Winners and Losers: The unlikely crop of undefeateds are a refreshing change
Six weeks into the college football season, there are 12 undefeated teams remaining and at least five of those teams weren’t supposed to be here.
Teams such as Oklahoma State, Iowa, Florida, Texas A&M and Utah were not in the preseason rankings, but have made significant impacts not only on their respective divisional and conference races, but also could be highly ranked when the College Football Playoff rankings are released at the beginning of November.
This is one of the fun parts about college football.
It’s easy to label past favorites the favorites again, but when a team rises up out of nowhere and commands attention, it makes the season more interesting for everyone.
Look at Iowa. It hasn’t started a season 6-0 since going 11-2 in 2009. And really, every year since that campaign, Iowa fans have been calling for coach Kirk Ferentz’s job. Now his Hawkeyes lead the Big Ten West and are challenging powers Ohio State and Michigan State for the top of the conference.
Oklahoma State last started the season 6-0 in 2011 when it appeared poised for a national championship run, but was knocked out of contention by a late-season loss to Iowa State. It finished that year 12-1.
Texas A&M hasn’t started a season 5-0 since 1994 when its only blemish was a 21-21 tie with SMU. It’s had good seasons since, but never such a strong start. And with Alabama, Ole Miss and Auburn trailing in the divisional picture, A&M and undefeated LSU could be duking it out to play in the SEC title game against Florida, a team that hasn’t started 6-0 since 2012.
And of course, the Pac-12 has been one of the most interesting developments with Utah and Cal entering the night as the two most unexpected undefeateds in the conference. Utah is no stranger to undefeated seasons, but this is its first undefeated campaign as a member of a Power Five conference. There are many more pitfalls ahead for the Utes, but as of now, it’s sitting in the top five of the Associated Press Poll and has the most Cinderella feel of any of the aforementioned programs.
While there’s still more than half the season to go, it’s clear there’s a tectonic shift in the teams to watch this year. Sure, the traditional college football powers are still the traditional powers and many of them are still alive in their respective conference races, but it’s fun to watch some new teams get involved.
Hopefully, we’re still talking about them in Week 12.
Here’s are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 6:
WINNERS
Texas Tech offense: Maybe the Red Raiders can really have some fun now that the two toughest games of the season are out of the way. After consecutive losses to TCU and Baylor, the Red Raiders piled up a school-record 776 yards of offense in a 66-31 win over Iowa State. Yes, that’s more yards of offense than any Mike Leach-coached team. QB Patrick Mahomes threw for 482 yards and five touchdowns as six of Tech’s touchdowns were plays of over 30 yards. The Tech defense is going to give up a bunch of points over the rest of the season, but the offense is going to make the Red Raiders a must-watch every Saturday.
Iowa State RB Mike Warren: While Iowa State’s defense was getting torched, Warren was running wild once again. The Cyclones’ redshirt freshman running back had 23 carries for 245 yards on Saturday and has 564 rushing yards on the season. After having nine attempts for 28 yards in Iowa State’s first two games, Warren has increased his per-game rushing total from 126 to 175 and now 245 in the past three games.
Iowa RB Jordan Canzeri: While Warren had a heck of a day, so did Iowa running back Jordan Canzeri. The Hawkeyes moved to 6-0 with a 29-20 win over Illinois. Canzeri had a school-record 43 carries for 256 yards and a touchdown. In Week 5 against Wisconsin, he set a then-career high with 26 carries in the Hawkeyes’ win. He obliterated that number on Saturday. It was the fourth game he’s had more than 20 carries in 2015; he never had a game with 20 or more in his career before the season.
Florida: Welcome to a commanding position atop the SEC East, Florida. The Gators dominated Missouri 21-3 on Saturday night to give themselves a two-game lead over everyone else in the division. OK, so Florida has a one-game lead over Kentucky. But the Gators have the tiebreaker over Kentucky, so it’s essentially a two-game lead. Florida’s defense stifled Missouri freshman quarterback Drew Lock and the offense worked well enough, at least in the first half, to win. Florida’s recipe for success is going to be just enough offense and a really good defense. But with such a margin in the East, those seem like the makings of an appearance in Atlanta at the SEC Championship Game.
Washington State: The Cougars overcame a 31-21 fourth quarter deficit to shock Oregon at home in double-overtime — the first win for Washington State in Eugene since 2003. Luke Falk threw for 505 yards and sent the game to overtime when he hit Dom Williams for an eight-yard score with one second to play in regulation. After the teams traded touchdowns in the first overtime period, the Wazzu defense sealed the win when Shalon Luani intercepted Jeff Lockie in the end zone. The Cougars improved to 3-2 with the win while Oregon dropped to 3-3.
Oh, and Washington State won Twitter, too.
BONUS WINNER – Tennessee security guard: Tennessee fans stormed the field when the Vols upset Georgia, but that wasn’t going to deter this Neyland Stadium security guard from doing his job. Look at this form tackle!
LOSERS
Nebraska: This tweet says it all.
Fans of former Big 12 rivals who felt the Huskers got a lot of calls and good luck throughout their time in the conference, enjoy this. Because Nebraska has put itself in a position to be two or three games better than it is.
The late field goal in the 23-21 loss to Wisconsin pushed the Huskers’ record to 2-4. Nebraska has had late leads in all four of those games. If the luck continues, bowl eligibility could now be a real concern. Iowa, Northwestern and Michigan State still loom on the schedule. The Huskers have only missed a bowl twice (2004, 2007) since 1969. 2015 could be the third year. And there’s a chance Nebraska could win less than five games for the first time since 1961. How crazy is that?
USC’s offense: USC’s offense was hampered by an uninspired offensive performance in a 17-12 loss to Washington. The Trojans came into the game as the leading offensive team in the Pac-12 with 46.75 points per game and Washington had not been great defensively in its previous games. In fact, its best defensive performance came when it limited Boise State to 16 points in the season opener (a loss). USC was coming off a bye week and before that had dismantled Arizona State 42-14. It should have been rested and had momentum heading into the contest and instead it was totally flat. That falls on coaching.
Oklahoma’s title chances: Rivalry games can be tricky. And they can be especially tricky when the rival, in this case Texas, is coming off a 50-7 dismantling at the hands of TCU.
It was easy to watch the gamefilm and take the Longhorns lightly and that’s what it looked like Oklahoma did in its 24-17 loss to the Longhorns. It was only the second loss to the Longhorns in the past six meetings, but this one put the Sooners a game back of Oklahoma State, TCU and Baylor, who all remain undefeated, and likely took quarterback Baker Mayfield out of the Heisman race.
Boston College: Boston College’s defense is very good. Its offense? Not so much. The Eagles were shut out 3-0 at home by Wake Forest on Saturday. BC had multiple chances to take the lead in the final two minutes, but failed spectacularly. First quarterback Troy Flutie fumbled at the Wake 4-yard line with just over a minute to play. After Wake gave it back with a fumble of its own, BC had the ball at the one-yard line with 18 seconds to play. BC had no timeouts, but called a running play. It failed.
In the ensuing scrum, Boston College was not able to get a play off as time expired, allowing Wake Forest to pull out an improbable win. The Eagles, who had four turnovers on the afternoon, dropped to 3-3 (0-3 ACC) with the loss.
UCF (again): UCF coach George O’Leary played along with the “rivalry” talk prior to Saturday’s contest against UConn by saying that he didn’t have a trophy with a clock on it.
And now he still doesn’t.
The whole world may have made fun of the “Civil ConFLiCT” trophy coming into the game, but O’Leary wouldn’t have had a problem keeping it in South Florida. Instead, the new trophy and its digital clock got back on the plane to Connecticut and UCF was saddled with its sixth consecutive loss. UCF hasn’t started a season winless since going 0-11 in 2004.
