And now, 20 Final Thoughts from college football’s Week 14, when it appeared someone was holding ESPN’s Marty Smith captive in the Ole Miss football facility during an all-day Lane Kiffin vigil. Hopefully he saw some games.
1. There is going to be a record amount of outrage in college football come Tuesday night. Plan accordingly.
Once Alabama safety Bray Hubbard popped the ball out of Auburn receiver Cam Coleman’s hand with 33 seconds left in the Iron Bowl, sealing a 27-20 escape for the 10th-ranked Crimson Tide, college football completed a second straight week where every team ranked between Nos. 4-14 avoided defeat. Which means there will be considerably more teams with legit cases for at-large berths than there are available spots.
No. 11 BYU (11-1), No. 12 Miami (10-2), No. 14 Vanderbilt (10-2) and, new to the party, No. 16 Texas (9-3), all have better resumes than the last two at-large teams a year ago, 11-1 Indiana and 11-2 SMU. And they may all get left out.
I’m sure all parties will handle the situation rationally.
2. The way I see it, eight teams have locked up their berths: 12-0 Ohio State, 12-0 Indiana, 11-1 Georgia, 11-1 Texas Tech, 11-1 Texas A&M, 11-1 Oregon, 11-1 Ole Miss and 10-2 Oklahoma. Two more bids will go to the fourth- and fifth-highest ranked conference champs, one of which will be the American champion, either 11-1 North Texas or 10-2 Tulane. The other will certainly be 10-2 Virginia if it wins the ACC title. Less certain: Whether 7-5 Duke (yes, 7-5 Duke) would fend off the likes of 11-1 James Madison should the Blue Devils pull an upset against Virginia.
That leaves just two more spots, which, as of last week, would go to No. 9 Notre Dame (10-2) and No. 10 Alabama (10-2). Unless No. 11 BYU knocks off No. 5 Texas Tech in the Big 12 title game, in which case, perhaps Alabama gets knocked out. Unless, of course, the Tide knock off Georgia in the SEC championship game, in which case … they expand the thing to 16?
3. Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer gave his fan base a collective heart attack when, on fourth-and-2 with 3:53 left, needing just a chip-shot field goal to take the lead on rival Auburn, the Tide offense stayed on the field. Quarterback Ty Simpson stood in the pocket and hit Isaiah Horton for a 6-yard touchdown that will go down in Iron Bowl lore. Shades of DeBoer’s even-riskier fourth-and-1 from his own 29 in the 2023 Apple Cup with Washington. This one, like that one, worked to perfection, which, followed by Hubbard’s subsequent forced fumble, sent 10-2 Bama on its way to Atlanta.
And yet … I still would not declare the Tide safe just yet. They barely made the cut last week, and the committee is under no obligation to protect conference championship game losers. They didn’t drop SMU last season, but the Mustangs lost to Clemson on a walk-off 56-yard field goal. What if Georgia beats Alabama 27-10?
Or, less likely, what if someone else passes the Tide on Tuesday? Someone like …
4. No. 12 Miami is Exhibit A of why the committee putting out weekly rankings taints the process. The Canes happened to suffer their second loss days before the initial Nov. 4 edition, to a then 5-3 SMU team. They debuted all the way down at No. 18. But 10-2 Miami’s resume looks much different today. For one, it just added a second Top 25 win, 38-7 at No. 22 Pittsburgh — its fourth straight lopsided victory since those first rankings. Meanwhile, the two teams that beat the Canes in October, SMU and Louisville, both finished 8-4. Neither would be viewed as “bad” losses if starting from scratch today.
Miami is still trying to recover from an initial CFP ranking of No. 18 on Nov. 4. (Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images)
For the first time, I do believe it’s possible the committee could finally move Miami above current No. 9 Notre Dame, a loser to the Canes in Week 1, though possibly not until next Sunday, after Alabama’s and BYU’s conference championship games. Yes, the Irish ran their winning streak to 10 by pummeling Stanford 49-20. But the teams’ resumes are so similar now — straight down to matching blowouts at Pitt — that it’s hard to argue they’re not “close.” In which case, the committee could invoke the vaunted head-to-head tiebreaker.
Or, someone completely different could usurp the Canes. Someone like …
5. Arch Manning and Texas managed to cram a season’s worth of unpredictability into one performance in their mammoth 27-17 upset of 11-0 Texas A&M on Friday. The Longhorns’ offensive line looked completely overmatched in the first half, and Manning was just 8 of 21 for 51 yards. They trailed 10-3. Then the second half started and suddenly the Horns offense could do whatever it wanted — including Manning running for a back-breaking 35-yard touchdown.
The star quarterback made enough big plays to help knock off the No. 3 team in the country while still completing less than 50 percent of his passes (14 of 29) for 179 yards. An enigma much like his team itself. The one whose coach, Steve Sarkisian, said after the game it would be a “disservice to our sport” if the committee doesn’t put the 9-3 Horns in the Playoff.
6. I know it’s my job to have a take on everything, but I am torn right down the middle on Texas. In general, I do believe teams should be rewarded for who they beat (in this case, 11-1 A&M, 10-2 Oklahoma and 10-2 Vanderbilt) more than they should be punished for bad losses (in this case, 4-8 Florida). And Sark is right that the Horns would be in if they had scheduled Bowling Green (my example, not his) instead of Ohio State.
But Texas did not look like a Playoff team for most of its games, including overtime escapes against 5-7 Kentucky and 5-7 Mississippi State. The version that showed up for the second half Friday night was not its norm. And unlike last year, this year’s field is overcrowded with viable at-large candidates.
I suspect Texas will pass 10-2 Vandy (who the Horns beat) and 10-2 Utah (which will likely finish with no wins against teams in the final Top 25) but remain behind 11-1 BYU and 10-2 Miami. If so, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey will go ballistic and say the committee didn’t reward strength of schedule like it said it would. And he’ll have a point. But so will the people who say, “Well, you shouldn’t have lost to Florida.”
7. It turns out Diego Pavia called his shot in June when he went on a podcast and declared that “Vanderbilt is gonna run Tennessee after this year.” The Commodores went to Neyland Stadium and ran right through the 19th-ranked Vols 45-24 to reach 10 wins for the first time … ever.
Pavia was No. 1 on my Heisman straw poll ballot last week and will remain there Tuesday after yet another epic performance: 268 yards passing (albeit with two early interceptions), 165 yards rushing. Over his last four games, he racked up 1,862 total yards and 16 TDs. He finished the regular season with 4,018 yards of offense. Most importantly, he’s completely transformed the SEC’s longstanding cellar dweller to the point where beating a ranked Tennessee team by three touchdowns is not out of character.
8. And hey, guess what else happened Saturday? Ryan Day beat Michigan.
I can’t imagine the catharsis Day felt as the clock wound down on No. 1 Ohio State’s 27-9 victory at the snowy Big House, the Buckeyes’ first against their nemesis since Day’s first season, in 2019. One year earlier, he’d overseen a 13-10 home loss so unforgivable that this reporter unwisely said, “There’s no coming back from it.” Sixteen straight wins and a national championship later, Day gets the last laugh.
This feels like Ryan Day’s equivalent of John Calipari losing to Oakland. Whether it’s by his choice or someone else’s, the guy is going to need an exit plan after this. There’s no coming back from it.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) November 30, 2024
The game was everything we’ve come to expect from the 2025 Buckeyes: Julian Sayin uncorking a pair of long touchdown passes to Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate, freshman running back Bo Jackson reaching 100 yards for the fourth time in five games and Ohio State’s defense holding the Wolverines to 39 total yards in the second half. In doing so, the Buckeyes became the first team since 1975 Florida to hold their first 12 opponents to 16 points or fewer.
If Ohio State has a weakness waiting to be exploited, we’ve yet to see it. But if anyone can find one, perhaps it’s Curt Cignetti.
9. We have ourselves a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup in the Big Ten title game in Indianapolis next weekend. Something that hasn’t happened in a conference championship since the 2008 and ’09 Alabama-Florida SEC title games. The stakes are admittedly much lower than they were back then, when only the winner advanced to the BCS championship. In this case, one of Ohio State or Indiana will be 13-0 and get the No. 1 seed, and the other will be 12-1 and get the No. 2 or 3 seed.
But don’t let that distract from the “I can’t believe this is really happening” novelty of 12-0 Indiana facing 12-0 Ohio State in a football game. The Hoosiers, which destroyed rival Purdue 56-3 on Friday, haven’t hoisted the Big Ten trophy since 1967. And if they win, they’re going to advance straight to a Jan. 1 quarterfinal at the fabled Rose Bowl, which IU last played in that same season.
10. No. 6 Oregon won’t get a chance to defend its Big Ten title, but after last year’s quarterfinal debacle against Ohio State, here’s guessing Dan Lanning is going to relish hosting a first-round game at Autzen Stadium. The Ducks got to 11-1 with a 26-14 win at rival Washington, avenging a 2023 loss to Michael Penix-led Washington in Seattle that marks the last time Lanning’s teams lost a road game.
While Oregon won’t enter the CFP with as much buzz as it did a year ago as the No. 1 seed, quarterback Dante Moore looks fully capable of leading his team on a postseason run.
11. All credit to Oklahoma for closing out a CFP-worthy 10-2 season, but man, are the No. 8 Sooners hard to watch. Quarterback John Mateer’s three interceptions were the only reason mediocre LSU had a chance to pull off the upset in Norman late into the fourth quarter. But OU’s defense was dominant yet again, holding the Tigers under 200 yards, and Mateer’s 58-yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Sategna with 4:16 left sent the Sooners on the way to a 17-13 victory.
I don’t love the idea of a team with an offense ranked in the low 80/high 90s reaching the Playoff, but you can’t deny its resume: At least three Top 25 wins (at No. 10 Alabama, No. 15 Michigan and at No. 19 Tennessee), with two respectable losses (11-1 Ole Miss and 9-3 Texas). If nothing else, I’d love to see that defense face an explosive offense such as Notre Dame’s or Miami’s.
12. And now, a Kirby Smart appreciation post.
Georgia, which plays in the undisputed toughest conference in football, is headed back to its conference championship game next week for the eighth time in the last nine seasons. (With help from Texas A&M losing.) The Dawgs’ 16-9 win against Georgia Tech assures them at least 11 wins, something they’ve accomplished every year since Smart’s second season, in 2017, save for an 8-2 mark in the abbreviated 2020 campaign. That’s a staggering level of consistency for any program.
But of course, we know Smart does have one kryptonite: Alabama. He’s 1-7 against his former employer, including a 24-21 home loss earlier this season. The good news for Georgia is another SEC championship loss to the Tide would not cost the Bulldogs a Playoff berth like it did in 2018 and 2023.
13. In an alternate universe with no Indiana or Vanderbilt, No. 18 Virginia might have been the talk of the season. Tony Elliott’s team reached 10 wins for the first time since 1989 and clinched a trip to the ACC championship game by thumping 3-9 rival Virginia Tech 27-7. The program had been so forlorn for so long that this marked just its second time beating the Hokies in the past 21 seasons, despite the fact Tech hasn’t been particularly good itself in nearly a decade.
That Virginia’s turnaround hasn’t gained much traction nationally is a reality that most non-Clemson/Florida State/Miami games in the ACC get buried in the ratings by the SEC and Big Ten. But now the Cavaliers are one more win away from playing on an enormous stage in the College Football Playoff.
Or one upset loss away from the ACC possibly missing the Playoff entirely. Because …
14. Nothing exemplifies the silliness of supersized conferences than 7-5 Duke, a team that lost out of conference to Illinois, Tulane and, yes, UConn, reaching the ACC championship game through some overly complicated formula. The Blue Devils beat 8-4 Wake Forest 49-32, then finished in a five-way tie for second after Cal ruined things for No. 21 SMU with a dramatic 38-35 win. Duke finished with a higher cumulative conference opponents’ winning percentage than fellow 6-2 teams Miami, SMU, Georgia Tech and Pitt, despite playing only one of those schools, and losing 27-18 to the Yellow Jackets.
Virginia, which finished 7-1 in league play because its loss to NC State was scheduled as a nonconference game, also played just one of those five 6-2 teams — and it happened to be Duke, which it beat 34-17 in Durham on Nov. 15. I assume the Cavs will do so again and save their conference the headache of potentially seeing unranked Duke make the CFP while top-12 Miami sits home.
Or even worse …
15. It’s a common misperception that the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC are guaranteed automatic CFP berths. Not so. It’s the five highest-ranked champions regardless of conference. There’s nothing to prevent two Group of 5 conference champs from finishing above a Power 4 champ like, say, 8-5 Duke.
The Athletic’s Austin Mock gives not just Tulane-North Texas, but also 11-1 James Madison considerably better CFP odds (39 percent) than Duke (7 percent) should JMU beat 8-4 Troy in the Sun Belt championship. Needless to say, this would be a humiliating outcome for ACC commissioner Jim Phillips. Moreover, it would not thrill execs for the CFP and, ahem, ESPN. No pressure, Virginia.
16. Michigan’s 9-3 season was hardly a disaster, but given Sherrone Moore is still a first-time head coach living in the shadow of Jim Harbaugh, there’s bound to be grumbling in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines’ offense improved considerably in his second season, but it was still too one-dimensional. Michigan averaged 11.7 points against the three current Top 25 teams it faced, Oklahoma, USC and Ohio State.
But the Wolverines were also an unusually young team that started six first- or second-year players on offense, most notably quarterback Bryce Underwood. Provided Michigan can retain them, it’s reasonable to expect Moore to turn Michigan into a Big Ten championship-caliber unit in 2026.
Michigan freshman Bryce Underwood passed for 63 yards vs. Ohio State. (Adam Cairns / USA Today Network)
17. Remember back in late October when Nebraska gave third-year coach Matt Rhule an extension to keep him from leaving for Penn State, his alma mater? Here’s what happened after that: The Huskers, 6-2 at the time, lost three of their last four, bottoming out in a 40-16 beatdown by rival Iowa. To be fair, the Huskers lost star quarterback Dylan Raiola for the season in their Nov. 1 loss to USC. That doesn’t explain their defense allowing 77 points in their last two games.
Rhule, whose guaranteed compensation increased from $49 million to $71 million with his new deal, fell to 2-10 in November games. The cycle will never end.
18. No. 25 Arizona capped one of the most surprising regular seasons in the country with a 23-7 rout of rival No. 20 Arizona State. Brent Brennan’s team improved from 4-8 to 9-3 in his second season despite losing several of the program’s best players last offseason. Not bad for a guy whose first season went so badly there were rumblings at the time he might not make it to Year 2.
The Sun Devils’ follow-up to last year’s Big 12 title season wound up a disappointing 8-4, though losing star quarterback Sam Leavitt to injury in October did not help matters. Sixth-year journeyman Jeff Sims had a nightmare performance against the Wildcats, committing five turnovers.
19. I urge national coach of the year voters to strongly consider New Mexico’s Jason Eck. The former Idaho coach took over a program that hadn’t reached a bowl since 2016 and had just seen its roster completely plundered, and he produced the school’s first nine-win regular season in 28 years. Also, it’s the first undefeated season at home since 1962!
Friday’s 23-17 double-overtime victory against San Diego State put those two, Boise State and UNLV in a four-way tie for first at 6-2 in the Mountain West. The title game participants will be decided Sunday morning by a set of four computer ratings.
Dear conferences, please bring back divisions.
20. Finally, there was a moment Saturday when I was watching four games at once and realized only via the ticker on one of them that the Florida-Florida State game was taking place. What I wouldn’t give to hop in Marty McFly’s DeLorean and tell 20-year-old me circa 1996 I’d be one day watching a Vanderbilt-Tennessee game more closely than that one.
For anyone else who missed it, Florida won 40-21. Neither team will play in a bowl game for the first time since 1978.
