We've covered Mizzou/SEMO more ways than anyone could need so let's talk about some of the rest of the week in college football.
1) Is Alabama maybe not invincible? Don't get me wrong, the Tide did an impressive thing, going into a jam-packed Swamp and winning 31-29 on Saturday over Florida. The fact Alabama won shouldn't be ignored. But Florida bounced back from an early 21-3 hole and had a two-point play that would have tied the game with 3:10 left. It's at least enough to give other talented teams hope that if you catch them on the right day, maybe you can dethrone the champs. Because the first two weeks of the season, it really didn't look that way at all. Bama has now won 32 consecutive games against teams from the SEC East, which is a streak that dates back to an Oct 9, 2010 loss at South Carolina. The No. 19 Gamecocks beat the top-ranked Tide 35-21 that day. Meanwhile, the Gators gained some respect and I wouldn't be surprised to see them actually move up a couple spots in the polls even after a loss.
2) The other program in the state of Alabama might be better than I thought. I expected Auburn to struggle in year one under Bryan Harsin. I picked them fifth in the SEC West at the start of the year. But Tank Bigsby and Jarquez Hunter are one of the top running back duos in the country and the Tigers nearly pulled off an upset in a wild environment at Penn State last night. I'm still not sold Bo Nix is really a good quarterback (I don't think he's bad, I just think he's a guy) but Auburn has some dudes and Harsin might be better than I thought right off the bat.
3) Swinging the pendulum back to maybe they're not as good as we think, Clemson beat Georgia Tech 14-8 on Saturday. The Tigers are 2-1, but in two games against FBS competition, they're averaging 12 points and 232 yards of total offense. Maybe Trevor Lawrence was pretty good? Ohio State beat Tulsa 41-20 on Saturday, but the Buckeyes were in a dogfight through three quarters and needed TreVeyon Henderson to break the school's freshman rushing record held by some guy named Archie Griffin to survive and advance. All of these results at least give you some hope that we could see some fresh blood in the playoff this year.
Oh, and speaking of the Buckeyes, attendance is kind of a thing a lot of places
4) If there's going to be real fresh blood in the playoff, Cincinnati's win over Indiana yesterday was very important. Don't get me wrong, that game isn't getting the Bearcats in necessarily, but losing it would have kept them out. Cincy is at Notre Dame next weekend. If they win that game, they've done everything they can possibly do to access the playoff (assuming they win the rest). They've gone on the road and beaten two Power Five teams. They're sitting at No. 8 right now. Teams in front of them are going to lose at some point. There's a realistic path to the playoff. Of course, what's far more likely is that at least we'll be entertained by the gymnastics the playoff committee does to keep them out and take a two-loss SEC team or a one-loss Big Ten team, but at least we can pretend they have a shot for another week right now.
5) From the "please stop trying to project the season based on what happened this week" department, I give you Kentucky. The Wildcats pushed Missouri up and down the field a week ago and won a not-as-close-as-the-score-indicated 35-28 game over the Tigers. They looked like a top 20 team and I thought they had an outside shot at ten wins after that game. And so, of course, they trailed Chattanooga in the fourth quarter on Saturday before winning 28-23. Chris Rodriguez, who ran for 207 yards and averaged more than three yards a carry before he was touched against Mizzou, had 13 carries for 46 yards and Kentucky ran for only 102 as a team. So, yeah, feel free to play out the season and predict it in your heads 100 times. We of course have no idea. These are 20-year-olds. One week they might be great and the next they might be awful. And the opposite might be true of their opponents. We know basically nothing about what's going to happen next Saturday, much less six Saturdays from now.
In the same category, I give you UCLA. The nation's sissy blue darlings were 2-0 and they were, by God, back. And then they lost 40-37 to Fresno State at home last night and they are no longer back and the PAC-12 will once again pin its playoff hopes on the Oregon Ducks because everyone else in the league (yes, literally every other team) has already lost a game.
6) I'm a sucker for nostalgia and for those of us who grew up in Big Eight country in the 1980s, nothing is more nostalgic than Oklahoma/Nebraska. I know a lot of you reading this will say "F nostalgic, I hate them both and hope they both lose every week and suffer nothing but misery." And that's fine. I'm not saying they're necessarily teams I cheer for every week. I just like seeing them play. The Big Eight is what I was raised on. It's what made me a college sports fan, both in football and hoops. In football, you had your team that you cheered for. But you also kind of had to pick a team in the OU/Nebraska game because about 95% of the time, the conference title was going to be the winner of that game. I always cheered for the Sooners growing up. Jamelle Holieway and Keith Jackson and Ricky Dixon and others were my secondary team. I enjoyed that they renewed the rivalry yesterday. It wasn't the same, not by a long shot. But it was kind of cool. Except for the Huskers special teams. Which are....not special.
7) Speaking of the Huskers, let's do our own version of the misery index. I was thinking yesterday about which programs have fallen the furthest since their glory days and which ones have the chance to get back. I'd say there are seven programs that were considered national powers at some point in the 80s/90s/00s that no longer are considered that:
Texas, Michigan, Nebraska, Tennessee, Florida State (underdogs to Wake Forest and blown out yesterday), USC, Miami (blown out at home by Michigan State yesterday)
So I'm going to go two ways with this. First of all, those programs in order of which has fallen the furthest from where it once was:
1) Florida State--This is tough, but I think FSU is No. 1 simply because of the heights it once was at
2) Nebraska--Nebraska is Tennessee but had a little further to fall
3) Tennessee
4) Miami--The Canes might be higher, but their run as a national power wasn't quite as long as the others
5) USC--You could put them No. 4 and I wouldn't argue
6) Texas
7) Michigan
Now, which ones have the most realistic path back, maybe not to what they once were, but at least to something resembling a powerhouse program?
1) USC--I don't think this is arguable. Not only do they have a talent base right in their back yard, but the conference they're in makes it the easiest to get back to dominance
2) Florida State/Miami--I don't know if both of these programs can get back, but there's plenty of talent right there. At least enough for one of them to climb back close to where they were.
4) Michigan--They don't have as far to go as the others. They're already a solid program, they just aren't great. They have to figure out a way to beat Ohio State at some point.
5) Texas--If Texas was staying in the Big 12, it would be No. 2 and maybe even No. 1 on this list. The move to the SEC makes it much harder
6) Tennessee--Rebuilding in the SEC ain't easy. The Vols have been trying to do it for 15 years.
7) Nebraska--Where do you get the talent? It's really that simple. There's none in your own state. There's none in the states immediately surrounding you. And why is a kid from across the country playing at Nebraska over the other options he'd have? None of these kids knows you as the program us middle-aged guys do. You haven't been that program in their lifetimes.
8) The most underrated single unit in college football might be Iowa's defense. In three games, the Hawkeyes have given up a total of 30 points. Two of those games have been against Power Five teams and one was on the road. Iowa is giving up 275 yards a game and has forced eight turnovers in three games. Its main (only?) competition in the Big Ten West (Wisconsin) already has a loss in the conference. The Hawkeyes do host Penn State and then have to go to Madison, but it's tough for me to create a scenario where they're not in the Big Ten title game. They've got a decent chance to get there without a loss. And I'm no longer certain after this weekend's games that it would be Ohio State they'd see there.
9) This is your college football play of the week, courtesy of Oklahoma.
But this is your college football play of the week runner up, courtesy of Missouri State
10) Five games I'll watch besides Mizzou/BC next weekend:
Notre Dame vs Wisconsin, 11 am, FOX: I don't really care to watch this game as I believe it will be hideously ugly, but there are not many good games next week so this is in the top five
Clemson at NC State, 2:30, ESPN: Upset alert here. If the Tigers don't get the offense going, I think the Wolfpack might be good enough to pull it off.
Texas A&M vs Arkansas, 2:30, CBS: I do not believe either of these teams is quite as good as the national perception of them is. Which one survives and which seems the dreams dashed?
Tennessee at Florida, 6:00, ESPN: I told you the games next week sucked
West Virginia at Oklahoma, 6:30, ABC: If the Sooners keep letting everyone hang around, it will bite them eventually. Maybe here?
1) Is Alabama maybe not invincible? Don't get me wrong, the Tide did an impressive thing, going into a jam-packed Swamp and winning 31-29 on Saturday over Florida. The fact Alabama won shouldn't be ignored. But Florida bounced back from an early 21-3 hole and had a two-point play that would have tied the game with 3:10 left. It's at least enough to give other talented teams hope that if you catch them on the right day, maybe you can dethrone the champs. Because the first two weeks of the season, it really didn't look that way at all. Bama has now won 32 consecutive games against teams from the SEC East, which is a streak that dates back to an Oct 9, 2010 loss at South Carolina. The No. 19 Gamecocks beat the top-ranked Tide 35-21 that day. Meanwhile, the Gators gained some respect and I wouldn't be surprised to see them actually move up a couple spots in the polls even after a loss.
2) The other program in the state of Alabama might be better than I thought. I expected Auburn to struggle in year one under Bryan Harsin. I picked them fifth in the SEC West at the start of the year. But Tank Bigsby and Jarquez Hunter are one of the top running back duos in the country and the Tigers nearly pulled off an upset in a wild environment at Penn State last night. I'm still not sold Bo Nix is really a good quarterback (I don't think he's bad, I just think he's a guy) but Auburn has some dudes and Harsin might be better than I thought right off the bat.
3) Swinging the pendulum back to maybe they're not as good as we think, Clemson beat Georgia Tech 14-8 on Saturday. The Tigers are 2-1, but in two games against FBS competition, they're averaging 12 points and 232 yards of total offense. Maybe Trevor Lawrence was pretty good? Ohio State beat Tulsa 41-20 on Saturday, but the Buckeyes were in a dogfight through three quarters and needed TreVeyon Henderson to break the school's freshman rushing record held by some guy named Archie Griffin to survive and advance. All of these results at least give you some hope that we could see some fresh blood in the playoff this year.
Oh, and speaking of the Buckeyes, attendance is kind of a thing a lot of places
4) If there's going to be real fresh blood in the playoff, Cincinnati's win over Indiana yesterday was very important. Don't get me wrong, that game isn't getting the Bearcats in necessarily, but losing it would have kept them out. Cincy is at Notre Dame next weekend. If they win that game, they've done everything they can possibly do to access the playoff (assuming they win the rest). They've gone on the road and beaten two Power Five teams. They're sitting at No. 8 right now. Teams in front of them are going to lose at some point. There's a realistic path to the playoff. Of course, what's far more likely is that at least we'll be entertained by the gymnastics the playoff committee does to keep them out and take a two-loss SEC team or a one-loss Big Ten team, but at least we can pretend they have a shot for another week right now.
5) From the "please stop trying to project the season based on what happened this week" department, I give you Kentucky. The Wildcats pushed Missouri up and down the field a week ago and won a not-as-close-as-the-score-indicated 35-28 game over the Tigers. They looked like a top 20 team and I thought they had an outside shot at ten wins after that game. And so, of course, they trailed Chattanooga in the fourth quarter on Saturday before winning 28-23. Chris Rodriguez, who ran for 207 yards and averaged more than three yards a carry before he was touched against Mizzou, had 13 carries for 46 yards and Kentucky ran for only 102 as a team. So, yeah, feel free to play out the season and predict it in your heads 100 times. We of course have no idea. These are 20-year-olds. One week they might be great and the next they might be awful. And the opposite might be true of their opponents. We know basically nothing about what's going to happen next Saturday, much less six Saturdays from now.
In the same category, I give you UCLA. The nation's sissy blue darlings were 2-0 and they were, by God, back. And then they lost 40-37 to Fresno State at home last night and they are no longer back and the PAC-12 will once again pin its playoff hopes on the Oregon Ducks because everyone else in the league (yes, literally every other team) has already lost a game.
6) I'm a sucker for nostalgia and for those of us who grew up in Big Eight country in the 1980s, nothing is more nostalgic than Oklahoma/Nebraska. I know a lot of you reading this will say "F nostalgic, I hate them both and hope they both lose every week and suffer nothing but misery." And that's fine. I'm not saying they're necessarily teams I cheer for every week. I just like seeing them play. The Big Eight is what I was raised on. It's what made me a college sports fan, both in football and hoops. In football, you had your team that you cheered for. But you also kind of had to pick a team in the OU/Nebraska game because about 95% of the time, the conference title was going to be the winner of that game. I always cheered for the Sooners growing up. Jamelle Holieway and Keith Jackson and Ricky Dixon and others were my secondary team. I enjoyed that they renewed the rivalry yesterday. It wasn't the same, not by a long shot. But it was kind of cool. Except for the Huskers special teams. Which are....not special.
7) Speaking of the Huskers, let's do our own version of the misery index. I was thinking yesterday about which programs have fallen the furthest since their glory days and which ones have the chance to get back. I'd say there are seven programs that were considered national powers at some point in the 80s/90s/00s that no longer are considered that:
Texas, Michigan, Nebraska, Tennessee, Florida State (underdogs to Wake Forest and blown out yesterday), USC, Miami (blown out at home by Michigan State yesterday)
So I'm going to go two ways with this. First of all, those programs in order of which has fallen the furthest from where it once was:
1) Florida State--This is tough, but I think FSU is No. 1 simply because of the heights it once was at
2) Nebraska--Nebraska is Tennessee but had a little further to fall
3) Tennessee
4) Miami--The Canes might be higher, but their run as a national power wasn't quite as long as the others
5) USC--You could put them No. 4 and I wouldn't argue
6) Texas
7) Michigan
Now, which ones have the most realistic path back, maybe not to what they once were, but at least to something resembling a powerhouse program?
1) USC--I don't think this is arguable. Not only do they have a talent base right in their back yard, but the conference they're in makes it the easiest to get back to dominance
2) Florida State/Miami--I don't know if both of these programs can get back, but there's plenty of talent right there. At least enough for one of them to climb back close to where they were.
4) Michigan--They don't have as far to go as the others. They're already a solid program, they just aren't great. They have to figure out a way to beat Ohio State at some point.
5) Texas--If Texas was staying in the Big 12, it would be No. 2 and maybe even No. 1 on this list. The move to the SEC makes it much harder
6) Tennessee--Rebuilding in the SEC ain't easy. The Vols have been trying to do it for 15 years.
7) Nebraska--Where do you get the talent? It's really that simple. There's none in your own state. There's none in the states immediately surrounding you. And why is a kid from across the country playing at Nebraska over the other options he'd have? None of these kids knows you as the program us middle-aged guys do. You haven't been that program in their lifetimes.
8) The most underrated single unit in college football might be Iowa's defense. In three games, the Hawkeyes have given up a total of 30 points. Two of those games have been against Power Five teams and one was on the road. Iowa is giving up 275 yards a game and has forced eight turnovers in three games. Its main (only?) competition in the Big Ten West (Wisconsin) already has a loss in the conference. The Hawkeyes do host Penn State and then have to go to Madison, but it's tough for me to create a scenario where they're not in the Big Ten title game. They've got a decent chance to get there without a loss. And I'm no longer certain after this weekend's games that it would be Ohio State they'd see there.
9) This is your college football play of the week, courtesy of Oklahoma.
But this is your college football play of the week runner up, courtesy of Missouri State
10) Five games I'll watch besides Mizzou/BC next weekend:
Notre Dame vs Wisconsin, 11 am, FOX: I don't really care to watch this game as I believe it will be hideously ugly, but there are not many good games next week so this is in the top five
Clemson at NC State, 2:30, ESPN: Upset alert here. If the Tigers don't get the offense going, I think the Wolfpack might be good enough to pull it off.
Texas A&M vs Arkansas, 2:30, CBS: I do not believe either of these teams is quite as good as the national perception of them is. Which one survives and which seems the dreams dashed?
Tennessee at Florida, 6:00, ESPN: I told you the games next week sucked
West Virginia at Oklahoma, 6:30, ABC: If the Sooners keep letting everyone hang around, it will bite them eventually. Maybe here?
