College football Week 4 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 4 Roundup
Recaps, Ranking the Games
ACC | Big 12 | SEC | Bowl Projections
Rankings AP | Coaches | CFN 1-127 Rankings
Week 5 Early Line Predictions
Hot Seat Coach Rankings
College Football Playoff Chase, Who’s Alive?
How’d We Do? Week 4 Predictions
5. Winners & Losers From Week 4
– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 4
Winner: QB Kyle Trask, Florida
So imagine you’re Kyle Trask, Florida’s excellent senior quarterback. All you did was come out and hit 30-of-42 passes for 416 yards and six touchdowns with no interceptions in a 51-35 win over Ole Miss, and absolutely no one outside of the greater Gainesville metropolitan area will remember it because of what KJ Costello did in Mississippi State’s win over LSU.
Loser: Florida State offense
The Mike Norvell offense was supposed to be fast, explosive, and ready to put up points in bunches after taking over the Florida State head coaching gig. It’s been a rough first two weeks – besides Norvell being stricken with the coronavirus – with a loss to Georgia Tech and a 52-10 whacking from Miami.
Last year, FSU struggled in its first two games, but it put up 927 yards of total offense. So far in two games, the Noles have just 637 yards and back-to-back passing games under 200 yards for the first time since late in the 2017 season.
Winner: SEC passing games
Remember when the SEC was all about defense, tough running, and hard-nosed football? That tippy-tappy passing game thing was supposed to be for the Big 12 and Pac-12. In Week 1 of the SEC season, five teams hit the 300-yard mark through the air, three of those were over 400, and everyone but Texas A&M and Vanderbilt – who played each other – got to 200 yards.
Everyone was throwing, so …
Loser: SEC running games
No SEC team ran for 200 rushing yards and five teams didn’t even hit the 100-yard mark. Alabama was the only team with over two rushing scores, and only three teams averaged over four yards per carry.
Winner: UTEP
With a 31-6 win over ULM, UTEP got to 3-1 on the season. The program’s last 3-1 start came back in 2010, and the last win over an FBS team by 25 points or more happened at the end of the 2016 season against North Texas. In the three seasons after that win from 2017 through 2019, the program went 2-34.
Loser: Kansas
Oh Kansas. At least it scored first in the 47-14 loss to Baylor.
With that defeat and the opening loss to Coastal Carolina, the program has gone nine years without starting 2-0. Worse yet, going back to last year, the Jayhawks have lost six straight games – all by double-digits – and is 1-10 since getting by Boston College in mid-September of 2019.
Winner: RB Ulysses Bentley IV, SMU
Welcome to the nation’s leading rusher in total yards.
The SMU offense is known for QB Shane Buechele and the passing attack, but the Sonny Dykes ground game has been fantastic so far with over 800 yards and 12 touchdowns in the first three games.
Bentley – a 5-10, 184-pound freshman – is averaging 10.6 yards per carry with 380 yards and seven touchdowns, coming off a six-carry, 104-yard, two-score day in the 50-7 win over Stephen F. Austin.
Loser: Oklahoma running game
Oklahoma ran for 664 yards and seven touchdown in the first two games of last season, and ran for 495 yards and nine scores to start 2018. In two games against SE Missouri State and Kansas State, the Sooners have rushed for a total of 254 yards, averaging 3.6 yards carry with two touchdowns. They ran for 130 yards in the loss to Kansas State.
– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 4
NEXT: The really big thing was …
4. The Really Big Thing Was …
The two teams that played each other in last year’s Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl – one of the College Football Playoff semifinals – both lost at home and might be knocked out of the national title hunt before the season really gets going.
It’s not a deathblow for LSU and Oklahoma to have lost right away to Mississippi State and Kansas State, respectively. Win out, take the conference championships, and get into the CFP – most likely – but there’s no margin for error now going forward.
– Big 12 Recaps, Top Players, Ranking How Good The Games Were
The Kansas State 38-35 win over Oklahoma was thrilling, and it took a massive comeback and upset to get it done, but it happened last year, too. The Sooners lost at K-State, won everything else, and they got to the College Football Playoff. They also weren’t/aren’t in the SEC.
LSU still has to go to Florida. It still has to go to Auburn and Texas A&M, and it still has to host Alabama. It’s possible to lose one game in the SEC and go on to win it all, but lose two and that’s about it.
And it all happened because of a Mississippi State offense that ran for nine yards, but threw for 632 in the first game of the Mike Leach era.
LSU wasn’t LSU, but that’s no excuse. It was breaking in what amounted to a whole new team, and it was without the best defensive back in the nation with Derek Stingley Jr. out with a non-covid illness. It still had enough talent to beat the Bulldogs, and didn’t.
– SEC Recaps, Top Players, Ranking How Good The Games Were
Is Mississippi State a real, live factor to win the SEC championship? Probably not – you have as many head coaching appearances in major conference title games as Leach – but now the Bulldogs are a national must-watch every time out.
Some SEC defenses really will figure this out, and other teams will bomb away with an offense that can hang punch-for-punch, but this isn’t the last time someone will buckle against KJ Costello and this attack.
Mississippi State announced its arrival. It was good before, especially with Dak Prescott running Dan Mullen’s offense – fun-fact, MSU was the first ever No. 1 team in the College Football Playoff rankings – but this is different. This is a team that can beat an Alabama on the right day, or ruin Auburn’s season, or take out Texas A&M because of a differentiating factor of an attack.
It sure worked on the defending national champions who were looking to prove it could keep the party going.
– Winners & Losers From Week 4
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 4
NEXT: The most overrated thing was …
3. The Most Overrated Thing Was …
Oklahoma – and it literally is overrated.
Voters in the AP and Coaches polls, it’s 2020. Be better at ranking college football teams.
We still love you, polls. We just need them to reflect what’s happening.
If you want to argue about whether or not Texas is way over-ranked – it is – after that performance against Texas Tech, great.
If you want to get into it over where Group of Five programs should be ranked compared to, say, some SEC team that just hung up over 600 passing yards on the road against the defending national champion, fantastic. That’s where the opinions and beliefs come into play.
Just don’t miss the two-foot factual putts.
Kansas State beat Oklahoma.
Memphis is 1-0 with its one win coming over Arkansas State.
Arkansas State is 1-1 with that one loss to Memphis and its win over Kansas State on the road.
And again, Kansas State beat Oklahoma.
It should be Memphis, then Arkansas State, then Kansas State, then Oklahoma in the rankings, and it really, really isn’t.
Oklahoma is 16th in the Coaches Poll and 18th in the AP. Where is that Kansas State team that just pulled off the gutty comeback win? It’s ranked behind SMU in the Others Receiving Votes category in the Coaches Poll, and 30th in the AP.
– CFN 1-127 Rankings After Week 4
Arkansas State is buried way, way deep in both polls.
Do I think Oklahoma is better than Kansas State, Arkansas State and Memphis? Yeah, except that it isn’t at the moment. At least, it wasn’t on Saturday in Norman.
You can’t prove Oklahoma is better than Kansas State this college football season. As of right now, I can prove that Kansas State is better than Oklahoma.
Is this silly? Of course. Is this anything to get all hot and bothered about? Of course not, except that people still care about these polls.
Just get them right.
NEXT: The most underrated thing was …
2. The Most Underrated Thing Was …
Every time it seems like Virginia Tech is on the verge of becoming a big deal, it’s usually followed by a resounding thud.
After starting 2-0 in 2018 with a win over Florida State on the road, then came the loss at Old Dominion.
It handed eventual national champion Ohio State its only loss of the 2014 season, and followed it up by losing five of its next seven games.
There’s been at least one loss to a team that finished with a losing record in seven of the last eight years.
This season, the pollsters aren’t quite into the Hokies coming off a 8-5 season full of meh. 26th in the AP and 23rd in the Coaches, there’s a wee bit of respect, but not a lot.
This might be the best team in the ACC that no one is paying any attention to.
– ACC Recaps, Top Players, Ranking How Good The Games Were
Clemson is Clemson, Notre Dame is getting the pub for getting a drawer in the friends with benefits relationship with the ACC, Miami is rolling, and North Carolina is everyone’s darling.
Meanwhile, Virginia Tech came within a thriller of a loss to Virginia of going to the 2019 ACC Championship, and that was in a rebuilding year.
On Saturday, the Hokies were without more than 20 players – including starting QB Hendon Hooker – and they still ripped up NC State for a 17-0 lead in the first quarter on the way to a 45-20 wipeout.
There’s no Notre Dame on the slate, but Miami has to come to Blacksburg, four of the last five games are at home, and be very, very careful of the December 5th date against Clemson.
If Saturday was any indication, Virginia Tech is going to be an ACC factor in some way once it’s healthy.
NEXT: What It All Means: Week 4
1. What It All Means: Week 4
It’s still weird, and there are still too many parts of the 2020 college football season that don’t seem close to correct – the social distancing and adherence to masking guidelines in the stands went bye-bye at several places with serious on-campus outbreak issues – but for the first time since this all started …
College football was … fun? And it’s okay.
This wasn’t just a weekend of games between teams that only friends, family, alumni, and bettors really cared about. This was the opening weekend of SEC football.
This was the start of the Mike Leach era at Mississippi State, and the beginning of what Lane Kiffin is putting together – lost in everything was a huge offensive day from QB Matt Corral and the Rebels – at Ole Miss.
Alabama was playing again and doing Alabama things.
Recaps, Ranking the Games
ACC | Big 12 | SEC | Bowl Projections
Rankings AP | Coaches | CFN 1-127 Rankings
Week 5 Early Line Predictions
Hot Seat Coach Rankings
College Football Playoff Chase, Who’s Alive?
How’d We Do? Week 4 Predictions
Auburn and Kentucky were interesting, Tennessee and South Carolina were fun, and Texas A&M and Vanderbilt were … uhhhh … Auburn and Kentucky were interesting.
We got a Big 12 game that really, really mattered with Kansas State’s upset over Oklahoma, and the Big 12 went all Big 12 with Texas and Texas Tech putting on an epic show.
There were postponements, and there were ugly blowouts that should’ve been fun – looking at you, Miami-FSU – but SEC football is back, the Big Ten and Pac-12 are on their way, and even the Mountain West and MAC are pushing there way back to playing again.
No, it’s not perfect in any way, but college football is pushing through. It’s a bad situation, but overall the system seems to be working.
Can’t play? Fine, postpone, don’t take chances, get everything right, and get better. When teams do get on the field and can safely go, it’s on.
With the nightmare of a year and all the political horrors slamming everyone down, having college football be fun again matters.
And again, it’s okay.
– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 4
