Welcome to the quick recap of big things from Week 12 in the 20 Most Important College Football Thoughts Ever … at least for this week.
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20. LSU 27, Arkansas 24
LSU was really awesome last year, and now it’s struggling and a shadow of its former self in a lost season, and … give it credit. Through all of the problems, all of the talent losses, and all of the missed games, it’s still battling.
This was a game the Tigers should’ve lost, and instead, they controlled the game – they held the ball for almost 42 minutes – the D was amazing on third downs, and young parts like QB TJ Finley (271 yards and two touchdowns) and RB Tyrion Davis-Price (104 yards and a score) were able to pace the way to a win.
19. Boise State 40, Hawaii 32
Any time you can fly into Honolulu and come out with a win, you take it. Boise State still hasn’t quite put it all together yet, but Hank Bachmeier threw for 278 yards, Andrew Van Buren ran well, and the team was fine right up until it stopped moving the ball in the fourth quarter. Hawaii made it interesting, but Boise State is 4-0 in the Mountain West with an unbeaten San Jose State up next in the home finale.
18. Minnesota 34, Purdue 31
Was it really offensive pass interference on Purdue’s Payne Durham that negated what would’ve been a likely game-winning touchdown catch? It was very, very weak, but extend your arm, and officials are going to see that as a push off.
No, it should’t have been called, but Purdue had several chances to win or at least tie it, didn’t, and Minnesota got the gut-check win it desperately needed to avoid a 1-3 start. The passing game still isn’t clicking, but Mohamed Ibrahim ran for 102 yards and three scores and … it was a bad call.
17. NC State 15, Liberty 14
It shouldn’t have taken a blocked field goal for the ACC to avoid going 0-3 against Liberty, but NC State for the special teams play that Virginia Tech didn’t a few weeks ago when it called time out just before what would’ve been a game-sealing field goal block. Liberty’s defense held up well, NC State’s defense was better, and in an ugly game with little offense, 14 Wolfpack penalties and three Flame turnovers, the ACC will gladly take it.
16. Washington 44, Arizona 27
It’s time to put Washington right there with USC and Oregon as a true Pac-12 title contender. It’s cementing its identity under new head coach Jimmy Lake – great run D, great run O, repeat. The Huskies ran for 233 yards, threw for 239, and stuffed Arizona’s ground game. In this shortened season there isn’t a lot of time to improve, but UW is doing it.
NEXT: Top 15 Most Important College Football Thoughts Ever … For This Week
15. Oregon 38, UCLA 35
UCLA put up a fantastic effort despite all the problems and without Dorian Thompson-Robinson at quarterback. It nothing else, finally, the UCLA lines are starting to come together.
The Bruins ran for 267 yards and three scores – Demetric Felton ran for 167 yards and two TDs – and the D line was terrific, holding Oregon to just 88 yards. The Ducks did what they needed to do, Tyler Shough threw for 334 yards and three scores, and in this year of transition, the team got the win. Oregon is 3-0 and it hasn’t played all that well yet.
14. Illinois 41, Nebraska 23
Illinois just did to Nebraska what Nebraska under head coach Scott Frost is supposed to do to everyone else.
The Illini ran at will on the hapless Husker defense – Mike Epstein and Chase Brown each went for over 100 yards – and Brandon Peters threw for an efficient 205 yards. Nebraska?
Luke McCaffrey ran for 122 yards and two touchdowns, and he threw three interceptions. The Husker lines aren’t good enough, the defense isn’t good enough, and being a -5 in turnover margin definitely isn’t good enough.
13. Michigan 48, Rutgers 42 2 OT
The story was about to be how Michigan persevered through the adversity, got a big day out of QB Cade McNamara, and finally showed some explosion with a huge second half. And then it didn’t go for two in the final minutes when up seven, left the door open for Rutgers, and the season almost got kicked in.
Michigan survived on a missed Rutgers OT field goal and despite the inability to come up with a late stop in regulation, but a win right now is fine no matter what. The team is still playing hard, and even though it was a win over a team it beat by 52 last year, this could’ve been a disastrous collapse and it wasn’t.
12. Alabama 63, Kentucky 3
That’s about as close to a high-end live scrimmage as you’ll see. Considering Kentucky was depleted and had zero offensive firepower, it put up a decent effort for a 60-point loss – at least for the first 40ish minutes, it was a tougher game for Bama than the score.
It wasn’t the sharpest effort by the Tide, but again, it looked like the team was working out more kinks and sharpening up. When one play didn’t click, the next one did, and the defense cleaned up any messes with its best game yet.
11. Iowa 41, Penn State 21
The storyline is Penn State going 0-5 for the first time in the program’s history, but Iowa’s ability to rise up after the 0-2 start is a bigger deal. The Penn State run defense was decent, but Iowa QB Spencer Petras was solid outside of a few fumbling problems, and the defense – led by a massive day from LB Nick Niemann – lived in the Nittany Lion backfield. With Nebraska and Illinois up next, the Hawkeyes should be 5-2 before finishing with Wisconsin.
Penn State? At Michigan, at Rutgers, Michigan State. The team isn’t 0-8 bad, but there’s no running game, star TE Pat Freiermuth is now done for the year, and the team desperately needs a positive break somewhere.
NEXT: Top 10 Most Important College Football Thoughts Ever … For This Week
10. Iowa State 45, Kent State 0
Who wants to play in the Big 12 Championship? Iowa State is close with Texas and West Virginia to go.
The Cyclones never let Kansas State get started as Brock Purdy had – arguably – his best game of the year, throwing for 236 yards and three scores. Breece Hall ran for 135 yards and two scores, the defense forced three takeaways, and in what was supposed to be a bit of a battle, Iowa State outgained Kansas State 539 yards to 149 in the near-perfect performance.
9. USC 33, Utah17
Now that’s sort of more like it for the Trojans. Utah looked like a team in its first game, and USC played like a team that got that out of the way over the first two games. Kedon Slovis threw for a workmanlike 264 yards and two scores, the running game wasn’t terrific, and the defense forced five takeaways.
Now USC doesn’t have to leave LA for the final three games against Colorado, Washington State and UCLA, but it has to keep improving. The offense isn’t there yet, but this was supposed to be the one giant test on the slate, and the team passed.
8. Auburn 30, Tennessee 17
Don’t blow off anything about Auburn’s win, and don’t dismiss it because Tennessee is struggling. On the plus side for the Vols, RB Eric Gray was outstanding – he ran for 173 yards and a score – but the Tigers got the Bo Nix they needed to get this win.
Nix threw for 220 yards and a touchdown, and while he threw an interception, he kept the chains moving as the team took over in the second quarter. In this weird SEC year, you take 5-2, you don’t apologize for anything, and you keep on going.
7. Florida 38, Vanderbilt 17
Florida was never going to lose this game. Oh sure, Vanderbilt was up early, and Ken Seals threw for over 300 yards, but Heisman-elect Kyle Trask threw for 383 yards and three scores – don’t call this an off-game for him; he didn’t turn it over and didn’t give Vandy any easy chances – and the running game was fine. This is still a flawed team defensively, but the O turned it on when it had to.
6. Coastal Carolina 34, Appalachian State 23
The Coastal Carolina defense beat up and battered ASU QB Zac Thomas and forced three picks, Grayson McCall threw for 200 yards and two scores and ran for a team-high 69 yards and a touchdown, and the program is 8-0 with a win over the king of the conference.
It was hardly a perfect game, but the Chanticleers didn’t make the big mistakes the Mountaineers did, and the D held up against the loaded running game while allowing just two second half field goals.
NEXT: Top 5 Most Important College Football Thoughts Ever … For This Week
5. Cincinnati 36, UCF 33
Is that going to be enough? The UCF brand name is strong enough to make this look like a fantastic road win, but this isn’t the UCF of the last few years. However, the Bearcats held the nation’s No. 1 offense to 359 yards and QB Desmond Ridder threw for 338 yards and two score and ran for 57 yards and two touchdowns. There’s still likely a hard ceiling on how high UC can get in the CFP chase, but it’s a road win over UCF. It’s still a big deal.
4. Georgia 31, Mississippi State 24
O that’s just great. Georgia has its quarterback, and now the defense and running game are struggling. JT Daniels threw for 401 yards and four scores, and he had to because the O line did nothing against the MSU defensive front. Georgia ran for eight yards. Eight. When you’re being outgained by Mississippi State – who ran for 22 yards – there’s a problem.
But Georgia isn’t winning the national title this year, or the SEC, or the East, so for now, all that really matters is that it has its quarterback. Now all the other parts have to come back to form.
– Week 12 Scoreboard and Predictions
3. Oklahoma 41, Oklahoma State 13
Well there we go, Oklahoma. Was that so hard?
The defense played with an attitude from the start, and while it helped that OSU QB Chuba Hubbard had an ankle injury and QB Spencer Sanders was knocked out of the game, pitching a shutout in the second half was amazing no matter what.
But this was about Oklahoma showing off its explosion against a strong team. Spencer Rattler didn’t throw an interception against the Cowboy D, put it away early and finished with 301 yards and four scores, and Rhamondre Stevenson hammered out 141 yards. It’s too late for the CFP, but OU now firmly established itself – with some due respect to Iowa State – as the Big 12’s best team.
2. Northwestern 17, Wisconsin 7
There are several ways to look at what happened to the Badgers. 1) Northwestern exposed Wisconsin’s lack of a typical superstar back to rely on, even though Jalen Berger is going to be good. 2) The Badgers were without most of their top receivers both before the game and as it went on. 3) Graham Mertz played like a quarterback in his third game and without any open receivers to throw to, and 4) …
Northwestern is really that good.
The program has a strange mind-meld on Wisconsin. With the five takeaways, that’s 25 over the last nine meetings between the two. The defense came up with third down stop after third down stop, but the amazing aspect to the win was how Northwestern won even though Wisconsin sort of went Wisconsin.
Northwestern couldn’t run at all – just 24 yards – Wisconsin held the ball for over 37 minutes, and it outgained the Cats by over 100 yards. But five turnovers, eight penalties for the Badgers to one turnover and one penalty for Northwestern – ball game. And now Pat Fitzgerald should get his team to the Big Ten championship for the second time in three years.
1. Ohio State 42, Indiana 35
If the Ohio State secondary can’t handle Michael Penix – who threw for 491 yards and five scores – what’s going to happen against Mac Jones, or Trevor Lawrence, or Kyle Trask when it really counts? At the end of the day, Ohio State basically won the Big Ten East with this, but if it’s possible to hang up 42 points and feel like it was a loss, this was it.
However, even though Justin Fields made way too many mistakes to go along with his 300 yards and two scores – with 78 rushing yards and a touchdown – Master Teague was terrific with 169 yards and two touchdowns, and the defensive front held a punchless IU ground game to -1 yard.
Here was the main difference, though. Indiana had the energy, and it played like a team with unwavering confidence. Ohio State played at times like a team that was trying not to lose – and that included the massive mistake by coach Ryan Day to not kick a field goal to go up ten late, and instead, go for it deep in IU territory – but it got the win, it’s 4-0, and national title dream is still on track.
