What We Refer To When We Say College Football Is the Best — Week 4 Review

It had been two years. The pandemic being what it was, we got nothing like this in 2020. So we have to go back to 2019. Except that we didn’t get it that season either because everything was so top heavy. We really didn’t get it in 2018 either. Or 2017. What I am referring to is that chunk of games in a certain timeslot where your head has to be on a swivel. Everything is coming to a head in multiple games at the same time. Many fanbases are are having heart attacks while on pins and needles nervous about their team. And neutrals are wheeling out anything they can with a screen or changing the channel so rapidly you would have been yelled at to stay on one channel when you were a kid.

The segment was the afternoon last Saturday. When these things happen, it could happen during any segment. Often the afternoon. Sometimes Primetime. Occasionally the morning. Rarely but still memorably the Late Night. And for those who’ve been through these, you know.

Last Saturday afternoon started off as a weak looking time slot. The only matchup between ranked teams was between Arkansas and Texas A&M. Normally a game between numbers 7 and 16 is a huge deal. But this season, both are starting down the barrel of the Alabama/Georgia duo, likely to atomized and processed.

The other showcase games were between a one loss Clemson playing a conference game, something that had been automatic against normal conference members 2017; Michigan hosting Rutgers, a series that in recent times has been the definition of the section below reviewing games as a snuff film; and Iowa St. traveling to Baylor, possibly a good game but nothing that was getting anyone excited.

And so it was. Baylor surprisingly jumped out to a huge lead. Michigan unsurprisingly also led by a lot. Arkansas jumped all over Texas A&M. And Clemson struggled. So America turned its attention. Now nobody wants to watch the Clemson offense this season, with good reason. But everyone kept an eye on it while they changed attention to one of the two brewing major upsets: Colorado St. leading #5 Iowa 14–7 at halftime and Georgia St. leading #23 Auburn 24–12 in what would be the most embarrassing loss for Auburn in a very long time (despite more than a few close calls, Auburn hadn’t lost a home game against a non-power conference team since 1991).

And then came the 4th quarter. And crazy things started happening. Everyone happily tuned out the big game as Arkansas had it in hand. And Iowa came to play in the second half so the upset alert was extinguished relatively quickly. But Rutgers-Michigan, Auburn-Georgia St., Clemson-NC State and Iowa St.-Baylor all came down to the wire…at the same time.

Channels were changed from play to play. Twitter became an unfollowable mess as media and fans tried to keep up. And the collective college football zeitgeist got to enjoy something it hasn’t seen in years: multi-level chaos.

For those who follow scores, you know how this story ends. For the rest, Baylor held on for dear life and won on a failed Iowa St. 2-pt conversion, Michigan forced a Rutgers fumble when the Scarlet Knights had a chance to tie or win in the final minutes, Auburn escaped with the help of a dubious refereeing call and the backup quarterback making plays and Clemson went down in double overtime, ending one of the greatest runs of dominance the sport has ever seen (and it will always be underappreciated because one of the few better runs happens to still be active at Alabama).

Each week I’ll put every game into one of six categories, explained and listed below. I might even talk about a few of the games.

Classics — These are why we watch the sport. Don’t expect one every week. Unless you just time traveled forward from 1990 or 2007. Then I can’t help you and I hope you have a way to go home.

None this week. The collective afternoon timeslot would fit but there was no individual game.

Good Solid Football — Close Games, 14 point wins in major games. The building blocks of a good weekend of games.

Oklahoma 16, West Virginia 13 — At this point I wonder if going on the road will help Oklahoma. The crowds will be about the same level of hostility towards the offense as their own crowd was in the second quarter after all.

NC State 27, Clemson 21 (2OT) — Clemson? You found a way to not let NC State shoot itself in the foot? And the offense continued to be offensive.

Notre Dame 41, Wisconsin 13 — Don’t look at the final score. This was a competitive game. Wisconsin led this game in the 4th quarter after all. Then gave up a kick return touchdown and threw two Pick Sixes. And that’s how you have a 28 point game instead of Wisconsin driving to tie in the last 5 minutes.

Baylor 31, Iowa St. 29 — Baylor had three first downs in the second half. But a kickoff return touchdown covers a lot of sins. As for Iowa St., what are we doing here? They stink again, just like every year in September under Matt Campbell. Maybe he should go to the NFL where he has a preseason to get the kinks out.

Appalachian St. 31, Marshall 30; Michigan 20, Rutgers 13; UCLA 35, Stanford 24; Oklahoma St. 31, Kansas St. 20; Boston College 41, Missouri 34 (OT); UTSA 31, Memphis 28

Entertaining Bad Football — Games that can be written about forever. But not because they were good. You probably saw something you’ve never seen before.

Fresno St. 38, UNLV 30 — This is basically the definition of a hangover game. Fresno St. was high coming off the UCLA win on the road, had a short week and played the first quarter like they spent the week reading their press clipping instead of practicing. They eventually got it in gear, but it was ugly as UNLV is absolutely terrible in every possible way.

Syracuse 24, Liberty 21 — And all of non-Christian college football fans breath a sigh of relief that Liberty isn’t going undefeated against their terrible schedule. Now the only time anyone needs to pay attention to them is for the Hugh Freeze Bowl at Ole Miss in November.

Michigan St. 23, Nebraska 20 (OT) — Oh Nebraska. You had the lead and hadn’t given up a first down in the second half. And still lost. Why? The punter kicked the ball to the wrong side of the field and the inevitable catastrophic Adrian Martinez turnover appeared in overtime. Sigh.

Auburn 34, Georgia St. 24 — It’s never a good thing when you play a team from The Bakery and end up in another category Auburn.

Wyoming 24, UConn 22 — That never should have been a game. But undefeated Wyoming played terribly at home and UConn is suddenly improving now that Randy Edsall is gone. And result was a near upset.

Charlotte 42, Middle Tennessee 39; LSU 28, Mississippi St. 25; Central Michigan 31, Florida International 27; SMU 42, TCU 34; Tulsa 41, Arkansas St. 34; Buffalo 35, Old Dominion 34; Houston 28, Navy 20; UAB 28, Memphis 21

I Watched It So You Didn’t Have To — Nobody liked watching Michigan St. around 2015–2017. Not even their own fans. And they were good in those years. Lots of games in this section.

Wake Forest 37, Virginia 17 — Lots of people now think Wake Forest is the best team in the ACC. And while that may be true, just know that it is probably the kiss of death, especially with a pass defense that gave up over 400 yards (though to be fair Virginia is doing that to everyone right now).

Bowling Green 14, Minnesota 10 — Bowling Green’s defense is vastly improved now that the Van Gorder is washed out of the program (google Brian Van Gorder if you don’t know what I’m referring to). But you can’t lose to these fools Minnesota. Scott Loeffler is still there after all (google 2012 Auburn offense) as head coach.

Indiana 33, Western Kentucky 31 — I didn’t know it was possible for a game with this score to just be boring. But it was. And Indiana doesn’t look very good. They could lose their next five games easily (Penn St., Michigan St., Ohio St., Maryland and Michigan).

Oregon 41, Arizona 19; Iowa 24, Colorado St. 14; Arkansas 20, Texas A&M 10; Florida 38, Tennessee 14; Georgia Tech 45, North Carolina 22; Army 23, Miami (OH) 10; Western Michigan 23, San Jose St. 3; Toledo 22, Ball St. 12; Utah 24, Washington St. 13; Purdue 13, Illinois 9; Louisville 31, Florida St. 23; Duke 52, Kansas 33; Louisiana 28, Georgia Southern 20; Kentucky 16, South Carolina 10; Air Force 31, Florida Atlantic 7; UL-Monroe 29, Troy 16; UTEP 20, New Mexico 13; Washington 31, Cal 24 (OT)

The Bakery — Did your team schedule a directional school, a school from a lower division or some team where the only point is to strike up the band 62 times in 3 hours? You’ll find your team here. Unless something went wrong.

Ohio St. 59, Akron 7 — It’s never a good thing when a linebacker transfers midweek and another quits in the middle of a game. So Ohio St. somehow managed to have program angst in a week when they won by 52. So things are going great.

Alabama 63, Southern Miss 14; Penn St. 38, Villanova 17; BYU 35, USF 27; Coastal Carolina 55, UMass 3; Pittsburgh 77, New Hampshire 7; Virginia Tech 21, Richmond 10; Northwestern 35, Ohio 6; Temple 41, Wagner 7; Miami 69, Central Connecticut St. 0; Northern Illinois 41, Maine 14; Maryland 37, Kent St. 16; San Diego St. 48, Towson 21; East Carolina 31, Charleston Southern 28; Rice 48, Texas Southern 34; Hawaii 41, New Mexico St. 21; Arizona St. 35, Colorado 13

Snuff Films — Remember Alabama 50, USC 3 in 2016. How about LSU 52, Virginia Tech 7 in 2007. Or maybe most of the Ohio St.-Michigan games played in the last 15 years. You get the picture. These game always involve teams that shouldn’t be in The Bakery that week.

Georgia 62, Vanderbilt 0 — Just a reminder that conference games are never a part of The Bakery. Vanderbilt might be that bad, but these team are theoretically playing the same game in the league and therefore should never be this far apart. Except Vandy has collapsed back into its pre-James Franklin self.

Oregon St. 45, USC 27 — The score doesn’t match the breadth of the ass whooping here. Oregon St. humiliated the Trojans. It was 45–17 and should have been 52 considering the endzone interception Oregon St. threw early in the game.

Texas 70, Texas Tech 35; Boise St. 27, Utah St. 3; Eastern Michigan 59, Texas St. 21

Oh No! — Did you lose to a team from The Bakery?

Finally we had a week of no failures. There likely will be no more than one more for the season as non-conference games are largely complete (other than SEC-SoCon Saturday of course).

Rankings — These are my personal rankings. Normally I’ll have something to say about a lot of these teams.

1 Georgia (4–0) — All of a sudden Georgia is looking at a very difficult month. Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky and Florida all will be challenging in very different ways given the strengths and weaknesses of those rosters.

2 Alabama (4–0) — Is the defense ready after getting pushed around for three quarters against Florida a couple of weeks ago? We’ll see as the explosive Ole Miss offense comes to Tuscaloosa.

3 Oregon (4–0) — Continues to play to the level of the competition. Note that Arizona was within 5 points in the 4th quarter.

4 Penn St. (4–0) — Do you want to watch a game that is going to be listed in the Snuff Films of next week’s review? If so turn ABC on at 7:30 ET/4:30 PT.

5 Iowa (4–0) — The Big Ten clearly wasn’t thinking Iowa would be ranked here since they are way smarter than the Pac-12 who has sent so many top 20 teams to die in short week road games like this week’s pending disaster at Maryland.

6 Florida (3–1) — Quarterback controversy squashed and mailed to Auburn.

7 Arkansas (4–0) — It was nice seeing you this high Hogs. The guillotine is coming Saturday morning.

8 Michigan (4–0) — Survive and Advance

9 Cincinnati (3–0) — Hopefully spent the week off working out the offensive kinks before the biggest game in years for this program.

10 Ole Miss (3–0) — Hopefully spent the week off working out the defensive kinks before the biggest game in years for this program.

11 Notre Dame (4–0) — I still don’t really believe in this offense, but I’m coming around on the defense.

12 BYU (4–0) — About to run over poor Utah St. in the Mormon Bowl.

13 Oklahoma (4–0) — The Big 12’s playoff hopes are riding on Oklahoma finding a way not to lose to Kansas St. for a 3rd straight year.

14 Fresno St. (4–1) — Jake Haener for Heisman. OK not as winner but he’d be on my ballot if I had one.

15 Ohio St. (3–1) — The team is better than this but the accomplishments aren’t.

16 UCLA (3–1) — Be ready for me writing post game on Saturday night as I will be at the Rose Bowl for the game against Arizona St.

17 Michigan St. (4–0) — I don’t know if they are good or if every team they’ve played was way overrated.

18 Oklahoma St. (4–0) — It just feels wrong that this team is winning with defense.

19 Coastal Carolina (4–0) — Another week, another blowout against a bad team. Ho hum. For the entire season.

20 Purdue (3–1) — Sometimes you need to re-evaluate a team, even after an ugly win. The Notre Dame loss isn’t bad and the Oregon St. win is very good and improving.

21 Oregon St. (3–1) — This team is rapidly getting better. Have a chance to win the Pac-12 with the annual death to USC not a death, no UCLA on the schedule and the confidence to know they can play with Oregon after winning last season.

22 Boston College (4–0) — See Oklahoma St. but substitute defense for offense. Said offense is about to get its biggest test of the season: Angry Clemson.

23 Wake Forest (4–0) — Dave Clawson is just going to quietly demolish the rest of the ACC this year isn’t he?

24 Auburn (3–1) — A tenuous at best ranking, nobody knows who is starting at quarterback at LSU (it should be TJ Finley as Bo Nix constantly has the yips in big road games).

25 Maryland (4–0) — I can’t believe they are undefeated either. If they are still undefeated in two weeks, look out (games against Iowa and Ohio St.)