College football is unpredictable and delightful, which is why we live for what happens on Saturdays. Though Week 9 gave us more blowouts than we’re used to seeing, it did teach us quite a bit about some of the nation’s best teams.
Each Sunday, I’ll publish my biggest takeaways from the college football weekend. I’ll highlight the most interesting storylines, track College Football Playoff contenders and specifically shout out individual and team performances that deserve the spotlight.
Here are my top takeaways from Week 9:
1. Oregon looks the part of the No. 1 team in the country.
We’ve wondered all season if there are any great teams. The No. 1 spot in the AP poll has been a bit of a revolving door, with four different teams occupying the top spot at various points in the first nine weeks. Texas and Georgia — both one-loss teams I fully expect to make the College Football Playoff — are very good but also both flawed. Ohio State has issues (that I’ll get into below). I have said before that I’m not sure there’s an elite team, someone head and shoulders above the rest, in a season defined by field storms. But ... is it possible that Oregon is that team? The Ducks have taken care of business easily in the two weeks since picking up the win over the Buckeyes, with lopsided victories over Purdue and now Illinois. Quarterback Dillon Gabriel looks the part of a Heisman Trophy hopeful, and the Ducks have established a prolific passing attack to go along with a reliable run game and physical defense. The Oregon team that had shaky offensive line play in its first two games (when it allowed seven sacks, more than all of last season combined) shuffled its personnel and plugged holes. In the past six games, Gabriel has only been sacked three times.
2. Texas A&M hired the right head coach.
Mike Elko is a ball coach. He is no-frills. And he was absolutely the right choice for Texas A&M coming out of the Jimbo Fisher era. Saturday night’s comeback win over LSU was the kind of game that Fisher didn’t win. Elko’s team is mentally and physically tough, exactly what you’d want after years of 8-4 records and too much bluster. The Aggies trailed, 17-7, midway through the third quarter before Marcel Reed took over the game. (I think we finally got an answer to who should be the starting quarterback moving forward, by the way ...) But my biggest takeaway here is that this is a program going in the right direction. It is a program that focuses on football and gets better over the course of the season — and the Aggies may very well win out until that season-finale against Texas, which would then create one of the most meaningful matchups in the rivalry’s history, with a CFP (and SEC championship game?) berth on the line.
Texas A&M coach Mike Elko: "This is a real program. It is not fake. It is not a politician running this program, talking fast and BSing everybody."
— Carter Karels (@CarterKarels) October 27, 2024
Whoa.
3. Indiana is one of the best teams in the Big Ten — and maybe the country.
The Hoosiers are 8-0 for just the second time in program history, and they still haven’t trailed for a single snap this season. They’ve won every game by double-digits. They have not allowed a single point in any first quarter. These are sentences that would sound wildly impressive for any team in any year, but for this to be about the Indiana football team in the first year of head coach Curt Cignetti‘s tenure ... it’s pretty astonishing. And the Hoosiers dispatched Washington rather comfortably on Saturday despite missing starting quarterback Kurtis Rourke with a hand injury. Indiana is too solid on both sides of the ball for the team to take a major step back. This team is well-coached, well-prepared and very fundamentally sound. It doesn’t beat itself. It has remained focused despite the outside adoration, and its path to the Big Ten championship does remain relatively clear. I can’t wait to see how the Hoosiers stack up with the Buckeyes in a few weeks. Could Indiana be the second-best team in the Big Ten?
4. Ohio State’s four-point win over Nebraska raised some eyebrows.
The Buckeyes were fortunate to escape Saturday’s game against Nebraska with a victory. Honestly, they got bailed out late by Nebraska’s play-calling. (Screen passes? Why??) Ohio State’s overall performance was concerning. The team didn’t play with a sense of urgency, which is surprising since this was the Buckeyes’ first outing since its one-point loss to Oregon and an idle week. Ohio State shouldn’t have needed another wakeup call. I’m concerned about the Buckeyes going just 1-of-10 on third down. I’m concerned about the Buckeyes’ run game, which accounted for just 64 total yards on Saturday. And I’m deeply concerned about the Ohio State offensive line — particularly at left tackle. Josh Simmons suffered a season-ending injury two weeks ago, and his replacement, Zen Michalski, went down late in the fourth quarter against Nebraska. Ryan Day had to get creative to piece together the line after Michalski’s injury, and it’s not clear what the o-line will look like moving forward.
5. Notre Dame has more than made up for its early-season loss.
I said this right after the Fighting Irish lost in Week 2, and I’ll say it again. The 12-team College Football Playoff is not set up to exclude a one-loss Notre Dame team, no matter the loss. And now that we sit here six games removed from that upset, it’s easy to explain it a way. The Fighting Irish now are a totally different team than the one that famously lost to Northern Illinois back in Week 2. They trashed previously unbeaten Navy to the tune of 51-14 on Saturday (thanks, in large part, to the six forced turnovers). Notre Dame always had an elite defense, and it’s held up despite injuries. But this team can run the ball better now than it did early in the season, averaging 235 rushing yards per game during the six-game winning streak to go along with 22 total rushing touchdowns. And the biggest difference between early-season Notre Dame and now is the pass game.
- First two games: 0 pass TDs, 2 INT, 5.1 yards per attempt
- Last six games: 10 pass TDs, 1 INT, 7.6 yards per attempt
I don’t think we should be too surprised that the passing game looks better now that quarterback Riley Leonard has had time in this offense. He transferred in and then missed all of spring ball. Leonard and this team needed time, and now that they’ve had it, they’ve improved. The CFP selection committee should see a team that got better and give ‘em credit for it.
6. Vandy is a tough out.
At this point in the season, I’d hope everyone realizes that the ‘Dores are not fluky. This is a solid football team led by a dynamic quarterback that is capable of going toe-to-toe with just about anyone in the Southeastern Conference. Texas became the latest team to learn this lesson on Saturday, as Vanderbilt was an onside kick away from a very interesting ending in Nashville. The ‘Dores still have games against LSU and Tennessee to play, a couple more opportunities to ruin someone else’s season and impact the SEC race.
7. SMU-Pitt is suddenly a HUGE game next weekend.
It took overtime, but the Mustangs beat Duke despite a minus-6 turnover mark in Saturday night’s game. SMU is now 7-1 and will host unbeaten Pitt next weekend in a game that has massive ACC title game implications. I don’t think anyone had that on the Bingo card heading into the season. But here we are, with two of the league’s top contenders squaring off. Pitt enters the matchup coming off a dominant win over Syracuse in which the Panthers picked off Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord five times. If you aren’t taking these teams seriously as ACC contenders, you’re not paying close enough attention.
8. Boise State has the inside track for the CFP.
The Broncos beat UNLV in the Game of the Year in the Group of 5, which means that Boise State should have a clear path to the Playoff if it wins the Mountain West come December. The Broncos do not have an elite defense, but they have a good quarterback and one of the best players in the country in running back Ashton Jeanty, a Heisman hopeful. The only blemish on their resume is a three-point loss to the No. 1 team in the nation, which is barely a blemish at all. They’ve got a high ranking already and will continue to keep it, which is the most important thing for the eventual debate between the Group of 5 champions. The highest-ranked G5 champion will get an automatic spot in the 12-team CFP.
9. Is the Big 12 race as open as we thought it would be? Or are we headed for an eventual BYU-Iowa State title game?
We’ve said all season that the Big 12 is anyone’s to win and anyone’s to lose. These teams are bunched up more than any other league, making it nearly impossible to pick winners on a weekly basis. Colorado is definitely better than they were last year. Kansas State gutted out a tough win over in-state rival Kansas. So, they could factor into the Big 12 race (or play spoiler). But this may come down to 8-0 BYU (fresh off a win over UCF) and 7-0 Iowa State (which was off this weekend). They don’t play each other in the regular season — and it feels like the two are on a collision course to meet in the title game. Wouldn’t that be fitting? A league that seemed like anyone could win it, decided by two teams that go unbeaten in league play? Stranger things have happened.
10. The unbalanced schedules and tiebreakers are going to be a problem for these megaconferences.
We have a 16-team SEC, a 16-team Big 12, 17-team ACC and an 18-team Big Ten. And that means that no league is playing a true round-robin anymore, which means that they’ve all used complicated scheduling matrixes to try to balance conference schedules competitively. But there’s no perfect way to do this, and multiple leagues could face scenarios in which there might be three (or four) deserving teams for their conference championship game, but the tiebreaking rules sort of arbitrarily pick the two participants. We’ll also have situations like Miami’s, where the ‘Canes will likely get to the ACC title game without facing the three next-best teams in league play. I’m not sure we’re prepared for just how messy this is all going to get.
