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National Overview

Ah, another full platter of drama and intrigue. What a season this is becoming. From Florida State’s narrow escape Thursday night to Arizona State’s late Saturday, Week 10 provided all the thrills, heartbreak and general insanity we’ve come to expect from 2014. Six ranked teams lost, including presumed Group of 5 leader East Carolina. Ole Miss and Georgia saw their conference title and playoff dreams go on life support, while UCLA revived its season with a huge win over Arizona.

West Virginia very nearly doomed the Big 12 with an upset of TCU, but the Mountaineers fell apart in the second half in a flurry of turnovers and timid play calls. The Horned Frogs probably shouldn’t have survived, but lived to fight another week – this week, as a matter of fact. Kansas State, the last undefeated team in league play, visits Fort Worth this Saturday with first place in the Big 12 on the line. Baylor could still take the conference by winning out, but this game has the feeling of a heavyweight bout.

Oregon moved within one game of clinching the Pac-12 North by exorcising a few Stanford demons, thanks to tiebreakers over the Cardinal and Washington. The South got a lot more interesting when co-leader Arizona went down and ASU held off Utah in overtime. More on that later, but it seems possible the last few weeks in that division could be absolutely wild. Of course, nothing matches the sheer silliness of the SEC East.

The SEC West has too many good teams. This is not up for debate. When LSU is the third-best team in the division, you know things are rough. That’s good for the SEC, because the East doesn’t have a single good team. Toss aside Georgia’s No. 17 ranking. The Bulldogs aren’t good – they have zero wins over anyone of quality and proved to be frauds by getting slammed by a terrible Florida team. Now UGA, Florida and Missouri will duke it out (no Blue Devils) in a terribly depressing battle for the right to get annihilated by the West champion. Why can’t the two best teams from entire league play?

Mississippi State and Auburn could lay claim to those designations, though we won’t know for sure until the next few weeks play out. Auburn got yet another obscenely lucky break to beat Ole Miss and is still very much alive for the playoff, while MSU snuck by another bad team (Arkansas) and managed to stay No. 1. The fall is clearly coming for the Bulldogs, who needed an onside kick touchdown last week to escape lowly Kentucky. In two weeks MSU travels to Tuscaloosa, where it’s likely the charmed ride will end.

This week: we’ve got some good ones. Two huge Big 12 showdowns loom, with Baylor at Oklahoma and Kansas State – TCU. There are also two big games involving Pac-12 teams – Oregon at Utah and Notre Dame at ASU – along with the Alabama – LSU rivalry and Ohio State travelling to Michigan State. You know it’s not football season until the MAC starts playing on Tuesday… and we’ve reached that delightful point.

Playoff Poll

For at least one week, we have absolute clarity. The Kansas State – TCU game could serve as an elimination game, while Oregon faces its last real challenge of the regular season at Utah. The intrigue actually comes from the forgotten Big Ten, where Ohio State is at Michigan State in a game that will determine a division champion and potentially serve up a backup playoff contender if chaos unfolds in the SEC.

College Football Playoff

1) Florida State vs. 4) TCU

2) Mississippi State vs. 3) Oregon

I jumped FSU up because the Bulldogs have performed so poorly the past two weeks. I can’t shake the feeling that MSU is going to lose to Alabama. Oregon and TCU are next up, but Auburn is lurking right behind the Horned Frogs.

Second Tier

Auburn

Michigan State

Alabama

Auburn shouldn’t have beaten Ole Miss, but what else is new for the most fortunate team in the country? The Tigers get slumping Texas A&M this week, but must travel to Georgia and Alabama in the final three games. Michigan State could move up with a big win against Ohio State, while Alabama needs to make a statement at LSU.

Third Tier

Kansas State

Baylor

Notre Dame

Kansas State has been under the radar but could take a huge step forward by knocking off TCU this week. Baylor has been counted out since the West Virginia game but still has just one loss, while Notre Dame slides a little based on a weak performance versus Navy.

Pac-12 Report

Midway through the second quarter, with Washington trailing Colorado by double digits, things looked grim for the Huskies. For all the talk about tempered expectations in the first year of a new regime, there’s no denying UW has talent. Falling to the winless (in conference) Buffaloes would have been devastating. Fortunately, Washington got a TD before the break, then benefitted from an avalanche of CU turnovers in the second half to move to 6-3. As the Huskies play 13 regular-season games this year, they need seven wins for bowl eligibility. Sitting at 5-4 with UCLA and Arizona next on the schedule would have been dicey. For Colorado, it’s yet another heartbreaker in a season full of near-misses.

USC beat up Washington State and knocked out QB Connor Halliday with a broken ankle. It’s a sad ending to the career of one of the Cougars’ all-time prolific passers (and they’ve had a few), but in the long run the result will probably help the Pac-12. As I’ve written previously, having a couple of patsies for the rest of the league to pick up an automatic win is vital – it’s what’s sustained the SEC’s dominant run. With the win, SC stayed alive for the South title, creating a five-team logjam in the division that will take another month to sort out. WSU has to look to the future, which may not be a bad thing given how poorly this campaign has played out.

Oregon thrashed Stanford just like the old days, effectively ending any doubt about who will win the North. Only Washington and Stanford are still alive and the Ducks have wins over both. Now the focus for UO is Utah, which should be the last competitive game this team has in the regular season (Colorado and Oregon State remain). Should Oregon win, it would further the notion that great defenses aren’t kryptonite to this offense, making the Ducks more attractive to the playoff committee. Lose, and any shot at a national championship is gone.

Oregon State fell at home to Cal, a result I grimly predicted. The Beavers are now 4-4, in fifth place in the North and in very real danger of missing out on the postseason. Arizona State and Oregon are almost certainly losses, which makes the games against the Washington schools must-wins. WSU this week is doable – the Cougars will be breaking in a new QB – but on the road at Washington is tough. UW is a better team than OSU. Cal, on the other hand, got a huge break by playing BYU at the end of the season rather than the start, as the Cougars haven’t been the same since losing quarterback Taysom Hill. With USC and Stanford left on the docket, the Bears will likely need that game to hit the magic win total of six.

It seemed as if Arizona probably got too much credit for what’s looking more and more like a fluke upset of Oregon, but Saturday’s 17-7 defeat at the hands of UCLA was a puzzler. ‘Zona played unquestionably its worst game of the season against the most mercurial team in the conference, ceding control of the South in the process. Give credit to the Bruins for (maybe) turning their season around, sure. I just don’t know if the Wildcats are that good. They’ll beat Colorado and Washington, but the last two games (Utah and ASU) are doozies. At 7-2, UCLA has actually weathered the “overrated” storm pretty well. Although none of the final three (Washington, USC and Stanford) are gimmes, a 10-win finish isn’t as preposterous as it seemed a couple weeks back.

And of course, there was Utah – ASU. In a near-perfect matchup of good offense vs. good defense and average offense vs. average defense, the Utes’ style prevailed. It was a low-scoring, contained affair, exactly as Utah would have wanted. Unfortunately, the Sun Devils won the game. Oh, how much might that loss to WSU hurt the Utes? We’re about to find out, as Oregon rolls into town this week. ASU, on the other hand, has to feel pretty good about things. With wins over the two most talented defenses in the conference in hand, the Sun Devils have just one game remaining against a good Pac-12 team. Now, Notre Dame comes to town this week, which is a different story. We’ll see just how good this squad is against the Irish.

Two huge contests loom this weekend, as the division leaders take the field for games that could decide their postseason fates. Oregon is at Utah in the Ducks last legitimate regular-season hurdle, while ASU hosts Notre Dame in an attempt to give the Pac-12 some clout AND knock the Irish out of playoff contention. UO should win. The Utes’ anemic offense shouldn’t be able to move the ball consistently enough to keep up, even against a D as spotty as Oregon’s. If Utah can make it a slugfest, though, anything is possible. ASU faces a stiffer challenge, but has the weapons to beat ND as long as the defense continues to hold up. Should be a pair of great games.

The pickings in the rest of the conference are somewhat slimmer. North cellar-dwellers WSU and OSU meet to determine which will be crowned king of the bottom of the division. Lose this one, and the Beavers will really be in trouble. The Cougars still have some nice receivers, but this OSU defense isn’t exactly bad, despite what a similar Cal offense was able to do last week. More importantly, Luke Falk will be starting his first game for Wazzu. Though he played admirably in defeat versus USC, road games are never easy for young QB’s. OSU should win.

UCLA is at Washington in a game that matches two teams a lot more similar than the rankings would have a person believe. Both sides have been disappointing offensively this year and average defensively, though the Bruins do have a much more settled player at the crucial signal-caller spot. The matchup is in Seattle, which is a fairly tough place to pull off a win, and the Huskies are definitely due for a breakthrough, “epiphany”-type performance. UCLA’s might have come last week against Arizona, though. I’ll go with the Bruins, because as bad as UCLA’s offense has looked, it isn’t nearly as devoid of playmakers as UW’s.

Colorado – Arizona, for some reason the last-night showcase for the conference, isn’t very promising. The Buffaloes have had their chances to get that first Pac-12 win and simply haven’t taken advantage of them; they’re on the road, at night, against an angry Wildcats squad determined to prove itself. This might be a massacre. There’s very little to give me reason to pause on this prediction.

Heisman Watch

Right now there’s essentially no argument, but I’ll list the top players in consideration.

Marcus Mariota, QB, Oregon

Mariota is the best passer in the nation in several categories. He’s unquestionably the best player in the country right now.

Dak Prescott, QB, Mississippi State

The MSU QB has been a little banged up lately and turned in a couple of “meh” performances, but as long as the Bulldogs keep winning he’s in good shape.

Everett Golson, QB, Notre Dame

Golson rebounded with six TD’s against Navy (three rushing, three passing), but he’ll be judged primarily on his performances in ASU this week and USC later this month.

Random Thoughts and Observations

It’s time to stop considering Jameis Winston a Heisman candidate. I haven’t from the start, because the obvious truth is that after all the drama surrounding the Florida State QB, voters will never let him near the thing again. The same was true for Johnny Manziel last season, and Manziel didn’t have nearly as large a cloud over him. The off-field issues – yes, FSU fans, there are plenty, and they go beyond Winston’s lawyer “leaking” the star player’s alleged victim’s name to the public in an attempt to smear her (months after Seminoles fans discovered her identity and did the same) – will certainly take care of that.

But Winston’s play on the field eliminates him as well. For some reason this isn’t getting any attention, but Winston’s performance has slipped markedly this year. His completion percentage, yards per attempt and QB rating are down from 2013. His touchdown-to-interception ratio is far worse, dropping from a stellar 4:1 (40-10) to a mediocre 4:3 (16:9). There are a whole lot of QB’s around the country that could throw 16 TD’s and nine picks with the talent of FSU around them. This should make the voters’ jobs a whole lot easier.

Stanzi Watch

I thought Everett Golson was going to run away with this. What can I say? Even the best of us get things wrong sometimes. The crop was small this week, but one big performance threw the race into disarray again. Here are this week’s winners and the multiple-winner finalists. It’s a quality list.

Jameis Winston, Florida State

Opponent: Louisville

Performance: Three INT, won by 11

Kyle Allen, Texas A&M

Opponent: Louisiana-Monroe

Performance: One INT, one FUM, won by five

Cyler Miles, Washington

Opponent: Colorado

Performance: Two FUM, won by 15

Dak Prescott, Mississippi State

Opponent: Arkansas

Performance: Two INT, won by seven

Jameis Winston, Florida State: 3

Everett Golson, Notre Dame: 3

Logan Woodside, Toledo: 3

Justin Holman, UCF: 2

Dak Prescott, Mississippi State: 2

James Knapke, Bowling Green: 2

Fredi Knighten, Arkansas State: 2

Brett Hundley, UCLA: 2

Davis Webb, Texas Tech: 2

Nick Mullens, Southern Miss: 2

C.J. Brown, Maryland: 2

We're rapidly approaching the first playoff in major college football! Where did the season go? It seems just yesterday we were asking whether the Big Ten was really all that bad (answer: yes), or if Ohio State would be fine without Braxton Miller (answer: no), or if the SEC West was really that great (answer: probably). It's been a delightful repeat of the madness of 2007, but this time we get a playoff to determine the champion on the field. How wonderfully decadent.