Despite Oklahoma State having the firepower to score, pile up yards and look solid at home, TCU is just too good.
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There is no doubt that the Pokes, who are 8-0 for the first time since 2011, are looking to pull off the home field upset on Saturday afternoon.
Saturday, when Kansas heads south to take on 13th-ranked TCU, the Jayhawks will be walking into a similar storm created by the Horned Frogs’ loss to Oklahoma State and Heisman Trophy hopeful Trevone Boykin’s rough outing against the Cowboys. Oklahoma State Cowboys rank at 8 for scoring 44.0 points where as Tcu Horned Frogs rank at 52 for allowing 24.5 scores. The Sooners appear to be the hotter team at the moment after destroying four straight opponents, but the Bears have had their number three of the past four seasons. The Frogs will first have to defeat the Oklahoma Sooners in Norman, where the Sooners have not lost a game all season. However, the human aspect of the voting has made many college football fans question mid-season rankings like never before.
Baylor’s primary playoff nitpick, once again, centers around whether the defense can stop opposing rushers well enough to protect leads provided by its point-per-minute offense.
That story line changed when fifth-ranked Oklahoma State (9-0, 6-0, No. 14) rolled to a 49-29 win over No. 13 TCU (8-1, 5-1, No. 8) last weekend, vaulting the Cowboys into the national title conversation and sending the Horned Frogs searching for answers. We have a team of tough guys that have been through a lot… “If you do that, you’re not going to win big ballgames”.
Playoff outlook: Four more wins and Baylor is in.
_Oklahoma State: The Cowboys climbed to No. 5 in Sunday’s Associated Press poll, which should foreshadow a significant move in Tuesday’s updated CFP rankings.
TCU (8-1, 5-1, next game Saturuday vs. Kansas) – Gary Patterson was strangely serene after his team’s loss at OSU, saying that perhaps his team’s defensive injuries finally caught up with them against Mason Rudolph’s deep bombs. The nicest things national experts said about the Cowboys contained words such as “darkhorse” and “spoiler”. “I wasn’t playing at all, but you just felt bad for everybody because they put in all this hard work, and they prepared as best they could for the game, but it was just a weird atmosphere”. If the Cowboys overlook the Cyclones, upcoming games against Baylor and OU will not carry the playoff implications they should.
OSU still has a long way to go before playoff dreams become reality. If they win that contest, the Big 10 has a two-loss champion, which is unlikely to trump a one-loss Big 12 champion. Victories over Oklahoma and Baylor remain possible in efforts to post an 11-1 record.
TCU isn’t an inherently fragile team, but the Frogs were asking for a beatdown if they didn’t start this road game authoritatively.
Either way it ends, the Bears will arrive at McLane Stadium with an eight-game winning streak, two consecutive Big 12 championships and a 3-1 record in their past four matchups against blue-blood OU. But OU is out of wiggle room for anything less.
Playoff outlook: Unlikely but improving each week.
Summary – If the committee believes the result of the Army-Navy game could affect Army’s or Navy’s ranking and therefore its place in the playoff or its selection as the group of five representative, only the pairings that affect Army and Navy would be delayed until after the Army-Navy game.
Texas (4-5, 3-3, next game Saturday @ West Virginia) – The Longhorns’ bowl hopes got a boost not only with the victory over Kansas, but more importantly how the Longhorns beat up the Jayhawks. No team in the conference has a more impressive victory.
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There were myriad takeaways from the College Football Playoff’s most recent Top 25, but nothing stuck out like the Big 12’s status in the race for the final four.
