Winners and losers: Top teams take care of business heading into rivalry weekend
There shouldn’t be much movement in the Top 10 of the College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday.
Aside from No. 8 Ole Miss’ blowout loss to Arkansas and a bye for No. 5 TCU, each team took care of business – mainly against far inferior opponents – with what should be a wild rivalry weekend on the horizon.
After hard-fought wins over LSU and Mississippi State, top-ranked Alabama fell behind FCS Western Carolina early and led by just three points midway through the second quarter before getting on track and blowing out the Catamounts 48-14. It was the perfect breather before next Saturday’s Iron Bowl.
Like Alabama, No. 10 Georgia also hosted an FCS opponent and dismantled Charleston Southern 55-9 while No. 2 Oregon routed Colorado behind 323 yards passing and four total touchdowns from Heisman Trophy candidate Marcus Mariota. The Ducks already have clinched a spot in the Pac-12 title game and should take care of business against in-state rival Oregon State next weekend.
Additionally, No. 4 Mississippi State and No. 7 Baylor handily beat Vanderbilt and Oklahoma State, respectively. The Bulldogs, coming off the loss to Alabama that knocked them out of the top spot, beat up the lowly Commodores 51-0, while Baylor took care of Oklahoma State 49-28 at home.
No. 9 UCLA also put up a dominant performance against No. 19 USC, scoring 24 of the game’s last 31 points to win 38-20. They’ll certainly make a jump with Ole Miss losing, but how high will the Bruins climb for beating a ranked opponent?
The only unanticipated movement we could see from the selection committee is due to lackluster performances from Florida State and Ohio State against average opponents.
In true Florida State fashion, the unbeaten, third-ranked Seminoles needed a late field goal to beat Boston College at home. Will another close win over an ordinary opponent impact the Noles’ ranking? It has in the past, and that could mean bad news for the No. 6 Buckeyes. OSU struggled through three quarters against lowly Indiana. The Buckeyes finally took a one-point lead with 2:20 to go in the third before winning 42-27, but their struggles against the 3-8 Hoosiers could result in Baylor jumping them in the rankings.
This all sets up for a fantastic slate next weekend. Alabama-Auburn in the Iron Bowl, Mississippi State-Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl and Georgia-Georgia Tech are the best of the bunch.
Plus, Ohio State hosts the hated Wolverines, the Seminoles host Florida in Will Muschamp’s last game, TCU travels to Austin to face the Longhorns and UCLA hosts Stanford.
Strange things can happen when rivalries enter the equation and upsets are never quite as surprising during rivalry weekend when everything’s on the line.
Here's the best and worst of Week 13:
WINNERS
Harvard: The Ivy League title was on the line. College Gameday was in the house. Lee Corso put on the Handsome Dan Bulldog head. Yale came back from a 24-7 deficit to tie the game 24-24. No matter for the Crimson, who put together a game-winning drive that was capped by a 35-yard touchdown pass from Conner Hempel to Andrew Fischer with 55 seconds left to go up 31-24 before ending a furious final comeback by Yale with a Scott Peters interception. Harvard finished the year 10-0, won the Ivy League and beat rival Yale for the eighth straight year.
Kent Myers:
You most certainly didn’t notice the Utah State freshman QB’s performance in a 41-7 pummeling of San Jose State, and we don’t blame you. Utah State’s season has been somewhat derailed (it's still an amazing 9-3, 6-1) by QB injuries, which makes Myers’ performance all the more remarkable. He ran for three touchdowns and added one through the air in the win, putting the Aggies in a three-way tie for first in the Mountain West with Boise State and Colorado State and the Broncos to play next week. It was Myers’ fifth game under center for Utah State after starting the season fourth on the Aggies’ depth chart before injuries to Chuckie Keeton, Darell Garretson and Craig Harrison. He has yet to lose.
Illinois: The Illini are one win from a bowl berth, somehow. They knocked off Penn State for the first time since 2010 and the first time at Memorial Stadium since 2007. Illinois kicker David Reisner hit a 36-yard field goal to give his team the 16-14 win over the Nittany Lions. He may or may not have been inspired by something his offensive coordinator told him before the kick. It was a crucial victory for the Illini – and especially embattled head coach Tim Beckman – though no one was there to see it. The only team standing between Beckman and bowl glory is Northwestern, riding a two-game winning streak after beating Notre Dame and Purdue.
Justin Hardy: The East Carolina receiver deserves some love on a day when Samaje Perine stole the record-breaking headlines. Hardy caught nine passes for 104 yards in the Pirates’ 34-6 win over Tulane, but more significantly, passed ex-Oklahoma receiver Ryan Broyles as the FBS all-time career receptions leader with 355. And he’s far from finished, with games still left against Tulsa and UCF in the regular season. The Pirates will need him to keep doing his thing if they want to maintain any hope of winning the American, sitting behind three teams with a 4-2 mark in conference play. There is some bad news for Hardy, though, as despite his prolific output, he wasn’t even named one of the 10 – yes, 10 – finalists for the Biletnikoff, which totally makes sense.
Marcus Mariota:
Maybe spread QBs winning the Heisman is getting a little obvious. Maybe you could argue that Mariota’s crowning would almost feel more like a lifetime achievement award. You could certainly argue that 323 yards through the air and 73 yards on the ground and four touchdowns mean a little less against Colorado. Maybe it’s all true, but it doesn’t actually diminish the fact that in the home stretch of the Heisman race, the Oregon QB stepped up with a big performance as Melvin Gordon crept up on his heels after last week’s temporarily record-setting performance. Mariota keeps humming, no big deal. Get your “Jesus, Girls, and Marcus Mariota” posters while they’re hot.
P.J. Fleck: The countdown clock to Saturday's game against Central Michigan paid off for Western Michigan coach P.J. Fleck as his Broncos got win No. 8 on the season and sixth-straight in a 32-20 win over the Chippewas. The eight wins for WMU is more than the team had in 2012 and 2013 combined and there's still a (slight) chance that the Broncos could make the MAC championship game. For it to happen, WMU has to beat Northern Illinois and Toledo has to lose to Eastern Michigan, but hey, crazier things have happened, right? Either way, it's a successful season in Kalamazoo.
LOSERS
Virginia Tech:
The Hokies beat Ohio State earlier this year in Columbus, we’re pretty sure. We thought we witnessed that with our own eyes. The same (well, sort of the same) Buckeyes that are now making a case to be included in the College Football Playoff. But today, the Hokies were a special kind of terrible, ending regulation tied 0-0 with 2-8 Wake Forest, a team that entered the game with no wins in conference play and had lost its last six by a combined score of 192-70. But wait, it got worse. Virginia Tech lost 6-3 in the second overtime, outscored by a team ranking 127th in points in FBS. The Hokies, who beat North Carolina and tainted Duke’s division aspirations before Georgia Tech completely ruined them, now has to beat Virginia next week just to make a bowl game.
Savannah State: The Tigers ended another miserable campaign with a 64-0 thumping at the hands of BYU, finishing the season 0-12, which is actually worse than the 1-11 mark in 2013 and the 1-10 mark in 2012 and the 1-10 mark in 2011 and, well, the point is that Savannah State is 6-61 since 2009 and it’s actually gotten worse. The Tigers allowed an average of 46 points per game in 2014, including the infamous 83-9 loss to Georgia Southern in the second game of the season, which is to say it’s all been a special kind of amazingly terrible.
Michigan:
Granted, no one was really expecting things to get better for the Wolverines this season, but a 23-16 loss to Maryland is pretty brutal, especially with 10-1 Ohio State waiting next week in Columbus, standing between Michigan and bowl eligibility. Good luck with that. The Wolverines have lost at least six games for the fifth time in seven years, after having only one 6-loss season in the previous 40 years, and barring the miraculous, will deny the senior class a shot at one final bowl game. It can’t be 2015 fast enough for the Maize and Blue.
Notre Dame: Much like Virginia Tech, there was a time, albeit fleeting, when the Irish had only glory in front of them. They started 6-0, and narrowly lost to Florida State. Yet, there was still hope for a strong finish and a statement season. Well, hope is gone, and whatever was left of it Saturday morning in South Bend was summarily put to sleep by Louisville and the fickle nature of Kyle Brindza’s right leg in a 31-28 loss. Notre Dame has now lost four of its last five, including three straight to Arizona State, Northwestern and Louisville. It was fun while it lasted. It would be easy to point to Brindza, who’s missed field goals with the game on the line in back-to-back weeks. But Brindza didn’t fail to convert on seven of 11 third down attempts, and he certainly had little to do with the Irish allowing 409 yards of total offense to the Cardinals or Notre Dame getting out-rushed 229-99. The Irish sit at 7-4 with USC left to play, and if they lose that game, it would be the same regular season mark as Brian Kelly’s first year with the Irish back in 2010, and consequently, would equal his worst regular season mark at Notre Dame.
Max Thompson and Nick Bromberg contributed to this post.
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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
