College Football 2020: Thoughts from around the nation in Week 4

A massive shakeup to the AP Top 25 highlighted the best Saturday of college football this season. Some thoughts about the week that was.

What a week it was. Upsets, shootouts and comebacks are staples of college football, but when all three combine into one game, you have something special.

• Kansas State upset third-ranked Oklahoma 38-35 in Norman. Skylar Thompson threw for 334 yards while rushing for 3 touchdowns in a game that Kansas State actually trailed 28-7 midway through the third quarter.  The Wildcats scored 24 unanswered points, including 17 in the fourth quarter.

Spencer Rattler threw three picks in the game showing that while he could be the next great Sooners quarterback, he still has a lot of room for improvement. Some of his passes were extremely ill-advised.

• In another huge upset, Mike Leach took Mississippi State into Death Valley and came out victorious. With LSU replacing just about everybody but the popcorn guy, it’s hard to see why so many are considering this such a stunner.

The biggest shocker in the game was KJ Costello. We all knew he was a capable quarterback, but 623 yards was not to be expected. Then again, Leach’s air raid offense produces some strange stat lines, so maybe that’s not too crazy either.

Is Mississippi State now a Playoff contender? When you face the defending National Champions on the road and punch them in the mouth, your stock is going to rise. Yes, LSU lost a ton, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that Mississippi State was clearly the better team on Saturday. The Bulldogs should win the next two against Arkansas and Kentucky to reach 3-0. The true test comes in mid-October, when they travel to Texas A&M and host Alabama in back to back weeks.

We’ve seen what Leach can do between his time at Texas Tech and Washington State. Don’t write Mississippi State out of the playoff hunt, but don’t write them in just yet, either.

• A team that you can absolutely write into the College Football Playoff hunt is the Florida Gators. Kyle Trask’s six touchdown passes lead the Gators to a 52-35 win over Ole Miss. The game was close for a bit but Florida blew the doors off in second quarter and never looked back.

One thing we knew but were reminded of on Saturday was that 6-foot-6, 240-pound tight end Kyle Pitts is an absolute monster. There’s not much he doesn’t do extremely well. Pitts caught eight passes for 170 yards and four touchdowns. He is only going to get better as the season progresses and the SEC defenses are in a lot of trouble. A tight end hasn’t finished in the top 10 in Heisman voting since 1977, but we might be looking at a guy that can do just that.

• Texas Tech did the Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons proud in blowing a 15 point lead in three spectacular minutes. The Texas Longhorns stormed back after Texas Tech took a 56-41 lead with 3:13 left in the game. A quick Texas strike followed by an onside kick that went through the hands of a Red Raider defender was recovered by the Longhorns. Texas then scored again, followed by a two-point conversion and went on to win in overtime.

Offense has never been the problem at Texas Tech, but defense continues to be an incredible issue. Texas Tech hasn’t had a top 50 defense in points per game since 2009. It’s no coincidence that since the end of 2009, Texas Tech has gone through four head coaches and had a losing record in six of ten seasons. If there was any semblance of defense, the Red Raiders would be a threat to almost any team in the country.

Alan Bowman has an insane amount of talent. He’s been through a lot of injuries, including a collapsed lung twice. If you don’t know him, you should. He’s one of the most underrated players in the entire country.

Next week, Texas Tech squares off against the same Kansas State team that just defeated Oklahoma. Take the over.

• Texas A&M… that was ugly. The team looked disinterested and like they knew they were the best team on the field. They were as proven by the win, but it showed on the scoreboard as the Aggies struggled to defeat a Vanderbilt team that might not even win a game by a score of 17-12. A&M’s upcoming game against Alabama doesn’t look nearly as interesting as a result.
• Don’t sleep on BYU as a New Year’s Six contender. After hammering Navy, the Cougars destroyed Troy 48-7. BYU’s toughest remaining game is Houston, and we have no idea how good Houston will be because they’ve had four season openers postponed. BYU’s defense has been lights out so far, but they’ll be tested by Louisiana Tech this week.
• Florida State traveled to Miami and while the Seminoles were physically there, mentally they were anywhere else but Hard Rock Stadium. The ‘Noles are bad. Really bad. Miami won 52-10 in a game that wasn’t even as close as a 42-point deficit would show.

Florida State had 330 yards of offense, if you’re looking for glass half full. The flip side to that is three turnovers, 12 penalties for 113 yards and 517 yards allowed. It was so bad, Miami actually pulled D’Eriq King to start the fourth quarter.

Sure, it’ll add more fuel to the rivalry in the future. But Florida State has a lot of problems they have to fix. The offense can barely find the end zone, the offensive line is awful, kicking is an issue and the defense isn’t much better. The Seminoles have Jacksonville State next, before an absolutely brutal stretch that includes Notre Dame, North Carolina, Louisville and Pitt. When all’s said and done, we might be looking at a three-win Seminoles team.

• Finally, the AP poll. Before we get into this, check out our own Zach Bigalke’s article where he had the impossible task of projecting this week’s poll.

Forty new teams were eligible for the poll this week: the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Mountain West all entered the race this week.

I’m not sure how you can even properly rank any of these teams yet. Maybe a week before they start, but almost a month? In some cases over a month? We all know Ohio State is going to be good. I think they’re going to win the national championship. But how do you put them in the poll when, through no fault of their own, they haven’t played a game and won’t for another four Saturdays?

I’m not saying don’t rank them, but doing it this early questionable. Five teams entered the poll that have yet to play: (6) Ohio State, who actually received first place votes, (10) Penn State, (14) Oregon, (19) Wisconsin and (23) Michigan.

Ohio State might be the first school in AP Poll history to receive first place votes and not be on all the writers’ ballots in the same week.

It’ll be interesting to see if anyone else enters the poll in the weeks ahead. USC and Minnesota are the two biggest names missing, as they were ranked 17th and 19th respectively.

It’d be surprising if Iowa didn’t find their way back into the poll before they play also. They were ranked in the first poll and figure to do some damage in the Big Ten.

The biggest loser in all of this are the Group of Five schools, namely Louisiana. Now, I can confidently assure you that a Sun Belt team will not make the playoffs. But the return of the big boys cost an undefeated team a spot in the rankings. Not only an undefeated team, but a team that was ranked 19th heading into the week.

Louisiana isn’t ranked because we think they’ll be good. They won 11 games last season. This season, all they’ve done is embarrassed Iowa State, came back to beat Georgia State, and a beat a Georgia Southern team that has a habit of beating the class of the Sun Belt, Appalachian State. Maybe they’ll get a little more respect when they play App State on Oct. 7. #RankLouisiana.