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Of the 134 FBS major college football programs, only one team remains with a perfect record after the 11th game of the season.
The 11-0 Oregon Ducks had the weekend off as they prepare to host their longtime rival Washington Huskies (6-5) on Saturday at 6:30PM CST on NBC. With a win, Oregon will advance to play against either Ohio State or Indiana in the Big Ten Championship game the following weekend.
Barring an epic two-game collapse, the Ducks should fly into the 12-team College Football Playoffs soon.
What happened to Indiana and Army on Saturday?
The other two unbeaten teams (10-0 Indiana and 9-0 Army) were taken to the proverbial woodshed in games against Ohio State and Notre Dame, respectively.
After Indiana cashed-in on its first offensive series to take a 7-0 lead at Columbus, Ohio, the Buckeyes defense and special teams rattled the Hoosiers for the remainder of the game. Leading just 14-7 early in the third quarter, Ohio State’s Caleb Downs’ 79-yard punt return for a touchdown gave the Buckeyes a 21-7 lead. That lightning-fast score ignited the team and the home crowd as Ohio State (now 10-1) rolled to a 38-15 win.
On Saturday night at Yankee Stadium in New York City, Army’s 9-0 team took the field against a much larger but equally quick Notre Dame team.
The Fighting Irish loaded eight players near the line of scrimmage on defense for most of the game and shut-down Army’s top-rated running attack. This was mismatch from the start as Notre Dame (now 10-1) dominated in a 49-14 victory.
Saturday’s SEC provided some pre-Thanksgiving surprise turkeys
While Georgia and Tennessee played a couple of homecoming cream puffs on Saturday, the rest of the Southeastern Conference provided some very exciting moments. After the dust cleared, the 10-1 Texas Longhorns are the only team in the conference with just one loss (at home to Georgia).
Coming into this weekend, a quintet of five SEC teams (Georgia, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Alabama, and Texas A&M) each had two losses to trail Texas by one game.
After Saturday’s action, that quintet of pursuers is now just a duo.
In the early game on Saturday, Ole Miss was the first SEC contender to go down in flames.
The resurgent Florida Gators (now 6-5) were coming off a big home win against LSU and then chomped the Rebels in Gainesville 24-17 to drop Ole Miss to 8-3. With the loss, Ole Miss is considered unlikely to make the 12-team playoff field.
In two other SEC contests played on Saturday evening, even more surprises occurred.
Texas A&M fell behind 21-0 at 4-6 Auburn.
The Aggies fought back to tie this game at 31-31 and send it into overtime. Four OT’s later, Auburn scored on a terrific 2-point pass completion to seal the victory over the Aggies.
The toilet paper rolls were out in force at Toomer’s Corner afterwards!
Texas A&M slipped to 8-3 (but is 5-2 in SEC play) but can still earn a spot in the SEC Championship game by defeating arch-rival Texas in College Station this Saturday night (6:30PM on ABC). The winner will meet 9-2 Georgia in the SEC title match.
Speaking of surprises, did anyone expect 5-5 Oklahoma to shut-down Alabama 24-3?
The Sooners are coached by Brent Venables. You may remember that Coach Venables was the long-time defensive coordinator at Clemson during the Tigers’ long championship run.
The OU defense made (now former) Heisman hopeful Jalen Milroe look like a high school quarterback in this game. Milroe had three interceptions and was limited to just 7 yards (on 15 carries) via the ground as Oklahoma showed LSU how to stop the fleet-footed Alabama quarterback.
The 3-points scored were Alabama’s fewest since 2004. The loss eliminated the Crimson Tide from the SEC title game. However, an 8-3 Alabama might still have an outside chance at the 12-team College Football Playoffs.
Why? Ask last year’s 2023 13-0 Florida State team about how Alabama’s massive TV audience affected the decisions of the CFP committee members!
Who wants to go “Bowling for Dollars?”
Would you believe that there are currently 77 of the 134 FBS teams which now have six wins? College football teams finishing with six or more wins are (generally) eligible to be invited to one of the 34 non-playoff bowl games (68 teams will be needed).
After the top 12 teams are named for this year’s College Football Playoffs, that leaves 65 teams which could play in one of the remaining bowl games.
That leaves just three open slots to reach the 80 teams necessary to fill-out this year’s bloated bowl slate.
There’s still time to become bowl eligible!
There are 16 teams which have five wins heading into the final weekend of the college football season. If three of those 5-win teams should win this week, the bare minimum of 80 bowl-eligible teams will be reached.
However, if more than three of those teams win and a surplus of 6+ win teams exists, there may be some very disappointed college football fans in a few locations around the country.
Those 5-win teams include the rapidly improving 5-6 Kansas Jayhawks, the hurricane-affected 5-5 Appalachian State Mountaineers, and the “We’ve only been to one bowl game in 30 years” UL-Monroe Warhawks.
For ULM, an exciting 5-1 start has stalled and spun into a tragic five game nosedive as the team sits at 5-6 with one final attempt remaining.
The Warhawks’ last regular season game will be played in Monroe this Saturday (11AM on ESPN+) against Sunbelt leader and arch-rival UL-Lafayette. The Ragin’ Cajuns are 9-2 and have already wrapped-up a spot in the Sunbelt Conference title game in early December.
Good luck to UL-Monroe and the other 15 teams vying to gain bowl eligibility this Thanksgiving weekend!
Let’s review the latest SwampSwamiSports.com Top 25 College Football Rankings for the week ending Saturday, November 23, 2024:
