The Set-Up Episode: Week 9 Recap

Good morning and welcome to 4th & Forever, Rand & Tate’s College Football Newsletter. We’ve gotten used to some absolute banger matchups and massive upsets in just about every week of the season so far, so we can fully admit that Saturday was about as big of a letdown as we’ve had all year. In that sense it was a good weekend for Rand to get stuck at his job which I’m still pretty sure is as a traveling clown for kids’ birthday parties, so you’re stuck with Tate today. But there were still some phenomenal performances by some of the nations’ best players, some unexpected results among the nations’ best teams, and some further set up to what is going to be an incredible November as we head into the first ever 12-team playoff. There’s better weekends ahead, but let’s dive into some of what we saw on Saturday.

Week 9 Recap

Spooky Season Scares

It may not have been the greatest weekend of college football we’ve ever seen, but it certainly was not without its drama for the playoff hopefuls. It started on Friday night as the two main G5 playoff spot hopefuls, #17 Boise State and UNLV faced off in Vegas. The Runnin’ Rebs made it clear from the jump that they were going to make anybody but Ashton Jeanty beat them, and yet Jeanty was still able to put up 128 yards and the game-winning touchdown in the 4th quarter to move the Broncos to 6-1 and in the clear lead to be the G5’s playoff member this season. Jeanty’s Heisman race against Travis Hunter continues to be one of the more intriguing races in recent years, and no matter how it turns out, it’ll be a damn shame that the runner up won’t get to win the award.

Hardly anyone saw it coming, but Saturday started with a bang as #4 Ohio State struggled mightily offensively against Nebraska, trailing 17-14 late into the 4th quarter before pulling it out 21-17 in the end. It was a highly concerning game for the Buckeye offense which continues to look shaky for long stretches each game and is heavily relying on big plays from the likes of Jeremiah Smith and Quinshon Judkins to score points. The offensive line in particular has looked incredibly average all season, and that group also seemingly lost starting left tackle Zen Michalski for an extended period of time due to a leg injury on Saturday. We’ve seen this team play exactly one good team so far, which they lost to Oregon, and it is time that we start questioning if this OSU squad is going to come even close to the expectations that were bestowed upon them as the most talented Buckeye team ever before the season. They have an absolutely massive matchup with Penn State in Happy Valley next week which will go a long way in determining how the Big Ten - and playoff - race shakes out down the stretch of the season. Speaking of Penn State…

The Nittany Lions trailed Wisconsin 10-7 at halftime late Saturday night and had already lost starting QB Drew Allar for the game due to an ankle injury. It felt like this game had all the makings of your typical upset - Penn State actually played well in the first half but had shot themselves in the foot in several ways allowing the Badgers to stay in it, and then the Allar injury made it feel like the perfect storm was happening for the home crowd in Madison. But Penn State’s second half performance was maybe the most impressive of the weekend, as backup QB Beau Pribula stepped in and went 11/13 for 98 yards and a touchdown, plus another 28 yards on the ground, to outscore Wisky 21-3 in the second half and escape with a victory. Penn State’s defense remains very, very good, and while the offense looks a bit sleepy at times we still think it’s the best offensive attack we’ve seen from the Nittany Lions in years. Absolutely massive win on the road to remain undefeated when all the odds seemed to be against them.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but #25 Vanderbilt absolutely stunned one of the nation’s best teams yet again during the afternoon slate, but this time couldn’t quite pull off the upset as #5 Texas escaped with a 27-24 victory. It was exactly as you’d expect from the ‘Dores - they played smart football, were opportunistic, and Diego Pavia played like Superman for most of the day to give them a shot - but it was how Texas looked that we found noteworthy. We all saw what happened against the first good team that Texas had played against Georgia last week, and in their second real test of the year they continued to look largely inept trying to establish the run game while Quinn Ewers took multiple sacks once again. This is, of course, still a national title contender but over the past two weeks they’ve looked more like they’re just good on both offense and defense rather than being great on both sides like everybody seemed ready to proclaim them as through the first half of the year. We never thought we’d say this, but if Texas continues to run the ball in the traditional sense, they may have to consider turning it over to Arch Manning full time to tap into the QB run game a little bit more. We’ve been unsold on the Horns all season, and Saturday certainly did not answer our questions about them.

While not exactly a “scare” in the general sense of the word, things did look quite spooky at Kyle Field for #14 Texas A&M for most of the first half against #8 LSU. Aggie starting QB Conner Weigman - the human version of a roller coaster - went 6/16 for 64 yards (holy hell, man) to start the game as A&M trailed 17-7 before the half, before head coach Mike Elko opted to replace him with backup Marcel Reed. That proved to be the greatest call of the day, as Reed proceeded to rush for three touchdowns as A&M took over in the second half to pull away 38-23. The Aggies remain unbeaten in SEC play and with an incredibly easy remaining schedule before their Week 14 matchup against Texas, seem to be a legitimate playoff team at this point in the season. This is as good as A&M has looked as a program as a whole in several years, which Elko made sure to make clear in his postgame press conference, saying “This is a real program. It’s not fake. It’s not a politician running this place, fast-talking and BSing everybody.” Was that a thinly veiled shot at former head coach Jimbo Fisher? We’re not entirely convinced, but it is noteworthy that Jimbo Fisher is, in fact, a fast-babbling buffoon. On the LSU side, this loss gives them basically no margin for error but does not fully knock them out of the race - they host Alabama in two weeks and could be right back in the thick of the playoff race with a win. 

Elsewhere, the Top Teams Rolled

Outside of the few interesting results above, it was largely chalk for the rest of the country’s main contenders. #1 Oregon absolutely cruised to a 38-9 victory over #20 Illinois. We were somewhat skeptical of Oregon over the first few weeks of the season but in the past three weeks they beat Ohio State, went on the road to play a perfect game against Purdue, and played yet another nearly flawless game on Saturday. Now that the Ducks are healthier on the offensive line, it’s becoming increasingly hard to find a weakness on this team. They’re running the ball well and are explosive in the passing game, while their defense continues to get healthier and looks pretty elite up front. They may be #1 somewhat by default at this point, but Oregon is establishing itself as the clearcut #1 seed in the playoff if they keep playing like this.

Down in Tuscaloosa, #15 Alabama played a game against #21 Missouri that was just… sad. The Crimson Tide were off to a bit of a slow start early and it looked like Missouri might actually have a shot, until Tiger QB Brady Cook left the game with yet another injury. He was replaced by backup Drew Pine who is truly dreadful at playing quarterback, and Pine immediately started delivering dimes directly to Alabama defenders and the game was quickly over before it felt like it had really even started. Alabama needed this one, and while beating an SEC team 34-0 is always nice, we can’t say we are taking too much away from this one after the Cook injury. How we look at Bama’s season - and the start of the Kalen Deboer era - will all come down to their showdown against LSU in two weeks.

#12 Notre Dame absolutely thrashed #24 Navy 51-14 which was both very un-American and very disappointing after the hype Navy had been receiving headed into this one. #13 Indiana beat Washington despite missing starting QB Kurtis Rourke, while #11 BYU went on the road to beat UCF 37-24 despite being an underdog for some reason? Both IU and BYU are undefeated and remain the two most surprising teams of the season thus far with real playoff implications on the line every time they take the field. 

#6 Miami smoked rival Florida State 36-14 in a game that wasn’t even as close as that store would suggest, and Canes head coach Mario Cristobal sure made his thoughts known on the state of football in Florida known after the game: “All recruits, in-state, out of state, can now clearly see the trajectory of this program versus the other programs (in the state).” That’s some serious sh*t talking, Mario! We love it. Miami is rolling right now behind Heisman contending QB Cam Ward while the Seminoles fall to an absolutely shocking 1-7 and are completely and utterly dead as a program at the moment, having also lost elite receiver recruit CJ Wiley over the weekend. My how things can change in the matter of months.

#18 Ole Miss was able to pull away from Oklahoma in the second half and while we still can’t figure out if the Rebels are even good or not, our main takeaway here is that we can’t figure out why Oklahoma pulled Jackson Arnold so early into the season and then refused to put him back in for so long. This has been one of the worst offenses in the country under Michael Hawkins Jr. in recent weeks, and as soon as Arnold came back in they finally looked like they had some juice on Saturday. Just a weird situation all around and you have to wonder if either of the QBs is looking forward to coming back for another year next year. Colorado also beat Cincinnati 34-23 during the late-night slate to move to 6-2 on the year. After a year of them being very loud and very bad in 2023, it’s actually quite refreshing to see them being kinda quite and kinda good this season. Travis Hunter remains absolutely must-watch TV and may have taken the Heisman lead back over Ashton Jeanty after having 9 catches for 153 yards and 2 touchdowns while also playing corner. Just incredible stuff - Sko Buffs.

Holding Ourselves Accountable

Tate’s Great Picks: Last week: 1-7 - Season Record: 37-37

W - Miami -21: Beat Florida State 36-14

L - Syracuse +6: Lost to Pitt 41-13

L - Illinois +21.5: Lost to Oregon 38-9

L - Michigan State +3.5: Lost to Michigan 24-17

L/L - Navy +13.5, U 52.5: Lost to Notre Dame 51-14

L/L - UL Monroe +7.5, U 45.5: Lost to South Alabama 46-17

Ahhh, man. Dammit. I was due for a dreadful week after profiting most every week so far this season, and boy was this as dreadful as it gets. I saw the signs that I may be in for an abhorrent week on Thursday when I bet on Syracuse to cover and then immediately watched Kyle McCord throw like twenty pick-sixes in the first half. It was all downhill from there as Illinois and Navy got their faces mushed in during the noon slate, and then Michigan State couldn’t pull off even a cover in a close game in the 4th. I thought I was in good shape for the UL Monroe cover when they had a 5-point halftime lead, and then the Warhawks decided they were going to absolutely suck for some reason, allowing South Alabama to score 34 unanswered points in the second half. Yeesh. I suppose the law of averages comes for us all and it took nine weeks for something like this to happen, so I’ll chalk this up to relying too heavily on underdog covers and keep it pushing forward. Back to .500 on the year and it feels disgusting - apologies folks.

OnlyRans: Last week: 8-4 - Season Record: 35-43

W - Indiana -6.5: Beat Washington 31-17

W/W - VT -10, U 51.5: Beat Georgia Tech 21-6

W - BYU +2: Beat UCF 37-24

W/W - Miami -21, U 54.5: Beat FSU 36-14

W - Alabama -16.5: Beat Missouri 34-0

W - Auburn +2.5: Beat Kentucky 24-10

L - Mississippi State +6.5: Lost to Arkansas 58-25

L - Michigan State +3.5: Lost to Michigan 24-17

L - UNLV +3.5: Lost to Boise State 29-24

L - Ole Miss -20: Beat Oklahoma 26-14

Tate here in Rand’s absence, and I am very upset that the week I have to write about Rand’s picks is the week I went 1-7 while he largely crushed it. He made some great plays this week, calling his shot on Indiana covering even without their starting QB, betting on undefeated BYU to beat 3-4 UCF despite very weirdly being an underdog, and the VT cover + under was just beautifully executed. I have no idea why he bet on Mississippi State to ever do anything positive, but he certainly had some room to mess around with the excellent calls he made elsewhere. He’s gaining some ground on our overall win % this year which has me a little nervous. Thankfully I remain vastly more intelligent than him so I should be okay. Good job though, Johnny boy.

Wake Forest

(4-4) Wake Forest 27 - (2-6) Stanford 24: Rand is unavailable for this week’s Deacs breakdown so you’ve got Tate here giving all you Wake fans a shoutout for traveling all the way out to Palo Alto to win a classic Atlantic Coast Conference matchup on Saturday. This was far from a pretty game with the six combined turnovers, but dammit if the Deacs didn’t keep their bowl eligibility hopes alive and come out with a gutsy win on the road. Rand (and our friend Dave) have truly turned me into a low-key Wake fan over the years so I was going nuts when Matthew Dennis hit the game winner at the end of the game, and if I need to donate a few NIL dollars for Clawson to keep Demond Claiborne on this team for another year, I am not entirely opposed to doing so. Unless he wants to come to Georgia. Good stuff Deacs!

Texts of the Week

“Bottles on the field at Ohio State lmaooooo.” - Logan C

“Georgia State > Vandy > Bama > Georgia” - Jack Z

“Go to Marcel Reed you cowards” - Robbie E before A&M did indeed go to Marcel Reed who came back and won them the game. Great call, Robbie. 

“‘Naaaahhhh bruhhhhh ain’t no wayyyy’ - Conner Weigman right now” - Alex S

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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.