I said last week that rivalry weekend is my favorite weekend in all of sports and this past Saturday showed why. College football’s two greatest rivalries both came down to the wire with Michigan and Alabama surviving in a pair of thrillers.
“The Game”, was the most anticipated matchup this regular season and it did not disappoint. Michigan fended off a late comeback to take down Ohio State despite Jim Harbaugh not roaming the sidelines. The Wolverines have all but punched their ticket to the College Football Playoff and silenced any doubt that they run the Big Ten.
They also proved that they don’t need any sign stealing tactics to beat an elite opponent. Through all of the criticism and uncertainty surrounding the program, Sherrone Moore kept his squad on track while filling in for the suspended Harbaugh.
Moore earned himself several looks for future head coaching vacancies if he chooses to leave Ann Arbor. He may not have to leave the maize and blue to land a head coaching gig if Harbaugh does in fact return to the NFL.
As for the losing coach from Saturday’s affair, Ryan Day is now 1-3 vs Michigan and is likely out of the playoff. Physicality wasn’t the issue for the Buckeyes like it was in their previous two games against “The Team Up North”.
Ohio State matched Michigan for the most part, however two Kyle McCord interceptions tilted the game in the home team’s favor.
The loss is obviously disappointing and losing to Michigan is never accepted as the head coach at Ohio State. With that being said, the Ryan Day hot seat talk is beyond ridiculous. Day is 56-7 at the helm in Columbus with three CFP appearances in his first four seasons.
Day deserves criticism for his lack of success against Michigan, however any questions about his job security is laughable. You know you have it good as a fanbase if you can legitimately question a coach after an 11-win season.
Recruiting is still strong and Day has done a good job putting together a quality staff, a lot of this is just Michigan getting way better. The Michigan teams that Day is facing are vastly superior to the ones that Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel faced.
Ohio State is still a perennial contender for the National Championship and I expect Day to win one as its head coach.
A coach that already has too many championship trophies to hold with two hands is Nick Saban. The Crimson Tide kept their hopes for another title alive with a miraculous win in the “Iron Bowl”. With their backs against the wall, Jalen Milroe hit Isaiah Bond on a fourth and a mile touchdown to silence Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Maybe it was the football gods compensating for the “Kick Six” a decade ago but regardless, Alabama enters the SEC Championship with a shot to return to the playoff.
Milroe has improved more than any quarterback in America as the season has gone on and could earn an invite to New York if he continues his strong play in Atlanta.
Even after all of the chaos from last weekend, we still have eight teams standing in contention for the four coveted playoff spots. This is the deepest field of contenders we have had entering conference championship weekend that I can remember.
The top four as it stands is made up of the remaining undefeated power five schools. Georgia, Michigan, Washington and Florida State can make the selection committee’s life really easy or really difficult.
There are countless scenarios regarding the playoff, more than I can go over. The four undefeated teams and Oregon’s path is pretty straight forward, win and you’re in.
For Ohio State, Texas and Alabama, it’s a bit more complicated. The Buckeyes are in the toughest spot because they don’t play this weekend. For the second year in a row, the Bucks’ will have to sit at home and hope the cards fall the right way.
Ohio State needs Florida State, Alabama, Texas and Oregon to lose its respective conference title games in order to get back in the top four.
Texas needs a win in the Big 12 Championship against Oklahoma State(preferably by a sizable margin), along with help from Washington and Louisville. If both the Noles’ and Ducks lose, that puts the Longhorns in prime position to steal one of the four spots.
Alabama is in a very unique position, it could be the first SEC Champion in the four-team playoff era to not get in. A head-to-head loss to Texas complicates things for the Tide.
If the Crimson Tide can end Georgia’s 29-game win streak, they could get in if Oregon and Florida State lose. A Texas loss would certainly help, but may not be necessary.
Could the committee move Alabama ahead of Texas despite the head to head result. If it was my vote, then no, a 12-1 Texas would remain ahead of a 12-1 Alabama. I understand ‘Bama has improved since their Week 2 date with the Longhorns, however throwing out a head-to-head win would set a bad precedent.
If Alabama passes Texas in a scenario where both win on Saturday, it sends a message to teams that scheduling tough out of conference games is pointless.
During the week, I tried thinking of the most chaotic scenario possible for the committee and I believe I found it. This is very far fetched and requires Iowa to field an offense that could pass for a 21st Century college football team.
My chaos scenario goes as follows: Iowa stuns Michigan, Alabama beats Georgia, Texas wins, Louisville beats FSU and Oregon beats Washington. This would give us eight one-loss teams and no undefeated squads to choose from.
If this chain of events somehow ensued, my guess is the top four would be Oregon, Texas, Alabama, and Georgia in that order.
While some teams are looking forward to their conference title games, others are getting a head start on 2024. For some, that means finding a new head coach to hopefully right the ship.
The two biggest vacancies this cycle were Texas A&M and Michigan State. Both schools have found their guy and I like both hires.
After initial reports that the Aggies were gonna poach Mark Stoops from Kentucky, they instead went with Duke’s Mike Elko. I mentioned Elko as a candidate for the job when it opened a couple of weeks back due to being their defensive coordinator from 2018-21.
Elko went 16-9 at Duke and now gets bottomless resources and has a chance to take a historically irrelevant program and make them a national power.
Michigan State also has high-level resources and they made my favorite hire this cycle by landing Oregon State’s Jonathan Smith. Smith turned the Beavers from a bottomfeeder to a legit contender in the Pac-12.
However with the Pac-12’s demise and the Beavers future in limbo, the time was right for Smith to leave his alma mater. While the Big Ten is stacking up on high caliber programs for 2024, Smith is the right guy to get the Spartans back on the national scene.
Chris’ College Football Top 25 Rankings:
1.Georgia Bulldogs (12-0) W vs Georgia Tech 31-23, last week-1
2.Michigan Wolverines (12-0) W vs Ohio State 30-24, last week-2
3.Washington Huskies (12-0) W vs Washington State 24-21, last week-4
4.Florida State Seminoles (12-0) W vs Florida 24-15, last week-5
5.Texas Longhorns (11-1) W vs Texas Tech 57-7, last week-6
6.Alabama Crimson Tide (11-1) W vs Auburn 27-24, last week-7
7.Ohio State Buckeyes (11-1) L vs Michigan 30-24, last week-3
8.Oregon Ducks (11-1) W vs Oregon State 31-7, last week-8
9.Missouri Tigers (10-2) W vs Arkansas 48-14, last week-9
10.Penn State Nittany Lions (10-2) W vs Michigan State 42-0, last week-11
11.Ole Miss Rebels (10-2) W vs Mississippi State 17-7, last week-12
12.LSU Tigers (9-3) W vs Texas A&M 42-30, last week–13
13.Arizona Wildcats (9-3) W vs Arizona State 59-23, last week-14
14.Oklahoma Sooners (10-2) W vs TCU 69-45, last week-16
15.Louisville Cardinals (10-2) L vs Kentucky 38-31, last week-10
16.Notre Dame Fighting Irish (9-3) W vs Stanford 56-23, last week-18
17.Tulane Green Wave (11-1) W vs UTSA 29-16, last week-19
18.Liberty Flames (12-0) W vs UTEP 42-28, last week-20
19.Oregon State Beavers (8-4) L vs Oregon State 31-7, last week-15
20.Oklahoma State Cowboys (9-3) W vs BYU 40-34, last week-21
21.NC State Wolfpack (9-3) W vs North Carolina 39-20, last week-unranked
22.Iowa Hawkeyes (10-2) W vs Nebraska 13-10, last week-22
23.James Madison Dukes (11-1) W vs Coastal Carolina 56-14, last week-24
24.Kansas State Wildcats (8-4) L vs Iowa State 42-35, last week-17
25.Tennessee Volunteers (8-4) W vs Vanderbilt 48-24, last week-25
Dropped out of rankings- Utah