What a great weekend to watch Notre Dame topple North Carolina once again but as an appetizer witness Michigan coughing up a very winnable game to Michigan State. These are the moments on earth when you feel truly alive.
We’re getting closer to the end of the season and right now it’s looking like about a dozen teams are either in the title hunt or still looking frisky enough to beat just about anyone on a given day.
Let’s take a look at the latest Top 20 poll from 18 Stripes.
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | RESULT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | 8-0 | 34-7 W vs. Florida |
| 2 | Cincinnati | 8-0 | 31-12 W at Tulane |
| 3 | Oklahoma | 9-0 | 52-21 W vs. Texas Tech |
| 4 | Alabama | 7-1 | BYE |
| 5 | Oregon | 7-1 | 52-29 W vs. Colorado |
| 6 | Ohio State | 6-1 | 54-7 W at Indiana |
| 7 | Wake Forest (+1) | 8-0 | 45-7 W vs. Duke |
| 8 | Michigan State (+2) | 8-0 | 37-33 W vs. Michigan |
| 9 | Notre Dame (+2) | 7-1 | 44-34 W vs. North Carolina |
| 10 | Oklahoma State (+4) | 7-1 | 55-3 W vs. Kansas |
| 11 | Baylor (+4) | 7-1 | 31-24 W vs. Texas |
| 12 | Michigan (-5) | 7-1 | 37-33 L at Michigan St. |
| 13 | Auburn (NR) | 6-2 | 31-20 W vs. Ole Miss |
| 14 | BYU (NR) | 7-2 | 66-49 W vs. Virginia |
| 15 | UTSA (+3) | 8-0 | BYE |
| 16 | Ole Miss (-7) | 6-2 | 31-20 L at Auburn |
| 17 | Kentucky (-5) | 6-2 | 31-17 L at Miss St. |
| 18 | Iowa (-5) | 6-2 | 27-7 L at Wisconsin |
| 19 | SDSU (-2) | 7-1 | 30-20 L vs. Fresno St. |
| 20 | Houston (NR) | 7-1 | 44-37 W vs. SMU |
Things are not going great at Florida as they lost again to a Power 5 program this time in embarrassing fashion. Meanwhile, head coach Dan Mullen is straight up being a weirdo.
Cincinnati had the 1st half shortened on them by a pesky Tulane team but came through just fine over the final 2 quarters. Elsewhere, Oklahoma, Oregon, Ohio State, and Wake Forest all won comfortably.
Michigan, what are you doing? They led 10-0 in the 1st half and 30-14 in the 2nd half while comfortably out-gaining the Spartans in a loss. As I mentioned in 5WF don’t worry about Michigan, though.
Maybe do worry about Texas blowing another 4th quarter lead. The Horns are now 4-4 overall and sit in 6th place in the Big 12 conference. That’s a nice win for Baylor who remains tied for 2nd in the league and will host Oklahoma coming off a bye next weekend.
Auburn continues to Auburn-y things beating Ole Miss and remaining in the running to win the SEC as they control their destiny with the Iron Bowl looming.
I still like Ole Miss to be fair and I’d include them in the top 12 or 13 teams capable of beating just about anyone right now. In these current rankings, things really drop off after Auburn for me. For example, Iowa has been an absolute abomination with back-to-back losses and I still feel like they’re in the top 20 very loosely on merit. Three other teams suffered their 2nd loss and still remain ranked. It’s been a weird year.
We welcome back BYU to the rankings as they put up [checks notes] 734 yards at 8.8 yards per play on Virginia. Rubbing salt in the wound, quarterback Brennan Armstrong didn’t finish the game for the Cavaliers and is questionable against Notre Dame in a couple weeks.
It’s broken?
We haven’t talked about UTSA as much as PJ and his Group of 5 weekly rankings. They’re having a very nice season in an admittedly down year for the Conference USA and travel to UTEP (sneaky decent this year at 6-2, 3-1) this weekend and still host quality UAB later this season. These are the only remaining competitors in their division–and perhaps the entire conference. Things are going so well, UTSA announced a 10-year extension for head coach Jeff Traylor.
OUT: Pitt, Iowa State, SMU
WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT PITT?? Who didn’t want to listen? Their game against Miami coming off the Clemson win was an absolute classic let down game and there’s just no way Pitt was going undefeated in the ACC. But hey, they can still win the league.
Iowa State now has 3 losses and they’ve yet to play Oklahoma. We’ll always have the advanced stats for our Matt Campbell love.
SMU suffered their first defeat in a close loss at Houston but they’re still in the thick of things only dropping 4 spots in the AP Poll to 24th overall.
Me vs. The Committee
Tuesday night the first playoff rankings were released. Here’s a comparison between how I’ve ranked the teams this week followed by the committee if there’s more than a 1-spot difference:
Cincinnati 2nd —> 6th
Alabama 4th —> 2nd
Oklahoma 3rd —> 8th
Michigan 12th —> 7th
Wake Forest 7th —> 9th
Michigan State 8th –> 3rd
Texas A&M NR —> 14th
UTSA 15th —> NR
Iowa 18th —> 22nd
SDSU 19th —> 24th
Houston 20th —> NR
Miss State NR —> 17th
NC State NR —> 19th
Minnesota NR —> 20th
Wisconsin NR —> 21st
As usual, the SEC and Big Ten come out as the big winners. You’ll notice they stuffed a lot of those league’s teams in the bottom of the rankings to boost their top teams.
Perhaps I’m a little harsh on Michigan State at 8th but 3rd feels absurd right now. Michigan was their first win over a team with a record better than .500 and the Spartans have struggled and were nearly beaten by Nebraska and Indiana. The eye test says this is not a playoff team, they are 15th in the latest SP+ rankings, and I just don’t see how their resume justifies the 3rd spot other than “undefeated team leads the Big Ten West.”
Week 10 Games to Watch
Last Week: 3-4
Overall: 34-29
Wake Forest (+2.5) at North Carolina
A quick note that this game is NOT a conference matchup in the ACC. In their infinite wisdom these programs decided to add a 2-game series against each other that won’t count in league play because they got sick of so few games against each other with ACC expansion. Way to go conferences! This is such an obvious spot for Wake to finally drop a game. Tar Heels win 56-52.
Liberty (+9.5) at Ole Miss
I have a feeling if Ole Miss had won last weekend this would’ve been the GameDay location. This is the start to a fun ending of the season for Liberty who host Louisiana and Army after traveling to Oxford. This will be intriguing to see if Malik Willis can go wild against a ranked SEC team, especially with Matt Corral banged up. Smart money to take the points, at least. Rebels win 37-29.
Tulsa (+22.5) at Cincinnati
Is this the worst ESPN GameDay matchup in history? Tulsa was fun and frisky last year (nearly beating Cincinnati mind you) but are 3-5 with a loss to UC Davis! They just lost to Navy! Maybe TWWL should’ve just gone to Oxford anyway. That said, I think the Hurricane are a bit better than their record, usually punch above their weight, and will cover a large spread. Bearcats win 28-13.
Auburn (+4.5) at Texas A&M
It’s been a month since the Aggies beat Alabama and they’ve been off the radar since and are now coming off a bye week. I have a hard time seeing Auburn continuing to stay in the race to win the SEC and foresee a big offensive struggle against the 12th Man. Aggies win 29-16.
A note on UNC this week: All of ND’s opponents have played poorly at home immediately after losing to ND:
FSU lost to Jacksonville State at home
Toledo lost to Colorado State at home
Purdue squeaked by Illinois at home
Wisconsin lost to Michigan at home
VT lost to Pitt at home
USC squeaked by winless Arizona at home
also lol michigan
Take it to Vegas!
Betting on ACC football, what could possibly go wrong?
I’ve had a gut feeling that for every school we play, they circle two games on their calendar: their rival, and Notre Dame. I believe we get everybody’s best shot.
I haven’t done a deep dive (or any dive, really) but looking at how teams do against the spread the week after their ND game would make sense as a test for that.
Maybe that’s an interesting off season post…
Is Colorado State not Toledo’s main rival?
I’m hesitant to go down the “WE’RE EVERYBODY’S SUPER BOWL” path because that sounds like Michigan whining, but…
Almost every opponent has taken a bye before we’ve played them, and that has been a trend among our ACC opponents for several years now. Also, Kelly has said multiple times this year that opponents are showing stuff against us that they’ve never shown on film before. I think he called it “exhausting” this past week. Not that opponents aren’t allowed to do that, but there is definitely some truth to the idea that we get everyone’s best shot.
One of the many, many reasons we should be looking for the ACC’s exit sign, IMO.
“Ohio State beats #3 team” is the obvious pending narrative. Even if MSU trips up in the next two games before then, it’s still “Ohio State beats top 10 team”
It’s a set up!
It’s sad how true that is, and yet we’d have Hugh Freeze on a national stage again with his Fighting Malik Willis’. At least the collective we dodged a bullet there. Also Gameday went to Clemson the first Thursday of the 2019 season against a post Paul Johnson, who would finish 3-9, Georgia Tech team. That has to be in the running for worst matchup in recent history too.
This is the Gameday guys showing their “respect” for Cinci, in a game that will be watched by thousands.
And Eric, thanks for mentioning MSU having beaten nobody with a winning record (which the media does not mention) before winning vs Michigan. Loved that win, and I like what I see in Mel Tucker, but I don’t see them winning out.
It is totally pathetic and quite obvious that the Committee picks their four and then reverse-engineers the rest of the top 25 to justify their selections – and, as a comment above says, also sets up rankings to boost teams later.
Basically that’s a long way of saying Cincy is probably screwed and ND will be as lowly ranked as reasonably possible if and until Cincy loses.
Things will play out, this isn’t the final word. What happens on the field this month will settle things. Bama has no margin of error, win out through the SECCG or bye bye.
MSU and OSU play each other. Then Michigan plays OSU. Then the winner of that circus plays for the big, vs MN or WI likely. Could end up with a 2 or more loss BIG winner.
Teams behind Cinci can still pass them. And it’s not clear Cinci wins out vs SMU, or maybe Houston.
This ranking is pretty meaningless at this point. ND could still end up high enough for us to be happy.