six incompletions, and a pair of 300-yard receivers in Baylor&#x92;s Terrance Williams (314) and the Mountaineers&#x92; Stedman Bailey (303).</p><p>Baylor&#x92;s 63 points in a losing effort in regulation matched an NCAA record, and Bears quarterback Nick Florence had to have entered some record books for 581 passing yards in a loss.</p><p>By the time that game ended in mid-afternoon Saturday, you could hear the rest of college football laughing at the Big 12, especially down in SEC country.</p><p>Then the Georgia-Tennessee game kicked off, and by the time that ended, the Bulldogs had survived a 51-44 shootout. It marked the fifth-highest-scoring game in SEC history that ended in regulation.</p><p>Georgia freshman running backs Todd Gurley and Keith Marshall were big-time, rushing for a combined 294 yards and five touchdowns, while quarterbacks Aaron Murray and Tyler Bray were locked in a dual.</p><p>Elsewhere, winning scores climbed into the 50s and 40s, losing scores into the 40s and 30s, and record book bindings took a beating. ACC passing yards in a game now belongs to Miami&#x92;s Stephen Morris, with 566 against North Carolina State. Johnny Manziel, the Texas A&M quarterback, ran up 557 total yards for an SEC record in helping the Aggies demolish Arkansas.</p><p>Such numbers in the Big 12 have been explained by a convergence of mad-scientist offensive minds, starting with Mike Leach, sophisticated systems and amazing skill-position talent. Over the last five years, players like Sam Bradford, Colt McCoy, Robert Griffin III, Michael Crabtree, Jordy Nelson and Dez Bryant have fueled cutting-edge offenses.</p><p>With few exceptions, notably the Nebraska teams of Ndamukong Suh, defenses simply couldn&#x92;t keep up. The Suh-led Cornhuskers got the kind of front-line pressure needed to disrupt the quick tempo. Few before or since have matched that.</p><p>Plenty of offensive wizardry was at work Saturday, but so was something else. How did Baylor, which often only rushed three, allow West Virginia receivers to constantly get behind the defense? Sometimes in the Big 12, all it takes is for a defense is to turn a couple of touchdowns into field goals. The Bears couldn&#x92;t even do that.</p><p>Getting people assigned to the right places requires a fix in scheme. But it&#x92;s not all on coaching staffs. Tackling throughout college football is terrible.</p><p>Wherever you channel-surfed Saturday, even in a low-scoring affair like Ohio State-Michigan, defenders wanted to strip instead of tackle, blow up a runner or receiver with a shoulder lead instead of fundamentally wrapping up.</p><p>Often, the offensive player with the size and strength advantage in those meetings wins. The ball isn&#x92;t ripped free, and the runner or wide receiver doesn&#x92;t go down after a bad tackling attempt.</p><p>Check out highlights of Missouri wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham easily shedding a Central Florida defender on a touchdown catch, the lousy Ohio State tackling on the 29-yard touchdown reception by Michigan State&#x92;s Keith Mumphrey, or the third of five touchdown runs by Middle Tennessee State&#x92;s Benny Cunningham against Georgia Tech, where he plowed through two Yellow Jackets defenders.</p><p>Defensive coaches may be running on caffeine today, but players on the defensive side have to be held accountable for gaffes that turned the weekend into a scoring farce.</p><p>There&#x92;s no defense for that kind of play.