College football Week 5 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 5 Roundup
Rankings AP | Coaches | CFN 1-127 Rankings
Week 6 Early Line Predictions
College Football Playoff Chase, Who’s Alive?
How’d We Do? Week 5 Predictions
5. Winners & Losers From Week 5
– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 5
Winner: Tulsa
Is Tulsa really that good? It beat UCF for the second year in a row – taking down the Group of Five darling 34-26 at the Bounce House in Orlando – and that was coming off a decent decent performance in a 16-7 loss to Oklahoma State.
It helped that UCF was flagged for 18 penalties and turned it over three times, but Gulden Hurricane Zach Smith was good, the running game was solid, and the program got a special win in just the second game of the year.
Loser: Oklahoma
When was the last time Oklahoma lost back-to-back Big 12 games? 1998, losing four in a row before, ironically, beating Iowa State. The team went 5-6 in the last season of the John Blake era. The next season, Bob Stoops took over.
Stoops lost at Notre Dame and then to Texas in the first two weeks of October in 1999. That was the last time OU lost back-to-back regular season games before dropping the dates to Kansas State and Iowa State over the last two weeks.
– 5 Thoughts: TCU 33, Texas 31
Winner: QB Mac Jones, Alabama
Alabama lost QB Tua Tagovailoa to the Miami Dolphins, WR Jerry Jeudy to the Denver Broncos, and WR Henry Ruggs to the Las Vegas Raiders, and the passing game keeps on going.
With his 435-yard, four touchdown performance in the 52-24 win over Texas A&M, Jones has thrown 16 scoring passes in his last five games and is over 327 yards in three of his last four outings.
Loser: Jimbo Fisher’s Texas A&M D vs. Alabama
This was Fisher’s third crack at Alabama in his time at Texas A&M, losing all three games in blowouts. How bad has the defense been? Over those three losses, the Aggies have allowed 146 points and 1,516 yards, for an average of 505 yards and 49 points per game.
Winner: TCU vs. Texas
5-1 in the last six. That’s what TCU is against Texas as Gary Patterson continues to roll in a series between two programs that used to be a major part of the old Southwest Conference.
Now the Horned Frogs have to beat someone else.
TCU beat Texas 37-27 last year, and then lost six of its next seven games before stopping the slide on Saturday against the Longhorns.
Loser: Texas, in general
TCU got the job done, but that was Texas on Texas action.
The Longhorns lost. So did UTSA to UAB. So did Texas A&M to Alabama. So did Texas Tech to Kansas State, Baylor to West Virginia. So did Abilene Christin to Army and North Texas to Southern Miss.
SMU was able to get by Memphis, but Texas was 2-7 overall, and again, one of those was in-house.
Winner: Arkansas
Before taking out Mississippi State in the 21-14 stunner on Saturday, the last Arkansas win over a Power Five program was …
38-37 over Ole Miss in late October of 2017.
The win over the Bulldogs halted another streak. The Hogs were 2-24 against FBS programs before the trip to Starkville, and it marked the first time they were 1-1 in the SEC since the start of the 2015 season.
– 5 Thoughts: Arkansas 21, Mississippi State 14
Loser: Mike Leach
With the loss to Arkansas – and including the stunning win over LSU the week before – Leach is now 4-8 in his last 12 games as a head coach. It was the third time in his last four games his offense scored 21 points or fewer.
– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 5
NEXT: The really big thing was …
4. The Really Big Thing Was …
Now the Big 12 is really, really finished.
There you go, SEC. After what happened this week when TCU beat Texas and Iowa State got by Oklahoma, just assume you can get two teams in if a few one-loss options are available, and/or an unbeaten conference champ, too.
There you go, ACC. It might be possible for Notre Dame and Clemson to get in if they split games – the first in South Bend, and maybe if they play a rematch in the ACC Championship – with their only losses being against each other.
The Pac-12 doesn’t play a big enough schedule to warrant a sure-thing spot in the CFP if the conference champ is 7-0, and the Big Ten will need its champion to be an unbeaten 9-0 to reserve a spot.
The Group of Five? Nah. More on that in the Most Underrated Thing section.
Who’s left? The ACC is a big winner, and so is the SEC, and in reality, so is the Big Ten. That’s all because the Big 12 al but opted out on the 2020 college football season.
Oklahoma State is the lone remaining unbeaten team in the Big 12, and it’s been way shaky so far. The blowout win over Kansas was nice, and this is a good enough team to make a whole lot of noise, but is it good enough to run the table with Texas, Oklahoma, and Iowa State still out there? Almost certainly, no.
Forgetting what the Sun Belt did to destroy the conference, Oklahoma is out, Texas still can’t find a defense, and everyone else has an embarrassing blemish.
Parity is nice, and the Big 12 games have certainly been fun, but that’s about it.
The CFP race among the five power conferences is all but reduced now to four.
– Winners & Losers From Week 5
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 5
NEXT: The most overrated thing was …
3. The Most Overrated Thing Was …
The new, young superstar dual-threat quarterbacks who were supposed to take over college football by storm, aren’t.
At least not yet.
However, the pro-style prospects are the young ones about to kick it all in.
Let’s give the true freshmen a free pass for now.
Alabama’s Bryce Young wasn’t able to beat out Mac Jones right away, but he’ll be fantastic when he gets his shot.
Shane Illingworth, though, was one of the better quarterback recruits in the Mike Gundy era, and he started to look the part against Kansas this week with a razor-sharp performance.
Those are the 2020 recruits, though. In the new world of ready-made quarterbacks, the 2019 class is supposed to be the group that’s stepping up and shining.
Out of the Rivals top pro-style prospects, Bo Nix has taken his lumps at Auburn and – Georgia loss aside – is the franchise for the next few years.
With Jack Coan hurting his foot, the Graham Mertz era might start sooner than expected at Wisconsin, Hank Bachmeier is already a name-guy at Boise State, and North Carolina’s Sam Howell is one of the ACC’s brightest young passing stars.
And in one of the weekend’s biggest moments, TCU’s Max Duggan showed off why he’s so special in the big win over Texas.
However, the dual-threat guys aren’t getting it done.
Spencer Rattler has all the skills to be amazing, but … why, again, isn’t D’Eriq King an Oklahoma Sooner? Rattler will be great in time, but going 0-2 in the Big 12 is never, ever, ever going to be acceptable for this program.
D’Wan Mathis was a great get for Georgia two seasons ago, but he struggled in the opener against Arkansas, and now it should be the Stetson Bennett show until JT Daniels is 100% and ready – maybe. Bennett is looking like the main man until there’s a problem.
Out of the Rivals top 20 dual-threat quarterbacks of 2019. only Rattler, UCF’s Dillon Gabriel, and when Arizona State gets going again, Jayden Daniels are starting for their respective teams.
It’s still about the old guys.
In the latest AP top 25, just four teams have an underclassmen who is or will be the starter – assuming everyone stays healthy.
NEXT: The most underrated thing was …
2. The Most Underrated Thing Was …
Tulsa beating UCF … again.
Tulsa has been awful at college football over the last few years.
After a 10-3 2016 season, the program went 8-28 against FBS teams before going into the date at UCF this weekend. The Golden Hurricane shocked the Knights 34-31 last season, and they did it again with a 34-26 win that was even more impressive.
And with that, there goes the realistic hopes of a Group of Five program making it into the College Football Playoff.
The Mountain West will start too late and won’t have any of the non-conference games to boost up a Boise State or San Diego State.
The MAC won’t get anyone in after it gets going, and Conference USA is never going to get enough respect.
An unbeaten Sun Belt champion should absolutely be in the College Football Playoff over a Big 12 champ – if it comes down to that – but it’ll never, ever, ever happen.
That leaves the American Athletic Conference.
The polls – even though they don’t matter in the CFP discussion – gave Memphis a whole lot of love and respect, and now all that’s gone with the loss this week to SMU. The Mustangs are fine, and they’re 4-0, but they’re not strong enough to roll through the schedule unbeaten.
Cincinnati is right there, but at the end of the day, an unbeaten season won’t mean a whole lot with the one decent non-conference win coming over Army.
11th in both polls, the love is there for the Bearcats, but … at Tulsa, at SMU, Memphis, Houston, at UCF, at Temple. Along with East Carolina – who gave the Bearcats problems last year – that’s too tough a schedule to get through unscathed.
No, UCF was it.
It had the brand name, it had the blowout win over Georgia Tech, and if it could’ve gone through the schedule unbeaten, wins over Memphis, Houston, Temple, and Cincinnati – which all still might happen – would be enough to earn consideration if the team could’ve been clean with an American Athletic Conference title.
Tulsa ended all of that, and now it’s a battle for the Group of Five conferences for the automatic New Year’s Six slot.
Yippee.
NEXT: What It All Means: Week 5
1. What It All Means: Week 5
Do we already have the great teams figured out?
In a year full of curveballs, is college football serving up a 71-mile-per-hour beach ball right over the plate?
Clemson, Alabama, Georgia, Florida. For right now, that’s it, right?
Of course, talent-wise, throw Ohio State in there, but considering what happened to LSU, Oklahoma and Texas to start the year, we’ll need to see it first before putting it into the Clemson/Alabama territory.
Oh it’ll be there, but again, let’s wait just a smidge, see what happens in the opener against Nebraska, and then it gets its spot in the high-rent district.
There might be a Wisconsin here (14th in the latest Coaches Poll) or an Oregon there (17th) or USC (WAAAAYYYY low at 28th) or Michigan (19th) or Penn State (8th) who haven’t played yet who could rise up and take over, but they’re all going to have to be special to get a condo in the high-rent district.
The Florida D and Georgia O have to be stronger, but that’s a little bit of nitpicking. Either one could win the SEC title and go on to the CFP.
Meanwhile, Clemson and Alabama are ripping through everything in their respective paths without breaking so much as a sweat.
Rankings AP | Coaches | CFN 1-127 Rankings
Week 6 Early Line Predictions
College Football Playoff Chase, Who’s Alive?
How’d We Do? Week 5 Predictions
Now here’s the really, really fun part about all of this – and this season, more than ever before. All of those sure-thing, no-brainer, put-them-in-the-CFP-already teams are going to have to earn it.
Alabama might have been a world beater against Texas A&M, but now it’s on to Oxford to deal with a fantastic Ole Miss offense. And then Georgia. And then at Tennessee. And then against the Mike Leach Mississippi State thing, and then at LSU. That’s all before the finishing kick that includes Auburn.
You’re absolutely right to have complained about Clemson’s light schedule over the last few years. Not this year. Miami is up next, at Notre Dame is dangerous, Pitt is fun, and going to Virginia Tech will be a fight all before having to play an ACC Championship game – assuming it gets there.
Florida vs. Georgia are coming up in a few weeks, and they each have major landmines to get through, too.
We just saw Oklahoma go 0-2 in the Big 12 this weekend.
We just saw Arkan-fricking-sas beat a Mississippi State team that rolled up LSU.
We just say TCU beat Texas, Tulsa beat Oklahoma, and we’re about to get a whole lot more of that.
It’s not time to crown the sure-thing College Football Playoff teams quite yet.
– Winners & Losers From Week 5
– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
