The recap of the college football weekend! Grab your WCE shirts for the season here.
We are officiall finished with Week 4. I’ll be posting a weekend rewind of all the stories that I paid attention to on Saturday. I’ll be doing this every week.
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Let’s start with my Top 10, and then go more in depth into some of the more interesting topics.
Gary’s Top 10
- Alabama
- Clemson
- TCU
- Oklahoma
- Penn St
- USC
- Michigan
- Georgia
- Washington
- Virginia Tech
Alabama completely and thoroughly dismantled Vanderbilt in Nashville. All of the “woes” from the last couple of weeks proved to just be blips – more of a case of not caring about the games than actual problems with the team. When that Vandy DT called out Alabama, it woke up the monster, and what we saw was a dominating performance of epic proportions.
Clemson was tied, at home, 7-7 with Boston College (who is NOT a good team) in the 4th quarter, but they closed out the game by scoring 27 unanswered points to win easily 34-7. TCU jumps Oklahoma this week because, in my opinion, their combination of double-digit road wins over Arkansas and Oklahoma St are more impressive than Oklahoma’s win over Ohio St, so far. They effectively ended Mason Rudolph’s Heisman campaign, and the win in Stillwater makes two Bedlams look not as surefire now. Oklahoma had to fight like hell to beat Baylor this week — same Baylor that had lost 3 consecutive games to Liberty, UTSA, and Duke, so they dropped.
Penn St moves back into the top 5 because, even though it was super close, it takes some guts to win at night in Iowa, and wins like that are what championship teams are made of. USC is just going to continue winning close games against teams that they have significantly more talent than (like Cal). They could be in trouble in Pullman, WA this coming Friday against Mike Leach and Wazzou. Michigan looked to be in trouble early, but they handled a rapidly improving Purdue team on the road 28-10.
Rounding out the top 10, Georgia dismantled a trendy upset pick, Mississippi St, 31-3, and looks to be the clear leader in the SEC East. Washington beat up Colorado in Boulder – a team we thought at the beginning of the year might not be as good this season, but looked good early against cupcakes – and Virginia Tech got another dominating victory over Old Dominion to move to 4-0, as they get ready to host Clemson this coming weekend, with College Gameday coming to Blacksburg.
Alabama’s beatdown of Vandy, and Georgia’s 31-3 domination of Miss St, makes SEC a 2 team race
Ok, so here’s what we know.
Alabama dominated Vanderbilt, in Nashville, in every way possible, en route to a 59-0 victory. Bo Scarborough – who said he heard a Vandy player say he “didn’t even want to play anymore” after going down 28-0 in the 2nd quarter – was quoted as saying “I still think that our team can do better.” Vandy, before this game, was the #1 defense in the country, and had the #1 most efficient quarterback in the country. That’s not the case anymore.
Georgia’s win at Notre Dame continues to look good – ND has beaten Temple, Boston College, and Michigan St (the last 2 on the road) by a combined score of 136-54 – and their 31-3 stomping of Miss St, in Athens, just one week removed from State’s 37-7 beatdown of LSU, set them up as the team to beat in the SEC East.
Georgia’s remaining schedule includes next week at Tennessee (who escaped 17-13 at home against UMass Saturday), at Vandy (who was steamrolled by Bama), Missouri (who has lost 3 straight at home to SC, Purdue, and Auburn by an avg score of 39-10), Florida (who beat both Kentucky and Tenn on last second touchdowns, and was beat up by Michigan), South Carolina (who lost at home to Kentucky, and apparently can’t score now that Deebo Samuel is out), at Auburn (who also seems to be having issues scoring), Kentucky, and at Georgia Tech.
Does anybody really think there’s anybody else in the SEC that won’t end up with multiple conference losses by the end of the season?
TCU’s win in Stillwater makes Big 12 more interesting
The college football world was already preparing for Bedlam, part 2, but a weak showing by Oklahoma in Waco, and TCU’s big win in Stillwater over Oklahoma St definitely makes us rethink what’s going on in the Big 12.
The undefeated teams left in the Big 12 right now are Oklahoma, TCU, and… wait for it… Texas Tech, who has impressive non-conference wins over Arizona St and Houston already.
You can’t count out Oklahoma St, because they’re still explosive on offense, and they might have just had a bad day. Kansas St lost at Vanderbilt last week, but they’re sure to make some noise in conference. And West Virginia is showing that you can’t dismiss them just because of a Week 1 last second loss to Virginia Tech.
We can all assume that Oklahoma is going to roll through the conference, but who is going to be their competition in the new Big 12 Championship game?
TCU is not a shoe-in. Remember, they still have to play road games at Kansas St, Iowa St, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech. Oklahoma St plays at Texas Tech next week, at Texas and at West Virginia, and Oklahoma still comes to Stillwater.
There’s no telling what could end up happening in this conference. Texas could play like they did at USC and run through the conference, Texas Tech could continue to put up big numbers and their defense can bend-but-not-break, West Virginia can pull off some big wins… look for craziness to continue in the Big 12 this year.
Big 10 is in for a crazy year, after Penn St escapes Iowa
Ohio St’s loss to Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago really hurts the Big 10, as compared to other conferences.
But Penn St’s last second win at Iowa shows that the league, as a whole, is in for another crazy year. Last season, Michigan lost at the last second at Iowa, and Ohio St lost on the road at Penn St. This year, Michigan plays at Wisconsin and at Penn St. Ohio St plays at Iowa and at Michigan. Penn St survived at Iowa, and still has to play at Ohio St. Wisconsin plays at Minnesota to end the year, which looks like it may be the only game that could give them issues.
It’s entirely possible that Wisconsin is the only undefeated Big 10 team going into the championship game, with them having the only shot at reaching the playoff. If that’s the case, does that mean the Big 10 is a great conference, or does them not having a playoff participant mean they’re not that great?
Is Jim McElwain turning into Les Miles 2.0?
I can’t explain how Jim McElwain and Florida keep doing what they’re doing.
Last night, they go down by 13 at Kentucky – a stadium that is as raucous as it gets, since they haven’t beaten the Gators in 30 years – and they change QBs, watch Kentucky beat itself with penalties and not putting enough guys on the field, and somehow come back and win the game by 1 with a touchdown with under a minute left. Kentucky gets the ball in position to kick a game winning field goal, but decides to run the ball up the middle to get it closer for their kicker… but ends up getting an obvious holding call that sets up a 56 yard kick for their kicker (his previous long was 54). The kick is dead on accurate… but it drops a couple of yards short, and Florida escapes with a 1 point win.
Last week, Florida is being outplayed by Tennessee, but Butch Jones outcoaches himself, and leaves the door open for a miracle hail mary on the last play of the game that Florida hits to win 26-20.
McElwain is 21-9 at Florida. Here are some of his wins:
- 2015: 31-24 vs East Carolina (ECU QB lost fumble at UF 21 yard line with :12 left)
- 2015: 14-9 at Kentucky
- 2015: 28-27 vs Tennessee (last second win on a 63 yard touchdown on 4th & 15)
- 2015: 9-7 vs Vanderbilt (field goal on last play of game)
- 2015: 20-14 OT vs Florida Atlantic
- 2016: 13-6 at Vanderbilt
- 2016: 16-10 at LSU (goal line stand on last play of game)
- 2017: 26-20 vs Tennessee (last second hail mary)
- 2017: 28-27 at Kentucky (came back from 13 down / UK missed FG as time expired)
That’s 9 of his 21 wins that have been by one possession.
Throw in the fact that only one of his 9 losses has been by only one possession… and you’ve got a coach that is capitalizing on playing weak competition.
Winning is fun. No matter how you do it.
But when you’re getting dominated by Alabama, Florida St, and Michigan (he’s 0-6 against those teams / avg score 36-12) and your other 3 losses are a 35-28 loss at LSU in 2015, a 38-28 loss at Tennessee (when you were up 21-3 early), and a 31-10 loss at Arkansas, how long will Florida be able to pull off these kinds of wins before it starts to fall apart?
I have no idea what to make of the Pac-12
I’m convinced that USC is losing this Friday night at Washington St.
Washington St then has games at Oregon and at Cal – both of which they have the weapons to win.
If that happens, and Colorado handles UCLA, Arizona, and Oregon St in the next 3 weeks, I have a feeling that College Gameday will be in Pullman, WA on Sat, Oct 21st, if they don’t end up going to Penn St for the Michigan game that weekend.
Enough about Coach Leach right now. Washington is looking like the best team in this conference, with USC and Washington St not that far behind.
We all bought in to the “The Ducks are back!” talk, but the truth is, Willie Taggart still has some work to do to build that team back up after the fall that occurred under Mark Helfrich. Their loss at Arizona St is not one that should happen – they were favored by 15.5, and Arizona St is, honestly, not a very good football team. Yes, playing on the road is hard. But Oregon should have won that football game.
Colorado is probably about to come back to earth now that their 3-0 perfect record was wrecked in Boulder by Washington. UCLA is 2-2 after losing to 2-2 Stanford, and that epic 45-44 comeback win against Texas A&M seems like forever ago for Jim Mora and the Bruins. Utah is still 4-0, but they haven’t looked good in any of their games – of course, when you’re 4-0, it doesn’t matter how you get there.
So if USC DOES win at Washington St, we’re really just looking at 2 teams in the Pac-12 that could compete for the conference championship and a shot at the playoff.
Let’s talk Hot Seats
Butch Jones: Vol fans talked about having a walkout protest against the coaching staff after the 1st quarter of the UMass game. And it looked like that definitely happened here – there was NOBODY left in those stands. It looked terrible on TV, and the Vols were incredibly underwhelming in a 17-13 win over 0-4 UMass.
Kevin Sumlin: Is the SEC bad enough that Sumlin could win enough games to keep his job? It looks that way right now.
Bret Bielema: Jeff Long, Arkansas AD, probably is not going to fire Bielema, thanks to a huge buyout, and the fact that Long worries about other things besides wins and losses. But the fanbase is getting restless, now that Bielema has moved his SEC record to 10-23 in 5 seasons in Fayetteville. I don’t think they’re going to see any results this season, and I’d expect the boys with the checkbooks to go ahead and write one to buy out Bret and bring in a new fresh face to get some hope back with the fanbase.
Mark Stoops: How long is Kentucky going to be patient with these major league coaching screw-ups? Florida scored 4 touchdowns last night – 2 of which were to WRs in the post that were not even covered. The defense never even saw them. On the game-winning touchdown, his defense only had 10 guys on the field. Stoops has improved Kentucky from what they were under Joker Phillips
Brian Kelly: A beatdown of Michigan State in East Lansing makes you think that maybe, just maybe, this Irish team is going to be pretty good. Sitting at 3-1 with the toughest part of their schedule still remaining, this team could help get Kelly off the hotseat. I don’t think Notre Dame wants to fire him, and I think he’s a pretty good football coach… but his management style has to change, along with his attitude, or he won’t last long regardless of what he does in games.
Jim Mora: UCLA got smoked 56-34 at Stanford, who was coming off two straight losses. Not a good look, especially considering UCLA has still not beaten Stanford under Mora.
Who is still undefeated from the Power 5s?
Yes, there will be plenty of teams that could get to the Playoff with only one loss, but let’s take a look at teams that are still undefeated through the first 4 weeks.
ACC
- Clemson
- Wake Forest
- Duke
- Virginia Tech
- Miami (FL)
Big 12
- Oklahoma
- TCU
- Texas Tech
Big 10
- Michigan
- Penn St
- Minnesota
- Wisconsin
Pac 12
- Washington
- Washington St
- USC
- Utah
SEC
- Alabama
- Georgia
