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Mandel's Final Thoughts: Kyle McCord outplays Will Howard, and more Ohio State woes

1 December 2024Last Update :
Mandel's Final Thoughts: Kyle McCord outplays Will Howard, and more Ohio State woes

And now, 20 Final Thoughts from Rivalry Weekend, where many of the teams fought for 60 minutes, and then fought some more.

1. On his weekly coach’s show last Monday, Ohio State coach Ryan Day described his team’s losing streak to Michigan in stark terms. “It’s one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me in my life, quite honestly, other than losing my father (at age 9) and a few other things,” he said. “And for my family, (it’s) the worst thing that’s happened. So, we can never have that happen again. Ever.”

It happened again, and this one was so much worse than those past three losses to top-five Michigan teams. This year’s Wolverines were 6-5 and 19.5-point underdogs, yet they still came to the Horseshoe and humiliated the second-ranked Buckeyes 13-10 in a mistake-strewn game. It ended with Michigan players attempting to plant their flag at midfield, fights breaking out, the police pepper spraying guys on both teams. Which Day watched unfold in front of him in an emotionless daze.

Whether by his own choice or his employer’s, it’s hard to imagine Day will be back in Columbus next season to try again, given the anguish he says the Michigan losses have caused him and his family. Perhaps he will take a cue from John Calipari, who read the room after Kentucky basketball’s unthinkable NCAA Tournament loss to Oakland last March and hatched his own exit plan to Arkansas.

2. The loss knocked Day’s team out of next week’s Big Ten Championship Game, which will now pit No. 1 Oregon (12-0, 9-0 Big Ten) and No. 4 Penn State (11-1, 8-1). The Buckeyes (10-2, 7-2) will likely fall to No. 7 or No. 8, still safely in the 12-team Playoff field, but their berth will come with a pall hanging over the program. Ohio State has not lived up to the expectations that came with its $20 million roster. Held back by an injury-ravaged offensive line, the Buckeyes couldn’t run the ball on Michigan (77 yards on 26 carries), while quarterback Will Howard threw two costly picks and kicker Jayden Fielding missed 38- and 34-yard field goals.

Technically, the Buckeyes can still achieve their goal of a national championship. But their performance this season does not elicit much confidence they can pull that off.

3. Michigan, led by running back Kalel Mullings (32 carries for 116 yards), managed to beat the No. 2 team in the country despite quarterback Davis Warren going just 9 of 16 for 62 yards and two interceptions. It’s arguably the biggest upset in the history of the rivalry, even more so than the famed 1969 Bo-over-Woody game. (Michigan was a 17-point dog in that one.)

Coming on the heels of his Bryce Underwood recruiting coup, the win completely changes the story of Sherrone Moore’s first season as head coach.

4. In the three years since Texas accepted an invite to the SEC, coach Steve Sarkisian purposefully built his program along the lines of scrimmage. The third-ranked Longhorns (11-1, 7-1 SEC) flexed both in their 17-7 win over No. 20 Texas A&M (8-4, 5-3) in the rivalry’s long-awaited return after 13 years. Texas’s defense dominated from start to finish, with the Aggies’ only points coming on a pick six. Meanwhile, Texas running back Quintrevion Wisner ground out 186 rushing yards on 33 carries.

It’s no secret Texas A&M staunchly opposed allowing its hated nemesis to join the SEC, and now we see why. It took Texas one season to reach the conference championship game, where it gets a rematch with No. 7 Georgia. Whereas A&M, which joined the league in 2012 and has been selling that cachet in recruiting ever since, is yet to make its first trip to Atlanta.

5. On the same day that Ohio State’s Howard played his worst game of the season, the guy he replaced, Kyle McCord, led Syracuse (9-3, 5-3 ACC) to its biggest win in years, a 42-38 upset of No. 6 Miami (10-2, 6-2 ACC). The loss knocked the Canes out of the ACC Championship Game, which will now be Clemson vs. SMU, and it could possibly cost Miami a CFP berth as well. A vindicated McCord (26 of 36 for 380 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions) outdueled Heisman candidate Cam Ward (25 of 46, 349 yards, two touchdowns) to lift the Orange to just their third nine-win season this century. Quite the debut for first-time head coach Fran Brown.

6. The best guess here is Miami will fall right behind No. 10 Indiana (11-1) and become the last at-large team as of now. The Canes would still likely need No. 9 SMU (11-1) to win next weekend and keep 9-3 Clemson from stealing a bid. You will also hear an 11th-hour lobbying push from the SEC to elevate 9-3 Alabama, which closed with a 28-14 Iron Bowl win over rival Auburn (5-7), above Miami and/or SMU. But this committee seems to care first and foremost about how many games you’ve lost. Not only do the Tide have three of them, two were to a pair of 6-6 teams, Vanderbilt and Oklahoma. Even SEC Network thinks that’s a tough sell.

7. South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers keeps outdoing himself. His 20-yard touchdown run with 1:08 remaining lifted the 15th-ranked Gamecocks (9-3) to a 17-14 win over rival Clemson, their sixth straight win following a 3-3 start. Per Pro Football Focus, Sellers (who finished with 16 carries for 166 yards and two TDs) forced 18 missed tackles, the most by a quarterback since the company began its tracking in 2014. Afterward, South Carolina coach Shane Beamer suggested Sellers should win the Heisman. That’s a stretch, but he’s very good.

Beamer also lobbied for a CFP at-large berth, and he has a case. South Carolina now boasts three Top 25 wins (Texas A&M, Missouri and Clemson) and no “bad” losses. But the committee would need to bump the Gamecocks above two 9-3 teams it lost to, Alabama and Ole Miss. Ironically, the team it just beat, Clemson, is win-and-in next week in Charlotte.

8. Georgia and Georgia Tech’s Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate snuck up on Black Friday and delivered an all-time classic. The Jackets (7-5), up 20-6 in the fourth quarter, appeared on the cusp of ending their rival’s 30-game home win streak, thanks to an epic performance from quarterback Haynes King (303 passing yards, 110 rushing yards, five total touchdowns). But Georgia safety Dan Jackson’s game-changing strip-sack of King — which looked to many like targeting — helped the Bulldogs (10-2) come back and eventually win 44-42 in eight(!) overtimes. Kirby Smart praised his team’s “resilience” afterward, but Georgia has no choice to be resilient when it allows 563 yards, the third-most of the Smart era.

The Bulldogs now face a Texas team they pummeled 30-15 in Austin on Oct. 19, but don’t assume that result was a precursor for this one. It depends on which of Georgia’s 27 identities this season shows up.

9. In his first two-plus seasons, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman earned a stigma for losing games his team had no business losing. But following a Week 2 clunker against Northern Illinois, the fifth-ranked Irish (11-1) rolled off 10 consecutive wins, nearly all of them blowouts. USC (6-6) put up a fight for three-plus quarters Saturday before Notre Dame notched a 99- and 100-yard pick six within minutes of each other to pull away and win 49-35. The Irish, behind Jadarian Price (12 carries, 111 yards, one touchdown) and Jeremiyah Love (13 carries, 99 yards) ran for 258 yards.

Notre Dame is a lock to host a first-round CFP game and could even land the No. 5 seed if Penn State takes its second loss in the Big Ten title game. That would set up nicely for Notre Dame, now 31 years removed from its last major postseason win, to finally end that drought.

10. Next week will bring the first Big Ten Championship Game that involves no Midwestern schools. No. 1 Oregon (12-0, 9-0 Big Ten) clinched its berth two weeks ago but added a 49-21 rout of rival Washington (6-6, 4-5) as the cherry on top. The door opened for No. 4 Penn State (11-1, 8-1) when Ohio State lost, and the Nittany Lions stormed through it with a 44-7 rout of Maryland (4-8, 1-8). It was another dazzling day for Penn State tight end Tyler Warren, who had six catches for 68 yards, three carries for 32 yards and a 9-yard pass.

James Franklin returns to Indianapolis for the first time since winning the 2016 Big Ten title. Quite the turn of events since the Nittany Lions lost at home to Ohio State on Nov. 2.

11. Iowa State has been stacking milestones throughout Matt Campbell’s nine-year tenure, and Saturday brought his two most important yet. The 18th-ranked Cyclones’ 29-21 win over No. 24 Kansas State (8-4, 5-4 Big 12) gave Iowa State its first-ever 10-win season, and now the Cyclones are headed to their first Big 12 championship game to face Arizona State (10-2, 7-2). Iowa State did it with an on-brand performance, stuffing two fourth downs, notching a safety and blocking a field goal.

Should the Cyclones win next week, they’ll end a staggering 112-year conference championship drought. Unfortunately, there was no Playoff with automatic berths in 1912.

12. No. 16 Arizona State has surged from 3-9 in coach Kenny Dillingham’s first season to a conference championship game appearance in Year 2. Running back and soon-to-be All-American Cam Skattebo burst for 177 yards and three touchdowns as the Sun Devils drilled rival Arizona (4-8, 2-7) 49-7. It marked a complete 180 from last year’s Territorial Cup, when ex-coach Jedd Fisch’s Wildcats won 59-23 en route to a 10-3 record. Dillingham has stolen all the thunder in the Valley since Fisch left for Washington, and the buzz will only grow louder if he leads ASU to a conference championship.

13. Colorado (9-3, 7-2 Big 12) mercifully ended Oklahoma State’s (3-9, 0-9 Big 12) nightmare season with a 52-0 beatdown that Fox portrayed as a Heisman coronation for Travis Hunter. The remarkable two-way star notched his fourth interception of the season and caught 10 passes for 116 yards and three touchdowns. Playing at the exact same time, Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty carried 37 times for 226 yards and a score —– his fifth 200-yard game this season — in the Broncos’ (11-1) 34-18 win over Oregon State (5-7).

Hunter, the sport’s most unique player in decades, is unquestionably the favorite to hoist the trophy, but Jeanty is himself having a transcendent season (2,288 yards, 28 TDs). And he’ll get one last showcase opportunity in front of likely his biggest audience of the season because …

14. After rising to No. 17 in the CFP rankings, Tulane (9-3, 7-1 AAC) fell 34-24 at home to Memphis on Thursday, ruining its chances of finishing as the highest-ranked Group of 5 champion. The Green Wave will still play for their conference championship on Friday, but they now have to travel to West Point to meet unranked Army (10-1, 8-0). All of which turns Friday’s Mountain West championship game between No. 11 Boise State and No. 22 UNLV on the blue turf into a de facto CFP play-in game.

That’s right. Either Boise State, whose two undefeated teams under Chris Petersen never got to play for a national championship, or UNLV, until recently one of the most downtrodden programs in the sport, will become the first team to officially clinch an automatic berth. What a time to be alive.

15. No. 10 Indiana (11-1, 8-1 Big Ten) brushed off last week’s Ohio State loss to mangle rival Purdue 66-0, the most lopsided score in the 125-year history of the Old Oaken Bucket. Indiana scored nearly as many points (66) as its opponent gained yards (67). “It was the worst performance offensively that I’ve ever seen,” Boilermakers coach Ryan Walters said of his team, which had previously suffered top-10 losses to Notre Dame (66-7), Ohio State (45-0) and Penn State (49-10).

16. Imagine being a Kansas City Chiefs/Nebraska Cornhuskers fan. It must be bittersweet to root for one team that seemingly can’t lose a close game and another that can’t win one.

Nebraska outgained Iowa 334-164, gained 20 first downs to the Hawkeyes’ five … and lost 13-10 after Dylan Raiola fumbled with 22 seconds left and Iowa’s Drew Stevens nailed a walk-off 54-yard field goal. Amazingly, it marked the second straight year, and fourth time in seven seasons, that Iowa (8-4, 6-3 Big Ten) has defeated Nebraska (6-6, 3-6) on a last-second field goal. The Huskers are still going bowling for the first time since 2016, but Matt Rhule’s second season ultimately did not feel much different from the previous seven.

17. It was a no-fun week for Mack Brown. On Tuesday, North Carolina fired its Hall of Fame coach, who had said only a day earlier he intended to return for a seventh season. Then on Saturday, NC State (6-6, 3-5 ACC) drove 75 yards in the final two minutes for a 35-30 win over the Tar Heels (6-6, 3-5), the Wolfpack’s fourth straight win in the rivalry. Afterward, Brown, 73, told reporters he would not coach UNC in a bowl. Presumably, he has coached his last game.

In his second stint at the school, the former national champion took the Heels to the 2022 ACC Championship Game but lost at least five games in all but one season. North Carolina AD Bubba Cunningham was justified in opting to start anew.

18. For the first time in the 28-year history of the MAC Championship Game, arch-rivals Ohio (9-3, 7-1 MAC) and Miami of Ohio (8-4, 7-1) will meet for the title. (They were previously in the same division.) The RedHawks, defending league champs, mounted quite a surge after starting the season 1-4, knocking off Bowling Green 28-12 to get back to Detroit. The Bobcats will be making their sixth championship game appearance, still looking for their first win. Their last MAC title came in 1968.

19. UConn (8-4) reached eight wins for the first time since 2010 with a 47-42 win at UMass (2-10). Then came a bizarre subplot. A UMass collective recently announced the creation of a new trophy for the rivalry, the Southwick Jug, but that collective, Midnight Ride, is no longer recognized by the university. UConn coach Jim Mora tweeted after the game that “I specifically asked for the trophy at the end of the game and was told point blank you folks weren’t giving it up.”

UConn racks up all sorts of hardware in basketball. Why won’t anyone let it have one lousy football trophy?

20. Finally, a word about the onslaught of postgame skirmishes that permeated the sport Saturday, from Columbus to Tuscaloosa to Tucson to Tallahassee. No tsk-tsk lecture about sportsmanship here. Over the past 15 years, conferences and their TV partners have killed off some of the sport’s best rivalries in the pursuit of more dollars. Meanwhile, many feared the Playoff would deaden their stakes.

Turns out, the coaches and players still really, really care about their rivals — especially those that attempt to plant flags on their home fields.

(Photo: Jason Mowry / Getty Images)

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