Got to ask, what ya’ thought of the initial College Football Playoff rankings released by the 13-member committee on Tuesday, Halloween night? Did you pretty much agree – or did you consider it rather frightful?
I was a little shocked that Ohio State jumped No. 1 Georgia and No. 2 Michigan into No. 1, but then after listening to the committee’s reasoning, I was pretty much OK with it.
Florida State from the ACC was fourth. Washington (8-0) and Oregon (7-1), both from the PAC-12, are the first two teams out of what will be the final four-team playoff for this year’s national championship.
Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma and Ole Miss round out the Top 10, with 7-1 records.
Penn State at No. 11, Missouri at No. 12 and No. 13 Louisville are ahead of No. 14 and twice beaten LSU (6-2).
There’s a lot of football left between now and the conference championship games and the subsequent final CFP rankings released the first week of December, and it starts this morning with No. 25 Kansas State playing Texas in Austin on big FOX at 11 a.m. If you don’t particularly care for the Wildcats and Longhorns, there’s A&M at Ole Miss on ESPN, Arkansas at Florida on ESPN2, Ohio State and Rutgers on CBS, or Notre Dame and Clemson (ABC), among others.
The Longhorns knocked off BYU in Maalik Murphy’s first start, filling in for injured QB1 Quinn Ewers, 35-6 a week ago. Murphy was efficient (16-for-25 for 170 yards with two touchdowns, a fumble and an interception. Definitely, room for improvement, but that’ll come, according to his coach Steve Sarkisian.
The Texas defense dominated, snatching three BYU turnovers with a dozen tackles for loss. Middle linebacker Jaylan Ford leads the Horns with 57 tackles, including 8.5 for loss, plus two interceptions and a fumble recovery. Nose tackle Byron Murphy follows with 4.5 tackles for loss, a sack and six quarterback hurries.
The Longhorns do need to improve in the red zone, for sure by scoring touchdowns when they get inside the 20, or inside the 10, or at any yard line inside the five.
The Longhorns lead this series 13-10 and have won the last six. The last K-State win in Austin came in 2011.
Former Oklahoma great Teddy Lehman said on his podcast this week, Texas won’t beat Kansas State. His reasoning is if you keep picking the Horns to lose, they eventually will. I think he’s disappointed the Sooners played UCF close a couple of weeks ago, and then lost to Kansas and dropped behind both the Longhorns and Bama in the AP and CFP rankings.
In the 2:30 window, we can watch the Sooners and what is now a red-hot Oklahoma State team in Stillwater, Okla., on ABC in what may be the final Bedlam Series game in a long time since OU is moving to the SEC, beginning next season.
Other 2:30 games include Penn State at Maryland on FOX, Florida State at Pittsburgh on ESPN, or Houston at Baylor on FS1 to name a few. LSU at Alabama on CBS at 6:30 is what I’ll be watching. But you may like Purdue visiting Michigan on NBC, Rice entertains SMU on ESPNU, Kentucky is at Mississippi State on the SEC Network, or Washington visits Southern California on ABC also at 6:30.
Coach Prime and Colorado are at home against Oregon State at 9 on ESPN and UCLA visits Arizona, beginning at 9:30 on FS1.
Should be something for everybody or just another good day of watching college football if you ask me.
Follow Joe on X/Twitter: @joeyballgame
