Football

DENVER — The Chicago Bears signed veteran Cordarrelle Patterson because he’s a triple threat.

Patterson has impacted games as a wide receiver, running back and kickoff returner over the course of a seven-year NFL career.

On Sunday, Patterson breathed life into an otherwise listless Bears offense when he lined up in the backfield, took a simple toss left, and galloped 46 yards deep into Denver territory.

Patterson reached 22.23 mph on the run, the fastest speed reached by a ball carrier over the past two seasons, according to NFL Next Gen stats.

.@ceeflashpee84 WAS HUSTLIN’!

46-yard pick up. #CHIvsDEN pic.twitter.com/CgpQwPUUGO

— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) September 15, 2019

Bears RB/WR Cordarrelle Patterson reached 22.23 MPH on this 46-yard run, the fastest speed reached by a ball carrier over the last two seasons.#CHIvsDEN | #Bears100 pic.twitter.com/FwJKxzk29W

— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) September 15, 2019

“You want to get the ball into Cordarrelle’s hands as many times as you can,” quarterback Mitchell Trubisky said afterward. “That was one of his big plays. Earlier in the week, we knew that if we could get him on the edge, he’s going to be gone and it’s going to be a big play for us. The offensive line did a good job blocking and the other receivers did a good job blocking. We have to continue to keep using him to create explosive plays.”

Eight plays after Patterson’s run, the Bears scored on a David Montgomery 1-yard run, Chicago’s first touchdown of the 2019 season.

“It was huge,” coach Matt Nagy said of Patterson’s run. “He can do that stuff and there’s going to be times that teams are going to be looking for it, other times not. That was one play where he finally felt like, ‘OK, we’ve got a play here, and a good chunk of momentum.”

California and Arizona State have moved into the AP Top 25 college football poll to give the Pac-12 six ranked teams, the most for the conference in almost four years.

A weekend filled with blowouts left the top half of the AP media poll presented by Regions Bank mostly unchanged.

Clemson remains No. 1, with 57 of the 62 first-place votes, as the top nine held their spots Sunday. Alabama was No. 2, receiving five first-place votes, followed by Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Auburn and Florida.

The ninth-ranked Gators were the only top-10 team to play a competitive game. The others won by a combined 428-97.

Utah, the highest-ranked Pac-12 team, moved up to No. 10. The last time the Pac-12 had six ranked teams was Nov. 8, 2015.

POLL POINTS

The Pac-12 took a fair amount of grief the first week of the season after it suffered a few upsets to Mountain West teams and Oregon let a potentially big victory slip away against Auburn.

Now the conference has had a mini-resurgence despite issues with some of its typically strong teams.

Stanford started the season ranked but is 1-2 after getting dominated by UCF on Saturday. USC had a brief stay at the bottom of the rankings last week, falling out after losing in overtime at BYU on Saturday.

Overall, the results were OK this past weekend for the Pac-12. The conference went 8-4 in nonconference play, including Arizona State’s victory at Michigan State and Arizona beating Texas Tech. Colorado‘s loss to Air Force, though, put the Pac-12 at 4-4 against the Mountain West this season.

Utah is in the top 10 for the first time since November 2015.

IN

No. 25 TCU also joined the rankings this week for the first time this season. The Horned Frogs beat Purdue 34-13 in West Lafayette, Indiana, on Saturday.

OUT

• Michigan State fell from the rankings after its 10-7 loss to Arizona State. The Spartans were swept in a home-and-home by the Sun Devils the past two seasons by a combined 26-20.

• Maryland is out after one week. The Terrapins went from scoring 63 in a victory against Syracuse to losing 20-17 to Temple.

• The next three games for USC are against Utah at home, at No. 22 Washington and at No. 7 Notre Dame.

CONFERENCE CALL

For a second straight week, the Southeastern Conference has three top-five teams and half of the top 10.