Week 14: No Pressure

 Standings:

1.) Hoying 40-20 (3-10 upset)
2.) Draper 39-21 (1-12 upset)

2.) Seeberg 39-21 (0-13 upset)

4.) Schweinfurth 37-23 (6-7 upset)

Now this looks like a job for me
So everybody, just follow me
'Cause we need a little...controversy
'Cause it feels so empty without me

--Without Me, Marshall "Eminem" Mathers

Run-on sentences aside, Championship Saturday will feel a little empty without the Buckeyes for a second straight year, but Playoff controversy? Good luck keeping Ohio State out of that two years running. 

FRIDAY

Pac-12: Utah Utes vs. USC Trojans

Draper: USC has been riding high on their offensive firepower and the presumptive Heisman winner (who am I kidding...locked in Heisman winner), but one thing with Lincoln Riley teams: they're inconsistent.  The Trojans fired on all cylinders vs. ND with their defense and offensive line actually being decent, but I'm not sure they are stable enough to strike lightning twice.  Utah is the opposite with a team of stability.  Cam Rising is the right guy to run Whittingham's methodical offense while the Utah defense should mirror the good of Notre Dame.  Yes, Caleb Williams had himself a game against the Irish, but a few plays here or there could make the difference.  SC has lived off the turnover, so they could die off the turnover.  It's hard to win 2x against a team, but the Utes have championship experience.  The Trojans are due for an Oregon State game like clunker.  Go Utes.  Utah: 35--USC: 31

Hoying: I remember watching this game the first time and wondering how Utah was staying in it. Williams was on a tear, even back then, and I think the Utes made the right move to go for 2 after their last score because there was no way they were going to keep up with the SC offense forever. What's changed since then? The Trojans lost starting running back Travis Dye, but his backup Austin Jones has been ripping off 6 ypc in his absence. Utah lost their starting back Tavion Thomas, but they still have Micah "I play running back!" Bernard, and QB Cam Rising is a pretty significant part of the rushing attack himself. The Utes are deadly in the running game, which just so happens to be USC's kryptonite, and gives them an interesting wrinkle to change things up from their air assault that bested the Trojans in these teams' first meeting. We're not in Salt Lake City this time, but you know what they say: defense travels, and USC won't be bringing any with them to the meadows. Utah: 42--USC: 41
Schweinfurth: USC is an elite offense, and Caleb Williams will most likely win the Heisman. The problem is that USC's defense is still brutal. That game last week against Notre Dame would have been interesting if the Irish could have wrapped someone up. Utah is a tough out and has already beaten the Trojans once. Do they have that magic again? It is so hard to beat a team two times in a season. Really, I just don't see it. Trojans win in a shootout and give Williams his Heisman moment. Utah: 42--USC: 45

Seeberg:  As you can see by our collective records at Let's Go Bucks, it's been a tough season.  Putting a ton of effort in at this point is akin to treading water with a D+ until the final exam and then cramming the night before in hopes of a minor miracle.  With that said, here we go.  It's hard to beat a good team twice (see below), and Utah needed every last ounce of themselves to sneak out a win- at home- against these Trojans earlier this year.  On a neutral field with a playoff bid on the line, Lincoln Riley may make another Heisman winner out of his QB on this national stage that they have all to themselves Friday night.  Fight on to the CFP.  Utah: 31--USC: 41

SATURDAY

Big 12: Kansas State Wildcats vs. Texas Christian Horned Frogs

Draper: Some may call me a homer and....yes, I'm a homer.  TCU has danced with the devil in the pale moonlight all year just like the 02 Buckeye team (one review, I see Hoying made the parallel before me but it's true).  They've won and you can't take it away from them.  Someday, the magic needs to run out.  I'm going with Sat. with Mr. Vaughn.  There's a rumor that Martinez may play, but I'm guessing it will be Will Howard.  If there isn't another collapse when down to the 3rd string QB, I think they can take care of business.  The key for KSU is preventing the big play with Quentin Johnston and slowing down the pass rush.  Let's go Cats.  KSU: 34--TCU: 30

Hoying: Another rematch, and I have vivid memories of Kansas State absolutely blowing TCU off the field in the first half even after starting QB Adrian Martinez (go Huskers) was knocked out. But then backup QB Will Howard ran out of steam and the Wildcats tried to white knuckle out a victory, and TCU's 2002 Ohio State-esque end of game voodoo put them in the driver's seat for the Big 12 regular season championship. To be fair, I can count on one hand the number of games TCU has won without either end of game nonsense or the luxury of playing a backup QB, but this time, the Wildcats are already ahead of the curse: backup Will Howard has been their guy for the better part of a month now. The Frogs have been improving over the course of the season, particularly on defense, but the way the first meeting between these teams ended has left a bad taste in the Wildcats' mouth that can only be washed clean in Horned Frog blood. KSU: 38--TCU: 28
Schweinfurth: Kansas State is healthy this time around and TCU seemed to get luck in the last game. The Horned Frogs have been living dangerously, and at some point it has to bite them. I'll take K-State here...I hope Hypnotoad doesn't find me. KSU: 38--TCU: 35

Seeberg:  It's hard to beat a good team twice (see above).  My barely educated (this season anyway it seems) guess is that it's even harder to beat a good team twice that you needed an injured starting quarterback- causing a second half shutout- to beat the first time around.  I have not been bullish all season on TCU and it's burned me a couple times.  Third time lucky, or unlucky in the case of the Horned Frogs.  KSU: 34--TCU: 26 

SEC: Louisiana State Tigers vs. Georgia Bulldogs

Draper: I have no idea how the Tigahs are in the SEC championship, but here we are.  While an LSU win makes FSU the defacto SEC champion (look it up), I don't see it happening.  The faceplant against A&M ended all hope of the Tiger run to the playoff....and the Aggies are baaaaad.  Georgia has been living on defense, but they've been living well.  No reason to expect anything difference than the defending champs riding undefeated into the CFP.  LSU: 10--UGA: 20

Hoying: Brian Kelly has done a masterful job of elevating the LSU Tigers from last year's losing season to SEC West champions. That being said, this team has a hard ceiling on how far they can go. Yes, I said that before and it made me look stupid then, but I think that had more to do with the inconsistency of their opponent (Alabama) than LSU's potential. Georgia has looked like the nation's top team more or less all season, and while they don't really need this win in order to secure their Playoff hopes, I'm sure they'd love to avenge last year's SEC championship loss that ruined their perfect season. Jayden Daniels is special but he won't be able to solve the Bulldog defense. There may be only one quarterback who can...LSU: 20--UGA: 31
Schweinfurth: LSU was a nice story, until TAMU straight wrecked them. I have put absolutely zero thought into LSU as a top 10 team all year. Georgia should stop them. LSU: 14--UGA: 35

Seeberg:  So Texas A&M, winners of exactly 1 conference game this season, shellacked LSU last week.  This game really requires no further break down.  The 2022 edition of "Bama by a million" has arrived.  UGA by a million.  LSU: 13--UGA: 34

ACC: Clemson Tigers vs. North Carolina Tar Heels

Draper: Speaking of teams limping into championship week...  The only intrigue here is the AFLAC Trivia question about a game with two National Championship winning coaches (credit Draper).  Drake Maye is talked about as the second coming, but....meh.  The Tigers had their playoff hopes busted by a rival (sad face), but I don't know what to think.  Clemson is so used to checking the box to make the playoff that motivation may be an issue.  This would be huge for a resurgent UNC team that should come out firing.  I'm calling for the upset.  Clem: 27--UNC: 31

Hoying: A while ago I was rooting for Clemson to win week-to-week because I was hopeful they might snag a Playoff spot and Ohio State could get a chance to blast away on a hapless first-round opponent. Obviously the situation is a bit murkier now but one thing hasn't changed: Clemson isn't very good. DJ has ukuleled hard again, putting up an abysmal 9-29 for 99 yards against a South Carolina team that just got lit up by (but blew out) Tennessee the week prior. Much like a certain other Playoff perennial, their nagging flaws were all laid bare against their hated rival, but at least the Tigers kept it competitive. Of course, that was against the good Carolina. North Carolina has been sitting in the corner eating paste for a while, making USC's defense look like the 2000 Ravens, which means that they're probably going to make [insert Clemson QB here] look like Caleb Williams this week. There's always the risk of Drake Maye going off at any moment, but I think the Clemson D will rise up on enough possessions to put their offense in a position to press a rare advantage. Clem: 31--UNC: 27
Schweinfurth: So this is a game that is happening this week? Okay. DJ has looked better lately so I'll just take Clemson and move on. Clem: 28--UNC: 21

Seeberg:  Yikes.  This game is about as shiny as an antique, well-used spittoon.  Whispers of "Heisman" reached Drake Maye a couple weeks ago and he has absolutely pooped the bed since, losing to Georgia TECH and NC State in back-to-back weeks.  Clemson, meanwhile, ran into the sudden buzzsaw that is Spencer Rattler and South Carolina, losing AT HOME last week.  Sure weakens Notre Dame's resume (and, by extension, the Bucks').  Regardless, somebody technically has to win this one.  The talent advantage still lies with the Tigers, and I'm not sure what the give-a-damn level is for either team.  The Tar Heels aren't here often and may be more motivated, but I don't suspect that will be enough.  Orange and purple late.  Clem: 38--UNC: 27

Big Ten: Purdue Boilermakers vs. Michigan Wolverines

Draper: Here comes the Boilers.  Bring out the stat: Purdue has 9 wins as an unranked team vs. #2....2nd place has 4.  Is this a trap??? Possibly.  Michigan has nothing to play for here and Purdue is the snakebiter team playing near home. Regardless, consistency is the name of the game....and that's not Purdue.  If the Boilers hit the right spots, they could rock the Wolverines...but I don't see it.  Far more talent on the sun and blue side.  Michigan wins the B1G for the 2nd straight year to drop the natty to the Bucks.  Pur: 20--UM: 30

Hoying: Unlike last year's joke of a matchup, which was over before it began, this year's B1G championship might have a bit of intrigue for a quarter or so, if for no other reason than that the Wolverines continue to take the first halves off of their games. Purdue, unlike Iowa, can move the ball from time to time (except against Iowa), so we might get a chance to see what Michigan would have done had they found themselves trailing by two scores at any point last week. I'm also intrigued to see what the Wolverine offense looks like without Corum; Edwards looked like garbage until Ohio State brought out their "every play is 4th and 1" defense late in The Game, and they don't seem to have another great option at running back (unlike some Playoff contenders). The cat's out of the bag for McCarthy, too. He's not going to catch anyone off guard after last week, so he's going to have to Cardale Jones his way game after game at this point if Michigan wants to make any postseason noise. Here's to Purdue DC Ron English (!) learning from Jim Knowles's mistakes, and the Spoilermakers avenge their crushing opening season giveaway to Penn State by claiming their first Big Ten title since the days of Drew Brees (no need to share with Michigan this time). Pur: 27--UM: 24
Schweinfurth: Can I pass? Just seeing this game listed makes me ill. Purdue is going to throw the ball and do their Basketball on Grass thing. It will stay close, but Michigan is going to run over them late. I'm not watching this. Pur: 21--UM: 38

Seeberg:  Well, I hate to admit it but this one might actually be interesting.  Purdue's passing game is essentially Ohio State lite, with a decent-but-not-great QB and one-but-not-two elite wideout.  If Purdue actually throws it INSIDE THE F&%*ING NUMBERS they may hang with the mighty Wolverines, but it's hard to imagine either of the Boilermakers' line units hanging with UM for four quarters.  I expect this one to follow the typical Michigan script.  Close for a half, then an imposition of their will as the game winds down.  Sound familiar?  Bleh, I just threw up in my mouth a bit.  Pur: 20--UM: 38

A Sober Look at the Playoff Picture

Sigh...I was hoping I wouldn't have to do one of these this year. After spending every first Sunday in December from 2014 through 2018 on pins and needles waiting to hear the Buckeyes' Playoff fate, all we had to worry about in the first two years of the Day era was our seeding (no, Texas A&M was never, ever, ever getting in ahead of us). Unfortunately, like last year, something happened along the way. Unlike last year, the hitch may not be fatal this time. All we need to say about it for now is the Buckeyes suffered a convincing loss to a very good team.

Lost in the doomsday chatter among Buckeye Nation and the pointing and laughing from the rogues' gallery is the inconvenient truth that the Playoff still needs four teams to round out its field. It doesn't matter how good these teams are in an absolute sense: if there aren't four teams better than you out there, you're in. And though the list of contenders is somewhat thinner than in years past, we can safely assume that the four participants will be drawn from among the remaining 2-loss or fewer teams:

Undefeateds

1. Georgia
2. Michigan
3. TCU

One-loss teams

1. USC
2. Ohio State

Two-loss teams

1. Alabama
2. Tennessee
3. Penn State
4. Clemson
5. Washington

The two-loss teams are mostly included here just for completeness's sake; even with maximum chaos this weekend we will have at least four teams with fewer than two losses. The Committee has never put a two-loss team in the Playoff so it would seem that we would need to see a two-loss team with an exceptional resume and a one-loss team with a flimsy one in order for a new precedent to be set. Are there any such two-loss teams? Certainly not Clemson or Washington: they sit at #13 and #18 in Bill Connelly's SP+ rankings and at #10 and #16 in the Massey College Football Ranking Composite, respectively. SP+ is intended to be a predictive measure of team quality while the Massey Composite aggregates the human polls, computer rankings, and other well known indices in a "wisdom of crowds" approach. Clemson's only quality win is over Florida State (#23/#15), and their two losses are to (a) the same Notre Dame (#35/#20) that USC and Ohio State comfortably dispatched and (b) South Carolina (#26/#23). Their ACC championship foe, North Carolina (#46/#29) isn't going to move the needle either; every other Playoff contender on this list has multiple wins better than this. Somehow, Washington didn't finish in the top two of the Pac-12, so they won't have a chance to boost their resume beyond their existing wins over Oregon (#12/#14) and Oregon State (#22/#17) and the worst loss among the Playoff contenders, to Arizona State (#82/#95!). You can go ahead and throw out Penn State (#8/#7) as well; they do have two forgivable losses to Michigan (#2/#2) and Ohio State (#3/#4) but their best win by far is over Minnesota (#16/#36). 

Alabama (#4/#5) and Tennessee (#5/#6) are a little closer to the conversation. Tennessee's loss to Georgia (#1/#1) is fine, although its loss to the aforementioned South Carolina will hold them back, while Alabama lost to LSU (#15/#12) and...Tennessee. The Committee must have really hated Tennessee's loss to South Carolina, because despite the Vols having wins over Alabama and the LSU team that handed Bama their other loss, Alabama started this week in the 7 spot while Tennessee was all the way down at 10. Of course, that could have a great deal to do with Tennessee losing erstwhile Heisman candidate Hendon Hooker; nobody wants to see Joe Milton in the Playoff. Regardless, we can glean a pretty big clue from the fact that Alabama was still a spot behind one-loss USC (#11/#8) last week, and that was before USC picked up another decent win over Notre Dame. Could Ohio State, with a sizable advantage according to the advanced stats (#3 in SP+) and overall value from the rankings landscape (#4 in Massey) compared to USC last week (#14/#10 at that point), fall past the Tide after this weekend's loss? I don't see it. Some will raise the "Alabama is two plays away from being undefeated!" argument, since the Tide lost to Tennessee on a last-second field goal and to LSU on a 2-point conversion. But the Tide are also three plays away from three additional losses to Texas, Texas A&M, and Ole Miss, whereas the Buckeyes blew everyone away until, well, you know.

That leaves our group of five one-loss or fewer teams. USC is an easy mark to fall below Ohio State with a second loss this weekend to Utah (#10/#13), as that would put the Trojans at two losses with a worse resume than Alabama. However, I don't see the Buckeyes passing either Georgia or Michigan should either team lose this weekend. Michigan's resume top-to-bottom would actually be pretty similar to Ohio State's, swapping out one pretty bad loss (Purdue) for a superior quality win (guess who), but the head-to-head implications of The Game, as well as how that game played out, would be too much to ignore. As for Georgia, losing to LSU is worse than losing to Michigan, but their wins over Tennessee (#5/#6), Oregon (#12/#14), Mississippi State (#20/#18), South Carolina (#26/#23), and Kentucky (#25/#28) would crowd out Ohio State's wins over Penn State (#7/#8) and Notre Dame (#35/#20) (what's OSU's third best win? Maryland (#32/#44)? Iowa (#27/#45)?).

TCU is a more interesting case. From a resume standpoint, they're about dead even with Ohio State today, as evidenced by their superior Massey ranking but lagging SP+ rating. The Horned Frogs have deceptively good wins over Kansas State (#9/#9) and Texas (#7/#11), and the Kansas State win would only appreciate, oddly enough, if TCU were to lose this weekend. The Big 12 doesn't really have any clunker teams this year, as the worst team is either 5-7 West Virginia (#63/#63) or 4-8 Iowa State (#53/#65), about on par with Michigan State (#67/#66) who is far from the worst team in the Big Ten. TCU's out of conference schedule is atrocious (Colorado (#123/#117), Tarleton (FCS), and SMU (#56/#52)) but the thirteenth game against a quality Kansas State opponent would more than balance this out. I could see the Committee hesitating to punish TCU for playing that thirteenth game. But here's the thing. Everything I just said about the schedule and the relative strength of the Big 12 and the Big Ten was priced into last week's Playoff rankings. And the Committee still had Ohio State ranked #2 and TCU ranked #4. I find it hard to believe that Ohio State could subsequently go out and lose to Michigan, and TCU lose to Kansas State, and the Committee to suddenly change their mind and go with TCU as the better team, extra win over Iowa State be damned. Neither team would have a conference championship tiebreaker and Ohio State would undoubtedly have the edge in the advanced stats and computer rankings once again (the Buckeyes were #2/#2 in last week's rankings, as compared to #7/#4 for TCU). And there's precedent for precisely this situation. In 2017, undefeated #4 Wisconsin lost to two-loss #8 Ohio State, and both were subsequently left out of the Playoff in favor of one-loss #5 Alabama, who had been idle on championship weekend. TCU's had their share of close shaves this season, while Ohio State's 11 wins have each come by double digits. I don't think the Horned Frogs are safe with a loss, except perhaps by the very slimmest of margins, and only if the Committee really decides to knock the Buckeyes down a peg for losing to Michigan by multiple scores. A 22 point loss is ugly on paper, although The Game was reasonably close before the Buckeye defense started going for broke and Donovan Edwards happily complied. If TCU loses by 20+, it won't be a tough decision.

On a side note, the most objectively hilarious outcome would be for USC to win but TCU to lose. The Horned Frogs would then likely miss out on the Playoff in favor of Ohio State again, but for the exact opposite reason as in 2014. After the Committee ranked both Baylor and TCU behind the Buckeyes in 2014, in part because neither Big 12 co-champion had a conference championship game victory to compete with OSU's 59-0 shellacking of Wisconsin, the Big 12 decided to add a pointless conference championship game to wrap up their round robin season. This worked in the conference's favor in 2018, when Oklahoma got a chance to avenge their loss to Texas and barely hold off Ohio State (and Georgia) for the #4 spot. But this season, it could just as easily cost TCU a spot they'd already have in the bag in a simple round-robin 12 game season. Remember 1998 Kansas Staaaaate...