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We’re back. A quick explanation of where we’ve been, and what to expect from College Football Morning over the rest of the season:
We’re getting ready to welcome a baby sometime in the next few weeks, and with that, some things will need to change at The Barking Crow, at least in the short term. College basketball also tips off next week, stretching us a little thinner. Not to divulge too much from other people’s lives, but two of our close friends were in a bad car accident the day of the Texas/Georgia game. Most importantly, they’re recovering and will be ok, but the ER and ICU visits knocked us off our early-season content pace, and we were already struggling to keep up with our customarily overly ambitious plan.
Going forward, then, we plan to publish two editions of College Football Morning per week, at least until Christmas when the college football schedule transitions to a more chaotic cadence. The first edition will be our weekly recap, published early in the week. The second will be our weekly preview, published late in the week. We hope to publish more college football posts here as topics arise, but we can’t promise those. Our model’s outputs will remain the same, but they might be delayed here and there because of 1) labor and delivery and 2) learning to care for a newborn. We’ll try to communicate what to expect from us on bracketology, CFP ranking forecasts/reactions, and Movelor’s picks as the situation develops.
We didn’t publish a recap for last week, so we’ll address what happened at the bottom of this post for those interested. Thanks to all of you for sticking with The Barking Crow during the constant changes to content cadence. Six years in, we’re still figuring a lot of things out. (Probably not a great sign, but who are you—McKinsey??)
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Moving to the fun stuff…
JAMES FRANKLIN TIME.
One of our favorite offseason moments came in the first hour of Alabama’s search for Nick Saban’s successor. Immediately after the Saban news broke, Pete Thamel hopped on Twitter to report the buyout numbers for four potential targets: Dan Lanning, Kalen DeBoer, Dabo Swinney, and Mike Norvell. Four minutes later, Thamel edited the tweet to include James Franklin’s number alongside those four.
The common interpretation of the tweet edit became that Jimmy Sexton—Franklin’s agent and a college football kingmaker—called Thamel and told him to include Franklin’s name on the list. Agents use coaching rumors all the time to extract contract extensions. This is how reporters like Thamel get their information. Thamel shares Sexton’s talking points, and in exchange, Sexton keeps Thamel abreast of any hires that are about to go down so that Thamel can be the first to break the news. Thamel may have simply needed a few minutes to track down the terms of Franklin’s buyout. But boy, it was easy to spin it into a joke about James Franklin.
We don’t know what happened here. We don’t know if Thamel seriously considered Franklin a target for Alabama, or if Alabama itself ever seriously considered Franklin a target. What made the incident so funny was how perfectly it illustrated Franklin’s standing among college football coaches. Lanning would absolutely be a candidate. Mark Stoops would absolutely not be a candidate. James Franklin? Probably not…right?
James Franklin lives his life at the top of the college football coaching B-List. A two-time nine-game winner at Vanderbilt, Franklin’s earned eleven wins four separate times at Penn State. He’s won a Rose Bowl and lost a Rose Bowl. He’s won a Big Ten championship and never made the playoff. Among college football’s elite programs, James Franklin’s identity is that of a replacement-level coach, just as Penn State’s identity is that of a replacement-level elite program. Reliably on the edge of the top ten in everything from the recruiting rankings to the final AP poll, Penn State has spent much of James Franklin’s tenure directly behind Ohio State. As Michigan State fell, it passed Penn State on the way down. As Michigan rose, it passed Penn State on the way up.
It’s hard to find comparisons in other sports for what Penn State is under James Franklin. The best comparisons are probably NBA players without titles, but the best names on that list tend to be either loved or hated. Penn State and James Franklin are neither, for the most part. They have their rivalries, and they have their supporters and detractors, and the fallout from the school’s enablement of Jerry Sandusky’s atrocities justifiably persists. But Penn State does not draw the same level of reaction from a college football fan as Ohio State, Notre Dame, or Michigan. It doesn’t provoke the same response as Alabama, Auburn, or LSU. Even Oregon and USC have more potent identities than Penn State. Penn State and James Franklin are always just…there. Somewhere around the edge of the top ten. Good, but not great. Good enough to talk about, but neither good nor bad enough to make you feel things.
That, of course, is what James Franklin wants to change.
I’m not sure we appreciate how close Franklin has consistently come to beating Ohio State. Since 2016, when Penn State blocked that field goal and returned it for a touchdown and would have made the playoff if not for an early-season stumble against Michigan State, Ohio State has never blown Franklin out. The margins of the seven games since have never exceeded 13 points (2020 and 2022). Three times, the game has been decided by one possession. In both 2017 and 2018, the game was decided by only one point, giving Franklin a brief reputation as something of an Ohio State poltergeist, the guy capable of going toe to toe with the kings of the Big Ten. The average score of these last seven games is Buckeyes 33, Nittany Lions 25. That’s about where the gap has lived. With it expanding after 2018, Franklin’s reputation has shifted, settling into this “can’t beat the big guys” space.
Can he change it?
Penn State has a great defense. Ohio State’s is better.
Penn State has reasons to hope on the offensive side of the ball. Ohio State has more.
The atmosphere in State College is legendary, especially for games deemed a “white out” (color of the clothing, nothing to do with snow). This game is kicking off at noon local time rather than under the Happy Valley lights.
On the surface, it doesn’t look great for Penn State.
There are three reasons to believe this year could be different. The first is that Ohio State looked vulnerable last week against Nebraska, the Buckeyes’ first game since losing starting left tackle Josh Simmons for the season. Will Howard put up a great stat line, but Chip Kelly didn’t ask him to throw the ball very much, and the interception he threw nearly cost Ohio State the game. The Buckeyes seem to be giving Howard a longer leash than they gave Kyle McCord, but Howard is not an excellent passer, and for as great as Jeremiah Smith is, Smith is not Marvin Harrison Jr.
The second is the rehabilitation of Penn State’s offense. Drew Allar rode a rollercoaster against USC earlier this year, but new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki allowed him to ride it, whereas last year, Allar was caged just as much as McCord, and for reasons which at the time seemed more understandable. The blogosphere entertained a round of Beau Pribula hype coming out of last week’s win in Madison, one which happened after Pribula came on in relief of an injured Allar, and with Allar not yet technically confirmed as tomorrow’s starter (to my knowledge), I suppose there’s a possibility we will see Pribula tomorrow. But for as much as Pribula looks like Trace McSorley out there, the excitement for Penn State early this season came from the Nittany Lions getting away from the McSorley category of passers. Allar is the hope, a top-tier prospect whom Penn State hopes is rounding into form half a season into his new offense.
The third is Ryan Day. We’ve seen it against Michigan. We saw it against Oregon in Eugene. Ryan Day’s program struggles to execute when the pressure’s on. He’s always succeeded against Penn State (the one-point victories belonged to Urban Meyer), but Penn State’s never been able to apply the pressure. If Allar & Co. can keep this close, will Day crack? This is still a believable theory for how Oregon beat Ohio State: Good but not great, the Ducks beat a great team by keeping the pressure up until Day, Kelly, and Howard lost themselves a football game.
To recap: Reason #1 is that Ohio State might be good, not great. Reason #2 is that Penn State’s offense might have some newfound explosivity. Reason #3 is that Ryan Day might become a nincompoop again at the worst time. Those are not exactly compelling reasons for Penn State. Two of them don’t have to do with Penn State at all. This is one of James Franklin’s best Penn State teams, sure. But those reasons aren’t about Penn State becoming great. They’re about Ohio State falling past Penn State in the Big Ten pecking order. That is what this game is. It’s not about James Franklin breaking through, though it’d certainly be a breakthrough to upset the Buckeyes for the first time since Hillary Clinton was favored to win the White House. Instead, the game is about whether Ohio State is national championship-caliber or not. We could be wrong. We’re suspecting we were wrong about Oregon (more on that below). But to us, the message after a hypothetical Penn State victory should not be Penn State’s arrival. It should be the straw breaking Ryan Day’s camel’s back.
Some numbers:
Penn State is ninth in Movelor, our model’s present-moment power rating. Penn State is also ninth in FPI, and is eighth in SP+. Ohio State is second in FPI, second in SP+, and fifth in Movelor, but less than half a point off of second.
Movelor has the Buckeyes favored by 2.4 points. SP+ has the spread at 1.5. FPI’s implying a 3.0-point margin. Betting markets have the number at three right now. Again, Penn State’s the home team. This does not imply national championship-caliber Penn State.
In our model’s latest simulations, Ohio State makes the playoff 99% of the time if they win this game. If they lose, the number drops to 85%. Penn State makes the playoff 92% of the time with a win and 64% with a loss.
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More Big Games
Pitt at SMU
Let me be the first to make the joke that this is a classic ACC matchup with classic ACC stakes.
It’s a big one! Pitt’s undefeated. SMU’s unbeaten in conference play. We all got a taste last Thursday of how much hell Pitt can unleash on even experienced quarterbacks, and we all got a taste last Saturday of how buttered the ball appears in SMU’s hands. Even in a four-team playoff era, we’d be billing this as a big matchup, and it is.
I’m not convinced that Pitt’s one of the 25 best teams in the country, but there are indications that Pitt might be, and they’re certainly one of the 25 most accomplished so far. For SMU’s part, the Mustangs illustrated how good they are (good enough to beat Duke despite a –6 turnover margin) and also how chaotic they are (goofy enough to turn the ball over six times). SMU is the better team here. Pat Narduzzi’s running a more efficient on-field operation at the moment, and there are few quarterbacks I’d rather have running an offense in crunch time than Eli Holstein.
Playoff probabilities (all of these come from our model and are independent of the weekend’s other results unless otherwise stated):
- SMU makes the playoff 47% of the time with a win and 5% of the time with a loss.
- Pitt makes the playoff 41% of the time with a win and 6% of the time with a loss.
Texas A&M at South Carolina
Is this a trap game for A&M? Maybe. But South Carolina’s also just good. We wrote the Gamecocks off after they struggled to beat Old Dominion in Week 1, and we turned away again when a Lane Kiffin defense strangled them in Columbia. But Mississippi still might secretly be the SEC’s second-best team, and South Carolina’s blown out Oklahoma, dueled LSU to the wire, and put the fear of God into Alabama. Shane Beamer’s Gamecocks might be arriving. We might never notice, because a program can arrive in the New SEC and remain the eighth-best team in the conference, but they’ve arrived.
Texas A&M hasn’t shown as much as their record indicates. They played a very good game against LSU. They blew out Missouri, but that’s not any more impressive than South Carolina whooping the Sooners.
You can cast this game in that “trap game” light, but you can also describe it as an opportunity for Mike Elko’s Aggies to prove that they’re for real. It sounds odd, seeing as a loss here would drop the Gamecocks to .500 overall, but that’s how things go in this new SEC. Schedules are too disparate for records to tell you all that much nine weeks into the season.
Who starts at quarterback for A&M? I don’t know. But I would guess Marcel Reed’s the one who finishes.
Playoff probabilities:
- Texas A&M makes the playoff 36% of the time with a win and 6% of the time with a loss.
Playoff-Impacting Games
Tulane kept their chance alive last night, smoking Charlotte, and Louisiana held on to a glimmer of playoff hope with their win at Texas State on Tuesday. Among the realistic (>10%) possibilities, a group which includes Tulane but not ULL…
Duke at Miami
Louisville at Clemson
Starting in the ACC, Miami is a huge favorite against Duke, and we remain Miami skeptics, even if we’ve been converted to Cam Ward believers. Manny Diaz returns to south Florida in this one, and Duke’s calling card remains its defense, making this strength vs. strength and weakness vs. weakness.
Clemson, meanwhile, tries to become the latest program to rip Louisville’s heart from its chest. Somehow, Clemson and Miami and SMU don’t play each other but Louisville had to play all three this year in addition to their ACC-based matchup against Notre Dame. Louisville always has an upset shot, but the Cards probably aren’t as good as they appeared to be earlier this year. Clemson, meanwhile, is approaching “for real” status. Paradoxically, it’s their defense they need to get in line.
Playoff probabilities:
- Clemson makes the playoff 64% of the time with a win and 19% of the time with a loss.
- Miami makes the playoff 91% of the time with a win and 51% of the time with a loss.
Clemson also makes the playoff 72% of the time with a win and a Miami loss, while Miami makes it 94% of the time with a win and a Clemson loss. Miami is looking very likely to finish this regular season 12–0, and avoiding Clemson in the ACC Championship would be great whether the Canes get there undefeated or not.
Kansas State at Houston
Texas Tech at Iowa State
In the Big 12, it’s take–care–of–business time for both Kansas State and Iowa State while BYU gets the weekend off.
Iowa State comes off their own midseason break and encounters a Texas Tech team who’s been volatile this year. Behren Morton’s expected to start for the Red Raiders after leaving last week’s game against TCU with an injury.
For K-State, the fear is that Houston’s getting better under first-year head coach Willie Fritz. The Cougars have won two of three now, beating both TCU and Utah in the process. In between, though, they allowed Kansas to score 42 points and rush for more than 200 yards. If Houston has a strong suit, it’s defense, and that performance did not bode well for slowing down these Wildcats.
The main thing we’re watching, of course, is upset potential. But how well each team plays matters too. The Big 12 is circling closer and closer over Farmageddon in Ames the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. More and more, that looks like the game that’ll decide who meets BYU in the conference championship.
Playoff probabilities:
- Iowa State makes the playoff 49% of the time with a win and 12% of the time with a loss.
- Kansas State makes the playoff 54% of the time with a win and 12% of the time with a loss.
Iowa State makes the playoff 55% of the time when they win and the Wildcats lose. K-State makes it 61% of the time when the Cyclones lose and they win.
Indiana at Michigan State
Oregon at Michigan
Traveling to a different portion of the Midwest, the other two Big Ten undefeateds are playing in the Great Lakes State.
For Indiana, it’s yet another game against a mediocre opponent, one in which winning is the key thing but there’s a lot to be gained from winning with style. Jonathan Smith’s teams are traditionally pretty feisty. There’s danger here for the Hoosiers, and maybe even more danger with risks accompanying Kurtis Rourke returning at potentially less than 100%. Remember when Cam Rising came back from his hand problem?
In Ann Arbor, Oregon’s earned the right to let margin not matter. Still, it would send a message if the Ducks were to dominate, and on the defensive side of the ball, the expectation should indeed be dominance. Davis Warren’s return worked out for Sherrone Moore last week, and credit to both those parties for that. Oregon’s defense isn’t that much better than Michigan State’s, either. But if Oregon wants to be taken seriously in hypotheticals against Georgia, they need to make a pitiful Michigan offense look just as bad as they made Illinois look. As with Indiana’s game, there’s danger here, though there are fewer reasons to doubt the Ducks being caught off guard.
Playoff probabilities:
- Oregon makes the playoff 98% of the time with a win and 77% of the time with a loss.
- Indiana makes the playoff 51% of the time with a win and 5% of the time with a loss.
Of note: Indiana’s playoff probability dips a little if Michigan upsets Oregon. The Hoosiers host the Wolverines next week, so any indication of Michigan competence is bad news in Bloomington.
Mississippi at Arkansas
Florida vs. Georgia
Kentucky at Tennessee
Down South, the main thing to watch is Mississippi’s trip to Fayetteville. These guys still have a playoff shot, and as we hinted at above, they’re still probably one of the SEC’s best teams. But they can’t afford to lose this one if they want to retain a realistic chance heading into next week’s visit from Georgia, and they probably don’t have a realistic chance against Georgia if they can’t beat the Hogs.
Georgia, for its part, is facing a quietly competitive Florida team. In Billy Napier’s four games since the Texas A&M contest, the Gators have handled Mississippi State and UCF, played Tennessee to overtime in Knoxville, and thrashed Kentucky. Georgia should crush them, but Georgia’s had a whole two weeks to feel great about itself after the statement win in Austin. For a team where the primary concern is always the mental game, two weeks is a long time to potentially rest on laurels.
Speaking of those who should thrash another, Tennessee hosts Kentucky, who’s gone from a spectacular run in September (almost beat Georgia, walloped Ohio, upset Mississippi) to a disastrous October (losses to Vanderbilt, Florida, and Auburn by an average of more than two touchdowns). I don’t know if Kentucky’s dangerous, but I also don’t think Tennessee’s a team to trust. Tennessee’s definitely good, but everything they do is ugly, and like Georgia, they’ve had plenty of time these last two weeks to drink the kool-aid on the heels of toppling Alabama.
Playoff probabilities:
- Georgia makes the playoff 95% of the time with a win and 66% of the time with a loss. Florida makes the playoff 1% of the time with a win.
- Tennessee makes the playoff 65% of the time with a win and 10% of the time with a loss.
- Mississippi makes the playoff 17% of the time with a win and 0.4% of the time with a loss.
If Tennessee or Georgia goes down and Mississippi wins, the Mississippi number jumps to 22%. That doesn’t include the 27 simulations (out of 10,000) where Tennessee and Georgia both go down and Mississippi wins on the road.
San Diego State at Boise State
Air Force at Army
Two more take–care–of–business games at the Group of Five level. The first is Boise State’s potential trap game tonight against San Diego State, returning to the blue turf after conquering UNLV. The second comes tomorrow, where Army looks to 1) handle a badly struggling Air Force program and 2) boost Bryson Daily’s Heisman-quality numbers. Not a lot to worry about for either team, so long as they show up. Watch how many carries Ashton Jeanty gets. If the Heisman’s the goal, this would be a good game in which to pad his stats, with more national visibility tonight than in some of Boise’s upcoming showdowns.
Playoff probabilities:
- Boise State makes the playoff 74% of the time with a win and 26% of the time with a loss.
- Army makes the playoff 12% of the time with a win and 2% of the time with a loss.
If Boise goes down, Army can almost double (!!) to 23% by handling the Falcons. If Army loses, Boise State’s chances actually drop, decreasing to 71% because of the easier path for Tulane to get to 11–2.
Interesting Games
Vanderbilt at Auburn
Vanderbilt impressed again against Texas and is again a sizable underdog, this time on the Plains. Hugh Freeze finally won an SEC game in 2024 last week when Jarquez Hunter ran all over Kentucky’s face. Can the Tigers get hot?
Minnesota at Illinois
UCLA at Nebraska
USC at Washington
Wisconsin at Iowa
So much intrigue in the Big Ten, where Illinois’s trying to get its vibes back, P.J. Fleck’s eying the top 25, UCLA’s looking to build on that win at Rutgers, Lincoln Riley’s trying to stop the hot seat talk, Washington’s attempting to stop the bleeding, Wisconsin wants to regenerate last week’s pregame excitement, Iowa’s finally rolling with Brendan Sullivan, and Nebraska’s aiming to get back to winning after massacre in Bloomington and heartbreak in Columbus. There’s always something at stake when the season’s only twelve games long and a few of those are buy games.
Virginia Tech at Syracuse
Virginia Tech’s putting together a nice little football team, and they’re even starting to poke at the edges of the playoff conversation (3% chance if they win this one). The Hokies are into both Movelor and SP+’s respective top 25’s, entering territory where if they can maintain this next year, they’ll contend in the ACC.
Syracuse, though, has proven hard to repeatedly kill. They bounced back from their last embarrassing loss with three straight victories. They’re a 5–2 football team. As we said above, records don’t always mean a lot, but this is a solid contest, and Virginia Tech’s in a space where one loss by Clemson or Miami could make things really interesting for them.
TCU at Baylor
Is Dave Aranda on the hot seat? Baylor’s won its last two, is up to .500, and has only lost to Early Season Utah™ and three of the Big 12’s four title contenders. Maybe things aren’t as bad in Waco as they previously appeared.
To test that theory, the fates are sending Sonny Dykes down I-35 after a dramatic comeback to oust Texas Tech. TCU has been many things this year, but their games are rarely not exciting.
Memphis at UTSA
Navy at Rice
In the AAC, both Memphis and Navy are still one-loss football teams. Memphis only gets to a 2% playoff probability with a win here, and Navy only gets to 3%, but they’re both in the conference race, with Navy unbeaten in AAC play and both teams yet to play Tulane.
(Here’s our conference tiebreaker tracker.)
Louisiana Monroe at Marshall
Georgia Southern at South Alabama
There are no playoff dreams in this corner of the Sun Belt, but all these teams have only one loss in conference play. For Marshall and Georgia Southern, that’s enough to keep them at the front of the Sun Belt East.
Colorado State at Nevada
And over in Reno, the Mountain West’s seven-game conference schedule has Colorado State in position to potentially box UNLV out of the conference title game. They’ll have to prove a lot along the way if they’re going to do it, or they’re going to need UNLV to blow one.
FCS Top 25* Matchups
Chattanooga at Western Carolina
The SoCon continues to deliver, with four teams now boasting one loss and two of them meeting this week in Cullowhee. Movelor has the Mocs favored by a point and some change.
Weber State at Northern Arizona
In Flagstaff, it’s Lumberjacks vs. Beekeepers, at least to some of us. It wouldn’t be surprising if NAU needs to win out to make the FCS playoffs. If they do, this is the toughest obstacle in their path. Weber State’s only 3–5, but they’ve often been a tough out.
*Movelor’s Top 25, not the FCS poll of record.
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Instead of a full recap/reaction to last week, we’re going to go through the Favorites, Contenders, and Factors again, talking about how last week influenced each category. A few notes on teams beyond these categories at the bottom. As always, national championship probabilities come from our model.
Favorites
We’re moving Oregon into this category. Not because our opinion on them has changed dramatically, but because Ohio State’s vulnerable appearance makes it very believable that Oregon could get this to a situation where they only need one upset to win it all. Also? Oregon’s playing better than anyone else in the country right now, as measured by Movelor.
Oregon (20.7%)
SP+ and FPI aren’t there yet on the Ducks, and we think that’s meaningful. We also still have our doubts about the talent and depth holding up deep into January. Oregon isn’t as talented or deep as the big guys, and the Ducks haven’t been here before under their current head coach. Still, the evisceration of Illinois was impressive, and everything Oregon’s done lately has been impressive, and Dillon Gabriel might be the best college quarterback in the country right now. Our model doesn’t build in any expected drop-offs, so we’re a little skeptical of this 20.7% number, but the talent gap also isn’t gigantic, even if we need to note it. Oregon’s closer to Auburn’s talent than Georgia’s, but Oregon’s still sixth in the Talent Composite.
Georgia (17.1%)
Ohio State (14.6%)
Texas (10.6%)
We’ve separated these three from Oregon not because Oregon’s in a separate tier, but because Georgia didn’t play and we want to talk about Ohio State and Texas in conjunction with one another.
Ohio State looked bad against Nebraska, and the fact their line looked so castrated without Josh Simmons was especially concerning. It’s bad to be able to point to one specific thing and say, “That’s a problem.” There’s also not a lot you can do in high-level football with half an offensive line.
Still, I think I’d rather be Ohio State right now than Texas? Even independent of conference championship path considerations? With Ohio State, there is one hole to fill. Everything else looks about how it’s looked. With Texas, the last two weeks have included a gutting by Georgia and a really stupid football game at Vanderbilt, one where the offensive line played like they were shaving points (not an accusation—just inexplicably bad play) and Quinn Ewers, the piece who was supposed to elevate an A– roster into an A+ championship contender, continued to appear limited by his oblique. There was a great stretch in there by Ewers, but it was the third straight game he’s started badly.
Ohio State’s problem is more significant than anything Texas is dealing with. But it’s only one problem. Texas has a malaise to confront, or worse: A reality like last year’s, where they maybe just aren’t that good yet.
Contenders
Notre Dame (12.1%)
Alabama (8.3%)
Clemson (2.7%)
Nice time to play Navy and Mizzou! (Clemson was idle.)
Notre Dame’s funny, because the win over Navy should not be all that respected, and yet it’s not being respected enough? Navy’s schedule before Notre Dame was an impressive kind of easy, with only the win over Memphis coming against someone who could compete for the FCS national title. Still, Notre Dame obliterated the Midshipmen, and Navy wasn’t the first team to encounter Irish hands and suffer this fate. Notre Dame is playing top-five football right now. They are the team who lost to NIU, and that should be considered in accounting for their résumé, but once they’re into the playoff, that doesn’t matter anymore. Movelor would have them favored by 41 points in a rematch of that game. It wouldn’t be unreasonable.
The question for Notre Dame is the same as Oregon’s: talent and depth. Notre Dame should not be expected to hold up deep into January. But like Oregon, they could get a great path once the playoff opens. The goal is the 5 or the 6-seed. Something which keeps them away from a neutral-site game against a Favorite until the semifinals.
For Alabama, Missouri was a nice little get–right game. The Tide were able to reassert their talent advantage and move back to the right side of a 50/50 playoff chance. Are they trustworthy? No. Are they meaningfully less trustworthy than Georgia? I don’t really think so. Is their ceiling lower than Georgia’s? Again, I don’t see it. Like Notre Dame, they have a very, very bad loss on their résumé. Unlike Notre Dame, that loss probably does point to who they are. But even considering that loss, this is a very good football team who can be great at its best.
Factors
We’re sticking with two groups for these. There are different ways to be a Factor, and this first group is the group I’d think Favorites and Contenders should be especially scared to play. Texas A&M moves up into this group. Nobody falls out. As with last week, we’re listing them in order of how good Movelor says they are right now.
Tennessee (4.4%)
Mississippi (1.1%)
Penn State (4.1%)
LSU (0.5%)
Miami (1.2%)
Texas A&M (0.5%)
Kansas State (0.6%)
It’s easy to make too much of the A&M win, especially after a week where not all that much happened, even if there was plenty of excitement along the way. LSU losing is the bigger deal. Upset Alabama and all’s forgiven. Upset Alabama and the Tigers are back on the bubble, right there alongside the Aggies (provided the Aggies don’t lose before then). More likely, this was a playoff elimination game, and Alabama gives LSU the knockout blow. We like LSU’s chances! But the likelier thing next week is that Alabama wins.
Tennessee was idle, and we already gave some passing mention to Penn State’s win at Wisconsin, which was solid but a long way from what Alabama did to the Badgers, who are different from the team that played Alabama but still themselves. Moving to Mississippi and Miami, then: Good wins! For Mississippi, Oklahoma looked better with Jackson Arnold back under center, but the Movelor darlings held off the Sooners nonetheless. For Miami, there was a moment after Florida State made it 14–7 when we thought the Seminoles might be able to make it a game, eating clock and frustrating Cam Ward into some mistakes. Instead, Miami pulled away like a sledgehammer knocking down a brick wall: Quickly, and then all at once.
Kansas State looked bad against Kansas, and you can’t totally write that off as a rivalry game. But the Wildcats won, and even considering that performance, they’re probably the best team in the Big 12.
Iowa State (0.4%)
Indiana (0.2%)
BYU (0.4%)
SMU (0.3%)
Boise State (0.2%)
Tulane (0.0%)
Pitt (0.1%)
Army (0.0%)
With this second group, we can draw the cut line anywhere between 1-in-9 and 1-in-25 for playoff chances and see it land in the same spot, somewhere between Army and Colorado. All these teams have a better playoff chance than LSU. I don’t think any would be a particularly concerning opponent for Georgia this weekend.
Within this second group, nobody moves in but both Navy and UNLV move down and out. We’re down to 15 Factors in total, seven in the first group and eight in this second one.
Indiana had a party at Washington’s expense, but they were actually outgained by the Huskies, and I suspect Movelor’s finally finding its level on these guys. They’re a very good team, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they finished 11–1 and made the playoff. But these are a tough two weeks ahead, dealing with both Michigan State and Michigan. The fact we think that’s tough says something about the Hoosiers.
Iowa State was off, which gave BYU a chance to take sole possession of first place in the Big 12, at least briefly. The Cougars did it by winning by two scores in Orlando, taking a 17–0 lead in a game which saw them enter as an underdog in the betting markets. BYU has its limitations, but it is a good Big 12 team, and it’d be an ACC contender as well.
SMU played a bizarre game in Durham, and as far as ACC rites of passage go, that’s a good one. The Mustangs looked a lot like themselves, for better and worse.
Boise State played one of Week 9’s bigger games, taking care of business against UNLV in a really fun one. Ashton Jeanty had a terribly hard time gaining yards, but that didn’t make him any less fun to watch, and he opened enough options to give Boise opportunities elsewhere. The Broncos capitalized on just enough of them to put the Rebels away.
We mentioned Tulane smoking Charlotte last night. They also won without too much trouble in Denton last Saturday, leading North Texas 45–24 with five minutes remaining (North Texas made it close at the end). I’m not sure Boise State is better than Tulane.
Pitt played early last week, and since I don’t know whether we directly discussed Kyle McCord’s five interceptions, I will simply say that Pitt deserves some credit for those.
Army was idle. But the Army itself, we can assume, was not.
Miscellany
Other things that happened that I want to talk about:
The Mountain West passed the Sun Belt in average Movelor rating, and they did it in kind of a funny way, through San Diego State hanging with Washington State. Since Movelor is zero-sum within individual games, conferences can only move their average rating in nonconference affairs. Right now, the average MWC team would be favored by three hundredths of a point against the average Sun Belt team on a neutral field. Big opportunity for the Sun Belt to strike back tonight, with Georgia State on the road against UConn. Then, tomorrow, the Mountain West will look to hit back themselves as Air Force goes to West Point.
Cal got right in dramatic fashion, pulverizing Oregon State. UNC got a nice win at Virginia. Memphis survived Charlotte. West Virginia picked up a road win at Arizona. Houston upset Utah. Travis Hunter had a big offensive game in a win over Cincinnati, breathing new life into his Heisman chances. USC blew out Rutgers. Michigan survived Michigan State.
At the FCS level, North Dakota State is back on top within Movelor, crushing Murray State while South Dakota State needed overtime to survive South Dakota. Youngstown State upset North Dakota, a big win for some hard-luck Penguins. Indiana State won its second MVFC game for the first time in three seasons. Idaho State got a good win over Sacramento State in overtime. Mercer beat Western Carolina in a key SoCon clash. The Citadel stopped Samford’s little engine that could hype. Harvard’s up into Movelor’s FCS Top 25 after beating up Princeton.
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That’s it from us for today. More early next week, as we come out of Week 10. Again, thank you for bearing with us. Bark.
- College Football Playoff Bracketology
- Three Top 25’s (Movelor, WAB, CFP Estimate)
- Movelor’s Week 10 Picks
- Our model’s playoff probabilities
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