Saturday was about teams staking their claim in the bigger college football landscape. Some are striking gold. Others are stumbling over rocks and maybe even falling down. We will have to wait and see if and how they get back up. Some are surprising us with their pluck and their perseverance. Others are packing up their surveying equipment and looking to what’s next.
Finding Gold
Indiana is a football school. Vanderbilt is a football school. Georgia Tech is a football school. They have done the work and produced the results to back it up. Vandy is 6-1 for the first time since 1950. GA Tech is 7-0 (just don’t bring it up to Wake Forest fans…it tends to rankle them). Indiana is 7-0 and celebrating that second-year coach Curt Cignetti signed a new contract that keeps him there in theory for the rest of his natural days.
The Hoosiers and Cignetti are such a hot item that the Fox pre-game show on Saturday will be in Bloomington as Indiana prepares to play that newly anointed Big 10 juggernaut that is UCLA.
Speaking of Natural Life
LSU fans are looking for a way to shorten their ties to Brian Kelly’s natural life. In his fourth year in Baton Rouge, Kelly is 34-13 overall and 19-9 in the SEC. This year, the Tigers, who had national championship aspirations behind a Heisman candidate quarterback, are now 5-2 overall and 2-2 in conference.
They were the victims of Vanderbilt’s resume-building on Saturday. Commodores quarterback Diego Pavia had 2 rushing touchdowns and one passing touchdown to go with his 246 total yards.
Kelly is being called on the proverbial carpet by proverbial LSU fans. He is no closer to winning the big games at LSU than he was at Notre Dame. In South Bend, his argument was that he was doing what he could with the talent he could get into school at Notre Dame. Life was supposed to be easier at LSU. It is actually pretty much the same where his coaching is concerned.
Falling on Some Rocks
Texas Tech and Ole Miss also stumbled over some rocks on their climb up the hill. Both lost for the first time this season.
The Red Raiders lost to the Arizona State Sun Devils circa 1975 as ASU wore helmets that were an homage to the team 50 years ago. Texas Tech backup quarterback Will Hammond played alright in place of the injured Behren Morton. Hammond was 22 of 37 for 167 yards passing, two touchdowns, and an interception. Not exactly the offensive explosiveness that Morton has been producing. But moderately viable. But ASU’s Sam Leavitt was 28 of 47 for 319 yards and a touchdown.
Good thing for Texas Tech, the Red Raiders play in a Big 12 conference that will be wide open until five minutes before the playoff committee makes its final announcements.
Ole Miss just made life as difficult for itself as it does every year when it comes to the big picture. There are the one or two losses each season that alter the Rebels’ postseason directions and cause head coach Lane Kiffin to complain, as though he had forgotten about the losses.
Saturday was one of those times. Ole Miss had Georgia on the ropes in Athens. A 10-point Ole Miss lead early in the fourth quarter should have set the tone for the last 13+ minutes. Ole Miss scored zero points in the fourth quarter. Quarterback Trinidad Chambliss finished with stats that look fine for the game…until you look at the fourth quarter apart from the rest of the box score. And the Ole Miss defense got lit up, 17-0 in the fourth quarter.
Kiffin needs to remember this game when he is disappointed in December.
Mining Right Where He Is
Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule spent the last two weeks dealing with rumors that tie him to the Penn State coaching opening. He gave the typical non-denial denials, talking about how much he loved the Nebraska job. His quarterback, Dylan Raiola, told the media that Rhule wasn’t going anywhere.
Raiola is right, but for the wrong reasons. Of course, Rhule would be interested in coaching at his alma mater. But after swatting away the topic for two weeks, Rhule and his Cornhuskers went out and got dumped by Minnesota, 24-6. There is zero chance the hiring of Rhule would now be acceptable to the Penn State fan base or donors.
Miami Did What Miami Does
The Hurricanes had their annual hiccup en route to an otherwise perfect season. Miami lost at home to Louisville Friday night. What makes this a little different than previous years is that this was foreseeable. This wasn’t the head-scratching loss to a huge underdog that could be chalked up to another Mario Cristobal coaching error.
Former Heisman candidate Miami quarterback Carson Beck threw four interceptions and had no touchdown passes in the 24-21 loss. His counterpart for Louisville, Miller Moss, who has been underwhelming in his time with the Cardinals, had two passing touchdowns and a rushing score to account for all three Louisville touchdowns.
The Canes are still 5-1 overall, but at 1-1 in conference play, they are down in the middle of the 17-team ACC pack.
Fashion Rewind
When we see something we like, we post photos as available. UCLA, for Homecoming, paid tribute to the era of the 1960s and its lone Heisman winner, Gary Beban. The helmets have no school logo. The jerseys and blue and white with a lighter shade of blue than the current iteration. And the pants are actually gold colored, not some variation of yellowish gold.
Hey, it just occurred to us that the theme of the column was striking gold and staking your claim. What a good choice we made for the fashion look. And UCLA won its third game in a row under interim head coach Tim Skipper.
As always, we manage to tie it all together here at Last Word.
Main Image: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images
