You need look no further for proof of how much college football has changed than a Week 8 schedule which would see both Alabama and Georgia sitting on two losses if a pair of Top-11 teams win at home. Maybe inviting Texas to the SEC wasn’t such a great idea after all…
Life in the new SEC has come at Georgia fast as the Bulldogs hit the road to face the #1 ranked team in the country for the first time ever. They need a win to avoid a second loss in four games after winning their previous 42 in the regular season.
Georgia hasn’t lost twice in any season since 2020, when it finished 8-2 and lost to both Alabama and Florida in a three-game span immediately preceding the 42-game regular season win streak.
With Texas a 3.5-point home favorite as of Sunday, the ‘Dawgs are poised to be dogs for the first time since Week 1 of the 2021 season when they were 3-point dogs against #3 Clemson (won 10-3 in Charlotte). They haven’t been underdogs by more than a field goal since the 2020 loss at Alabama, which was a six-point favorite.
The Bulldogs are 2-5 all-time against the #1 team in the country with all seven previous games coming at neutral sites — either in the postseason or against Florida in the regular season.
Texas hasn’t lost at home as the #1 team in 60 years, winning 11 straight since losing 14-13 to #8 Arkansas in 1960. The ‘Horns are 17-2 as the #1 team at home all-time including 2-0 this season.
This is the sixth meeting between the teams all-time, the first since Texas won 28-21 in the Sugar Bowl capping the 2018 season and the second since UGA’s only win in the Cotton Bowl capping the 1983 season. Texas leads 4-1 and won the only meeting in Austin 13-8 in 1958.
Quarterbacks aren’t everything, but it’s pretty damn hard to win without a good one. It’s fair to say Georgia’s starter has been the third-best QB on these teams this season (and also fair to wonder if Texas’ presumptive starter isn’t clearly the second-best).
Quinn Ewers played for the first time since Week 3 in Texas 34-3 rout of Oklahoma, finishing with 199 passing yards, a touchdown and an interception while running for his first score of the season. Carson Beck had the third-most passing yards in UGA history (459) in the win over Mississippi State. Arch Manning’s numbers this season are better than both.
Both teams suffered losses two games ago against opponents that they would rightfully be favored against again if they ran it back. As a result, one of them is gonna see their Playoff hopes put on life support as they lose for the second time in three games. Someone would be walking out of here with a three-game skid if both hadn’t narrowly avoided stumbling again last week.
Tennessee survived against Florida thanks to Dylan Sampson’s three touchdown runs including an overtime walkoff after the Vols went into halftime down 3-0. Sampson, the SEC’s leading rusher at 116.5 yards per game, had his fifth 100-yard game in six this season and also his fifth game with multiple rushing touchdowns.
Bama’s last three games have been decided by seven or fewer points including last week’s 27-25 high-wire act against South Carolina. The Tide haven’t gone four straight games without winning one by double-digits since Nick Saban’s first season in 2007, and the final three games of Saban’s tenure were the only other time it’s happened three games in a row since 2007.
Tennessee’s looking for just its second win over Alabama since 2006 with the lone win in that span coming in an unforgettable 52-49 shootout in the Tide’s last visit two Third Saturdays ago. This is the third straight meeting with both teams ranked, the longest such streak in the series since 1991-93 and tied for the longest in series history (third instance, also 1971-73).
Alabama will be the first AP Top 10 opponent for Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava, who’s 3-0 in his career against ranked opponents so far (wins over Iowa in last year’s Bowl, NC State and Oklahoma this year). He’s completed 65.1% for 556 yards (8.8 per attempt) with a 153.8 efficiency rating with 4 passing touchdowns, 2 interceptions and 4 rush TD in three starts against ranked opponents.
Alabama QB Jalen Milroe’s 6-2 as starter the last two seasons against AP Top 25 opponents, completing 67.8% of his passes for 1,601 yards (9.4 per attempt) with a 158.0 efficiency rating, 9 passing touchdowns and five interceptions as well as 439 rushing yards (two 100-yard games) and 9 rushing touchdowns against ranked opponents.
This week’s trip to Louisville looks like the most formidable test remaining on Miami’s regular season schedule with the ‘Canes comfortably sitting in the range where they could probably absorb a loss and get an At Large CFP bid. If they don’t lose this week it’s hard to imagine them going into the ACC Championship worried about much more than getting a bye as ACC champs.
Miami’s already coming off a bye following its 39-38 comeback win at Cal on Berkeley’s First Gameday. The ‘Canes came back from a 25-point deficit, their largest since 1999 (28 points in win over BC) and the largest in the FBS so far this season. Cam Ward led four straight TD drives to finish the game after falling behind 35-10 and accounted for 277 yards of offense in the 4th quarter, the most by an FBS player in seven years according to ESPN. He leads the FBS averaging 369.8 passing yards per game and is tied for the lead with 20 passing touchdowns (North Texas QB Chandler Morris also has 20).
Louisville is coming off a 24-20 win at Virginia to avoid a third straight loss since a 3-0 start. Tyler Shough threw a 14-yard TD with 1:55 to play to life the Cards but has thrown 6 TD and 3 picks over his last three games after throwing 8 touchdowns without an interception in the first three this season.
Elsewhere in the ACC, Clemson hosts Virginia looking to head into its bye week 5-0 in the ACC. There’s still a major hurdle in a November trip to Pitt, but the Tigers are already closing in on booking a possible date with the ‘Canes.
The Tigers have won five straight by at least 16 points since losing the opener to Georgia. Only Army and Texas (6 wins each by 16+ pts) have won more games by at least that many points while Clemson is tied with Indiana, Ohio State and Ole Miss for the next-most.
I promised you 6-0 Indiana back in Week 4 and the Hoosiers delivered. Now IU comes out of its bye looking to get within a win of matching its program-best at 8-0. Standing in the Hoosiers’ way is a team that hasn’t lost in Bloomington since 1945.
Nebraska won the last meeting 35-21 at home in 2021 and won the only visit to IU as Big Ten rivals in 2016. Before that they hadn’t met since playing for four straight seasons in the 70’s (1975-78), all Nebraska wins. Those wins were part of a 6-1 stretch for Nebraska in the series over the last 50 years during which it’s 3-0 in Bloomington — IU’s only home wins over Nebraska came by a combined 108-14 margin in 1944 (54-0) and 1945 (54-14).
Indiana’s only other 6-0 start came in 1967 when it started 8-0 and finished 9-2 with a Rose Bowl loss. The Hoosiers won 41-24 at Northwestern two weeks ago for their first six-game win streak at any point since 1967 and their first win in Evanston since 1993. Kurtis Rourke has thrown 14 touchdowns and just two interceptions so far — he’s halfway to the Indiana single-season record for passing touchdowns (28 by Kellen Lewis in 2007) at the halfway point of the regular season.
Nebraska’s also coming off a bye after grinding out a 14-7 win over Rutgers two weeks ago to move within a win of its first Bowl since 2016.
The Cornhuskers 5-1 start is also their best since that season, which they started 7-0 before dropping four of six the rest of the way. Freshman QB Dylan Raiola’s numbers look pretty good overall, but he’s struggled over his last couple games including his first sub-50% completion rate, first touchdown-free game and a career-low 134 passing yards the last time out.
This week marks the first time that both Army and Navy are ranked since the 1960 season. Suffice to say the world looked just a little bit different the last time it happened!
Army was the latest team to humiliate UAB (which somehow still hasn’t fired Trent Dilfer as I write this Sunday night), reaching 6-0 for the first time since 1996 in the process.
The Black Knights lead the FBS in rushing yards per game with a hair under 370 (369.8) while no other team tops 300. This week they’re facing a defense which is 76th in rushing yards allowed per game (ECU) and gave up 311 rushing yards and six scores on the ground last time out against Charlotte.
QB Bryson Daily leads Army with 738 rushing yards (7th in FBS) and 14 rushing touchdowns (3rd), coming off his fifth straight game with 100+ yards on the ground and accounted for a season-high five touchdowns including four on the ground. Teammate Kanye Udoh is 33rd in the FBS with 531 rushing yards, making Army one of only two teams with two 500-yard rushers so far (along with Nevada).
Navy is coming off a bye following a 34-7 win at Air Force, giving it a chance to win the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy for the first time since 2019 and to start 6-0 for the first time in quite a bit longer.
The Mids haven’t won their first six games since 1979, when they followed it up with a four-game skid en route to a 7-4 finish. You don’t have to go back too much further to find the last time they did better than 6-0 — a win this week would match their best start to a season since opening the 1978 season at 7-0.
Navy is second only to Army averaging 295.6 rushing yards per game and also averaging 169.8 yards per game through the air, which would be its highest total since 1994 (221.2 per game). The Mids haven’t averaged more than 139.5 passing yards per game this century and that happened way back in 2000. They’ll face a defense in Charlotte which is 108th allowing 182 rushing yards per game and 117th allowing 5.18 yards per rush.
Next up, a trio of Power conference unbeaten squads looking to avoid an Alabama-Vandy situation while being favored by more than a touchdown. Two of them share a conference and not a regular season meeting, thus could be on a collision course for an unbeaten Big 12 Championship showdown. But first, my Ducks! Aren’t you proud of me for waiting this long to mention them????
Oregon’s favored by 28 points at Purdue as of Sunday after surviving the first Top 5 matchup in Eugene by the slimmest of margins against former #2 Ohio State.
The monumental win was the first by a one-point margin in a Top 3 matchup since #2 Miami beat won 17-16 at #1 Florida State in mid-November 1991 en route to the National Championship.
Ducks QB Dillon Gabriel’s rushing touchdown early in the 4th quarter against OSU (the game’s final touchdown) made him the first player in FBS history with at least 125 passing touchdowns and 30 rushing touchdowns.
Iowa State is off to just its second 6-0 start and can match the 1938 team for the best start in program history at 7-0 with a win over UCF as a 13-point home favorite as of Sunday.
The ‘Clones are coming off a 28-16 win at West Virginia for their school-record sixth straight Big 12 road win dating to last season. Carson Hansen rushed for three of the team’s four touchdowns after entering with two rushing touchdowns in his first 18 career games.
This week they’re likely to be a favorite of at least 12.5 points for the third time in as many Big 12 home games this season — they weren’t a double-digit favorite in a single Big 12 home game over the last two seasons.
BYU’s the slimmest favorite of this trio with a 9-point edge over Oklahoma State as of Sunday, but is coming off the most-lopsided win of the three with a 41-19 rout of Arizona last week.
The Cougars improved to 6-0 for the sixth time in their history and the second time under head coach Kalani Sitake (also 2020), who joins the legendary LaVell Edwards as the only BYU coaches to start 6-0 twice.
Nine different Cougars have caught a touchdown from QB Jake Retzlaff — only Auburn and Vanderbilt (10 players each with receiving TD) while BYU is tied with North Texas for the third-most with nine different touchdown-catchers.
Our next trio of unbeaten teams don’t have to worry about getting caught napping this week since they’re on byes. Real quick shouts headed their way, because I think anyone unbeaten at this point in the season deserves it — I’m sure Alabama and Tennessee would agree!
Penn State moved into the Top 3 of the AP Poll for the first time since ascending to #2 in 2017 after coming back from an early hole to survive an overtime thriller at USC. Tight end Tyler Warren caught 17 passes for 224 receiving yards, the most yards ever by a Big Ten (and PSU) tight end in a game while the 17 catches were a PSU single-game record and tied the Big Ten and FBS tight end single-game records set by New Mexico’s Emilio Vallev in 1967 and equaled by Northwestern’s Jon Harvey in 1982. Only Jahan Dotson (242 against Maryland in 2021) had more receiving yards in a game in PSU history.
Pitt survived The Calgorithm in a 17-15 home win to improve to 6-0 for the first time since 1982 — can you guess who the quarterback was back then? The Panthers racked up six sacks against Cal, matching its most in a game over the last two seasons and improving its impressive records under Pat Narduzzi when getting after the QB despite Eli Holstein and the offense’s worst day of the season.
Liberty came off an extended layoff caused by hurricane Helene and escaped a scare from FIU to improve to 5-0. The Flames have won 17 straight in the regular season and 12 straight at home while head coach Jamey Chadwell is a game away from his personal fifth straight 6-0 start including both of his seasons at Liberty and his last three at Coastal Carolina.
Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty isn’t going to beat Barry Sanders’ FBS record for rushing yards per game (he’s more than 30 off the pace). With that disclaimer out of the way, Jeanty’s reached the halfway point of the regular season and Boise State’s bye week within reach of both Barry’s legendary 1988 total of 2,628 rushing yards and his unofficial total of 2,850 including the Holiday Bowl.
Jeanty’s the FBS leader by over 50 averaging 208 rushing yards per game and the leader by over 200 yards overall with 1,248 through six games. If he “simply” doubles that total in the Broncos’ six remaining regular season games, he’ll have 2,496 and head into Boise State’s 13th game (which looks likely to be the Mountain West Championship) needing 133 to beat Barry’s official record.
With the Broncos in pole position for a Playoff berth and having already gone toe-to-toe with Oregon, it doesn’t seem implausible Boise could play 14 games or more and make history even more attainable for the best RB in the country.
Jeanty remains the Heisman favorite after having his third 200-yard outing of the season (217) on a season-high 31 carries at Hawai’i.
He’d be the first running back to win the Heisman since Derrick Henry in 2015 and the first player to win from a team outside a Power conference since either BYU’s Ty Detmer in 1990 out of the WAC (correct answer) or Miami’s Gino Torretta in 1992 out of the Big East (if you wanna be weird about the Big East).
We’ll get a better idea of where Notre Dame’s Playoff hopes stand in a couple weeks when the selection committee awakens from its slumber, but particularly as they now sit in the proverbial “last team in” position in the AP Poll, it feels very much like the Irish are Fighting for their Playoff lives every time out.
Notre Dame’s won four straight since its lone loss to Northern Illinois with three of those four coming by at least 25 points while allowing fewer than 10, and is quietly 8th in the FBS allowing just 11.7 points per game. The Irish have run for 200+ yards in three of their four straight wins — they’ve gone from 69th in rushing through two games (160.5 yards per game) to 16th through six (216.5).
Georgia Tech’s also been livin on the edge in a different sense than Notre Dame —the Yellow Jackets seem incapable of playing anything other than close games against Power conference opponents. All five they’ve played so far have been decided by 12 or fewer points (3-2 record) including a pair of three-point margins and a seven-point margin. They’re one of eight teams tied for the FBS lead with five games decided within 12-point margins (others include Arizona State, Arkansas and Vanderbilt).
LSU looks to stay amongst the ranks of the SEC’s once-beaten as it hops from one old rivalry to another.
The Tigers survived the Magnolia Bowl thanks to a pair of touchdown passes from Garrett Nussmeier on his final two snaps against Ole Miss, one of them to Aaron Anderson to force overtime and the other to Kyren Lacy to end it. An up-and-down performance overall became a signature win as he finished with 337 yards and three scores to offset two interceptions and a number of missed opportunities on a night he completed 22-of-51.
Arkansas is looking to make program history and beat an AP Top 10 opponent for the second straight game as it comes off a bye following its upset of #4 Tennessee. The closest the Hogs have come to accomplishing that is following up a Top 10 win with another Top 15 win, something they did most recently in 1999.
LSU has won four straight Battles for the Boot in Fayetteville in a series it leads 44-23-2 including two vacated wins in 2012-13. Each of LSU’s last three wins in Fayetteville as well as the last four meetings in the series overall have been decided by a single possession. LSU’s looking for its third straight win in the series overall and eighth in the last nine meetings.
I already made mention of Trent Dilfer’s UAB trash fire above, but there’s a beautiful karmic corollary to it as perennial doormat UL Monroe enjoys its best season in decades under first-year head coach Bryant Vincent — the one-time UAB interim who was hand-picked by the retiring Bill Clark to lead the Blazers, beloved by his players after a season doing the job, and then spurned by the university in favor of the splashier Dilfer.
The Warhawks 5-1 start is their best since 1987, when the program was known as the Northeast Louisiana [former name of the Cleveland Guardians redacted] and took down Marshall in what was then known as the Division I-AA Championship Game to claim what we’d now call an FCS natty.
The 5-1 start includes a decisive 32-6 home win over Dilfer and UAB earlier this season, one of four straight home wins to start Vincent’s career as ULM head coach. His only loss thus far as head coach came on the road against the team currently ranked atop the AP Poll, and he’s already beaten both the 2023 Sun Belt Champions in Troy and the uncrowned 2023 Sun Belt champs JMU.
One more win this season will get ULM to Bowl eligibility for the first time since 2018, when they finished 6-6 and didn’t get a Bowl invite. They’ve played in only one Bowl game since joining the FBS ranks as an independent in 1994, the 2012 Independence Bowl (lost 45-14 to Ohio) to cap an 8-5 season which was also their only winning season in the last 30 years.
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