Thoughts Around the Nation: Week Five

A wild week across college football has fans comparing this year to 2007.

-We had our share of upsets this week, but Alabama was not one of them even though they were on high alert. The Crimson Tide took care of Ole Miss to remain undefeated and maintain their number one ranking.

Everyone came out of the game talking about Bryce Young possibly reclaiming the top spot in the Heisman race, but the best player on the field on Saturday was his running back, Brian Robinson Jr.

The fifth-year senior had the best game of his career, running 36 times for 171 yards and four touchdowns. He single-handedly outscored the Ole Miss offense. Robinson now has 379 yards on the ground with six touchdowns on the season. He’s not even top 50 in rush yards (yet) but by the end of this season, Robinson might be the guy that comes out of nowhere in the Heisman race.

You’d have to think the score might have looked much different had Lane Kiffin not went for three first-half fourth-down attempts. Two of those attempts came in Ole Miss territory and all three failures led to three Alabama touchdowns. Kiffin went for another fourth-down attempt late in the fourth quarter and that didn’t hit either, resulting in another Alabama touchdown. In total, Ole Miss was 1/5 on fourth down.

I get and totally appreciate being aggressive when you’re playing the number one team in the country. You almost have to be aggressive. But there’s a fine line between aggressive and bad decision making and Kiffin crossed that line three times. Going for it from the Alabama six-yard line is totally understandable. But three of the four turnovers on downs resulted in Alabama having touchdown drives of 50 yards or shorter, including one that was 27 yards.

You can’t give Nick Saban a short field and expect it to end well…make Alabama earn it. If you give anything easy to the Tide, they’re going to take it.

-Notre Dame’s loss to Cincinnati is hardly a shock. The Bearcats are for real and Notre Dame has been exposed for the fraud they are. But we’ll get to that.

Cincinnati played a great game against a tough defense, especially in the first half. This, combined with a win against Indiana a couple of weeks ago, should be enough to propel Cincinnati into the thick of the College Football Playoff conversation. The Bearcats were asked to go on the road and beat a solid Hoosier team and then a top-10 team in Notre Dame and they did just that. I’d argue that Indiana actually gave a tougher fight than the Irish did.

As for Notre Dame, the best way to describe the Irish is overrated. Notre Dame fans don’t want to hear that, I know. But consider the facts. The Irish struggled against an awful Florida State team. They barely escaped Toledo, a one-win team that couldn’t even beat Vanderbilt. They scored 14 offensive points against Wisconsin and likely would have lost had Graham Mertz not thrown four interceptions.

Notre Dame has two glaring problems they need to resolve: the first being the offensive line. The Irish have routinely had one of the best rushing attacks in college football, yet this year they average 82 yards a game. That includes the game against Wisconsin where they averaged literally ONE FOOT per run. One foot. Kyren Williams could be a Heisman contender. But because of the offensive line, he’s nowhere near the conversation.

The second is quarterback. Let’s just say it like it is: Jack Coan is not a good quarterback. He’s a poor decision-maker, moves about as well as a refrigerator on roller skates, and routinely overthrows receivers. Coan should be buying Michael Mayer a corvette at season’s end as a thank you for pumping up his completion percentage.

What happens when you combine the two problems? You have Coan getting sacked 20 times through five games.

Brian Kelly needs to knock off the stubbornness before it costs them another game. Drew Pyne is the guy. The Irish offense looks totally different when Pyne is on the field. The stats on Pyne don’t tell the full story. He’s much better than a 50% passer and adds a rushing element that isn’t quite what Tyler Buchner’s is, but is miles better than Coan. Pyne’s ability to improvise is also superior.

With a road trip to Virginia Tech on deck, Notre Dame needs to make a quick decision. It doesn’t get any easier, with fellow overrated teams in USC and North Carolina to come.

-Alabama might be number one in the polls, but I believe Georgia is the best team in the country. The Bulldogs hammered Arkansas 37-0. Oh, and they did it with their backup quarterback.

Georgia has the best defense in the country. The Bulldogs allowing 177 yards of offense per game, which is over 55 yards more than second-place Iowa State is giving up. Through five games, they’ve given up 20 points total.  The offense isn’t lighting up the stat sheet, but don’t let that fool you: they’re explosive, and usually don’t have far to the end zone because the defense is routinely putting them in good spots.

Honestly, it’s hard to find a loss on the Georgia schedule. They gave Auburn next, which if the real Bo Nix shows up, Georgia might score 40 just on pick-sixes. The Bulldogs should roll. Then comes Kentucky who, feels strange to say, might be the best team on the schedule. Then Florida to wrap up October, where the Gators need to run beyond effectively and dominate time of possession.

Barring a complete disaster, Georgia will finish the season undefeated.

-We’ll finish out with comparisons to 2007. For those of you that experienced it, you know how crazy it got. For those of you who didn’t, there’s no way to explain how chaotic things got at one point.

I’ll use this as an example: Kansas, Boston College, and USF were all ranked No. 2 in the country. USC lost to Stanford as a 41 point favorite, and it wasn’t the biggest shocker of the season. At one point, even UConn cracked the top 25.

This season has drawn comparisons, especially after a wild weekend. Five top-25 teams lost to unranked teams and five more held on by a touchdown or less.

This is the most parody we’ve had in college football in a long time. Clemson is struggling in a way we haven’t seen in over a decade. Ohio State already has a loss, and the way things are looking in the Big Ten, they might lose again this season.

How crazy could things get? Considering we’re not even in mid-October, we might be in for some wild football.

Look at the teams that are much better than we all thought they were. Oregon State, Wake Forest, Pitt, Baylor, Michigan State, BYU, and Kentucky are all teams that have the potential to cause some chaos.

Meanwhile, at the top, other than Georgia, I really think every team in the country is beatable. I can’t see Alabama going without a loss. Someone will get the Tide this season and they better be extremely careful with (Spoiler for Upset Alert later this week) Texas A&M this weekend. Cincinnati might be in line for a letdown at some point. The Big Ten is going to devour itself, especially in the East while the West is already in shambles outside of Iowa. And I really think Texas Tech can knock off a top-tier Big 12 team, and don’t forget about Iowa State.

I don’t think we’ll get quite to 2007 levels of insanity with head-scratching teams in the top five, but this could be a pretty comparable season. Buckle up.