The Week of Truth

National Overview

That… was delightful. 2014 took another turn for the bizarre when Auburn, Team of Destiny^TM, got a taste of its own medicine against Texas A&M, going down in a heap of fumbles and ineptitude. LSU very nearly ensured the SEC would only have one playoff entrant, only to leave the door open enough for Alabama to escape. Oregon presumably cleared its final regular-season hurdle, while Arizona State took a major step toward the playoff by ethering Notre Dame.

But the big noise came on Tuesday, when the playoff committee’s new rankings had… Oregon at No. 2, ahead of defending champion Florida State. TCU was also in for the time being, ahead of No. 5 Alabama. Gasp! While this makes for exciting TV, it’s also the right call to make at this point in the season for many reasons. More on this later.

Baylor is currently out of the playoff much to the chagrin of Bears fans. However, Baylor was probably the biggest winner of the weekend other than ASU. By blasting Oklahoma, the Bears eliminated potentially the biggest threat left on their schedule, with a home finale against Kansas State left to boost the resume. Baylor fans shouldn’t fret about being ranked behind the TCU squad their team beat; if the Bears win out, they’ll leap the Horned Frogs based on the head-to-head result. Count on it.

Speaking of TCU, it’s obvious why the Horned Frogs have the edge on the Bears right now. First, TCU’s loss was earlier, thus affording the team more time to make up ground. Second and more importantly, TCU has unquestionably played the more difficult schedule to this point. The Horned Frogs and Baylor both beat Oklahoma, while TCU beat West Virginia and the Bears lost to the Mountaineers. However, the clincher in TCU’s favor – for the moment – is the remainder of the schedule. TCU just dominated Kansas State AND crushed a decent Minnesota team out of conference, while Baylor had three mid-major cupcakes and has yet to play the Wildcats. Like I said, if both teams win out, the Bears will get the nod. But they have to actually do it first.

Ohio State’s victory over Michigan State should end any chance the Big Ten has of getting a team into the playoff. I say “should” because there’s already a minority group touting the Buckeyes as potential 12-1 conference champs deserving of an invite. However, there’s a lot of ball left to be played, and I still lean toward the Big Ten getting the cold shoulder when everything is said and done. While the win over the Spartans was impressive, MSU’s earlier (and worse) loss to Oregon hurts the Buckeyes significantly, as does the fact that OSU’s loss is to 4-5 Virginia Tech. It’s hard to see the committee taking a team who A) plays in a league as weak as the 2014 Big Ten and B) lost to a team with a losing record.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. There’s still loads more football to be played in the regular season, and I have a feeling things will sort themselves out. This week, there’s a whole lot of mid-major garbage during the week, then the good stuff. Ohio State is at Minnesota (who entered the standings at 25^th this week), but don’t get your hopes up. Clemson and Georgia Tech, which are surprisingly both ranked, will battle in Atlanta.

Nebraska is at Wisconsin in a game the Big Ten desperately needs the Cornhuskers to win: with one loss, Nebraska could set up as the perfect foil for an Ohio State team on the playoff bubble. There’s also Auburn – Georgia, which has some potential, and FSU at Miami (FL), which has slightly less. Of course, the big one is in Tuscaloosa, where No. 5 Alabama welcomes top-ranked Mississippi State. We’re about to find out just how legit the Bulldogs are.

Playoff Poll

College Football Playoff

1) Mississippi State vs. 2) Oregon

3) Florida State vs. 4) TCU

I agree with the committee. I had the Seminoles first last week, but after another mediocre performance moved FSU back down, this time below an Oregon team that owns three better wins (Michigan State, UCLA, Utah) better than any the ‘Noles can boast. TCU, as I explained earlier, might be on borrowed time, but the win over K-State has to be rewarded.

Second Tier

Baylor

Alabama

Arizona State

Baylor rockets to the top of the “looking-in” list with a thrashing of Oklahoma. Alabama beat LSU, but I don’t think LSU is very good, so the Crimson Tide will have to wait until they beat Mississippi State this week to move up. ASU was off my radar for a while but leapt right back into the fray with a scary-good win over Notre Dame (a result that also factored into FSU’s drop).

Third Tier

Ohio State

Auburn

Does anyone really even belong in this conversation? OSU is the nominal third-tier favorite, but a lot has to go right for the Buckeyes to have a chance. Auburn is likely out after the A&M loss, but a 10-2 SEC West team could possibly have a case if, again, things break just right. We’ll see.

Pac-12 Report

Let’s start with the most important one. Arizona State, in one of the biggest games in school history, absolutely demolished a highly-regarded Notre Dame team hoping for an outside shot at the national championship. The turnovers helped, certainly, and ASU can’t expect that kind of luck every week. Just as in the similar game against UCLA the Sun Devils lost, though, at some point teams make their own luck. Credit ASU for forcing the Fighting Irish into mistakes, capitalizing with big plays and putting Notre Dame away when it came down to crunch time. Just a very, very big win for the program and the league.

Oregon’s 24-point win at Utah doesn’t tell the whole story, as any Utes fan will surely lament. Utah had the Ducks on the ropes early, forced two turnovers on downs and should have been up 14-0 in the second quarter… until Kaelin Clay happened. The play has been replayed over and over to the point it hardly seems worthwhile to recap it, but rest assured it will live in infamy. Dropping the ball before crossing the goal line has hurt teams before – it happened to Oregon this season against South Dakota, which could be why the Ducks were alert – but never quite in this fashion. The massive momentum shift propelled UO to a 24-7 lead, and when the Utes finally crept back into contention, Marcus Mariota buried them. It was in some ways a fortunate win, but as with ASU, credit has to go to the team that makes fewer mistakes. Oregon is now assured of a spot in the Pac-12 title game.

UCLA at Washington was a game I looked forward to before the season, but the teams’ play so far predicted a somewhat less-than-competitive matchup on Saturday. UW did a nice job hanging in there, but it’s clear this Huskies squad has some issues beyond just a bad offense. The Bruins, once left for dead, are still alive for the South title. It remains to be seen how realistic that goal is, but after the ugly way this campaign started 10-2 would be a nice accomplishment.

Washington State at Oregon State was the bad one. The Beavers seemingly had everything in their favor: home field, reason to play angry after a string of losses, a freshman quarterback making his first start. None of it mattered, as WSU took control in the second half and nabbed just its third victory all year. OSU looks done; needing two wins against the combination of Arizona State, Washington and Oregon is a tall order, and nothing the Beavers have shown recently evokes any optimism. The “Fire Mike Riley” brigade is back and getting louder. That’s not the best option for this team, but there are obviously some major problems at OSU.

Colorado – Arizona was the last game on the list. As they have all season, the Buffaloes battled bravely… yet as they have all season, they lost again. The parallels to WSU a few years ago are strong – CU has to go from “laughingstock” to “mediocre” before becoming “good” – but it’s tough to see a team work so hard and achieve so little in the win column. Arizona survived and advanced with reasonable comfort and still has a shot to win the South, like almost everyone.

There are a surprising four teams off this week, so the slate is a little lighter. Cal is at USC for a Thursday matchup that could prove interesting if the Trojans don’t take it seriously. You’d expect SC to be able to bludgeon the Bears with a powerful run-pass combo and overwhelm the visitors with superior athletes, but Cal has shown it can score with anyone. The last thing the Trojans need is to get into a four-quarter shootout with a team seeking a crucial sixth win. I like USC, but beware.

The weekend pairings begin with Washington – Arizona, a matchup that, like many the Huskies have played, looked better at the start of the year. ‘Zona could get caught looking ahead to Utah but is the better team overall; barring an offensive meltdown against a talented but beleaguered D, the Wildcats should win. There is a scenario in which UW squeezes just enough out of Shaq Thompson on offense to take a slugfest, but you’d hope for the conference’s sake the ‘Cats don’t let that happen. At home, this is UA’s to lose.

Utah at Stanford is an intriguing game for the similar styles the teams play and the fact that the Utes upset the Cardinal last year. Utah has clearly been the better side this season, but things like that can get lost in the struggle of a 6-3 field goal battle. Both teams feature excellent defenses and offenses that dream of one day being pedestrian, so it wouldn’t shock me to see Stanford pull this out. Games like this are what the Cardinal are built for, games they’ve usually won over the past several years. Utah had better not look ahead to Arizona.

Finally, unfortunately, we have Arizona State – Oregon State. Frankly, I don’t see things improving for the Beavers. ASU is on a roll right now and knows the stakes here, while OSU has been inept offensively much of the season and has little hope of matching the Sun Devils in a shootout. The defense that buoyed OSU to a 4-0 start has also broken down (not unlike Washington’s), which makes this one pretty easy to pick. ASU should win comfortably.

Heisman Watch

There’s very, very little to say on the matter.

Marcus Mariota, QB, Oregon

Mariota has been the best player in the country by a wide margin. Barring a meltdown in the final two games or an injury (gods forbid), the award is his.

Dak Prescott, QB, Missisippi State

This is Dak’s moment. Run and pass all over Alabama, and the Bulldogs’ signal-caller has a shot. But it’s going to take quite a performance.

Random Thoughts and Observations

It’s hard to argue the advent of the College Football Playoff hasn’t increased interest in the sport – in a good way. While the BCS erroneously and inexplicably touted its controversial nature as a positive, the playoff debate has done nothing but improve the national conversation about what matters and what doesn’t for a team’s resume.

Take the committee’s new rankings, featuring one-loss Oregon at No. 2 and undefeated Florida State No. 3, with TCU ahead of Alabama at No. 4. In the poll/BCS era, this would have been unthinkable. No power conference team ever got jumped without a loss, barring highly unusual circumstances. The old, flawed line of reasoning was that since a team had accomplished something in its previous games, poor performances in victory had to be excused. That doesn’t make sense for multiple reasons.

College football teams play highly uneven schedules. Unlike in the NFL, where every team plays eight home and away games, including its entire division twice, college teams generally host seven to eight games per year. Powerhouse programs routinely schedule all of their non-conference games at home against mid-majors and FCS schools, a practice the playoff is designed to stamp out. Because of this, teams can go long stretches (in some cases, entire seasons) without facing an equal or near-equal opponent.

Additionally, teams change over the course of a season. Injuries, slumps, emerging players and the unpredictable schedules can make squads look invincible one week, then awful the next. The only way to properly rate teams is to evaluate them, from scratch, every week. That’s what the committee claims it has been doing, which is reflected in the current standings. Oregon is ahead of Florida State because:

Oregon has played a significantly tougher schedule than FSU

            The Seminoles’ best win (Notre Dame) just took a massive credibility hit

            FSU has played average in recent weeks, while UO has notably improved

All this means is the committee has been watching the same football as everyone else. FSU hasn’t looked good lately. Why should they deserve to retain a ranking that doesn’t reflect their current level of play? This is good for the sport. If Florida State wins out, it will be in the playoff. But the Seminoles are going to be forced to prove it in their upcoming games, which is how things should work when only four playoff spots are available.

Stanzi Watch

It was another small group of winners this week, but what these players lacked in quantity they made up for in name value. Yes, let us welcome back 2013 Stanzi winner Devin Gardner of Michigan! Gardner has sadly been absent on the Stanzi Watch list until now because the Wolverines are so bad this year, but at least he deigned us with his presence once this fair season. Hats off to you, Devin. We missed you.

The more relevant name this week? Jameis Winston. The Seminoles QB picked up his astounding fourth Stanzi of the year, all but assuring himself of a season victory. It would take a truly remarkable comeback to stop him now. However, I do worry about the validity of the award when performances like the one Notre Dame’s Everett Golson turned in don’t make the cut. Golson had a true Stanzi-esque outing against Arizona State with four picks and a fumble, but he Stanzied so hard he actually Stanzied himself out of Stanzi range, as the Sun Devils won by 24. Hmmm. Perhaps a special recognition is in store for Mr. Golson. Here are this week’s winners and the finalists.

Drew Hare, Northern Illinois

Opponent: Ball State

Performance: Two FUM, won by 14

Christian Hackenberg, Penn State

Opponent: Indiana

Performance: Two INT, won by six

Devin Gardner, Michigan

Opponent: Northwestern

Performance: Two INT, won by one

Jameis Winston, Florida State

Opponent: Virginia

Performance: Two INT, won by 14

Jameis Winston, Florida State: 4

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

Christian Hackenberg, Penn State: 2

Brett Hundley, UCLA: 2

Davis Webb, Texas Tech: 2

Nick Mullens, Southern Miss: 2

C.J. Brown, Maryland: 2

This is the end. Rivalry Week, part one, is next Saturday. We've come down to crunch time and there's no going back. Au revoir, Michigan State, Kansas State and Ole Miss. Your exclusion from the playoff doesn't mean you won't be in our hearts.