A Few Quick CFB Thoughts 11/1/19
1. The first set of rankings from the College Football Playoff Committee will be released this coming Tuesday, November 5th (8pm CST, ESPN). The AP Poll shouldn’t matter to them, but if it does, 9 of the current Top 25 in that poll have a bye this weekend — 10 if you count Clemson, who is hosting Wofford (#20 in the FCS rankings). If you count Clemson, and we might as well, all 5 teams in the Top 5 in that poll are off this week. That gives the committee extra time to do their due diligence on those five teams as well as the other five teams (Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and San Diego State) because they don’t have to wait until they play this weekend to start researching them.
2. College GameDay will make its first ever visit to Memphis this week as the Tigers host 8–0 SMU. The Mustangs have only won 8 games in a season twice since being the only team to ever receive the NCAA Death Penalty in 1987 and 1988 and have only have 5 seasons since then with a winning record. Their most impressive wins thus far this season are a road win against TCU and beating Temple handily at home two weeks ago while Memphis has beaten Ole Miss and Navy and lost a close road game to Temple. The difference, I believe, will be the play of Mustangs quarterback Shane Buechele, the graduate transfer from Texas, who threw for 450 yards and 6 touchdowns against Temple just two games ago.
3. There are three remaining winless teams in the FBS: New Mexico State, Akron, and Rice. I took a quick look at the remaining schedule for each of them and found that Akron has a two-win team and three .500 teams remaining, Rice faces three teams with a losing record and 5–3 Marshall (all four are conference games), and NMSU has an FCS team that is 5–3, a one-win team, an SEC team (3-win Ole Miss), and Hugh Freeze’s Liberty Flames. There were no winless teams in 2018, but I think we may have two in Akron (appropriately nicknamed the Zips in this case) and Rice this season. Of the three, I think NMSU has the best chance to come out with a win because they face an FCS team (Incarnate Word) and a one-win team (UTEP). Surely, they can win one of those. Akron plays UTEP the week after NMSU does, so maybe they can pile on and get a win. Incarnate Word is coached by a guy, Eric Morris, who coached under both Mike Leach and Kliff Kingsbury and was Patrick Mahomes’ offensive coordinator at Texas Tech; I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they pulled the FCS-over-FBS upset over the Aggies.
4. Going into last night there were nine remaining unbeaten teams in the FBS. 5 of them (6 if you count Clemson) are included in the teams discussed above with a bye. Two of them played last night. Appalachian State lost by three to Georgia Southern (these two teams moved from the FCS to FBS level together in 2014) and Baylor beat West Virginia by three, so now there are just eight unbeaten teams. Baylor is still undefeated folks! The same Baylor that had just one win two season ago! Two of Baylor’s last four regular season games are at home — including Oklahoma and Texas. It’s tough to say whether Baylor is “for real” because their two biggest wins right now are Kansas State and Oklahoma State and they played no Power 5 teams in their non-conference schedule. What is easy to say, however, is that after the mess Baylor had with the sexual assault scandal that rocked that program, Matt Rhule was the right man for the job after the school parted ways with Art Briles. With their win that last night, and all the byes for unbeaten teams this weekend, that only leaves the aforementioned SMU Mustangs to play this weekend in an effort to keep that zero on the right side of their record.
5. With three of the more exciting offenses currently in the top ten being led by transfer quarterbacks, I thought I’d throw out a name that may become one to watch for next season. Caylin Newton, a junior quarterback at Howard University, has announced he’s transferring. He stopped playing this season after appearing in four games so that he can redshirt this year and he will graduate prior to transferring — he will have two years of eligibility remaining. Cam Newton’s little brother is looking to play at the FBS level and “compete at the highest level and compete for a championship”. As a freshman he was the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference’s (MEAC) Rookie of the Year and last year he was its Offensive Player of the Year. Where will he land? Who knows. However, after this season, LSU will lose Burrows, Alabama will likely lose Tua, Oregon will lose Herbert, Oklahoma will lose Hurts, and Michigan will lose Patterson for sure. Jake Fromm could leave as well, but I don’t really see him doing so. Notice that 3 of those 5 names mentioned were also transfers. Obviously, Newton could land a lot of places, but those are certainly places to keep in mind.
Bonus: One last thing that caught my attention is that if Tennessee beats UAB tomorrow night they will be just two wins away from bowl eligibility. Who would have thought that was possible after the Volunteers started the season with losses to Georgia State and BYU? Not me. The Blazers will go into Neyland Stadium with a 6–1 record and face a Tennessee team that has played relatively well the last two weeks. Outside of a few bonehead mistakes against Alabama two weeks ago, they played well against the Tide and they followed that up by beating South Carolina by 20. After UAB, they have road games against Kentucky and Missouri and finish the regular season with a home game against the Commodores of Vanderbilt. I don’t know if they can win two out of those three games to become bowl eligible (if they beat UAB tomorrow, of course), but they couldn’t ask for a better lineup to play against to give it a shot down the stretch.
