#Nuggets: Michigan bullies Ohio State again, Clemson is just another team now, and the rest of Rivalry Weekend

NUGGETS

Michigan kicked Ohio State's butt. Again. Let's rewind to Michigan's last trip to Ohio State, in 2018. That day, No. 4 Michigan went to Ohio Stadium banking on the nation's best pass defense to limit No. 10 Ohio State's offense. Instead, Dwayne Haskins threw for five touchdowns in a 62-39 Buckeye win. From the outside, it seemed as if portions of the Michigan fanbase were ready to forfeit the idea of the maize and blue ever being able to compete with the scarlet and gray. When you lose 14 of 15 to your biggest rival, you've got to give yourself an emotional safe space just to get out of bed in the morning.

Things didn't get immediately better. In fact, they got worse. Ohio State pummeled Michigan again, 56-27, in 2019, and 2020 was so bad that Jim Harbaugh nearly got fired while Ohio State played for the national title. Urban Meyer left and Ryan Day won 27 of his first 28 games.

But Michigan didn't give in. It didn't retreat into an emotional fetal position. Jim Harbaugh's program got smarter, faster, bigger, stronger, and tougher. And now look at where they are.

Michigan is heading back to Indianapolis for the Big Ten Championship, and back to the College Football Playoff. 

Last year's 42-27 win was not a fluke, a confluence of a senior-laden Michigan team meeting a young Ohio State squad with the wrong defensive coordinator. It was a turning of the tide.

Michigan out-scored Ohio State 28-3 in the second half. The Buckeyes opened the game with a 12-play, 81-yard touchdown drive, but just one of their final 12 possessions found the end zone.  

The better team won inside the Horseshoe. The physically tougher team won. The better coached team won. The better program won. For a decade and a half, that was Ohio State. It's not anymore. 

And while there's an entire year between now and then, what reason do we have to believe today that the same won't happen in Ann Arbor on Nov. 25 of next season? 

What do you do now if you're Ohio State? Ryan Day is 45-5 as Ohio State's head coach, but it feels like his approval rating is considerably below his .900 winning percentage. 

Ohio State isn't making the Playoff for the second straight season, or at least it shouldn't in a just world. The Jim Knowles move was the right one, but Michigan still brutalized the Buckeyes for 530 yards on 8.83 a play. 

-- The 2019 team was neck-and-neck with LSU for the best team in the country for most of the season, but got banged up at the wrong time and lost a classic CFP semifinal to Clemson. It happens.

-- The 2020 team spent more time fighting the Big Ten office than Big Ten opponents, but played for a national title anyway, where they were blown out by an historically loaded Alabama offense.

-- The 2021 season was defined by Ryan Day firing the overmatched Kerry Coombs a year too late. A lethal passing offense is wasted by a defense that couldn't stop Oregon and Michigan.

-- In 2022, the offense battled injuries but the defense improved enough to make up the difference, until it didn't.

Look, no one's confusing Ohio State with Nebraska any time soon. The Buckeyes are likely headed back to Pasadena for the Granddady of All Consolation Prizes. 

But the first two years of Ryan Day's regime felt like a continuation of the Urban Meyer era, and the last two have started to feel like the John Cooper Era 2.0 real quick. 

Clemson is just another program now. Does anyone fear Clemson anymore? 

Wake Forest didn't; they took the Tigers to double overtime. Florida State played the Tigers within six points, but if they played again next week in Charlotte I'd take the 'Noles by six. Syracuse also played Clemson within six, and led by double digits in the second half. Notre Dame blew them out. 

South Carolina sure doesn't fear Clemson. 

After falling behind 14-0, the Gamecocks methodically scratched their way back into the game, comforted by the fact that once Spencer Rattler stopped turning it over, DJ Uiagaleilei couldn't beat them. 

After Clemson took a 30-21 lead with just under 20 minutes to play, the Tigers' four possessions went 3-and-out, 3-and-out, interception, punt. The most damning indictment of the DJ U era came with 2:39 to play, when Dabo Swinney decided his team had a better chance punting, getting the ball back quickly and then driving the field, rather than DJ U completing a 4th-and-10 pass from his own 23 with 2:39 to play. 

The gamble almost worked, until South Carolina forced a fumble on a punt return, denying Clemson a fourth chance at a game-winning drive.

The loss snapped three important streaks for Swinney's program: the 7-game Palmetto Bowl streak over Carolina, the 40-game home winning streak, and the 68-game streak when leading at the half. And that's fine. Most importantly, it's earned. Those streaks were mere vestiges of when Clemson annually battled Alabama as the top program in the sport. In 2022, Clemson is barely a top 10 program. 

Clemson may well win the ACC next week, but the ACC is as pitifully mediocre a Power 5 league as I can recall seeing. 

Ultimately, South Carolina may have done Clemson a favor. The 2022 Tigers had no business backing into the College Football Playoff; Georgia would've beaten this squad by 60. After last season's 10-3 dip, Dabo Swinney doubled down on his culture and his brain trust. Clemson has lost its aura of inevitability, and now it's lost its own state.

Let's see what, if anything, Dabo does about it now. 

The Florida-Florida State -- ahem, Florida State-Florida -- game was incredible. Both sides started the game at 100 mph, and never really slowed down from there. The first punt did not occur until 15 seconds remained before halftime, in the 13th possession of the game. 

Trailing 24-21 at the half, Florida State broke away with 17-0 third quarter, but the Gators remained in the game despite quite literally having no passing game for large stretches of the contest. Anthony Richardson finished 9-of-27, but his nine completions went for 198 yards and three touchdowns. Jordan Travis went 13-of-30, and competed his butt off for all 60 minutes.

More than anything, it was great to see Doak Campbell Stadium alive again. The Seminoles knocked off a lot of firsts since the Jimbo era: their first 5-game winning streak (scoring 38-plus in all five games, and counting), their first wins over Florida and Miami in the same season, their first 9-win campaign. 

From the outside in, it looked like Norvell fully won over the fan base on Friday night.

The game of the day was in Corvallis. And to think, Oregon State fans created all that noise with just half a stadium.

The under-construction Reser Stadium felt like an effective metaphor for the team that plays inside it. Saturday marked Jonthan Smith's 66th game as Oregon State's head coach, and likely the first under the national spotlight.

What the nation saw was a tough Oregon State team that competed its heart out for all 60 minutes. The Beavers gnawed their way out of a 31-10 hole by running the ball on their final 19 snaps, picking up 148 yards in the process. 

You can't rally from 21 down in the second half without help, and Oregon provided plenty. Punter Alex Bales dropped a snap at his own 2 yard line, essentially handing Oregon State seven points. On the next possession, Dan Lanning went for a 4th-and-1 at his own 29, which saw Bo Nix run into a dammed-up line of scrimmage. Oregon State needed only 1:39 of possession to gnaw a 34-24 deficit into a 38-34 lead. 

Now pot committed, Lanning went for a 4th-and-goal at the 3 with 2:58 remaining. After running unsuccessfully from the 1 on 2nd and 3rd down, Oregon State forced an incompletion, then churned away the final 2:58 with its ground game.

The win secured Oregon State's first 9-win season in a decade

Oregon State has not won in Eugene since 2007, but the Beavers have won two in a row and three of the past four Civil Wars in Corvallis. Just think how tough they'll be with two sets of stands in 2024. 

Tulane secures its biggest win of the 21st century. The longest losing streak to AP Top 25 opponents is now history. Tulane snapped a 61-game skid against ranked opponents by knocking off No. 21 Cincinnati (they're 24th in the CFP rankings), 27-24 on the road on Friday. The AP opponent losing streak dated back to 1984. 

After building a 20-10 lead, the Green Wave fell behind 24-20, then immediately regained the lead with a 4-play, 75-yard touchdown drive. Two Bearcat opportunities to tie or take the lead resulted in minus-6 yards on seven plays.

The win secured Tulane's first 10-win season since the undefeated 1998 season, and UCF's 46-39 survival of USF on Saturday night ended the Bearcats' 2-year run atop the conference.

After losing to the Knights 38-31 back on Nov. 12, Willie Fritz's team gets UCF back at Yulman Stadium with a conference title and Cotton Bowl berth on the line. Tulane has not played in a New Year's Day bowl game since 1939.

FRIES

The Super 16. Here's this week's NFF-FWAA Super 16 ballot.

1. Georgia
2. Michigan
3. TCU
4. USC
5. Ohio State
6. Tennessee
7. Alabama
8. Penn State
9. Kansas State
10. Washington
11. Florida State
12. Utah
13. LSU
14. Clemson
15. Oregon State
16. Tulane

Odds and Ends

a. Joey McGuire promised his first team would be the hardest playing squad in America, and I can't say he's wrong. Texas Tech fought back from a 24-6 deficit late in the first half to defeat Oklahoma 51-48 in overtime. It's the first time Tech has beaten Texas and Oklahoma in the same season, and the first time Tech closed the regular season on a 3-game winning streak since 1995. 

b. Louisville had an opportunity for real forward momentum, but instead laid a 26-13 egg at Kentucky. Both teams finished 7-5, but the Wildcats retain scoreboard.

c. In what is most likely his final game of a successful tenure at Liberty, Hugh Freeze went out and lost 49-14 to New Mexico State. The Flames were multi-touchdown favorites. NMSU hadn't beaten an FBS opponent that badly since 2016.

d. One of the consistent #takes in this column for weeks is that it's been a good fall for Brian Kelly. That's largely still true, but it was a terrible night for the LSU head coach. Texas A&M played like a team gunning for an SEC and national title, and LSU played like the one playing out the string of a dreadful season. The Aggies never trailed in a 38-23 win that eliminated the Tigers from Playoff contention and took all the air out of next week's SEC championship.

e. It's been a great fall, and was a great night, for Lincoln Riley. In his first year at USC, Riley is on the cusp of his fourth Playoff berth and his third Heisman Trophy following a 38-27 win over No. 15 Notre Dame. Caleb Williams produced as many touchdowns (four) as incompletions.

f. Speaking of Lincoln Riley:

g. North Texas clinched a C-USA Championship berth by fending off Rice, 21-17. Either the Mean Green won and earned a rematch with UTSA, or they lost and closed on a 2-game losing skid to finish 6-6. Seth Littrell's team got it done.

h. Speaking of UTSA, the Roadrunners rallied from 31-14 down to beat UTEP 34-31, knocking the Miners out of a bowl game in the process. Jeff Traylor's team has won at least 10 games in two straight seasons.

i. James Madison is not eligible to play for the Sun Belt title but if they were, they would be. The Dukes won a share of the Sun Belt East title by absolutely rocking East co-champ Coastal Carolina, 47-7.

j. A monster fourth quarter won Troy the Sun Belt West. Trailing Arkansas State 19-14 entering the final frame, the Trojans won the game 48-19.

k. Minnesota held on to Paul Bunyan's Axe for the first time since 1994. The Gophers went to Madison and beat Wisconsin, 23-16, earning back-to-back wins over their rival for the first time in nearly 30 years, while leveling the all-time ledger at 62-62-8.

l. Purdue is going to its first Big Ten Championship after fending off Indiana for the Old Oaken Bucket, 30-16.

m. TCU should be in the College Football Playoff, win or lose next week. The Frogs pummeled Iowa State 62-14, becoming the first Big 12 team in 13 years to go 12-0. Iowa State finished last in the Big 12, but the Frogs' 48-point margin was 10 points greater than the margin of their seven other conference losses -- combined.

n. Kansas State will meet TCU in the Big 12 Championship, and is most likely heading to the Sugar Bowl regardless of what happens next week in Dallas.

o. A truly #Pac12AfterDark scenario played out in the final #Pac12AfterDark game. As Washington and Washington State played for the Apple Cup, Oregon needed a Washington State win to reach the title game, while Utah needed a Washington victory. Washington won, 51-33. 

p. The Iron Bowl happened on Saturday. Alabama won, 49-27.

q. Miami allegedly won five games this season, but no one finished worse than the Canes. You've got opposing social media managers making fun of Mario Crisotbal's in-game decisions. Pitt won the game, 42-16. 

r. Teams that won win-or-stay home games to push their seasons into December: Army (still must beat Navy to get to 6-6), Buffalo (also must win one more game), Georgia Southern (in double OT), Louisiana, Missouri, Southern Miss and UAB.

s. Teams that lost win-or-stay home games: Auburn, Florida Atlantic, Georgia Tech, Miami, Michigan State, Rice and UTEP.

DESSERT

Rivalry Week saw a lot of things, but perhaps the most interesting was a new frontier in utilizing two quarterbacks on the field at once.

Texas Tech quarterback Tyler Shough threw a touchdown to quarterback Donovan Smith.

Meanwhile, Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels handed off to quarterback Jason Bean, who threw to wide receiver Luke Grimm.