CFB Plus: Cream Rising to Top in CFB
We are two weeks away from our first look at the CFP front runners (as chosen by the CFP selection committee) and we are starting to see some clarity.
We also can take a serious look at the Heisman front runners.
Here's what we learned after another wild and crazy CFB weekend
The top tier teams: Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, Florida State, and Penn State all coasted to easy wins.
USC was dumped from the unbeaten ranks by Notre Dame and Washington outlasted Oregon in a major Pac-12 meeting.
Shuffle the order of those teams at your leisure as we await the first College Football Playoff rankings in the first week of November.
Georgia is going to be hard to topple before December.
The twice defending national champions tease us with some scares and near misses (going into the fourth quarter at Auburn), but when it's crunch time, the Dawgs keep rolling.
On Saturday at Vanderbilt, they looked sluggish again, but prevailed in a 37-20 win.
Not spectacular, but effective, which looks like it will continue the remainder of the regular season.
The only negative and it is a big one was a left foot injury to tight end Brock Bowers, which will be a concern in post season if Bowers injury is not available
After a bye week, who's going to beat them:
Florida in Jacksonville?--Rivalry game, but not like
Missouri--Again possible, but not in Athens
Ole Miss--Again, possible, but not in Athens
Tennessee--Danger. Game is in Knoxville and it could be for the SEC East title
at Georgia Tech.--Not going to happen if the Bulldogs are still unbeaten.
SEC title game in Atlanta--Probably Alabama and that looms as the challenge, but this is no where close to being a great Alabama team.
Which leaves us with Georgia's challenges for a third consecutive national title.
Lets go conference and see the challenges
Big Ten--Penn State travels to Ohio State next week and the loser will be gone and the winner will have to Michigan.
Any of those three who remains unbeaten is a lock for a Rose Bowl semifinal slot in the CFP Final Four.
Big 12--Oklahoma and Texas remain the front runners, and the chances of a OU-Texas rematch at the Big 12 title game in Arlington, Texas seems more and more likely
ACC--Any doubts about Miami disappeared on Saturday after the Hurricanes self imploded (this timer it was the players, not Hurricane coach Mario Don't Take a Knee Cristobal) in a 41-31 loss to North Carolina).
The Tar Heels (unbeaten this far in the season for the first time since 1997) are pretty good, but beating FSU seems like too tough a task.
Pac 12
As Washington and Oregon again showed on Saturday, the best top to bottom conference in college football this season.
Washington won 36-33, both teams should have won (more about that below) since Oregon Coach Dan Lanning suffering a case of Cristobal-itis, as the Ducks failed on three fourth and short situations.
Two of those choices came in the first half when Oregon passed on slam dunk field goal opportunities from inside the Washington 5, passing up 6 points.
But start with Washington--now the favorite to be the Pac-12 champion get a spot in the Final Four, down to bottom feeder Stanford, which overcame a 29-0 halftime deficit against Colorado on Friday to sun Coach Deion Sanders and his Prime Time boys, each Pac-12 team is a tough out.
Moving to the Heisman, Washington quarterback Michael Penix. Jr. jumped into the leader's role in the Heisman race with a superb 4 TD effort in the H:18uskie's win over Oregon. The winning TD pass was an 18-yard TD pass to Rodney Oduzne with 1:18 left in the fourth quarter and gave Washington for the last time.
Out of the Heisman race is returning winner, Caleb Williams, who had the worst game of his career in USC's 48-20 romp over the Trojans. Williams had three passes picked off in the first half in USC's first loss of the season.
Who's Hot
Washington. The Huskies may have a national champion and a Heisman winner. The win over Oregon was step one.
But they may have to do it again in the Pac-12 championship game in Las Vegas in December.
Notre Dame
The win over USC showed the kind of team that the Irish can be. The loss to Louisville remains a mystery. With 2 losses they are out of the Final Four picture, but can get a spot in a New Year's Six bowl game.
Who's Not
Oregon Coach Dan Lanning, who made three decisions to go for a first down on fourth down and failed three times, potentially costing his team 6 points in what turned into a 3 point loss
."This one is 100 percent on me,''' said Lanning after the game.
Well, maybe 80 percent, but it probably cost the Ducks a chance at the Final Four, even if they come back and win a rematch against Washington in the Pac-12 title game.
Texas A&M.
Another big Aggie "must win;'' another close loss, this time at Tennessee. Coach Jimbo Fisher's team stumbled to a 5-7 record.
The loss to the Vols drops the Aggies record to 4-3 with remaining games against: South Carolina, at Ole Miss, Mississippi State. Abilene Christian and at LSU, which looks like 7-5 at best.
[Play it forward (Games of interest next week)u
Penn State at Ohio Stater--Loser drops out of the Big 10 championship race and must hope for upsets.
Duke at FSU--If Blue Devils pull off this upset, they will have swept Clemson and FSU, which is worth noting.
Rutgers at Indiana-Jersey Guy stepping in here as Coach Greg Schiano's team can become bowl eligible with a victory. That's a big deal in Piscatawy.
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