Week 9
1 Miami at North Carolina (Miami wins 38-35)
Jesse Miller-Gordon: Bill is getting the Jordon news out there and politicking behind the scenes with boosters as his team plays better and better. I’m now keeping an eye out for who ends up GM there, because if they get him the right ingredients he’s going to keep cooking. Miami is great and the Mensah Money looks proper right now. Malachi Toney continues to have the best nickname in all of sports.
Christopher Helling: Of course, a week after saying I didn’t think UNC was very good, they nearly upset Miami. North Carolina did a great job of limiting WR Malachi Toney (outside of highlight reel plays which you can’t stop), but Miami’s secondary made UNC QB Billy Edwards Jr look like... Darian Mensah (Edwards’ 341 passing yards, 82.4% completion rate, and 4 TDs/0 INTs were season-highs; 4 TDs is his career-high, and 82.4% completions is a non-FCS competition career high for him as well). Edwards kept finding wide open receivers to keep pace with Miami’s offense, and it looks like Miami may have exposed their Achilles’ heel.
Virginia at 14 Wake Forest (Wake Forest wins 51-7)
Jesse Miller-Gordon: Virginia’s disappointment would be a bigger story if there weren’t higher level tire fires blazing at the moment. Also, Jack Dickert has been so good so fast he’s outstripped a tiny institution that likes to keep their coaches as long as possible much faster than they were prepared for. Those pressers where he talks about doing all that winning with less money than other coaches are for his admin to hear as much as they’re to mess with other coaches.
Christopher Helling: Wake Forest scored every time they touched the ball (minus their final drive in garbage time), and the best Virginia could hope for was for some strong redzone defense to force WF to settle for FGs instead of TDs. Virginia knew they had to be aggressive on offense to keep up, but couldn’t convert on 4th downs in the redzone (1/12 on on 3rd down, 3/7 on 4th downs) and the score eventually got away from them. Virginia’s offense is built to grind it out on the ground, not win a shootout with an offense that can’t be stopped. Wake Forest has SMU in a few weeks on the road, and they’re probably the only team that might be able to keep up. Otherwise, it looks like smooth sailing for a rematch with Miami in the ACC title game. (No disrespect to Duke here, I just don’t think they can keep up either, especially when WF starts strong).
19 SMU at Syracuse (Syracuse wins 30-27)
Jesse Miller-Gordon: I’d be mad if I were an SMU fan and I’d be confused if I were a Syracuse fan.
Christopher Helling: Syracuse has now beat UNC and SMU in back to back weeks. Syracuse’s red zone defense was probably the difference in this one, as well as SMU QB Kevin Jennings eating some costly sacks that cost SMU points (and a credit to Syracuse’s front-7 as well). Syracuse is showing teams just how dangerous they can be when fully healthy..
Boston College at Duke (Duke wins 47-2)
Christopher Helling: I definitely thought BC would put up more of a fight in this one, but it shows how singularly important QB Mason McKenzie is to the BC offense. The Duke defensive line lived in the BC backfield and did a good job of containing McKenzie to prevent him from breaking off huge runs the way he did last week at Georgia Tech.
Stanford at Louisville (Louisville wins 52-24)
Christopher Helling: Stanford was playing well to start, and Louisville had a number of big miscues that helped keep Stanford in the game, including a turnover on downs on a fake FG, a fumbled snap for a turnover, a missed FG, and a number of busted coverages to give up big Stanford TDs. While Stanford was down 31-24 Louisville, Stanford botched a hook-and-ladder trick play when WR Nico Brown lateraled to WR Caden High and it bounced off his hands for a fumble return TD by Louisville to make it 38-24 Louisville, Stanford failing on 4th down (INT), and led to another Louisville TD to make it 45-24 before the end of the 3rd quarter (after previously matching Louisville blow for blow) and Louisville controlled the game from there. Louisville has a really good offense but a very porous secondary (other than CB Tayon Holloway) and a questionable defense, Louisville is a team built to win shoot-outs.
Jesse Miller-Gordon: Withholding all comments until the Big Game.
Clemson at Florida State (Clemson wins 36-24)
Christopher Helling: Haven't watched this one yet (only caught the first quarter live), but a lost season for FSU at this point. Star WR Duce Robinson is out for the season, they're missing RB1/RB2 (hard to relate as a Cal fan), and they have a Stanford QB under center. Clemson doesn't trust QB Tait Reynolds to make reads at all (hard to relate as a Cal fan) and simplifying the offense to an absurd degree for him. Clemson has enough talent at other positions to make up for it, at least. FSU finally pulled the trigger on firing Norvell though, so I guess we'll see if Brian Kelly or someone can do a better job of taking advantage of all that FSU talent (but I suspect it will be hard to do worse).
Jesse Miller-Gordon: Weird and fitting end for the Mike Norvell saga. Idk what you do when Bama is trying to poach your coach that just went 13-0 and got screwed by the playoff committee. The lesson I hope anyone would learn from this is not to do what FSU did this year: Stop paying for a decent roster and see if your coach can do more with less when his best year you were outspending everyone. 20 million was a lot a couple years ago, now it's the number Wake Forest's coach brags about overcoming.
Dabo is hanging on for dear life and the team isn't BAD it will just never be what it was, and the admin at Clemson will have to decide how they feel about that. Seems like they're cool with it for now even if the fanbase isn't.
Georgia Tech at Pitt (Pitt wins 34-11)
Christopher Helling: The Pitt defensive line kept finding its way into the backfield and the pressure was causing Mendoza to panic, and he was eventually benched for backup QB Grady Adamson, who found more offensive success running the ball himself (62 passing yards, 63 rushing yards in about a quarter of play). GT had no offense at all in the first half, while Pitt leaned heavily on the run and outgained GT in the first half 270 yards to 77 yards (a lot of GT’s 77 yards on the 2 min drill to score a FG before halftime), and 461 yards for Pitt to 238 yards total for GT. GT’s injured defensive line continues to be a weak spot, as Pitt ran for 281 yards with RB Damon Ferguson Jr running for a career-high 185 yards and 2 TDs. Neither team’s passing offense looked very good, and there were a lot of drops by both teams despite no inclement weather. Pitt will keep winning games with their defensive line, but the passing offense is a big weakness, and expect Pitt to struggle against any team with a strong run defense going forward.
Week 10
Virginia Tech at SMU (SMU wins 51-28)
Ben: very very very funny that Cal loses to SMU by a wider margin AND beats Virginia Tech. James Franklin is a very funny coach.
Piotr T Le: Expected, SMU is likely outside looking into the CFP with VTech realizing that the Franklin experience will take a couple years to kick into gear.
Nick Kranz: When you combine a QB like Kevin Jennings with a passing defense like Virginia Tech’s, then you get a fun situation where you get 350 passing yards on just 24 completions.
Christopher Helling: VT held on in the first half, and was only down 9 points in at halftime despite being outgained 280 yards to 180 yards, with the defense getting some stops to force SMU into settling for a couple FGs. But the VT offense was unable to keep pace with the SMU offense as they rolled through for 569 total yards, and SMU broke the game open in the 3rd quarter with a couple of TDs, and VT struggling to get anything going on offense as VT sunk into a bigger and bigger hole. SMU scored on every possession except one, with an interception off a deflected pass (plus the final garbage time drive with backups in to burn clock running the ball). SMU’s offense looked sharp in this one, like they did in the second half of the SMU-Cal game. SMU has a big test coming up with Wake Forest next week.
1 Miami at 11 Notre Dame (Miami loses 24-31)
Ben: Really the only game I watched this weekend but man what a game. Miami nearly pulls off the miracle and ultimately falls flat in the endzone. If only there was a targetting no-call that benefited Miami to help them out....
Piotr T Le: Malachi Toney is worth at least 10 points, this match up will come back in the CFP.
Nick Kranz: Miami losing to Notre Dame while dogwalking the rest of the ACC is a grim reminder of how far away most of this conference is from teams that are ready and able to compete in the playoffs.
Christopher Helling: Not having WR Malachi Toney is a big deal for Miami, because he changes how a team decides to play defense. ND was able to play a lot of man defense on Miami’s receivers, which is not something teams have done with Toney around. ND’s lines looked better than Miami’s; ND’s defensive line got a lot of pressure and run stops in the Miami backfield; e.g. ND had a goal line stand for 3 straight run stuffs at the 1 to force Miami into settling for their first FG, and they were able to play a simple 4-man rush and drop defenders into coverage on Miami’s final drive of the game when Miami took over with a minute left in the game, and Mensah just couldn’t find open receivers. ND’s offensive line gave QB CJ Carr all day to throw, and the Miami secondary is not built to hold for that long, and Carr hit a ton of open receivers for consistent offensive drives. Miami was down 24-3 in the 3rd quarter, but it seemed that QB Darian Mensah rediscovered his offensive chemistry with WR Cooper Barkate and had some big plays from TE Elija Lofton to get back in the game. ND is probably the first team that was able to beat Miami at the line of scrimmage, which probably means trouble for Miami in the postseason. Also, just going to put this here, but I have no idea how ND QB CJ Carr is considered a top NFL Draft prospect. I have only seen the ACC-ND games, but he struggles when his dominant offensive line falters even a little bit.
Merrimack at 16 Wake Forest (Wake Forest wins 77-0)
Ben: Honestly shameful that Jake Dickert and Wake Forest have to do this to get the committees attention.
Piotr T Le: Fun fact, WF didn’t even play Gio Lopez!
Christopher Helling: QB Gio Lopez sat this game out with an injury he suffered against Virginia (presumably to come back for next week at SMU). If you’re wondering what kind of team Merrimack is, they just beat our pals at Wagner (who are now 2-8) the week prior by a 19-14 margin.
Clemson at Syracuse (Clemson wins 18-13)
Ben: This is certainly a game. Does this give Dabo some further job security? Much to determine.
Piotr T Le: Somehow Cuse who is on their n-th QB gave Clemson a better fight than Cal has. Clemson is probably going to fire Dabo but each win makes it a tad harder.
Nick Kranz: In case you were curious. Clemson got to 18 with four field goals and a fumble return touchdown and missed 2 point conversion that turned out to be the decisive play of the game. Clemson is deeply flawed, yet still in the ACC championship picture thanks to a series of narrow wins in ACC play.
Christopher Helling: Neither of these offenses looked very good. Angeli had some bad throws for missed opportunities to score TDs, and WR Calvin Russell III was visibly frustrated. Tait Reynolds is a one-read QB, and Clemson only appears to trust Reynolds to run the ball when they need yards. Both offenses were bad in the redzone and on 3rd downs. The first TD of the game was a defensive scoop and score by the Clemson defense (followed by a missed 2-pt conversion), while Syracuse scored the only offensive TD of the game late in the 4th quarter. Clemson had a lot of penetration into the backfield, while CB Ashton Hampton locked down WR Umari Hatcher, Syracuse’s biggest weapon (2 catches for 12 yards). There were a lot of missed opportunities on offense for both teams, and this game could have gone either way with slightly better offensive performances by either side.
Florida State at Boston College (Florida State wins 31-24)
Ben: Dead cat bounce baby? Although man only one touchdown over BC?
Piotr T Le: First away ACC win in 3 years for FSU. Good on them as they are figuring out which coaching tier they can hire from. May I offer one gently used Tosh Lupoi?
Nick Kranz: Dead cat bounce
Christopher Helling: Two teams allergic to the passing game. It is funny to me that BC and FSU are basically equally matched teams after the seasons they had last year. FSU resorted to a fake FG for a TD in this one, only to be answered with a Kansas City Chiefs-inspired “Ring Around the Rosie” into the Swinging Gate trick play by Boston College right after. FSU just ran the ball a bit more effectively than BC to edge this one out.
North Carolina at UConn (North Carolina wins 38-21)
Ben: Quietly starting to worry that Belichick is putting it together an UNC and can be a force in the years to come.
Nick Kranz: One win away from a bowl for Chapel Bill, with Virginia and NC State still left on the schedule. When you’re casting jealous eyes towards THAT particular brand of dysfunction you’re in a dark place.
Christopher Helling: Okay, so I was wrong about UNC maybe not making a bowl game (do we still have bowl games?), as they’ll probably beat one of NCSU or Virginia. Do you think Bill Belichick would do the Duke’s Mayo Bowl mayo dump if UNC won that game? UConn is not good, and I may have overrated them a bit after watching them slug it out with Syracuse (who apparently does that with every opponent, no matter how good or bad they are), plus some residual bias after how well Jim Mora did there last year. Winning ugly is still winning.
Rob: Who wouldve thought Bill going through a break-up would help him find his coaching chops again?
Duke at NC State (Duke wins 41-3)
Ben: Annnnnd NC State is back down to the basement with out.
Piotr T Le: NC State is bad and this is how they ought to look to a competent team. Further proof of how woeful Cal has been this season.
Nick Kranz: This would be a deeply demoralizing result if I had any morale left.
Christopher Helling: This was the NCSU team I was hoping Cal would face. RB Nate Sheppard is so good that receivers were left in man coverage, and it just took one man getting beat to give up a big play. NCSU did a terrible job tackling, giving up e.g. an 18-yard TD on a simple WR screen (one-on-one coverage), followed by having a missed 50-yard FG returned over 100 yards for another Duke TD at halftime to make it 31-3 Duke at half. RB Nate Sheppard outgained the entire NCSU offense by himself (19 plays, 221 yards of offense, 3 TDs to 70 plays for NCSU, 217 yards of offense, 0 TDs) and he was pulled in the middle of the 3rd quarter when Duke was up 38-3. RB Nate Sheppard ran for 217 yards on 18 carries, and his running ability made QB Walker Eget’s job way easier for him. Duke’s offensive line lived in the NCSU backfield, and they contained NCSU for 32 yards rushing on 25 carries, while QB CJ Bailey was off-target all game and just couldn’t put the ball in catchable spots for the most part. NCSU usually starts strong (they were down 7-3 after the 1st quarter), but it was a complete blowout from the 2nd quarter onward. Duke has games against Miami and Wake Forest still on the schedule, so they control their own destiny, and they may be heating up at the right time.
Louisville at Georgia Tech (Louisville wins 44-17)
Ben: I honestly do not have a single read of Louisville this season. Is this a good win? Just beating up on Little Mendoza? Hmmmmm
Piotr T Le: If not for GTech, Cal and Stanford would be the worst teams in the ACC.
Nick Kranz: Louisville is going to finish ACC play with a point differential well above +100, wondering how exactly they took an utterly inexplicable 3 point loss to NC State.
Christopher Helling: GT had a questionable strategy of alternating quarterbacks every drive until a QB had success, and instead it seemed like neither QB had any rhythm, and a lot of missed throws due to poor QB/WR chemistry, so I am guessing this QB indecisiveness has been going on for a while. GT’s scoring drives were mostly assisted by Louisville mental mistakes in some way (1Q FG: 3 and out, muffed punt, 3 and out, roughing the kicker, then FG; 2Q TD: mostly a good 2 min drill by QB Alberto Mendoza plus a roughing the passer; 4Q TD: Louisville coach with sideline interference colliding with a ref). GT’s lines looked better than usual, and did better than I expected against a very strong Louisville rushing attack (which still ran for 251 yards), while QB Lincoln Kienholz had a lot of nice throws and played well overall. Louisville is just a couple close losses away from being undefeated (lost to current #10 Ole Miss by 1 FG, lost to #16 Wake Forest by 1 FG and had a game-tying FG blocked, and then somehow lost to NC State after RB Keyjuan Brown was stripped for a fumble on what would have been a game-winning TD to lose by 1 FG again). Louisville strong offense has been able to carry them so far.
Any other thoughts on the teams?
Piotr T Le: Cal somehow found a way to lose the BYE week with the chaos surrounding the program. The fact that Feldman level reporters had to write about the Cal leadership debacle is an embarrassment for the program. It is one thing to be bad, it is another thing to look incompetent doing so.
Nick Kranz: In the ACC: Louisville wins out (beats UNC and Pitt), SMU wins out (beats Wake Forest and Stanford), Wake Forest beats Duke and Georgia Tech, and Clemson beats Georgia Tech and Duke, and we get four teams tied at 7-2. Very plausible chaotic fun!
Christopher Helling: ESPN is ruining college football. A 24-team playoff is stupid.