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We've waited and waited and we finally got a great weekend of games. Don't get me wrong, there are interesting things every week. But this week there were good games that lived up to the hype, games we didn't expect to be good that were and movement that matters nationally. Let's get to it
1) The apocalypse is near.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time on Bama. They're a video game offense that might still be really good on defense if they have to be, but I don't know if they'll ever have to be because that's how good the offense is. The Tide rolled Texas A&M 47-28 as the Aggies continued to build their reputation as the team that never beats anyone any good, but they sure can cover!
LSU, holy cow. The Tigers averaged more than ten yards PER PLAY against Florida. The Gator defense that had made Auburn look pedestrian a week ago got gashed in the Bayou for 42 points. A lot of people, myself included, questioned the Ed Orgeron hire. Some outright mocked it. Coach O is now 7-3 against top 10 teams. I know this is shocking, but sometimes it's about the right place at the right time. And sometimes coaches actually improve. Also, apropos of really nothing, I couldn't not include my favorite college football tweet from yesterday
2) In this week's edition of "while we spend hours every weekend dissecting every minute detail of every game, the truth is it really just comes down to who makes a play at the right time" I give you Georgia and South Carolina. Kirby Smart's team was flat and Jake Fromm threw three interceptions and Georgia got bailed out by a defensive holding call on an incomplete pass on fourth down on its final drive and used the second chance to tie South Carolina with less than two minutes left in regulation. And then Will Muschamp committed what I thought was a fireable offense by sending out his kicker for a 57 yard field goal that was eight yards longer than his career long and gave UGA a chance to win in regulation...and got away with it. And then Smart inexplicably ran a play with eight seconds left and no timeouts...and got away with it. And then South Carolina missed a 33 yard field goal that would have won the game...and got away with it when all-American Rodrigo Blankenship, who hadn't missed a field goal all year before yesterday missed his second of the game allowing Parker White to be the hero rather than the goat. South Carolina 20, Georgia 17. Alternate title for this one was "More games are lost than are won." Kudos to Gamecock DB Israel Mukuama, though, for his three interceptions. SEC Defensive Player of the Week there.
3) One coach in the Volunteer State saved his reputation for at least a week while another probably lost his job. Tennessee beat Mississippi State (the SEC's biggest disappointment) 20-10 in Knoxville on Saturday in a game that wasn't very exciting, but was a win, which have been in short supply under Jeremy Pruitt. Meanwhile in Nashville, Vanderbilt lost 34-10 to UNLV which had not beaten a Power Five team since 2008 and to my knowledge did not suit up Randall Cunningham, who is legitimately the only Runnin' Rebel football player I can name. Derek Mason isn't going to survive the season. Honestly, I'm not sure he'll survive the weekend. As my friend Chris Lee wrote, Saturday looked like the point of no return for Mason.
4) The ACC Coastal remains the most hilarious thing about college football. All Virginia needed to do to maintain command was beat a Miami team that is a complete mess. The Cavs could not do it. They lost 17-9 on Friday night, dropping them into a three-way tie for first with Duke and North Carolina. Every team in the division has a loss in the league. Every team in the division has at least two losses overall. They should just let Tony Bennett, Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski play a round robin for the football title and then forfeit the title game to Clemson.
5) Speaking of hot piles of steaming garbage, how's your homecoming going Scott Frost? The Cornhuskers got drilled 34-7 by Minnesota on Saturday. Kudos to the Gophers, who are now rowing the boat quite nicely at 6-0 and will enter the top 25 later today. But in their first five games, Minnesota had run for 795 yards total, 159 a game. They ran for 322 and four touchdowns in giving Husker fans yet a new rock bottom to assess. The Gophers are averaging 4.03 yards per carry this season...after averaging 6.6 against the Blackshirts. Nebraska is 4-3 overall, but can still make whatever the Big Ten's worst bowl game is by winning two out of three against Indiana, Purdue and Maryland...which seems possible but far from certain.
6) On the opposite end of the Big 10 spectrum, we probably out to start talking about Wisconsin as a legitimate national title contender. The Badgers humiliated Michigan State 38-0 on Saturday. Sparty isn't great, but it's a representative program. Wisconsin has a potential Heisman winner in running back Johnathan Taylor, who is third in the country with 825 yards rushing. But more than that, it has the best defense we've seen in a while. Wisconsin became the first team since Florida State in 1993 to shut out four of its first six opponents. The Badgers have held teams to 29 points...this season. They have allowed four touchdowns and a field goal in six games. They lead the country in run defense (44 ypg) and pass defense (129 ypg). They play Illinois next week, which means they have an excellent shot at shutout number five. After that, they're at Ohio State in the Big Ten game of the year before facing Iowa, which will likely need to manage two safeties to beat Wisconsin 4-3. The Badgers finish with Nebraska, Purdue and Minnesota. Assuming they beat the Gophers, they'll almost certainly make the Big Ten title game, where they might get a rematch with the Buckeyes for a playoff spot.
7) How have we gotten all the way to point number seven before we talked about a game where every player on both team was assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty BEFORE THE OPENING KICKOFF? That's what happened in the Red River Shootout. Then the referee treated the captains of both teams like preschoolers, warning them both to play the game with sportsmanship. Once the actual football started, OU kept Texas at arm's length most of the day in a 34-27 win that knocked the Horns out of the national title discussion and kept the Sooners in it. Former Mizzou assistant Alex Grinch is the toast of the town in Norman. He's hardly got a Wisconsin-level defense, but he's got an average defense, which is all the Sooners need to have a chance to run the table into the College Football Playoff.
8) My Heisman poll of one:
Joe Burrow, LSU
Johnathan Taylor, Wisconsin
Tua Tagovailoa, Alabama (even though I'd really just rather vote for his receiving corps as a whole)
9) If the college football playoff started today, which it does not, I would seed it like this:
1) LSU vs 4) Oklahoma
2) Ohio State vs 3) Alabama
That would mean Clemson is the odd team out. I don't know if it would happen that way, but I think it should. What if LSU and Bama play a last-second, one-possession game? One of them runs the table and is the top seed at 13-0. Oklahoma goes unbeaten and whoever wins the Wisconsin/Ohio State regular season game also wins the rematch in the Big Ten title game to go unbeaten? Do you put unbeaten but played absolutely nobody Clemson in the playoff over an 11-1 SEC West team that didn't win its division but had only one loss by one possession to the number one team in the country? It would be fun to find out.
Other teams with legitimate playoff chances outside the top four: Clemson, Wisconsin, Notre Dame
Teams that could still get there by winning out and having a few things break their way: Auburn, Missouri, Florida, Georgia, Penn State, Oregon, Michigan.
I really think that's it.
10) Five games I'll watch next week while @mitchell4d is in Nashville:
Florida at South Carolina, TBD Saturday: The Gators are better than I thought for a long time and Dan Mullen should be in national coach of the year discussions. But the Gamecocks are riding high.
Oregon at Washington, 2:30 Saturday, ABC: The Ducks are the PAC-12's hope for the playoff. They can't lose. Washington is good enough to beat them.
Temple at SMU, 2:30 Saturday, ESPN2: These are two of the better Group of Five teams. SMU is unbeaten. Temple knocked off Memphis yesterday. Could be a fun watch
Michigan at Penn State, 6:30 Saturday, ABC: I don't know that this will be a very entertaining game. But it will knock one team out of the playoff discussion and the white out in State College is always a really cool scene
Tennessee at Alabama, 8:00, ESPN: I like seeing bad things happen to programs I don't particularly like
