It’s back to Bama against the field
The college football weekend started with a freaky Friday that saw two top-10 teams upset, including the defending national champions, and pretty much ended with another top-five team going down to a big underdog.
When it was all done, four top-10 teams lost to unranked opponents and college football fans got a reminder that once you think you have things figured out, you will be proven wrong.
Several weeks of talking about the seemingly inevitable Clemson-Alabama III in the College Football Playoff national championship game led up to the second-ranked Tigers losing at Syracuse on Friday night. The same Syracuse team that lost at home in September to Middle Tennessee State.
No. 8 Washington State followed that up Friday night with a total meltdown in losing 37-3 at California.
On Saturday, No. 10 Auburn lost to LSU — not exactly a stunner. Then, maybe the most surprising of all, No. 5 Washington lost to Arizona State 13-7.
Thoughts, takedowns and takeaways from Week 7, when we learned that we really don’t know much.
1. Baffling is the only way to describe what happened to the defending Pac-12 champion Huskies in Tempe, Arizona. The Sun Devils came in with one of the worst pass defenses in the country and having allowed at least 30 points in 11 straight games.
2. There are eight unbeaten teams left in FBS, and at most five can finish the regular season that way. None of those teams plays in the Pac-12.
3. So it’s not Alabama, Clemson and everybody else. It’s No. 1 Alabama and everybody else until further notice. The Tide has won 71 straight against unranked opponents.
4. Who is living better than No. 11 Miami and coach Mark Richt? A second straight week of pulling one out in the final seconds has the Hurricanes the only unbeaten team left in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
5. The Hurricanes are piecing things together with several key players injured and a first-year starting quarterback in Malik Rosier. Miami might not be one of the 10 best teams in the country, but the Hurricanes will be ranked among them.
6. LSU coach Ed Orgeron took a lot of grief after the Tigers face-planted against Troy a couple of weeks back. Deservedly so. And now he deserves praise for keeping his players from bailing on a season going downhill fast.
7. Just when it looked as if Auburn was rounding into a legitimate challenger to Alabama in the SEC West, the Tigers lost in Death Valley for the ninth straight time.
8. Inconsistent USC quarterback Sam Darnold is probably not going to win the Heisman. But the 13th-ranked Trojans head to South Bend, Indiana, next week to face No. 16 Notre Dame in what looks like a playoff eliminator.
9. Didn’t work, but liked Utah coach Kyle Whittingham going for two and the lead in the final minute against USC. Sign of a coach with plenty of job security.
10. Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez appears to have found Pat White 2.0. Wildcats quarterback Kahlil Tate has rushed for 557 yards on 29 carries the last two games.
11. Don’t want to overstate the result in the Red River Showdown because Texas and Oklahoma have played some competitive and entertaining games recently. But Baker Mayfield and the Sooners’ beating back a rally by freshman quarterback Sam Ehlinger and the Longhorns certainly portends to go things ahead for the rivalry under Lincoln Riley and Tom Herman.