No team in the AP Poll’s top ten lost. Alabama survived what could be its toughest test of the regular season. And yet in a sport in which the contenders have become monotonous for some, the playoff race is looking like it might be rather open. Oklahoma struggled…again. Clemson struggled…again. Ohio State struggled…again. All three won, and yes, teams can get better (Clemson, in particular, seems to get better through the year by design), but so far, all three look beatable, and two of the three have already been beaten.
Let’s go around the leagues:
SEC
Alabama did not stop the Florida offense in the second half yesterday. There are a lot of things that game did not say—Alabama was never actually in much danger, with its win probability above roughly 75% for the entirety of the day—but it did show that the Tide can be scored upon, and it showed that Florida can put together some dang good drives.
Where are the Gators headed now? A two-point loss to Alabama certainly isn’t grounds for playoff disqualification, but Florida now likely needs to beat Georgia, or to have Georgia collapse, and even if they do beat the Dawgs down the line they may need a whole lot of help. Also, of course, there are eight other games left to worry about. (Though the opponents in those eight…)
For Alabama, it’s a bullet dodged, and while Nick Saban’s team doesn’t look as invincible as last year’s did, they still appear to be the best team in the country. Business, more or less, as usual in Tuscaloosa.
Auburn lost to Penn State, creating a little more clarity behind the Tide in the West Division but not a lot. It still appears to be a deep collection of teams there, all rather flawed, but all probably featuring a rather high ceiling, with the possible exceptions of LSU and Mississippi State, the latter of whom let Memphis roar back from ten down to win yesterday.
Georgia, who some will likely say is the best team in the country right now, walked easily over South Carolina.
Big Ten
Penn State did the hard thing, winning a thriller in State College against a ranked, visiting SEC team. Ohio State did pull away from Tulsa towards the end, but with the Buckeyes looking lackluster again, the Nittany Lions look like a factor in the East.
Also looking like a factor is Michigan, who ran wild over Northern Illinois. That performance in itself isn’t all that exciting for the Wolverines, but coupled with things like Bill Connelly’s SP+’s enamoration with this team, it’s exciting.
Michigan State took down Miami on the road, and did it rather handily in the end, winning by three scores. The Spartans’ next four games are at home against Nebraska and Western Kentucky and then on the road against Rutgers and Indiana. Not a terrible slate before the Michigan game Halloween weekend.
Indiana fell at home to Cincinnati, deepening suspicions the Hoosiers aren’t much good. They’ve got a gauntlet ahead of them, too.
And in the West, Iowa took care of business.
Pac-12
Ruh roh. Just Oregon, huh?
With UCLA losing at home to Fresno State and Arizona State moving the ball well but failing to top BYU, the Pac-12 South is tattered, and Oregon is the only team in the league to have made it through the season’s first three weeks unscathed.
A case could be made that this isn’t bad for the conference—Oregon has that marquee victory, it looks like it shouldn’t be too hard to win the league with one loss, which is probably all that’s necessary. But it’s troubling to already have just one playoff option three weeks into the year, even in the more hypothetical scenarios.
ACC
Speaking of not having a backup plan…
Virginia Tech, as bettors suspected, is not the team their ranking implied them to be. The Hokies fell in Morgantown, and the Coastal now lacks an unbeaten school. UNC ran past Virginia, 59-39, and might just be really inconsistent? We’ll see. There’s still a chance the Tar Heels can climb back up through the résumé stack, and that they get some benefit of the doubt with time.
Clemson, meanwhile. What was that? Though the Tigers, like Alabama, were never in much real danger, they had an awful time moving the football against Georgia Tech. They were outgained by Georgia Tech. Clemson was outgained by Georgia Tech.
Dabo Swinney does have nine more games to figure this out—Clemson plays none of the Coastal’s expected best teams—but there appears to be a lot there to figure out.
Big 12
For Oklahoma, it was a similar story to Clemson: No real danger, but disappointingly close. The Sooners beat Nebraska, but they didn’t have much fun.
The rest of the league did its job. Kansas State, West Virginia, and Oklahoma State all won nonconference games where their chances were dubious. That might not make a huge difference down the line, but the Big 12 has at least made it this far with double the number of unbeaten teams of the Pac-12 and ACC combined. And the schedules haven’t been noticeably more easy.
Notre Dame, BYU
Notre Dame and BYU are an odd little case study in the way the College Football Playoff operates, with BYU being treated firmly as a Group of Five team last year while Notre Dame’s always been a Power Five. This season, their schedules might not actually be that far apart in quality. The Cougars don’t play a stacked slate, but they do play seven Power Five schools and Boise State while the Irish play nine Power Five schools and Cincinnati. There’s a gap, but it’s of questionable size.
With Notre Dame, there’s an I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it aspect with the committee potentially dinging the team for lacking great wins. Also, come next week, this might not matter at all, with ND an underdog against Wisconsin in Chicago. But the Irish’s scheduling has this facet where if things break the wrong way with a few opponents, the schedule can get embarrassingly easy, even if most years it’s perfectly acceptably difficult.
For BYU, it’s I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it as well, just in the other direction. BYU is probably not playoff-eligible, in reality, just like every Group of Five team is probably not playoff-eligible in reality. But then again—BYU had to play a lot of Group of Five schools last year because of the pandemic. That didn’t help.
The American
It was nice for the league that Memphis got that win over the guys from Starkville, as it keeps alive hopes of a well-respected foe for Cincinnati. The Bearcats, for their part, did what they had to do in Bloomington even after some early slop. They likely aren’t as good as the rankings think, but the fact the rankings think they’re so good makes their status in the eyes of the playoff committee something to watch. A narrative is a powerful thing.
The Rest
Army and Liberty looked good against woeful opposition, San Diego State looked good in beating Utah, UTSA’s got an interesting one at Memphis next week. And in the FCS, James Madison took care of things against Weber State in Ogden.
