We are inching closer to the playoffs as a couple teams crucially lost their 2nd game of the season this weekend. It’s not impossible to come back from such a deficit in 2024 but it won’t be easy. Largely, this past week was one where favorites ended up taking care of business, though. Some did it swiftly while others nearly toppled.
Here’s the latest 18 Stripes Top 20 Poll:
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | NEXT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | 6-0 | vs. Georgia |
| 2 | Oregon | 6-0 | at Purdue |
| 3 | Penn State (+2) | 6-0 | BYE |
| 4 | Miami | 6-0 | at Louisville |
| 5 | Alabama (+1) | 5-1 | at Tennessee |
| 6 | Georgia (+1) | 5-1 | at Texas |
| 7 | Ohio State (-4) | 5-1 | BYE |
| 8 | Iowa State | 6-0 | vs. UCF |
| 9 | BYU | 6-0 | vs. Oklahoma State |
| 10 | Tennessee | 5-1 | vs. Alabama |
| 11 | Indiana | 6-0 | vs. Nebraska |
| 12 | Clemson (+1) | 5-1 | vs. Virginia |
| 13 | Notre Dame (+1) | 5-1 | vs. Georgia Tech |
| 14 | Texas A&M (+1) | 5-1 | at Miss State |
| 15 | LSU (+5) | 5-1 | at Arkansas |
| 16 | Kansas State | 5-1 | vs. Houston |
| 17 | Boise State (NR) | 5-1 | BYE |
| 18 | Missouri | 5-1 | vs. Auburn |
| 19 | Pittsburgh (NR) | 6-0 | BYE |
| 20 | Navy (NR) | 5-0 | vs. Charlotte |
OUT:
#12 Ole Miss
#17 Utah
#19 Oklahoma
Ole Miss lost in overtime to LSU. It’s worth noting they are hanging around in the AP Poll (#18 seems excessively kind) despite a 1-2 start in SEC play with overall best wins of Wake Forest and South Carolina. For their part, LSU was already overrated by the AP coming into the weekend and now they are an incredible 8th nationally. That’s wild.
Year 14 for Cameron Rising isn’t going too well. He was hurt for a while and just threw 3 picks in a loss to Arizona State. How about those frisky Sun Devils, eh? They might be one of the biggest surprise 5-1 teams in the country.
Oklahoma offered little resistance to Texas in a 34-3 loss. With their schedule, the Sooners might finish 6-6 this year.
First round bye watch (if they win their conferences):
#1 Texas
#2 Oregon
#4 Miami
#8 Iowa State
No changes from last week. A possible list of 1st round playoff games at the moment…
#12 Boise State at #5 Penn State (winner plays #4 Iowa State)
#11 Indiana at #6 Alabama (winner plays #3 Miami)
#10 Tennessee at #7 Georgia (winner plays #2 Oregon)
#9 BYU at #8 Ohio State (winner plays #1 Texas)
It’s important to point out we still have 32(!!) Power 4 teams who are undefeated or with only 1-loss in league play so a lot is going to change.
National Storylines
Liberty stayed undefeated back on Tuesday with a 31-24 win over FIU.
Northwestern winning 37-10 at Maryland was one of the more interesting scores from the weekend.
A 14-point 4th quarter gave Iowa State the cushion to put away West Virginia 28-16 and move to 6-0.
Will Howard scrambled over the middle of the field as time expired on the Buckeyes in a bizarre late-game decision. They lose 32-31 at Oregon suffering a blow to their Big Ten regular season championship bid.
Clemson’s offense continues to look good after they blew out Wake Forest 49-14.
Georgia gave up 31 points to Mississippi State but scored 41 points themselves. Bizarre.
BYU defended home turf easily and beat Arizona 41-19.
Alabama looked awfully shaky again and were pretty lucky to escape with a 27-25 win over South Carolina.
Pittsburgh enters our rankings and are 6-0 after a 17-15 win against California.
No let down for Clark Lea as Vanderbilt’s 20-13 win at Kentucky moves the Commodores to 2-1 in SEC play.
217 more rushing yards for Ashton Jeanty as Boise State beat Hawaii 28-7. He’s averaging 9.9 yards per carry!
Tennessee needed overtime to beat rival Florida 23-17 in Knoxville.
Kansas State was able to hold off Colorado 31-28 in Boulder as Coach Prime drops his first Big 12 game this season.
Kirk Ferentz won his 200th game for Iowa as the Hawkeyes beat Washington easily 40-16.
Opponent Watch
Texas A&M (5-1): Coming off a bye week, the Aggies travel to Starkville this weekend.
Northern Illinois (3-3): A 17-7 win at Bowling Green gives NIU their first winning streak of the season.
Purdue (1-5): If there was a soul left, it was crushed in a 50-49 overtime loss at Illinois after fighting back from a 24-3 halftime deficit.
Miami [OH] (2-4): Eastern Michigan were dispatched 38-14.
Louisville (4-2): A late touchdown pass gave Louisville the 24-20 win at Virginia.
Stanford (2-4): SMU comes to The Farm this weekend.
Georgia Tech (5-2): The Bees went into North Carolina and picked up a 41-34 win.
Navy (5-0): A bye week after their Air Force win a couple weekends ago.
Florida State (1-5): Another opponent on a bye week.
Virginia (4-2): The Cavaliers are now 2-2 in ACC play following the loss to Louisville.
Army (6-0): This is 6 straight comfortable wins for Army to open 2024 after a 44-10 blowout over UAB.
USC (3-3): Only Maryland, Purdue, and UCLA are lower in the Big Ten standings than the Trojans right now. USC were outgained by 109 yards against Penn State and lost 33-30 in overtime. The Nittany Lions scored 27 of their points after the 1st half.
Saw some playoff projections having us as high as #6 once the chaos shakes out. That projection had us playing LSU in the first round, then the ACC winner in the second (Clemson in this mock, I also wouldn’t put it past Dabo to get past Miami).
Both winnable games, odds are good for us if we get a home game against a second tier SEC team in December. Main thing for ND is to avoid dropping to #7 or #8 and drawing the B1G or SEC winner in the quarterfinals. You start to see a path to the final four if it just requires beating the ACC or Big 12 champ in the second round.
It is really interesting how some paths to the final four are a lot easier than others. Even balancing out having to play 2 games vs just 1, I could see an argument how #5 is the ideal seed in many of the mock brackets I’ve looked at.
Benjamin Morrison out for the season due to a hip injury according to Pete Sampson and others
“You ever feel like nothin good was ever gonna happen to ya”
I hear there’s this kid named Jaden Mickey in the transfer portal. Think he’d be a good fit?
Sucks for us but he’s going to make way too much money on Sundays to fight through it and play again this year at this point.
Heartbreaking. I hope he’s ok and this doesn’t hurt his pro prospects!
Loren landow needs to take a long look in the mirror… we’ve lost 2 OL, 2 DEs, 1 CB to season ending injuries at the halfway point.
S&C is about injury prevention…. this sure doesn’t look like it. I acknowledge it’s a collision sport, but this is ridiculous.
It’s really curious, because the team came out of camp healthier than it had been in years. Freeman really celebrated that fact. The complete 180 since then is stunning.
100%, I was even singing his praises after TAMU (much like I was singing parkers last year after NCST)
They had quite a few of these injuries during the purdue game, who plays on Bermuda grass (I remember them telling us this explicitly several times when I did a visit for football back in the late tiller years, odd that’s your big sell to a FB recruit)
I think the field surface had something to do with it for that one. Regardless, what are they doing from a knee joint flexibility and strengthening standpoint?
On the outside looking in, it seems like their lower body load management was too much, and maybe not giving enough attention to stability work. It’s hard to win games when a quarter of your starters are on the IR from significant lower body injuries