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1. UCF now has no way, legitimate or illegitimate, to claim a national championship. The Knights went on the road and lost 27-24 to Cincinnati. There's no shame in that really. Cincy is a good team, the place was rocking for a Friday night home game. No issue. But when you spend every second of two years bitching about how nobody respects you and whining that you deserve a shot with the big boys, you get a full warm glass of shut the hell up when you lose. Which UCF has done twice now. To Pitt and Cincinnati. Nice teams, sure, but you know. UCF has become a victim of its own success. Ten-win seasons are very good and should not be taken for granted. But those now don't seem good for UCF. They either have to go unbeaten or find a way to get in a big boy conference because 10-2/11-1 in the AAC is just blah now.
2. Speaking of the AAC, SMU is one of two teams in the country that is bowl eligible. The Mustangs are 6-0 for the first time since 1982, which was the point in time where they were running out the Pony Express backfield, which you may have heard got the school in a little bit of trouble with the people that don't like things like paying recruits and giving players cars. Anyway, SMU fell behind Tulsa 30-9, then scored 21 points in the fourth quarter, survived a missed field goal by Tulsa in the second OT and then won on a hell of a play in the corner of the end zone
Oh, by the way, Tulsa missed three field goals and an extra point to help SMU stay undefeated. Luck never hurt anybody.
3. In the random world of college football, nothing is more random than the PAC 12. I can't say it better than this
Stanford, which has been terrible most of the year, beat 15th ranked Washington yesterday, while Oregon beat Cal, which lost its second straight game since being the only PAC 12 team to get to 4-0. This means the Ducks are the only team in the league with any somewhat realistic chance at the playoff and their chance isn't very good because they already lost to Auburn, which is not a bad loss, but given the fact that they really don't have any other chances at great wins, it's hard to see them passing up a lot of the other teams that are doing more impressive things. It's a fun, fun conference to follow, but it's just like 12 teams that on any given day could beat each other and none of it's even a surprise.
4. Speaking of Auburn, the Tigers lost at Florida yesterday and it's time to start giving the Gators credit. They don't do it beautifully but they just keep winning. For a while yesterday, Dan Mullen was playing his third string quarterback and Florida beat a top ten team (that entering yesterday I think you could have made an argument had the best resume in the country). Every week I keep seeing people say Florida isn't all that good and then every week all the Gators do is go out and win. Some will call it luck, but Florida is now 16-3 since the start of last season, including 8-3 in SEC games and that's more than luck. They've got a salty defense and they do enough on offense and they just keep winning games, which is kind of the point of playing them. The Gators have a brutal schedule with LSU and Georgia plus road games at Mizzou and South Carolina. I don't think they can run the table, but they're a lot better than anyone outside of Gainesville is willing to admit.
5. Let's get back to trashing conferences. As wacky as the PAC 12 is, it can't hold a candle to the ACC Coastal division.
Virginia might be pretty decent. The rest of the division is awful. Virginia Tech beat Miami yesterday. Duke beat Virginia Tech by 35 and then lost to Pitt. They all just kind of take turns making you think they're the best or the worst team in the division.
This is by far my favorite stat in college football. Here are the last six Coastal division champions, in order: Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Miami, Pitt. That means if UVA wins the Coastal this year, which it should, all seven teams have made one ACC title game appearance in the last seven years. In the age of no parity in college football, the ACC Coastal stands alone.
6. In the Big Ten, Ohio State continues to look like one of the best teams in the country. They didn't win in quite as dominating a fashion as they had in previous weeks, but 34-10 over a Michigan State team that was ranked 25th in the country is pretty convincing. The Buckeyes appear to be on a collision course with Penn State, which beat Purdue 35-7 (I know he's missing his starting quarterback and his best player, but are we really sure Jeff Brohm is a genius?). The Nittany Lions are 5-0 and look to be the only real challenger to OSU in the division (sorry, Michigan, a 10-3 win over Iowa that was even more boring than it sounds just didn't do it for me). Those two teams don't play until November 23rd. Before that, PSU gets Michigan and at Michigan State the next two weeks and Ohio State plays Wisconsin in Columbus in a couple of weeks. OSU will be the clear favorite in the game, but if PSU can keep winning, it could be interesting. It also lets me share this which I saw this morning and is much more true than we all admit
7. The AP poll comes out at 1 p.m. I think Missouri should be in it. I am not sure they will be. Here are the results that could impact them:
#15 Washington lost
#18 UCF lost
#21 Oklahoma State lost
#24 SMU won in triple OT against Tulsa
#25 Michigan State lost
#27 Cal lost
#30 Army lost
Missouri needed to jump six spots. I'm not sure they will based on what happened, especially because Baylor and Minnesota won games that could potentially leapfrog them over Missouri (not that wins over Kansas State and Illinois are program changing, but both teams are unbeaten and won a conference game while Mizzou was beating under .500 Troy).
8. My current Heisman straw poll of one:
Joe Burrow, LSU
Tua Tagovailoa, Alabama
Johnathan Taylor, Wisconsin
9. If the playoff started today, which it doesn't, this is only the way I would seed it, not the way it would actually be seeded:
1 LSU vs 4 Alabama
2 Ohio State vs 3 Georgia
Other teams that have a reasonable chance: Wisconsin, Clemson, Oklahoma, Florida, Texas
Other teams that aren't dead yet, but it's harder to see: Mizzou, Notre Dame, Oregon, Penn State, Michigan, Wake Forest, Auburn
10. Five games I'll watch this weekend:
Oklahoma at Texas, 11 am, Fox: This is still a really big game every year and really fun to watch. I'd give the Sooners the edge, but it's their biggest test so far
Alabama at Texas A&M, 2:30, CBS: Man, A&M has a murderous schedule. Assume the Tide wins comfortably
USC at Notre Dame, 6:30, NBC: The Irish should win. The Irish has to win. But USC has talent.
Penn State at Iowa, 6:30, ABC: This is the kind of game the Hawkeyes usually win in Iowa City
Florida at LSU, 7:00, ESPN: If the Gators win this one, nobody will doubt them. And they should be No. 1 if they do (I don't think they'll win and I know they won't be No. 1)
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