College football Week 14 roundup with the 5 things that matter, winners and losers, overrated and underrated parts of the weekend, and what it all means.
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College Football Week 14 Roundup
Week 14 Roundup
Rankings AP | Coaches
CFN 1-127 Rankings | Week 15 Early Lines
Bowl Projections | Week 14 Scoreboard
5. Winners & Losers From Week 14
– Ohio State looked great: One Really Big Thing
– Not really, but … : Most Overrated Thing
– Texas A&M and Indiana wins: Most Underrated Thing
– It’s almost over?: What It All Means, Week 14
Winner: Iowa State and QB Brock Purdy
Iowa State started playing college football in 1892, and it has never won an outright conference championship. It won a share of the Missouri Valley titles in 1911 and 1912, but that was it. No championships in the Big 12, or the Big 8, or Big 6, or Big 7. Nothing.
The program throttled a solid West Virginia team 42-6 after veteran QB Brock Purdy completed 20-of-23 passes for 247 yards and three touchdowns along with a rushing score. It’ll be off to the Big 12 Championship in a few weeks to take on Oklahoma – who it beat 37-30 earlier in the year.
Loser: Blocking for Clemson RB Travis Etienne
Etienne is the ACC’s all-time leading rusher, he’s a future NFL star, and he’s been almost criminally underappreciated during Clemson’s run of national championship-level greatness over the last three seasons. But the guy who put up back-to-back 1,600+ yard rushing seasons hasn’t had any room to move.
He’s been great – rushing for over five yards per carry with 12 scores, and catching 41 passes for 512 yards and two touchdowns – but he was held to 66 yards against Virginia Tech for his sixth straight game of the season – and eighth overall – without 100 yards rushing.
Winner: Wisconsin’s defense
The Badgers lead the nation in total defense but a mile. Marshall is No. 2 in the country allowing 254 yards per game, and Wisconsin is allowing 229.
The D is No. 1 against the run, it’s No. 2 in scoring defense, and it’s No. 1 – again, by a huge margin – in third down stops. And yet the program is 2-2 because …
Loser: Wisconsin’s offense
Wisconsin can’t score.
The offense is moving the ball – it came up with 342 yards against Indiana after putting up 366 against Northwestern – but it scored just one touchdown in the last two games and 13 points total in the two losses.
The last time UW failed to score more than seven points in back-to-back games was in early November of 1991, losing to Illinois 22-6 and then Michigan State 20-7.
Winner: USC against Washington State
Kedon Slovis threw five touchdown passes and Amon-Ra St. Brown caught four first quarter scoring throws as USC looked and played the part in a 38-13 win over Washington State.
USC was LA’s most interesting football team on Sunday afternoon.
The Chargers might have been rocked on the other side of town by Cam and the Patriots, and the Rams rolled against the Cardinals earlier in the day, and then the Trojans came up with their best performance of the season by far. But …
Loser: The Pac-12
USC played its game without about five people watching – it went off Sunday night while that Mahomes guy was going against Denver.
It was the type of performance that would’ve won over hearts and minds, but the Trojans will likely struggle to push anywhere near the top ten in the next College Football Playoff rankings.
Meanwhile, Stanford beat Washington – meaning there won’t be any unbeaten team from the Pac-12 North to go to the championship, Colorado and USC won’t play, Oregon lost again, and worst of all, this really, really fun conference is being missed.
Utah’s 30-24 win over Oregon State was a blast, and UCLA’s 25-18 victory over Arizona State was one of the best games of the day.
And it’s all being played in the dark.
Winner: South Carolina new head coach Shane Beamer
South Carolina got its head coach.
Shane Beamer – the son of legendary former Virginia Tech head coach, Frank Beamer – has taken the Gamecock gig after spending the last few years working with the Oklahoma offense. He’s been an assistant on the defensive side at South Carolina and Mississippi State, on the offensive side for a few years at Georgia before going to OU.
He has a whole lot of work to do, because …
Loser: South Carolina football
South Carolina has one won conference championship since 1892 – it took down the 1969 ACC Championship with a 7-3 record before going on to lose the Peach Bowl.
Since joining the SEC in 1992, the program has had just nine seasons with a winning SEC record, 17 with a losing one, and four going .500. It has been to one SEC Championship – 2010, losing 56-17 to Auburn – and hasn’t finished ranked in the top 25 since Steve Spurrier’s 2013 team ended up fourth.
This year’s team started out 2-2, but after stunning Auburn, it has lost six straight including last week’s 41-18 clunker against Kentucky.
– Ohio State looked great: One Really Big Thing
– Not really, but … : Most Overrated Thing
– Texas A&M and Indiana wins: Most Underrated Thing
– It’s almost over?: What It All Means, Week 14
NEXT: The really big thing was …
4. The Really Big Thing Was …
Ohio State looked the part.
We can all debate whether or not Ohio State is one of the four best teams in college football over, say, Florida, or Texas A&M, or Cincinnati, or the loser of the ACC Championship, but at the moment, the College Football Playoff committee likes Ohio State.
It’s not like the Buckeyes have done anything to actually earn the No. 4 spot in last week’s CFP rankings. They have one win over a team that’s going to finish with a winning record – and that’s how it’s going to remain, whether or not they play Michigan – and they struggled in that lone good victory over Indiana.
However, it’s Ohio State, it’s talent is right there with any other top team that gets the job done for you, and it’s hard to argue the practical when it comes to a team that in reality didn’t even need to play a game this year for it to be considered one of the top four teams.
And it shouldn’t be that big a deal that it beat a now-2-4 Michigan State 52-12, but it is.
That was the Ohio State we were waiting for.
The Buckeyes just did a whole lot of people a massive solid.
They saved the College Football Playoff committee.
Michigan State might not be anything great, but it beat Northwestern the week before. Ohio State got off the plane and blew the doors off the Spartans from the start.
Now, considering Texas A&M got rolled by the Tide, Florida lost to Texas A&M, and Cincinnati is Cincinnati and isn’t going to face a Power Five team, it’s easy for the CFP committee to make the “pass the eye test” argument, because Ohio State just did.
The Buckeyes also saved the Big Ten.
There was about to be a dilly of a pickle this week when it came to the Michigan game.
The University of Michigan is sort of a mess when it comes to the virus, and despite the allegations of potential ducking, canceling next week’s Ohio State vs. Michigan game might have to happen.
That creates a slew of problems, not the least of which would be the lack of a six-game season for Ohio State, meaning it wouldn’t be eligible to play in the Big Ten Championship.
Had the Buckeyes won 24-14, or had they struggled in any way, it wouldn’t have seemed or looked quite right to change the rules just so this team could get to play for the Big Ten title.
But now, because that win was so impressive – and the rest of the Big Ten sucks so hard – the conference championship wouldn’t have any legitimacy without the Buckeyes.
And Ohio State saved itself.
Again, the team was okay over the first four games, but even in the wins over the other bad teams, it wasn’t playing like some be-all-end-all program that had to be in the College Football Playoff.
Beat Michigan, or don’t. Beat Northwestern in the Big Ten Championship, or take down Iowa or Wisconsin whatever the Champions Week thing could be, and in. Don’t worry about what happens in the other championships – an unbeaten Big Ten Champion will absolutely be in this thing.
– Week 14 Winners & Losers
– Not really, but … : Most Overrated Thing
– Texas A&M and Indiana wins: Most Underrated Thing
– It’s almost over?: What It All Means, Week 14
NEXT: The most overrated thing was …
3. The Most Overrated Thing Was …
Coastal Carolina beat BYU – and only because it didn’t have anything whatsoever to do with the College Football Playoff.
It was simply the best game of the college football season.
It was an amazing game, and it was an amazing moment for the Sun Belt, for Coastal Carolina football, and for Chanticleer head coach Jamey Chadwell when BYU came up one yard short in what might have been the best game of the college football season.
Coastal Carolina held on for the 22-17 win, and after the CFP No. 18 team beat the CFP No. 13 team, the other polls move it up just a little bit.
Look, right now, with Georgia finding its quarterback in JT Daniels, and remembering that the two losses were to Alabama and Florida, it’s nice to put the Chanticleers at 11 in the AP Top 25 ahead the No. 12 Bulldogs, but … nah.
Now, they really should be higher than No. 10 Iowa State – as should No. 17 Louisiana – but that’s another argument.
The Coaches Poll was less impressed, moving Coastal Carolina up just one spot from 14 to 13.
The win mattered in a few ways beyond just being awesome – from the teal-colored field, to the Mullets vs. Mormons thing, to the energy of the game itself – and that’s mostly for the bowl structure.
BYU was probably a lock for a New Year’s Six bowl game had it not played this game, but it took a chance that a win over a strongly-ranked unbeaten team on the road would make a push for the College Football Playoff. Instead, it just lost a (probable) New Year’s Six payout and all the revenue being kept for itself.
Coastal Carolina, though, now has a real shot at a New Year’s Six bowl after Marshall inexplicably plotzed against Rice, and if Cincinnati loses to Tulsa in either of the next two games they’ll play against each other.
That would be cool – it would probably be the Fiesta Bowl vs. Georgia – but the idea that both Cincinnati and BYU could be in the New Year’s Six is now gone.
That opens the door up for …
– Week 14 Winners & Losers
– Ohio State looked great: One Really Big Thing
– Texas A&M and Indiana wins: Most Underrated Thing
– It’s almost over?: What It All Means, Week 14
NEXT: The most underrated thing was …
2. The Most Underrated Thing Was …
It’s a tie between Indiana beating Wisconsin 14-6, and Texas A&M beating Auburn 31-20.
Texas A&M isn’t sexy.
It doesn’t do the high-flying thrill-ride thing that Alabama and Florida do, Kellen Mond isn’t Justin Fields talent-wise, and the brand name isn’t there compared to Notre Dame, but the offensive line has been fantastic, and the defense continues to be the truth.
While everyone was gushing over Ohio State going through a light scrimmage against a mediocre Michigan State team, Texas A&M just won its seventh SEC game of the year, and it did it against a decent Auburn team that would have a real shot at being the second-best team in the Big Ten and possibly win the Pac-12 and Big 12.
If the College Football Playoff committee really watched that game – and if it can appreciate that the way A&M plays is substance over style – then thinking this might really be one of the four best teams in college football shouldn’t be a giant leap.
The bigger key thing this weekend to the overall landscape of how the New Year’s Six will look came from Indiana’s win over Wisconsin.
Yes, the Badgers were missing just about all of their key wide receivers, their top corner, and a slew of other parts, but the defense was still amazing, and it’s still Wisconsin in Camp Randall.
IU and backup QB Jack Tuttle were able to come up with two scoring drives, the defense held on late and allowed two field goals all game long, and now, all the team needs to do is beat Purdue, and it’ll be 7-1 and almost certainly off to a New Year’s Six bowl game.
The Hoosiers were ranked 12th last week before this win, and while they might not move up, they’re certainly not going to move down. Either No. 11 Oklahoma or No. 9 Iowa State will lose the Big 12 Championship, and IU will be a mortal lock one of the big bowls – likely the Fiesta against the Pac-12 champion.
– Week 14 Winners & Losers
– Ohio State looked great: One Really Big Thing
– Not really, but … : Most Overrated Thing
– It’s almost over?: What It All Means, Week 14
NEXT: What It All Means: Week 14
1. What It All Means: Week 14
How is it we’re almost done?
The season should actually be winding down now with the Heisman announcement and Championship Weekend in the rearview mirror, but instead, we still get two more weeks, then recruiting matters for a few minutes, and then it’s whatever the bowl season will be, and then in around four weeks from the time you’re reading this, it’ll be College Football Playoff time.
But USC and the Pac-12 are just getting started?
We finally get Pac-12 after dark, and it’s going to be over after next weekend?
Arizona State has only played two games – and really, really fun ones against USC and UCLA – and the MAC hasn’t even settled into its normal mid-week groove.
Week 14 Roundup
Rankings AP | Coaches
CFN 1-127 Rankings | Week 15 Early Lines
Bowl Projections | Week 14 Scoreboard
Wait … we haven’t really had any Heisman discussion yet.
It’s Kyle Trask, or Mac Jones, or maybe a few votes trickle in for Najee Harris, or Justin Field, or Ian Book, or … we don’t have time. There’s too much going on.
The weirdest part is that a lot of teams are just done.
UMass played four games, scored one touchdown, 12 points, and smell ya later.
Some teams like UAB will likely get a bowl game, but Temple is finished. So is Kansas State. So is Boston College. So is UCF. So are Kentucky, Syracuse and South Carolina.
They all just sort of … stopped. The schedule is done.
But just over three months ago, the idea of having any college football season at all seemed impossible, and it still is.
From staggered conference starts, to a late reprieve for the Big Ten, Pac-12, MAC and Mountain West, and with every school doing impossible things to make these games happen, this season has been incredible.
As we finish this all up with whatever the bowl season will be, and with whatever the College Football Playoff ends up looking like, the totally reckless, completely irresponsible 2020 college football season did it.
Now let’s get it over with quickly and safely.
– Week 14 Winners & Losers
– Ohio State looked great: One Really Big Thing
– Not really, but … : Most Overrated Thing
– Texas A&M and Indiana wins: Most Underrated Thing
