Inside CFB’s Wild Week 6: A chaotic Red River and an epic Miami collapse
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
Oklahoma coach Brent Venables wasn’t worried about all the pomp and pageantry, ebbs and flows, big plays and fried, well, everything, in this year’s Red River Rivalry. Instead, he told his team to “embrace the chaos.”
Chaos was everywhere Saturday.
Quinn Ewers threw picks on two of his first six passes, then completed 19 straight.
Oklahoma’s special teams unraveled in spectacular fashion.
The Sooners’ defensive front engineered havoc at the line of scrimmage.
Dillon Gabriel threw for 285 yards, ran for 113 and looked as much a magician as a quarterback.
There were seven lead changes and three ties.
And in the most chaotic moment, when Texas grabbed a lead on a 47-yard field goal with 1:17 to play, Venables’ team was cool as a cucumber. (Albeit a fried cucumber covered in chocolate and powdered sugar, we assume.)
It was the type of game where, when it’s over, you just want to drive the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile out into the middle of the desert, play the bongos naked and ponder whether time is a human construct or simply the nature of a simulated universe that we’re all living in. Or, you know, whatever Matthew McConaughey has planned for the rest of the night.
hats off @TexasFootball @OU_Football pic.twitter.com/PgNRK0Y0Vx
— Matthew McConaughey (@McConaughey) October 7, 2023
Gabriel took his team 75 yards on five plays in just 1:02, dodging pressure in his face on one last heave into the back of the end zone to Nic Anderson for a game-winning touchdown in an absolutely epic send-off to the Big 12 — or was it an early welcome to the SEC? — at the Cotton Bowl.
A year ago, Oklahoma was annihilated, embarrassed and overwhelmed in a 49-0 loss to Texas.
On Saturday, the Sooners moved to 6-0 on the season, and delivered a devastating blow to Texas’ immense hopes for 2023.
Here’s the part where we make the joke about Texas disappointing again. You know the drill. Nearly every year, we all get excited that Texas is back, even if, in the back of our minds, we’re certain that return to the national conversation will be short-lived.
Every year we embrace its return out of some sense of loyalty or nostalgia, eager to recall a simpler time, only to spend some sad October Saturday doubled over in pain, sobbing and begging God’s forgiveness for dedicating ourselves to this wretched abomination of disparate parts that was never intended to be consumed by the masses.
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Dillon Gabriel shines as Oklahoma picks up thrilling win over Texas
After Texas takes the lead late, Dillon Gabriel comes up huge on the final drive, giving Oklahoma the Red River Rivalry win.
Basically, Texas is the McRib of college football.
And yet, that doesn’t feel right this time around. This wasn’t the usual embarrassment of losing to Kansas or blowing a 21-point fourth-quarter lead or texting a disgraced Ohio State assistant “OK, cool. Hook ’em” or “Horns Down” chants or pet monkeys hell-bent on attacking innocent trick-or-treaters. This was a loss, but somehow felt like a step forward — a game in which Texas proved worthy of the hype, just a little less explosive than the Sooners.
On the Crimson side of the Cotton Bowl, Oklahoma had its own share of questions to answer. Venables took over a program that, if it wasn’t at the true precipice of college football’s elite, it was certainly close. Then the Sooners went 6-7 in Year 1, Gabriel missed his first Red River game and the whispers of the Sooners’ step backwards as they prepared for a 2024 move to the SEC grew from whispers to a low grumble.
But this year was going well. Oklahoma won its first five games, all by at least two touchdowns, but all against entirely pedestrian competition. Saturday was a true test, one filled with emotion and pressure and, yes, chaos.
Well, Venables eats chaos for breakfast. (Also, Cookie Crisp.)
There’s a script where Texas won Saturday, where Oklahoma’s missteps on special teams and Ewers’ late heroics coalesced into a dramatic victory in which the masses really would’ve argued, preached, believed that Texas was, indeed, back.
There’s another script, though, where those special teams struggles never materialized, where Oklahoma cashed in with a TD on that long drive before the half, where all the things that went against them went the other way and it was a Sooners blowout.
Neither ended up true, and that’s good, because this game was the type of chaos this season needed.
Texas needed to take a punch — maybe five or six — and show it was tough enough to keep getting off the mat. It did, even in a losing effort.
Oklahoma needed to make a few mistakes to show that this team had grown from the immature, inconsistent, unreliable group that lost seven games a year ago. Indeed, the Sooners showed they had not just grown, but had internalized those tough lessons and emerged as something more than just talented or experienced or, well, good.
They’re survivors, and chaos feels just like home for a team like that.
Canes endure epic collapse
You might’ve figured at kickoff nothing could get uglier than the Hurricanes’ uniforms, which looked like someone spilled a few shades of off-brand Mountain Dew flavors onto black jerseys, but you’d have been wrong.
Things got much, much, much uglier for Miami.
It was bad enough that the Canes’ offense flubbed its way through three quarters of football, with QB Tyler Van Dyke being picked off three times, including once in the end zone, which was part of five total turnovers in the game for the Hurricanes.
Still, Miami’s stout D kept things close — Georgia Tech had just 61 yards in the first half — and a Henry Parrish TD run and a 39-yard field goal put the Canes up 20-17 late in the fourth quarter.
That’s how it should’ve ended.
Miami ran more than five minutes off the clock, with 10 plays and 52 yards down to the Georgia Tech 30 with just over 30 seconds to play. All the Hurricanes had to do was take a knee.
Instead, they handed off the ball to Don Chaney Jr., who promptly fumbled. Georgia Tech recovered at its own 26 — but still trailed by 3 with just 25 seconds left.
That’s how it should’ve ended, too. But it didn’t.
Miami had Haynes King backed up on a second-and-10, a last-chance heave all that was left in the Yellow Jackets’ playbook. And King said afterward he knew the heave was going for six as soon as it left his hand.
His throw went over the top of the Miami D — how? Please, Miami, explain how this happens? — and found Christian Leary, who finished off a 44-yard completion with a game-winning touchdown.
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Miami’s coaching blunder leads to epic Georgia Tech comeback
Miami’s choice to run the ball leads to a crucial fumble, which Georgia Tech recovers and later completes the miracle comeback.
Saturday marked the 108th anniversary of Georgia Tech’s 222-0 win over Cumberland, which stands as, technically, the worst loss in college football history. But that game had nothing on what the Yellow Jackets delivered in Miami Gardens on Saturday night. They didn’t win by 222, but this was so, so, so much more painful.
How bad was it?
Pitbull has been downgraded from Mr. Worldwide to Mr. Corner of 36th and South near the IHOP.
Traffic on A1A in South Beach is just a bunch of Chevy Cavaliers.
The pool at The Clevelander had to be evacuated because of a bathroom incident.
There are losses. There are bad losses. There are losses that haunt a coach on his deathbed. And then about 100 miles past that is how Miami lost Saturday.
Bama’s back, baby
Alabama‘s offense wasn’t exactly clicking on all cylinders on Saturday against Texas A&M, but the Crimson Tide clearly have their QB.
Jalen Milroe threw for 321 yards and three touchdowns as Alabama dumped the Aggies 26-20. Since being benched against USF in Week 3, Milroe is completing 73% of his passes, averaging 10.8 yards per pass, with six touchdowns and two turnovers.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is, Alabama couldn’t run the ball at all. No, seriously, the Tide had minus-13 yards rushing in the first half. Nick Saban ran for more yards than his offense did before the break. By game’s end, Alabama had upped its output to a whopping 23 yards, which marked the third-lowest total of Saban’s tenure in Tuscaloosa, with both previous instances coming against LSU (2007 and 2021).
Still, it was enough to carry the Tide past an Aggies team that struggled in the red zone, settling for chip-shot field goals in the first quarter and in a late comeback attempt in the fourth.
A&M’s veteran QB Max Johnson, who missed his kids’ JV soccer game for this, completed 14 of 25 passes but threw a costly interception and was flagged for intentional grounding in the end zone, resulting in a safety. In his 27th year of college football, those were frustrating mistakes, but in fairness, it’s hard to play football with so many sets of keys in your cargo shorts, and he did remind all of his teammates to use the bathroom before getting on the bus after the game, which was helpful.
Buffs back in win column
Colorado picked up win No. 4 on the season Saturday night, officially surpassing their preseason Vegas total.
Regardless, the Buffaloes nearly blew a late 24-17 lead as Arizona State‘s Trenton Bourguet engineered a 13-play, 94-yard drive to tie the game with a touchdown with just 50 seconds left to play. But this is Colorado in 2023, and there’s always a bit more drama in store.
Shedeur Sanders completed his next pass for 43 yards to set up the game-winning field goal.
After the game, Coach Prime donned an oversized sombrero and Groucho Marx glasses for his on-field interview, said he was furious with several innocuous quotes from Kenny Dillingham, ranked all five of his sons plus every other relative dating back six generations and inked his entire team to a new NIL deal with NASA, whereby each team gets its own rocket ship.
Cards, ACC keep rolling
Break up the ACC! Wait, no, don’t break it up. Forget what we said, FSU board of trustees. It’s just a figure of speech.
Let’s rephrase: How about the ACC?
Six weeks into the season, a league that spent much of the summer fending off rumors of its demise now has a reasonable claim as the country’s best, with three teams still undefeated, including Louisville, which pulled off a stunner against Notre Dame on Saturday.
Jawhar Jordan ran for 143 yards and two touchdowns, Jamari Thrash hauled in eight catches, including a TD, and the Louisville defense continued to haunt the dreams of Notre Dame QB Sam Hartman, who was picked off three times in the Cardinals’ 33-20 win. Louisville is now 6-0 in Jeff Brohm’s first season as head coach, and with a manageable schedule the rest of the way, can rightly clam dark horse status in the playoff race.
Louisville also snapped Notre Dame’s 30-game regular-season winning streak against the ACC, which dated back to 2017 — which might have left the conference without something to be incredibly embarrassed by, but thankfully Miami stepped up to fill that void.
Meanwhile, Florida State kept chugging along in Week 6, thumping Virginia Tech 39-17, finally getting its ground game going behind Trey Benson, who ran for 200 yards and two touchdowns.
And in Chapel Hill, Tez Walker finally saw the field after the NCAA realized that every decision it’s ever made is wrong, and he helped spark a brilliant performance from QB Drake Maye, who threw for 442 yards and three touchdowns in a 40-7 win over the Syracuse Orange.
Maye had no trouble with Jim Boeheim’s 2-3 zone — ah, we mean Rocky Long’s 3-3-5 — completing passes to 11 different players.
Mack Brown, the country’s oldest head coach, is now 5-0, continuing a terrific 2023 for the Boomer generation, along with “The Golden Bachelor” and Lou Holtz living rent free in Ryan Day’s head (though, admittedly, also overpaying for a condo in Boca). Next up for North Carolina is the undefeated Miami Hurric– oh, no. Oh, we’re now being told to temper the ACC excitement as Miami is proving why the league is not allowed to have nice things.
Bowers keys Dawgs’ dominance
Well, all that talk about whether Georgia had another gear can be relegated to the list of “things that happened in September we’ll completely deny moving forward,” alongside the Cubs playoff chase, all Taylor Swift/NFL commentary and that alien corpse in Mexico that might or might not have been made from cake.
In what was billed as a battle between undefeated SEC teams, the Bulldogs looked the part and Kentucky looked utterly overwhelmed. Carson Beck threw for 389 yards and four touchdowns, Brock Bowers had seven catches for 132 yards, and Georgia’s D held Kentucky’s explosive run game to 55 yards in the 51-13 win — the Bulldogs’ first point-spread cover of the season.
But there is still one serious concern for Georgia.
Kirby Smart says he doesn’t know who Miley Cyrus is.
— Seth Emerson (@SethWEmerson) October 8, 2023
This is entirely believable. Has Kirby Smart nodded his head like yeah when “Party in the USA” plays during a TV timeout at Sanford Stadium? Sure. But does he understand the context of any of that? Absolutely not. The man has more important things to do. Though, we’re willing to wager he has Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Some Gave All” on cassette in his truck right now.
LSU wins a shootout
Jayden Daniels ran for 134 yards and a touchdown, threw for more than 12 yards per pass and three more TDs, and LSU still had to sweat out its Week 6 game vs. Missouri.
Such is life with the SEC’s most exasperating defense.
A week after LSU allowed Ole Miss to circumnavigate the globe on offense, the Tigers looked nearly as inept against Brady Cook and the, um, other Tigers.
Cook threw for 411 yards — including 149 to Luther Burden III — and Missouri led 22-10 at one point, but Cook’s streak of 365 straight pass attempts without an interception was snapped on a ridiculously athletic grab by Harold Perkins Jr. in the second quarter. Cook also threw a pick-six at the game’s end, and Perkins later foiled Lex Luthor’s scheme to rob Fort Knox.
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Harold Perkins Jr. leaps up and picks off Brady Cook for an LSU INT
Brady Cook’s SEC-record 366 pass attempts without an interception comes to an end at the hands of LSU’s Harold Perkins Jr.
If you’re counting — and, frankly, we hope you have access to a quantum computer if you are — LSU has allowed 94 points and 1,233 yards in its past two games. Of course, it has also accounted for 98 points and 1,170 yards of offense.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, LSU games have now gone over the betting point total 10 straight times and, according to Gov. Kim Reynolds, all Bayou Bengals games will come with an explicit content warning when shown in Iowa.
Where’s _hi_ State’s O?
If Week 5 was the moment we were all forced to ask whether Georgia was the elite team we’d come to expect in 2023, Week 6 raised the same questions about Ohio State.
Yes, the Buckeyes ultimately cruised past Maryland 37-17 by scoring the game’s final 27 points, but with TreVeyon Henderson out and the run game scuffling, there were more than a few moments Saturday when Ohio State’s offense, which looked as explosive as any in the country on paper, appeared woefully short of weapons.
Of course, one of those weapons was Marvin Harrison Jr., which is like saying you’re short on cash aside from that trillion-dollar bill in your back pocket.
For the game, Ohio State averaged 1.9 yards per rush. (That’s bad.)
Harrison, on the other hand, averaged 20.4 yards per catch. (That’s good.)
Kyle McCord targeted Harrison 15 times — more than half of his 29 throws — for eight catches and 163 yards. The rest of the offense, total, managed just 219 yards on 47 plays.
It’s entirely possible we’ve yet to see anything close to the full artillery at Ohio State. Henderson’s health matters, and the ground game will have better days. It may be Ohio vs. the world, but it certainly doesn’t have to be Harrison doing all the fighting.
But in this year’s Big Ten, there’s not much margin for error, and Ohio State’s offense — 23 points vs. woeful Indiana, 17 vs. a strong Notre Dame — needs to find a new gear if it’s going to survive the remainder of a season that still features dates with Penn State, at Wisconsin and at the Big House.
Under-the-radar game of the week
The Rhode Island Governor’s Cup was on the line Saturday, as URI faced off against Brown.
Now, you might ask how it’s possible to play a football game in a state that’s only 94 yards wide. Luckily, kickoff was at low tide.
The two teams traded scores well into the third quarter, highlighted by a 50-yard receiving TD by the Rams’ Kahtero Summers and a 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Rhode Island’s Randy Jordan.
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Rhode Island returns kick 95 yards to the house
Randy Jordan returns the kickoff 95 yards for a URI touchdown, giving Rhode Island the lead.
Brown kept hanging around, however, and was driving into URI territory with under a minute to play, but Jake Willcox threw his second interception of the day to seal Rhode Island’s win and secure the Governor’s Cup, which, of course, is just a bowl of chowder.
Under-the-radar play of the week
We like to celebrate when big guys do something ridiculously athletic, and what happened at the end of Eastern Michigan‘s 24-10 win over Ball State wasn’t exactly that. But it was entertaining.
On fourth-and-21, Ball State’s QB Layne Hatcher completed a pass to Marquez Cooper, who was immediately thumped by EMU’s Bennett Walker and coughed up the catch. The ball bounced straight out of Cooper’s grasp and flew backward, into the waiting hands of EMU’s 280-pound defensive lineman Tim Grant-Randall.
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The fumble recovery from Eastern Michigan is must see
On 4th-and-21, Ball State’s Marquez Cooper has the ball bounce out of his hands and into the grasp of Eastern Michigan’s Layne Hatcher for a wild fumble recovery.
Now, we’ll give credit to Grant-Randall for holding on to the football which, frankly, mostly caught him. But what we can’t abide is him coming to his senses after running 5 yards in the wrong direction. Grant-Randall, likely surprised to have the ball in his hands to begin with, stared ahead of him and saw nothing but green to the end zone. The wrong end zone, of course, but an end zone nonetheless. He was smart enough to quickly stop his momentum and hit the turf to effectively end the game, but we so much would’ve preferred he enthusiastically sprinted into Ball State’s end zone instead.
Somewhere, Jim Marshall is shaking his head, knowing how much better this could’ve been.
Rebels pull away late
Ole Miss scored the final 10 points of the game against Arkansas on Saturday to finish out a 27-20 win that keeps the Rebels in the mix in the SEC West.
Meanwhile, the Arkansas offense continued to struggle, leading to yet more complaints directed at offensive coordinator Dan Enos. Last week, Enos responded directly to many of his critics. This week, he’s asked we share an open letter with all Razorbacks fans instead.
Dear Hogs Nation,
Due to the incredibly large number of emails I’ve received, I’ve chosen to address you as a group rather than my usual approach of replying to each of you individually. Don’t agree with that decision? Well, tell me what you would’ve done? Nothing? That’s what I thought.
Anyway, I have become aware that many of you are dissatisfied with our offensive production once again. Perhaps you noticed that we only had 36 yards rushing and are angry about that. Well, that’s why I’m the playcaller. This was all part of my plan because running the football is boring. Do you really want to watch boring football? No. Of course not.
OK, I see a few of you are pointing out that we ran a QB sneak on third-and-goal from the 9. Well, what would you have done? Literally anything else? Hah! That’s not innovative, kids. That’s why I’m the OC here.
And I see one of you is having some trouble getting several million dollars in frozen assets out of Nigeria. Let me tell you something, sir. Your plan to use my social security number and checking account to extricate those millions, while sharing a reasonable fraction with me — that, sir, is innovative! I’m in. And when we get our hands on that cash, let’s go all-in on the crypto market. You with me?
OK, I’m going to watch some film now which is an important way to understand the subtle brilliance of all 288 yards we had on offense against Ole Miss. You people wouldn’t understand that nuance because you just watch in real time and assume getting sacked is bad.
I look forward to all of your apologies next week. But also I’ll be out of the office most of Sunday, so if you need me to educate you during that time, please call my cell.
Another Eagles escape
Just looking for a little drama on Saturday? Boston College games are basically one long episode of “Lost” — strange, inexplicable, poorly plotted but seriously enthralling.
Through six weeks, the Eagles are 3-3. All three wins, including Saturday’s 27-24 squeaker against Army, have come by three points. Two of the three losses have also come by a field goal or less.
Basically, the “C” in BC stands for “cardiologist.”
BC lost its opener in OT after storming back from a 21-7 deficit in the fourth quarter.
It took a top-five Florida State team to the wire, only to be stopped by a brutal late flag.
It nearly blew a 10-point lead against Holy Cross. It erased a 21-7 deficit against Virginia to win.
And Saturday, Thomas Castellanos‘ fourth touchdown run of the game gave BC another win, just moments after Army had seemed to put the game away with a long TD pass called back by a penalty.
Struggling Georgia Tech, UConn, Virginia Tech and Pitt are all left on the schedule, so BC certainly has a path toward a bowl game, if it can avoid quite so much drama moving forward. Or it can follow the “Lost” formula, drag things out to the final week against Miami, and then get eaten by a smoke monster.
On a win streak
Week 6 began with four winless teams.
It ends with just two.
Virginia topped William & Mary 27-13 behind 132 rushing yards from Perris Jones, while UConn upended Rice 38-31 on Saturday, giving each team Win No. 1 for 2023.
The Cavaliers had been oh-so-close before, losing by 1 to James Madison, 3 to NC State and 3 to Boston College, but they finally landed a finishing blow Saturday, providing yet another big win for Thomas Jefferson over the British monarchy.
UConn, meanwhile, had its own struggles in close games, but two long TD throws from Ta’Quan Roberson got the Huskies their first W of the year, and dealt Rice a loss so embarrassing JT Daniels will now transfer again.
Just two teams remain winless heading into Week 7: Nevada, which was off this week, and Sam Houston, which fell to 0-5 on Thursday with a 21-16 loss to Liberty.
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Bill Connelly
Almost no word in the English language makes a college football fan more defensive than the L-word: luck.
We weren’t lucky to have a great turnover margin — our coaches are just really good at emphasizing ball security! We’re tougher than everyone else — that’s why we recovered all those fumbles!
We weren’t lucky to win all those close games — we’re clutch! Our coaches know how to press all the right buttons! Our quarterback is a cool customer!
We weren’t lucky to have fewer injuries than everyone else — our strength-and-conditioning coach is the best in America! And again: We’re just tougher!
As loath as we may be to admit it, a large percentage of a given college football season — with its small overall sample of games — is determined by the bounce of a pointy ball, the bend of a ligament and the whims of fate. Certain teams will end up with an unsustainably good turnover margin that turns on them the next year. Certain teams (often the same ones) will enjoy a great run of close-game fortune based on some combination of great coaching, sturdy quarterback play, timely special teams contributions … and massive amounts of unsustainable randomness. Certain teams will keep their starting lineups mostly intact for 12 or more games while another is watching its depth chart change dramatically on a week-to-week basis.
As we prepare for the 2025 college football season, it’s worth stepping back and looking at who did, and didn’t, get the bounces in 2024. Just because Lady Luck was (or wasn’t) on your side one year, doesn’t automatically mean your fortunes will flip the next, but that’s often how these things go. Be it turnovers, close-game fortune or injuries, let’s talk about the teams that were dealt the best and worst hands last fall.
Jump to a section:
Turnover luck | Close games luck
Injuries and general shuffling | Turnaround candidates
Turnover luck
In last year’s ACC championship game, Clemson bolted to a 24-7 halftime lead, then white-knuckled it to the finish. SMU came back to tie the score at 31 with only 16 seconds left, but Nolan Hauser‘s 56-yard field goal at the buzzer gave the Tigers a 34-31 victory and a spot in 2024’s College Football Playoff at Alabama’s expense.
In the first series of the game, Clemson’s T.J. Parker pulled a perfect sack-and-strip of SMU QB Kevin Jennings, forcing and falling on a loose ball at the SMU 33-yard line. Clemson scored two plays later to take a 7-0 lead. Late in the first quarter, Khalil Barnes picked off a Jennings pass near midfield, ending what could have become a scoring threat with one more first down. A few minutes later, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik fumbled at the end of a 14-yard gain, but tight end Jake Briningstool recovered it at midfield, preventing another potential scoring threat from developing. (Klubnik fumbled seven times in the 2024 season but lost only one of them.)
Early in the third quarter, after SMU cut Clemson’s lead to 24-14, David Eziomume fumbled the ensuing kickoff at the Clemson 6, but teammate Keith Adams Jr. recovered it right before two SMU players pounced.
Over 60 minutes, both teams fumbled twice, and Clemson defended (intercepted or broke up) eight passes to SMU’s seven. On average, 50% of fumbles are lost and about 21% of passes defended become INTs, so Clemson’s expected turnover margin in this game was plus-0.2 (because of the extra pass defended). The Tigers’ actual turnover margin was plus-2, a difference of 1.8 turnovers in a game they barely won.
Clemson was obviously a solid team in 2024, but the Tigers probably wouldn’t have reached the CFP without turnovers luck. For the season, they fumbled 16 times but lost only three, and comparing their expected (based on the averages above) and actual turnover margins, almost no one benefited more from the randomness of a bouncing ball.
It probably isn’t a surprise to see that, of last year’s 12 playoff teams, eight benefited from positive turnovers luck, and six were at plus-3.3 or higher. You’ve got to be lucky and good to win, right?
You aren’t often lucky for two straight years, though. It might be noteworthy to point out that, of the teams in Mark Schlabach’s Way-Too-Early 2025 rankings, five were in the top 20 in terms of turnovers luck: No. 5 Georgia, No. 7 Clemson, No. 9 BYU, No. 11 Iowa State and No. 17 Indiana (plus two others from his Teams Also Considered list: Army and Baylor).
It’s also noteworthy to point out that three teams on Schlabach’s list — No. 6 Oregon, No. 8 LSU and No. 15 SMU — ranked in the triple-digits in terms of turnovers luck. Oregon started the season 13-0 without the benefit of bounces. For that matter, Auburn, a team on the Also Considered list, ranked 125th in turnovers luck in a season that saw the Tigers go just 1-3 in one-score finishes. There might not have been a more what-could-have-been team in the country than Hugh Freeze’s Tigers.
Close games
One of my favorite tools in my statistical toolbox is what I call postgame win expectancy. The idea is to take all of a game’s key, predictive stats — all the things that end up feeding into my SP+ rankings — and basically toss them into the air and say, “With these stats, you could have expected to win this game X% of the time.”
Alabama‘s 40-35 loss to Vanderbilt on Oct. 5 was one of the most impactful results of the CFP race. It was also one of the least likely results of the season in terms of postgame win expectancy. Bama averaged 8.8 yards per play to Vandy’s 5.6, generated a 56% success rate* to Vandy’s 43% and scored touchdowns on all four of its trips into the red zone. It’s really hard to lose when you do all of that — in fact, the Crimson Tide’s postgame win expectancy was a whopping 98.5%. (You can see all postgame win expectancy data here)
(* Success rate: how frequently an offense is gaining at least 50% of necessary yardage on first down, 70% on second and 100% on third and fourth. It is one of the more reliable and predictive stats you’ll find, and it’s a big part of SP+.)
Vandy managed to overcome these stats in part because of two of the most perfect bounces you’ll ever see. In the first, Jalen Milroe had a pass batted at the line, and it deflected high into the air and, eventually, into the arms of Randon Fontenette, who caught it on the run and raced 29 yards for a touchdown and an early 13-0 lead.
In the second half, with Bama driving to potentially take the lead, Miles Capers sacked Milroe and forced a fumble; the ball sat on the ground for what felt like an eternity before Yilanan Ouattara outwrestled a Bama lineman for it. Instead of trailing, Vandy took over near midfield and scored seven plays later. It took turnovers luck and unlikely key-play execution — despite a 43% success rate, Diego Pavia and the Commodores went 12-for-18 on third down and 1-for-1 on fourth — for Vandy to turn a 1.5% postgame win expectancy into a victory. It also wasn’t Alabama’s only incredibly unlikely loss: The Tide were at 87.8% to beat Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl but fell 19-13.
(Ole Miss can feel the Tide’s pain: The Rebels were at 76.0% postgame win expectancy against Kentucky and 73.7% against Florida. There was only a 6% chance that they would lose both games, and even going 1-1 would have likely landed them a CFP bid. They lost both.)
Adding up each game’s postgame win expectancy is a nice way of seeing how many games a team should have won on average. I call this a team’s second-order win total. Alabama was at 10.7 second-order wins but went 9-4. That was one of the biggest differences of the season. Somehow, however, Iron Bowl rival Auburn was even more unfortunate.
Based solely on stats, Arkansas State should have won about four games, and Auburn should have won about eight. Instead, the Red Wolves went 8-5 and the Tigers went 5-7.
Comparing win totals to these second-order wins is one of the surest ways of identifying potential turnaround stories for the following season. In 2023, 15 teams had second-order win totals at least one game higher than their actual win totals — meaning they suffered from poor close-game fortune. Ten of those 15 teams saw their win totals increase by at least two games in 2024, including East Carolina (from 2-10 to 8-5), TCU (5-7 to 9-4), Pitt (3-9 to 7-6), Boise State (8-6 to 12-2) and Louisiana (6-7 to 10-4). On average, these 15 teams improved by 1.9 wins.
On the flip side, 19 teams overachieved their second-order win totals by at least 1.0 wins in 2023. This list includes both of 2023’s national title game participants, Washington and Michigan. The Huskies and Wolverines sank from a combined 29-1 in 2023 to 14-12 in 2024, and it could have been even worse. Michigan overachieved again, going 8-5 despite a second-order win total of 6.0. Other 2023 overachievers weren’t so lucky. Oklahoma State (from 10-4 to 3-9), Wyoming (from 9-4 to 3-9), Northwestern (from 8-5 to 4-8) and NC State (from 9-4 to 6-7) all won more games than the stats expected in 2023, and all of them crumpled to some degree in 2024. On average, the 19 overachieving teams regressed by 1.9 wins last fall.
It’s worth keeping in mind that several teams in Schlabach’s Way-Too-Early Top 25 — including No. 6 Oregon, No. 8 LSU, No. 11 Iowa State, No. 13 Illinois and, yes, No. 21 Michigan — all exceeded statistical expectations in wins last season, as did Also Considered teams like Army, Duke, Missouri and Texas Tech. The fact that Oregon and LSU overachieved while suffering from poor turnovers luck is (admittedly) rather unlikely and paints a conflicting picture.
Meanwhile, one should note that three Way-Too-Early teams — No. 12 Alabama, No. 23 Miami and No. 25 Ole Miss (plus Washington and, of course, Auburn from the Also Considered list) — all lost more games than expected last season. With just a little bit of good fortune, they could prove to be awfully underrated.
Injuries and general shuffling
Injuries are hard to define in college football — coaches are frequently canny in the information they do and do not provide, and with so many teams in FBS, it’s impossible to derive accurate data regarding how many games were missed due to injury.
We can glean quite a bit from starting lineups, however. Teams with lineups that barely changed throughout the season were probably pretty happy with their overall results, while teams with ever-changing lineups likely succumbed to lots of losses. Below, I’ve ranked teams using a simple ratio: I compared (a) the number of players who either started every game or started all but one for a given team to (b) the number of players who started only one or two games, likely as a stopgap. If you had far more of the former, your team likely avoided major injury issues and, with a couple of major exceptions, thrived. If you had more of the latter, the negative effects were probably pretty obvious.
Despite the presence of 1-11 Purdue and 2-10 Kennesaw State near the top of the list — Purdue fielded one of the worst power conference teams in recent memory and barely could blame injury for its issues — you can still see a decent correlation between a positive ratio and positive results. The six teams with a ratio of at least 2.8 or above went a combined 62-22 in 2024, while the teams with a 0.5 ratio or worse went 31-56.
Seven of nine conference champions had a ratio of at least 1.3, and 11 of the 12 CFP teams were at 1.44 or higher (five were at 2.6 or higher). Indiana, the most shocking of CFP teams, was second on the list above; epic disappointments like Oklahoma and, especially, Florida State were near the bottom. (The fact that Georgia won the SEC and reached the CFP despite a pretty terrible injury ratio speaks volumes about the depth Kirby Smart has built in Athens. Of course, the Dawgs also enjoyed solid turnovers luck.)
Major turnaround candidates
It’s fair to use this information as a reason for skepticism about teams like Indiana (turnovers luck and injuries luck), Clemson (turnovers luck), Iowa State (close-games luck), Penn State (injuries luck) or Sam Houston (all of the above, plus a coaching change), but let’s end on an optimistic note instead. Here are five teams that could pretty easily enjoy a big turnaround if Lady Luck is a little kinder.
Auburn Tigers: Auburn enjoyed a better success rate than its opponents (44.7% to 38.5%) and made more big plays as well (8.9% of plays gained 20-plus yards versus 5.7% for opponents). That makes it awfully hard to lose! But the Tigers made exactly the mistake they couldn’t make and managed to lose games with 94%, 76% and 61% postgame win expectancy. There’s nothing saying this was all bad luck, but even with a modest turnaround in fortune, the Tigers will have a very high ceiling in 2025.
Florida Gators: The Gators improved from 41st to 20th in SP+ and from 5-7 to 8-5 overall despite starting three quarterbacks and 12 different DBs and ranking 132nd on the list above. That says pretty spectacular things about their overall upside, especially considering their improved experience levels on the O-line, in the secondary and the general optimism about sophomore quarterback DJ Lagway.
Florida Atlantic Owls: Only one team ranked 111th or worse in all three of the tables above — turnovers luck (111th), second-order win difference (121st) and injury ratio (131st). You could use this information to make the case that the Owls shouldn’t have fired head coach Tom Herman, or you could simply say that new head coach Zach Kittley is pretty well-positioned to get some bounces and hit the ground running.
Florida State Seminoles: There was evidently plenty of poor fortune to go around in the Sunshine State last season, and while Mike Norvell’s Seminoles suffered an epic hangover on the field, they also didn’t get a single bounce: They were 129th in turnovers luck, 99th in second-order win difference and 110th in injury ratio. Norvell has brought in new coordinators and plenty of new players, and the Noles are almost guaranteed to jump up from 2-10. With a little luck, that jump could be a pretty big one.
Utah Utes: Along with UCF, Utah was one of only two teams to start four different quarterbacks in 2024. The Utes were also among only four teams to start at least 11 different receivers or tight ends and among five teams to start at least nine defensive linemen. If you’re looking for an easy explanation for how they fell from 65th to 96th in offensive SP+ and from 8-5 to 5-7 overall, that’s pretty succinct and telling.
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Dan Wetzel
It once seemed improbable that the most compelling figure of the college football offseason would be Bill Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend, but somehow, here we are.
Jordon Hudson’s spot in Belichick’s life has always been a public talking point. After all, they started dating two years ago, when Belichick was 71. Of late, though, she’s become an obsession.
Belichick is arguably the greatest coach in the history of the sport, winner of six Super Bowls leading the New England Patriots. His jump to the college ranks and the University of North Carolina is, for purely football reasons, of great intrigue.
Would this work? Could this work?
Currently though, the focus is on Hudson, who takes an active role in managing Belichick’s affairs, including running point on publicity for his new book, “The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football.”
That includes a viral clip from a “CBS Sunday Morning” interview when Hudson shut down a question about how the two met and was deemed a “constant presence.” That led to all sorts of attention on the relationship, not to mention Belichick’s acuity and Hudson’s recent real estate holdings. Former Patriots great Ted Johnson even told WEEI radio in Boston that “the Tar Heels should consider firing Bill Belichick.”
A few days into this modern controversy, where a social media clip redefines someone with decades in the public eye, can we all settle down for a moment?
As with any relationship, only Belichick and Hudson are privy to what is transpiring between them. But as sensationalistic as all the TikTok comments and website stories currently are, when it comes to actually coaching a football team, let’s settle back on one undeniable truth.
This is Bill Belichick.
Sure, the current attention can be fairly labeled as the kind of “distraction” that might personally crush and professionally derail most people. Belichick is not most people.
“Never been too worried about what everyone else thinks,” Belichick told CBS.
If you allow his history — a lesson from his life in football, if you will — to inform, then you would know that there has rarely, if ever, been any personal feud, situation, tabloid headline or bit of accusational strife that has derailed the man’s single-minded focus on winning.
Belichick doesn’t just thrive in the briar patch of controversy — he seems to prefer it. The more external noise, the better.
A former player standing trial for murder? Win the Super Bowl.
Accused of illegally videotaping opponents? Post a 16-0 season.
A star quarterback alleged to have cheated to win the AFC Championship Game by deflating footballs? Name-drop “My Cousin Vinny” in a news conference, then win the Super Bowl.
Have the team get fined and stripped of a first-round draft pick and the quarterback suspended for the start of the season? Win another Super Bowl.
Maybe this isn’t what he was expecting from the book release, but let’s be clear, he was expecting to create a major media stir.
Belichick is famously passive-aggressive. When he never once mentioned Patriots owner Robert Kraft in his memoir — not even in the acknowledgments — he did so expecting a commotion. This was likely to make it clear that Belichick believed the Patriots’ success during their 24 years together was more based on the coaches and players than the very front-facing owner who, depending whose version you believe, fired Belichick in January 2024.
This was throwing red meat to the sports media machine. It just turned out that the Hudson situation represented even more red meat to the far larger American pop culture/social media machine.
Belichick might not have seen this coming, but this is how he has always operated. He welcomes speculation and even being painted as the villain. Even his closest confidants, from Bill Parcells to Tom Brady, often wind up in prolonged, public ice-outs. There are the endless scraps with the media, the league office, officials or other coaches.
The public questioning his actions and motivation? Please.
Consider that back nearly two decades ago, the NFL made a deal with Reebok for its coaches to wear approved clothes. Belichick bristled at being told what to wear. In an act of fashion defiance, both Patriots and Belichick sources say, he took a plain gray sweatshirt and cut off the sleeves to make it ugly. (It inadvertently became a huge seller, labeled the “BB Hoodie” in the Patriots Pro Shop.)
Or when, in an effort to protest the NFL making teams categorize player injuries — doubtful, questionable, etc. — Belichick began listing Brady as “probable” on the report with a shoulder injury week after week for years despite there being no known injury. Brady would just laugh when asked about it.
Or when he thought the NFL was getting too commercialized, so he refused to have his name used by EA Sports in the Madden video game — “NE Coach” was all that was listed — even though he would make money for literally doing nothing.
Or maybe consider in 2000, when he reversed course on accepting the head coaching job with the New York Jets. Rather than get all apologetic, he handwrote a note that read: “I resign as HC of the NYJ.”
He loves this stuff. Like many highly competitive people, finding an enemy, or some doubt, or some negative opinion about him seemingly feeds him. It certainly doesn’t cause him to wilt.
The current kerfuffle isn’t much different from past ones. He’s been through divorce, and his dating life was even fodder for the New York tabloids. It didn’t matter. He just kept winning.
All of that makes it unlikely that Hudson is somehow bossing Belichick around — or that she would even want to. This is just BB.
Whatever happens with the couple — we wish them the best — is one thing, but anyone who thinks Belichick is somehow incapable of weathering some gossip or jokes, or won’t be laser-focused on coaching, teaching and preparing his players, hasn’t been paying attention.
Here’s guessing Belichick will be fine. He always has been.
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