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College football mythbusters
5. The SEC has the best defenses
Not according to FootballOutsiders.com’s S&P+. That advanced metric, which measures efficiency and also looks at quality of competition, has three of the nation’s top five defenses coming from … the ACC. Boston College has the nation’s top defense, with Duke at No. 4 and Clemson at No. 5. Florida State at No. 10 means the league currently has four of the top 10 offenses, with Louisville (17) and Pittsburgh (22) also residing in the top 25.
Then there’s the Big Ten, which also has four teams — Michigan (3), Northwestern (6), Minnesota (7) and Illinois (9) — in the top 10. The Big Ten also has Wisconsin (11), Penn State (16), Ohio State (20) and Iowa (21), giving the league the most top 25 defenses.
The SEC, meanwhile, has one top 10 defense in Alabama (2), and one other top 15 defense in Florida (12). You know who else has two top 15 defenses? The MAC with Toledo (8) and Kent State (13), and the Big 12 with West Virginia (14) and Oklahoma (15). The SEC does round out well with Vanderbilt (19), and LSU (23), but that’s low compared to last season, when the SEC had five teams in the top 10 defenses alone.
In case you’re curious about the other Power Five conferences, no other Big 12 teams besides the Mountaineers and Sooners made it, while the Pac-12 also has just two teams in the top 25 defenses with Washington (18) and Stanford (24).
4. LSU’s Leonard Fournette has no competition for the Heisman Trophy
Fournette is the runaway favorite right now for the Heisman Trophy, and he should be after rushing for 864 yards and 11 touchdowns through four games. For comparison’s sake, Fournette rushed for 1,034 yards and 10 touchdowns last season, on 88 more carries.
But remember: since 2000, it hasn’t been the easiest thing for running backs to walk away with the trophy. Running backs went back-to-back in 1998 and 1999, but only two have won since, with Reggie Bush (2005, since vacated) and Mark Ingram (2009) as the winners. Further, Bush was an all-purpose threat, getting nearly 500 yards receiving and returning both kickoffs and punts. Ingram, too, caught more passes than Fournette will.
Remember too, that Wisconsin’s Michael Bennett got off to a similarly hot start with 834 yards through four games in 2000, but fell out of the race and didn’t even finish in the Top 10. Yes, Bennett’s pace slowed (as can be expected), but the real problem was that Wisconsin began losing games as the schedule got tougher. While LSU appears to be a strong team this year, the Tigers still have to face their toughest challenges. And with an offense that borders on one-dimensional, Fournette could also see his pace slowed significantly. If LSU goes 9-3, will it be enough?
And will it be enough if he goes up against quarterbacks with astounding numbers as well? Baylor’s Seth Russell is on pace for a 65 touchdown season. TCU’s Trevone Boykin is on pace to put up more than 4,900 yards of total offense. And if Houston puts together an undefeated season, could voters take a longer look at Greg Ward? Ward is currently in the nation’s top 30 in both passing and rushing yards per game (he actually has more rushing yards per game than Alabama’s Derrick Henry), and he’s 12th nationally in passing efficiency. If Ward continues at his current rate, he would have 3,174 passing yards, 24 passing touchdowns, three interceptions, 1,416 rushing yards and 12 rushing touchdowns over a 12-game season.
None of that is to say that Fournette *can’t* win. He should still be considered the favorite after a hot start, and if the season ended today, he’d be the winner. It’s just not time to lock everything up just yet.
3. Notre Dame’s potential Playoff run is finished
Give Brian Kelly credit: he’s built a whale of a Notre Dame team this year, one that has plenty of talent on defense and the depth on offense to survive a belly full of injuries.
After switching positions because of those injuries, C.J. Prosise has emerged as one of the most explosive backs in college football, while Will Fuller is one of the top receivers in the country. And despite the fact that they’re on their third-string quarterback from the spring, the Fighting Irish display plenty of firepower on that end.
Is that enough for the Irish to rebound from their two-point loss on Saturday? That remains to be seen, though it’s important to note that the Fighting Irish *can* make that comeback.
The College Football Playoff selection committee looked at some advanced metrics in making its pick a year ago, and even with the loss, Notre Dame sits at No. 10 in ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI). What’s more important is that the likely Pac-12 champ will probably come from the Fighting Irish schedule, whether that’s USC on Oct. 17 or Stanford on Nov. 28. Per FPI, the Irish are favored to win every other game by at least 75.5 percent.
If Notre Dame is sitting there at the end, with one loss, via a missed two-point conversion to the potential ACC champs, and has a victory over the Pac-12 champion, that could be enough to find the Fighting Irish a spot at the College Football Playoff table.
2. The SEC will automatically get a team in the College Football Playoff field
The SEC will more than likely get a team into the Playoff. But consider this scenario as well: An undefeated Big Ten champion, an undefeated Big 12 champion and an undefeated ACC champ … with a one-loss team from the Pac-12, Big Ten and Big 12 (and potentially one-loss Notre Dame as well) up against a two-loss SEC team for the final spot.
Is this scenario likely? Of course not. Even the madness of last season produced a one-loss SEC champ, and if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that college football doesn’t see many teams run the table.
But it’s also not unheard of for three teams to finish undefeated, and the top heavy nature of the ACC and Big Ten means it’s a definite possibility in both of those leagues. It’s much less so in the Big 12, but it also wouldn’t shock anyone for a team like Baylor to run the gauntlet undefeated. TCU’s defensive injuries mean that the Bears’ primary competition might just be Oklahoma, and the Bears have had plenty of success in recent years against the Sooners. The West Virginia and Oklahoma games are both in Waco as well, meaning you have to like Baylor’s chances.
Add in an SEC West that already has two contenders — Alabama and Ole Miss — with one loss, and two other contenders in LSU and Texas A&M yet to play any of the league’s top teams, and a two-loss SEC champ wouldn’t be a shock, either.
If that happened, it could be tough for the committee to pick a two-loss SEC team, we’ll say Alabama, over one-loss Oklahoma, one loss USC or Stanford, one-loss Michigan State or one-loss Notre Dame.
It’s one scenario, and a fairly unlikely one at that, but college football has certainly seen crazier things happen before.
1. The SEC is battling the Pac-12 for the title of best conference
That certainly was the narrative — and admittedly, my narrative —heading into the season. But now, five weeks in, it looks like the SEC is the top league, but the Big 12 is the SEC’s top competition, and Pac-12 is closer to fourth than it is to second.
The Pac-12 has two undefeated teams left: a Utah team that looks really good and a California team that has gotten there through schedule. That’s it. Everyone else has at least one loss, with Stanford falling to Northwestern (in a loss that is looking better by the day). USC lost by double-digits to Stanford. UCLA is banged up and lost to Arizona State. And Oregon, once considered a league contender, is way, way down.
Sometimes, leagues jumble up because there’s so much depth. But in the Pac-12’s case, it looks like there just isn’t a great team at this point (potentially Utah). Cal, well, the Bears almost lost to Texas, likely the Big 12’s eighth-best team.
The Big 12, meanwhile, has Baylor and TCU* as College Football Playoff type teams, with Oklahoma joining the conversation. West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Kansas State and Texas Tech look solid. Seven of the league’s 10 teams went undefeated through non-con play, with only Iowa State, Texas and Kansas failing the test.
*TCU’s offense is among the best in the country, but defensively, the Horned Frogs aren’t up to their usual standard because of injuries. They’ll still be a tough out though, because you might have to score 60 to beat them.
The league also has nice depth. Iowa State, potentially the ninth-best team of 10, is a couple of plays away from being undefeated. Instead, the Cyclones are 2-2 with losses to Toledo (4-0) and Iowa (5-0). Remember that Toledo won at Arkansas. The Cyclones fell to the Rockets in double overtime at Toledo.
Looking for a league to keep an eye on? How about the Big Ten? Ohio State and Michigan State are Playoff contenders, Michigan looks way better than expected, Northwestern and Iowa are undefeated and Penn State, Indiana and Illinois all sit at 4-1. That’s not even counting Wisconsin, which is at 3-2 with losses to Alabama and Iowa.
5. The SEC has the best defenses
Not according to FootballOutsiders.com’s S&P+. That advanced metric, which measures efficiency and also looks at quality of competition, has three of the nation’s top five defenses coming from … the ACC. Boston College has the nation’s top defense, with Duke at No. 4 and Clemson at No. 5. Florida State at No. 10 means the league currently has four of the top 10 offenses, with Louisville (17) and Pittsburgh (22) also residing in the top 25.
Then there’s the Big Ten, which also has four teams — Michigan (3), Northwestern (6), Minnesota (7) and Illinois (9) — in the top 10. The Big Ten also has Wisconsin (11), Penn State (16), Ohio State (20) and Iowa (21), giving the league the most top 25 defenses.
The SEC, meanwhile, has one top 10 defense in Alabama (2), and one other top 15 defense in Florida (12). You know who else has two top 15 defenses? The MAC with Toledo (8) and Kent State (13), and the Big 12 with West Virginia (14) and Oklahoma (15). The SEC does round out well with Vanderbilt (19), and LSU (23), but that’s low compared to last season, when the SEC had five teams in the top 10 defenses alone.
In case you’re curious about the other Power Five conferences, no other Big 12 teams besides the Mountaineers and Sooners made it, while the Pac-12 also has just two teams in the top 25 defenses with Washington (18) and Stanford (24).
4. LSU’s Leonard Fournette has no competition for the Heisman Trophy
Fournette is the runaway favorite right now for the Heisman Trophy, and he should be after rushing for 864 yards and 11 touchdowns through four games. For comparison’s sake, Fournette rushed for 1,034 yards and 10 touchdowns last season, on 88 more carries.
But remember: since 2000, it hasn’t been the easiest thing for running backs to walk away with the trophy. Running backs went back-to-back in 1998 and 1999, but only two have won since, with Reggie Bush (2005, since vacated) and Mark Ingram (2009) as the winners. Further, Bush was an all-purpose threat, getting nearly 500 yards receiving and returning both kickoffs and punts. Ingram, too, caught more passes than Fournette will.
Remember too, that Wisconsin’s Michael Bennett got off to a similarly hot start with 834 yards through four games in 2000, but fell out of the race and didn’t even finish in the Top 10. Yes, Bennett’s pace slowed (as can be expected), but the real problem was that Wisconsin began losing games as the schedule got tougher. While LSU appears to be a strong team this year, the Tigers still have to face their toughest challenges. And with an offense that borders on one-dimensional, Fournette could also see his pace slowed significantly. If LSU goes 9-3, will it be enough?
And will it be enough if he goes up against quarterbacks with astounding numbers as well? Baylor’s Seth Russell is on pace for a 65 touchdown season. TCU’s Trevone Boykin is on pace to put up more than 4,900 yards of total offense. And if Houston puts together an undefeated season, could voters take a longer look at Greg Ward? Ward is currently in the nation’s top 30 in both passing and rushing yards per game (he actually has more rushing yards per game than Alabama’s Derrick Henry), and he’s 12th nationally in passing efficiency. If Ward continues at his current rate, he would have 3,174 passing yards, 24 passing touchdowns, three interceptions, 1,416 rushing yards and 12 rushing touchdowns over a 12-game season.
None of that is to say that Fournette *can’t* win. He should still be considered the favorite after a hot start, and if the season ended today, he’d be the winner. It’s just not time to lock everything up just yet.
3. Notre Dame’s potential Playoff run is finished
Give Brian Kelly credit: he’s built a whale of a Notre Dame team this year, one that has plenty of talent on defense and the depth on offense to survive a belly full of injuries.
After switching positions because of those injuries, C.J. Prosise has emerged as one of the most explosive backs in college football, while Will Fuller is one of the top receivers in the country. And despite the fact that they’re on their third-string quarterback from the spring, the Fighting Irish display plenty of firepower on that end.
Is that enough for the Irish to rebound from their two-point loss on Saturday? That remains to be seen, though it’s important to note that the Fighting Irish *can* make that comeback.
The College Football Playoff selection committee looked at some advanced metrics in making its pick a year ago, and even with the loss, Notre Dame sits at No. 10 in ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI). What’s more important is that the likely Pac-12 champ will probably come from the Fighting Irish schedule, whether that’s USC on Oct. 17 or Stanford on Nov. 28. Per FPI, the Irish are favored to win every other game by at least 75.5 percent.
If Notre Dame is sitting there at the end, with one loss, via a missed two-point conversion to the potential ACC champs, and has a victory over the Pac-12 champion, that could be enough to find the Fighting Irish a spot at the College Football Playoff table.
2. The SEC will automatically get a team in the College Football Playoff field
The SEC will more than likely get a team into the Playoff. But consider this scenario as well: An undefeated Big Ten champion, an undefeated Big 12 champion and an undefeated ACC champ … with a one-loss team from the Pac-12, Big Ten and Big 12 (and potentially one-loss Notre Dame as well) up against a two-loss SEC team for the final spot.
Is this scenario likely? Of course not. Even the madness of last season produced a one-loss SEC champ, and if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that college football doesn’t see many teams run the table.
But it’s also not unheard of for three teams to finish undefeated, and the top heavy nature of the ACC and Big Ten means it’s a definite possibility in both of those leagues. It’s much less so in the Big 12, but it also wouldn’t shock anyone for a team like Baylor to run the gauntlet undefeated. TCU’s defensive injuries mean that the Bears’ primary competition might just be Oklahoma, and the Bears have had plenty of success in recent years against the Sooners. The West Virginia and Oklahoma games are both in Waco as well, meaning you have to like Baylor’s chances.
Add in an SEC West that already has two contenders — Alabama and Ole Miss — with one loss, and two other contenders in LSU and Texas A&M yet to play any of the league’s top teams, and a two-loss SEC champ wouldn’t be a shock, either.
If that happened, it could be tough for the committee to pick a two-loss SEC team, we’ll say Alabama, over one-loss Oklahoma, one loss USC or Stanford, one-loss Michigan State or one-loss Notre Dame.
It’s one scenario, and a fairly unlikely one at that, but college football has certainly seen crazier things happen before.
1. The SEC is battling the Pac-12 for the title of best conference
That certainly was the narrative — and admittedly, my narrative —heading into the season. But now, five weeks in, it looks like the SEC is the top league, but the Big 12 is the SEC’s top competition, and Pac-12 is closer to fourth than it is to second.
The Pac-12 has two undefeated teams left: a Utah team that looks really good and a California team that has gotten there through schedule. That’s it. Everyone else has at least one loss, with Stanford falling to Northwestern (in a loss that is looking better by the day). USC lost by double-digits to Stanford. UCLA is banged up and lost to Arizona State. And Oregon, once considered a league contender, is way, way down.
Sometimes, leagues jumble up because there’s so much depth. But in the Pac-12’s case, it looks like there just isn’t a great team at this point (potentially Utah). Cal, well, the Bears almost lost to Texas, likely the Big 12’s eighth-best team.
The Big 12, meanwhile, has Baylor and TCU* as College Football Playoff type teams, with Oklahoma joining the conversation. West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Kansas State and Texas Tech look solid. Seven of the league’s 10 teams went undefeated through non-con play, with only Iowa State, Texas and Kansas failing the test.
*TCU’s offense is among the best in the country, but defensively, the Horned Frogs aren’t up to their usual standard because of injuries. They’ll still be a tough out though, because you might have to score 60 to beat them.
The league also has nice depth. Iowa State, potentially the ninth-best team of 10, is a couple of plays away from being undefeated. Instead, the Cyclones are 2-2 with losses to Toledo (4-0) and Iowa (5-0). Remember that Toledo won at Arkansas. The Cyclones fell to the Rockets in double overtime at Toledo.
Looking for a league to keep an eye on? How about the Big Ten? Ohio State and Michigan State are Playoff contenders, Michigan looks way better than expected, Northwestern and Iowa are undefeated and Penn State, Indiana and Illinois all sit at 4-1. That’s not even counting Wisconsin, which is at 3-2 with losses to Alabama and Iowa.
