There’s only one week of the regular season left before Championship Week, but there’s still a lot at stake in college football.
Nine conference championship positions will be determined in this week’s games, including the Big Ten East (Ohio State in Michigan), East American Conference (Western Kentucky in Marshall) and MAC East (Miami, Ohio at Kent State).
And there will also be plenty of stuff online beyond bragging rights in the Iron Bowl, Egg Bowl, Apple Cup, and Bedlam.
With another big coaching shift and loads of competitive games coming up this week, it’s a great time for another set of over-the-top deals.
Michigan has a chance to play Ohio State
“The Game” has become so disparate from the Buckeyes’ favor over the past two decades, I’m not even sure it’s the best rivalry in college football anymore. Another Ohio State win over Michigan seems inevitable, especially with the way the Buckeyes are rolling on the offensive right now.
Without a doubt, the Wolverines are the better team this season. Under new defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald, Michigan ranks 7th in the FBS for defensive scoring (16.3) and 10th for defensive totals (306.7 yards). They have the physicality and discipline in attack and are second in the Big Ten in dashing (218.4 yards) and scoring (36.9 points).
After struggling on the road in the past, Michigan won at Wisconsin, Nebraska, Penn State and Maryland. The only weakness is the 37-33 defeat first the state of Michigan on October 30.
It doesn’t matter if Michigan can’t beat Ohio State, right?
Not exactly exactly. There aren’t many teams in FBS capable of beating the booming Buckeyes right now. Ohio State owned “That Team Up North,” winning eight in a row, the longest win in the history of the streak, and 15 of the past 16. Jim Harbaugh is 0-5 against the Buckeyes, with his teams losing by an average of 19 points. In just the past two games, in 2018 and 2019 (last season’s game was canceled because of COVID-19), the Buckeyes have scored 118 points and have up to 1,144 yards of violations. It’s not pretty.
Saturday’s game at the Big House will be the first time both teams have ranked in the top five since 2016, when Ohio State won 30-27 in doubles overtime. The winner claims the East Division title and will play in the Big Ten championship match on December 4. A win in Indianapolis could secure a spot in College football tournament – for either team.
“Both teams have a lot going on,” Harbaugh told reporters Monday. “It’s a real playoff in that sense. In the College Football Playoff world, it’s the start of the knockout stages. The team that wins goes deep, the team that doesn’t play.”
As Michigan has improved so much, it’s safe to assume the Buckeyes will once again be the team going forward.
Cincinnati going back to work
Oregon lost for the second time this season on Saturday, July 38 on the road at Utah, leaving the Ducks and Pac-12 out of the knockout stages once again. Ducks were 3rd in the selection committee rankings last week, so one can guess that Ohio State will move up to at least 3rd (and possibly before Alabama to 2nd place) and the Bearcats will slide to 4th place.
Or maybe not.
The Bearcats, who were trying to be the first team from the Group of 5 conference to fail the playoffs, turned in one of their better performances of the season on Saturday, knocking down SMU 48-14 at home.
But it wouldn’t be surprising if the commission passed Michigan ahead of Cincinnati by at least a week, after the Wolverines steered Maryland 59-18 en route. Michigan doesn’t currently have a single win that can overtake Cincinnati’s path to victory Notre Dame, but its scheduling power is clearly better than the Bearcats’.
That doesn’t mean the Bearcats won’t make the top 4 if they beat East Carolina on the road on Friday (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC & ESPN Apps) and Houston in the AAC Championship. In fact, ESPN’s Allstate Playoff Prediction gives Cincinnati a 65% chance of making it to the knockout stages, second only to Georgia (98%) and Alabama (66%).
Your school will hire a bad coach
The regular season isn’t even over yet, and there are head coach vacancies at three of the top 15 shows in the country: Florida, LSU and USC. Given their location, tradition, budget, and recruiting base, there’s no reason those teams shouldn’t regularly compete for congress and national titles.
Those programs will attract a more qualified pool of applicants, but Texas A&MJimbo Fisher of Penn State, James Franklin of Penn State and Mel Tucker of Michigan State probably wouldn’t be among them. The Aggies locked Fisher with a four-year extension that would pay him about $90 million over the next 10 years. The Spartans are said to be working on a 10-year, $95 million contract for Tucker, and Franklin is said to be agreeing to a new contract with the Nittany Lions, which could be approved and announced as early as Tuesday.
Fourteen FBS programs have made coaching changes since the start of the 2021 season, and just four have been filled. There will likely be more openings in the coming days with additions and retirements. It is predicted to be one of the most volatile training carousels in recent history.
“I think what the landscape of college football is like,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said Monday. “The deposit is getting higher and higher. The salary is getting higher and with it the expectations. It’s a different landscape now than it was even four or five years ago in terms of portals, recruitment, volume. in the beginning, everything changed so quickly, it made it more difficult, it was a much harder job because it puts less strain on your family and things.”
So who is left? Lots of potential candidates, including Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell, Baylorby Dave Aranda, LouisianaBilly Napier, State of IowaMatt Campbell and Ole Miss‘Lane Kiffin, for starters. A school might have to wait for Fickell if the Bearcats are in the playoffs, but why not host the hottest training row in FBS?
So while USC fans can hope for Fickell, they may have to settle for Aranda, who worked wonders in his second season with the Bears.
And while Florida fans may notice the Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, they could end up with Napier who worked under Clemsonby Dabo Swinney and Nick Saban of Alabama.
LSU might be willing to throw $100 million or more at Fisher – how much would it actually be? — but Alabama’s offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien might be a more reasonable candidate.
3:31
Bryce Young of No. 2 Alabama threw a school record 561 yards (second most in SEC history) and five touchdowns to beat No. 21 Arkansas, 42-35.
Georgia will crush Alabama
The SEC championship showdown we’ve been waiting for months is finally set: #1 Georgia will play #2 Alabama at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on December 4.
This will be the third encounter between the schools in the SEC title game; The Crimson Tide won the first two games by a total of 11. In 2012, the Bulldogs’ nasty efforts ended with the clock running out of time at Alabama’s 5-yard line in a 32-28 loss. Six years later, midfielder Jalen Hurts came on from the bench to lead Tide back after conceding two goals in the second half. Georgia’s faulty fake hit with a 3:04 left helped set up the Hurts’ 15-yard win in a 35-28 win.
That victory came a year after the teams met in the post-season CFP National Championships in 2017, also playing in Atlanta, and Tide took that win, too. Freshman Tagovailoa start the second half and throw three touchdowns, including a 41-yard player to DeVonta Smith in extra time to win 26-23.
This season, Georgia is considered the most dominant team in the country, finishing 8-0 against the SEC for the first time in school history. Bulldogs can finish undefeated in the regular season for the first time since 1982 with a win over opponents Georgia Tech on Saturdays (noon ET, ABC and the ESPN App).
Meanwhile, Alabama sometimes looks surprisingly vulnerable. The Tide barely beat Florida two en route (Bulldogs beat Gators 27), lost to Texas A&M by three on October 9, and then needed late games to beat both LSU and Arkansas at home (Bulldogs beat Hogs 37-0). In many moments, Alabama’s attack was difficult and their defense was easily shocked when playing big.
However, if the Crimson Tide wins at Auburn in the Iron Bowl on Saturday, they’ll have more money when they play the Bulldogs a week later. Unless Alabama beats Georgia again, they won’t be able to make it to the CFP. A two-game losing team has never made it to the playoffs, and it’s hard to imagine Tide going to be the first team, especially not to win the congress title, no matter how high they might end up in the competition. Tuesday night’s selection board rankings.
Make no mistake: Alabama is likely to be at its best in Atlanta, and this will be another back-and-forth between Saban and Smart, his former defensive coordinator. Tide receiver Jameson Williams and John Metchie will test Georgia’s high school qualifications, and Bryce YoungThis player’s ability to shuffle will help keep attacks on the field.
As Georgia has shown this season, finally beating Alabama has been an elephant-sized obstacle staring the Bulldogs since early September. Knocking Tide out of the playoffs may be Georgia’s most obvious path to ending a 41-year drought without a national title.
“I have no doubt we can play against Alabama, we’ve done it three times,” Smart told ESPN in pre-season. “We’re just as good as them, and we’ve played against them before.”
The wait is almost over to find out if the Bulldogs can finally get the job done.
