It’s the same damn story every week with Notre Dame. “We love him. In my opinion, he’s the best leader I’ve ever been around”. And given that Oklahoma won big, the Irish would’ve needed another team to be upset anyway. It got that on Friday, winning 28-20 despite converting zero third downs, thanks in part to the Cornhuskers’ turnover problems. And while that wouldn’t be that big of a deal if we were staring at an undefeated Irish squad, we weren’t.
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And as far as rivalries are concerned, there’s certainly more traditional ones: USC and Navy are obvious, while there’s a ton of history between the Irish and Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue – even Pittsburgh and Boston College.
When it looked like the defenses were finally bearing down to win the game in the fourth quarter, Kizer stepped up. There’s a less-than-nil chance that the selection committee doesn’t have a member of the “Best Conference in America” in their tournament.
Stanford coach David Shaw refers to the Pac-12 Championship Game at Levi’s Stadium on Saturday as a chess match, but a game of checkers may be more like it. The Sooners might be too well-set at No. 3 for Iowa to catch, but one might argue that Clemson’s a little less terrifying than Alabama as a potential semifinal foe for the Hawkeyes. Maybe. All it takes is a friendly bounce or two to resuscitate a playoff campaign. “There’s still a lot of football to play and I don’t think anyone can say what kind of record you need to have at this stage to get in”. The Tigers built a 21-3 lead early in the second half after a sluggish start, but they struggled to actually put the Gamecocks away.
No one could dispute that Stanford was the better of the two teams after Saturday’s game. It wasn’t the most encouraging performance from Clemson, but nobody should overreact to it either. McCaffrey still leads the nation with 252.9 all-purpose yards per game and ranks second in the Pac-12 in rushing at 136.7 yards per game.
With the Big 12 devoid of a championship game, these two battled it out on the frozen turf of Stillwater, with conference supremacy on the line.
Michigan State’s Connor Cook threw three touchdown passes in his return from a shoulder injury as the Spartans wrapped up a spot in the Big Ten Conference championship game.
That’s not going to happen to the Sooners.
There’s plenty of credit to go around, as the offensive line, anchored by Ronnie Stanley and Nick Martin, remained relatively healthy and consistently paved wide running lanes for the backs. The committee has taken notice, and despite the October loss to Texas, there would be no justification for leaving Oklahoma out of the bracket. The regular season is done.
Kevin Hogan threw four touchdown passes and drove No. 13 Stanford to the game-winning 45-yard field goal by Conrad Ukropina on the last play of the Cardinal’s 38-36 victory over No. 4 Notre Dame in a playoff elimination game Saturday night in Stanford, Calif. Cajuste is coming off his biggest game of the season against Notre Dame. So what other conference do you throw out like last week’s trash if you give Notre Dame the nod?
Notre Dame probably deserved a better final image this fall than the sight of quarterback DeShone Kizer collapsed on the ground, grass still stuck in his hair as the reality of crushed national championship dreams sunk in. The Fighting Irish are 10-2 and likely headed for a New Year’s Six bowl bid, which is still undoubtedly a successful season, given all of the bad luck they’ve had to overcome.
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The Cardinal – expected to move up from No. 9 in the College Football Playoff rankings when they are announced on Tuesday – have serious interest in the game. Prosise!! Many people could get some blame for this loss, but not those 5 guys. Kizer shoveled the ball to running back Josh Adams, who scampered for a first down. And lost. They outgained Stanford by over 100 yards, scored a special-teams TD, and lost. “And when you go back to Week 1, when we were [at Northwestern] and didn’t play well on the road then to come back and win a game against a good football team on the road”.
