It was another exciting college football weekend full of a predictable Nebraska blowout, the death of the Clay Helton era at USC, and the almost end of Clemson’s long winning streak. At least Tennessee wasn’t here to lose by four touchdowns again! Don’t worry, we’ll have that next weekend!
Let’s start with the
Tigers….
Clemson
isn’t a Top 4 team
The Tigers barely held
on to win against a North Carolina team coming off back to back losses to Wake Forest
and Appalachian State. Clemson narrowly outgained the Tar Heels (331 to 290) and
had to stop a UNC two point conversion with less than a minute to go to
preserve the victory.
Trevor Lawrence isn’t even
close to the same quarterback as he was in 2018. His completion percentage has
fallen by 3 and a half points, and he’s already thrown 5 interceptions, as
compared to just 4 all of last year. More troubling if you’re a Tiger fan, he
looked confused and lost against what is really a pretty average UNC defense.
Clemson’s best win is by
14 at home over Texas A&M, a team that already has two losses and will
probably finish with five. They beat the hell out of a Syracuse team that gave
up 63 points to an awful Maryland team, and they destroyed a crappy Georgia Tech squad that is in the middle of transitioning to a completely different offense. There
isn’t another ranked team on their schedule until MAYBE the ACC Title Game (or Wake Forest if they can remain undefeated until they meet in November), meaning
they don’t really have a chance to improve their standing or secure another
impressive, resume building win.
The good news for college
football fans is that everyone (including me) came into 2019 assuming we’d get “Clemson-Alabama
V” in the playoff again and the winner would be the national champion. That seems increasingly less likely. With how
bad the Tigers have looked, coupled with how terrible the ACC is, their only chance to make the playoff is if they run the table. There are
no mulligans for them this year.
Of course, if they aren’t one of the four best
teams in the country at the end of the year BUT are still undefeated, are they really
deserving of making the playoff? I get it, they can’t control the fact that
their conference is abominable, but that puts the onus on them to beat the hell out of everyone
on their schedule. I used to be convinced by the argument that “oh, they are
the defending champion, they deserve to be able to defend that championship,
particularly if they run the table.” Then Florida State did just that in 2014,
went into the playoff against Oregon, and lost 59-20. Were the Seminoles one of
the four best teams in 2014? Definitely not.
Isn’t that the goal of the playoff
committee? To get the four best teams? The fact is, this
isn’t the 2018 Tigers. They’ve lost most of their front seven and almost half
their starters from last year. Every college team exists in a year long window, and no team
SHOULD have the current season judged based on the season prior, because its a vastly different group of players.
With that said, if
Clemson runs the table, they’re going to make it in the playoff, even if they have
five or six more clunkers against average teams again. Then hopefully they’ll
get blasted by Ohio State or Oklahoma or whoever and we’ll start reevaluating
how we pick the four teams.
Washington
Buried The Clay Helton Era At USC
The Trojans went into
Seattle and lost by two touchdowns in an uninspired performance that Clay
Helton needed to keep his job. USC sits at 3-2 with a trip to Notre Dame coming
up in two weeks.
I don’t mean to gloat
(wait a second, yes I do), but I’ve been on the “Clay Helton should be the coach on
an eight year old travel baseball team” corner for as long as I’ve been writing
about college football. Sam Darnold saved Helton’s tenure from being an absolute
disaster, and even carried his sorry butt to a Pac 12 Championship back in
2017. But without Darnold as his starter, Helton is a paltry 9-13 as the full
time head coach.
The question for USC is
1. Who is the new athletic director? 2. What are they going to do about Helton’s
reported buyout of around $15 million
and 3. Can they lure Urban Meyer?
I don’t know enough about
university politics to predict who the new AD will be, but what I do know is
that if I’m the Trojans, I’d call Urban and ask him, “How much?” Money should
be no object in this hire, particularly not for a program that’s botched their
last three coaching searches with Lane Kiffin, who was too immature, Steve Sarkisian, who
loved the bottle too much, and Helton, who I can only assume was the janitor in
the university cafeteria before he was elevated to head coach.
If Urban wants $12
million a year, let him have it. Do you want to win football games, or do you
want to continue to be irrelevant? Urban would probably prefer the lifestyle in
Southern Califorina and the Pac 12 better than what he faced in the SEC at Florida
or in the Big Ten at Ohio State. People want to win out there, but they aren't insane. The media isn’t as aggressive, the fans aren’t
as nuts, and they’d definitely still cover for him if he lied about not knowing
about an assistant coach beating his wife, as long as his team was winning.
Nebraska
Got Destroyed By Ohio State on Saturday Night Football
Ohio State won by 41
points and scored on their first 8 drives while holding the Cornhuskers to
under 100 yards of offense until late in the third quarter.
This was supposed to be Ohio
State’s first “real” test of the season, but they had all the answers, and frankly,
have had them all season. Justin Fields tossed three touchdowns and ran for
another and has yet to throw an interception all year. JK Dobbins had 177
rushing yards, and the Buckeye team combined for 368 of them. The defense had
three interceptions and limited the Huskers to 47 passing yards. This might be
the best team in college football.
As for Nebraska, the Huskers
dropped to 7-10 in the Scott Frost era, and haven’t beaten a ranked team yet, losing
by 46, 17, 5, and 41 in their four opportunities.
The Huskers aren’t punting
on their favored son yet, and probably won't next year either, but this
certainly isn’t what Husker fans expected when they hired Frost away from Central
Florida two years ago.
Here's something to keep an eye on; Frost only coached two years at UCF,
and Saturday was just his 43rd career game as a head coach. Sure, he
went 13-0 in his second season at UCF, but are we sure he's a good coach?
Larry Coker and Gene Chizik have won national championships early in their
coaching tenures with someone else’s talent/Cam Newton, and both of them turned
out to not be good, or even average coaches. Can we attribute those 13 wins in 2017 to Frost, or his predecessor George O'Leary, who seemingly left the cupboard not completely bare?
Mike Riley won 9 games in his second year in Lincoln and got fired a year later. Is Frost getting to 9 wins this year? Seems unlikely.
Auburn
Blew Out Mississippi State
No team in the country has a combination of three better wins than the Tigers, who have now knocked off Oregon on a neutral
site, Texas A&M on the road, and Mississippi State by 33 at home. Bo Nix
had 335 passing yards in what was the most complete game he’s played as the
Auburn quarterback, and the Tiger defense was dominant for three quarters
before relenting a bit in the final period.
Auburn is on the
right trajectory to make a run for the SEC Title and a playoff spot,
but they still have four loseable games on the schedule (Florida, Georgia, LSU,
Alabama) plus whoever they end up playing in a potential SEC Title Game (probably
Georgia). Do I trust Nix, a freshman, to go 3-1 in those games? Honestly, no.
They should beat the Gators in The Swamp this weekend, but I think there’s a good
chance they’ll lose all three to LSU, ‘Bama, and Georgia.
Teams
Alive For The Playoff
I think it’s safe to do
this after five weeks. As always, every undefeated team in the Power 5 is
alive, as well as every one loss team, with the exception of the ACC, where
that league is so awful that a single loss eliminates you. No Group of 5 team
will be included here because they don’t play anywhere near the same schedule/have
the same talent. (* by the undefeated teams)
ACC: *Clemson, *Wake Forest
Virginia’s 15 point loss to
Notre Dame, as well as their narrow win over Old Dominion, eliminates them from contention. No one should really buy Wake as a playoff team, but they could potentially
be undefeated when they travel to Clemson on November 16th.
Big Ten: *Ohio State, *Wisconsin,
*Iowa, *Minnesota, *Penn State, Michigan State, Michigan
Michigan State will
probably drop out of contention on Saturday when they lose at Ohio State.
Michigan hosts Iowa on Saturday in a game that could eliminate them. Minnesota…
come on. Wisconsin goes to Ohio State on October 26th, but even if
they lose, they could still run the table, beat the Buckeyes or someone else in
the Big Ten title game, and make the playoff. Still a lot to be worked out
here.
Big 12: *Oklahoma,
*Baylor, TCU, West Virginia, Texas, Oklahoma State, Kansas State
Still a ton to be sorted out here as well. Texas could eliminate themselves in two weeks when they play
Oklahoma. A team to keep an eye on is Baylor; the Bears are undefeated and get
both Texas and Oklahoma at home. The problem is that those games happen back to
back weeks.
Pac 12: Colorado,
Arizona, Utah, Arizona State, Oregon, California, Washington
No undefeated teams left
here, though one of these teams could potentially go on a run and finish 12-1. If
I had to pick one, it’d probably be the Huskies because I think the Pac 12 comes down
to the winner of the Oregon-Washington game on October 19th, which will be in Seattle. Outside of the Oregon game, all of Washington’s most difficult remaining showdowns are at home;
Utah comes there on November 2, and the Apple Cup at the end of November will be there also.
SEC: *Alabama, *Georgia,
*LSU, *Auburn, *Florida, Missouri
Mizzou isn’t a realistic
contender here, particularly not with their one loss being to Wyoming. Plus
they aren’t running the table anyway. I suppose there is a chance to get two SEC
teams in, but I’d bet there’s enough chaos between the five undefeated squads that we could have all five with at least one loss, and maybe even four of them with
two losses.
My
Top Four
1.
Ohio State
The
Buckeyes haven’t played the greatest competition yet, but they’ve won every
game by at least 24 points. The meat of their schedule is still left, though they
get Michigan State, Penn State, and Wisconsin all in Columbus.
2.
LSU
I
don’t think the Tigers are beating Alabama because of the whole Orgeron-Saban
thing, but they still have the best singular win of any team this season, their
victory at Texas. LSU gets both Florida and Auburn in Baton Rouge in October.
3.
Oklahoma
The
Sooners haven’t had the most challenging schedule yet either, but they’ve scored
at least 48 points in every game and won all of them by at least 18. Jalen
Hurts should be the Heisman frontrunner; through four games, he has more TDs
and passing yards than both Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray had in their first
four games with Lincoln Riley as their head coach.
4.
Alabama
I
can’t put the Tide any lower than fourth, though I have concerns about how
crappy their defense has looked through four weeks. Tua has been phenomenal
(76.4 completion percentage, 23 TDs, no picks), but their defense gave up 476
yards (279 rushing) and 31 points to Ole Miss on Saturday. I guess that’s what
happens when you start multiple freshman on defense. Auburn, Georgia, and LSU
all have very potent offenses; if they Tide have to win every game relying on
Tua to outscore people, eventually they’ll get torched badly enough by someone
that they’ll lose, and it might even happen twice.
I’d have Georgia 5th,
Auburn 6th, and Wisconsin 7th. Maybe Clemson comes in at 8…
maybe.
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