With it still being early in the college football season, anything is possible, and a vast variety of teams remain eligible for the College Football Playoff. That won’t last much longer unfortunately, as the number of undefeated teams will dwindle below thirty after this weekend, but for now, let’s speculate.
Which team with playoff familiarity won’t be there in January? Which newcomers could be within the mix? Which matchups could have an impact on both of those? That’s what we’re discussing today in the week’s rendition of Saturday Spotlight?
Let’s get started.
ACC playoff hopes will feature a new candidate
Even with Clemson getting knocked out of playoff contention early in the 2021 season, there wasn’t much hype surrounding any other ACC teams that were contending for the conference title. Well…
Wake Forest peaked at No. 9 last season after attaining an 8-0 record with its defeat of Duke. Those hopes were quickly dashed by North Carolina, who scored 24 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to crush Demon Deacon fans’ dreams of a surprise appearance in the playoff.
It was quickly revealed that they probably wouldn’t have made it anyway, as both Clemson and Pitt dominated them in later matchups. But now, the potential presents itself once again, as Wake Forest faces No. 5 Clemson this weekend.
Meanwhile, the real candidate faces off against UConn.
Now, I’m not going to say Wake Forest doesn’t have a chance. Just because it almost (should’ve) lost to Liberty doesn’t mean there isn’t a path for them. But I will say, it’s a lot more likely that the Demon Deacons will get upset later in the season than it is for Clemson and North Carolina State.
The Wolfpack seem to have gotten their jitters out of the way for the most part after nearly suffering an opening, upset loss to East Carolina, at least on the defensive side of things. While they held the Red Raiders to 14 points and forced four turnovers, they also struggled immensely on offense.
Devin Finley hasn’t played nearly as well as he did last season, being largely ineffective against Texas Tech and having drops in efficiency spanning the first few games of the season. With the defense this team has, if Finley can find his footing before North Carolina State’s matchup with Clemson next weekend, they may be able to pull off the improbable once again.
And a win by the Demon Deacons this Saturday could either help the Wolfpack out or hurt their chances, depending on whether Wake Forest can remain undefeated from there. Either North Carolina State gets a top-five matchup next week, it gets a top-15 matchup there and a top-10 matchup later in the season, or it gets a top-15 matchup against Clemson, then Wake Forest goes down. Two ranked wins are better than one highly rated one, but one top-five win is obviously better than one top-15 one.
Either way, there are more candidates in the ACC than Clemson, and who knows, maybe Sam Hartman is that guy. Maybe Wake wins here and goes on the go undefeated. Anything’s possible.
Minnesota is a dark horse in the Big 10
Last season, the Golden Gophers entered halftime of their opening game against No. 4 Ohio State leading 14-10. Fans were quick to write that off as it just being CJ Stroud’s first bout at quarterback, but Minnesota hung around till the end. Unfortunately, tragedy struck in the third quarter.
With the Golden Gophers still in the game, running back Mohamed Ibrahim went down with what would later be revealed to be a ruptured Achilles tendon. He would miss the rest of the season. But despite being a large part of the team’s offensive success, they still found a way to be successful.
Minnesota has had a strange two decades, consistently transitioning from making bowl games to being woefully bad, but except for 2003 and 2016, they were never able to crack nine wins. But in the last three seasons under P.J. Fleck, they have managed that twice, even managing to crack 11 wins for the first time ever.
It returned Ibrahim this season, who has returned to form despite such a devastating injury, rushing for over 200 yards against Colorado last week. And with the team managing to close out the regular season with a strong victory over No. 14 Wisconsin without him on the field, it’s realistic that this team could compete for Big 10 now that he’s back.
The Big 10 West division is wide open, with both Iowa, Wisconsin and Purdue all struggling early. But Minnesota has a test this weekend, facing off against Mel Tucker’s Spartans coming off an embarrassing loss to Washington. Penn State and Michigan State might be its biggest tests of the regular season, and while a Big 10 Championship matchup with Ohio State or Michigan would be unfavorable, you never know.
Oklahoma’s playoff run won’t last much longer
Now, I don’t expect the Sooners to make it to the playoff, period, but where that run ends is iffy. They have Kansas State, TCU, Texas and Kansas in their next four games, and I expect one of those to take them down.
Oklahoma was impressive against Nebraska, but that win doesn’t hold as much weight as people think. Nebraska has the skill level of a low-level Group of Five team (at least that’s what they’ve portrayed so far) and while the win doesn’t give people reason to doubt them, I could see these next few games being more challenging than expected.
The Sooners sport a lot of talent, an incredibly balanced offense and a defense that hasn’t given up more than 14 points in a game this season but being under a first-time head coach in Brent Venables in his first season is bound to lead to some close calls and potentially, an upset.
With their first true test coming this Saturday against a Kansas State team that had a lot of hype entering the season, we’re fixing to find out just how legitimate this team is. The Wildcats might have lost to Tulane, but that may serve to fuel them further, as bad losses tend to be great motivators.
If not the Wildcats, Kansas and Texas have largely exceeded expectations, with the Jayhawks possessing an offense led by Jalon Daniels that could keep pace with Oklahoma and Texas possessing a defense that held Alabama to 20 points and potentially returning quarterback Quinn Ewers by then.
There’s a realistic chance that Oklahoma’s playoff run ends exceedingly early, but we’ll learn more about what this team is capable of tonight.
