The Week 6 college football roundup. The 5 things that matter, winners and losers, overrated and underrated, and what it all means.
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College Football Week 6 Roundup
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Playoff Chase | Early Week 7 Line Lookahead
Rankings: AP | USA Today Coaches | FWAA
Quick Thoughts On … Big 12 | Big Ten | SEC
Week 6 Roundup
The Really Big Thing | Most Overrated Thing
Most Underrated Thing | What It All Means
5. Winners & Losers From Week 6
Winner: Paul Bunyan’s Axe
There’s still a chance Iowa has a lot to say in the matter, but it’s looking more and more like the Wisconsin vs. Minnesota rivalry for the Axe should be for the Big Ten West title. Both teams are currently 5-0, with the Gophers having a relatively easy run until Penn State comes to Minneapolis. The Badgers have a whole lot of work to do against a tougher slate, but they’re playing like a top ten team.
Loser: The rest of the Big Ten West
At least for the moment, most of the division is taking the year off. Iowa is still good, but it’s coming off a mistake-filled loss to Michigan. Nebraska is bad. Purdue is hurt and bad. Illinois is just bad and bad. Northwestern is boring and bad. Something weird will happen along the way, but at the moment, the division is the Big Ten’s kid’s table.
Winner: Brock Purdy
The Iowa State quarterback might not be in the high-rent Hurt/Tua/Field/Burrow district this season, but he’s coming up with a great run for a team that lost a few key receiving parts, along with RB David Montgomery. He hit 79% of his throws for over ten yards per pop with two scores, and ran for 102 yards and two touchdowns, in the win over TCU.
Now the sophomore has a 71% completion rate with ten touchdowns and just two picks. It was his second game in the last three with multiple rushing and passing touchdowns.
Loser: Nate Stanley
He picked the wrong time to have that game.
Michigan’s defense came up with just two interceptions in its first four games, but it hadn’t allowed a touchdown pass since the opener against Middle Tennessee.
Stanley came into the game against the Wolverines with eight touchdown passes and no picks as the steady leader for the unbeaten Hawkeyes. In the 10-3 loss he completed 23-of-42 passes for 260 yards, but he didn’t throw a touchdown pass and tossed three interceptions.
Winner: Central Michigan
New Chippewas head coach Jim McElwain looked like he was in for a long season. His team was destroyed by Wisconsin 61-0, starting QB Quinten Dormady and top RB Jonathan Ward were out, and the team lost two straight going into a battle against an Eastern Michigan team that beat Illinois. Helped by a huge day from Ward … 42-16 CMU. Now, with New Mexico State up next, there’s a chance to go on a nice run to potentially get bowl eligible, helped by a game against …
Loser: Bowling Green
It’s a rebuilding project under new head coach Scot Loeffler in a big, big way. The Falcons were able to whack Morgan State 46-3 in the opener, and now after the 52-0 loss to Notre Dame, the Falcons are 0-4 against FBS teams, losing by a combined score of 201-27 – an average of 50-7 per game. Getting blasted by the Irish is one thing, but the 62-20 loss to Kent State the week before was worse.
Winner: SMU
Since SMU was naughty and wasn’t allowed to play football in 1987 and 1988, the program had won six games just seven times. The 1982 Mustang team that went 11-0-1 – and beat almost NOBODY with a pulse, by the way, but that’s for another time – was the last one to start a season 6-0. After taking down Tulsa in an overtime comeback thriller, the 2019 team is now 6-0 scoring 41 points or more in each of its last five games.
Loser: All things Illinois
It’s not going well for new Northern Illinois head coach Thomas Hammock. The loss at home to Ball State made it a 1-4 start without a victory over an FBS school so far. Now the defending MAC champs are on the road for four of their next five games.
After losing the Minnesota, Illinois is now 2-3 with Michigan and Wisconsin up next, and Northwestern is now 1-4 with Ohio State up in two weeks. To add to the misery, the Chicago Bears got shoved around by Jon Gruden’s Raiders in a loss in London.
Winner: Georgia’s pass protection
On 3rd and 8 in the first quarter of a 63-17 loss, Murray State’s Anthony Koclanakis was able to get to Jake Fromm for a sack that forced Georgia to punt. Vanderbilt, Arkansas State, Notre Dame, and Tennessee all got blanked. That Kolclanakis hit was the only sack the Bulldogs have allowed all season long.
Loser: Oklahoma sinners
Oklahoma State hasn’t been totally miserable when it comes penalties with 55 or 505 yards on the year, but the seven for 70 against Texas Tech didn’t help.
The Cowboys are 73rd in the nation in most penalty yards per game. Oklahoma? It’s getting hit for the second-most penalty yards in college football with 90.4 yards of sin per game, giving away 89 yards against Kansas. So who’s the worst team in the nation when it comes to penalties?
Tulsa, and by a ton. The Golden Hurricane are grooving on 95.6 penalty yards per game – Oklahoma is the only other team losing more than 85 yards per game – including ten for 97 yards in the loss to SMU.
By the way, in Oklahoma State’s win over Tulsa, the two teams combined for 26 penalties for 236 yards.
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 …
Stanford 23, Washington 13
The problem isn’t necessarily that Washington lost and is now effectively out of the College Football Playoff hunt at 4-2, it’s that the team is just good enough to screw up the rest of the Pac-12’s chances to get in.
Stanford was reeling.
It never quite recovered from the brutal beating it dished out and took in the 17-7 win over Northwestern to start the season – and the Wildcats certainly haven’t been okay since then – with blowout losses to USC, UCF and Oregon along the way before struggling to get by Oregon State.
Starting quarterback KJ Costello was out, the O line was decimated by injuries, and the defense was piecing things together, but was hardly great.
Washington had its mojo working after the loss to Cal and its suffocating defense earlier in the year, and it looked ready to go on a run to reestablish itself in the playoff chase.
And then it got outpunched, outpushed, and outplayed in a 23-13 loss to the Cardinal.
But again, this really is a good Washington team with the talent and upside to possibly rise back up and repeat as Pac-12 champs. Unfortunately for the conference, this next string of big games for the Huskies could end up being a three-game march to tear things down.
Arizona hasn’t lost since the Week 0 game against Hawaii. It doesn’t have the chops to run the table and finish 12-1 with a Pac-12 title, but as long as QB Khalil Tate can go, it’s a dangerous team.
It gets Washington this week.
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Playoff Chase | Early Week 7 Line Lookahead
Rankings: AP | USA Today Coaches | FWAA
– Quick Thoughts On …
Big 12 | Big Ten | SEC
Oregon has the chops to not just get to the CFP, but possibly win a game. It has the defense, it has the talent, it has the speed and athleticism, and it has the quarterback in Justin Herbert who should be playing on Sundays. The loss to Auburn is fine as long as the team doesn’t suffer another loss and wins the Pac-12 title.
It has to go to Washington in two weeks.
Utah had a weird game against USC, but it’s still looking like the best team in the Pac-12 South, or at least the favorite to rise up and get back to the conference championship. Even at 12-1 with a Power Five title, it might need some help to get into the CFP, but the loss to the Trojans happened early enough – and the Pac-12 is strong enough – to overcome the issues.
The Utes have to go to Washington in early November.
A survive-and-advance Washington win over Stanford would’ve changed the narrative. It would’ve hyped up the showdown against the Ducks, and it would’ve placed a huge spotlight over the next few weeks on a Pac-12 that mostly exists after dark.
Now the Huskies are just a 1-2 team in Pac-12 play.
Winners & Losers | Most Overrated Thing
Most Underrated Thing | What It All Means
NEXT: The most overrated thing was …
3. The Most Overrated Thing Was …
Week 6 of your 2019 college football season.
One of the wonderful aspects to college football is the sheer volume of games.
If you’re an all-around college football fan – besides the gambling aspect to all of this – there’s usually something among the 60ish games on an October Saturday to make it all worth your while. The odds are overwhelming that a Clemson 21, North Carolina 20 classic will rise up out of somewhere, especially when the showdowns between the big boys start to kick in.
And what did we get?
Michigan 10, Iowa 3.
It was interesting, but both teams were in a race to see who could screw up more. Speaking of turnovers …
Florida 24, Auburn 13.
At least this was an entertaining game, even if it was played at a painfully low level. Give credit, though, to the defenses loaded with NFL talent making NFL plays.
Ohio State and its hideous Bauhaus-inspired Goth uniforms put Michigan State away in the second quarter.
LSU, Georgia, Notre Dame and Wisconsin all won in blowouts, and outside of two Group of Five matchups – SMU beating Tulsa in three overtimes, and Cincinnati’s win over UCF – along with the Iowa-Michigan uggo, the other 11 games involving ranked teams were double-digit wipeouts.
The season all seems like it’s building to something big, and that’s hopefully this weekend with Texas-Oklahoma, Michigan State-Wisconsin, and Florida-LSU.
Let’s go, college football. We deserve something special.
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 …
Is Miami bad at college football this season?
It’s actually the most under-the-radar big thing that’s going on in college football right now.
Miami was supposed to be fantastic.
Last year’s team might have been a 7-6 disappointment, but the tremendous linebacking corps came back loaded, the defense as a whole was supposed to be special, a few key transfers were going to help boost up the offense, and the energy from new head coach Manny Diaz was expected to take the program to a whole other level.
The preseason polls weren’t all in on the Canes – living in the Also Receiving Votes netherworld – but they were at least supposed to rise up and be a factor.
As it turned out, this was the year to do it in a miserable year for the ACC.
Get through the Coastal, be good enough to get to the ACC Championship for the second time in three seasons, and hope the experience and athleticism would be enough to have a puncher’s chance against Clemson.
Miami barely got by Central Michigan in a 17-12 win a few weeks ago.
It’s not like the Canes are getting destroyed, and there’s still time to rebound and be a factor, but they just lost at home to shadow-of-its-former-self Virginia Tech. They got down big, mounted a massive comeback, and had a few chances in the final seconds to potentially tie it up before losing 42-35.
At 0-2, Miami has to beat Virginia on Friday to get back in the hunt, or else it’s over.
With road games at Pitt and Florida State to follow, there’s an honest chance that Miami starts out the ACC season 0-5 before hosting Louisville, and with a road game at Duke to close things out, there’s a terrific shot it misses out on a bowl game.
So what’s the problem?
The O can’t consistently convert a third down chance, penalties are a massive issue – 11 against the Hokies – and the offensive line is getting hammered.
But again, beat Virginia – even though the Cavaliers have had two weeks off and the Canes are coming off a short week – and all of this changes. but it wasn’t supposed to come to this.
Winners & Losers | The Really Big Thing
Most Overrated Thing | What It All Means
NEXT: What Is All Means: Week 6
1. What It All Means: Week 6
Okay, so you want to get into the VIP lounge, here’s your chance to get past the bouncer.
Week 6 might have been a dud overall, but it set everything up for a prove-it moment for a few teams that are just good enough to be considered in the College Football Playoff mix.
Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, LSU and Oklahoma. Those are the five best teams in college football so far this year in terms of production, next-level talent, and the ability to not just get to the College Football Playoff, but to also win it all.
Clemson is certainly good enough to take down two games in the CFP once it turns the lights on, but it hasn’t done that yet.
With its weak-sauce schedule, and a complicit nation that steadfastly refuses to budge it out of the No. 2 spot in both polls – even though that last part doesn’t matter to the playoff types – it’s right there among the other five teams fighting for four spots. The Tigers are still undefeated, and 13-0 gets them in no matter what.
Wisconsin – after looking flawless like it was supposed to against Kent State – can take that next step this coming weekend to keep fighting for its place among the elite.
Helped by the blasting blowout win over Michigan, the Badges should be considered as one of the top teams, but there’s still a hesitation that wasn’t helped by the struggles against Northwestern. Now they get Michigan State at home, and we all saw what Ohio State did on Saturday night. That’s where the bar is set.
Florida did its part by beating Auburn at home, but it’s still knocking on the door of the top six – again, even though the AP and Coaches polls are irrelevant. Beat LSU this weekend in Baton Rouge, and as ugly has things have been at times, the Gators deserve to be no lower than No. 2.
Penn State is slowly starting to get a little bit of attention, but its best win is over Pitt. Whoopee. But it’s playing better and better by the week, and now it gets to go to Iowa to potentially build up the hype for what’s coming over the second half of the year – Michigan, at Michigan State, at Minnesota, and at Ohio State.
Okay, Texas. Let’s go.
There’s a chance that LSU is the best team in the country – the Longhorns’ loss in Austin a few weeks ago is about as acceptable as it gets. Beat Oklahoma this week and it’s Game On with everything right there for the taking.
Put-up-or-shut-up. Contenders or pretenders. Sydney or the bush.
Let’s get to Week 7 already.
Winners & Losers | The Really Big Thing
Most Overrated Thing | Most Underrated Thing
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Playoff Chase | Early Week 7 Line Lookahead
Rankings: AP | USA Today Coaches | FWAA
– Quick Thoughts On …
Big 12 | Big Ten | SEC
