We are through Week 5 of the college football season and there still aren’t enough upsets at the top of the sport. Perhaps we need more patience. We are happy to write that Duke didn’t get to be a part of the few upsets that did happen this past weekend. Beyond a small shuffling at the top and a few others dropping out of our rankings it was a fairly stable week.
Here’s the latest 18S Top 20 Poll.
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | NEXT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | 5-0 | vs. Kentucky |
| 2 | Texas (+1) | 5-0 | vs. Oklahoma |
| 3 | Washington (-1) | 5-0 | BYE |
| 4 | Ohio State | 4-0 | vs. Maryland |
| 5 | Florida State | 4-0 | vs. Virginia Tech |
| 6 | Michigan | 5-0 | at Minnesota |
| 7 | USC | 5-0 | vs. Arizona |
| 8 | Penn State (+1) | 5-0 | BYE |
| 9 | Oregon (+2) | 5-0 | BYE |
| 10 | Notre Dame (+2) | 5-1 | at Louisville |
| 11 | North Carolina (-1) | 4-0 | vs. Syracuse |
| 12 | Oklahoma (+1) | 5-0 | vs. Texas |
| 13 | Washington State (+2) | 4-0 | at UCLA |
| 14 | Alabama (+2) | 4-1 | at Texas A&M |
| 15 | Miami (+3) | 4-0 | vs. Georgia Tech |
| 16 | Utah (-8) | 4-1 | BYE |
| 17 | Ole Miss (NR) | 4-1 | vs. Arkansas |
| 18 | Oregon State (NR) | 4-1 | at California |
| 19 | Tennessee (+1) | 4-0 | at Texas |
| 20 | Kentucky (NR) | 5-0 | at Georgia |
Out:
#14 Duke
#17 LSU
#19 Kansas
National Storylines
Oregon State bounced back from a loss last week to hand Utah their first loss of the season, 21-7 in Corvallis.
Kentucky running back Ray Davis ran for an absurd 280 yards and 3 touchdowns as Kentucky dropped Florida 33-14.
Things were close for a bit before Texas ran away from Kansas 40-14, handing the Jayhawks their first loss.
BYU picked up their first Big 12 win in a 35-7 victory over Cincinnati. The Bearcats have started 0-2 in the Big 12.
Houston has also started 0-2 in the Big 12 after Texas Tech beat the Cougars 49-28.
Washington looked somewhat human in a modest 31-24 win at Arizona.
Texas A&M beat Arkansas 34-22 inside Jerry World.
With 8 minutes remaining in the 3rd quarter, UCF scored a touchdown to take a 35-7 lead inside the Bounce House. However, Baylor scored 29 unanswered points and UCF missed a 59-yard field goal to lose 36-35. That’s one that will keep you up at night.
Georgia came from behind to beat Auburn 27-20 as tight end Brock Bowers romped for 157 yards and 1 touchdown.
Missouri is quietly 5-0 after a 38-21 win at Vanderbilt.
Following a slow start, a big 2nd half saw Penn State easily beat Northwestern 41-13.
UConn led 17-0 and eventually lost to Utah State 34-33 after having their extra point blocked with 40 seconds remaining in the 4th quarter.
Alabama took care of business beating Mississippi State 40-17.
Illinois has started Big Ten play 0-2 following a 44-19 loss at Purdue.
Tennessee beat South Carolina 41-20 in Knoxville.
A Big Ten pillow fight broke out as Iowa beat Michigan State 26-16 in Iowa City.
Michigan blasted Nebraska 45-7 in Lincoln, one of the worst in history at home for the Cornhuskers.
Ugly loss for Georgia Tech as the Jackets were defeated by visiting Bowling Green 38-27. More on this game in this week’s Rambler.
Offensive fireworks and massive drama happened in Oxford as the hometown Ole Miss Rebels scored 21 points in the 4th quarter to beat LSU 55-49.
TCU suffered their first regular season Big 12 loss since November 26, 2021 as visiting West Virginia beat the Frogs 24-21.
Taulia Tagovailoa threw for 352 yards and 5 touchdowns as Maryland moved to 5-0 after a 44-17 win over Indiana.
Perhaps the most underrated story of the season has been Air Force who are 5-0 and have won 10 straight games stretching back to last season. The Falcons beat San Diego State 49-10 over the weekend.
Opponent Watch
Navy (1-3): The Middies hosted USF and were beaten 44-30 in Annapolis.
Tennessee State (2-2): UT-Martin beat the Tigers 20-10.
NC State (3-2): The NC State offense looked inept in a terribly boring 13-10 loss to visiting Louisville.
Central Michigan (3-2): The Chips came from behind and beat Eastern Michigan 26-23.
Ohio State (4-0): The Buckeyes had a bye this past weekend.
Duke (4-1): Well, the Blue Devils are undefeated no more and will be without their quarterback for a while.
Louisville (5-0): The Cards are the lowest rated undefeated P5 team in most advanced stats rankings, FWIW.
USC (5-0): USC looked in control until Colorado nearly made an epic comeback. The Trojans were able to hold on 48-41 in Boulder.
Pitt (1-4): Patience is wearing thin in the Steel City as the Panthers lose 38-21 at Virginia Tech. It’s the Hokies first win over a P5 team since week 2 of 2022.
Clemson (3-2): Dabo & Co. got back to their winning ways with a 31-14 victory at Syracuse.
Wake Forest (3-1): The Deacons had a bye and will play Clemson this weekend.
Stanford (1-4): Funny enough, Stanford led Oregon 6-0 in the 2nd quarter and many people were wondering what’s wrong with the Ducks? The Cardinal lost 42-6.
Week 6 Games to Watch
All time are eastern.
Oklahoma [+6] vs. Texas (Dallas, TX)
Saturday, Oct. 7th, 12:00 PM, ABC
To me this is the weekend of teams who haven’t been given a ton of spotlight finally entering bigger games. For example, Oklahoma is undefeated and it seems like this is as little as we’ve talked about the Sooners nationally in forever. I guess going 6-7 last year has that effect. Anyway, a Red River Rivalry between unbeaten teams! Don’t mess it up, Texas. The Horns schedule the rest of the way isn’t particularly daunting and this rivalry game has a history of insane/wacky/ridiculous results that no one expects.
Maryland [+18] at Ohio State
Saturday, Oct. 7th, 12:00 PM, Fox
Yet another pair of undefeated teams going at it in the Noon slot. By the way, does it feel like with the success of Big Noon Kickoff on Fox that we are back in a renaissance era for games this early being some of the best of the week? Not that I’d classify this game featuring Maryland as much of a showdown. The Terps have yet to beat Ohio State (0-8) and are once again large underdogs in this conference game.
LSU [-6.5] at Missouri
Saturday, Oct. 7th, 12:00 PM, ESPN
I debated putting Missouri in the 18S rankings this week. Their win over Kansas State is pretty solid and will probably look much better at the end of the year. Brady Cook (7th nationally in passer rating) is probably the best quarterback in the country that no one is talking about and former 5-star wideout Luther Burden (national leading 644 yards already!) is looking like a can’t-miss future NFL star. Man, imagine Brian Kelly losing this game to drop to 3-3 with several other big SEC games remaining on their schedule.
Washington State [+3.5] at UCLA
Saturday, Oct. 7th, 3:00 PM, Pac-12 Network
What a great story Cameron Ward has been up in the pacific northwest for Wazzu. He transferred after a big career at Incarnate Word, played pretty well for the Cougars in 2022, and currently sits 8th nationally in passer rating with only Sam Hartman throwing more touchdowns without an interception so far in 2023. UCLA was humbled a bit in their loss to Utah and we’ll see if as home favorites they can keep up with Washington State’s prolific offense. Both teams are rested coming off a bye, too.
Alabama [-2.5] at Texas A&M
Saturday, Oct. 7th, 3:30 PM, CBS
This game would’ve been extremely spicy if Texas A&M quarterback Conner Weigman didn’t get hurt. I’m not sure backup Max Johnson is a difference maker, although we know Alabama’s offense isn’t scaring many teams this year. This has all the ingredients of an old-school mid-2000’s SEC punt-fest that comes down to a last-second field goal.
Kentucky [+14.5] at Georgia
Saturday, Oct. 7th, 7:00 PM, ESPN
This is the first ranked team that Georgia has played this season. They still have 3 more ranked teams after this, plus Florida remaining on the schedule. None of this seems super daunting for the defending champs but their overall schedule looks a little more difficult than it did during the pre-season. Or, maybe this is a classic mid-season overvaluation of SEC teams and it’ll come crashing down soon? Do we think Georgia is going to go undefeated in the regular season?
If i’m michigan i’m feeling pretty good about myself, their schedule stinks, they have to feel great about kicking ohio states ass again. Seems like a shoo-in for the playoffs with no great team in it. Gross.
But honestly i’m half expecting saban to win another title. Their offense isn’t good but this would be classic saban to squeeze another title out this year
Michigan has two games v Big Ten West – Minnesota and Purdue – left, while having beaten Nebraska. Four teams (Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska and Northwestern) in the B10 W are 2-3. One (Minnesota) is 3-2, who will play Ohio State in addition to Michigan. Iowa is 4-1 but just lost Cade McNamara for an offense that averages 22 ppg. The offenses for Northwestern, Illinois and Nebraska average less ppg than Iowa’s.
Preseason ratings of SoS have Penn State’s as easiest. Maryland is ranked thirteenth with games against Illinois, Nebraska and Northwestern in the West to play. Maryland also will play Michigan, Ohio State and Penn St.
The West is 1-7 v the East (three losses to Penn St) and 2-6 v non-conference P5 teams. The West did feast on G5 teams 7-1. Outside of NW v Howard this weekend, the West teams only have conference play.
So many of the B10 West teams will struggle to get six wins as may Indiana and Michigan State who are also 2-3 in the East. MSU has Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State yet to play. Indiana has Michigan and Penn State to play.
Pillow fight? More like “Iowa exploded for 26 points!”, amirite?
Last year the only times they exceeded 26 points was Nevada and Rutgers (27), and Northwestern 33.
Lord almighty, what happened to LSU’s defense? Even BVG never put up numbers like that.
Almost like it didn’t actually recruit itself.
but
but
suthun tesla gumbo
Recruits dig tesla crossovers and golf
Does anybody happen to know the website that has the advanced stats win probability matrix for the remaining games? I liked seeing those tables last year and understand that the writers have not had as much time to post them this year
SEC short on this last week, was pretty funny.
I just want to document this somewhere. Using low angles and fisheye lenses allows the ACC to basically make up whatever result they want to reach when they’re reviewing these plays, but that ball went out of bounds outside of the goal line, just like the official who was right over it observed. Geometry is my conspiracy theory:
Tl;dr, that ball went out of bounds 14 inches prior to the goal line.
The supposed definitive view from the pylon cam loses sight of the ball when it’s still well more than a yard outside the endzone as it goes out of the field of vision.
Beside the facts that (1) this isn’t reviewable, and (2) the ball factually crossed outside the goal line, this view is ANYTHING but definitive as required by the misapplied rule that they used to review it.
Hell yeah, great work!
Literally, the most perfect coffin corner punt in college football history and we were robbed.
To your last point, the concept of INDISPUTABLE video evidence has pretty much disappeared from reviews in college football, practically speaking. Think about what “indisputable” really means — it basically means that everyone looking at the video would come to the same conclusion, assuming they were being even somewhat objective and fair. That is a very high bar for reversal and reversals should be rare.
We’ve gotten to a point where reviews are just “the refs aren’t sure what happened on that play, so let’s start over at the beginning.” If that’s what the standard needs to be, then fine, but the rules need to be changed to reflect it.
we’ve gone from pretty much a criminal standard of proof (higher really) to roughly a preponderance of evidence only on review with no regard to the initial call. I will some day find out that the ACC was out to strong arm us into joining like a protection racket and I will feel so smug about it
We’ve gone to a “squint and say ‘ehhhhhhh’” review standard
Even worse it feels like we’ve gone to commercials. It feels like most reviews just go to commercials and then we come back and a decision was made.
I have 2 thoughts on it. Either we review every play including penalties with a 30 second limit on the review or we go to a full NFL model, also with a time limit on the review.
2nd thought which will never happen, but would love to see an app where a CFB fan can sign up and a review gets pushed to your phone. You get the same feed/video as the booth gets and you have a 30 second timer and select to keep the call on the field or overturn. Whichever choice has the higher percentage is how the call is made. As someone who believes there is some level of rigging in sports, I know this will never happen because people don’t make million/billion dollar bets and give up all control. But i do think it would be awesome and we all know that there are plays where everyone including the fans of the team who benefit say that was a bad call.
The app will show three full minutes of insurance ads and then crash.
haha it hurts because it’s true.
I don’t think this would improve if we were full ACC members. It’s a conference of southern basketball schools that is embarrassed by the fact that we’ve kicked their asses 30 games in a row.
maybe – I don’t watch enough CBB to know how the refs treat us there or in other ACC sports. For football, it really feels like a shakedown to me
I agree completely with this. If it’s indisputable, then there’s no way it should take longer than 30 seconds to review. A perfect example is the catch that the OSU player dropped in the back of the end zone before half. Originally called a catch because the official couldn’t see it. It was obvious to everyone that it hit the ground on video – quick overturn. If you’re having to squint and go frame by frame to see where the tip of the ball was when Hartman went oob, or whether the ball juggled a little bit on that circus catch on the sideline by Harrison, we’re way past “indisputable evidence” and it should stand as called.
My theory is that they at least partially relied on the shadow and did a pressured-rushed knee-jerk reaction review where they applied a “could this reasonably be overturned” standard. That’s the best excuse for this call that I can come up with.
I wish the CFB world would shine a little more light on this horrendous officiating failure.
You’re forgetting that a prolate spheroid doesn’t bounce in straight lines. Seemed quite clear that the last bounce of the football changed the trajectory – it was headed in the line you posit, but the bounce made it kick a bit back into the field and took a different line.
This is between the final bounce in bounds and the first bounce out of bounds, so only looking at the air travel of the ball.
I’d also take contention with your presumed spot of the last touch in bounds – I’d argue it was more on the goal line side of the 2 yd hash and further inbounds than where you have – which would change the hypotenuse and push it further towards the pylon.
This is all proof that none of this is indisputable, if the call were reviewable in the first place. Still don’t know why we can’t have little RFID/NFC/whatever the correct technology is chips on the tips of the ball to better aid in referring/spotting. Would instantly be able to tell when a ball crossed a goal line, side line or line to gain.
Agreed on this. They use sensors in the balls in soccer, why not football? And camera technology has gotten good enough – why cant we have a tiny camera in the down markers, a la pylon cam?
If we had sensors in the balls, it would eliminate the need for commercial breaks during reviews, which is probably the actual reason it’s not going to happen.
ow my balls
Big Ten Coaches on the Hot Seat. The two fired for cause at Northwestern and Michigan State will be replaced. Tom Allen (Indiana) and P.J. Fleck (Minnesota) both hired in 2017 are hot seat candidates. Brett Bielema (Illinois) has had three double digit losses(Kansas, Penn St and Purdue) and have Wisconsin, Maryland and Iowa yet to play.
Is it time to give up on Greg Schiano at Rutgers? Their 4-1 record with wins over Wagner, Temple, Va Tech in addition to Northwestern is certainly nothing praise-worthy except for the scheduler. Wins over Michigan State and Indiana would get Rutgers another bowl. Future B10 opponents are Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Maryland and Iowa. Perhaps the A.D.’s debt saves him another year and the NJ taxpayers the $4 mill buyout.
Five maybe six? With three new B10 HCs hired last year, more than half the conference teams would be quite a turnover in two years.
Lovie got into a 5th year and never had a season as good as Bielema last year – Bielema is safe unless some scandal happens. Heck, Lovie only had one season as good as Bielema’s 5-7 first year. Illinois seems to know what it is for football. Schiano is also going to be safe unless they completely lose out and something else bad happens.
Allen sounds gone unless they can’t get money for the buyout. Fleck, we’ll see.
I suppose we should include your qualification when discussing any B10 coach in the future. Fleck’s buyout is $6 mill, Bielema’s is $6.5 million, Allen’s is $4.51 mill. and Schiano’s is $4 mill.
With the influx of all that media money we’ll see if B10 HC jobs turn over sooner than they have in the past. The weak B10 West is where new coaches have a greater chance of success while the realistic expectation for Sciano’s success is lower.
Another “Way too Early” coaching carousel comment, but there it is.
Unrelated: in a horrific display of cultural appropriation, Pitt is benching Jurkovec
NBC will be monitoring his Instagram 24/7 for the next three weeks.
The UCF and UConn losses are brutal! With regard to the latter, I am pleased.
Phil Jurkovic is likely not going to be seen back on the ND Campus for Lettermen Appreciation day, is he?
The blown overrule call on the out-of-bound punt really irks me. Can someone please tell me if they recall a huge officiating error occurring in ND’s favor? I realize that, on this topic, the tendency would be to remember only negative occurrences, but I don’t recall a single time this has happened. I recall multiple times it has happened against us.
Extra credit: Does anyone recall the officials picking up a flag that was thrown against ND? I do seem to remember that this has happened, but it sure seems to happen more often against us than for us.