1. I wouldn't want to be Ricky Rahne this morning. Most of you are probably thinking "Who the hell is Ricky Rahne?" He's the offensive coordinator for Penn State. The guy who, with a quarterback who had accounted for 461 total yards, in the midst of a potential game-winning, season-making drive for Penn State, called a zone read on fourth and 5. The play lost two yards. It never had a chance to work. On fourth and five, they ran the ball up the middle. It was one of the worst play calls I've ever seen. I'm not a big blame the play caller guy. I blame him for that. Yes, Penn State deserves blame for giving up two touchdowns in the final five minutes on defense, but at least Ohio State made plays there. The play call on fourth and five didn't even force the Buckeyes to really make a play. It was indefensible. On a side note, Urban Meyer called the 96-yard game-winning drive for OSU one of the best drives in Ohio State history. Given his memory problems, it's amazing he can recall more than a handful of them.
2. Kentucky is quickly becoming the story of the college football season. The Wildcats are ranked for the first time in ten years. I thought they'd lose largely because I thought they'd be pretty proud of themselves and maybe take it easy. They didn't. They raced out to a dominant 24-3 halftime lead over South Carolina and then just kind of coasted to a 24-10 win thanks to a defense is better than people credit it for being. Benny Snell has a good chance to end up as the leading rusher in Kentucky history and also honestly has a decent chance to be in the Heisman discussion most of the year. The Cats beat Florida for the first time in 32 years, suffocated Mississippi State and dominated the Gamecocks. They are clearly---based on what has happened on the field--the team in the best position to push Georgia in the SEC East. They have road games at A&M and at Mizzou in the next three weeks, sandwiched around a home game against Vandy. Those two games will determine what they will be. Are they a good team? Or are they on the verge of an historic season? WIn one of those and UK has a good shot at double digit wins. Win them both and hell might freeze over.
3. Elsewhere in the SEC East, credit Dan Mullen for winning another game in Starkville. I thought Mississippi State would be loaded for bear coming off the loss to UK with their former coach coming in. But the Gators shut down Nick Fitzgerald and the MSU offense (quickly becoming one of college football's most overrated units) and won 13-6. The thing about that is, it doesn't change my mind about what the Gators are as much as it changes my mind about Mississippi State. We've always known Florida has a really good defense. That's still true. But it still doesn't have a QB or an offense really. Florida is 4-1, but here are the next five: LSU, at Vandy, Georgia, Mizzou, South Carolina. Four of the five are at home. Maybe they're really good. But I'm not sold. I think 1-4 is as likely as 4-1.
4. Chip Kelly and Scott Frost may have been the two most celebrated hires in college football. They are a combined 0-8. UCLA got run out of the stadium 38-16 by Colorado on Friday night. Here is the remaining schedule: Washington, at Cal, Arizona, Utah, at Oregon, at Arizona State, USC, Stanford. It is not hard to see UCLA going 0-12. The best case scenario is probably about 3-9. Meanwhile in Lincoln, the days of the Blackshirt defense are long gone. They gave up 516 yards to Purdue. The Boilermakers look like they've gotten their season going in the last couple of weeks, but the bigger story is that Nebraska is 0-4 with road games at Wisconsin and Northwestern coming up. If the Huskers don't beat Minnesota in three weeks, they'll enter the emergency addition of Bethune-Cookman at 0-7, losers of 11 straight and 13 of 14. Can't say I'm sad about it.
5. Your college football Jekyll and Hyde poster child is Virginia Tech. The Hokies lost to Old Dominion last week, giving up 400 yards and 49 points to a backup quarterback. They beat previously unbeaten and ranked Duke 31-14 on Saturday. I know we all wake up Saturday morning and say "this team beat that team and this team lost and so here's what's going to happen next week." And it's all just a colossal waste of time because (say it with me) what happens one Saturday really has absolutely no impact on what's going to happen the next Saturday. I know I'm not going to convince anybody and we're going to talk about how Missouri should beat South Carolina now, but Kentucky looks tough and Florida is a swing game and we're going to keep making picks and projecting records, but the simple fact is, it's all just a way to waste time for the six days between games because there's absolutely no way to predict anything in college football except for this: Alabama will win and Tua Tagovailoa will not play in the second half.
6. I buried the lede here because the story of college football happened in the Clemson/Syracuse game. Last week, Dabo Swinney named freshman Trevor Lawrence his starting QB and the incumbent Kelly Bryant (who had only led Clemson to the playoff last year and not lost this year so far) transferred so that he could use a redshirt this year and finish his career somewhere else. Some were angry and said Bryant was quitting on his teammates, but I don't buy that. Bryant owes Clemson nothing more than he's already given it. If they want to bench him, he's got to look out for him and what he did was smart. And then Lawrence had to leave the game with a possible concussion and there was much talk about Clemson's worst nightmare. Well, third-stringer Chase Brice came in and led the Tigers to a 27-23 win including a game winning TD drive in the closing minutes. It sounds like Lawrence should be okay to go next week and maybe this will all work out just fine for Clemson, but if it doesn't and the Tigers drop a game, the way Dabo handled the QB situation is going to be much dissected.
7. You can keep betting the over in the Big 12, except in games Bill Snyder is coaching. West Virginia beat Texas Tech 42-34 behind 370 and three TD's from Will Grier. Oklahoma doubled up Baylor 66-33 (yes, you read that right) behind 432 and six touchdowns (plus one running) from Kyler Murray, who was suspended for the first series of the game (way to dole out big serious punishments Lincoln Riley). The Mountaineers and the Sooners are the two best teams in that league and it isn't close. Number three? It's possible it's Texas, which won 19-14 at Kansas State in a game that seems incredibly boring to me. That's kind of what Bill Snyder does. K-State could be headed for a terrible season and Snyder is doing all sorts of weird things with the quarterback situation and I think there's a pretty good chance that the marriage between coach and school ends up really ugly, which is too bad because what Snyder did in Manhattan is one of the great jobs in college football history. But it rarely ends on a high note.
8. My top five Heisman contenders as of this second (in no particular order): Tua Tagovailoa, Benny Snell, Kyler Murray, McKenzie Milton, Ed Oliver.
9. If the playoff started today:
1) Alabama
2) Ohio State
3) Oklahoma
4) Clemson (barely)
Other teams in contention: Georgia, LSU, Notre Dame, West Virginia.
That's really about it. There could be other teams that get in but they would have to run the table and maybe get a little help (for example, if Kentucky wins out, Kentucky will get in, but nobody can see Kentucky winning out so that doesn't seem very realistic). It could come down to an unbeaten Notre Dame or an unbeaten Clemson (or both) versus a one-loss SEC runner-up like Georgia (or Bama if the Bulldogs could knock off the Crimson Tide in the title game). But anybody outside these top eight would come as a surprise to me at this point.
10. Five games I'd watch next week:
LSU at Florida, TBD: Interesting game here. Somebody might win it 7-6 on a defensive touchdown. After this, LSU hosts Georgia, Mississippi State and Alabama in the next four weeks. It's hard to see them running the table there...and not that hard to see 1-3.
Texas vs Oklahoma, 11 am: I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen and I don't really find this that interesting a game, but weird things happen in rivalries and I need five games, so why not?
Kentucky at Texas A&M, 6 pm, ESPNU: If the Wildcats can win this one, the doubters have to shut up. This could be a hell of a game.
Nebraska at Wisconsin, 6:30 pm: Sometimes I like to watch other people suffer
Notre Dame at Virginia Tech, 7 pm, ABC: The Irish have a pretty manageable schedule. There are some names on there, but no very good teams. Road trips to Northwestern and USC come after this with Pitt, Navy, Florida State and Syracuse coming to South Bend. Cuse is probably the best team on that schedule. It's hard to see a 12-0 Notre Dame team not making the playoff. Lane Stadium tends to be a very tough place to play at night. This might be a fun game and a big part of the playoff picture.
2. Kentucky is quickly becoming the story of the college football season. The Wildcats are ranked for the first time in ten years. I thought they'd lose largely because I thought they'd be pretty proud of themselves and maybe take it easy. They didn't. They raced out to a dominant 24-3 halftime lead over South Carolina and then just kind of coasted to a 24-10 win thanks to a defense is better than people credit it for being. Benny Snell has a good chance to end up as the leading rusher in Kentucky history and also honestly has a decent chance to be in the Heisman discussion most of the year. The Cats beat Florida for the first time in 32 years, suffocated Mississippi State and dominated the Gamecocks. They are clearly---based on what has happened on the field--the team in the best position to push Georgia in the SEC East. They have road games at A&M and at Mizzou in the next three weeks, sandwiched around a home game against Vandy. Those two games will determine what they will be. Are they a good team? Or are they on the verge of an historic season? WIn one of those and UK has a good shot at double digit wins. Win them both and hell might freeze over.
3. Elsewhere in the SEC East, credit Dan Mullen for winning another game in Starkville. I thought Mississippi State would be loaded for bear coming off the loss to UK with their former coach coming in. But the Gators shut down Nick Fitzgerald and the MSU offense (quickly becoming one of college football's most overrated units) and won 13-6. The thing about that is, it doesn't change my mind about what the Gators are as much as it changes my mind about Mississippi State. We've always known Florida has a really good defense. That's still true. But it still doesn't have a QB or an offense really. Florida is 4-1, but here are the next five: LSU, at Vandy, Georgia, Mizzou, South Carolina. Four of the five are at home. Maybe they're really good. But I'm not sold. I think 1-4 is as likely as 4-1.
4. Chip Kelly and Scott Frost may have been the two most celebrated hires in college football. They are a combined 0-8. UCLA got run out of the stadium 38-16 by Colorado on Friday night. Here is the remaining schedule: Washington, at Cal, Arizona, Utah, at Oregon, at Arizona State, USC, Stanford. It is not hard to see UCLA going 0-12. The best case scenario is probably about 3-9. Meanwhile in Lincoln, the days of the Blackshirt defense are long gone. They gave up 516 yards to Purdue. The Boilermakers look like they've gotten their season going in the last couple of weeks, but the bigger story is that Nebraska is 0-4 with road games at Wisconsin and Northwestern coming up. If the Huskers don't beat Minnesota in three weeks, they'll enter the emergency addition of Bethune-Cookman at 0-7, losers of 11 straight and 13 of 14. Can't say I'm sad about it.
5. Your college football Jekyll and Hyde poster child is Virginia Tech. The Hokies lost to Old Dominion last week, giving up 400 yards and 49 points to a backup quarterback. They beat previously unbeaten and ranked Duke 31-14 on Saturday. I know we all wake up Saturday morning and say "this team beat that team and this team lost and so here's what's going to happen next week." And it's all just a colossal waste of time because (say it with me) what happens one Saturday really has absolutely no impact on what's going to happen the next Saturday. I know I'm not going to convince anybody and we're going to talk about how Missouri should beat South Carolina now, but Kentucky looks tough and Florida is a swing game and we're going to keep making picks and projecting records, but the simple fact is, it's all just a way to waste time for the six days between games because there's absolutely no way to predict anything in college football except for this: Alabama will win and Tua Tagovailoa will not play in the second half.
6. I buried the lede here because the story of college football happened in the Clemson/Syracuse game. Last week, Dabo Swinney named freshman Trevor Lawrence his starting QB and the incumbent Kelly Bryant (who had only led Clemson to the playoff last year and not lost this year so far) transferred so that he could use a redshirt this year and finish his career somewhere else. Some were angry and said Bryant was quitting on his teammates, but I don't buy that. Bryant owes Clemson nothing more than he's already given it. If they want to bench him, he's got to look out for him and what he did was smart. And then Lawrence had to leave the game with a possible concussion and there was much talk about Clemson's worst nightmare. Well, third-stringer Chase Brice came in and led the Tigers to a 27-23 win including a game winning TD drive in the closing minutes. It sounds like Lawrence should be okay to go next week and maybe this will all work out just fine for Clemson, but if it doesn't and the Tigers drop a game, the way Dabo handled the QB situation is going to be much dissected.
7. You can keep betting the over in the Big 12, except in games Bill Snyder is coaching. West Virginia beat Texas Tech 42-34 behind 370 and three TD's from Will Grier. Oklahoma doubled up Baylor 66-33 (yes, you read that right) behind 432 and six touchdowns (plus one running) from Kyler Murray, who was suspended for the first series of the game (way to dole out big serious punishments Lincoln Riley). The Mountaineers and the Sooners are the two best teams in that league and it isn't close. Number three? It's possible it's Texas, which won 19-14 at Kansas State in a game that seems incredibly boring to me. That's kind of what Bill Snyder does. K-State could be headed for a terrible season and Snyder is doing all sorts of weird things with the quarterback situation and I think there's a pretty good chance that the marriage between coach and school ends up really ugly, which is too bad because what Snyder did in Manhattan is one of the great jobs in college football history. But it rarely ends on a high note.
8. My top five Heisman contenders as of this second (in no particular order): Tua Tagovailoa, Benny Snell, Kyler Murray, McKenzie Milton, Ed Oliver.
9. If the playoff started today:
1) Alabama
2) Ohio State
3) Oklahoma
4) Clemson (barely)
Other teams in contention: Georgia, LSU, Notre Dame, West Virginia.
That's really about it. There could be other teams that get in but they would have to run the table and maybe get a little help (for example, if Kentucky wins out, Kentucky will get in, but nobody can see Kentucky winning out so that doesn't seem very realistic). It could come down to an unbeaten Notre Dame or an unbeaten Clemson (or both) versus a one-loss SEC runner-up like Georgia (or Bama if the Bulldogs could knock off the Crimson Tide in the title game). But anybody outside these top eight would come as a surprise to me at this point.
10. Five games I'd watch next week:
LSU at Florida, TBD: Interesting game here. Somebody might win it 7-6 on a defensive touchdown. After this, LSU hosts Georgia, Mississippi State and Alabama in the next four weeks. It's hard to see them running the table there...and not that hard to see 1-3.
Texas vs Oklahoma, 11 am: I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen and I don't really find this that interesting a game, but weird things happen in rivalries and I need five games, so why not?
Kentucky at Texas A&M, 6 pm, ESPNU: If the Wildcats can win this one, the doubters have to shut up. This could be a hell of a game.
Nebraska at Wisconsin, 6:30 pm: Sometimes I like to watch other people suffer
Notre Dame at Virginia Tech, 7 pm, ABC: The Irish have a pretty manageable schedule. There are some names on there, but no very good teams. Road trips to Northwestern and USC come after this with Pitt, Navy, Florida State and Syracuse coming to South Bend. Cuse is probably the best team on that schedule. It's hard to see a 12-0 Notre Dame team not making the playoff. Lane Stadium tends to be a very tough place to play at night. This might be a fun game and a big part of the playoff picture.
