1. Thank you, Purdue. Thank you Jeff Brohm and Tyler Trent and Rondale Moore and Drew Brees and Len Dawson and the guy who drives the mini locomotive on the field and everybody else involved with beating the ever loving hell out of Urban Meyer and my least favorite program in college football. Thank you for doing it so convincingly that even the memory challenged Urban Meyer cannot forget it.
If you don't know who Tyler Trent is, read this and watch this
2. Get ready for a big game between UCF and....Temple? The Golden Knights won big without Mackenzie Milton and they've won 20 in a row and whatever that was kind of expected. Meanwhile, the Owls beat Cincinnati (did you know the Bearcats were previously unbeaten and ranked 20th? Because I didn't know that until yesterday) to move to 4-0 in the American Athletic Conference after starting the season with back to back losses to Villanova and Buffalo. The Owls and Knights are in the same division in the AAC so the winner would in effect take a two game lead in the division with just three games left to play. That game's on a Thursday night and should be a pretty nice spotlight for the best non-Power Five league in the country.
3. Exposed: NC State and Colorado. Two weeks ago, both were unbeaten. Colorado has now lost two in a row, including 27-13 to Washington last night. The Wolfpack was perfect before yesterday, but hadn't beaten anybody better than Boston College and got a 41-7 whooping from Trevor Lawrence and Clemson. So the second best team in the ACC is....ummmmm....hang on. Either Virginia Tech, which lost to Old Dominion, or Virginia, which lost to Indiana, or Miami, which got humiliated by LSU or Syracuse, which lost to Pitt. Who cares? The ACC is a mess outside of Clemson.
4. What the hell happened Oregon? The Ducks had this huge win over Washington and everybody was thinking the Quack was Back and the playoff was not impossible....and then Game Day went to Wazzu and Mike Leach and crew jumped out to a 27-0 lead midway through the third quarter. Oregon did actually claw back to within 27-20, but the comeback fizzled and the Cougars won the game 34-20 and now Washington State is the only PAC 12 team with fewer than two losses. Looks like another playoff without a team West of here.
5. Every rivalry should be like Michigan and Michigan State. Just outright, unadulterated hate.
I mean, that was before the game even started. Michigan won, by the way, 21-7. Jim Harbaugh talked about Mark Dantonio walking five yards behind the pre-game scuffle smiling and Dantonio called it "BS" and I'm here for this rivalry all day long.
6. Speaking of rivalries, Bama did Bama things yesterday and set up a top five showdown with LSU. LSU will be without perhaps its best defender for the first half of that game thanks to a targeting call that even Adam Sparks thinks is soft:
The best thing to come out of this? Bama analyst Butch Jones finally got a win in the series
7. Enjoy the craziest ending of the week, courtesy of Old Dominion and Western Kentucky:
8. My Heisman ballot as of this morning:
1. Tua Tagovailoa, Alabama
2. Doesn't matter, but probably Kyler Murray, Oklahoma
3. Doesn't matter, but probably Ed Oliver, Houston
9. The playoff, if it started today:
1) Alabama vs 4) LSU?
2) Clemson vs 3) Notre Dame
Number 4 is just a placeholder right now. I don't know if LSU would be there or not, but I think that's probably fair based on what they've done (actually I might put them 3 and put ND 4, but whatever). Anyway, obviously one of those teams is losing.
Here are the rest of the teams with a reasonable chance: Georgia, Florida, Texas, Michigan, UCF, Ohio State, Oklahoma. That's probably it. West Virginia, Kentucky, Iowa and Washington State all have only one loss and aren't completely dead, but it's tough to see any of them getting in.
10. Five games I'll watch next week:
Clemson at Florida State, 11 am, ABC: I can't imagine Clemson losing this game, but it is still Florida State and it is in Tallahassee and it's at least worth checking out for a quarter or so.
Purdue at Michigan State, 11 am, ESPN: The Boilermakers are suddenly becoming appointment TV
Florida vs Georgia, 2:30, CBS: Winner gets the inside track to the SEC East and stays in the playoff hunt. Loser is done.
Iowa at Penn State, 2:30, ESPN: If the Hawkeyes can win this one and win at Purdue next week, they've got a pretty good shot at 11-1. FIrst one to 9 wins this.
Washington State at Stanford, 6 p.m.: Big time prove it game for the Cougars. I bet they don't prove it and everybody in the PAC 12 has two losses and the conference is officially out of the playoff
A bonus thought this week. II'm not usually a big fan of changing up the national anthem, but this version at the Hawaii game was pretty damn cool:
If you don't know who Tyler Trent is, read this and watch this
2. Get ready for a big game between UCF and....Temple? The Golden Knights won big without Mackenzie Milton and they've won 20 in a row and whatever that was kind of expected. Meanwhile, the Owls beat Cincinnati (did you know the Bearcats were previously unbeaten and ranked 20th? Because I didn't know that until yesterday) to move to 4-0 in the American Athletic Conference after starting the season with back to back losses to Villanova and Buffalo. The Owls and Knights are in the same division in the AAC so the winner would in effect take a two game lead in the division with just three games left to play. That game's on a Thursday night and should be a pretty nice spotlight for the best non-Power Five league in the country.
3. Exposed: NC State and Colorado. Two weeks ago, both were unbeaten. Colorado has now lost two in a row, including 27-13 to Washington last night. The Wolfpack was perfect before yesterday, but hadn't beaten anybody better than Boston College and got a 41-7 whooping from Trevor Lawrence and Clemson. So the second best team in the ACC is....ummmmm....hang on. Either Virginia Tech, which lost to Old Dominion, or Virginia, which lost to Indiana, or Miami, which got humiliated by LSU or Syracuse, which lost to Pitt. Who cares? The ACC is a mess outside of Clemson.
4. What the hell happened Oregon? The Ducks had this huge win over Washington and everybody was thinking the Quack was Back and the playoff was not impossible....and then Game Day went to Wazzu and Mike Leach and crew jumped out to a 27-0 lead midway through the third quarter. Oregon did actually claw back to within 27-20, but the comeback fizzled and the Cougars won the game 34-20 and now Washington State is the only PAC 12 team with fewer than two losses. Looks like another playoff without a team West of here.
5. Every rivalry should be like Michigan and Michigan State. Just outright, unadulterated hate.
I mean, that was before the game even started. Michigan won, by the way, 21-7. Jim Harbaugh talked about Mark Dantonio walking five yards behind the pre-game scuffle smiling and Dantonio called it "BS" and I'm here for this rivalry all day long.
6. Speaking of rivalries, Bama did Bama things yesterday and set up a top five showdown with LSU. LSU will be without perhaps its best defender for the first half of that game thanks to a targeting call that even Adam Sparks thinks is soft:
The best thing to come out of this? Bama analyst Butch Jones finally got a win in the series
7. Enjoy the craziest ending of the week, courtesy of Old Dominion and Western Kentucky:
8. My Heisman ballot as of this morning:
1. Tua Tagovailoa, Alabama
2. Doesn't matter, but probably Kyler Murray, Oklahoma
3. Doesn't matter, but probably Ed Oliver, Houston
9. The playoff, if it started today:
1) Alabama vs 4) LSU?
2) Clemson vs 3) Notre Dame
Number 4 is just a placeholder right now. I don't know if LSU would be there or not, but I think that's probably fair based on what they've done (actually I might put them 3 and put ND 4, but whatever). Anyway, obviously one of those teams is losing.
Here are the rest of the teams with a reasonable chance: Georgia, Florida, Texas, Michigan, UCF, Ohio State, Oklahoma. That's probably it. West Virginia, Kentucky, Iowa and Washington State all have only one loss and aren't completely dead, but it's tough to see any of them getting in.
10. Five games I'll watch next week:
Clemson at Florida State, 11 am, ABC: I can't imagine Clemson losing this game, but it is still Florida State and it is in Tallahassee and it's at least worth checking out for a quarter or so.
Purdue at Michigan State, 11 am, ESPN: The Boilermakers are suddenly becoming appointment TV
Florida vs Georgia, 2:30, CBS: Winner gets the inside track to the SEC East and stays in the playoff hunt. Loser is done.
Iowa at Penn State, 2:30, ESPN: If the Hawkeyes can win this one and win at Purdue next week, they've got a pretty good shot at 11-1. FIrst one to 9 wins this.
Washington State at Stanford, 6 p.m.: Big time prove it game for the Cougars. I bet they don't prove it and everybody in the PAC 12 has two losses and the conference is officially out of the playoff
A bonus thought this week. II'm not usually a big fan of changing up the national anthem, but this version at the Hawaii game was pretty damn cool:
