Coastal Carolina wins the game of 2020. The atmosphere at Coastal Carolina's Brooks Stadium was one of those that seemed through the television screen, evident that everyone in attendance was ready to jump out of their skeletons. It was the kind of crowd that made you think, "Man, if only they could have had a packed house tonight."
And then you realized a packed stadium was never going to happen, because if it was it would mean there was no pandemic, and thus BYU-Coastal Carolina wouldn't exist.
This game was borne out of the strangest of circumstances but lived up to every bit of its hastily-constructed hype. And it lived it up to that hype because Coastal answered the bell at the line of scrimmage.
Against a team that bullied its first nine opponents into the largest line-of-scrimmage advantage in college football -- BYU entered Saturday ninth nationally in yards per carry (minimum eight games) and fifth in ypc allowed, a differential of 2.45 yards per rush -- Coastal answered the bell. The Chanticleers didn't shut down BYU -- the Cougars averaged 6.3 yards on 26 carries -- but their offense controlled the game.
Coastal rushed for 281 yards and three touchdowns on 54 attempts. Most important in that line is the 54 carries, which allowed Jamey Chadwell's team to sit on the ball for 37 minutes and 51 seconds. They needed every single second, because this is how it ended.
The win doesn't change things a ton for Coastal, at least not in the immediate term. The Chanticleers still need significant help from Cincinnati to reach the Peach Bowl, but that's beside the point. They're in line to become the first undefeated Sun Belt champion ever, the undisputed best team in the league's 20-year history. They have two AP Top 25 wins, as many as Alabama and Notre Dame and more than Clemson, Ohio State and Texas A&M. Most importantly, they were the biggest story in college football on the first Saturday in December. This happened, and that's a championship in itself. DeVonta Smith for Heisman. With all due respect to Mac Jones, Smith is Alabama's Heisman candidate. And with all due respect to Kyle Trask, Smith should probably win the thing. A wide receiver hasn't won the award, nominally given to college football's best player, since Desmond Howard in 1991; 20 quarterbacks have won in that same span. And if Smith doesn't do it this year, no wideout ever will again. In a year where no quarterback, save for perhaps Trask, has stood up and demanded the award, Smith has been as productive as any wide receiver can possibly be. He entered Saturday second nationally (minimum eight games) with nine catches, 134.3 yards and 1.33 touchdowns per game. Smith topped those numbers Saturday night -- by halftime. He compiled seven grabs for 219 yards and three touchdowns in the first two quarters, finishing with eight for 231 in a 55-17 romp.
Smith stepped his game up after Alabama lost Jaylen Waddle for the year, catching 35 balls for 749 yards and 11 touchdowns in his last four games. What more can he do?
As for the rest of Smith's team, it's safe to say they enjoyed avenging last year's loss in Tuscaloosa -- and the celebration that came after.
Don't look now, but Oklahoma's defense is good. It took around 20 games to get there, but Alex Grinch has finally gotten the Sooners to play like an Alex Grinch Defense.
The Sooners handled Baylor 27-14 (it was 27-7 before the Bears scored with a minute left) while limiting the Bears to 288 total yards, 4.7 yards per attempt, 1.0 yards per carry and snaring two interceptions.
Since intercepting Sam Ehlinger to stave off an 0-3 start to Big 12 play, Oklahoma is allowing...
... 15.6 points per game
... 306.2 yards per game
... 4.4 yards per play
... 2.71 yards per carry
... 1.6 takeaways per game
... 4.2 sacks per game
Those are top-10 numbers. Not in the Big 12, but for the entire country.
The defensive improvement has come just in the nick of time for OU's quest to go 6-for-6 in Big 12 titles in the Lincoln Riley era. The Sooner offense was held to 267 yards (its fewest since Oct. 11, 2014) and 27 points (its fewest since Sept. 17, 2016). And it should have been 20.
It was a good weekend for the Playoff bubble. Both Ohio State and Texas A&M will return home from road wins believing they did enough to beat out the other for the No. 4 slot in the committee's eyes.
Ohio State went to East Lansing and thumped Michigan State 52-12 after a week off. The Buckeyes led 28-0 at halftime, rushed for 322 yards and four touchdowns, and never allowed Michigan State back in the game, as had been a problem for the scarlet and gray this season.
Texas A&M struggled mightily with Auburn for three quarters. In fact, if this is caught, Auburn would've had the ball with a 20-14 lead and 13:30 to play.
It wasn't, though, and A&M dominated the fourth quarter en route to a 31-20 win. The Aggies ran for 313 yards (both A&M and Ohio State averaged 6.7 a carry). Texas A&M has now won six straight, and five straight by double digits. The Pac-12 has a dilemma on its hands. As it stands right now, Colorado and USC are tied atop the South at 3-0. Washington leads the North at 3-1, Washington State is 1-1. Colorado and USC and the Apple Cup rivals both had their games canceled due to covid, meaning it's possible the two teams could finish with an identical number of losses and no head-to-head matchup to settle the dispute. Now, USC and Washington State play each other today -- hashtag 2020 -- so it's not possible for both divisions to end in an unmitigated tie. But one of them very well could. That's why the conference should move things around depending on who wins today. If USC wins, that would mean canceling USC at UCLA and Utah at Colorado, and if Wazzu wins it'd require axing Washington at Oregon and Cal at Washington State. It wouldn't be easy canceling rivalry games like Oregon-Washington or USC-UCLA, and it'd require a rematch of also rans to fill in the gap you're creating (in the North, it would mean an immediate rematch of Cal vs. Oregon), but it's the only way to avoid the wholly unfair result of, for example, Colorado finishing 5-0 and losing its division to another team that went 5-0.
FRIESThe Super 16. Here's this week's FWAA-NFF Super 16 poll.
- Alabama
- Notre Dame
- Ohio State
- Clemson
- Florida
- Texas A&M
- Cincinnati
- Indiana
- Iowa State
- Miami
- Oklahoma
- Georgia
- Coastal Carolina
- BYU
- Northwestern
- Colorado
Seen and HeardSeen
Heard
"Every week we see who competes well in practice, who does the best job that we feel like affects the guys around him. And we will do that as long as I'm the head coach here at every position, so you don't have to ask me again."
-- Jeremy Pruitt, loving where Tennessee's quarterback room is at this point of his tenure.
"I tell our team all the time, 'Control what you can control' and I would be a hypocrite if I didn't do the same."
-- Tom Herman, on the rumors that he'll be out of a job soon.
"The fact that they beat us last year, they probably have some confidence that they can play well against Alabama, so we're going to have to change the way they think when it comes to that."
--
Halftime: Alabama has 45 points, most they’ve ever scored in a full game in Baton Rouge.
Pregame:pic.twitter.com/LWF6MsFuJC
— Rich Eisen (@richeisen) December 6, 2020
" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nick Saban, preparing to drop the hammer on LSU. Odds and Ends a. Cal earned its first win of the season, dethroning Oregon 21-17. It's a big win regardless, but especially so for Oregon grad/Cal head coach Justin Wilcox, Oregon grad/Cal OC Bill Musgrave, and Oregon grad/Cal DC Peter Sirmon. Wilcox went for a 4th-and-2. The Bears went for two fourth downs on their final drive, leading 21-17, getting one and missing another, but the defense bailed them out by forcing and recovering an Oregon fumble at their own 36 with 52 seconds to play. b. The longest active losing streak in FBS is now over. Akron snapped its 21-game skid with a 31-3 thumping of Bowling Green, the Zips' first win in more than two calendar years.
c. Speaking of losing streaks, Kansas came very close to ending its 54-game Big 12 road losing streak. Aided by a Texas Tech team that coughed up four turnovers and missed three field goals, the Jayhawks had the ball trailing 16-13 but could not muster a first down. It was as ugly to watch as it reads on your screen.
d. Rice dethroned undefeated Marshall 20-0 in one of the more shocking results of the season. The Owls snared five Thundering Herd passes; there had been five interceptions total in 10 combined Rice/Marshall games entering Saturday. It was Rice's first win over an AP Top 25 opponent since Oct. 12, 1991, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
e. Iowa State clinched a trip to its first Big 12 Championship while in the first quarter of its game against West Virginia, but the Cyclones went ahead and dominated just for the fun of it. Cyclones 42, Mountaineers 6. f. It took 17 years, but Miami has its first shutout of an ACC opponent. 'Canes 48, Blue Devils 0. g. Notre Dame completed its third undefeated regular season since 2012 and its second in three years with a 45-21 walk over Syracuse. The Irish are officially a win away from going undefeated in their only ACC season. h. The Clemson-Notre Dame rematch is officially on. The Tigers clinched their sixth straight trip to Charlotte with a 45-10 defeat of Virginia Tech. i. For the second straight year, the American is in for a really awkward ending. A year ago, Cincinnati and Memphis played in the final game of the regular season, then again for the conference championship a week later. It'll happen again this year, with Tulsa clinching a spot opposite Cincinnati in the title game with a 19-6 victory over Navy... a week before visiting Cincinnati. What are the odds? j. It was a big day for interceptions that became touchdowns, or in this case a 2-point conversion.
Arkansas took a 48-47 lead here, but Mizzou drove down to win, 50-48.
k. Coming into Saturday, Eastern Michigan was 0-4 and Western Michigan 4-0. So of course Eastern won, 53-42.
l. Not to be outdone by Coastal Carolina's sudden-change heroics, San Jose State, booted out by Santa Clara County, made an on-the-fly trip to Hawai'i and won, 35-24. The Spartans are now 5-0 on the year.
m. Nevada will play San Jose State for a shot at the Mountain West Championship next week. Neither program has ever appeared in the 8-year-old game.
n. All things considered, Saturday was just about a perfect day for Tom Herman and Texas. The Longhorns dropped 69 points -- the most since beating Colorado 70-3 in the 2005 Big 12 Championship -- in a 38-point drubbing of Kansas State. Senior offensive lineman Derek Kerstetter was lost to a gruesome leg injury, but he returned to sing the fight song after the win.
o. Stanford was also kicked out by Santa Clara County, and the Cardinal are 1-0 as nomads. They went to Seattle and beat Washington, 31-26. Next up: a weeklong visit to Corvallis.
p. Can we talk about what Billy Napier did on Friday night? Leading 24-19 with 1:51 left, Napier decided not to punt and instead did this.
Now, the poor Cajuns long snapper had the yips, so a punt was off the table. But.... it's 4th-and-2! Why not just go for it? A first down ends the game! Instead of asking quarterback Levi Lewis to move two yards forward, he had him go 27 yards backyard, thereby giving App State the ball with ample time to tie or win the game. Now it's true ULL was deep in its own territory there, but App took over at its own 45 after the free kick, so Napier sacrificed two points to gain all of 20 yards of field position. Had ULL gone for the fourth down and missed, a field goal would have been useless to App State. Instead, App got to try a 30-yard boot for the tie, and that was after a throw into the end zone was narrowly incomplete. The kick missed so Napier was vindicated, but I did not understand that move.
DESSERT This was somehow not reviewed. Replay officials will stop games to review six inches of field position but they won't review this. They're trolling us at this point, right?