Unless you’ve erased any memory of 2015 Longhorn football out of your memory, which might not be a awful decision, you’ll know that Texas beat Oklahoma. But look where Iowa (with a loss) and Ohio State is polling.
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In my estimation, the best the Fighting Irish can hope for is to win convincingly at Stanford this weekend and hope that Oklahoma State wins and by a small margin. That might not bode well for the Big 12 again. Oklahoma is not the only team that has something at stake in the outcome. They’re outscoring opponents by about 25 points per game and knocking them out around halftime. They too play for these rivalry trophies, albeit in a quieter manner (the University of Notre Dame has his historically played down the trophies). Clemson will be coming off a closing stretch with Syracuse, Wake Forest and SC, which could create a little complacency as the Tigers playoff spot is all but secured.
“I guess that doesn’t really mean anything until the final rankings come out (Dec. 6)”, he said. If one of these teams can notch a definitely win, they can possibly vault themselves into the Top Four conversation.
The Spartans entered the game without starting quarterback Connor Cook and while backup Tyler O’Connor wasn’t a game-changer, he did enough to help Michigan State pull off the upset. That still leaves up to nine one-loss P5 teams. Wouldn’t it just be more fun with them in the Playoff?
Last season TCU finished with a weak Iowa State team. This week, seven teams from the G5 conferences have made the top 25.
“I think if you look at the teams across the board, we’ve played, from the start in September all the way through November, a very good schedule”, Kelly said.
No, I am not mentioning Clemson because I think that Notre Dame should be ranked ahead of them, but I am bringing them up for a reason.
Not much changed at the top, besides the Big 10 finally claiming the #2 spot, although not by much.
The only other path to the playoffs assuming Oklahoma wins out would be for some chaos in the Big 10 or SEC. This may be the last SEC game of his career if he decides to head to the draft, so look for a big game from him, as I suspect he will put up big numbers.
Oh boy. This week should be a doozy. The AAC has a victor take all game for the Western division, as #5 Navy travels to #15 Houston in a noon game on Friday. Final Score: Ohio State 24, MI 23. Saturday’s game is the first time he’ll play in his home state in front of family and friends while playing for Notre Dame. Then it beat Baylor and reached No, 7 in all three. Similar success for Stanford will give quarterback Kevin Hogan a host of options at the line of scrimmage, allow the Cardinal to control the flow and keep Notre Dame’s potent offense on the sideline…
Big 12 – Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma, TCU beats Baylor: The Bears stands to inherit the Big 12 title should Oklahoma State win, but with Jarrett Stidham now out for the regular season with a broken bone in his ankle, a win over TCU on the road is far from guaranteed. Oklahoma is at Oklahoma State on Saturday with a chance to win the Big 12.
First off, Notre Dame has to take care of business this weekend as an underdog on the road against Stanford – a venue in which the Irish have not won since that disastrous 2007 campaign.
UCLA beats USC this weekend to win the Pac-12 South title and then beats Stanford in the Pac-12 title game to leave every Pac-12 team with three or more losses, shutting the conference out of the playoff and leaving commissioner Larry Scott befuddled.
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Do they reward one-loss conference champions like Iowa and North Carolina by taking them over two-loss teams like MI and Oklahoma? However, my bet is that #39 Washington State #52 Washington for the Apple Cup will be the game to watch.
