USA TODAY International Edition
Texas isn’t ready for prime time
Although Texas had risen to No. 7 in the Amway Coaches Poll last week, did anyone really believe the Longhorns were one of the seven best teams in the country? Did it seem likely they could get all the way through the rest of the Big 12 schedule unscathed and make the College Football Playoff?
While Tom Herman’s team had improved significantly since that debacle of a season opener at Maryland, trying to imagine how Texas might fare against an LSU or a Clemson, much less an Alabama, should have clearly illustrated that the Longhorns were still a cut below the elite. So it wasn’t too big of a surprise that Texas walked into a trap in Stillwater and lost 38-35 to Oklahoma State. This isn’t a game you need to read too much into. Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy called a great game offensively, start to finish, built a big lead early at home and held on at the end. Texas is making progress as a program, but it’s hard to be perfect — and playing at Oklahoma State is a bright, neon warning sign on the schedule for anyone.
The dream scenario for the Big 12 would have been for Texas and Oklahoma to win out and rematch in the conference championship game for a potential Playoff bid. With Texas losing this one, you now have to factor in West Virginia, which will go to Austin on Saturday. But the lay of the land hasn’t changed much. Oklahoma, even with a loss to Texas this month, is still the Big 12 favorite.
Other observations from Week 9 of the college football season.
So, Georgia-Kentucky for the SEC East, huh? Remarkably, that’s what we’re looking at Saturday in Lexington. While Georgia predictably pulled away from Florida in the second half Saturday, Kentucky’s 15-14 win at Missouri qualifies as a minor miracle. Down 14-3 with 7:36 left, the game seemed unwinnable for Kentucky after Mark Stoops decided to go for it on 4th-and-2 from the Missouri 3-yard line and didn’t get it. Then after pulling within 14-9, Terry Wilson’s interception with 4:10 left should have been a game ender. But Kentucky kept giving itself chances and went 81 yards in eight plays over the final 1:24 for a walk-off win after Missouri committed pass interference in the end zone with no time left on the clock. That gave the Wildcats an untimed down from the 2-yard line, and Wilson found C.J. Conrad in the short corner of the end zone for the clutch touchdown. So Kentucky is 7-1, and if the Wildcats can somehow beat Georgia they will clinch a trip to Atlanta regardless of their final regular-season Southeastern Conference game against Tennessee. Really. And while the Bulldogs will undoubtedly be favored, it’s a road game — and Kentucky is on one of those rolls where things just seem to fall in place. So who knows. If Kentucky pulls this off, it will be one of the great stories in SEC history.
Jake Fromm isn’t giving up the quarterback job: Coming off a disastrous performance at LSU, it was curious but telling that Georgia doubled down on Fromm against Florida. In fact, Justin Fields, the highly regarded freshman who has seen limited action in some special packages this season, didn’t even get on the field Saturday. In other words, anyone thinking Georgia was going to change directions at quarterback coming off a bye week or try to integrate Fields into the offense to a greater degree was sorely mistaken. It’s very clear at this point: Fromm is the guy Kirby Smart and offensive coordinator Jim Chaney trust, and it’s not going to change against Kentucky or the next time Georgia plays a high-leverage game (perhaps against Alabama in the SEC title game). Fromm responded in the second half against Florida and finished with 240 passing yards and three touchdowns on 17 of 24 attempts. But that won’t stop fans from wondering what’s up with Fields next time Fromm throws an interception, nor will it slow down any speculation about whether Fields is willing to be patient while many of his peers (such as Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence) are already in starring roles.
Conference championship games shaping up as snoozers: It’s been trending this way for a while, but the first week of December is going to again highlight a major weakness in the schedule. Conference championship games, by and large, have become useless and uninteresting because the sport places far too much emphasis on winning divisions when division titles aren’t a great gauge for a team’s ability. As of today, for instance, 5-3 Northwestern is in the driver’s seat in the Big Ten West for the right to play either Michigan or Ohio State. In the Atlantic Coast Conference, we could very well be heading for a Virginia-Clemson matchup. And in the Pac-12, things are so unbalanced that Utah, which already has two conference losses, has the edge in the South. Though other Power Five leagues all eventually copied the SEC in putting together a championship game, none of them has been able to replicate its cachet. Mostly, they feel like a waste of time. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In lieu of rewarding a division winner in a league where divisions are extremely unbalanced (such as the Big Ten), just get rid of divisions and have teams match up the two teams with the best record. The Big 12 currently does this, and we could very well end up with an attractive Texas-Oklahoma rematch. Or just get rid of the championship games altogether and expand the playoff field to eight. Either solution would be better than seeing Northwestern play for a Big Ten title.
Houston’s American hope: Houston’s authoritative 57-36 win over previously unbeaten South Florida clearly establishes the 7-1 Cougars as the biggest threat to Central Florida in the American Athletic Conference and solidifies coach Major Applewhite after a shaky start last year. Though the Cougars don’t give off the same kind of vibe they did in 2015 (their defense isn’t nearly as good), quarterback D’Eriq King is a special talent who can beat you throwing (28 of 40, 419 yards, 5 touchdowns and 2 interceptions) or running. Go watch his 4th-and-7 scramble for a 36-yard touchdown in the third quarter and you can see the kind of problems he’ll present to UCF in a potential conference championship game. Given how poorly some of the typically strong programs in the American have played this year (looking at you Memphis and Navy), it’s important for the league that Houston stepped up after going 7-5 last season.