Race For The Playoffs – Only Oregon Manages to Drop The Ball
In what is typically a quiet week the only thing decided was that Oregon is to all intents and purposes out of the playoff race thanks to their defeat at Arizona State.
This probably ended the PAC 12’s hopes. It will take some crazy results to get Utah into the final four, however, it might have opened the door to Oklahoma who did just enough to see off a feisty TCU, who were fighting for their bowl eligibility lives.
The Horned Frogs will get one more chance next week against WVU whose own chances ended on Saturday.
In other news, Alabama gave their stand-in QB Mac Jones a confidence boost before the Iron Bowl with a comfortable win against FCS opponents Western Carolina – helped in no small part by their defense forcing five turnovers.
Whether this will be enough to move them back into the final four remains to be seen, but with Georgia struggling a bit against Texas A&M we now have a form line given that the Tide thrashed A&M earlier in the year.
Its seems strange that people are writing Bama off for a 5 point loss at LSU and having watched that game the view is it could have been so different if Tua hadn’t dropped the ball in the red zone in the opening stages.
In the Big Ten, Ohio State passed their first real test with flying colours. Penn State briefly threatened to get back into the game but that rally was soon snuffed out and the Buckeyes won going away, despite giving up three turnovers.
It’s hard to find a scenario now where Ohio State are not in the final four and we can see them at No 1 in the CFP rankings this week.
Right now it looks like LSU, Ohio State, Clemson and one other for the semi-finals.
Still Alive (Just!)
Last week there were several teams who still had a chance of sneaking into the final playoff spot, however, we can now cross Penn State & Oregon off that list, and, and thanks to the Ducks loss we will leave Utah in but very much on life support.
Of those not already mentioned, there is still a possibility of Minnesota pulling off an upset in the Big Ten Championship and of course Baylor could do the same in the Big 12. We doubt that the Gophers beating Ohio State would put the Buckeyes out (just ask Penn State about that), but it might just sneak them in as a second Big Ten team.
Overall we doubt that a 12-1 Baylor would get in due to their narrow wins and relatively weak schedule (non-conference wins over UTSA & Rice are not going to cut it) and Utah even with the Pac 12 championship would similarly have a problem with NIU & BYU on their resume. Plus they have that loss to USC (8-4) to contend with.
The Cotton Bowl Now Any One From Four.
SMU was the only team to drop out of the hunt after going down 28-35 at Navy. All the other contenders won, however, Cinncinati struggled big-time against Temple and that should leave Memphis as the highest-ranked team going into their regular-season finale against you guessed it Cincinnati. This will be a nice warm-up for the big one as regardless of the result they will meet in the Conference final. Now if they split these games things could get very interesting.
Next up in the pecking order is Boise State who had a mighty impressive win at Utah State, putting up nearly 300 yards on the ground and racking up 56 points. They need to win out and hope the above split their two meetings.
The final hopeful is Appalachian State who whatever happens this year has done the Sun Belt proud. They are 10-1 and will meet Lousiana Tech in the Conference Final (who they beat earlier in the season).
If they go 12-1 there is a case for them being the best team in the Group of Five given they have two Power Five Road Wins. We doubt that would be enough to leapfrog a 12-1 AAC team, however, if anyone slips up they are waiting to pounce.
Last Weeks Predictions
We finished with 20-2 straight up and 11-10-1 against the spread.
CFP Top 25 Results For 2019 Week Twelve
Kansas 31 @ No 22 Iowa State 41
Illinois 10 @ No 17 Iowa 19
No 21 Oklahoma State 20 @ West Virginia 13
No 10 Minnesota 38 @ Northwestern 22
No 8 Penn State 17 @ No 2 Ohio State 28
Samford 0 @ No 15 Auburn 52
Western Carolina 3 @ No 5 Alabama 66
Boston College 7 @ No 16 Notre Dame 40
Texas State 13 @ No 24 Appalachian State 35
UCLA 35 @ No 23 USC 52
Texas A&M 13 @ No 4 Georgia 19
Texas 10 @ No 14 Baylor 24
No 13 Michigan 39 @ Indiana 14
No 25 SMU 28 @ Navy 35
Purdue 24 @ No 12 Wisconsin 45
No 18 Memphis 49 @ South Florida 10
Temple 13 @ No 19 Cincinnati 15
Arkansas 20 @ No 1 LSU 56
No 6 Oregon 28 @ Arizona State 31
TCU 24 @ No 9 Oklahoma 28
No 7 Utah 35 @ Arizona 7
No 20 Boise State 56 @ Utah State 21
The Battle For Bowl Eligibility
The following teams became eligible after Saturdays results – this doesn’t guarantee some a place though as it looks like there could be more eligible teams that places this year.
C-USA
Charlotte beat Marshall 24-13 thanks to two fourth-quarter TDs
FIU had the result of the night beating ACC Miami 30-24. This is, without a doubt the best win in the programme’s history.
PAC-12
Arizona State with that crushing win over Oregon – which will probably cost the PAC a playoff slot.
California 24-20 over Stanford. Stanford were top 25 ranked pre-season but will not be bowling this year!
Washington State thanks to a crazy win over Oregon State 54 -53.
SEC
Kentucky with a cupcake win over FCS UT Martin 50 – 7
Tennessee with a 24-20 win at Missouri.
Down & Out
The following teams saw their bowl chances end with losses:
ACC
Duke, North Carolina & Syracuse
AAC
South Florida
Big Ten
Purdue
Big 12
Texas Tech & West Virginia
C-USA
North Texas & UTSA
MAC
Ball State
Mountain West
Colorado State, Fresno State, & San Jose State
Pac-12
Arizona, UCLA & Stanford
Sun Belt
Coastal Carolina
All the above can start planning for next year.
Racking them up
Outside of the Top 25 results, the honour goes to:
Ohio 66 @Bowling Green 24
Ohio scored four unanswered TDs in the third quarter which ended the nights entertainment.
Entertaining Game of the Week (outside of the Top 25)
No Contest here:
Oregon State 53 @ Washington State 54
Bowl eligibility was the prize for the winners of this one and they played like they wanted it. Washington State pulled it off a last-second TD in a game with numerous lead changes and 1242 yards of offense!
The star of the show was WSU QB Anthony Gordon, who had 606 yards and 6 TDs, a feat only achieved twice before since 2000. Let’s hope it’s not an omen of his future NFL career though as the other two were B. J. Symons who never got to start an NFL game despite being drafted and Geno Smith who has had two NFL starts since 2015.
Performance of the Week
Again look no further than:
Miami 24 @ FIU 30
Ok, the Hurricanes are not having a vintage season, but they would have expected to beat their cross-state rivals with some ease in this one. But as the old saying goes “turnovers will kill you” and losing this battle 3-0 turned out to be decisive as FIU recorded their best win ever.
They only formed in 2002 but thanks to this win they will be heading to their third consecutive Bowl Game and their Fifth ever. Miami is already eligible but will probably find themselves in one of the minor ones now.
One you might have missed
UMASS 24 @ BYU 56
So what’s special about this one? The points conceded by UMass. They finished the season at 1-11 and have given up 632 points – that’s 52.66 per game! We are pretty sure that must be a record.
We did consider:
UTEP 35 @ New Mexico State 44
Why? Well, the Aggies have now won two games in a row after going 0-9. You have to go back to 7th October 2018 to find the last time they won two on the bounce.
Still Unbeaten – Down To Three
No change on last week – not surprisingly these three are the top teams in the playoff rankings – it will be a huge surprise if any of them misses out:
In The ACC – Clemson 11-0
In The Big Ten – Ohio State 11-0
In The SEC – LSU 11-0
Still A Blank In The Win Column!
Arkon 17 @ Miami (Ohio) 20
It’s lonely at the bottom and although the Zips put in their best performance of the season they are all alone at 0-11. They have one more chance to avoid blanking.
Stat Attack Week Twelve
- Most Yards: USC vs UCLA, 658 yards
- Most Turnovers: Alabama vs Western Carolina 5
- Most Combined Yards: Oregon State vs Washington State 1242
- Most Points: Alabama & Ohio Both scored 66
- Biggest winning margin: Alabama 63 points
- Most Combined Points: Oregon State @ Washington State 107 points
Offensive Leaders Week 12
Passing
Anthony Gordon WSU 50/70 for 606 yds & 6 TDs (the second week running)
Rushing
Jackson McChesney BYU 15 attempts for 228 yds & 2 TDs
Receiving
Johnny Johnson Oregon 10 rec for 207 yds, & 2 TDs
AP Rankings Week 13
The CFP rankings will be out later this week but until then here is the AP Top 25 – as at 24th November 2019:
1 LSU 11-0
2 Ohio State 11-0
3 Clemson 11-0
4 Georgia 10-1
5 Alabama 10-1
6 Utah 10-1
7 Oklahoma 10-1
8 Florida 9-2
9 Minnesota 10-1
10 Michigan 9-2
11 Baylor 10-1
12 Penn State 9-2
13 Wisconsin 9-2
14 Oregon 9-2
15 Notre Dame 9-2
16 Auburn 8-3
17 Memphis 10-1
18 Cincinnati 10-1
19 Iowa 8-3
20 Boise State 10-1
21 Oklahoma State 8-3
22 Appalachian State 10-1
23 Virginia Tech 8-3
24 Navy 8-2
25 USC 8-4
