MOVING THE CHAINS: Takeaways From College Football, Week 10

As they say on the PGA tour, Saturday was “Moving Day” in college football. Nine teams in the Top 25 ended up on the short end of the scoreboard, including half of the teams ranked in the top six.

Two of the latter were unexpected; one, however, was inevitable — when No. 1 Tennessee and No. 2 Georgia collided on the Bulldogs’ home turf.

Let’s start by recapping the heavyweight fight in Athens:

♦ Georgia wanted it more, while Tennessee apparently wanted to be somewhere else.

Wait, let’s try that again:

♦ Georgia showed why they’re the best team in the country, and Tennessee — well, Tennessee showed up.

Much better. Bulldogs 27, Tennessee 13. Is it just me, or is Vol head coach Josh Heupel beginning to resemble former Vol coach Phil Fulmer?

Now, let’s take out the trash by mentioning the ranked losing teams that won’t be bothering the polls the rest of the season: No. 23 Oregon State, No. 21 Wake Forest and No. 20 Syracuse, the first ACC team to win their first six games then lose their next three.

Now we can begin. I’ll start out west in the Pac-12. No. 8 Oregon, No. 9 USC, No. 12 UCLA, and No. 14 Utah all won their games while putting a lot of points on the board: 49, 41, 50 and 45, respectively. The only game that was close: the Trojans of USC snuck past California by six points. The Oregon Ducks remain on top without a conference loss, while the other three teams have one apiece in conference play.

As for the Ducks, it’s almost hard to believe this is the same team that began their season with a 49-3 loss to Georgia. Since its humbling opening game, Oregon has put 385 points on the board in compiling eight straight wins; the fewest they scored in any one game was 41. It’s hard to believe their head coach, Dan Lanning, was a defensive coordinator just one season ago.

While there doesn’t appear to be a clear-cut frontrunner for the Heisman, it may come down to two players in the conference an entire nation barely notices:

USC quarterback Caleb ♦ Williams, who completed 26 of 41 passes for 360 yards and four TDs and rushed for another.

♦ Oregon QB Bo Nix: 20 of 24 for 274 yards and two TDs. Nix also rushed for two touchdowns and was on the receiving end of another.

It wouldn’t surprise me if one of them of them — if not both — is invited to the Heisman presentation next month. Remember, you (may have) read it here first.

In the Big Ten East, No. 2 Ohio State and No. 5 Michigan are still on a collision course to battle it out for the division title, as both remain undefeated after wins over Northwestern and Rutgers, respectively. While neither team looked particularly sharp — especially the Wolverines, who trailed at halftime — they should both be 11-0 when they meet the end of the month. In the Big Ten West, No. 16 Illinois still leads by one game despite a 23-15 setback to Michigan State.

In the Big 12, No. 7 TCU remains undefeated after a 34-24 come-from-behind win over Texas Tech. The Horned Frogs now have a two-game lead in the conference over No. 13 Kansas State, No. 24 Texas and Baylor. Things should clear up next week when TCU meets Texas and Baylor takes on Kansas State. Meanwhile, Oklahoma State, one week after being pummeled by Kansas State, 48-0, suffered another loss to the other team from the Sunflower State, Kansas, by a score of 37-16.

Speaking of losing, Oklahoma did for the fourth time this season, falling to Baylor 38-35. It’s been a trying season for first-year Sooner coach Brent Venables, making one wonder if he misses coaching the defense at Clemson. Or coaching at Oregon instead.

Speaking of Clemson, let’s move over to the ACC, where the No. 4 Tigers lost in South Bend to a reinvigorated Notre Dame team, 35-14. The score is a bit misleading, as Clemson didn’t even score until the final 10 minutes of the game when they were trailing by 28 points. While Clemson and No. 17 North Carolina, a 31-28 winner over Virginia, both remain undefeated in conference play and lead their respective divisions, the chances of a one-loss team from the ACC, which both of them are, don’t have a chance of making this year’s four-team playoff for the National Championship. You (may have) read that here first as well.

While we’re in the ACC, it doesn’t speak well for the conference when a Top 25 matchup (No. 21 Wake Forest against No. 22 North Carolina State) was relegated to the ACC Network, while the more prestigious station, ABC, opted to televise a game with two unranked ACC teams. Then again, they might have considered it a bowl game: the “Those were the Days Bowl.” Florida State 45, Miami 3.

In the best game of the day in the SEC, No. 10 LSU, which is beginning to look like the Tiger teams we’ve all come to know and despise (or maybe that’s just me) — dispatched No. 6 Alabama in overtime, 32-31, after a gutsy and successful two-point conversion called by first-year head coach Brian Kelly. Kelly, who was on the brink of being run out of town after a season-opening loss to FSU (the aforementioned one SEC win for the Seminoles), virtually overnight has become the favorite son of Baton Rouge. The win also puts LSU in the driver’s seat for a matchup with Georgia for the conference championship game in Atlanta. (Incidentally, the 32-31 final score is what the final score would have been had Nebraska’s two-point conversion attempt been successful against Miami in the 1983 season National Champion game. Am I implying the LSU-Alabama game was a de facto National Championship? Maybe.)

In the other best game of the day in the SEC (yes, there were two), Auburn rallied from a 24-3 deficit at halftime to tie their game against Mississippi State at the end of regulation at 33. Actually, the Bulldogs had to come back the end of the game and kick a field goal to take the game into overtime, where they scored their game-winning TD. Bulldog coach Mike Leach didn’t appear to be overly excited to shake hands after the game with interim Auburn coach Cadillac Williams, who called two consecutive timeouts the instant MSU’s kicker tried for the game-tying field goal in a failed attempt to rattle the kicker. (Incidentally, the kicker was successful on all three tries, the third one being the one that counted).

Florida beat Texas A&M on their home turf, 41-24. Aggie coach Jimbo Fisher remains on the hot seat, as his team dropped to 3-6 after their fifth consecutive loss. It’s worth mentioning that Fisher’s former team, FSU, has as many wins in the SEC this season (one, over LSU) as his current team (also one, a two-point win over Arkansas, a team that lost Saturday to (drum roll) Liberty).

In South Carolina QB Spencer Rattler’s ‘race to 10,’ after throwing for three TD’s, his season total now stands at eight TD’s and nine interceptions. (For comparison, AJ Swann, his opposing QB Saturday, has 10 TD’s and just two interceptions.) However, now that the Gamecocks are bowl-eligible after beating Vanderbilt (who remain winless this decade in SEC games), it appears head coach Shane Beamer is going to ride out the season with Rattler behind center.

One last score worth mentioning: SMU 49, Houston 35. That’s the halftime score. The second half was a draw, 28-28. Final score: SMU 77, Houston 63, in the highest-scoring regular season game in college football history. The team’s starting quarterbacks threw for nine and seven touchdowns, respectively.

In other words, an entire season’s worth for Spencer Rattler.

Joshua L. Jones