Outside of the annual Army-Navy game we have concluded the college football regular season and now wait for the conference championships to wrap up before the unveiling of the 6th edition of the 4-team playoff, plus other bowls too.
This Week’s Winner: Gus Malzahn, Head Coach, Auburn
He did it again. Mr. Arthur Gustav Malzahn III is finishing up his 7th season at Auburn and now adds his 3rd pelt of victory against Nick Saban and Alabama in that time frame. I suppose he’ll be perpetually on the hot seat with the high standards at Auburn but you can’t knock his success against his main rival.
This Week’s Loser: P.J. Fleck, Head Coach, Minnesota
I’m a big fan of Fleck but I believe for a lot of other folks this past weekend was a pivotal game for him under the bright lights. The Gophers couldn’t get it done and now have to sit out the Big Ten Championship as well as a major bowl game. Close but no cigar.
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | LAST WEEK |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ohio State (+1) | 12-0 | 56-27 Win vs. Michigan |
| 2 | LSU (-1) | 12-0 | 50-7 Win vs. Texas A&M |
| 3 | Clemson | 12-0 | 38-3 Win vs. South Carolina |
| 4 | Georgia | 11-1 | 52-7 Win vs. Georgia Tech |
| 5 | Oklahoma (+1) | 11-1 | 34-16 Win vs. Oklahoma State |
| 6 | Utah (+1) | 11-1 | 45-15 Win vs. Colorado |
| 7 | Florida (+1) | 10-2 | 40-17 Win vs. Florida State |
| 8 | Baylor (+1) | 11-1 | 61-6 Win vs. Kansas |
| 9 | Wisconsin (+4) | 10-2 | 38-17 Win vs. Minnesota |
| 10 | Penn State (+1) | 10-2 | 27-6 Win vs. Rutgers |
| 11 | Alabama (-6) | 10-2 | 48-45 Loss vs. Auburn |
| 12 | Minnesota (-2) | 10-2 | 38-17 Loss vs. Wisconsin |
| 13 | Auburn (+3) | 9-3 | 48-45 Win vs. Alabama |
| 14 | Notre Dame | 10-2 | 45-24 Win vs. Stanford |
| 15 | Oregon | 10-2 | 24-10 Win vs. Oregon State |
| 16 | Memphis (+1) | 11-1 | 34-24 Win vs. Cincinnati |
| 17 | Michigan (-5) | 9-3 | 56-27 Loss vs. Ohio State |
| 18 | Boise State (+1) | 11-1 | 31-24 Win vs. Colorado State |
| 19 | Iowa | 9-3 | 27-24 Win vs. Nebraska |
| 20 | Virginia (NR) | 9-3 | 39-30 Win vs. Virginia Tech |
OUT: Cincinnati
IN: Virginia
The playoff committee has kept Utah ahead of Oklahoma which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The Utes currently have zero wins over ranked teams, the Sooners have two such wins and I think a much more impressive resume in general, plus Oklahoma has the far better traditional and advanced stats except on defense but one could argue their offense more than makes up the difference. It’s a weird move, but it would seem they are setting things up for the Sooners to jump Utah after this weekend with a win over their No. 7 (Baylor) vs. No. 13 (Oregon) facing Utah. Maybe a little bit of built in drama for those sweet, sweet TV ratings?
The committee has Baylor ahead of Florida and the Gators are now below Wisconsin. None of this is terribly upsetting as they now begin to group teams (largely) by losses but I just can’t overlook the Badgers’ resume with that loss to Illinois and blowout loss to Ohio State. Like the Badgers, Notre Dame has a blowout loss to a Big Ten team, a close loss to Georgia instead of Illinois, and the same trio of wins over ranked teams in the bottom half of the polls. The edge is probably still Wisconsin anyway but the Irish have Power 5 wins over winning Virginia Tech and Louisville teams while Wisconsin has none beyond their three above. Just kind of interesting to see the differences in opinion on both of these programs.
I was surprised to see the committee drop Alabama 7 spots (behind Auburn, no less) and really hammer Minnesota 10 spots all the way down to 18th.
Michigan got their doors blown off by Ohio State and fell exactly one spot in the committee’s rankings, still remaining above Notre Dame.
Interesting to see a few exceptions to grouping teams by defeats that even with one more loss Auburn, Michigan, and Iowa are all ahead of Alabama, Notre Dame, and Minnesota respectively due to head-to-head wins.
Championship Week Games to Watch
Pac-12 Championship
Utah [-6.5] vs. Oregon (Santa Clara, CA)
Utah seems so close yet so far away from making the playoffs. They need Clemson to lose and would still need help in LSU defeating Georgia, then maybe the Utes sneak into the 4th spot. I’m generally rolling with the feeling that the Pac-12 can’t have nice things and operating under the assumption that a 12-1 Utah program won’t happen. Ducks 27-23.
Big 12 Championship
Baylor [+9] vs. Oklahoma (Arlington, TX)
I can’t shake the irony of Alabama falling out of the playoffs while Jalen Hurts makes a run for a National Championship after his transfer away from Tuscaloosa. The Sooners sneaky dominated this matchup a few weeks ago (34 first downs!) and should outclass Baylor again. Sooners 41-27.
Sun Belt Championship
Louisiana [+6.5] at Appalachian State
There likely isn’t a scenario where Appalachian State can grab the G5 major bowl spot but you never know. Also, shout out to Louisiana for being a sneaky good 10-2 and making this an actually exciting Sun Belt Championship Game. Mountaineers 34-30.
AAC Championship
Cincinnati [+9.5] at Memphis
The expectations are that the winner of this game will grab the major bowl bid for the Group of 5 conferences. Of course, these two teams literally just played at Memphis this past Saturday and are coming back to do it again. I still think that Memphis offense and home field are too much. Tigers 39-28.
SEC Championship
Georgia [+7] vs. LSU (Atlanta, GA)
I was just reading something about how Georgia’s offense took one of the larger steps backwards in the country which makes sense when you see they scored 30 or fewer points in 8 out of their 10 games against Power 5 opponents. There’s just no way they can keep up with this LSU offense, right? Tigers 35-24.
Mountain West Championship
Hawaii [+14] at Boise State
Boise is currently ahead of Cincinnati by one spot in the CFP rankings and maybe grabs that major bowl bid with a dominating performance here and a Memphis loss? Doubtful, but you never know. Broncos 47-39.
ACC Championship
Virginia [+28.5] vs. Clemson (Charlotte, NC)
Virginia probably won’t break 100 yards of total offense, at least until the dogs are called off. Tigers 40-6.
Big Ten Championship
Ohio State [-16] vs. Wisconsin (Indianapolis, IN)
The knee injury to Justin Fields makes this one a little more foggy than expected. Still, there’s really no scenario I can come up with absent a bunch of fluke turnovers where Wisconsin keeps this tight enough into the 4th quarter. Ohio State has been scary good this year being an absurd +457 in point differential. How is that real? Buckeyes 33-13.
Sad to think we’re almost at the end of the trail once again.
These rankings, no matter who’s doing them, always boil down beyond a certain point to subjectivity once the obvious stuff is settled. Clearly the top 3 really are the top 3, easy peasy, but even within that, it’s subjective which should be ranked #1. I personally would rank LSU over OSU, mostly because I think LSU beat tougher teams, and I have an innate disrespect for the big ten or whatever they are now, actuality. But I do see the argument for OSU first.
Dabo, on the other hand, would argue he’s the defending NC, undefeated, with the longest win streak, and until you knock out the champ, he’s still the champ. A rational argument, but with weak spots.
Once you get beyond those three, it gets pretty messy pretty quickly as we go down through the rankings.
I also think the strength of schedule dynamic is pretty subjective as well.
Anyway, great job in a good ND year, Eric and the 18S gang. Keep up the good work, much appreciated.
Right on!
I still don’t get the love for Florida and probably never will. Is their 2nd best win Kentucky?
It’s one of those things where if you only look at best wins they aren’t going to wow you, that’s for sure.
But, I also try to zoom out a little more. I mean, they played LSU and Georgia pretty close and beat Auburn. They didn’t play a couple 8-4-ish decent teams to really help their resume but I doubt they lose those games.
They played Miami pretty close too. South Carolina they trailed the first 3 quarters before running away with it in the 4th. Just watching them play, I don’t look at them and think “that’s a team ND would lose to way more often than not.” Certainly not 7 spots better than ND in the rankings, anyway.
It should be closer but the national media (rightfully) didn’t care about Notre Dame after Michigan. Aside from the value adding in just making conversation, they should really only rank like the top 10 anyways for playoff purposes, but alas.
But, for the fun of making conversation, what does ND do if they played Florida’s schedule? We saw @UGA a loss, LSU let’s not think about so that’s at best Notre Dame matches UF’s 10-2. Can ND win at home vs Auburn? Maybe. Maybe not.
So I guess it’s about right to rank UF over ND at this point, their Auburn win was more impressive than any ND win and the whole Michigan blowout stains the Irish. Really it’s a shame that game (ND v. UF) can’t be the Orange Bowl, would be a lot better than what the Orange Bowl is gonna be.
I hadn’t thought of it that way; what do I think Florida do against NDs schedule? We saw how they played against Miami and Kentucky. I bet they would have lost to USC, Michigan, and Georgia, at least. It’s funny, but now that I think about it, I think it’s possible both of these 2 loss teams end up with 3 losses if they play each other’s schedule instead.
It’s not that I think ND should be top 8. It’s that I just don’t get the national love for Florida. Maybe I’m missing something, but their D Line is their only unit that I’ve thought looked consistently good.
Gotcha. I do agree with you that certainly above average SEC teams get boosted up on reputation and just admiration of winning 9-10 games in the mighty SEC (to an extent Auburn and Alabama join Florida this year in that regard). Which I think kind of explains the “what am I missing” is that everyone does fawn over and inflate SEC teams.
I don’t really agree that USC is capable of beating Florida @the Swamp, but I guess it depends which version of their team showed up.
I don’t understand why you share in the committee’s love for Penn St! They’re not better than Notre Dame and their resume is not better than Notre Dame’s. You having Minnesota ahead of Notre Dame is even more strange to me. They got boat raced at home by Wisconsin, their OOC is horrendous and really they only have 1 good win at home against overrated Penn St. Notre Dame should be 12th
Penn State lost a couple tough road games–including playing OSU tougher than anyone else by a million miles–and didn’t get their doors blown off by Michigan, instead they beat Michigan. I have a hard time saying they are worse than Notre Dame.
I watched that entire Michigan/Penn St game. Michigan outplayed them most of the game and their 21-0 lead was in large part to terrible Big Ten officiating. Penn State was also lucky that Ohio St left a lot of points on the board against them.
Pretty sure this was the same thing everybody said about the 2018 ND Michigan game. I’ve been triggered.