And Then There were Eighteen.

At the finish of what could be classed as an elimination week, only Eighteen teams are now left unbeaten – but how many are realistic playoff contenders? Well one, Penn State gave notice that they are still worthy of consideration, while Clemson showed that they are human after all staying in this elite group by the narrowest of margins. Overall you could still make a case for ten of them to make the final four, but this will change in the next few weeks as several will play each other. Surprisingly some unbeaten sides can’t get into the top 25 rankings, headed for us by Appalachian State who despite having an impressive win resume appears to have been ignored as they play in the unfashionable Sun Belt. Anyway here is how last weeks AP top 25 fared:

The AP Top 25 Results

No 1 Clemson 21 @ North Carolina 20

A win is a win, but this will not go down well with the Bowl Committee later in the year and they were lucky that NC didn’t just kick the extra point to take it to OT. Clemson was near 4 TD favourites on the spread! Every team is allowed an off day but a defeat now would probably cost Clemson a playoff place.

Ole Miss 31 @ No 2 Alabama 59 

The game was well over at 45-10 before the Tide eased off a bit, allowing the Rebels to stick another 21 points on the board. Still, we are just a little less than impressed with Alabama’s defense – never thought we would say that while Nick Saben is in charge.

No 5 Ohio St. 48 @ Nebraska 7. 

The Buckeyes have put up an FBS leading 262 points in their opening 5 games and in their last four have only given up 22! You could male a case for them being no 1 in the rankings. The Scott Frost era in Nebraska looks like being a damp squib again this year. 

Texas Tech 16 @ No 6 Oklahoma 55. 

The Sooners are still scoring points for fun, but look like they may have a defense this year too. Jalen Hurts has done his Heisman hopes no harm with a 415-yard passing game. 

Miss. State 23 @ No 7 Auburn 55

As we indicated last week Auburn may be the dark horses this year. It’s hard to find fault with their performance which was dominant both sides of the ball. QB Bo Nix seems to get better every week too. 

Northwestern 15 @ No 8 Wisconsin 24

Northwestern was a little flattered by the scoreline as they were 24-3 down well into the fourth quarter. Wisconsin just did enough to win and with Kent State, MSU and Illinois their next three opponents they should go into what could be a winner takes all clash with Ohio State at 7-0.

Towson 0 @ 9 Florida 38

The Gators did what was expected of them against FCS opponents. Not much more to say.

18 Virginia 20 @ 10 Notre Dame 35

The Irish bounced back from that close defeat at Georgia in some style pulling away late from a pretty good Virginia team. Will this be enough to get them back in the playoff hunt. Well, they will need a lot of help. As for Virginia thats, their unbeaten record gone, but they are still alive in the race for a New Year Bowl, and look like being the Coastal representatives in the ACC Conference Final

No 12 Penn St. 59 –  Maryland 0

Penn State moved on to 4-0 and dominated this one from start to finish. Sophomore QB Sean Clifford had a career night throwing for 398 yards and 3 TDs. As for Maryland, well that 2-0 start is a distant memory and looking at their schedule reaching Bowl eligibility suddenly looks a tall order.

Middle Tennessee 3 @ No 14 Iowa 48

The Hawkeyes cruised to 4-0 against their C-USA opponents. This sets up another nice elimination game next week at Michigan.

Arizona St. 24 – No 15 California 17

Cal went into the game as the PAC 12’s last unbeaten team and looked set to scrape to 5-0 before a last 5 minutes collapse which saw them twice turn the ball over on downs deep in their own territory.  ASU dropped out of the rankings last week following a 3 point loss to Colorado. They should be back in at Cal’s expense going into week 6.

Washington St. 13 @ 19 Utah 38 

Oh dear, what is happening at Washington State. Well according to their Head Coach Mike Leech the players may have bought into their own hype – or alternatively, they lost to a good team. We were surprised that the coach called the players out for a road loss against one of the PAC 12s best teams.

21 USC 14 @ 17 Washington 28

The Huskies look to be back on track following that narrow loss to Cal. Neither QB had a night to remember and USC throwing 3 interceptions certainly didn’t help their cause.

Rutgers 0 @ 20 Michigan 52

The Wolverines bounced back from that beatdown by Wisconsin nicely shutting out an admittedly hapless Rutgers. This was Rutgers second shut out this season and they only mustered 152 yards of total offense.

Connecticut 21 @ No 22 UCF 56

The Black Knights bounced back from last weeks narrow loss to Pittsburgh. Still, it was against one of the worst teams in the FBS.

No 23 Texas A&M 31 @ Arkansas 27

A&M made hard work of beating a team which managed to lose to MW San Jose the previous week. We will be surprised if they stay in the top 25 this week.

24 Kansas St. 13 @ Oklahoma St. 26

Oklahoma State look like a pretty good side and followed up that narrow loss to Texas with a good display here. They are not completely out of the Big 12 reckoning.

Indiana 31 @ 25 Michigan St. 40

The Spartans made hard work of this one and nine points in the last 5 seconds got them the win with the final six points coming from a forced fumble on an end of the game lateral pass.

 

Racking them up

Not a lot of high scores this week (outside of the top 25) possibly due to there being fewer FBS v FCS matchups. A couple of note were:

Appalachian State 56 – Coastal Carolina 37. What does Appalachian State have to do to get some recognition – well not giving up garbage time points would help.

Hawaii 54 – Nevada 3. A big road win for the Rainbow Warriors in a divisional game. They are 4-1 and heading for Bowl eligibility.

 

Entertaining Game of the Week

This has to go to the clash between two of the Sun Belts more consistent programmes, with Arkansas State getting what could prove to be a vital win come the season end day of reckoning. The final score was Arkansas State 50 Troy 43 and the game was fun to watch with 1068 yards of offense 6 turnovers a late safety and a strange ending when a troy player got injured causing the clock to run out when they were on the Arkansas 8 yard line looking to tie the game up.

 

Performance of the Week

We were tempted to go for one of the two valiant losers below but you can’t really have a losing team her so we give it to (metaphorical drum roll)……..

Duke 45 Virginia Tech 10. Yes, the Blue devils really did inflict the heaviest home loss on the Hokies since 1974, and what is worse VT dominated the first quarter before going into self destruct mode. Duke at 3-1 is nicely placed in the ACC Coastal with their only loss being at Alabama in the season opener.

 

Valiant in Defeat

Delaware Blue Hens 14 @ Pittsburgh Panthers 17

Louisiana Tech 23 @ Rice Owls 20 (OT)

A tale of two scenarios with the FCS Blue Hens battling against the odds at ACC Pittsburgh outgained offensively by a massive 443 yards to 170, but opportunistic on defense and it took a fourth-quarter TD to beat them. Rice are 0-5 but seem to be getting better week by week and it took an overtime TD to give Lousiana Tech the win. Bear in mind LT are 4-1 with their loss coming in their opener against Texas. We had Rice down for zero wins this year in our pre-season prediction for C-USA. They will need a bit of luck but there could be a win somewhere in their remaining schedule.

 

One you might have missed

Arkon Zips 29  @ Umass Minutemen 37

In the battle of the 0-4’s Umass took the honours. Six (yes six) different QB’s took snaps in this one four for the Zips and two for the Minutemen, who also had four of their starters suspended by head coach Walt Bell for a violation of team rules. Not too surprising that they are a combined 1-10 this season!

 

Looking Good

SMU Mustangs 48 @ USF Bulls 21

Wow SMU are 5-0 for the first time since 1983 and are averaging 44.5 points a game. More impressive is the fact they have not played a cupcake schedule either with a resume which includes a win at TCU (then ranked 25) and at Arkansas State.  They led this one 41-0 at one stage before easing off.

Honourable mention goes to Toledo who had a nice win over BYU on Saturday. They are 3-1 with that loss being to SEC Kentucky.

 

Slightly Disappointing

Plenty of candidates for this one – many of whom have been mentioned above, but outside of those we are looking at Georgia Tech, who seem inept offensively this season and this was pretty much a shut out at Temple with their only score being a safety. They have already lost to FCS The Citadel and looking at their schedule we are struggling to see where a second win will come from.

 

Still Unbeaten

Not many now and the odd surprise among them.

In The AAC – Memphis & SMU

In The ACC – Clemson & Wake Forest

In The Big 12 – Baylor & Oklahoma

In The Big 10 – Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Iowa & Minnesota

In The Mountain West – Boise State

In The SEC – Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Auburn & LSU

In The Sun Belt – Appalachian State

So 18 left and at least one of those will go next week as Auburn travels to Florida in an SEC elimination bout.

 

Looking for a win

Well, the Minutemen got off of this list with their win in the battle of the 0-4s last week so only three teams still have that dreaded zero in the win column.

In C-USA – Rice

In The Mid Am – Arkon 

FBS Independent – New Mexico State

So how did we do?

Well straight up quite nicely thanks finishing 17-1 with only Cal letting us down. However, against the spread we were far less impressive ending up 9-9.