Now, that was one awesome weekend of college football, dear friends. We made Dabo Swinney extremely sad and that even dulled the jealousy of watching Brian Kelly upset Alabama in Death Valley. The weekend was an even bigger tease with Rutgers leading Michigan at halftime–oh my goodness can you imagine if they actually held on for that win?
Alas, they did not hold on and Michigan actually had no problem covering. Rutgers gonna Rutgers.
But we had a great week! Guess who’s back in the 18 Stripes rankings, baby.
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | RESULT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia (+2) | 9-0 | 27-13 W vs. Tennessee |
| 2 | Ohio State | 9-0 | 21-7 W at Northwestern |
| 3 | TCU (+1) | 9-0 | 34-24 W vs. Texas Tech |
| 4 | Michigan (+2) | 9-0 | 52-17 W at Rutgers |
| 5 | Tennessee (-4) | 8-1 | 27-13 L at Georgia |
| 6 | Oregon (+2) | 8-1 | 49-10 W at Colorado |
| 7 | USC (+2) | 8-1 | 41-35 W vs. California |
| 8 | UCLA (+2) | 8-1 | 50-36 W at Arizona State |
| 9 | LSU (+6) | 7-2 | 32-31 W vs. Alabama |
| 10 | Ole Miss (+1) | 8-1 | BYE |
| 11 | Clemson (-6) | 8-1 | 35-14 L at Notre Dame |
| 12 | North Carolina (+2) | 8-1 | 31-28 W at Virginia |
| 13 | Alabama (-6) | 7-2 | 32-31 L at LSU |
| 14 | Utah (-2) | 7-2 | 45-20 W vs. Arizona |
| 15 | NC State (+5) | 7-2 | 30-21 W vs. Wake Forest |
| 16 | Tulane (+3) | 8-1 | 27-13 W at Tulsa |
| 17 | Penn State (NR) | 7-2 | 45-14 W at Indiana |
| 18 | Texas (NR) | 6-3 | 34-27 W at Kansas State |
| 19 | Liberty (NR) | 8-1 | 21-19 W at Arkansas |
| 20 | Notre Dame (NR) | 6-3 | 35-14 W vs. Clemson |
National Storylines
Roughly half of the Texas A&M roster was out this weekend with the flu bug and the Aggies put up a valiant effort in a 41-24 loss to visiting Florida. Now, A&M sits dead last in the SEC West.
Tulane’s Cinderella season continued with a dominant 27-13 win at Tulsa setting up a ranked vs. ranked matchup this weekend that ESPN GameDay sadly gave the stiff arm to in favor of the Big 12.
GameDay instead is headed to TCU at Texas this weekend after the Frogs held off a spunky Texas Tech team 34-24 and Texas did the same preventing a comeback from Kansas State 34-27 in Manhattan.
Baylor also survived a classic Big 12 back-and-forth game against Oklahoma 38-35. That is losses in 4 out of their last 6 games by the Sooners.
A lot of people felt like Georgia should’ve been number one all season and they’re vindicated following a slow strangling of Tennessee in Athens. The Vols scored a late touchdown to obscure a game in which Georgia completely controlled and even dominated at times.
UCF remained in the battle for the AAC title following a 35-28 win at Memphis. That Memphis team remains pretty dangerous but slumps down to 4-5 (2-4 in conference) on the season.
Despite heavily out-gaining Sparty and only allowing 4 conversions all game long, Illinois falls 23-15 at home. The Fighting Illini are still in 1st place in the Big Ten West and have that win over Wisconsin in their back pocket, too.
A goal line stop in Fayetteville gave Liberty a win over Arkansas 21-19. The Fighting Hugh Freeze’s led 21-0 and almost choked away the game after being shutout in the 2nd half.
Well, LSU did it. Despite being out-gained by 98 yards, an early end zone interception off Bryce Young set the tone for a big upset. Alabama would end up kicking a field goal to force overtime, the Tide scored first in OT, but an absolute ballsy decision to go for the 2-point conversion following their own touchdown gave LSU the win, and now the lead in the SEC West division.
If you like defense, stop reading now. Houston and SMU battled each other in a game where either tackling was illegal or they played flag football and didn’t supply any flags. The Mustangs won by 14 in a contest featuring a combined 140 points, 65 first downs, and 1,352 yards.
Let us not forget that Miami was pre-season no. 16 in the country according to the AP poll. Their nightmare debut season for Mario Cristobol continues in a 45-3 embarrassment at the hands of rival Florida State inside Hard Rock Stadium. The Hurricanes finished with 188 total yards with 4 turnovers.
I wrote NC State off last week but they played pretty well beating Wake Forest 30-21 in Raleigh. It was another tough week for Deacons quarterback Sam Hartman who threw 3 interceptions.
OUT:
No. 13 Illinois
I was very close to keeping Illinois in the rankings this week. This close. However, we are starting to see a handful of other teams moving up who have exhibited a higher ceiling with better wins and as we know in the College Football Playoff era Best Wins is the God.
No. 16 Wake Forest
At one point, we were talking about Wake maybe usurping Clemson for the division title. Now, they are sitting in the second-to-last place just above Boston College.
No. 17 Kansas State
This has been one hell of an up and down season for K-State. However, to date they have lost to all 3 ranked teams that they’ve faced.
No. 18 Oklahoma State
This has to be among the worst back-to-back weeks in recent Oklahoma State memory. This week they were calmly blown out by Kansas 37-16 which means they’ve been out-scored 85-16 over their last 2 games.
Opponent Watch
Ohio State (9-0): A super ugly win at Northwestern with all the wind swirling around completely stifled the strong Buckeyes passing game.
Marshall (5-4): Always known for their very tough defense totally capable of beating any team at any point, Marshall shuts out Old Dominion 12-0 on Saturday.
California (3-6): Cal did a ton of damage through the air (406 yards, 3 TD) in their loss to USC.
North Carolina (8-1): Drake Maye is 2nd nationally in passer rating to CJ Stroud with 438 more rushing yards and 6 more total touchdowns than the Ohio State quarterback. Should Maye be leading the Heisman conversation today?
BYU (5-5): The 4-game losing streak for BYU is over following a 31-28 win at Boise State. A late touchdown with just under 2 minutes remaining gave the Cougars the win in a game they out-gained the Broncos by 208 yards.
Stanford (3-6): Notre Dame scored 16 points against Stanford. This weekend, Washington State (a bandgaverage offense) scored 52 points in a blowout win over the Cardinal.
UNLV (4-5): UNLV were shutout in the 1st half against San Diego State and couldn’t come back in a 14-10 loss. That’s now 4 straight defeats for the Rebs.
Syracuse (6-3): Syracuse has lost 3 straight games. Garrett Shrader didn’t play at quarterback and the Orange mustered just 145 total yards in a 19-9 loss at Pittsburgh. YIKES.
Clemson (8-1): Folks, we whooped ’em.
Navy (3-6): The Middies offense was MIA in a 20-10 loss at Cincinnati. I’ll be doing this week’s preview and it’s time to get mentally prepared for that first frustrating 3rd down conversion from Navy.
Boston College (2-7): First Round Phil sat this weekend with a knee injury. His replacement, redshirt freshman Emmett Morehead, played pretty well with 330 yards and 4 touchdowns. It wasn’t enough as Duke beat the BC 38-31 in Chestnut Hill. Mike Elko is DGT™.
USC (8-1): That’s now 115 points allowed by USC over their last 3 games. Their offense may be scary good but this defense, I don’t know man. UCLA may take them down before Notre Dame gets their chance.
Week 11 Games to Watch
Now featuring dates, channels, and times eastern!
East Carolina (+5.5) at Cincinnati
Friday, ESPN2, 8:00 PM
This game caught my attention for Friday night. Holton Ahlers is a pretty dangerous quarterback (4th in the AAC in passer rating, nearly 13,000 career passing yards and 111 touchdowns) and would’ve made the transfer quarterback list last week if he had any eligibility beyond 2022. He could make ECU spring an upset on the road.
LSU (-3) at Arkansas
Saturday, ESPN, Noon
I’m just saying Brian, be careful. Have the team ready for the Noon start.
Alabama (-11.5) at Ole Miss
Saturday, CBS, 3:30 PM
Prior to last Saturday, I had marked this game as a loss for Alabama. The Tide’s secondary really leaves a lot to be desired and Kiffin has to be salivating at making some big plays through the air. But, when was the last time Alabama lost 2 straight* in the regular season? And this would be losses in 3 out of their last 4, too.
*I did the research and Saban hasn’t lost back-to-back regular seasons games since his first season at Alabama in 2007. That’s another one of those absurd statistics from his run with the Tide.
UCF (+2) at Tulane
Saturday, ESPN2, 3:30 PM
Social media felt like this should’ve been the GameDay location and I agree. Sure, Texas and TCU is a matchup of the top 2 teams in the Big 12 and that’s nice. It would’ve been cool for the ESPN show to make the trek down to New Orleans and give some publicity to one of the coolest stories of the season. Plus, they have a cool stadium and amazing uniforms!
Washington (+12.5) at Oregon
Saturday, Fox, 7:00 PM
The Huskies have faded a bit since losing twice in a row a little over a month ago, plus they haven’t scored 30 in each of their previous 2 games prior to being pretty explosive through the air. Oregon has been getting a lot of love lately and now their coach is rumored to be in the running for the Auburn job. I bet this is a close game.
TCU (+7) at Texas
Saturday, ABC, 7:30 PM
That’s a lot of points in favor of Texas! We’ll all wondering how good TCU is this year and the Big 12 really hasn’t offered much resistance, to say nothing of the Frogs OOC schedule. They travel to Austin this week and then Waco next week, though. They are close to clinching the regular season title and drooling over a playoff spot if they win the league championship game.
North Carolina (+3.5) at Wake Forest
Saturday, ESPN2, 7:30 PM
I know North Carolina’s defense was much maligned, but they’ve been a little better allowing 24.5 points per game since the loss to Notre Dame. I was a little surprised to see Wake favored by this much, even at home. The Demon Deacons have not been playing well at all.
FWIW- Ara never lost back to back regular season games at ND. (11 seasons)
I think that guy was pretty good in his day.
Hey, stanford only gave up 14 points to ND. Put some respect on their name.
Man I really dislike a lot of things about kelly but him making me root against LSU might be the worst. Damn you BK. But that’s a rough turnaround. Beating bama at home in a game that went past 11pm local time and probably celebrated til about 6am to a road trip with 11am kick in Fayetteville. Go Hogs
My wife is a Tulane alum, and is scouting the cotton bowl for a college reunion with her friends. Would fall on our 10th wedding anniversary but don’t think I can say anything since I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary at the cotton bowl without her.
That Morehead kid…he got any eligibility left?
He’s 6’5″ so way too tall for Rees & Company.
The Oregon head coach is Dan Lanning, former DC at Georgia. In dispelling the rumors of any interest in the Auburn job, Lanning said yesterday:
Both one year Willie (Taggert) and Mario Cristobal (four years) declared Oregon as their dream jobs and went back to Florida when the grass seemed greener. Taggert tried unsuccessfully to poach his assistant coaches (sound familiar?) and succeeded in getting a number of Oregon commits to come to FSU. The assistant coaches stayed on despite Taggart’s attempts with similar statements to Lannings’ about Eugene and commitments to building the Oregon program, Taggert flamed out in less than a year and a half there. As noted, Cristobal’s Miami team is not living up to expectations.
But the money from an $80 mill contract does buy an eight million dollar mansion near Coral Gables. I imagine Miami is his dream job now. To his credit, Mario did not try to poach coaches or recruits and helped further build a program over his tenure. As Chip Kelly did, who left for the Eagles. Cautionary tales for some.
He gone
Like a steam locomotive, rollin’ down the track
As long as Saban is at Alabama, Auburn is one of the worst P5 jobs in the country. Their last 4 coaches:
-Had an undefeated season, eventually fired
-Won National Championship, eventually fired
-Lost National Championship, eventually fired
-Fired after 21 games
Meanwhile, Oregon has all that Nike money, has an easy conference to play in, and has fans who aren’t absolute lunatics with absurd expectations. Anybody who chooses to leave Oregon for Auburn is a madman. (Although I suppose to be a coach at this level you have to be a bit of a maniac)
Saban will probably only coach 15 more years. So might as well get a jump start on that Auburn job.
But, on a more serious note, I see 2 potential reasons to take Auburn over Oregon (to be clear these are the only 2 reasons I could come up with at all).
It took a while to even come up with those reasons. But whatever the reasons, please take it, and take it before Moore signs.
Yeah and:
1) Yeah that’s tough, although I will note Auburn hasn’t had more than 3 recruits better than 600 from the state of Alabama in any of the 2020 – 2022 classes.
2) That’s really the strongest argument, and I do get it. The Pac-12 certainly wouldn’t be my dream destination. I do think that there is a strong chance they end up in the Big 10 or in some other version of a Super Conference by 2026.
Yeah. You would think Oregon would be a top choice for any conference. They’ve been pretty consistently good since Kelly, and still draw a bunch of eyes and attention. And Nike. I’d be pretty shocked if they didn’t find a home.
Regarding recruiting distances. Not that you are arguing there’s more talent closer to Oregon, but here are some interesting numbers.
Auburn is 100 miles from Atlanta and 375mi to New Orleans. Eugene is 275 miles to Seattle and 475mi to Sacramento. (apologies to anyone from Portland, OR, but I didn’t feel it was worthy of mentioning in a football context).
In their current classes, the combined distance from AU’s campus for their top 5 commits is less than 1,000 miles. Oregon has 1 commit out of it’s top 10 (maybe more, I just stopped looking) that are closer than 500 miles.
I spend very little time on the west coast, I am always blown away by how massive the states and distances are out there.
Yeah, fair. Comparing state of Oregon recruiting to state of Alabama recruiting is apples to oranges since there is a boatload of talent around Alabama. If I was Lanning, I would be working the transfer portal hard.
Yeah. It’s so different. Easier to land more good players. But way harder to land players to actually compete in your conference.
Some interesting posts. As far as recruiting and developing players, consider recent grads now in the NFL – Herbert, Thibodeaux, Buckner, Penai Sewell, Mitchell, Lenoir, Armstead – and highly rated 2023 draft prospects – Noah Sewell, Christian Gonzalez. College Football News in their pre-season ranking had Oregon’s 2022 OL as Number 1 in the country.
By my count, including the 2023 Class the last four recruiting classes, the Ducks have had six five stars and forty-six four stars. The Irish would have loved to have had WRs Troy Franklin, Dont’e Thornton or CB Donte Manning.
Bo Nix is a transfer in, but with those recruits, he is being mentioned in Heisman talk.
One remarkable stat, which is separate from the Lanning to Auburn comments, is that the Oregon Offensive Line, even though the Ducks run a lot of RPOs, is that they have given up 1 Sack this year – for 1 yard! That includes the Georgia game, of course.
http://www.cfbstats.com/2022/leader/national/team/defense/split01/category20/sort01.html
And, according to the advanced stats article, have the best rushing success rate in the country. An incredible OL goes a loooong way.
After watching Bo Nix in the SEC, it seems nearly impossible to me that he has only been sacked once. Dude had happier feet than Ian Book. It felt like he was running into 2 or 3 bad sacks every game when he was at Auburn. Good for him (and Oregon) for completely turning his career around.
Interesting take. Not sure I agree Auburn is one of the worst P5 jobs, definitely one of the most difficult ones. They’re in the same boat LSU, except without being a marquee position but still demanding marquee results.
To me the problem is more they’ve hired either weak coaches (Chizik, Malzahn, Harsin) and/or they don’t have the right local ties and fit. Lanning built his career over the past decade mainly in the south, should be more of a fit.
I don’t think Lanning would necessarily be reckless to join the B school in Alabama. Plenty of good coaches have flocked to the SEC West to compete against Saban, and some are making headway, though I guess it’s debatable how long-lasting that might be.
But then again, I also kinda see Oregon as more of a stepping stone than an actual juggernaut to really build a consistent program. I get the point there’s a better chance to be consistently a top team out there without the competition, but I think in a perfect world Auburn could do what Georgia did (or A&M tried to build) and maybe LSU/Tennessee is working on, and become one of the top SEC teams, which in a good year means a playoff team.
I get it, but man, the SEC West just would not be a fun place to coach. Georgia and Tennessee aren’t quite comparable, because the SEC East just doesn’t have Nick Saban in it. The SEC West now has:
-The greatest head coach of all time
-A head coach who has won at least 9 games in 7 of his 12 seasons as head coach, including a National Title and National Runner Up
-The guy who completely turned around ND Football and is possibly going to have his 6th straight 10 win season.
-One of the brightest young offensive minds in college football, who has completely revived Ole Miss into a team that isn’t out of the CFP race yet.
-One of the weirdest offensive minds in college football, a guy who is never going to win anything important, but will completely derail your season if you don’t have at least 5 good DBs.
That just seems miserable. But to be fair, it seems like many head coaches absolutely love being miserable!
If only SECW still had the coach who will take off his shirt and fight your or his team!
John L. Smith?
The level of competition truly is insane.
But also, the level of athletes willing to go there is high. (Which isn’t to say Oregon can’t get players) but if you’re Auburn or LSU or what A&M aspires to be, there’s no reason those teams can’t be national powerhouses even with Saban in the very same division.
I guess, to a lesser degree, going to Auburn is like going to Penn State or Michigan State and seeing tOSU and Michigan in the very same division. Makes it impossible to be “the” team, but a good coach can still succeed even in those tough circumstances.
Plus, I haven’t seen for sure, but SEC is probably going to pods soon anyways when Texas and OU get there. So the days of the SEC strangehold should be gone soon. Almost the entire SEC is insanely tough though, but I do think that’s part of the attraction.
I am sure a lot of you saw this, but the play Kelly used on the 2 pt conversion was the same one used against Florida State in 2014 for the Irish
winpenalty. Kelly said “It was the exact same play. But I knew we weren’t gonna get called for a pick.”Yep, it’s a good play. Shouldn’t have been called for a pick the first time either, and rarely is anyways. Good for him for being bold enough to do it.
Related, with the new OT rules going to 2-point plays fairly quickly, I wonder if more aggressive coaching will develop in 1OT or 2OT like that. Might as well go for 2 immediately after a TD and try to end it there. Would suck to lose like that, but there’s no point in extending a game that is eventually just going to come down to two point tries anyways, might as well just rip the bandaid off and try it right away.
I forget if it was Kelly himself who said it or if it was a writer, but they pointed out LSU was going to get the ball right back for 2OT if they kicked and if they scored a TD then, they were just going to have to go for 2 anyway.