The Week 9 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 9 Roundup
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Early Week 10 Line Lookahead
Rankings: AP | USA Today Coaches | FWAA
Quick Thoughts On … Big Ten | Big 12 | SEC
Week 9 Roundup
The Really Big Thing | Most Overrated Thing
Most Underrated Thing | What It All Means
5. Winners & Losers From Week 9
Winner: Next week’s ABC primetime Saturday night game
The American Athletic Conference and ABC caught a massive break.
The call came out midway through Saturday evening that SMU’s trip to Memphis would get the showcase primetime national spot on ABC. One problem …
The announcement was made just as Tulsa was driving down 42-41 to Memphis late in the 4th. Had Golden Hurricane kicker Jacob Rainey nailed a 29-yard field goal attempt as time expired – he pushed it wide – this game would’ve been a really, really tough sell.
Loser: That SMU vs. Memphis is next week’s primetime Saturday night game.
Georgia-Florida is the big CBS game. Utah-Washington is going to be on FOX at the same time as the don’t-call-it-a-Cocktail-Party, and Oregon at USC is on FOX in primetime. SMU vs. Memphis is a battle of two ranked teams, and before you sneer, they should put on a fantastic show.
Winner: DE Chase Young, Ohio State
Really, America. It took a four-sack, six-tackle, two-forced fumble game when everyone was watching the blowout win over Wisconsin to finally realize how good the guy is? No, he’s not going to win the Heisman, and yes, he was a top three overall pick in the next NFL Draft before this, but he has now gone from special the otherworldly with this one performance.
Loser: RB Jonathan Taylor, Wisconsin
All the guy has done is have the greatest first two seasons yardage-wise of any running back in the history of college football and could end up being the game’s all-time leading rusher if he stays one more year. Against Ohio State? 20 carries, 52 yards, and that’s coming off the Illinois loss with a key late fumble.
Winner: Rutgers
It’s been a miserable year for Rutgers and an unfair one for its players. Head coach Chris Ash was fired, top players were sitting out, there was no scoring, and the only win all year was against a miserable UMass team in the opener. On Saturday, though, it still showed that it’s a Big Ten program, and it showed just how disrespected it was by being a 7.5-point underdog at home to Liberty. The Scarlet Knights got the 44-34 win.
Loser: Syracuse
Clemson is awesome, and after that, the rest of the ACC is a big pile of sad. Taking the defending national champs out of this mix, the rest of the league is taking turns getting wins here and there – even Georgia Tech got a win over Miami a few weeks ago – but Syracuse has a sack full of rocks.
There were two ACC teams ranked in the preseason polls, and Syracuse was one of them. So far, it has yet to win an ACC game, getting dropped by Florida State 35-17.
Winner: RB Joshua Kelley, UCLA & RB CJ Verdell, Oregon
All of a sudden, UCLA is actually … good? It has won two straight and three of its last five, and the running of Kelley has a whole lot to do with it. He tore off 176 yards and a score on just 18 carries against Stanford two weeks ago, and last week he ran 34 times for 164 yards and four scores in the win over Arizona State.
Around when that was happening, CJ Verdell was saving Oregon’s season with 257 yards and three touchdowns – and four catches for 56 yards – in the 37-35 thriller over Washington State.
Loser: Oklahoma’s running backs
Jalen Hurts did what he could. He threw for close to 400 yards in the loss to Kansas State, and he led the team with 96 rushing yards and three scores. The Sooner running backs? Trey Sermon ran three times for nine yards, and Kennedy Brooks ran three times for two yards. That’s it.
Winner: QB Mac Jones, Alabama
Oh no, don’t start with any of that “No Tua, No Problem” stuff. You could’ve played quarterback for Alabama against Arkansas, handed it off 60 times, and everything would’ve been fine. But it does matter that backup Mac Jones completed 18-of-22 passes for 235 yards and three scores, getting in some great live reps to prepare just in case Tagovailoa can’t go against LSU in two weeks.
Loser: Passing in the Georgia Southern win over New Mexico State
The weather wasn’t great, and Georgia Southern doesn’t throw. However, if you love the forward pass, this was your nightmare. The two teams combined for 612 yards of rushing offense, but GSU’s Shai Werts completed two of four passes for three yards. One of the completions was for nine yards, and one was stopped for -6. Again, the Eagles get a free pass because they don’t … pass.
New Mexico State? It has thrown for over 210 yards against everyone but Alabama. Against Georgia Southern, Josh Adkins completed 13-of-23 passes for 59 yards and two interceptions.
Week 9 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 …
Kansas State 48, Oklahoma 41 (and a few other Big 12 misfires)
South Carolina pulled off a shocker over Georgia a few weeks ago. It was a big deal, but in some ways it didn’t matter all that much. The Bulldogs were going to have to win out anyway. If they could do that – and they still could – they’d be SEC champs and in the College Football Playoff.
Illinois pulled off the stunner against Wisconsin last week. It was a big deal, but in some ways it didn’t matter all that much. The Badgers were going to have to win out anyway. They didn’t, but had they rolled Ohio State and gone on to finish 12-1 with a Big Ten championship, they’d be in the College Football Playoff.
Oklahoma losing to Kansas State, though, is a much bigger problem.
There isn’t a big non-conference win to pump up the resumé – it’s not Oklahoma’s fault, but beating Houston and UCLA wasn’t like taking down Ohio State in Columbus a few years ago – and the Big 12 just isn’t all that great.
Before, the big, giant win was over Texas. After the Longhorns almost lost to Kansas and face-planted against TCU, Oklahoma’s win is no longer a big, giant deal.
Now, six of Oklahoma’s seven wins – Texas being the exception – have come over teams that aren’t likely to go to a bowl.
And that leads to the big problem.
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Early Week 10 Line Lookahead
Rankings: AP | USA Today Coaches | FWAA
Quick Thoughts On … Big Ten | Big 12 | SEC
Normally in the College Football Playoff era, going 12-1 with a Power Five conference championship means a spot in the final four. The one aberration was last year when Notre Dame was 12-0, keeping Ohio State out of the fun.
This year, considering OU’s final four games are against Iowa State, at Baylor, TCU and Oklahoma State – fine, but zzzzzzzzz – before likely going to the Big 12 Championship, would that be enough to knock off a 12-1 Pac-12 champ out of a spot, or an 11-1 Alabama-LSU loser, or an 11-1 Penn State-Ohio State loser?
Probably not.
With Texas losing to TCU, and with Iowa State losing to Oklahoma State, the three ranked teams in the Big 12 that played on Saturday all lost. In a ten-team league, the stars can’t start getting knocked off this late in the season.
Winners & Losers | Most Overrated Thing
Most Underrated Thing | What It All Means
NEXT: The most overrated thing was …
3. The Most Overrated Thing Was …
The weather.
It was perfect football weather to watch on TV, but the conditions were totally miserable for several key games across the country.
Sorry to be that guy who uses his own tweet …
It should’ve been perfect for Michigan State.
The tough, brutish team with the great defense coming off of two weeks of rest should’ve been able to give the speedy Nittany Lions a rough time. Instead, Penn State got up fast and it was never a game.
Michigan was supposed to be a bit gassed, too, after its date in Happy Valley last week. In a driving rainstorm, it handled the great Notre Dame offensive line and running game without any sort of a problem in the blowout win.
The rain in Columbus should’ve helped the tough, brutish Wisconsin team with its outstanding offensive line and great running game, but it was the other way around. The Ohio State lines dominated all game long in the easy win.
And then there was the cold.
USC had to make the trip to Boulder on Friday night, going from near 90 degrees in LA to the low 40s in Colorado. It still managed to win 35-31.
UCF left Orlando to face Temple in Philadelphia. The Owls have been nasty all season long at home, and the cold should’ve affected the Knights, and … 63-21 with the UCF running game taking over as the game went on.
And then there was Miami, a notoriously bad cold-weather team, traveling to Pitt, where it was half as warm as it was in Coral Gables. The Canes came away with a desperately-needed – and stunning – 16-12 win.
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 …
Michigan 45, Notre Dame 14
Because of what Ohio State did to Wisconsin early on, and with the LSU win over Auburn still a big deal leading into the primetime game, the Michigan win over Notre Dame was a wee bit anti-climactic.
The weather was bad, Notre Dame wasn’t doing anything offensively, and the game was effectively over at halftime with the Wolverines up 17-0.
But take a step back for a moment and hit refresh on the narrative. After all of the screaming, yelling, and dissecting of Jim Harbaugh’s inability to win a “big” game after the loss to Penn State – even though he has actually won several large ones – his team came out with one of the sharpest performances in his era.
This dominant, blowout win did two things. First, it upped the ante on the final month of the Big Ten season. It would have to take a massive miracle for the Wolverines to win the East – it’s just not going to happen – but a New Year’s Six bowl appearance is now on the table.
The Rose Bowl is a long shot. The game has to take a Big Ten team no matter what, but with this win over the Irish, Michigan has a goal to shoot for by winning out. Get by Ohio State this year, finish 10-2, and the Orange and Cotton are in play if the Rose doesn’t work out.
Second, the Michigan win ended the College Football Playoff dream for Notre Dame.
Let’s say the script was flipped and the Irish won 45-14, With Oklahoma losing to Kansas State, now the hype would’ve been around a team with one very, very acceptable loss to Georgia on the road that was good enough to potentially roll through the rest of its schedule and go 11-1.
And now, that’s all gone.
A New Year’s Six bowl dream is still slightly alive, but not really. That screws up the bowl pecking order, as now it shoves down all the other mediocre teams – Notre Dame gets an ACC bowl slot as long as it’s within one place record-wise of a team it’s pushing down. However, it can’t take the ACC’s Orange Bowl slot.
Winners & Losers | The Really Big Thing
Most Overrated Thing| What It All Means
NEXT: What Is All Means: Week 8
1. What It All Means: Week 9
The big boys got there … sort of.
What is and isn’t a big showdown game can change fast.
One Wisconsin loss to Illinois later, and 1) last week’s game in Columbus against Ohio State didn’t seem to matter all that much, and 2) was hardly a stunner that it turned out to be lopsided.
However, the Badger losses changed the landscape of the Big Ten West. Minnesota still has to stumble twice, but it has the big games coming up, while Wisconsin and Iowa meet up in two weeks for what should be a relatively big game to set up the rest of the division.
And it’ll be even bigger if the Gophers beat Penn State on November 9th.
The Maryland game seemed like a potential problem – the Terps were getting some key parts back, and Minnesota was at the end of a long run of games before finally getting a break – and … nope.
Minnesota started fast, was up 28-3 at halftime, and won 52-10 to go 8-0.
Penn State seemed like it had a landmine to sidestep against Michigan State.
The Spartans had two weeks off to recharge, they were at home, Penn State was coming off the emotional win over Michigan, and … nope.
Nittany Lions 28, Spartans 7 in a game that wasn’t even all that close. Now let the hype roll for the next two weeks for the biggest college football game in Minneapolis in a long, long time.
Alabama wasn’t going to lose to Arkansas.
There was no real shot of anything strange happening, but with Tua Tagovailoa out, this might have been a rough outing for the team without its superstar passer, it could’ve taken the luster off of what’s ahead, and … nope.
The Crimson Tide were brilliant, the defense deleted Hog QB Nick Starkel’s account, and it was a light and breezy 48-7 scrimmage that gave the other parts of the powerhouse a chance to flex a little muscle.
And there was the big one.
Auburn proved it’s really, really good, even with a true freshman still figuring it out at quarterback and without the top running back. But Bo Nix kept battling, the ground game wasn’t totally miserable without JaTarvious Whitlow, and … nope.
LSU managed to survive and advance, getting through the 23-20 with enough respect to move up to No. 1 in the AP poll, setting up the Game of the Century (for this season) in two weeks against Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
But that also means that this coming week is a bit too light and breezy when it comes to the bulk of big matchups. Before you get too comfortable, two weeks ago we had Illinois doing that, and last week it was Kansas State doing that.
Minnesota, Penn State, LSU and Alabama are all off. At the very least, no luster is coming off of their upcoming showdowns.
Winners & Losers | The Really Big Thing
Most Overrated Thing | Most Underrated Thing
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Early Week 10 Line Lookahead
Rankings: AP | USA Today Coaches | FWAA
Quick Thoughts On … Big Ten | Big 12 | SEC
