The Couch Power 10, Week 10
Believe it or not, college football fans, we have just 3 weeks of the regular season remaining. I think we can officially call this "home stretch szn." What did we say last week? November is where "contenders are separated from the pack, where pretenders are cast into college football limbo, and historically, when I cease being emotionally invested in North Carolina football and become more invested in the national race (but not this year!!!...yet)." Well, we saw that very much borne out this week.
I'm not sure any single weekend will quite top the level of chaos that Week 7 (Bama-Tennessee, TCU-Ok State, Utah-USC) gave us, but boy, Week 10 sure did its best. Tennessee was once again involved in the game of the week, though the memory of this game will be much more sour for the Vols, who were beaten easily in the end by their rivals, #3 Georgia. Alabama was once again on the wrong end of a thriller, this time falling in Baton Rouge to Brian Kelly's LSU on an overtime 2-point conversion, a fitting finale to a game that has a real claim to Game of the Year if the Week 7 showdown in Knoxville didn't already wrap that up. Two more unbeatens fell, as in addition to Tennessee, Clemson got pantsed by Notre Dame in South Bend, dealing a serious blow to their playoff hopes. Elsewhere, five other ranked teams lost, three of them to unranked opponents, and there were nearly more; Ohio State, USC, and future national champions North Carolina all required some 4th-quarter heroics from their Heisman candidate quarterbacks to avoid defeat by cellar-dwellers Northwestern, Arizona, and Virginia, respectively.
One more note, and it's in the "some personal news" genre: I'm about to depart on a 2+ week voyage across Europe. So, while I will try to stay plugged in to college football enough to publish a blog or two, I can't promise it will be my top priority. I hope you understand. If this is farewell until December, stay safe this holiday season!
Just a refresher: this is not a definitive ranking on how good the teams are, 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 actually proved on the field to date:
1. Georgia
Georgia has rarely looked like last year’s title- winning team this season, but the two times they have? They’ve been when the lights are shining brightest. For the first time since the season opener against Oregon, the Dawgs faced a high-quality opponent, and proved they are still THE team to beat in college football. The defense turned in its best performance yet in stifling #1 Tennessee, and given the remaining schedule ahead for Georgia, it’s tempting to go ahead and pencil them in now.
2. TCU
TCU’s performance, in which they once again had to rally from behind to win late, this time over unranked Texas Tech, likely won’t earn too many new admirers in the playoff committee. But given the chaos everywhere else in the college football landscape, the Horned Frogs are firmly in “just win, baby” mode. If they can win out, it will be impossible to leave them out of the postseason, especially given their opportunity to notch a fourth ranked win of the regular season against rivals Texas this weekend.
3. Michigan
The ping-ponging of the Big Ten’s two unbeaten elites continues, with the Wolverines jumping Ohio State thanks to a dominant 2nd half on the road against a better-than-you-might-expect Rutgers team. If they can avoid a letdown on Senior Day against a tough Illinois team, they should set up a showdown in “The Game” with stakes as high as they’ve been since 2006.
4. Ohio State
I said last week that the “eye test” favored Ohio State over rivals Michigan, but really, the resumé was virtually identical. Now, after an ugly, ugly win over last-placed Northwestern, it’s tough to argue they have an advantage in either respect. Some leniency is given by The Couch for the horrible weather conditions, but come on… it’s Northwestern.
5. Tennessee
It’s not that a road loss against the unbeaten reigning national champions is anything shameful. But in a winner-take-all game for the SEC East and inside track to the college football playoff, Tennessee barely looked competitive. I wondered coming into this one whether the Vols were Dak Prescott’s Mississippi State (high-flying SEC upstart who would ultimately get exposed down the stretch in their toughest tests of the season), or Joe Burrow’s LSU (an electric offense that came out of nowhere, suddenly and legitimately the best team in the country by a mile). The way they lost this one and fumbled away their playoff freaks makes me think they were the former.
6. Oregon
Beating up on a bad Colorado team won’t turn many heads. But the Ducks have a couple good wins on their résumé, are dispatching of overmatched opponents with ease, and their sole loss to Georgia looks more and more justifiable with each passing week. In other words, the Ducks’ playoff hopes are alive and well.
7. UCLA
I’m not entirely sure why UCLA has become the afterthought of the one-loss Pac-12 teams. Their one loss is to the conference frontrunners Oregon, they’ve responded well since said loss by pummeling Stanford and Arizona State, and worn wins over Washington and Utah, their résumé is superior to their rival USC’s. The Bruins are far from out of contention.
8. Clemson
I talked last week about how I wasn’t buying into the “Clemson is the most overrated team” talk from the first playoff rankings reveal. Nor am I buying, this week, that one loss has suddenly erased the Tigers’ good body of work and knocked them out of the playoff race. But there’s no question Clemson had a dreadful week. They didn’t just lose to Notre Dame, they got absolutely boatraced by an unranked Irish team that owns losses to Marshall and Stanford, and on the same day, their two best wins (Syracuse and Wake Forest) dropped their second-straight losses, likely knocking both out of the Top 25. So while all is not lost for Dabo and co., they do need a good amount to go right for them to make the playoff, starting with winning every single remaining game.
9. LSU
I’ll let what is now my most viral tweet ever do the talking for LSU here.
10. Tulane
The playoff committee, the media, the fans… everyone stays sleeping on Tulane. That’s okay! The 8-1 Green Wave lies dormant and unnoticed, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting swimmers in the college football ocean and sneak up for a shock playoff berth.
Just missed: North Carolina, USC, Alabama, Ole Miss, Utah, Drake Maye Heisman Hype
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