Rivalry Weekend Recap

Good morning and welcome to 4th & Forever, Rand & Tate’s College Football Newsletter. We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you got to enjoy what was an awesome rivalry weekend in college football. We’ll break it all down for you below, but we first wanted to give a quick shoutout to the Arizona Wildcats, who dismantled rival Arizona State on Saturday to move to 9-3 on the year. Before the season, experts had the Wildcats pegged as a possible bowl-eligible team at most, but head coach Jed Fisch and his encapsulating freshman QB Noah Fifita have absolutely blown the doors off of those expectations. We love to see teams prove people wrong and do it in exciting fashion, and nobody did that better than Arizona this year. It was a big weekend for college football fanatics, with results that made fans rush the field en masse, and other results that made fans cry their eyes out as the clock hit zero. Rivalry weekend is a big part of what makes college football so great, so without further ado, let’s get to it!

4th & Foreeeeever

We told you that anything can happen in an Iron Bowl played at Jordan-Hare Stadium and man oh man did that happen on Saturday. We’ve all seen the play 30 times by now, and while that moment will live in college football history forever, we want to take a quick moment to ask… Auburn, what in the entire f*** were you doing??? This defensive play call makes less sense every time that we watch it. After the bad snap on 2nd down took Bama back to the 26, and then the illegal forward pass penalty on Jalen Milroe, who went past the line of scrimmage and threw a pass downfield for the second time in the game, it was 4th and goal from the 31-yard line. Why, why, WHY ON EARTH did Auburn have a spy sit at the line of scrimmage and do nothing for the entirety of the play? There was absolutely no way that Milroe was going to take off and run on 4th and goal from the 31. Auburn rushed only two defenders, which was effectively pointless, and the spy just sat there essentially watching Milroe sit back in the pocket. In the secondary, Auburn bizarrely decided to double-cover Alabama’s slot receivers and leave both of Alabama’s boundary receivers in single-man coverage. The decision to A) not rush more than two people to force Milroe to make a quick decision, B) devote a player to spying Milroe in case he inexplicably attempted to run 31 yards for the touchdown, and C) leave two separate receivers in single coverage knowing that Milroe would have all day to wait for one of them to get open will perplex us for all of eternity. 

Anyway, regardless of that buffoonery, that was one of the best games we have seen all season, a truly classic Iron Bowl, and it keeps Alabama’s playoff hopes alive headed into the SEC Championship. It wasn’t the most encouraging performance from the Tide considering they have to go play the #1 team in the country in a few days, but even Georgia had to beat that Auburn team in a close, 4-quarter game. The Auburn Tigers have a history of pulling off miraculously improbable plays to win big games, so it has been a breath of fresh air for both America and the world as a whole that Auburn has been on the receiving end of a couple of those moments here this year. This play may be remembered for how it kept Alabama’s season alive, but we here at 4th & Forever will never be able to get over how poorly Auburn chose to defend this 4th & Forever play.

Conference Championships Set

We will of course have more in-depth conference championship previews and picks on Thursday, but let’s take a quick look at who is playing in each conference championship game and what’s on the line. 

Tulane (11-1) beat UTSA (8-4) on Friday 29-16 behind five forced turnovers and 166 yards by RB Makhi Hughes. QB Michael Pratt didn’t have his best game (9/22 for 125 yards) which will need to change with SMU coming to NOLA next week. SMU (10-2) hung 59 points on Navy (5-6) and it could’ve been a lot worse if SMU didn’t take their foot off the gas. The winner of this game is more than likely getting a coveted Fiesta Bowl invite to face Texas.

The ACC Championship Game matchup between Louisville (10-2) and Florida State (12-0) has been set for a few weeks now, but the playoff chaos scenario of Louisville sneaking in was dashed after Kentucky (7-5) beat the Cards for the 5th straight time. Kentucky had lost five of their last six games, but it seems like head coach Mark Stoops just has Louisville’s number. Florida State survived an upset bid to rival Florida, winning 24-15 behind three rushing touchdowns from Trey Benson. Backup QB Tate Rodemaker had a meager stat line of 12/25 for 134 passing yards which wasn’t the confidence-inspiring performance the fanbase and playoff committee was looking for. If Florida State beats Louisville, there is almost no shot they get left out of the playoff as an undefeated conference champion, but the committee claims they take injuries into account and no matter who they face in the playoff, they’ll get drilled. 

For the third year in a row, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day coached scared & conservative as the Buckeyes lost to Michigan yet again. This game was closer than the two previous meetings, but it was hard not to see how Day’s tail-between-his-legs playcalling was a boon for Michigan and interim coach Sherrone Moore who coached like he actually was trying to win The Game. With RB TreVeyon Henderson and a stout OL, you don’t think you could convert a few 4th & 1’s? Even if you didn’t get it, your team’s strength is on defense, and for most of the game, Michigan had issues consistently moving the ball. Weak coaching gets weak results and we’re interested to see if Day picks up the phone when Texas A&M calls. Michigan will head to Indianapolis next week and murder Iowa (10-2) before heading to the playoff. 

Texas (11-1) will face Oklahoma State (9-3) in Arlington for the Big 12 Championship after the Longhorns euthanized Texas Tech 57-7 on Friday night. Longhorn fans need to be rooting for FSU to lose because that might be their only chance of making the playoff. Oklahoma State needed 2 OTs to beat BYU on Saturday night and secure their spot, but a win is a win. RB Ollie Gordon III should be invited to New York for the Heisman ceremony after another Barry Sanders-esque performance. Gordon had five touchdowns and 166 yards on 34 carries as he has single-handedly brought this Cowboys team back from the dead. 

Miami (OH) (10-2) and Toledo (11-1) face off in the MAC Championship Game in Ford Field, and we wonder/hope that the Syracuse AD is smart enough to attend and offer Toledo head coach Jason Candle a contract if he can lead the Rockets to their second consecutive conference championship. Toledo is a last-second Illinois field goal away from being 12-0 which is a testament to the work Candle has done there, even if Toledo is by far the most well-resourced MAC school.         

Boise State (7-5) will face UNLV (9-3) in Vegas for the Mountain West Championship. Boise State has the highest expectations out of any G5 school, but we think it’s funny/foolish/idiotic that they fired their head coach Andy Avalos a few weeks back and is still playing for the conference championship. Five losses is certainly not the expectation at Boise, but what else does this program want? The MWC is getting more competitive and gone are the Kellen Moore days where you will sleepwalk your way to 12-0 and Fiesta Bowl invites. And poor San Jose State. After beating UNLV 37-31 on Saturday and forcing a three-way tie atop the MWC, they got bumped out of the title game because the MWC’s tiebreaker is an archaic computer formula and ranking. Maybe Boise should’ve been left out to justify their head coach firing, but we also don’t mind Boise’s AD Jeramiah Dickey looking like an idiot. Go Broncos.

Staying out west, we will officially get the highly anticipated rematch between Washington (12-0) and Oregon (11-1). Oregon lost round 1 but has been on an absolute heater since that Week 7 matchup in Seattle. If they win, they are almost guaranteed a playoff spot unless some crazy stuff happens in the SEC Championship Game. The winning QB between Oregon’s Bo Nix and Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. is likely going to win the Heisman if they have a monster game. This one is on Friday night so plan your weekend accordingly.         

New Mexico State (10-3) will get another crack at undefeated Liberty in the CUSA championship game on Friday night. Liberty head coach Jamey Chadwell (formerly at Coastal Carolina) leads a potent offense and are heavy favorite, but NMSU is extremely well-coached behind Jerry Kill. When these two teams played back in Week 3, Liberty won 33-17 and we hope it’s not more of the same this go-round.        

In the Sun Belt, App State (8-4) will travel to Troy (10-2) and face one of the best defenses in the country on Saturday afternoon. An Athletic Director is going to look very smart when they hire Jon Sumrall away from Troy to lead their program - looking at you Nina King and Duke.         

The SEC Championship matchup has been set for weeks now, but the gravity of next week’s game between Georgia and Alabama is already encapsulating the college football world. Barring multiple other top teams (primarily FSU and Texas) losing next week, the loser of this game will, in all likelihood, miss the College Football Playoff, making this effectively a playoff game of its own. This will be the fourth time the Dawgs and the Tide have met in the SEC Championship, and Alabama is 3-0 those matchups. If there is one final thing the Dawgs need to accomplish to truly cap off this three-peat, it’s beating Alabama in Atlanta. The stakes couldn’t be any higher.

Black Sunday 

Black Sunday for college football was yesterday which means dozens of coaches were paid millions of dollars to not show up to work today. Tough life. Here’s a quick rundown of where the coaching carousel stands as of Sunday night. 

The Texas A&M search was as dumb and chaotic as we expected it to be, and after a two-hour period on Saturday evening where it appeared all but confirmed that Kentucky coach Mark Stoops would be the Aggies next CEO, an apparent fight between some of A&M’s big-money-brass ultimately killed that deal. On Sunday, it was reported that the Aggies will now be hiring Duke coach Mike Elko, who worked at A&M as Jimbo Fisher’s defensive coordinator from 2018-2021 before taking the Duke head coaching job, where he has found tremendous success over the past two seasons. We’ve thought that hiring Elko was the smart and right move ever since Jimbo was fired, so despite all of the crazy nonsense that surrounds Texas A&M and its money, we think the Aggies landed a good one here.

North of College Station in Waco, Baylor announced that head coach Dave Aranda will return next year, a move that certainly surprised us here at 4th & Forever. Two years after winning the Big 12 Championship, Baylor has quickly fallen to being arguably the worst team in the conference this year, going 3-9. Baylor announced that they will be making wholesale changes to the rest of the coaching staff, but you can color us skeptical that that will solve the issues out there in Waco because the vibes around the Baylor program under Aranda have fallen off a cliff.

Southeast of Waco, the Houston Cougars officially fired head coach Dana Holgerson after back-to-back disappointing seasons. Back in March of this year, Holgorsen was asked if he felt he might be on the hot seat, to which he said: “We won 20 games in two years. We won bowl games in back-to-back years. I have five years on my contract with a f**king impossible buyout… So there ain’t no f**king hot seat in my mind. There just ain’t.” Uhhhh, yeah Dana, about that… This will be an interesting piece of the coaching carousel, as the Houston job has long been thought of as a really great job due to the amount of financial support the athletic department has. Now that Houston is in the Big 12 as well, we expect to see some interesting names pop up as this search gets underway.

Indiana also fired its head coach, Tom Allen, on Sunday in a move that surprised many around the Big Ten due to Allen’s $20m buyout that the school will have to pay him not to coach. It was time for a change, though, so we’re happy to see the Hoosiers make a move for the betterment of their program rather than suffering through another year of dreadful football just to save a few extra bucks.

Oregon State is officially in the head coach market and not because of choice. On Sunday, Michigan State announced they had hired sitting Beavs head coach Jonathan Smith. This is a tremendous hire for a Michigan State program that had slipped back into irrelevancy after their 2021 11-2 season. Pour one out for Oregon State, though. Even before the Pac-12 collapsed leaving the Beavers homeless, someone was bound to hire Smith who proved he can win at one of the toughest Power 5 jobs out there. In the last 72 hours, Beavers fans watched their team get drilled by archrival Oregon, play their last Pac-12 conference game ever, and see their head coach who also happens to be a former player leave for the same conference that essentially dissolved their own. The Chinese water torture isn’t over in Corvallis as Beavers players will be entering the transfer portal at will to play in a power conference next year.

We may not see huge names move to different jobs as we did two years ago when Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma for USC and Brian Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU, but big programs like A&M changing things up will certainly be interesting to follow over the next month. The coaching carousel is far from over, and we’ll keep you updated as more changes are made.

Quick Hitters

Don’t say we didn’t warn you that the Egg Bowl is built on hate, pettiness, and anger. While Ole Miss won 17-7 in a snoozer of the game, the most entertaining aspect of the matchup was former Rebs QB Bo Wallace tweeting his seat section & number at a Mississippi State Coffee Shop saying he will kick their ass. We did not see any evidence that a fight actually occurred but would’ve loved to see a former SEC QB fighting with a barista during a football game. Nothing gets more SEC than that.         

On Black Friday, tied at 10 with under a minute left, Iowa QB Deacon Hill does what he does best and threw a pass right to the Nebraska defense. Lucky for Iowa, Nebraska QB Chubba Purdy returned the favor and threw a pass right to an Iowa LB two plays later. After a 15-yard run, Iowa sent backup kicker Marshall Meeder out who drilled a 38-yard walk-off field goal to deny the Huskers a bowl bid for the first time since 2016. Why did they send the backup kicker out there? No reason was given so we can only continue to assume Iowa likes to intentionally make winning as hard as possible on themselves. 

No other game in the Big 10 mattered this weekend but shout out to the Boilermakers for winning the Old Oaken Bucket over rival Indiana. Even though they finished 4-8 on the season, hopefully, the victory gives them some much-needed momentum heading into the offseason under first-year head coach Ryan Walters. Similarly, another shout out is owed to Northwestern who beat Illinois 45-43 and won seven games under former interim and now full-time head coach David Braun. One of the most impressive turnarounds for a team that was an afterthought once Pat Fitzgerald was fired amid hazing allegations in July. 

In the ACC, Virginia Tech clobbered Virginia 55-17 to attain bowl eligibility, while N.C. State forced three Drake Maye turnovers and racked up over 500 yards of offense in their 39-20 defeat of UNC. Mack Brown adamantly said he will be returning to Chapel Hill next season, but QB Drake Maye will not be. UNC fans hope DC Gene Chizik will be added to the ‘not returning’ list as the UNC defense collapsed as the season went on, giving up at least thirty points in six of their last seven games. 

Out west, Washington needed a walk-off field goal to defeat upset-minded Wazzu 24-21 in the Apple Cup. QB Michael Penix Jr. turned in a mediocre stat line but the game essentially came down to the Huskies had WR Rome Odunze and the Cougars did not. Arizona finished their regular season by smoking rival Arizona State 59-23. Zona coach Jedd Fisch has engineered one of the most impressive turnarounds college football has seen in the past few years by leading the Wildcats to 9-3. He should be on the shortlist should any West Coast jobs come open in the next few days, specifically one in Los Angeles. Speaking of, Cal beat UCLA 33-7 to reach bowl eligibility and send UCLA to an offseason of questions as they head into the Big 10 next year. 

Holding Ourselves Accountable

OnlyRans: Last week: 5-6 - Season Record: 62-66-1

W - Iowa @ Nebraska Game Total Under 26.5: Iowa won 13-10

W - Duke -6: beat Pittsburgh 30-19

W - Memphis -11: beat Temple 45-21

W - Northwestern +5.5: beat Illinois 45-43

L - Ohio -14: beat Akron 25-14

W - Mizzou -7: beat Arkansas 48-14

L - Georgia -24: beat Georgia Tech 31-23

L - Arkansas State ML: lost to Marshall 35-21

L - Virginia ML: lost to Virginia Tech 55-17

L - Rutgers ML: lost to Maryland 42-24

L - Minnesota ML: lost to Wisconsin 28-14

After one ‘hot’ week of picking two games over .500, I regressed back to the mean. All of my home underdog ML upsets lost and none of them were particularly close. I could’ve called that a parlay and not counted it which would’ve made my record on the week 5-2 but alas. I certainly did not watch the Ohio-Akron game, but I did not appreciate Ohio kneeling the ball at the Akron 5-yard line. Whatever happened to running up the score? This generation is so soft smh. 

Tate’s Great Picks: Last Week: 2-4-1 - Season Record: 26-44-2

W - Iowa @ Nebraska Game Total Under 26.5: Iowa won 13-10

L - Ohio State ML: Michigan won 30-24

L - Georgia -24: beat Georgia Tech 31-23

PUSH - Ole Miss -10: Ole Miss won 17-7

W - Washington State +16.5: Washington won 24-21

L - Louisville -7: Kentucky won 38-31

L - South Carolina @ Clemson Game Total Over 52: Clemson won 16-7

If there is one thing I am, it’s consistent. Consistently bad? Yes, but consistent. The week started off with a push in the Ole Miss/MSU game, a bet I felt really confident about even well into the 4th quarter until just… nobody ever scored again. No clue how Vegas is so good at this. The Iowa under was, as always, free money, so that was great. But Ohio State couldn’t hang, Georgia screwed around, Louisville gave up 38 points to a terrible offense, while South Carolina and Clemson played one of the more egregious games of football I’ve ever seen. Great stuff. Please continue to fade me.

Wake Forest & Georgia

Georgia (12-0) - #1 Georgia 31 - Georgia Tech 23: Unlike almost all of Georgia’s other opponents, Georgia Tech didn’t score on their first possession. But the 2023 Dawgs were having absolutely none of that BS and made sure to fumble the ball right back to Tech on their first offensive play so that Tech could go take an early 7-0 lead, which is exactly what they did. We had them exactly where we wanted them, and Dawg fans in the crowd sarcastically cheered for Tech’s touchdown.

From there, things went a little less like they have over the last 4 games and a bit more like they often did in the first 8 games. Brock Bowers, Ladd McConkey, Rara Thomas, and Tate Ratledge didn’t start on offense, and things weren’t quite as efficient and on point as they have been for the past month. Defensively, Georgia Tech came out with what seemed like a really long script, the Jackets’ offensive line played with more intensity than the Dawgs defense did, and the overall feeling for quite a while was that Georgia just wanted to get up by 3 scores and get the hell back to Athens. Carson Beck didn’t have one of his better games - he played pretty well overall, but he was late and/or behind on a few throws that led to incompletions throughout the game. Missing two of the best playmakers in college football can lead to that. Thankfully, Georgia Tech is incapable of stopping the run, and Kendall Milton and Daijun Edwards took advantage by exploding for 211 yards and 3 touchdowns between them. The offensive line missed assignments at times, there were a couple of weird tip-drill plays and some bizarre, ticky-tack penalties, and it was far from the offense’s best performance this year.

Defensively… yeesh. The Dawgs gave up more points than they have all season, and once again looked like they were backpedaling at times against the run. It is very clear at this point that the inside linebacker room is really missing Jamon Dumas-Johnson who won’t be back until the playoffs (if we get there), and that the edge defenders are far less experienced, knowledgeable, and even talented than the Nolan Smith, Robert Beal, Adam Anderson groups of the past few years. The inside linebackers are hitting gaps incorrectly, flying upfield too far when they do crash, and the edge defenders are really struggling to keep a consistent contain. This is a massive problem when you face a creative and effective rushing attack, especially one with a good running threat at quarterback, and that’s exactly what Georgia Tech is with QB Haynes King. Alabama obviously has a great running QB in Jalen Milroe, but they do a lot less designed run types of attacks with him and rely more on his scrambling and improvising abilities. But Nick Saban will see this film, and I’d expect Alabama to be prepared to attack us in ways that we’ve struggled with against Auburn, at times vs Missouri, and now against Georgia Tech.

Overall, this was a B- effort from the Dawgs who were missing several key players and really looked like they just wanted to grab a quick win and go get ready for Alabama. This game came very close to ending 38-16, as the Dawgs were driving late in the game until Carson Beck through a ball into the endzone that got weirdly tipped up and the air and intercepted, which was followed by one final Tech touchdown to cut it to 8 to end the game. These Dawgs seem to sleepwalk through games they fully expect to win and play their best ball when they feel a team can legitimately compete with them if they screw around. With Alabama coming up next, I’d rather that be the case than the opposite. Much more to come on the Dawgs this week as we get ready for the biggest game of our season on Saturday.

Wake Forest (4-8) - Wake Forest - 31, Syracuse - 35: And with that the 2023 Wake Forest Football season comes to a close. In what felt like a Wake game from 2018-2021 where the offense was unstoppable, our defense was also unstoppable. Syracuse called a great game but they played with an injured starting QB, a TE at QB, and under an interim coach. The Orange finished the game 12-17 on third down, 2-2 on fourth down, and punted once. Deacs QB Michael Kern finally had time in the pocket as he was an efficient 17/24 for 261 yards, three touchdowns, but a game-sealing pick spoiled the Deacs comeback bid. In an offseason that will be rife with questions on both sides of the ball, priority #1 will be keeping our best players from transferring when the NIL schools come calling (read: tampering) over the next few weeks. There will be a lot more time to dissect what went wrong with the Deacs this year, but it was a disappointing end to a disappointing season. Clawson has raised the floor and program expectation that Deac fans now can be disappointed in a 4-8 season and rightfully expect better instead of looking forward to basketball. We will be fine in the long run, but losing to Syracuse is never a fun exercise, no matter the circumstances. 

Texts of the Week

“I’m numb. Nothing hurts me.” - Auburn & Wake Forest fan Owen Powell. Tough weekend for the kid. This text was actually from last weekend but remains applicable, sad, and relevant.

“It’s about to be 4th & Forever in the Iron Bowl.” - Alex Sztejnberg right before the infamous play.

“7-0 right where we like ‘em.” - Alec Nathan

“There was zero reality where the anti-UGA deep state would allow Alabama to lose that game.” - Alex Sztejnberg. Very true.

“How many Shaq-a-roni’s do you reckon Kirby could scarf down?” - Jason Levenstiem

“Nothing would make me happier than to defeat this fraudulent, cheating Northern team and watch as the life drains from their eyes as we slowly and methodically drag them into the deep, dark ocean.” - Alex Sztejnberg

“Kirby ate 9 pounds of chili.” - Sam Weinbach

Hope you have a great Monday, and we will talk to you again on Thursday.

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Rand Fisher & Tate Smillie met a few years ago through their good buddy Dave Peljovich who went to college with Rand and high school with Tate. Tate went to Georgia and has spent the last two years collecting championship rings while traveling to watch the Dawgs. Rand went to known CFB powerhouse Wake Forest and currently pays rent in Atlanta but is rarely found there with all the work & CFB travel he does.