Believe it or not, the season is already a third of the way over. Things have calmed down after a crazy start to the year, and this week ended up being relatively normal. We had some great games, a few ranked matchups, and a couple of major upsets, but nothing too shocking. Still, there’s plenty to talk about, especially when you dig a bit deeper. So, let’s look back at the week that was with the usual categories.
Game of the Week: The game that was the most fun to watch that week. Importance could be a factor, but it isn’t necessary to qualify.
Most Important Game of the Week: The game that had the biggest impact on the playoff race or the college football landscape as a whole.
Drunkest Game of the Week: The game that scrambled your brain just watching. A drunk game is full of chaos, but not the good kind. As the name implies, it’s a game where it wouldn’t be a shock to find out everyone involved chugged a fifth of Admiral Nelson’s beforehand.
Head-Scratcher of the Week: The result that makes less and less sense the more you look at it. This is a celebration of the random, outlier games that we look back on later in the year in awe.
Sickos Game of the Week: The game that you enjoy for all of the wrong reasons. The train wreck that you can’t look away from. This is the game that makes you shake your head and say “Only in college football.”
Hype Killer of the Week: The game where one bandwagon comes to a screeching halt. The game where a team that looked like a future college football darling crashed back down to Earth.
Seat-Warmer of the Week: The game that pushed a coach’s job security into the danger zone because coach search season never ends. It’s usually about the coach of the losing team, but that’s not always the case.
Seat-Cooler of the Week: The opposite of the seat-warmer, this is the game that will let the winning coach sleep a little more soundly at night. At least for now.
Your Future Coach: A new category where I look at a game involving an up-and-coming G5 coach that probably won’t be sticking around very long. If your team is ever in the Seat Warmer section, this one is for you.
Dealer’s Choice of the Week: The game that I just feel like talking about. It could be because it was especially fun, or stupid, or just because I want to make fun of a team I don’t like. It’s more of a catch-all category than anything.
All caught up? Good, let’s go.
Game of the Week: Texas Tech vs. Texas
“Best” is a very subjective term. Everyone can agree on the factors that create a good game, but odds are we all weight those factors differently. I’ve written before about how I’m almost exclusively a college fan and don’t pay much attention to the NFL, and my priorities when choosing the best game reflect that. Tradition and rivalry are pillars of the sport and, despite all the whining you’ve heard since they lifted the restriction on NIL deals, are actually what set it apart from professional football. For that reason, I chose Texas Tech’s overtime upset of Texas for the best game of week 4. It was a back and forth game, the two teams combined to go for in on fourth down 10 times, and both teams scored crucial field goals in the final 30 seconds to send it to OT. Texas then fumbled on the first play, letting Texas Tech kick a game winner. Despite the game not having very high stakes and Texas only being ranked 22nd, Texas Tech fans stormed the field because that’s what college football is. They hate Texas, and any win over them is cause for celebration.
Most Important Game of the Week: Texas A&M vs. Arkansas
Honestly, this week will probably have almost no impact on the playoff picture come the end of the season. Oklahoma was the only team to suffer a big upset, but they’re likely still in a good place if they win out. Tennessee picked up a big win, but they still have to play the two best teams in the country. A&M’s win over Arkansas takes the spot because it impacts two potential contenders. Arkansas, like OU, lost their margin for error in the playoff hunt. Texas A&M showed they still have a pulse, even if the game was decided on one ridiculous play and half of their entire offense was just ruled out for the rest of the season. In the end, I don’t think this game will matter too much because both teams are on a collision course with the wood-chipper named Alabama, but it’ll do for this week.
Drunkest Game of the Week: Auburn vs. Missouri
Now is a great time to differentiate between a sicko game and a bad game. It wasn’t Iowa scoring 2 safeties or an elite punting duel, it was just two bad football teams playing a bad game. That being said, just enough nonsense happened in the last two minutes to turn this game from bad to blackout drunk. Tied at 14, Auburn passed up a chance to kick a field goal and take the lead and decided to go for it on fourth and inches. It’s an understandable decision, as it would’ve been a very long field goal and converting meant Auburn could run the clock out and prevent Missouri from getting the ball back. All they had to do was run a quick QB sneak and ice the game.
At this point I’m convinced Harsin is trying to get that buyout check. After that, Missouri’s Dominic Lovett made maybe the catch of the day, setting up a glorified extra point for career 85% field goal kicker Harrison Mevis to win the game.
Yeah, you already knew that was going to happen. Auburn scored a field goal in the first OT to take the lead, and Missouri needed a touchdown to win it. Nathaniel Peat burst through the defense on his way to the end zone to score the winning touchdown, and then…
Rodger Sherman summed this game up better than anyone else could:
Auburn Jesus is alive and well folks.
Head-Scratcher of the Week: MTSU vs. Miami
Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean that really got out of hand fast! Everyone expected Miami to lose to Texas A&M last week, even if it looked uglier than expected. Nobody saw this one coming. Middle Tennessee State is a zombie program, content to go 6-6 every year and make no significant investment into growing the program. They began this season with 37 point loss to James Madison, who was playing their first ever game as an FBS team. The Blue Raiders are not a complete pushover, but they’re not a good football team. Despite all that, they managed to dominate Miami in every phase of the game. Yes, Miami is in their first year under a new coach and rebuilding to an extent, but that’s no excuse. The FBS level is in reality a few different divisions stitched together that claims to be one cohesive league. No other sports league would say with a straight face that Alabama and New Mexico State are competing in the same division. Miami coach Mario Cristobal is paid $8 million a year, roughly 80% of MTSU’s entire football budget. In fact, about 15% of that budget is coming from just playing this game. College football teams are separated into different tiers, and the financial and talent gap between them are so large that a team in the top should never lose to a team from the bottom, no matter the circumstances. Miami cannot lose to MTSU, no matter what.
Sickos Game of the Week: Western Kentucky vs. FIU
Let’s be real here. This should be Iowa vs. Rutgers, a game where Iowa’s defense outscored their offense and the pregame hype focused entirely on the punters. I don’t want to talk about Iowa again, and I know you sure as hell don’t want to read about Iowa again, so let’s agree to pretend this game doesn’t exist. It’ll be our little secret.
So the sickos game this week was Western Kentucky’s evisceration of FIU. WKU punted on their first possession, and then proceeded to score seven straight touchdowns. They out gained FIU by over 500 yards, and their defense outscored the entire FIU team. The best way to contextualize this beatdown is through each team’s average plays per possession. Each FIU drive lasted an average of 4.6 plays, and resulted in 0 points. Each Western Kentucky drive lasted an average of 5.2 plays, and resulted in 73 points. FIU football still has not justified its own existence, and they’ve stretched their losing streak against FBS competition to 19 games, dating all the way back to 2019. Can you guess who that last FBS victory was against? I’ll give you a hint, it’s the funniest possible team it could be. That’s right, it was their cross-town rivals, the University of Miami Hurricanes. Perfect.
Hype Killer of the Week: Southern Miss vs. Tulane
Tulane wasn’t on the national radar by any means, but they started to build up hype in the G5 world after they went on the road and beat a Kansas State team that we now know is very good. All of that hype died instantly when they lost to Southern Miss, who is still in the early stages of a massive rebuild. That’s bad enough on it’s own, but add in the fact that it was at home, Southern is coached by former Tulane OC Will Hall, and that the Golden Eagles were led by a true freshman quarterback who only listed one other offer coming out of high school, and the loss becomes a disaster. Reality comes for almost everyone in college football, and it came almost instantly for Tulane.
Seat-Warmer of the Week: UCLA vs. Colorado
First off, shout out to Georgia Tech for making it clear that Geoff Collins was on the way out early Sunday morning. It would’ve been the third week in a row that I wrote this section about a coach who ended up getting fired before I posted the full blog, so thanks for that.
With Georgia Tech open, the next domino to fall should be Colorado. 2020 was a weird year to say the least, and college football felt it more than most. It’s become apparent over the past few years that the Frankenstein 2020 season was fake for 99% of teams. 139 games were either canceled or postponed, most teams only played conference games, and some teams didn’t play at all. Nothing was normal, and nobody benefitted from this more than Karl Dorrell. Colorado started out 4-0 in his first season, a shocking feat considering how late in the process he was brought in to replace Mel Tucker. Since then, the Buffs are 4-14 and currently making a case to be the worst Power 5 team of all time. It’s so bad that even the mascot has checked out.
Whatever Dorrell is doing is clearly not working, and there’s a near zero chance that it’ll work in the future. That brings us to the real roadblock: his buyout. Firing Dorrell at any point this year will cost somewhere around $8.7 million. It’s not nothing, but in the grand scheme of college football it shouldn’t be prohibitive for a Power 5 team. Colorado now faces the existential question that defines every college football have-not: Do you care? Does Colorado want to make the financial investment necessary to be good at football? It’s totally fine if they don’t, but with the team in the gutter and the future of the PAC 12 firmly in doubt, they need to decide right now what they want to be.
Seat-Cooler of the Week: Memphis vs. North Texas
Anyone who has taken Psychology 101 knows that we tend to use the terms “positive/negative reinforcement” wrong. In technical terms, “reinforcement” means anything that encourages a behavior. “Positive” means that something good is added, while “negative” means that something bad is taken away, not that it is discouraged. Those definitions are important because this win was more of a negative seat-cooler for Memphis’ Ryan Silverfield. He’s not on the hot seat right now, but a loss to a sliding North Texas team would’ve started some questioning. Memphis is in the difficult spot of trying to sustain success under a third coach, something that almost never happens in the G5. Whether Silverfield is “the guy” remains to be seen, and a loss to bottom-feeder Temple this upcoming week would change everything, but Memphis is sitting at 3-1 with plenty of reasons for optimism.
Your Future Coach: Georgia vs. Kent State
For the first time ever, I’m choosing the coach of a losing team for this category, because Sean Lewis is a damn good coach. Don’t let the career record of 20-27 fool you. Kent State is a historically awful program. Before Lewis took over in 2018, they had played in a total of three bowl games. With a solid finish, Lewis will play in his third bowl in four full seasons. Let’s take a closer look at why that record is so bad. First, take out the 2020 season because, like I mentioned earlier, it shouldn’t count. That leaves him at an even worse 17-26. Next, take out his first season, when he went 2-10 after taking over one of the worst teams in the country. Nobody could’ve salvaged that dumpster fire right away. That leaves his at record at 15-16. Now, let’s look specifically at their non-conference games. You’re probably familiar with the idea of “buy games”, when major programs pay smaller to teams to schedule them. It’s generally a win-win, with the big team picking up an easy victory, and the small team getting a much needed cash infusion. Kent State’s athletic department is clearly a fan of the world’s oldest profession, because they have gone all in on buy games. In 2019, Kent State played at Arizona State, at Auburn (who beat Alabama that year), and at Wisconsin (who went to the Rose Bowl). Last year, they played at Texas A&M (who also beat Alabama), at Iowa (who won their division), and at Maryland. They’ve started this year playing at Washington (currently undefeated), at Oklahoma (speaks for itself), and taking this trip to Georgia. Take out these ritual sacrifices, and his record is 15-7. The fact that they played Georgia closer than anyone has yet demonstrates how talented Sean Lewis is. No matter how hard they try, Kent State can’t hide him forever.
Dealer’s Choice: Kansas State vs. Oklahoma
This week’s review is bookended by examples of why college football is the best. This was a conference matchup of wildly different styles; one team a blue blood and the other blue collar. More importantly, it was an incredible redemption story. Adrian Martinez transferred to Kansas State after four turbulent seasons at Nebraska. The much maligned QB took a lot of flak for his performances and often got the lion’s share of the blame when Nebraska lost (which was a lot). Sometimes it was deserved, but not always. He came to Kansas State for a change of scenery, and it’s paid off. On the road against #6 Oklahoma, Martinez put together a Heisman worthy performance, racking up over 380 total yards and 5 touchdowns in their upset win. He singlehandedly sealed the win with an insane scramble late in the game.
In a small, ultra-competitive league like the NFL, Martinez almost certainly never gets this second chance. He would get written off as turnover-prone and bounce around practice squads until he decided to call it quits, but not in college. Adrian Martinez had his moment to prove everyone wrong, and he took it and ran. Once again, if you’re only concerned with which four teams will make the playoff at the end of the year, you’re missing out on what college football is truly all about.
(Header courtesy of AL.com)
Teague Thoughts 