Week 9 Recap

Good morning and welcome to 4th & Forever, Rand & Tate’s College Football Newsletter. Week 9 of the college football season is in the books which means we officially enter the best month of the season, November. There’s a ton of football to be played and a lot of questions left to be answered. In today’s edition, we provide tips on what you should do instead of watching a college football TV show, compare teams to historical disasters, and offer our thoughts as to why we’re closer to solving world hunger, so without further ado, let’s get to it!

College Football Playoff Rankings

The first College Football Playoff Rankings come out on Tuesday night, and we highly suggest you do literally anything else with your time. Read a book, plant a tree, fluff your pillows, change your sheets (they need it), anything else but get worked up about these rankings. The only reason this playoff show even exists is for ESPN to get their top CFB personalities some airtime and argue about an arbitrary list made by 13 people in a Dallas hotel conference room. Playoff Committee Chairman and NC State AD Boo Corrigan will get the honors of deflecting any pressing question like he’s George Santos. ESPN and the playoff committee treat this process like they’re the World Health Organization deciding which developing country should get more mosquito nets. It’s a ridiculous, insulting, TV ratings grab that doesn’t matter until December. If your team is in contention, please don’t overreact one way or another to this shitty reality TV show. You could make an argument for 5 different teams being ranked #1 and another 5 teams in the top 4. There’s a lot of football left to be played and everything will be decided on the field as it’s supposed to. Not at the DFW Courtyard Marriott in Grapevine, TX.

November Madness

CBS college football analyst Bud Elliot (one of our favorites!) put out a stat on Sunday that we think highlights just how crazy of a November we are about to have: “The Top-15 teams from college football’s preseason poll have played 85 games as favorites of 10 or more points. They are 83-2 in those games. A major reason we are set for so much late-season drama is that the original top-15 have suffered basically zero major upsets.” Side note, both of those losses were Clemson. Lmao.

This season has been awesome so far, but Bud is right - the top teams heading into the year have more-or-less handled business, and it has put us in a position where entering November, we have over ten teams who have an actual path to the College Football Playoff. That means we have a month of football ahead of us jam-packed with games with massive implications, and it all kicks off this coming weekend, so get your trees planted and your sheets washed. In Week 10 we will see #8 Alabama take on #13 LSU in the battle for the SEC West, while #1 UGA hosts #14 Missouri to help determine the East. #7 Texas will try to fend off #25 Kansas State and stay in the playoff race, while PAC 12 frontrunner #5 Washington has to travel to Los Angeles to face Caleb Williams and #24 USC’s high-flying, dangerous offense - #6 Oregon still has to face the Trojans as well. #2 Michigan still has to play #9 Penn State, and of course, will finish their season by playing #3 Ohio State in what could be the most anticipated matchup in that rivalry in decades. The Dawgs still have to play #11 Ole Miss and travel to Knoxville to play #19 Tennessee, too. Oh, and it’s a Jordan-Hare Iron Bowl year - and all of this is before we even get to the conference championship games.

The point is this: we all know that a big reason, maybe the biggest reason that college football is so great is the shocking, season-changing, field-storming upsets that make us all remember where we were when we saw them. Those have been few and far between this year. But the flip side is a November filled with 0 and 1-loss teams matching up week after week, possibly a November that we have never seen before. The race for the final 4-team College Football Playoff is as intense as it has ever been, and we can’t wait to get it started. Well, we’ll wait to fluff our pillows first, but then we’ll be really excited to get it started.

ACC: All Chaos Conference

Mack is Back! Mack is Back! At the podium trying to defend his team’s performance after losing as double digits favorites to a sub .500 team…again. The Heels (6-2) have now dropped two straight after losing to Georgia Tech (4-4) 46-42. Brown said ‘I don’t know’ seven different times in his postgame presser which does not inspire much confidence for a team that seems to be at an inflection point in its season. The Heels gave up over 600 yards of offense to the Jackets, and Drake Maye only attempted 25 passes. We don’t know either Mack, but this ain’t it. Georgia Tech fans are all about to get prescribed Prozac because this team makes absolutely no sense. In the past four weeks they’ve lost to Bowling Green, beat Miami in the infamous anti-kneel game, lost to Boston College, and then beat UNC. Games against Clemson and Georgia remain, but please don’t watch if you have an irregular heartbeat.

While we’re on the topic of teams whose seasons are going down like the Hindenburg, Clemson (4-4) lost to NC State (5-3) 24-17 in Raleigh. QB Cade Klubnik went 33/50 for 263 but two costly picks, one of them being a pick-six, did the Tigers in. Seeing the Tigers not make a bowl game is a very real possibility with games left against Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, UNC, and South Carolina. Similarly, Duke was held scoreless in a 23-0 loss to Louisville and Duke QB Riley Leonard had another atrocious night (121 passing yards, 1 INT) which is a concerning trend. We’re curious just how injured that ankle is and if he should even be playing right now. No rest for the weary (or the injured) as they have a Thursday night game against the Deacs this week.

Miami (6-2) needed overtime to beat Virginia (2-6) 26-23 at home, but Cavs QB Tony Muskett is quickly becoming one of our favorite players to watch in the conference. Virginia is finally showing some fight under head coach Tony Elliot which is certainly a welcome development after everything they went through last year with the shooting. Staying in the Commonwealth State, on Thursday night, Virginia Tech pummeled Syracuse who looked completely listless. After the loss, former QB Eric Dungey who led the Cuse to a 10-3 record in 2018, went on a radio show and eviscerated this team and his former head coach Dino Babers. “I think the worst thing Syracuse did was get rid of Scott Shafer (Baber’s predecessor) to start with…One thing that always rubbed me wrong was that we weren’t Babers guys.” Babers has a pretty big buyout, but it might be time to pull the cord on his tenure. Next week they get Boston College (5-3) who is quietly riding a four-game winning streak after beating UConn (1-7) 21-14. Lastly, poor Pitt (2-6) got blown off the field by Notre Dame (7-2) losing 58-7. Just kidding, Pitt sucks and they deserve everything that’s happening to them right now.

Quick Hitters

In the Big Ten, Ohio State (8-0) pulled away from Wisconsin (5-3) late in a game that was surprisingly entertaining given the lack of touchdowns that happened for the majority of the game. This game basically came down to one team having Marvin Harrison Jr., and the other team not having Marvin Harrison Jr. We do want to give credit to Ryan Day who, despite being a big ole crybaby who almost certainly dyes his beard, has managed to do a complete 180 on this team’s identity from a pass-happy, defensively lacking team last year to a run-first, physical defensive team this year, all while remaining undefeated and in the thick of the National Championship race. He may yell at elderly men, but he’s done a good job this year.

Penn State (7-1) looked pretty crappy against a very bad Indiana (2-6) team, needing a touchdown with under two minutes left to break the tie and win the game. After years of being just Penn State, in the second tier of the conference, the Nittany Lions were one of the most hyped teams in the country coming into the season. It turns out they’re still just Penn State.

In the Big 12, conference front-runner #7 Oklahoma (7-1) lost to Kansas (6-2), which is something that you really don’t want to do. The Sooners have looked very mediocre since beating Texas at the last second, and at this point, the race to make the Big 12 title game looks pretty wide open. Texas (7-1) beat a bad BYU (5-3) team 35-6 without starting QB Quinn Ewers. After a very rough start to the game, backup Maalik Murphy settled in and led the Horns to an easy victory. Defending Big 12 champ Kansas State (6-2) cruised to a 41-0 victory over reeling Houston (3-5), and once again the Wildcats are right at the top of the conference standings after being largely written off earlier in the season due to all of the Texas and Oklahoma rematch hype we’ve heard for weeks now. Watch out for KSU.

Oregon (7-1) absolutely manhandled Utah (6-2) 35-6 in Salt Lake City, which is up there with some of the most impressive results by any team in the country this season. Conversely, USC (7-2) needed a 2-point conversion stop to beat Cal (3-5) 50-49 at home. We’ve beaten this narrative to death, but if Riley doesn’t fire DC Alex Grinch to the sun after the season, there’s zero reason to take USC seriously, no matter how potent their offenses look. UCLA (6-2) beat Colorado (4-4) 28-16 in the Rose Bowl, but Travis Hunter had 2 interceptions, so we are legally obligated to mention that. As Rand predicted because he is a genius, Arizona (5-3) finally got their big upset win in beating Oregon State (6-2) 27-24.

In the SEC we saw one of the most atrocious slate of games you could possibly formulate with Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, and Missouri on byes. Tennessee defeated Kentucky (5-3) in a hard-fought game in Lexington to improve to 6-2 and remain alive in the SEC East race. Our main takeaway here is that Tennessee has a receiver named Chas Nimrod. Chas Nimrod??? If you say so. This Nimrod caught a 39-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter which was big for Tennessee’s momentum headed towards halftime.

Auburn (4-4) beat Mississippi State (4-4) in a game you certainly didn’t watch, and Texas A&M (5-3) beat South Carolina (2-6) in a game that I watched for 5 minutes before audibly saying to myself “yeah I’m not watching this shit.” Ole Miss (7-1) also demolished Vanderbilt (2-7), if you’re into that sort of thing. Very boring weekend in the SEC - that should be the last one we have.

Air Force (8-0) and Tulane (7-1) remain the leaders in the clubhouse for the coveted Group of 5 New Year’s Six bowl spot, but both squads face tough competition in their own conference before they get there. SMU (6-2) hung 69 on Tulsa (3-5) while UTSA (5-3) beat ECU (1-7) to remain undefeated in the American. Don’t forget about FAU and Memphis who both won and remain in the hunt with one conference loss each. Boise State (4-4) and Fresno State (7-1) look like Air Force’s toughest challenges in the Mountain West and they both scored impressive wins over Wyoming and UNLV respectively. Last but not least, the Sun Belt remains impossible to figure out outside of James Madison who is undefeated at 8-0 but ineligible for postseason competition.

Holding Ourselves Accountable

OnlyRans: Last week: 5-6 - Season Record: 39-43

W/L - BYU +18 & Game Total Under 50.5: lost to Texas 35-6

W - Clemson @ NC State Game Total Under 44: NC State won 24-17

L - Michigan State +7: lost to Minnesota 27-12

L - TAMU -14.5: beat South Carolina 30-17

L - App State -17: beat Southern Miss 48-38

W - ODU +20.5: lost to JMU 30-27

L - Marshall -4: lost to Coastal Carolina 34-6

W - Virginia Tech -3: beat Syracuse 38-10

W - Arizona ML: beat Oregon State 27-24

L - Kentucky ML: lost to Tennessee 33-27

Another incredibly mediocre week, but at least you know what you’re going to get, kind of like Buffalo Wild Wings. You have permission to club me the next time I tell you to put money on Texas A&M and Michigan State. Marshall turned the ball over 5 times and let a backup QB throw for 289 yards and 3 TDs on them. App State let 1-7 Southern Miss hang 38 on them even though the Golden Eagles scored 16 points combined the previous two weeks. The BYU bet was actually tracking well until not one, not two, but three 4th quarter turnovers allowed Texas to score two late touchdowns. Kentucky…whatever. NC State transfer QB Devin Leary finally looked decent this year after State fans made you believe he was God’s gift to humanity but unlike Joshua, he did not lead the Pack to the Promised Land and won’t be doing it with the Wildcats either.

Tate’s (Diva’s) Great Picks: Last Week: 3-3 - Season Record: 17-31

W - Virginia Tech -3: beat Syracuse 38-10

L - Georgia State -1.5: Georgia Southern won 44-27

W - Indiana +32: Penn State won 33-24

W - Kansas +10: Kansas won 38-33

L - Purdue @ Nebraska Game Total Under 39.5: Nebraska won 31-14

L - Kentucky +2.5: lost to Tennessee 33-27

Diva went 3-3 and narrowly missed a 4-2 week as Kentucky had a shot to cover (and win) late in the 4th quarter, but couldn’t pull it off, losing by 6. “I feel like it should count if you come really close,” Diva said, and I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been coming close all year, so I’m more like 31-17 than 17-31 if you think about it.

Virginia Tech smoked Syracuse to get her her first victory on Thursday night, but later in the evening Georgia Southern easily pulled away from Georgia State to even up her weekday slate. Side note: Both division races in the Sun Belt are really fun right now, littered with really good teams that would beat a solid amount of Power 5 teams. I suggest you start tuning in here in November.

Diva took Kansas and Indiana for no other reason than our roommate Lindsay has family ties to Kansas and went to Indiana for college, and both of those teams covered with ease. Should I let Lindsay pick for me now? No, I won’t do that to our readers. Diva’s .500 week simply isn’t going to cut it for my season record to get back to being respectable, so I’ll be taking back over next week. What could go wrong?

Wake Forest & Georgia

Georgia (7-0) - Georgia 43 - Florida 20: Lmao Florida. Hahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

The Dawgs absolutely dragged the Gators on Saturday and despite Florida’s best efforts, we are now one step closer to ending all hunger, poverty, and war in the world. For two weeks national writers questioned if Georgia would be able to move the ball offensively without Brock Bowers, and Georgia answered those questions with a square punch to the jaw. Carson Beck looked really damn good once again, throwing for 315 yards and 2 touchdowns, and he has now thrown for 300+ yards in all of his first 8 starts, an SEC record. Ladd McConkey is finally fully healthy and absolutely exploded for 135 and this touchdown, Dillon Bell & Dominic Lovett made big plays, and even Bowers’ replacement Oscar Delp made a Bowers-esque catch on the first possession of the game.

It was by far the best performance by the offensive line, which continues to get healthier, has played so far, and the Dawgs scored 36 consecutive points before garbage time. Just an awesome performance by the offense, there’s really not much more to say. After the touchdown on Florida’s first possession, the Dawgs defense absolutely dominated Florida for the next ~25 minutes before garbage time, sacking Mertz four times in the first half and causing two fumbles, as well as blocking a punt for a safety. Getting Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins back from injury is massive for this defensive line, as is the continued progress of the younger guys like Damon Wilson, Marvin Jones Jr., and Jalon Walker is starting to make this pass rush look like a force that is going to need to be reckoned with down the stretch of this season. Tremendous effort by the D.

Overall, it’s starting to feel like we know what this Georgia team is - a pass-heavy offense with more-than-capable receiving targets (especially when Bowers returns), capable running backs that can help keep things balanced, and an OL that, while inconsistent, can be dominant when it is in the mood to be. A defense led by the leadership and experience in the secondary, with a front 7 that has thus far relied on younger and less-experienced guys that are looking more like future NFL players by the game. This is not the same team as the ‘21 or ‘22 natty teams, but at its peak, this is still the best team in the country.

We beat Florida, and the world is closer to planet-wide peace and prosperity because of it. Here are some full game highlights of us kicking Florida’s ass for your Monday morning because fuck Florida hahahahahahaha. Orange People Sad. Go Dawgs.

Wake Forest (4-4) - Deacs a little - Florida State a lot: I wrote the bolded text prior to Saturday, and I see no reason to update it. Wake got their asses kicked by the #4 team in the country. It happens. Florida State passed the ball well, ran the ball effectively, racked up over 500 yards on offense, sacked Wake 6 times, and had 10 TFLs. This was a complete win for the Noles and given the precipitous falls of UNC and Clemson, should have an easy path to the playoff after they annihilate Louisville in Charlotte.

I’m not entirely sure what Wake’s offensive plan is outside of handing the ball off to Ellison and Claiborne, but something needs to change. QB Mitch Griffis returned from injury and went 6/16 for 82 yards. I know the game plan coming in was to pass the ball as little as possible given the OL struggles and FSU’s DL being littered with future NFL players, but put in Marucci or something, please. When Clawson pulled Griffis for Kern against Virginia Tech he said the offense needed a ‘spark’ and I certainly think that would’ve been helpful against the Noles. If he comes in and does worse, at least you’re not doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Maybe he’s saving it for Duke on Thursday night because whichever team crosses the 50 first is likely winning that game. On to the next, Go Deacs.

Texts of the Week

“Why is Tate not providing his picks? I need something to fade” - Jack Richter.

“Dabo is probably ordering an exorcism for the town of Clemson as we speak.” - Kenan Reed

“Kenan, I know that John and Rand are probably trying to drug you and get you to root against the Heels but hold strong. They’re all bark.” - Jay Reed. Turns out Carolina was all bark.

“Trash program made of literal trash.” - Alex Sztejnberg providing his nuanced, peer-reviewed thoughts on Florida Gators Football.

“Florida touchdowns are considered a war crime by the Geneva Convention.” - History buff Alec Nathan.

“They are Jake Fromming us to death.” - Eli Shankman as Florida drove down the field and scored on us on like 4 straight slant routes.

“Mertz been watching Ridder highlights from last Sunday.” - Jack Zucker after Graham Mertz strip-sack fumble #2.

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.