2019 Couch Power 10, Week 13
Nation, strange as it sounds, we are down to the last two weeks of the college football season, which typically signals we’ve seen the cream starting to rise to the top. Perhaps fittingly, last weekend, we saw a break from the month-plus of madness that has altered the landscape of college football, and instead saw most of the top contenders assert their dominance.
That’s not to say there was a blank slate of interesting games or any drama last weekend; in fact, there were 5 games between ranked teams. It’s just that in each case, the favored team pulled out the result. With a 52-3 win over possible Orange Bowl candidate (I shudder at the thought) Wake Forest, Clemson re-asserted that there’s about 900 miles of Atlantic Ocean between them and the rest of the ACC. And Notre Dame stuck it to those fans who brought the end of their remarkable home sellout streak by smacking a ranked Navy team from start to finish. Meanwhile, Georgia held on to an exciting rivalry win over Auburn, solidifying their third consecutive SEC East title. And Iowa and Oklahoma both ended the undefeated seasons of Minnesota and Baylor, the latter in incredible fashion…more on that in a minute.
Just a reminder, as you bark, "HA! Two SEC teams in the playoff?!? Nice try, Daniel you’re as much a homer as all those yahoos on the SEC Network!!!!": remember that this is not a statement on who I think have the most talent and quality, or on who I think will be/deserves to be in the playoff at the end of the year. Rather, it's more of a "What if preseason rankings and bigwig bias didn't predetermine the top teams" kind of thing, an ideal ranking of the country's teams based on what they've proved on the field.
1. LSU
It’s not that giving up 37 to Ole Miss is becoming of a #1 team. It’s that dropping 58 points on an SEC West rival is. Oh, right, and so is beating Texas, Auburn, Florida and Alabama.
2. Clemson
I wrote last week that people are somehow sleeping on Clemson, despite the Tigers almost surely being the best team in the land. Well, Clemson went and made it a little harder for people to sleep on them, putting a 50-point win over a Wake Forest team who not too long ago was seen as the last hurdle between the Tigers and an unbeaten season (ha!).
3. Georgia
I, like many, wrote the Bulldogs off after their loss last month to South Carolina, a team that will officially not reach a bowl game this year. As recently as a couple weeks ago, they still hadn’t really won me back over. But quietly the Dawgs seem to be melding into an impressive finished product. They own very impressive victories over Notre Dame, Florida and now after last weekend, Auburn. I’m starting to wonder if we may see a repeat of the 2017 SEC Championship, in which a one-loss Georgia knocked off a red-hot SEC West team that everyone assumed would take the crown, paving the way for two SEC teams in the playoff.
4. Ohio State
Ohio State find them two places lower than our previous ranking. It’s not that the Buckeyes did anything wrong last weekend, winning a Big Ten game by 35 points in star player Chase Young’s absence. But conceding 21 points to Rutgers seems worthy of a couple demerits.
5. Oregon
A playoff path seems clear for the Ducks, but the Pac-12 has been burned so many times in the last few years, seeing whether the conference can produce a one-loss champion (and thus a playoff contender) has produced a schadenfreude game of “who’s gonna blow this for them?” So far, all still good from Oregon, who walloped Arizona last weekend. Though they lack many signature victories, their one blemish is a last-second loss in Dallas to Auburn, at the very start of the season. You’ve gotta imagine they feel confident a playoff committee might be forgiving.
6. Oklahoma
Approaching halftime, the Sooners were trailing Baylor 28-3 and any hope at the college football playoff was blown away in the Waco wind. Then, a switch flipped in the 2nd half (or Baylor panicked and choked, depending on who you ask), and before you could say “the schooner is toppling over!”, Oklahoma was rallying from a 25-point deficit to clinch the biggest comeback in school history. The Big 12 is back on, but more significantly, Oklahoma finally has an impressive win to go with their rapidly depreciating win over Texas that they could hypothetically present to the playoff committee. The question is, how much help do they need from other teams? Is yet another 1-loss, conference champion season enough on its own to jump over a Pac-12 champion and/or Alabama and/or Georgia?
7. Alabama
The immediate past isn’t the issue for the Crimson Tide, who rebounded impressively from their devastating loss to LSU with a 31-point road win over bowl-bound Mississippi State. The future is the concern. In case you haven’t heard, Tua Taigovailoa, one of the best quarterbacks in the entire nation, left the game with a hip injury and will not return this season. It was a crushing blow for the junior, and for his team at large. You have to imagine Alabama’s wealth of talent would be enough to pull out games against most teams in America, but will it be enough to best rival Auburn yet again? And perhaps more crucially, would a win over Auburn even get the Tide into the playoff this year?
8. Utah
A playoff path seems possible, if perhaps less clear, for the Utes. But the Pac-12 has been burned so many times in the last few years, seeing whether the conference can produce a one-loss champion (and thus a playoff contender) has produced a schadenfreude game of “who’s gonna blow this for them?” So far, all still good from Utah, who destroyed a suddenly-streaking UCLA team this past weekend. The problem Utah may run into is that though they possess many solid victories, their one loss (to an unranked USC side) is unimpressive enough to cancel out any individual wins they might have. You’ve gotta think, though, that it’s a problem that could be rectified with a 12-1 record, Pac-12 title, and win over Oregon.
9. Minnesota
All good things must come to an end, and so Minnesota’s unbeaten season, fun that it was, did. There’s no shame in losing to Iowa in Nile-Kinnick Stadium. It seems like at least one ranked team does every single year, and unfortunately for Gopher fans, this year their team was the victim. It’s not all doom and gloom, though; their comeback effort this past week and win over Penn State the week prior have silenced any questions on whether this team is as good as their 9-1 record is.
10. Penn State
A tight, one-touchdown win at home against Indiana probably didn’t raise any eyebrows, but this was a sneaky good win for Penn State. Indiana is no slouch this year; the Hoosiers currently sit at 7-3. In addition, this matchup was sandwiched between Penn State’s tough loss to Minnesota last week, and their crucial tilt at Ohio State this coming weekend. This win showed impressive focus from the Nittany Lions.
Just missed: Florida, Baylor, Cincinnati, Memphis, Appalachian State, future Heisman nominee Dazz Newsome