In my game recap of Notre Dame’s win over Miami (OH) some discussions broke out about former Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson. That got me thinking about Dat Boy Swinney and I noticed he has a very similar record to Lou Holtz at Notre Dame. The Clemson Tigers are so hot right now.
Top 11
1 Clemson (+1, 5-0, 31-17 W at Virginia Tech)
This is now 3 wins over current Top 20 teams in the AP Poll. Clemson *should* cruise to the playoffs.
2 Alabama (-1, 5-0, 66-3 W vs. Ole Miss)
It looks like the days of this being a fun and exciting series are over.
3 Georgia (+3, 5-0, 41-0 W at Tennessee)
The Vols look downtrodden but the Dawgs are looking quite strong, too.
4 Oklahoma (-1, 4-0, Bye)
Cheeseburgers.
5 TCU (-1, 4-0, Bye)
Also, cheeseburgers.
6 Washington (+1, 5-0, 42-7 W at Oregon State)
This one was only 7-0 at half in favor of the Huskies. It ended quite differently.
7 Penn State (+1, 5-0, 45-14 W vs. Indiana)
Penn State had 39 yards on 37 carries but 4 turnovers doomed the Hoosiers.
8 Michigan (+1, 4-0, Bye)
Harbaugh has to get prepared for Michigan State.
9 Auburn (+2, 4-1, 49-10 W vs. Miss State)
This was supposed to be the type of Auburn offense many expected with Jarrett Stidham.
10 Ohio State (E, 4-1, 56-0 W at Rutgers)
The Buckeyes continue to beat up on poor competition since their loss to Oklahoma.
11 Washington State (NR, 5-0, 30-27 W vs. USC)
With wins over Boise State and USC the Cougars now have a solid early-season resume.
Next 2
Oklahoma State (E, 4-1, 41-34 W at Texas Tech)
Sneaky tough game in Lubbock finds the Cowboys coming away with a win, and Tech’s first loss.
USC (-8, 4-1, 30-27 L at Washington State)
Darnold has looked mediocre (9 TD/8 INT) and now freshman phenom tailback Stephen Carr is out for a few weeks.
Dropped out: Virginia Tech
G5 Top 3
San Diego State (E, 5-0, 34-28 W vs. Northern Illinois)
This NIU program isn’t what it used to be but the Aztecs holding them off is a decent win.
UCF (-1, 3-0, 40-13 W vs. Memphis)
Scott Frost is seriously Doing Good Things™ you guys.
South Florida (+1, 5-0, 61-31 W at East Carolina)
USF visiting UCF to finish the regular season, please both be undefeated!
You Were Bad
BYU
Fourth straight loss with Boise and Miss State coming up next.
Ole Miss
The Rebels have lost to Alabama by 64 points twice before so 63 points isn’t so bad, maybe?
Tennessee
Mustered 142 total yards at home to rival Georgia.
Rutgers
Suffered their 7th loss by at least 30 points since 2015.
Miss State
Out-scored 80-13 over the last 2 weeks.
LSU
Snapped their 49-game non-conference home winning streak with a loss to Troy.
North Carolina
Allowed 403 rushing yards to Georgia Tech and are off to a 1-4 start, Irish up next!
Baylor
.@RedditCFB Just in case you forget who Baylor’s lost to so far pic.twitter.com/xOELwYx8gV
— BANDBI (@bballbanddeer) September 30, 2017
For starting 0-5 with a 13-point loss to Kansas State.
Week 6 Preview
Enemy Watch
#17 Louisville (-4) at #24 NC State
Wake Forest (+21.5) at #2 Clemson
#5 Georgia (-17.5) at Vanderbilt
Temple (-2.5) at East Carolina
Bowling Green (+14.5) at Miami (OH)
#13 Miami (-3) at Florida State
Air Force (+7.5) at Navy
Oregon State (+34.5) at #14 USC
#16 Virginia Tech (-16.5) at Boston College
Michigan State (+11.5) at #7 Michigan
Stanford (-6.5) at #20 Utah
Lamar Jackson versus that NC State defensive line is a really fun matchup. Smart money on the home team to cover as dogs here?
Surely Clemson is due for a true stinker of a game. That might not equal a loss at home still Wake has been pretty competent this season.
I feel bad for Vanderbilt with Alabama, Florida, and now Georgia all in a row. They have to be so sore.
East Carolina has been so butt that they can’t even be favored over a really poor Temple team.
Chuck Martin should get back on track this week facing a putrid BSGU program.
Miami is largely untested and at least their offense should get a nice interview this weekend, at least.
I was thinking the Michigan spread would be a little larger, to be honest.
That’s a lot of disrespect for Utah, I wonder if they can slow down Bryce Love?
Too Close for Comfort
Penn State (-14) at Northwestern
The Nittany Lions tend to play close games. Last week may have been an aberration they only out-gained Indiana by 18 yards, Barkley was limited to 56 yards on 20 carries, and they had tremendous turnover luck. Northwestern usually has one “where did that come from” game per year and maybe this is it?
Upset Pick of the Week
SMU (+5.5) at Houston
There aren’t a ton of good picks this week. Chad Morris is doing reasonably well this year with the Mustangs. Houston is still one of the better AAC team but maybe not a clear-cut top tier program in their league anymore.
National Spotlight
#23 West Virginia (+13.5) at #8 TCU
LSU (+3.5) at #21 Florida
#1 Alabama (-26.5) at Texas A&M
#9 Wisconsin (-11.5) at Nebraska
#11 Washington State (+2.5) at Oregon
College Game Day is headed to Fort Worth for a game that doesn’t really move the needle much on a national scale.
Up next, we have a pair of SEC games that kind of don’t deserve to be here. What else is there to watch?
Washington State has to have one of the toughest run-ins to finish the season. If they can win in Eugene they might have a really good chance at a major bowl game if there’s carnage in the Pac-12 in the coming weeks.
Have I mentioned how much I hate the Big Ten? Overrated again! I think Ohio St is the best team there and they beat Penn St by 10+ at home. Would love for you to be right about Northwestern this weekend. Nebraska is awful and while I think Wisconsin is overrated, I think they beat Nebraska easy. The 2 Pac 10 games you mentioned intrigue me the most this week. USC was down what, 9 starters last week? No doubt at least some of them will be back when they come to South Bend.
For all the hype about the best first weekend ever, the prime-time games outside of UGA-ND (which was obviously a good game but disappointing result) and PSU-Iowa (which I missed due to a wedding) have been pretty darn disappointing so far. Lots of blow-outs. Seems like the ACC and SEC are pretty much set with Bama and Clemson cruising to the finish line. The Big-12 has never really interested me all that much. Hopefully the Pac-12 and B1G can deliver some quality games here in the coming weeks.
If you didnt enjoy that Tech/Okie Light game saturday night, im sorry, you just dont have a pulse brother. That was a fun one to watch
This week and next week appear to both be shockingly bad slates of games given that we’re now in conference-game season. Of course, some cfb is better than no cfb, plus somebody’s going to take an unexpected L. I just have no idea who. Maybe Wisconsin?
Sparty beats Michigan. Please make it happen, CFB gods!
I have friends in the area so I’m going to the UNC game this weekend! Scored so good tickets behind the ND sideline and fairly low for a reasonable price. Not sure if anyone else will be there, and my buddy says “they go to bars around here, they don’t really tailgate” but I think he’s misinformed. Anyways if anyone wants to drink a few pregame, feel free to hit me up @hooks_orpik on twitter!
I’ve never been to Chapel Hill, but I’ve been around that area of NC and it’s beautiful. Lots of trees and hills and great weather. I’m sure you can find something decent around there.
Well, the book club reading might be mandatory for us all on Saturday..
It’s 2014 all over again?
Apparently somewhere people were suggesting that since they didn’t see him get injured in the game, he must have hurt himself Saturday night “during college student extra curricular activities.” Kelly squashed that in his presser, but it amuses me how fans can immediately jump to wild theories. Hope Brynden Wafflebrush gets better soon.
Let me assure you that Kelly squashing that in his presser did absolutely nothing to stop the tinfoil-hattiest of our fans from continuing to believe that Wimbush hurt himself in a bar fight. You know, the kid who just interned with KPMG and had a dinner meeting with Tom Mendoza. Sounds about right.
What i don’t understand is how everyone is ignoring the play where he was slow to get up and then was hobbled for a minute or so. i’m sure i saw that happen…didn’t everyone else?
Penn State “should” have lost to Iowa too – kudos for intestinal fortitude and all that, but they shouldn’t have needed a desperation drive with a fourth-down TD as time expired to win that game. I don’t know if Northwestern can pull it off, but I think Penn State is definitely a paper tiger.
The Michigan line might be depressed a bit because Wilton Speight is out. He has an undisclosed injury that will keep him out for an undisclosed amount of time. Ah, Jimbo, you kidder, you…
Come on, Brendan. In the “should” department, they dominated Iowa. PSU had +300 yds, +18 min TOP, +18 first downs.
You can’t say PSU should have lost to both IU and Iowa. That is like saying ND should not have won an NC Champ in 93 or 94. You can’t have it both ways. (well I guess you can, but you shouldn’t)
I will only allow you to say PSU should have lost to one of those teams. Either one is fine. But only one.
They scored on fourth down with 0:00 left. Given that they’re extremely lucky to have won that game, whatever happened leading up to it. And they may have dominated yardage, but they were in that position because they couldn’t finish – it’s not like something out of their control hit them every time they had the ball.
Here’s their sequence of drives from the first half:
– 10 plays, 36 yards, punt (from the Iowa 39)
– 3 plays, -3 yards, punt (from the Iowa 48)
– 11 plays, 66 yards, FG (after 2nd and goal from the 2)
– 10 plays, 37 yards, missed FG
– 3 plays, -2 yards, punt (from the Iowa 40)
– 6 plays, 33 yards, downs
– 5 plays, 39 yards, interception
– 1 play, -2 yards, kneeldown to end the half
And from the second half:
– 7 plays, 55 yards, FG (after 1st and goal from the 2)
– 8 plays, 75 yards, TD
– 8 plays, 36 yards, fumble
– 3 plays, 6 yards, punt
– 16 plays, 75 yards, missed FG
– 12 plays, 65 yards, TD (with *two* fourth down conversions)
They punted three times on the Iowa side of the field, and until the final drive they had one touchdown on four trips into the red zone. On top of that general display of offensive ineptitude, Iowa’s last two possessions were a 3-play, 74-yard touchdown drive and a 3-play, 80-yard touchdown drive.
Penn State did everything they possibly could to lose that game, so yeah, they were very lucky to get out of there with a win. Regardless of how total yardage or time of possession stacked up.
I don’t think they’re a legit top ten team. I think they have some major holes and they’re somehow riding high off a Rose Bowl game that was exciting, sure, but in which they yakked up a 14-point fourth quarter lead. I’m still betting they’ll finish the season with three losses.
I’m not saying they should have won that game.
But you make it sound like they should have lost to PSU, a game they dominated statistically, but just couldn’t finish (well they did), AND that they should have lost to IU, a game they lost statistically, but had TO luck.
I am saying you can’t say they should have lost BOTH IU and Iowa. This is at least how I read your comment because you said “should have lost to Iowa TOO.”
“Too” was a bad choice of word. I’m not saying they should’ve lost to Indiana, more in the sense of “in addition to potential warning signs from the Indiana game, they ‘should’ have lost to Iowa.” 39 yards on 37 carries against a supposedly overmatched Hoosier team would give me some cause for concern if I was a Penn State fan.
I do think they were very lucky to beat Iowa, as noted, and I don’t think they’re anywhere near as good as their hype.
Yeah, I suspect at the beginning of their last drive their win probability was quite low. I totally agree they should have lost that game.
Heh… Your comment made me curious, so I checked the ESPN box score for the in-game win probability trend. With 1:09 to go, Trace McSorley threw incomplete on 2nd and 10; at that point, Iowa’s win probability had peaked at 97.3%. It was still above 50% with goal to go and mere seconds left on the clock. Pretty brutal finish for Hawkeye fans.
The Big Ten annoys me sometimes. How many of those teams are actually good? One? Two? Three? Five? Nobody really knows.
I think the Badgers should beat Nebraska. I could see Wisconsin winning by a few scores. But you never know with those Big Ten offenses. I also could see Nebraska winning 17-13 or something. I’ve been following Hornibrook since he stepped on campus. He’s better than Stave, I guess.
I agree with people who think Sparty can beat the Wolverines. I think Michigan is just one of those teams that’s fortunate because they have tended to play okay on defense, and so few teams in the B1G can do anything on offense. Same goes for playing Florida. Michigan didn’t look so great to me against Purdue, which I watched for some reason. Rivalry games can get weird.
I agree that’s an odd line for Stanford-Utah. I could see Utah winning that. Will anyone slow down Love?
“Will anyone slow down Love?”
I was going to make a joke about this being my favorite Meatloaf / Tina Turner / Roxette song, but then I found out about somebody named Louis The Child . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQWVRfMAEEM
I would do anything for Love…
No, I won’t do THAT