League title game may backfire on Big 12
Rather than help boost conference, matchup risky for one-loss OU
The Big 12 has a team that looks fit for the College Football Playoff after No. 5 Oklahoma had no trouble beating No. 6 TCU 38-20 on Saturday night.
Now, if the conference’s revived title game doesn’t mess it up.
The conference reinstated its title game this year despite having only 10 teams and one division. The idea was to give its champion a 13th game, something the conference thought it needed when being compared with the other Power 5 leagues by the College Football Playoff committee for a spot in the playoff field. The Big 12 has been invited once to the new playoff party in its first three years.
The Sooners (9-1, 6-1 Big 12), and Heisman Trophy favorite Baker Mayfield, look strong enough with or without an extra game. Mayfield passed for 333 yards and rushed for 50 against a TCU defense ranked sixth in the nation.
“We haven’t hit our peak yet,” Mayfield said. “We’re getting better at the right time of the year, and that’s pretty scary for other teams out there.”
But what’s scary for the Big 12 is if TCU (8-2, 5-2) or Oklahoma State (8-2, 5-2) were to upset the Sooners in the title game (Dec. 2 in Arlington). A two-loss Big 12 champion would have virtually no shot at the final four. West Virginia (7-3, 5-2) also could mess it up for the league’s playoff hopes if it beats Oklahoma on Nov. 25.
TCU wouldn’t mind spoiling it for the league by finishing second (the Horned Frogs own the tiebreaker over the Cowboys and Mountaineers).
“We need to win two ballgames,” TCU coach Gary Patterson said. “We still control our own destiny.”
Hurts saves day for Alabama
No. 1 Georgia had been knocked off by Auburn. No. 3 Notre Dame was losing 34-0 in the third quarter to Miami.
It was chaos atop the College Football Playoff rankings. Especially with No. 2 Alabama trailing No. 16 Mississippi State 24-17 in the fourth quarter.
Alabama’s Jalen Hurts, the quarterback from Channelview, restored order. First, he directed an 82-yard drive to tie the game at 24 with 9:02 to play. His 13-yard escape and run on fourth-and-4 was the key play. Getting the ball with 1:09 left and 68 yards to go was enough time for Hurts. On third-and-15 from the Alabama 43, he signaled to receiver Calvin Ridley to switch his route to a slant.
Ridley shook his head no, but Hurts said, “Trust me, I got you.”
The play went for 31 yards. On the next play, Hurts told receiver DeVonta Smith the same thing, and it went for a 26yard touchdown. Alabama likely will be No. 1 in this week’s playoff rankings.
“We did a good job of staying together, being one and staying cool and calm,” Hurts said. “We did enough.”
Hurts, who last season was the first true freshman to start at Alabama for Nick Saban, is 24-1. The loss came in last season’s national title game as he watched Deshaun Watson lead Clemson on a lastminute touchdown drive, something on his mind Saturday night.
“Most of the time, the bigger the situation, the better he is,” Saban said.
Diaz now yanks Miami’s chain
Manny Diaz, as many Big 12 followers might recall, had a pretty good defense in 2011 as an upand-coming coordinator at Texas under Mack Brown.
Then came 2012 when his defense allowed the most yards by a UT defense (although that record has been surpassed three times since). By the time BYU had rushed for 550 yards against Texas in the second game of 2013, Diaz was out.
After stops at Louisiana Tech and Mississippi State, Diaz found his swagger with two things — “toughness and tackles” he told 247sports this year.
Now in his second season at Miami, where Diaz grew up during the prime run of the Hurricanes, he came up with a gimmick before this season: the Turnover Chain. It’s a 36inch, 5-pound gold chain given to defenders who make takeways.
Against No. 3 Notre Dame, the unbeaten Hurricanes forced four turnovers and romped to a 41-8 win. Unbeaten at 9-0 and sure to move up from No. 7 in this week’s playoff rankings, the U is back.
Ed Reed, the former safety, was on the field pregame with his own Turnover Chain. Michael Irvin, Warren Sapp and Clinton Portis were back. Vince Wilfork was taking Notre Dame to task on Twitter for standing on the U at midfield before the game.
“Our players are seeing something they’ve never seen; they’re too young,” Diaz told Yahoo Sports. “Even as a fan, they’ve never seen it. They’re all too young to understand what it’s like when this city gets behind its teams. They’re seeing that now.”
Miami has two regularseason games (at home vs. Virginia and at Pitt) before the ACC title game against Clemson.
Harsin, Boise St. relish huge rally
Another former Texas assistant in Mack Brown’s final years, Brian Harsin, had a memorable weekend as well.
Harsin’s Boise State team trailed Colorado State 28-3 early in the second quarter 35-10 with two minutes left in the half and 52-38 with three minutes left.
If 28-3 sounds familiar, that was the Atlanta Falcons’ lead over the Patriots at NRG Stadium last February before Tom Brady brought New England back for the win in OT.
Boise State quarterback Brett Rypien, the nephew of Mark Rypien, another Super Bowl MVP QB, did some Brady-like work himself.
After Colorado State pushed its lead back to two touchdowns with 3:02 left, Rypien led a 10-play, 75yard drive to make it 52-45 on a 13-yard touchdown pass. Boise State recovered the onside kick and, five players later, the Broncos tied it on another Rypien touchdown pass. He finished with 23 completions in 43 attempts for 331 yards and four touchdowns.
In overtime, Boise State scored first as Alex Mattison (242 yards rushing) got his third TD of the game, and then Colorado State fumbled at the Boise State 6 to end it.
“It’s going to be unforgettable, from the standpoint of what our guys overcame,” Harsin said. “They found a way to win. I’m sure early in the game, nobody thought that was going to happen. That’s a gut check for our team, to see what we’re really about, if the stuff we talk about is really going to show up.”
When it was over — at 12:55 a.m. in Fort Collins, Colo. — it was the largest comeback for the Broncos since joining the Football Bowl Subdivision in 1996. The previous biggest deficit overcome was 20 points.
Boise State (8-2, 6-0) can win the Mountain West’s Mountain Division with one more win.
Jones’ final straw at Tennessee
Tennessee’s latest loss — 50-17 Saturday night to Missouri — was the breaking point for the school and coach Butch Jones.
Jones, who was 34-27 in five seasons, was fired Sunday and replaced on an interim basis by Brady Hoke. The Vols are 4-6 overall and winless in the SEC with two games left (LSU and Vanderbilt.)
Tennessee, which opened the season ranked 25th, has lost its first six SEC games by an average margin of 21.2 points. That stretch includes a 41-0 loss to Georgia that marked the Vols’ most lopsided home defeat since 1905. One month later, Tennessee lost 29-26 at Kentucky, just the second time the Vols had fallen to the Wildcats in their past 33 meetings.