Another week of college football has come and gone and if you take a glass half empty approach to things so is half of the 2023 season with Week 6 now in the books.
(For the glass half full types, there are still seven weeks of regular season football remaining, then conference championship weekend, then the Army-Navy game and all of that before bowl season and the College Football Playoff).
There were no shortage of notable happenings across the sport this weekend, with the Red River Rivalry living up to its reputation, upsets of multiple Top 25 programs, near chaos in the Pac-12 and more.
Is this the most balanced season — in terms of actual real national title contenders — in awhile?
Is the Pac-12 going to ruin its own CFP chances again?
Can anyone beat Georgia? Ever?
Do we believe in any ACC teams?
Those questions and many more remain six weeks (seven weekends) into the season.
Here are six takeaways from the latest weekend in college football:
Best group of skill position players for Utah State since when?
The Utah State Aggies won their second consecutive game Saturday night, defeating the Colorado State Rams 44-24, the Aggies’ fifth straight win over their conference rivals.
There was plenty to pay attention to/react on in USU’s win, but arguably the most interesting thing about this year’s Aggies is their skill position players on offense.
In the last five years, Utah State has had some excellent skill position players, including future pros like wide receivers Deven Thompkins and Derek Wright, running back Darwin Thompson and tight end Dax Raymond. The list doesn’t end with those four, though, as guys like Gerold Bright, Brian Cobbs, Calvin Tyler Jr., and Brandon Bowling all deserve mention, too.
This year’s collection of skill talent might be the best the Aggies have had in a very long time though. At least in totality.
Three Aggie receivers had over 100 yards receiving and at least a touchdown against the Rams — Terrell Vaughn (143 yards), Jalen Royals (140 yards) and Micah Davis (104).
All three have breakaway speed (as does Stanford transfer Colby Bowman), the ability to make contested catches and a knack for getting open, or at least running under balls.
Then there are the Aggies’ running backs. Between Davon Booth, Robert Briggs and Rahsul Faison, USU has three backs that can all rush for 100 yards in any given game. Faison is a game-breaker, shifty and bruising all at once. Booth is a workhorse with breakaway speed and Briggs is as hard-nosed as they come.
The trio combined to rush for 272 yards against Colorado State, combining to average 6.5 yards per carry.
Those six players combined for 659 yards of offense and six touchdowns Saturday night.
Are any of the receivers as talented as Thompkins or Wright? Can the running backs hold up when compared to Thompson? Maybe not, but collectively this has to be considered one of, if not the most talented group of skill position players USU has ever had.
It is clearly very hard to truly ‘be back’
Texas is a very good football team. That much is clear.
But are the Longhorns back? As in one of the premiere programs in all of college football and a genuine threat to win the national title?
Eh...
Miami is a good football football team.
Talented, capable and much improved from most of the Hurricanes teams of the 2000’s and 2010’s (who we try not to talk about).
But is the U back? As in one of, if not the most talented teams in the country, chock full of NFL talent and a legitimate national title contender?
Week 6 illustrated for those two programs specifically, but also in general for others, just how difficult it is to build a program back to elite status.
Texas football has everything going for it. Money, recruiting hotbed, fan support. And yet, the Longhorns lost to the rival Sooners on Saturday, proving beatable.
Specifically, Oklahoma proved you can turn the Longhorns over. You can make quarterback Quinn Ewers ineffective at times, enough to make Texas vulnerable.
After Saturday, it isn’t crazy to imagine Kansas State upsetting the Longhorns in a couple weeks. Or Iowa State or TCU defending their home fields at the expense of Texas.
As for the Hurricanes, arguably the worst late game clock management ever witnessed on cable television enabled Georgia Tech to pull off the upset victory.
Here’s the thing, though, the Yellow Jackets are not a good football team. They aren’t bad, as illustrated in games against Louisville and Miami, but they aren’t good either.
The Hurricanes should have blown Georgia Tech out, but instead they allowed the Jackets to hang around so that they were able to take advantage of dumfounding decisions by Miami late.
It is fair to say Texas and Miami will both go on to have good to even great seasons. But are they back? It doesn’t look like it — if back means contending for a natty — and it may take a few more years for that to be a reality.
Maybe rankings aren’t the problem. Maybe it’s the voters
Why is Louisville ranked behind three one-loss teams (Texas, Alabama and Ole Miss)?
The Cardinals are a Power Five programs and unbeaten at 6-0. In fact, they have more wins than Ohio State, Penn State, Washington, Oregon and North Carolina, all undefeated schools ranked ahead of them in the latest Associated Press poll.
Moreover, Louisville has wins over four Power Five teams that currently have at least a .500 record, including Notre Dame, Boston College, Georgia Tech and NC State.
Oh, and the Cardinals have the best point differential of any ACC team, including Florida State which ranks No. 4 overall.
Rankings have been a regular source of frustration here over the years, but maybe it is time to stop blaming rankings for existing (at least at this point in the season) and start blaming voters.
Before the season no one really knew what the Cardinals would look like in year one under Brian Brohm, so it was fair that the Louisville wasn’t highly ranked.
Six weeks (seven weekends) into the season, though, and preseason notions should be thrown out completely.
Recruiting rankings should be thrown out completely.
Anything but on-the-field performance, from this season, should be thrown out completely.
And yet, AP voters are stubborn and cling to vague and unprovable ideas like:
- Which teams will be the best at the end of the season?
- Which teams would win the most if the teams played each other 10 times?
- Which team is more proven over recent years?
- Which team do I, random voter, believe in more?
Louisville defeated Notre Dame 33-20 Saturday night. It was in Kentucky, but the Cardinals handled a good Irish team.
Ohio State defeated Notre Dame 17-14 in South Bend a couple weeks ago. A better win for the Buckeyes? Sure, it was on the road.
But both Ohio State and Louisville have defeated Notre Dame and Indiana this season and both are unbeaten, but the Buckeyes are ranked No. 3 while Louisville is ranked No. 14.
Make it make sense.
Pac-12 chaos, the serious kind, is coming. It’s just a matter of time
Arizona was soooo close to blowing things wide open in the Pac-12.
The Wildcats lost to USC in triple overtime Saturday night, a result that kept the Pac-12’s three premiere programs — this season at least — unbeaten still, with USC, Oregon and Washington a combined 16-0.
Washington State did lose, at UCLA, falling from the ranks of the undefeated, but the Trojans, Ducks and Huskies remain unblemished.
That won’t last for long.
Oregon and Washington play each other next weekend in Seattle, guaranteeing a loss for someone.
USC, meanwhile, plays next at Notre Dame, a game that could very easily be a loss for the Trojans. The Irish need it to be after losing games to Ohio State and Louisville.
If USC makes it out of that game unscathed, they host Utah the following week and then play Washington, Oregon and UCLA in consecutive weeks.
The Pac-12 has been the best conference in the country this season, but Arizona — a solid Pac-12 program — has shown in back-to-back losses that the top end teams in the Pac-12 are vulnerable, with strong showings against USC and Washington.
Losses didn’t come for either program against the Wildcats, but setbacks are coming soon. And probably in too great a number for a Pac-12 team to crack the College Football Playoff with USC, Washington and Oregon all playing each other, plus a difficult road game at Oregon State upcoming for Washington and a tough trip to Salt Lake City upcoming for Oregon.
Is the Big 12 title race wide open now?
With Oklahoma’s win over Texas, the Big 12 is firmly in the Sooners’ control.
Oklahoma is one of only two teams that remain unbeaten in the conference at 3-0 (West Virginia is the other unbeaten at 2-0). Every other team in the conference has at least one loss.
The thing is, two teams get to play in the conference title game and all but three teams (Cincinnati, Houston and UCF) appear to have a legitimate shot to be that second team right now.
Case in point, Texas Texas, Iowa State, Kansas and Texas are all 2-1 in conference play, with BYU, Oklahoma State and Kansas State all 1-1.
Right now, more than half of the Big 12 could conceivably get to the conference title game and odds are that a team will get there with at least two conference losses.
The Sooners should be considered the favorite and West Virginia deserves credit for how it has started the season, but the Big 12 Conference race could develop into the most interesting in college football, which is saying something considering what is going on in the Pac-12, the ACC and the Big Ten (to a lesser extent).
Though Big 12 fans may not like it, a fitting farewell to Oklahoma and Texas as they leave for the SEC would be for at least one of those teams to play for the conference crown. Not both, mind you, that would be a worst-case scenario for the conference, but one would be apropos given the Sooners’ and Longhorns’ success over the years.
Something crazy could happen in the ACC
The ACC is a large conference, and that might be underselling it.
The conference currently has 14 teams (plus kind of Notre Dame). Having also done away with divisions this season, that number of teams could lead to one of the most interesting finishes to a season this year.
Why you ask?
Well, the remaining three unbeaten teams in the ACC — Florida State, North Carolina and Louisville — do not play each other during the regular season.
Yep, there is a real possibility, albeit a slim one, that three ACC teams are undefeated at the end of the regular season.
Who gets to play in the conference title game? CFP rankings would then most likely decide things, but it is somewhat mind-boggling to imagine three teams in a single conference all going undefeated.
What happens to the team that doesn’t play for the conference title in this scenario?
Are they kept out of the College Football Playoff or do they sneak in by virtue of being undefeated?
Can the ACC get more than one team into the playoff?
The odds are that all three schools won’t be undefeated at the end of the season. The ACC is genuinely good this season, with five(ish) ranked teams currently, plus good unranked teams in Clemson, Miami, NC State and Syracuse.
But the chaos that would take place if the Seminoles, Tar Heels and Cardinals all go unbeaten would be incredible.