College Football Awards, Week 13 (2024) November 25, 2024

Posted by intellectualgridiron in Sports.
Tags: Aggies, Alabama, Arizona State, Auburn, Buffalo, BYU, Cardinal, Cardinals, Clemson, college football, Colorado, Crimson Tide, Curt Cignetti, Deion Sanders, East Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Hugh Freeze, Indiana, Iowa, Iowa State, James Franklin, Kalani Sitake, Kalen DeBoer, Kansas, Kent State, Lane Kiffin, Louisiana, Louisville, Michael Desormeaux, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi State, Navy, NCAA, Nebraska, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, P.J. Fleck, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Ryan Day, San Jose State, Sooners, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Tigers, Tulane, UMass, UTEP, War Eagle, Washington State, West Virginia, Wyoming
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COACHES
Wish I were him:  Ryan Day, Ohio State

Glad I’m not him:  Curt Cignetti, Indiana

Lucky guy: James Franklin, Penn State

Poor guy: P.J. Fleck, Minnesota

Desperately seeking a wake-up call: Deion Sanders, Colorado

Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Michael Desormeaux, Louisiana

Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss

Desperately seeking … anything:  Kalani Sitake, BYU

TEAMS
Thought you’d kick butt, you did: Tennessee (defeated UTEP 56-0)

Thought you’d kick butt, you didn’t: Penn State (defeated Minnesota 26-25)
Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you did: UMass (lost to Georgia 59-21)

Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you didn’t:  Minnesota (lost to No. 4 Penn State 26-25)

Thought you wouldn’t kick butt, you did:  Louisville (defeated Pitt 37-9)

Dang, they’re good: Ohio State
Dang, they’re bad:  UTEP

Can’t Stand Prosperity:  Alabama

Did the season start?  Ole Miss
Can the season end?  Mississippi State

Can the season never end? Kansas

GAMES
Play this again:  Auburn 43, No. 15 Texas A&M 41 (4OT)

Play this again, too:  No. 4 Penn State 26, Minnesota 25

Never play this again: No. 11 Tennessee 56, UTEP 0

What?  No. 21 Arizona State 28, No. 14 BYU 23

Huh?  Florida 24, No. 9 Ole Miss 17

Double-Huh?  Auburn 43, No. 15 Texas A&M 41 (4OT)

Are you kidding me??  Kansas 37, No. 16 Colorado 21

Oh – my – God:  Oklahoma 24, No. 7 Alabama 3

NEXT WEEK

rankings are current AP (week 14)
Ticket to die for:  No. 3 Texas @ No. 20 Texas A&M

Honorable mention No. 1:  No. 16 South Carolina @ No. 12 Clemson

Honorable mention No. 2:  Michigan @ No. 2 Ohio State

Best non-Power Four vs. Power Four  matchup: Stanford @ San Jose State

Best non-Power Four matchup: Memphis @ No. 18 Tulane

Upset alert: Kansas State @ No. 17 Iowa State

Must win: All Big XII games involving Iowa State, BYU, Arizona State, and Colorado

Offensive explosion: West Virginia @ Texas Tech

Defensive struggle: Nebraska @ Iowa

Great game no one is talking about: Navy @ East Carolina

Intriguing coaching matchup:  Hugh Freeze of Auburn vs Kalen DeBoer of Alabama

Who’s bringing the body bags? Purdue @ Indiana

Dishonorable mention:  Kent State @ Buffalo

Why are they playing?  Wyoming @ Washington State

Plenty of good seats remaining: UTEP @ New Mexico State

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?  Kennesaw State @ Louisiana Tech

Week 13 Thoughts:

In perusing through some of the interesting games from this week, just as we began with a game involving Louisville last week, it seems fitting that we do so again.  The Cardinals have given major Jekyll-and-Hyde vibes lately.  They hang tough with Miami, only losing by a touchdown.  Only two weeks later, they embarrass Clemson in Death Valley, thus mortally wounding the Tigers’ bid for the ACC crown.  Then a week later, they lay an egg in the 4^th quarter to Stanford, giving the Cardinal (notice the lack of the plural) a rare win for their dismal year.  Apparently that embarrassment woke something up inside of them, for they turned things around the following week and ripped a potentially dangerous Pittsburgh team, 37-9.  If that team shows up in Lexington this upcoming week, the Governor’s Cup could likely come back to Louisville.

What most of us thought to be the main event of the day – at noon EST, no less – was the Indiana @ Ohio State game.  Finally, a chance to prove themselves against a top five team.  After getting licked by the Buckeyes 38-15, clearly Curt Cignetti & Co. have further developing and growth to undertake in order to be a legit top-five team themselves in the future.  But if the most recent, updated AP rankings are of any indication, it is still likely that IU could make the playoffs.

Speaking of potential playoff teams from the Big Ten, can we legitimately call Penn State the No. 4 team in the land after narrowly escaping a loss to unranked Minnesota?  Yes, P.J. Fleck’s teams are never to be underestimated, and they can make a team pay if said team lets down its guard.  But after such an impressive win on the part of the Nittany Lions, it raises the question of maybe the current rankings are some degree of wishful thinking than that of objective reasoning.  To broaden the scope of the matter at hand, are we truly going to say with a straight face that the three of the top five teams are all in in the B1G?  Are we trying to convince ourselves that No. 4 Penn State is somehow better than No. 6 Georgia?  Same question applies to Notre Dame, at No. 5, to be sure.  I offer this as food for thought as one last week in the regular season remains.

Meanwhile, with Kansas upsetting Colorado and with Arizona State escaping their matchup with BYU with a win, the race for the Big XII crown has been officially knocked on its ear.  As many as four teams could vie for the title – Colorado and BYU still, along with Iowa State and Arizona State, the latter of whom seems to have the strongest momentum of the pack.  Should all four teams win this upcoming week, how to sort out who plays for the conference title?  My personal choice would be to select the explosive combination of pizzazz and momentum, thus Colorado and Arizona State.  But let’s see how these teams fare in their regular season finales in the meantime.

All that said, despite the deserved hype of the Indiana-Ohio State game earlier in the day, the best game of the day turned out to be Texas A&M at Auburn at night.  The Aggies might have been looking past the Tigers, understandably as that program seems to have lost its way this year.  Nevertheless, Hugh Freeze managed to get the War Eagles prepared and focused, and it showed as they took they led the Aggies most of the the game, tied it up at the end of the regulation, then outlasted them in overtime in a wild thriller of a matchup in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

But if one upset in the SEC with title race implications is great, why not double our pleasure with another such upset?  Raise your hand if you had not given up Oklahoma for dead?  Then Alabama comes calling, only to come out flat the entire game.  The Sooners inexplicably held the Crimson Tide to three points the entire game, while Oklahoma scored far more than that.  Don’t look now, but Bama has three losses for this season.  And yet, is anybody going to deny, with a straight face, that they could not beat half the teams currently in the AP Top Ten?

Bottom line:  the Playoff Committee has their work cut out for them in sorting out this week as Rivalry Week is about to unfold.