Week 12 Recap + Week 13 Ratings and Rankings
Week 12 Recap
12 down, 2 to go. Going into Saturday, it felt like a relatively uninspiring board that could be ripe for a few upsets. It ended up just being a relatively uninspiring board - not much happened that we weren’t expecting heading into the weekend, but we’re setting up for a thrilling finish to the regular season and some monumental matchups in the new playoff format; as sad as the first sentence of this paragraph makes us, remember - the best football of the year is still ahead of us.
Georgia headlined the weekend with a 31-17 win against Tennessee at home and got back to looking more like the Kirby Smart teams of the past three years than they did the past three weeks. Carson Beck was phenomenal - 347 yards, 2 touchdowns through the air, and one on the ground. The Dawgs have been temperamental this year - Beck has been inconsistent, the running game has been non-existent (even in Saturday’s win, Georgia managed 106 yards on 31 attempts on the ground - just 3.4 YPC), and while the defense has generally been a strength, they’ve been susceptible to giving up explosive plays at times (including on Saturday). Despite this, when it all clicks - like it did in the second half against Tennessee - Georgia looks like one of the best teams in the country.
This result, of course, doesn’t give us much clarity for the SEC title race. Tennessee falls into the group of 2-conference loss SEC contenders along with Ole Miss, Alabama, and Georgia - none of whom control their own destiny and must hope for results and tiebreakers to break their way for an SEC title bid. It will be interesting, though, to see how the committee handles the teams in this group that don’t make the conference championship but feel that they still have the resume for a playoff bid. They all have good wins, they all have bad losses; all have looked like they could win the national title, and all have looked awful at times. All four teams will be favorites in each of their two remaining games.
The Tennessee result also leaves the Longhorns and the Aggies all alone at the top of the SEC, with just one weekend separating the renewal of the Thanksgiving weekend rivalry that began in 1894 but has been dormant since 2011. A&M and Texas both have tricky, but winnable games next weekend (at Auburn and vs. Kentucky, respectively) to set up for what will be one of the games of the year in college football.
The biggest upset of the weekend (although I’m not sure how much of an ‘upset’ a 2.5-point road underdog is) came in Provo, Utah where the previously undefeated BYU Cougars fell to a Kansas Jayhawks team that’s suddenly awakening on offense, led by QB Jalon Daniels and RB Devin Neal. BYU had been playing with their food for the better part of the season, and a Jake Retzlaff red-zone pick in the fourth quarter sealed it for KU. With the conference loss, BYU slides back to 6-1 in conference play; they still control their own destiny, but now so do the Colorado Buffaloes, who took care of business at home against Utah on Saturday morning and are tied atop the Big 12 with BYU. The Buffs are playing better and better each week, Travis Hunter is the clear leader for the Heisman trophy, and I think their chances at a playoff bid are probably the best in the Big 12 at this point. However - they travel to Arrowhead Stadium this weekend to play Kansas - who just spoiled BYU and Iowa State’s undefeated records in consecutive weeks in what will be the toughest test they have left on their schedule.
It also sets us up for another massive game on Saturday afternoon in Tempe, where the 8-2 (!!!!) Arizona State Sun Devils host BYU for a chance to tie the Cougars atop the Big 12 and make the title game discussion really interesting heading into Week 14. If you’ve been here for a few months, you know that we collectively hopped on the Kenny Dillingham bandwagon a while ago, and ASU opens as 3-point home favorites in what is the biggest game for the program in years.
Most Exciting Games of Week 12
Measured by Excitement Index; a measure of how exciting a game was to watch. It accomplishes this by measuring swings in win probability throughout the course of the game. The more extreme swings between both teams, the higher the excitement index will be.
Postgame win probability looks at advanced metrics like success rates, PPA, and scoring opportunities and assesses the probability of each team winning should the game be played again with equivalent stats. In other words, if you take all of the plays in a game and shuffle them into a random order, how often would each team be expected to win?
The Big 10 had a relatively quiet week in terms of consequential results, but we had some exciting games to chew on between USC getting it done with a new QB and Oregon escaping a close one in Madison against Wisconsin. The Ducks have been blowing teams out of the water since their close call in Week 3 against Boise State, but did what all great teams do and won their clunker game on the road where they came out flat in a tough environment and still won the game. Oregon gets talked about a lot for their high-flying offense led by Dillon Gabriel and one of the best wide receiver rooms in the country, but it’s been their defense that has been the difference-maker week in and week out for the Ducks (not surprising of a Dan Lanning team) - the defense ranks 8th in the country in average EPA/play allowed and 9th in points per game allowed.
Lincoln Riley made the switch to sophomore UNLV transfer Jayden Maiava at QB this weekend to try to spark his offense with Miller Moss just not getting it done. He looked serviceable; 3 touchdowns and a pick on 259 yards passing (helped tremendously by 146-yard game from Woody Marks on the ground), albeit against what we now know is a pretty flawed Nebraska team. Freshman Dylan Raiola threw 2 interceptions on the other side of this one, and Dana Holgersen’s injection into the Cornhusker play-calling hasn’t quite moved the needle yet.
Model Rankings, Week 13
Very light movement this week, as the top teams mostly took care of business this past week aside from Georgia / Tennessee, which didn’t move things significantly based on both team’s resumes to this point.
The gap between Colorado and BYU is tightening up as well. I’m a bit surprised that the model hasn’t favored the Buffs against the Cougars yet, but we’re moving in that direction as Colorado situates itself atop the conference heading into the last two weeks of the season.
Heisman Rankings
At this point, we’re really down to three. The top tier of candidates for this year’s Heisman have separated themselves from the pack, so down with the top 5, says I. But the gap between the top three is intriguing to me; it’s rare that we get three players playing three (or really, four) different positions in New York together, and each of the seasons that our finalists are in the midst of what would be runaways in previous years. While there’s no clear frontrunner, all three should have opportunities on huge stages in the coming weeks to make a final case for their candidacies.
Cam Ward, QB, Miami
Ward was off this week but has put together an impressive body of work this season - 300+ yards passing in 9 out of 10 games, 1st in Total QBR among FBS quarterbacks, and a 9-1 record with a chance at an ACC championship and a first-round bye in the playoff. It will be hard to top what Ward’s accomplished already this year in Coral Gables - but he’ll have to in the final two weeks of the season + his postseason opportunities in order to vault himself into a higher position in this race.
You’ve got to think that certain Heisman voters will vote for Ward no matter what because he’s the top contender for this award with a “Q” and a “B” next to his name. But in my opinion, it’s going to take some miraculous performances over the next month to leapfrog either of our top two finalists - not because Ward hasn’t been impressive, but because the seasons that Jeanty and Hunter are having are so unique to what we’re used to in college football.
Ashton Jeanty, RB, Boise State
I know I know, this is our boy after all, and he’s been #1 in every rating that I’ve put out this season up to this point. Know that it’s close between 1 and 2, and it’s more related to what Travis Hunter has been up the past few weeks than Jeanty’s performance. Jeanty had 159 yards on 32 carries this week - a typical day in the office for him (and a career stat line for most backs) en route to a 42-21 victory over a pesky San Jose State team.
#2 is closing in on the first 2000-rushing yard season in college football since 2019 and with Boise State likely playing in a conference championship and at least one playoff game, Jeanty could easily turn in a Top 5 FBS season of all time in terms of rushing yards at his current pace. Opposing defenses continue to sell out to stop Jeanty, who hasn’t had a 50+ yard rush in over a month - yet he’s still yet to be held under 125 yards rushing in a single game this season.
Travis Hunter, WR/CB, Colorado
I’ve said all year that Travis Hunter is the best player in college football, no exceptions. There is no other player in the country who can do what he does in all three phases of the game, and no player is more electric with the ball in his hands. Hunter was hurt and missed time about a month ago, but since returning fully against Cincinnati, has been on an absolute tear - 307 receiving yards, 3 receiving touchdowns, a rushing touchdown, an interception and 5 passes defended in three games. What Hunter does is so unique and jaw-dropping, and with his team in a great spot to be playing postseason football, it’s just impossible to ignore that he’s doing what Charles Woodson did but better. At the end of the day, the Heisman shouldn’t necessarily go to the best player in the country - to put in terms that this Substack is more than familiar with, it should be a ranking, not a rating. But at this point, Hunter wins in both.
Final Thoughts / Questions for You
Fun weekend coming up with Ohio State hosting undefeated Indiana in the Hoosier’s toughest test of the season by far, BYU traveling to Arizona State in a game that is pivotal in deciding the Big 12 race (spare a moment to appreciate how looney that would have sounded in August), and Army laying their undefeated record on the line in South Bend against Notre Dame.
Also - I am so sorry, Washington State. I went out of my way to talk about the Cougars last week and how they had an outside shot at the at-large playoff bid sitting atop the PAC-2 with just one loss. They promptly lost to New Mexico this weekend. I might have the power to curse teams through this Substack which I will wield to my personal fandom’s benefit when I learn how to harness them.
Two weeks to go and zero Power Four teams have clinched a conference championship spot. Just how we like it. See ya later this week for some picks.