Clemson Wasn’t Ready. Because They Didn’t Need to Be Ready.

Clemson wanted to win last night’s game. This isn’t some conspiracy theory. Clemson wanted to win.

They just weren’t ready.

It’s been noticed before that Clemson gets better as the season goes on. They peak at the right time. The team that lost to Notre Dame last year was not their best team. The team that struggled with UNC in 2019 was not their best team. The teams that lost to Pitt and to Syracuse in 2016 and 2017 were not their best teams. Clemson plays its best football when it counts the most. Last night was not a time when it counted the most.

I may be misattributing this. I may be overestimating Clemson or underestimating Georgia. But it’s hard not to think, after seeing Clemson muster just 180 total yards on 60 offensive plays, that Dabo Swinney saw this game a few years out and said, “We don’t need to win that to make the playoff,” and decided to keep doing what he was doing, designing everything in the program for optimization not in the bright lights of Labor Day Saturday, but in the bright lights of post-Thanksgiving dynastic battles. Would they have preferred to win? Yes. But they didn’t, and they’re still ok. If they win out, they will almost assuredly make the playoff. And with their primary ACC “competition” falling flat, their chance of winning out might have actually improved over the weekend (or what’s been seen of the weekend so far—there are those two games left). I estimated on Thursday that Clemson’s playoff probability would still be roughly 55% with a loss. That hasn’t changed, in my estimation.

I also estimated on Thursday that Georgia’s playoff probability would be 40% with a win, and that too has not changed. Georgia still has Alabama to deal with, presumably, down the line. They still have to play Florida in Jacksonville. Their trip to Auburn won’t be easy, and other pitfalls litter the road ahead. But in the event they’re 11-2 or 12-1 and up head-to-head against Clemson without a conference championship, this might give them the leg up. They have the best win in the country so far, and it figures to stay that way for a while.

Around the rest of the leagues:

ACC

We mentioned ACC contenders “falling flat” above, and with that we were referring to UNC exposing themselves and Miami looking every bit like the Miami we probably should have expected, meaning one that might be solid but just cannot be expected to compete with the Alabama Crimson Tide. It was an especially dominant performance from Bama, but at some level, that is par for the course.

Virginia Tech has a lot to be excited about. Their defense dominated the Tar Heels, and for as inconsistent as the Tar Heels have been, the Hokies also couldn’t have done much better, and there’s always that possibility that the UNC hype was legitimate. VT does have to host Notre Dame in five weeks, and they do play Miami on the road, so I wouldn’t get too dreamy over in Blacksburg, but Virginia Tech has a lot to be excited about, and considering Miami plays UNC in Chapel Hill, one could argue that VT’s the Coastal favorite as things stand.

It’ll be interesting to see Florida State and Louisville play these next two nights, but unless the Seminoles really rock Notre Dame, it’s hard to see anything of national significance being learned of those two.

SEC

Mississippi has yet to play, but it’s been a great weekend so far for the SEC, where every football team in the conference save LSU took care of business, and Vanderbilt showed they remain a threat to nobody at all.

The LSU thing isn’t terribly surprising—we talked before last week about how UCLA might matter nationally, and few were expecting LSU to be a national player again this year as anything more than a spoiler. But it’s disappointing for that program, and it does hold back the Southeastern Conference from what could have been a spotless record (minus Vanderbilt, again).

Pac-12

Goodness, Washington. The others were doing so well.

Well, to be fair, Oregon was underwhelming, and Stanford looked listless after getting duped into another 9 AM Pacific Time start. (How do you let that happen again, guys?) Washington State, Cal, and Arizona lost to Utah State, Nevada, and BYU.

But UCLA and USC were doing well!

The Los Angeles pair overperforming while Washington and Oregon looked bad (and Washington stabbed their own playoff hopes, which were legitimate, in the hiney) does shift the balance of power a little bit in the Pac-12 from North to South, but it doesn’t flip it. Not yet. And Oregon has a chance to really put that narrative to bed if they can show something big next week in Columbus.

Big Ten

For a while there Thursday night, it looked like we might get a legitimate Week 1 power shakeup. Then, Ohio State did Ohio State things, and with struggles elsewhere in the league, the Buckeyes look borderline inevitable once more.

It was a good bounce back for Penn State, which we knew was possible after all the oddities of last season. It was a bad bounce back for Indiana, which we knew was possible after all the oddities of last season. Wisconsin has some major issues. Iowa looked great, but that may have been more Hoosier-induced than Hawkeye. Illinois gave UTSA a transitive win over Nebraska, and honestly, UTSA might be favored over Nebraska on a neutral field right now. I don’t know.

Big 12

It isn’t good when your best two teams struggle against an FCS in-state rival (in something that might legitimately be a rivalry, honestly) and a team that hasn’t won eight games since 2002 and was displaced by a hurricane.

But hey, Texas looked great in Steve Sarkisian’s debut, the league only actually lost one game, and that loss wasn’t by a team they were counting on to pad the rankings. No blood, no foul? Iowa State and Texas each play big ones for the league’s heft next week in what appear to be the only remaining significant nonconference games involving Big 12 schools, barring stunners.

Notre Dame

We’ll see what the Irish look like tonight. If they struggle to beat Florida State but they beat Florida State, we won’t have learned much. If they blow Florida State out, we won’t have learned much. If they lose, we can probably write them off, though UNC and Wisconsin don’t look as difficult on that schedule as they did on Friday morning.

Group of Five Independents

BYU did its thing, UConn—for better or worse—did its thing.

American

Houston could have theoretically helped the league out, but it’s really just the Cincinnati playoff hope show, and the Cincinnati playoff hope show relies upon 1) chaos 2) Indiana and Notre Dame both being good (or at least looking good) and 3) other AAC teams getting and staying ranked, which…makes UCF’s win over Boise State potentially helpful, and makes Tulane’s trip to Oxford in two weeks intriguing.

Sun Belt

Tough for this league that Louisiana-Lafayette got stomped the way they did, but at least Coastal Carolina and Appalachian State took care of business. There’s always little pressure here, too.

Mountain West

A heartbreaker for Boise State, with little elsewhere to feel good about as a conference.

Conference USA/MAC

I have nothing.

FCS

Big weekend for the subdivision! Six different FCS wins over FBS team, including two over power conference schools and one—Montana beating Washington—coming against a ranked opponent. South Dakota State looked like the FCS title contender we’d expect them to be as they pummeled Colorado State. UC Davis and Eastern Washington looked competent. East Tennessee State and Montana looked good, and could be national factors themselves. Holy Cross is probably the Patriot League favorite, and maybe more of a factor than Patriot League teams have often been lately.

***

Overall, it was fun. It still is fun. We have two more games. And while the playoff picture’s been shaken, it’s still much the same as it was. The favorites are Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Clemson. Until further notice. Oh and with the Clemson-not-being-ready thing? Great case for the BCS system. They would have been ready if there were only two teams in the playoff.