The Week 12 college football roundup. The 5 things that matter, winners and losers, overrated and underrated, and what it all means.
– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak
College Football Week 12 Roundup
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Early Week 13 Line Lookahead
Rankings: AP | USA Today Coaches | FWAA
– CFP Rankings Projection
– Predicting every remaining game, conference race
Quick Thoughts: Big Ten | SEC
Week 12 Roundup
The Really Big Thing | Most Overrated Thing
Most Underrated Thing | What It All Means
5. Winners & Losers From Week 12
Winner: QB Trevor Lawrence, Clemson
Remember way, way back to the old days of mid-October when Trevor Lawrence was supposedly freelancing, making too many big mistakes, and throwing eight interceptions in his first seven games?
Remember when he was overrated, not worthy of being considered a slam-dunk No. 1 overall NFL prospect, and was regressing in his sophomore year?
Good times.
Yeah … in his last four games he hit close to 80% of his passes and averaged over 12 yards per throw with 13 touchdowns and no interceptions. If that wasn’t enough, he also ran for 130 yards with two touchdowns as Clemson hung up 52 points or more on the board in each of those four games.
Loser: Arizona’s passing game
In recent years, a mediocre day from the Arizona passing attack usually happened because the ground game was going off. The Wildcats only threw for 68 yards against Oregon State back in 2017, but that’s because they ran for 534.
Against Oregon on Saturday, Arizona’s Khalil Tate and Grant Gunnell combined to throw for a season-low 132 yards with no touchdown passes. Worse yet, the 4.4 yards per pass were the fewest by any Arizona team since a 51-13 loss to the Ducks back in 2014.
Winner: RB Najee Harris, Alabama
Alabama’s passing game carried the team, but now with Tua Tagovailoa done for the year, it’ll be up to Harris and the ground game to start doing a whole lot more. Harris has rushed for eight touchdowns in the last four games and caught touchdown passes in each of the last two. He wasn’t needed much in blowouts over Arkansas and Mississippi State – running for 86 and 88 yards, respectively – but he took off for over 100 yards in the other three of the previous five games.
Loser: Georgia Tech’s running game
Going back to early in the 2009 season in a loss to Miami, Georgia Tech failed to run for 100 yards just three times in a span of 134 games.
It has failed to run for 100 yards twice in the last three weeks.
The program went on a run of 40 straight games going back to 2016 with 100 yards rushing or more. That streak snapped a few weeks ago when Pitt allowed just 86 yards in a 20-10 win. On Saturday, Virginia Tech beat the Yellow Jackets 45-0, allowing just 53 yards on 31 carries.
It was the first time Georgia Tech was held to under 75 yards since Clemson gave up just 71 in the middle of the 2015 season.
Winner: The quarterbacks in the LSU 58-37 win over Ole Miss
Defense, schmefense. In LSU’s wild and crazy win over Ole Miss, Joe Burrow further cemented his Heisman credentials by completing 32-of-42 passes for 489 yards and five scores, and he ran for 26 yards.
Ole Miss freshman QB John Rhys Plumlee came up with 212 yards and four touchdowns … rushing. He also threw for 123 yards with a pick, and Matt Corral threw for 89 yards and a touchdown.
In all, the quarterbacks in the game accounted for 945 yards of total offense.
Loser: Northwestern’s quarterback play
The good news: Northwestern finally won a game again. It rocked a miserable UMass team – with the nation’s worst defense, by far – 45-6.
The bad news: the passing game completed 7-of-13 passes for 76 yards and two picks. Two weeks earlier, the Minutemen gave up 488 passing yards and five touchdowns to Liberty.
Winner: Kent State’s fourth quarter vs. Buffalo
0-60. That’s what Kent State was in its previous 60 games when down by 21 points or more. It was down 27-6 to a Buffalo team looking for its sixth win, bow eligibility, and a big step forward in the MAC East race.
Instead, in the final eight minutes of the game, Kent State scored a touchdown, recovered the onside kick, scored on a 41-yard pass play for a score, blocked a punt, tied the game on a fourth down touchdown pass, and won on the last play of regulation with a 44-yard Matthew Trickett field goal.
Loser: Baylor in the second half vs. Oklahoma
Everything was going so well. Baylor was up 31-10 at halftime, the party was just getting started, and then … Oklahoma score 24 in the second half – 31 unanswered overall – and Baylor suffered a brutal collapse. It couldn’t move the chains at all after halftime – Oklahoma ended up controlling the clock for over 41 minutes.
Winner: Rice
Rice had one win over an FBS program in its previous 31 games going back to September 9th of 2017. It won last year’s season finale against Ole Dominion, and it was competitive through most of the first part of the season despite the 0-9 start, and then … Rice 31, Middle Tennessee 28. The Owls failed to score in the second half, and it got WAY too tight, but it was the program’s first win of the season.
Loser: Duke
Didn’t you used to be Duke? The Blue Devils started the season 4-2 with acceptable losses to Alabama and Pitt, and since then they’ve not only lost four straight, but the offense has gone bye-bye.
They scored 30 or more in five straight games, and 44 total in the last four losses in blowout after blowout. A once sure-thing bowl season is now destined to be a loser, bottoming out in a 49-6 home loss to a Syracuse team that hadn’t won an ACC game.
Week 12 Roundup
The Really Big Thing | Most Overrated Thing
Most Underrated Thing | What It All Means
NEXT: The really big thing was …
4. The Really Big Thing Was …
Tua Tagovailoa’s injury.
It was so horribly unfortunate for a whole slew of reasons.
At the absolute top of the list is that the kid suffered a brutal injury. Please forgive the crassness of putting Tua Tagovailoa’s dislocated hip into a football discussion – his pain, health, and disappointment obviously overshadow everything else.
With that said …
This didn’t have to happen. (I’ll dive into this aspect in much deeper detail in my Cavalcade of Whimsy column on Tuesday.) He was going to come out at halftime of the blowout win over Mississippi State, stayed in for one final series, and suffered the injury that ended his season prematurely.
And now, if he chooses to turn pro – he’s expected to make a full recovery – that ends one of the greatest quarterbacking careers in the history of college football.
If this really is it, he leaves having completed 69% of his passes for 7,442 yards and 87 touchdowns with 11 picks – with nine rushing touchdowns – finishing with an unfathomable career rating of close to 200.
He took a team to a national title game last season, won a national championship on one of the greatest and most dramatic walk-off passes in football history at any level, and he’ll go down as one of the all-time most talented pure passers the college game has ever seen.
On the field, Alabama might just be business as usual.
Remember, the program won a national title with John Parker Wilson under center. It’s possible the rest of the five-star parts of the Crimson Tide come together and close strong with Mac Jones at the helm.
But now, Tagovailoa’s injury might mean that anything less than a fantastic blowout of Auburn could justify the College Football Playoff committee keeping the Crimson Tide out.
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Early Week 13 Line Lookahead
Rankings: AP | USA Today Coaches | FWAA
– CFP Rankings Projection
– Predicting every remaining game, conference race
Quick Thoughts: Big Ten | SEC
Throughout Saturday, there were several references to 2014 Ohio State, when Cardale Jones stepped in for JT Barrett and went on to win the national title. But playing a third-string quarterback didn’t seem to make a difference in a 59-0 obliteration of Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship.
Again, if Alabama wipes out Auburn, the Tagovailoa injury won’t be that big a factor for the committee.
And now this becomes a reference point from here on. Every time a game becomes a blowout and the star quarterback is still in, the announcer is going to bring up what happened in Starkville.
The injury happened in the early games. Ohio State’s Justin Fields was still in late in the first half against Rutgers, and it became a big topic of conversation on social media – of course the Buckeye coaching staff knew what happened earlier in the day.
Fields came out once things were well in hand.
However, Oregon was blowing away Arizona with ease, and the announcers were openly questioning the logic of leaving Justin Herbert in when the game was competitively over.
But again, beyond everything else, this is a superstar talent – and a fantastic guy – who’ll hopefully go on to have a brilliant career at the next level.
He certainly dominated this one.
Week 12 Roundup
Winners & Losers | Most Overrated Thing
Most Underrated Thing | What It All Means
NEXT: The most overrated thing was …
3. The Most Overrated Thing Was …
Minnesota losing to Iowa.
The Gophers had this budgeted in.
Let Iowa run around with the Floyd of Rosedale Trophy. Let the fans rush the field and celebrate like crazy now that the Hawkeyes did what the Hawkeyes do – have a good year with a signature win, and no Big Ten championship.
Minnesota isn’t going to lose at Northwestern, so what the Penn State win did was allow for a loss to either Iowa or Wisconsin to take the West and get into the Big Ten Championship.
Of course, it would’ve been wonderful to get by Iowa – this was a rivalry game, after all – but wouldn’t it be more fun to celebrate a division title in Minneapolis than in Evanston?
That could still happen, by the way, if Wisconsin gacks at home against Purdue, but it’s unlikely.
Best of all for Minnesota, unlike Baylor losing to Oklahoma, taking a loss is just fine in the College Football Playoff race.
Beat Northwestern, beat Wisconsin, and win the Big Ten title over the Ohio State/Penn State winner and … in.
IN, IN, IN … no questions asked.
Unlike a 12-1 Big 12 or Pac-12 champion this season, a 12-1 Big Ten champion is absolutely in. That can be Ohio State – if it beats Penn State but loses to Michigan. That can be Penn State if it wins out, and that can be Minnesota.
If the Gophers go 11-1 and then beat this monster Buckeye team, boom. There’s no leaving them out. If they beat the team that beats this monster Buckeye team, boom.
That boat isn’t sunk yet.
Week 12 Roundup
Winners & Losers | The Really Big Thing
Most Underrated Thing | What It All Means
NEXT: The most underrated thing was …
2. The Most Underrated Thing Was …
Oklahoma’s comeback over Baylor.
It was equal parts amazing and heartbreaking.
Baylor couldn’t have looked better in the first half against Oklahoma, going up 28-3 with an offense that looked absolutely unstoppable. But the Sooners appeared ready to put together something amazing.
The offense is way too good to have been that mediocre for a full game. And now, of course, the win was a big deal because Baylor lost a game.
Few thought the Bears were really and truly in the chase for one of the four College Football Playoff spots, but Texas – up next for BU – is certainly beatable, and the regular season finale is at Kansas.
Had the Bears been able to do anything in the second half and pull off the win, 12-0 would’ve been an easy goal, and then it would’ve been all there for the taking in the Big 12 Championship.
But that’s gone now.
The Pac-12 champion has a clearer path to one of those final four spots. Alabama – on an otherwise awful day – caught one of the breaks it’s going to need to get in.
Now, one more obstacle is out of the way if Ohio State happens to lose a close battle to Penn State or Michigan, and this makes it that much easier for LSU to get in if it loses the SEC Championship.
The Oklahoma win also means the Big 12 Championship is all but set.
If the Sooners beat TCU next week, they’re in the title game again. If Baylor wins one of its last two games, it’s in. Baylor might have lost a gut-wrenching battle, but the war isn’t over.
Also under the radar – that’s it. Jalen Hurts is no worse than second in the Heisman race. He turned the ball over too much, but he also hit 71% of his passes for close to 300 yards and four scores, and ran for 114 yards in the comeback win.
If Joe Burrow has a few bad games …
Week 12 Roundup
Winners & Losers | The Really Big Thing
Most Overrated Thing | What It All Means
NEXT: What Is All Means: Week 12
1. What It All Means: Week 12
Not as much changed as you might think.
It might seem like there was a seismic shift in the college football world this weekend, but after all the drama, all the great games, all the close battles, and after the horrible, horrible injury …
Everything sort of went as expected – and in a way, that includes Tua Tagovailoa being hurt.
There was talk before the Mississippi State game about whether or not Tagovailoa was healthy enough to play on an injured ankle, and there was chatter that Alabama without its star at 100% would be big part in the College Football Playoff discussion.
That discussion tragically ramps up a few levels now, but Tagovailoa’s health was going to be a factor over the rest of the regular season no matter what.
However, if Mac Jones steps in and rocks over the last two games against Western Carolina and Auburn, Bama’s CFP situation doesn’t really change.
Minnesota and Baylor both lost for the first time all year. The Gophers were the underdogs against Iowa, and Oklahoma was a double-digit favorite against the Bears.
Georgia vs. Auburn was a bit of a toss-up, but the higher-ranked favorite won.
LSU’s defense got ripped to shreds, but it beat Ole Miss. Clemson rolled past Wake Forest, Ohio State showed mercy on Rutgers, and despite the Tagovailoa injury, Alabama blasted Mississippi State on the road.
Ten of the top 11 College Football Playoff ranked teams – No. 8 Minnesota the lone exception – all won, and now everything stays the same …
Except that Baylor doesn’t control its own CFP destiny anymore.
LSU, Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia, Minnesota and Penn State are the only six teams in full and total control of their CFP fates. Win out, and get in no matter what.
Alabama needs some help. Oregon and Utah need some help. Oklahoma and Baylor now really need some help.
The weekend went like we all sort of thought it would, and other than what happened to No. 13, it was a whole lot of fun.
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Early Week 13 Line Lookahead
Rankings: AP | USA Today Coaches | FWAA
– CFP Rankings Projection
– Predicting every remaining game, conference race
Quick Thoughts: Big Ten | SEC
