5 weeks into the college football season and we have
complete chaos and it is FANTASTIC.
Let’s start with the Top 10 last week as 4 teams lost by a
total of 73 points, and one of those losses was by just 2 points by #6 Notre
Dame. That means the other 3 lost by a
combined 71. #3 Mississippi and #8
Georgia each lost conference games by 28 points (38-10 finals in both
games). # 7 UCLA, coming off of a
26-point win on the road against a ranked Arizona team, lost by 15 at home
against a then 2-2 Arizona State team. Throw that on top of #1 Ohio State struggling against
Indiana, who played without their starting QB and RB. We also had #2 Michigan State nearly blowing
a 21-point lead to hang on to beat lowly Purdue 24-21. Basically what I am saying is that even the
best teams in the country don’t look dominant.
Before we get into conference breakdowns after 5 weeks of
the season, how about this little bit of food for thought, for the 1st
time since October 10, 2010 no SEC team in ranked in the Top 5 in AP Top 25. That is 80 straight weeks.
On to my thoughts about each conference through 5 weeks.
ACC:
- Is anybody in the ACC good enough to make it to the 4-Team CFB Playoff from the ACC? The conference only has 2 undefeated teams remaining (Clemson and FSU) and they have to play each other in 5 weeks. And strength of schedule isn’t going to help anyone in this conference as 5 of the 14 teams already have 3 losses this year.
- Is anybody in the ACC good enough to make it to the 4-Team CFB Playoff from the ACC? The conference only has 2 undefeated teams remaining (Clemson and FSU) and they have to play each other in 5 weeks. And strength of schedule isn’t going to help anyone in this conference as 5 of the 14 teams already have 3 losses this year.
- As much as I enjoyed watching the Clemson/Notre Dame game
on Saturday, I came away not having any idea how good Clemson really is. Sure they beat a Top 6 Notre Dame team, but
they barely beat ND. They looked really
good for 2 ½ quarters, looked decent for 1 quarter and looked flat out bad for
the final 7 minutes or so. The ACC
Atlantic is pretty down, so the Tigers don’t have many chances to prove to
their voters how good they really are.
- After watching Florida State sneak by teams all last
season, but still make it into the playoffs because they were the undefeated
defending champion, may have tainted me a bit about Jimbo Fisher and his
squad. I immediately have only seen them
play twice this year, but they haven’t been very impressive if you ask me. Yes they are undefeated, but beating up on
Texas St, then struggling with South Florida, BC and Wake isn’t blowing the
doors off of anyone. I just don’t trust
them to be the team we are once again being led to believe they are. I don’t think it would really surprise anyone
if they lost any of their next 3 games (vs MIA, vs LOU, @ GT) and then they
still have Clemson and Florida waiting on their schedule.
- The Coastal Division is once again completely up for
grabs. The overwhelming preseason
favorite and defending division champ, Georgia Tech, has started 0-2 in conference
play. The team most “experts” picked to
finish 2nd place in the division, Virginia Tech, is 0-1 and just had
their worst offensive outing in 29 years.
The crazy thing is that you can’t count either of those teams out
yet. Each of the last 3 years the winner
of the Coastal Division has had AT LEAST 2 losses in the conference. Right now, both Duke and North Carolina seem
to be the front-runners. Both teams have
already beat Georgia Tech, and Duke also has a win Boston College making them
2-0 just 5 weeks in. The Blue Devils do
play 3 of their next 4 and 5 of their final 7 on the road however, including a
trip to Chapel Hill to take on UNC in 5 weeks.
North Carolina has 2 “should-be” wins up next and the close with a tough
5 game stretch, including 3 of those 5 on the road. As I mentioned, this division is anyone’s for
the taking.
BIG XII:
- The Top 4 teams in the Big XII (TCU, Baylor, Oklahoma & Oklahoma State) have clearly separated themselves as best in the conference. All 4 are still undefeated, but none of the 4 have had what anyone would call a signature win to this point. Oklahoma State is probably #4 of those 4 teams, but their schedule gives them the potential to get to 8-0 before having to face any of the other 3 top teams. TCU also has their schedule back-loaded and doesn’t face 1 of the other top teams until November. However, they play 2 of the 3 teams on the road. Baylor, who hasn’t beat anyone yet, plays all the other teams in successive weeks, with the final 2 games against Oklahoma State and TCU on the road inside a 6 day window. As with the other 3 teams, Oklahoma has their schedule back loaded and won’t face any of them until November 14th. It should make for an interesting next month or so as all 4 of these teams should remain undefeated. The downfall, the Big XII still does not have a conference championship and these 4 teams beating up on each other in the final month of the season could keep all 4 out of the CFB Playoff.
- The Top 4 teams in the Big XII (TCU, Baylor, Oklahoma & Oklahoma State) have clearly separated themselves as best in the conference. All 4 are still undefeated, but none of the 4 have had what anyone would call a signature win to this point. Oklahoma State is probably #4 of those 4 teams, but their schedule gives them the potential to get to 8-0 before having to face any of the other 3 top teams. TCU also has their schedule back-loaded and doesn’t face 1 of the other top teams until November. However, they play 2 of the 3 teams on the road. Baylor, who hasn’t beat anyone yet, plays all the other teams in successive weeks, with the final 2 games against Oklahoma State and TCU on the road inside a 6 day window. As with the other 3 teams, Oklahoma has their schedule back loaded and won’t face any of them until November 14th. It should make for an interesting next month or so as all 4 of these teams should remain undefeated. The downfall, the Big XII still does not have a conference championship and these 4 teams beating up on each other in the final month of the season could keep all 4 out of the CFB Playoff.
- What is going on at Texas?
Since playing in the National Championship Game to conclude the 2009
season, Texas is just 37-32. In those 32
losses 21 are by double digits and 16 (half) are by 20+ points. Texas went to Charlie Strong, a man who made
a name for himself by coaching defense, to turn things around last year. All he has done is go 7-11 while giving up an
average of 27.8 in those 18 games. In
just year 2 of his 5 year deal Charlie Strong is on the hottest of hot seats. Next up for the Longhorns, the 10th
ranked Oklahoma Sooners, who have beaten Texas in 4 of their last 5 meetings in
the Red River Rivalry Game.
- Kansas is the worst team of any P5 team in FBS
football. The real question, are they
the worst P5 team EVER? Kansas is 0-4
this season and that includes a lost an FCS team in South Dakota State. They also have losses to Rutgers and Iowa
State, both who only have 1 other win this season and those came against FCS
schools too. Memphis is the other school
to beat Kansas this season, 55-23 and that was a down game for the Tigers. Memphis had 651 yards of offense outgaining
Kansas by 292 yards. The Tigers also had
3 turnovers or that game could have been much worse. Next up for the Jayhawks is Baylor, who very
well could put up 100 if they wanted to on Saturday against Kansas. The good news for Jayhawk fans… Midnight
Madness is Friday.
Big Ten:
- Ohio State this year reminds me a whole lot like Florida State last year. Florida State was the preseason #1 team as the defending National Champions, with a returning starting QB from that team (OSU has 2). Sound familiar? FSU then slept walked through the majority of their regular season schedule, and amazingly did just enough to be selected into the CFB Playoff as the #3 seed. Ohio State is on that exact path. Everyone knows that Ohio State has the players and talent to compete and probably beat any team in the country. It seems like Ohio State knows this too, which is not a good thing. The good thing for Ohio State is that the Big Ten is not good this year, so they could just coast through conference play. The bad news is that if someone does upset them, they will be eliminated from playoff contention. Ohio State should cruise in their next 5 games before playing games against Michigan State and Michigan in back-to-back weeks to close the season.
- Ohio State this year reminds me a whole lot like Florida State last year. Florida State was the preseason #1 team as the defending National Champions, with a returning starting QB from that team (OSU has 2). Sound familiar? FSU then slept walked through the majority of their regular season schedule, and amazingly did just enough to be selected into the CFB Playoff as the #3 seed. Ohio State is on that exact path. Everyone knows that Ohio State has the players and talent to compete and probably beat any team in the country. It seems like Ohio State knows this too, which is not a good thing. The good thing for Ohio State is that the Big Ten is not good this year, so they could just coast through conference play. The bad news is that if someone does upset them, they will be eliminated from playoff contention. Ohio State should cruise in their next 5 games before playing games against Michigan State and Michigan in back-to-back weeks to close the season.
- Yes, I said Michigan there as I referred to a big game
with Ohio State and NOT because it is a rivalry game. Most people expected Jim Harbaugh to turn
things around at Michigan, but I don’t think anyone thought it would be so
soon. Michigan is now 4-1 this year with
their only loss coming in their opening game on the road against Utah, which
doesn’t exactly look like a bad loss at this point, does it? During their 4-game win streak the Wolverines
have outscored their opponents 122-14, including 2 straight shutouts. I’m not saying Michigan is back, but they are
well on their way. We will learn a lot
more about Big Blue over the next 2 weeks (vs Northwestern, vs Michigan
St.). This Michigan team looks good
enough to compete in the vastly overrated Big Ten East, and it wouldn’t
surprise me one bit if they beat the Buckeyes at the Big House this year.
- I mentioned that the Big Ten East is overrated, that must
mean that the Big Ten West not rated at all.
The West is currently led by Iowa, Northwestern and Illinois; while
typical powers like Nebraska and Wisconsin are a combined 5-5 so far this
season. Iowa, Northwestern and Illinois
are a combined 14-1 this year, they combined for 18 wins total last
season. Northwestern has a tough test
this weekend (@ Michigan), and Iowa has Illinois and Northwestern in
back-to-back weeks coming up, but those 2 teams are in good position to really
make a run at the West Division title.
- How bad does Maryland need to get before Randy Edsall is
fired? Not to kick a guy when he is
down, but Edsall wasn’t even that good before he got to Maryland when he was at
UCONN. In his 12 years at UCONN before
leaving for Maryland Edsall was 74-70 and UNDER .500 in conference play (22-26)
in a bad Big East. That somehow got him
a promotion to the Maryland job. Since
taking over in College Park he has gone 22-33 (10-23 in ACC/Big Ten) in 4+
seasons. So far this season the Terps
have been blown out in all 3 of their losses, losing by 21 to Bowling Green, 39
to WVU and getting shutout 28-0 by Michigan Saturday. They get #1 Ohio State this week. Maryland probably won’t be favored in another
game this season until their finale with Rutgers.
PAC-12:
- Does anybody want to win the PAC-12? No, seriously. We are 5 weeks into the season and only 2 teams are undefeated and those 2 teams play each other this week! Even crazier is that there are just 3 teams still undefeated in conference play. 7 of the 12 teams in the conference have multiple losses already. At this rate we are going to have two 7-5 teams playing each other for the conference title. More confusing is the complete inconsistency week in and week out by some of these teams. UCLA went on a 3 game stretch of coming back from 10 points in the 4th quarter to beat an average BYU team, to blowing out #16 Arizona on the road, to coming home and getting blown out by an unranked Arizona State team. That same Arizona State team lost by 28 at home to USC last week before upsetting UCLA. The whole conference is a mess.
- Does anybody want to win the PAC-12? No, seriously. We are 5 weeks into the season and only 2 teams are undefeated and those 2 teams play each other this week! Even crazier is that there are just 3 teams still undefeated in conference play. 7 of the 12 teams in the conference have multiple losses already. At this rate we are going to have two 7-5 teams playing each other for the conference title. More confusing is the complete inconsistency week in and week out by some of these teams. UCLA went on a 3 game stretch of coming back from 10 points in the 4th quarter to beat an average BYU team, to blowing out #16 Arizona on the road, to coming home and getting blown out by an unranked Arizona State team. That same Arizona State team lost by 28 at home to USC last week before upsetting UCLA. The whole conference is a mess.
- As I mentioned, the PAC-12 only has 2 undefeated teams
left (which will be just 1 after Saturday) and just 3 teams with 1 loss. If the PAC-12 hopes to get into the CFB
Playoff this season they better hope 1 of those 5 teams run the table. That is possible with the teams we are
talking about (Cal, Utah, USC, UCLA, Stanford) when you look at their
schedules, but is it likely considering what we have seen so far from this
conference?
SEC:
- Florida is 5-0, should we be taking them serious yet? They finally have an offense, so that is a plus considering the defense has always been there, but they have been putting up numbers against the likes of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. Sure Ole Miss was ranked #3 and just beat Alabama, but they have been doing it with offense, not their D. We have seen this before from Florida, so I am going to wait before I get on the bandwagon, although I’m willing to acknowledge that this team has the potential to be pretty good. The good news for the Gators is you only have to be “pretty good” to win the SEC East. The real test will be in 2 weeks when Florida plays LSU under the lights in Death Valley.
- Florida is 5-0, should we be taking them serious yet? They finally have an offense, so that is a plus considering the defense has always been there, but they have been putting up numbers against the likes of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. Sure Ole Miss was ranked #3 and just beat Alabama, but they have been doing it with offense, not their D. We have seen this before from Florida, so I am going to wait before I get on the bandwagon, although I’m willing to acknowledge that this team has the potential to be pretty good. The good news for the Gators is you only have to be “pretty good” to win the SEC East. The real test will be in 2 weeks when Florida plays LSU under the lights in Death Valley.
- Speaking of questioning how good teams are, has anybody
snuck under the radar more than Texas A&M this season? A&M is 5-0 and already has 2 wins against
SEC West teams. They also opened the
season with a convincing win over then-ranked Arizona State. Despite all of that they just barely snuck
into the Top 10 in the rankings this week.
The Aggies have a week off before they host Alabama, which should be a
match-up of Top 10 SEC teams.
- LSU is good, really good, but I’m still having a tough
time buying in to any team that has yet to hold a team under 19, a team that
has allowed 24 to Syracuse and 22 to Eastern Michigan. LSU has the Heisman Trophy winner in Leonard
Fournette, but they are going to need more on offense as the schedule gets
tougher, because as I mentioned, that defense is not a typical LSU defense.
- In case you missed Nick Saban’s media session today,
Alabama isn’t out of this thing yet.
Bama had a statement win Saturday when they smacked Georgia 38-10 in
Athens and just reminded everyone that they are still the King of the SEC until
further notice. Bama still has games
against Texas A&M on the road and at home versus’ LSU, but if they get past
those 2, you’ll probably be seeing back in the CFB Playoff.
- I have decided that Chip Kelly has no chance at keeping
his job with the Philadelphia Eagles after this season, so the next question is
what college team does he end up with? The
list of 5 I came up with was Miami, Maryland, Texas, Tennessee and South
Carolina. Those 5 teams are all probably
going to be in the hunt for a coach come December, so now we need to find out
who are legitimate candidates. Miami won’t
want to pay what Kelly will demand, so they are out. Maryland has the money with the backing from
Kevin Plank, I just can’t see them going that big after Kelly and I’m not sure
Kelly will burn his bridges with Phil Knight at Nike by going to Team Under
Armour. Texas would be by far the most
entertaining prospect and something I could see happening if UT doesn’t get
Saban this time around. This leaves 2
SEC schools in Tennessee and South Carolina.
Tennessee may want to hold off on yet another coaching change, they have
had 3 since Phil Fulmer left in 2008, but Butch Jones just hasn’t panned out
like they had hoped. They went for the
splash hire when Fulmer retired and got burned by Lane Kiffin who left after 1
season to go to USC. Would they be
willing to try it again? The other
candidate is South Carolina who, by my guess, will be forcing long time head
coach Steve Spurrier to retire after this season. USC has always been close in the SEC and has
shown that they want to take the big step into being an SEC power, but they
have never quite gotten there. Chip
Kelly would change that. Chip Kelly
could make South Carolina an immediate threat in the SEC East, which means
contending for SEC Championships on a regular basis. Texas would be the more entertaining spot for
Kelly, but South Carolina is the best fit for both parties.
OTHERS:
- Notre Dame is really good. I realize they lost on Saturday to Clemson, but they showed me more in that game than in the 4 prior combined. At the beginning of the season I thought they would be 5-2 at best after they opened with a tough 7 game stretch. Texas hasn’t lived up to expectations and I guess they could still lose to Navy and or USC, but beating Georgia Tech they way they did and coming back and nearly beating Clemson showed me how good they really are. Now I wonder where they will go from here. ND has 7 games remaining and should be the favorite in all but maybe 1. If this Notre Dame team goes 11-1 is that good enough to get into the CFB Playoff? Is 10-2 good enough for a BCS bowl? Personally I don’t think a 1-loss independent team gets into the playoff (another reason ND should join a conference full time), but this team might just be good enough to do so. Do I think they are one of the top 4 teams in the country? No, but wins against USC and on the road against Stanford, as well as others losing might get them there.
- Notre Dame is really good. I realize they lost on Saturday to Clemson, but they showed me more in that game than in the 4 prior combined. At the beginning of the season I thought they would be 5-2 at best after they opened with a tough 7 game stretch. Texas hasn’t lived up to expectations and I guess they could still lose to Navy and or USC, but beating Georgia Tech they way they did and coming back and nearly beating Clemson showed me how good they really are. Now I wonder where they will go from here. ND has 7 games remaining and should be the favorite in all but maybe 1. If this Notre Dame team goes 11-1 is that good enough to get into the CFB Playoff? Is 10-2 good enough for a BCS bowl? Personally I don’t think a 1-loss independent team gets into the playoff (another reason ND should join a conference full time), but this team might just be good enough to do so. Do I think they are one of the top 4 teams in the country? No, but wins against USC and on the road against Stanford, as well as others losing might get them there.
- Watch the Group of 5 to make a run at one of the BCS bowls
this season. Teams like Memphis, Temple
and Toledo are all undefeated with good wins.
Boise State has 1 loss, but has been very good other than their stumble
to BYU in week 2.
Here are a few games to keep an eye on this Saturday:
Georgia Tech @ Clemson
Navy @ Notre Dame
Northwestern @ Michigan
Florida @ Missouri
Cal @ Utah
Navy @ Notre Dame
Northwestern @ Michigan
Florida @ Missouri
Cal @ Utah
I know it’s not much, but hang in there for one more
week. Week 7 is loaded with great games.
