College Football 2020: Thoughts around the nation from Week 7

A super heavyweight battle in the SEC highlighted a solid Week 7 of college football. Here are some thoughts from around the nation.

Just as questions are staring to be answered, even more questions are beginning to emerge.

• First of all, it’s not the “headline story” but shoutout to undefeated and 25th-ranked Coastal Carolina. The Chanticleers are 4-0 and actually could run the table. That game against App State Nov. 21 will be a blast.
• Now onto the main topics. We have our real SEC favorite, as Alabama silenced any and all doubters this week. They defeated Georgia in what turned out to be a total beatdown. After trailing by four at half, the Tide scored three second-half touchdowns while shutting out the Bulldogs.

Alabama’s defense tightened up in the second half, intercepting two Georgia passes and just dominating everything they did.

Mac Jones was lights out, throwing for 417 yards and four touchdowns. It was hard to figure the Alabama offense not missing a beat after Tua left for the NFL, but that’s what happened. The Tide offense can score with anyone in the country. But there’s another elite team that can destroy the scoreboard…

• …We hear you loud and clear, Clemson. The Tigers scored 73(!!!) points in a dismantling of Georgia Tech. Trevor Lawrence played only one series in the second half but still threw for over 400 yards and five touchdowns.

Let’s be honest here, there are only two teams with a chance of beating Clemson this year: Alabama and Ohio State. That’s it. There isn’t a team in the ACC with a shot. Clemson has way too much talent and depth on both sides of the ball and nobody is going to stop that offense.

• One of the teams that is in the conversation of being able to take down Clemson is Notre Dame. But that’s not going to happen.

Let’s get this straight too: Notre Dame is not beating Clemson this year. In fact, I’ll be shocked if the game on Nov. 7 is closer than 17 points. The defense is good, but Ian Book at quarterback simply isn’t a good as people seem to think.

Book completed 11-of-19 passes for 109 yards against a Louisville defense that gave up 46 to Georgia Tech and 47 to Miami. Aside from the run game, there’s nothing about the Irish offense to be feel good about. A one dimensional attack is not good enough to go toe to toe with Clemson.

And if can’t even be competitive with the Tigers, they are NOT a National Championship contender. Even if they do manage to make a game of it, the Irish are not playoff contenders in 2020.

• I mentioned a couple weeks ago that North Carolina has done nothing to impress me. Saturday, they went out and lost to Florida State. Can we end the North Carolina hype now? The Tar Heels are good, but not good enough to condone a top-five ranking which they had prior to the loss.

So far, the Tar Heels have defeated a terrible Syracuse team, slithered by Boston College and been exposed on defense by Virginia Tech. Preseason darling Sam Howell has gotten better as the season progresses, but he’s no Trevor Lawrence.

Next is rival NC State in a game that ended last year in a brawl. Expect a very physical game with a lot of points.

• It may be time to hop off the Bo Nix train. He has been so average this season and was a huge reason Auburn lost to South Carolina.

Auburn is now 2-2 after Nix completed barely over 50 percent of his passes for 272 yards and three interceptions. On the year, his touchdown to interception ratio is 5-to-4. He’s only completing 55 percent of his passes and don’t forget last week’s “spike” against Arkansas that should have been a fumble. Auburn might want to look elsewhere at quarterback while they still have a chance at salvaging a season.

• Speaking of looking elsewhere at quarterback, Tennessee might just want to consider hosting an open tryout for that position. Ideally, the first qualification is throwing to the right team. Four straight turnovers, including three straight interceptions and two consecutive pick-sixes destroyed Tennessee’s chances of winning against Kentucky.

Jarrett Guarantano is now in his fourth year and just isn’t getting better. If anything, he’s regressing. He’s a prime example of a quarterback you’ll win games in spite of and lose games because of. The Vols are wasting a solid offensive line and a run game that showed decent potential against Kentucky.

Of course, the worst possible time to have these problems is when Alabama is coming to town. Prepare to see arms and legs ripped off.

• Another team that’s all but done is UCF. The Knights have lost back to back games for the first time since 2016. At least a loss to Memphis isn’t considered an upset like the loss to Tulsa was. This might end up eliminating UCF from New Year’s Six contention.

It’s not all bad for the Knights. They’re still in excellent position to claim another bogus national championship.

• Looking ahead, welcome back, Big Ten and Mountain West. It’ll be nice having some Big Ten noon games we all love to make fun of. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say you don’t realize how much you appreciate Northwestern versus Iowa in a noon ESPN 2 kickoff until it’s gone.

The return of West Coast football filling up that 10 p.m. ET time slot will be great, too.

The big stories in the Mountain West will be the heavyweights like Boise State and Air Force, but I’m particularly excited to see the continued growth of San Jose State under Brent Brennan. They’ve slowly been improving since his hire and this year should be no different. With transfer Nick Starkel at quarterback, this season could give a big jump for the Spartans.

As for picks, I’ll take Ohio State over Minnesota in the Big Ten and Boise State over San Diego State in the Mountain West. If you’re looking for long shots/darkhorses, Indiana and Northwestern in the Big Ten and San Jose State and Wyoming out west might be your teams.