Alabama aces big test with total domination
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For all the hype about how different this Alabama team is offensively (and it’s all deserved), Saturday’s 29-0 win against LSU didn’t look all that different from the last few renditions of this rivalry.
If Alabama was the ultimate measuring stick for whether LSU has fixed its offense, the answer was delivered in resounding fashion. Because LSU couldn’t move the ball — again — the Crimson Tide basically had this thing on cruise control pretty early. Even when the game was 9-0 early on, it was only superficially competitive because the LSU offense didn’t present much of a threat to either make big plays or sustain drives.
If nothing else, LSU proved that Alabama isn’t going to score 50 easy points every time out against quality teams. But that doesn’t matter if you can only muster 196 yards of offense, and that was the whole ballgame.
In reality, only two relevant pieces of news came out of this
game: One is that LSU is eliminated from any College Football Playoff consideration. That means the Southeastern Conference’s only real hope of getting two teams into the field would be for Georgia to beat Alabama in the SEC championship game.
Second, Tua Tagovailoa sure seemed to be grabbing at that right knee an awful lot after having to manage a sprain the last few weeks. He was able to play — he even took his first snaps of a fourth quarter this season — but obviously you don’t want him to be hobbling around out there as we get into the championship part of the schedule. It doesn’t seem to be a huge concern, but it’s something to watch.
Other takeaways from Week 10 of the college football season ...
Michigan moving up: For the last few weeks, a consensus has formed around the idea that Clemson is a clear No. 2 with a big gap to whichever team you prefer at No. 3. But Michigan deserves consideration to be right there with Clemson based on the way the Wolverines have played recently. Saturday’s 42-7 win over Penn State was another defensive masterclass, limiting a very dangerous offense to 186 yards after holding Michigan State to 94 and Wisconsin to 283 (75 of which came on the final drive in garbage time) its previous two weeks. Michigan is the best defense in the country statistically by a pretty good margin (220 yards against per game coming into this weekend), and its offense continues to improve as quarterback Shea Patterson looks more comfortable in his first year with the program.
By this point, Michigan’s seasonopening 24-17 loss at Notre Dame was a long time ago. And while that loss might very well be a deciding factor in how the College Football Playoff selection committee evaluates Michigan and Notre Dame, it doesn’t seem like a very relevant game in terms of how you evaluate Michigan now.
While Notre Dame is also a different team, having made a quarterback change from Brandon Wimbush to Ian Book, it took Michigan a few weeks to figure out its identity, especially with Patterson coming into the program via transfer in the spring. Michigan has made up a lot of ground since then, and that is a physical defense with a lot of NFL-type guys who could make things hard for Alabama and Clemson.
Though Michigan will be ranked behind Notre Dame until the Irish lose, if they played next week on a neutral field, I would pick Michigan based on the way the two teams look right now.
Dana Holgorsen has no fear: It’s been hours, and I still can’t believe that with a shot at the Big 12 title game (and a potential Playoff bid) hanging in the balance, Holgo went for two with 16 seconds left at Texas and came out of it with a 42-41 win.
“That was an easy decision when you have (No.) 7 at quarterback (Will Grier) and (No.) 13 at wideout (David Sills),” Holgorsen said in an interview on Fox. “We’ve been saving that one. We’ve got a lot of confidence in it.”
After West Virginia burned two different formations on the two-pointer before timeouts (one called by each team), the third different play was pretty simple: Grier dropping back, waiting for Texas’ defense to overcommit to the right side of the field, then waltzing into the end zone going left.
Still, given everything that was on the line, it was a gutsy decision by Holgorsen to try to win it right there rather than play for overtime. If you don’t make it, Texas probably winds up in the Big 12 title game while you’re at home. But give Holgorsen credit for staying true to who he is. Big 12 could cannibalize itself out of the Playoff: When the Big 12 added a championship game before last season, we knew it would be a guaranteed regular-season rematch since the 10-team league plays a round-robin schedule. We also knew it was possible the same teams would play two weeks in a row.
That appears likely to happen with West Virginia and Oklahoma, which will play the night after Thanksgiving in Morgantown, then probably again eight days later in Arlington, Texas. Since both teams already have a loss, that means one is guaranteed to be a two-loss team on Nov. 23. And if the loser of the first meeting turns the tables in the championship game, that will all but eliminate the Big 12 from the Playoff. The irony is that the Big 12 changed the schedule to prevent a double dose of Bedlam, as Oklahoma and Oklahoma State had played for the conference title on the final weekend of the regular season two years in a row. No matter what the Big 12 does, it just can’t game the system. If Clemson gets a test before the
Playoff, it’ll be next weekend: Raise your hand if before the season you pegged the Tigers’ trip to Boston College as their biggest hurdle for an Atlantic Coast Conference title. Though Clemson’s systems have been fully engaged for several weeks now (the Tigers did as they pleased in a 77-16 dissection of Louisville), Boston College added another nice win on Saturday, beating Virginia Tech 31-21 in Blacksburg. The Eagles are 7-2 and are really good at running the football and should at least be able to prevent Clemson from snoozing through the entire ACC schedule. In fact, if the Eagles somehow sprung the upset, they’d have the tiebreaker over Clemson for the ACC Atlantic Division title. Given how many teams are still alive for Playoff bids, the Tigers would be well-served not to stub their toe here.