Tar Hell State: Week 4 Recap

Good morning and welcome to 4th & Forever, Rand & Tate’s College Football Newsletter. If you took a macro look at college football this season you might conclude it’s been dull and the results chalky. While we can’t completely disagree, we’d implore you to peel back the onion and examine the past weekend with more intention. On the surface, everything seems easy breezy but I’ll bet the Baltimore Harbour Master said the same thing right before that ship took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Yes, the top dawgs are showing their mettle through four weeks but a closer looks show shit is breaking everywhere, drunk people yelling at eachother, and finger pointing galore to skirt accountability.

Week 4 Recap

Big Game Breakdown

All eyes were waiting on a trio of games this weekend, first with the game between USC and Michigan in Ann Arbor. The Trojans came in as a road favorite against the defending national champions while Michigan kicked off the week announcing that they’d start QB Alex Orji for the first time this season despite the fact that Alex Orji is blissfully unaware of how to throw a football. Orji threw for a whopping 7/12 for 32 yards on the day, and guess what? It didn’t matter! The Wolverines pulled off a massive win at home to stay in the Big Ten race while keeping a good Trojans team behind them in the conference standings. The Wolverines have found something in RB Kalen Mullings (17 carries for 159 yards and 2 TD’s on Saturday), and we finally saw defensive linemen Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant show the first round talent that they have for four quarters.

Look, it’s pretty clear what we have with Michigan at this point. They’ve fully committed to not being able to throw the ball to any degree at all which severely limits their ceiling, but their ability to play defense and run the ball will keep the floor of this team pretty high. Are they going to beat Oregon or Ohio State playing this way? In all likelihood, no. But can they beat Minnesota, Washington, Illinois, Michigan State, Indiana, and Northwestern playing this way? Quite possibly! We’re not high on this team, but there’s no denying that they know who they are and they’re intent on acting on it.

For USC, are we wrong for saying we’re more encouraged by them than we were before, even though they lost? This team has spent the past two seasons making it clear that if they get punched in the face - which Michigan did to them in the first half today - they will stay on the ground. On Saturday, they kept coming back again and again to hang with one of the most physical teams in the country and took the lead late in the game. They couldn't get the one final stop that they needed, but if we were USC fans looking in the long term, we’d be happy with this showing. Fight On.

Simultaneously, Utah was taking on Oklahoma State down in Stillwater in a game we had trouble previewing last week. Was Cam Rising going to play? Is Utah capable of playing without him? Is Oklahoma State good? The answers to these questions were no, yes, and no. Utah head coach Kyle Wittingham has established himself as a disgusting, pathetic, dirty horrible liar, and we couldn’t be more proud of him. Utah pumped fake news to the media all week that Rising would play, then didn’t play him which has become a staple of this program for the last three seasons, then went into Stillwater and beat the hell out of Oklahoma State anyway. Utah looks like it might be the best team in the Big 12 right now and if they can get Rising healthy, they might be a top 4 seed in the playoff this year. For Oklahoma State, we had major question marks about the Cowboys’ ability to throw the ball, run the ball, and stop the run through their first three games (which isn’t ideal!) and those questions came home to roost on Saturday. Utah dominated this game even without Rising, and were up 22-3 late until OSU came back to make it “interesting”. The Big 12 is the most intriguing league in college football this year and on Saturday we got closer to knowing something we should have always known - Utah is good as hell again.

The day’s big games ended with Tennessee traveling to Norman and beating the brakes off Oklahoma and that dumb Schooner wagon during the night slot. The Sooners’ first game in the SEC was far from inspiring as the offense had absolutely nothing to show once again, benching former 5-star and 4th & Forever favorite Jackson Arnold late in the second quarter due to him being complete ass in this contest. In complete and total fairness to Arnold (and to cover up our preseason predictions of him being incredible), his offensive line is god awful and his top four receivers were all hurt and out of the game by the time he was removed. But man was this a horrible showing by a team who is looking to put up results  in its coach’s third year in the program. Much credit to the Vols, but a lot of this game going the way it went had to due with the fact that Oklahoma is entirely incapable of scoring points right now. Yeesh.

For Tennessee, we’re ready to say this is one of the best teams in the country and a clear playoff favorite at this point. We saw them dominate lesser competition for the first three weeks of the season and it’s pretty clear that former 5-star QB Nico Iamaleava is going to be the #1 pick in the 2026 draft, but we had not yet seen them be tested. They receive an A+ from us, for proving they’re capable of walking into a tough environment against a talented team and dominating. Are there still questions about this offense against a defense that can play one-on-one with them outside? Yes. Are there still questions about the secondary on defense? Oh god yes. But Tennessee is making noise, and for good reason. Watch out for the Vols.

Tar Hell State

The state of North Carolina football teams in a word: Mark Robinson? Well, that’s two words but one more than the number of FBS teams in NC that won this weekend and 68 words less than the number James Madison hung on UNC in Chapel Hill. I’ll get to you Mack, but let’s start on Thursday night when App State let South Alabama and first year head coach Major Applewhite storm into The Rock and hang 48 on them in what was an uncompetitive flop from the first snap. The App State experience under head coach Shawn Clark is like what I can only assume doing black tar heroin is like. The highs are incredible like the 2022 Troy hail mary or wins over UNC and Texas A&M but the come-down can set off the worst Sunday scaries of your life. App has now gotten blown off the field by Clemson and South Alabama and with Liberty coming to town next weekend, App can’t come out flat again. Clark has been the head coach since 2020 but with 0 Sun Belt titles the App fanbase is getting restless with the likes of James Madison seemingly lapping them. 

Speaking of Liberty, they moved to 4-0 after beating East Carolina in a game that was delayed for a mere 4.5 hours because of lightning. If Liberty can get by Western Kentucky in late November they’re likely looking at an undefeated regular season and a shot at the G5 playoff spot which would not bode well for the watchability of said playoff. East Carolina lost to App two weekends ago and still has not solved their ‘our QB can’t do anything but throw interceptions’ issue. Pirates QB Jake Garcia leads the nation with 9 picks on the year which is more than Auburn and their clogged toilet of a QB room. Prior to the game, it was announced ECU star CB Shavon Revel Jr. tore his ACL and is out for the year. For the NFL draftniks out there, remember that name because he will be a first-round pick this year - well, we thought so until the ACL. Someone else who might be looking for a new employer come April is Pirates head coach Mike Houston who has perennially underachieved and has a $1.25 million buyout but even that might be too onerous for the Pirates brass given ECU has grossly mismanaged their budget to the point they had to take funding from the nursing school to pay for their stadium renovations. If that ain’t American then we don’t know what is. 

David Tepper isn’t the only hedge fund manager turned wanna-be-football-guy in the city of Charlotte who’s epically failing. Biff Poggi and the 49ers got smoked by Indiana and fell to 1-3 on the year. Their lone win was a 27-26 victory over FCS Gardner-Webb. Poggi - who’s independently wealthy - came from Michigan and was supposed to get Charlotte on solid ground as they came into the AAC. Even with him giving away half of his salary to hire and retain assistant coaches he owns a 4-12 record in 2 years at the helm. On paper, Charlotte has the makings of a team that could quickly become an upper-tier G5 program given their proximity to talent and administrative support but it might be that there are just too many FBS football teams in the area. 

In our Week 4 preview of the NC State-Clemson game we detailed the preseason hype State received and checked to see if it was warranted. I (Rand) thought I might’ve been a little too harsh and State could potentially make me look like a big idiot with a respectable performance in Death Valley. I won’t even call myself a genius because calling State football overhyped frauds is about as impressive as beating a 3rd grader in trivia. Clemson spanked State 59-35 in a game that somehow was a bigger blowout than the final score shows. State was down 45-7 at halftime but the game was over at the beginning of the second quarter when State’s kicker missed a 48 yard attempt to try and make it 28-3. Ballsy coaching there, Dave. State turned the ball over 3 times while Clemson did whatever they wanted on offense. State has winnable games on the schedule and a hypothetical 8-4 record is nothing to scoff at, but it’s quite a downfall from the preseason playoff hype they got. I will say, the people calling for Dave Doeren’s head are asinine. State is clearly at their ceiling as a football program and unless Nick Saban is walking through that door it’s not changing. State fans either need to accept their ceiling or keep subjecting themselves to this exhausting, vicious, yet humorous cycle of crashing and burning. Go ask Nebraska or Florida how it went after firing their coaches who were consistently leading their programs to mid-level bowl games.

And then there was one…The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The simplest way to explain the game is James Madison waltzed into Chapel Hill and beat UNC’s ass. Of course, it’s much more complex than that and context must be added so allow me to indulge you. In the first half, James Madison scored off a blocked punt, a pick-six, a 69-yard bomb, and a 50-yard field goal. Then tacked on three more touchdowns to lead 53-21 at halftime. New UNC QB Jacolby Chriswell fumbled and threw two picks but did throw for 475 yards. After the game, head coach Mack Brown started a fire by proclaiming he was going to retire if he deemed himself the problem with the football team but told ESPN on Sunday he’d be back on Monday. I don’t know what’s going on in Chapel Hill but Mack is as two-faced as JD Vance. You just got blown out by James Madison and your reaction is to threaten to quit? Before someone inevitably gives me the “he didn’t really say that” argument I say those rumors don’t appear out of thin air. Is whatever he said getting misconstrued or did Brown misspeak in an emotional moment? Probably, but the point is what happened to having your players back? One brutal loss and you’re just going to walk off the job? Brown is beloved by his current and former players and all the coach speak about believing in his team, his players, the program, I think is genuine. But being a nice guy doesn’t win you football games. He’s loyal to a fault, especially with his assistants. Speaking of assistants he puts too much faith in, why would anyone think hiring Geoff Collins as the DC would be a good idea? Former DC Gene Chizik better be enjoying this as much as Dan Mullen is with watching Florida or hell, even himself and Auburn. Collins is a former DC turned head coach bust at Georgia Tech but defense was his calling card. In his four years in Atlanta here’s where Georgia Tech ranked nationally in total defense aka yards allowed per game. 89th, 109th, 117th, 85th. For shits and gigs here’s the same ranking but for scoring defense. 84th, 110th, 109th, 103rd. Maybe he’s a really nice guy or something because it’s nearly impossible to rationalize employing this dude. 

Carolina’s next opponent is none other than Duke who is undefeated but definitely a paper tiger. Like State and UNC, they struggled to put inferior teams away to begin the year but found ways to win. All four Tobacco Road teams play each other so we’ll know soon who runs the state by season end but for the time being, it’s the agents who will be raking in cash off their coach’s buyouts. 

Conference Roundup

Eyes were on the Big Ten on Friday as Illinois traveled to Nebraska to take on the Huskers in a much-anticipated game for both programs. Nebraska has been riding high in September, looking great against bad competition as star QB and competitive eater Dylan Raiola has looked great so far. But in come the Fighting Illini, who themselves have looked damn formidable, who took down Nebraska 31-24 in OT on Friday night. We don’t intend on taking too much away from a hard-fought overtime game, as Nebraska still looks pretty good, but man is this Illinois team interesting. They can run it, throw it, and they play good defense. That’s typically a winning combo, and now they’re 4-0. The top teams in the rest of the league - Ohio State, Penn State, and Indiana (yes, I’m serious) all took care of business while UCLA and Michigan State lost out of conference games to LSU and Boston College, respectively. Northwestern kicked the saddest field goal we have ever seen on Saturday, on 4th & Goal from the 1-yard line down 17-2 with 5:00 left in the 3rd quarter. They made it, and lost 24-5. Great stuff.

In the SEC, Florida kicked off the day by keeping head coach Billy Napier alive with a 45-28 win on the road against Mississippi State. UF would’ve literally had no choice but to fire Napier should they have lost, which is troubling considering they have no assistants that can act as an actual interim, so good on them for winning for quite possibly their last time of the season. Missouri beat Vanderbilt in overtime, and is starting to look like one of the most fraudulent teams in the country as their offense continues to struggle to get in rhythm over and over again. We told you in the offseason Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia would be hell for teams to deal with, and boy were we right. Texas A&M struggled with Bowling Green but at this point we think Bowling Green might just be pretty good considering they put a scare into Penn State two weeks ago, so we’ll write that off. The biggest story of the day came out of Auburn, who lost at home to a terrible Arkansas team and looked f*cking horrendous doing it. After the game, head coach and morally superior Hugh Freeze once again threw his QB under the bus, which drew extreme criticism from his former QB at Ole Miss, Bo Wallace. Auburn’s blatantly public decision to save NIL money on a QB for 2025 looks like one of the worst decisions of the offseason and it’s genuinely pathetic that Freeze is out here blaming the quarterbacks that he decided to go into the season with. Arch Manning looked pretty good in “#1” Texas’ victory over Louisiana-Monroe, by the way.

The most interesting conference of the week, however, was the Big 12. After the Utah @ Oklahoma State game (discussed above), eyes turned back to the conference as Deion’s Colorado squad took on an equally-bad Baylor team in Boulder. Regardless of the fact that these teams are awful, this game was in primetime (no pun intended) on Fox and did not disappoint. The game was back-and-forth for 60 minutes with Baylor looking like it would pull out a big victory, until they decided to not play defense and allow Shedeur Sanders to make the play of the weekend on a hail mary to tie the game, where Colorado went on to win in overtime. The left-wing media will make this all about Colorado (due to DEI), but the real story here is that this collapse just cost Baylor coach Dave Aranda his job overnight. This was a must win for his Bears - losing it like this ends any hope that he can turn this thing around. Later in the evening, conference favorite Kansas State got absolutely punked by BYU, losing 38-9 in Provo. KSU always has a good defense, but that does not appear to be the case so far this year, and lauded QB Avery Johnson has looked a little lost out there so far. This league remains wiiiiide open.

Lastly in the non-state of NC division of the ACC, the league proved its tenacity which is a nice way of saying mediocre volatility. Duke, Pittsburgh, and Miami are 4-0 but have yet to place a conference game while Louisville handled Georgia Tech 31-19 and is ranked in the top 15. Stanford flew 5.5 hours to upstate New York to play Syracuse in a Friday night conference game and won 26-24. They’re a year away from being a year away but bookmark them for knocking off one of Louisville, Notre Dame, or Clemson. Virginia Tech’s two losses on the year have now come against Vanderbilt and Rutgers. It’s a little jarring to see that result and just shrug given how the past half-decade has gone for the Hokies. Next up is a trip to see #7 Miami and Cam Ward. Did SMU right the ship in their 66-42 win over TCU? We’re still suspicious given the QB flip-flopping but they’re 3-1 and host Florida State next. Lastly, Boston College came back against Michigan State in an emotional and cathartic win in the red bandana game. If you're unfamiliar with the story of Welles Crowther and his heroism on 9/11, take the time out of your day to watch this.

Holding Ourselves Accountable

Tate’s Great Picks: Last Week: 2-4 - Season Record: 14-16

W - Florida -6: beat Mississippi State 45-28

W - Tennessee -7: beat Oklahoma 25-15

L - Cal +2: FSU won 14-9

L/L - USC -5.5, O 44.5: Michigan won 27-24

L - USF +16.5: Miami won 50-15

Tough week for Tate’s Great Picks, dropping down below .500 on the year. The Florida and Tennessee picks were my most confident bets of the week so I’m happy those hit, but the other games were just rough. Cal had the ball in the redzone with a minute left with a chance to cover (and win), but the offense sputtered and couldn’t make it happen. USC didn’t look like they were going to cover, but the game total under 44.5 would’ve been a W if USC could f*cking tackle and not allow Michigan to drive down and score to win without throwing the ball. That’s on me for needing USC’s defense to do something positive ever in their existence. USF got blown out in the second half after their star QB Byrum Brown got banged up which was not at all ideal, so I’ll eat the L there - that was my Upset Pick of the Week as well, dammit. We’ll get ‘em next week - I’m doing much better than big fat dumb OnlyRans, so I’ll take that for now.

OnlyRans: Last week: 3-3 - Season Record: 13-23

L - Arizona State +3: lost to Texas Tech 30-21

L - Cal +2: lost to FSU 14-9

L - USC -5.5: lost to Michigan 27-24

W - UCLA +24: lost to LSU 

W - Tennessee -7: beat Oklahoma 25-15

W - Colorado -1.5: beat Baylor 38-31

Comparison is the thief of joy, Mr. Smillie. I’ll remember that comment when OnlyRans takes over the betting industry because you will not be allowed in my big, dumb casino. The Justice Department is going to sue me for anti-competitive business practices with how successful OnlyRand is going to be and that starts…next week! A .500 record for the weekend is nothing to write home about (hi, mom) but it’s better than stupid ugly Tate’s Great Picks. I rode the Arizona State wagon a little too hard but such is life when you’re making picks in a game with the two worst teams in the Big 12. My upset pick was much closer to hitting than Tate’s and frankly should’ve hit. For those of you who did not catch the end of the San Jose State (+12) - Washington State game on Friday night let me break it down for you real quick.

Washington State came back from 14 points down in the 4th quarter and were down 38-37 after Cougars kicker Dean Janikowski (no relation to Sebastian) missed a PAT late in the fourth quarter. Then this game turned into a heavyweight bout. San Jose State interception leads to a Wazzu touchdown and it’s 43-38 Cougs. Then, Spartans QB Emmett Brown who transferred from Washington State led a 72-yard touchdown drive to put SJSU up 46-43 with 26 seconds left. Washington State comes back down the field and kicker Janikowski bangs home a 52-yarder as time expires to send it to overtime. First possession of overtime San Jose State throws a pick. 2nd play for Wazzu they throw an interception of their own. Wazzu scores and nabs the 2-point conversion in the second OT and SJSU responds with their own touchdown but can’t convert the 2-point conversion. Ballgame. 54-52 Wazzu. Pac-12 after dark is immortal. 

Wake Forest & Georgia

The Deacs & the Dawgs both had the week but we’ll be back on Thursday with Georgia heading to Tuscaloosa and The Deacs hosting a feisty Louisiana team.

Texts of the Week

Big Ten on CBS is illegal.” - Sam W

“What if USC is the greatest team in history which means LSU is really good and so is South Carolina and thus Kentucky is good and we’re good too?” - Robbie E

“It’s beautiful.” - Sam W after Arkansas and Auburn threw three consecutive interceptions to each other

“I absolutely love Auburn being a complete dumpster train wreck.” - Waide S. Me too, man.

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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.