Table for 12 Week 6: Penn State’s College Football Playoff hopes died at the Rose Bowl

The beauty of college football is its unpredictability, but I thought we were a little bit better at it than this. After Week 6, the preseason No. 1, No. 2, and No. 4 teams in the country Texas, Penn State, and Clemson, are a combined 8-7 with one Power 4 win coming courtesy of Dabo Swinney’s Tigers over Bill Belichick’s North Carolina Tar Heels. 

That’s bleak, but it's what happens when Clemson loses outright to Syracuse as a 17.5-point favorite in Week 4, and James Franklin decides to take it one step further with an outright loss to 0-4 UCLA as a 25.5-point road favorite in Week 6. Texas may still have life in the College Football Playoff race, with just one SEC loss on its ledger because right now, college football has a clear triumvirate at the top between Ohio State, Oregon, and Miami, but beyond that, it’s completely wide open. 

Our reservation for college football’s postseason dinner party is far from set, but we got to cross off a few more potential guests this Saturday. Dinner is served, so let’s dig in. 

First Course

1. Toast with Jam (Miller) (No. 10 Alabama No. 16 Vanderbilt 14)

For the first time since 1937, Vanderbilt and Alabama played in a ranked-on-ranked matchup. I’m gonna guess it wasn’t Alabama that failed to hold up their end of the bargain for 88 years. Well, in the first half, it looked like it, with both teams trading blows and the Crimson Tide answering a late Vanderbilt score to head into the intermission tied at 14. 

The first half also looked eerily similar to Vanderbilt’s win last season in Nashville, with the Commodores ripping off big plays in the run game as Kane Wommack’s Alabama defense struggled to fit the run and got exposed for its lack of discipline in the run game by Vandy’s option-heavy attack. 

Then, suddenly, Alabama, already the best team in the SEC, fixed its two biggest problems. The Tide entered Week 6 ranking 130th in rushing success rate and 67th in EPA/rush allowed. They couldn’t run the ball, sometimes a feature, not a bug in a Ryan Grubb offense, and they couldn’t stop the run, a virus in a Wommack defense. However, on Saturday, Jam Miller ran for 136 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries, and the Vandy offense finished with just six successful runs all game. 

Ty Simpson is an accurate enough quarterback for the quick-passing game to serve as an extension of the run game, that’s not just Ryan Grubb lip-service, but if the Tide do have a credible rushing threat, with a quarterback who is fearless throwing over the middle of the field, opposing linebackers and safeties will be in Hell every Saturday. 

On the other side of the ball, mobile quarterbacks have killed Wommack during his time in Tuscaloosa, not just Pavia. Jackson Arnold and Tommy Castellanos have gotten the better of him as well. This time, though, Wommack forced Pavia to beat him as a dropback passer. Alabama strung out perimeter runs, stopped overcommitted on play-action fakes or option looks, and, maybe most important, pass-rushed to keep Pavia in the pocket, only occasional running twists and stunts on the interior, but overrushing on the edges to open scramble lanes. Wommack’s defense has always been good against stationary quarterbacks, so he finally found ways to make Pavia stationary, and no surprise, it worked. 

The Tide picked off Pavia twice, and as they did with another legendary Alabama villain, Johnny Football, they got their revenge. 

An aside: Johnny Manziel was on Vanderbilt’s sideline wearing a Diego Pavia jersey during the game. Is Manziel the worst mentor of all time, ya know, because he made every possible mistake imaginable for a Heisman Trophy winner and first-round NFL Draft pick? Or, and hear me out, is he the best mentor ever for the same reason? Just a thought. 

Second Course

2. Let Shannon cook (No. 3 Miami 28 No. 18 FSU 22)

By now, we know who Mario Cristobal is, and we know that he’s always going to take his foot off the gas. After establishing a seemingly insurmountable 28-3 third-quarter lead, Cristobal retreated into his shell, as he always does, allowing Florida State to outscore Miami 19-0 in the fourth quarter and outgain his Hurricanes 203-23. 

Not to mix another metaphor, but it’s coaching malpractice not to let your offense cook with the ingredients that he’s managed to stock and the chef that he’s hired. Miami has an elite offensive line, a veteran quarterback who looks as comfortable as ever playing behind it, a true freshman wide receiver who is impossible to corral once he gets into open space, and a play-caller who absolutely deserves one of the open head coaching jobs in the Power Four. 

Shannon Dawson led the country’s most explosive and efficient offense last season and turned Cam Ward into the No. 1 pick. Now, Carson Beck looks like a first-rounder again, and if it weren’t for the conservative approach late, he easily could have thrown for six touchdowns instead of just four. 

Dawson broke out the flea-flicker in the first half to create an explosive play to Malachi Toney, but he can also create big plays in the screen game. Beck is throwing screen on 26.5 percent of his dropbacks this season, and this false pull tunnel screen was one of my personal favorites. The right guard pulling away from the flow of the play freezes the linebackers to allow the rest of the offensive line to get up to the second level, and CJ Daniels is gone. 

That’s how you make life easy on your quarterback, and average well over seven yards per attempt on screens. Dawson should get one of the open head coaching jobs, but it’ll be a while before he can get started because this Miami team is good enough to play until January 19. 

Third Course

3. Are we sure Arch is a Manning? (Florida 29 No. 9 Texas 21)

Now, the reason I ask that question is not because Arch Manning isn’t playing well, which he’s not. It’s because the areas that he’s struggling in don’t make sense for a player who supposedly has had a lifelong tutelage to be a quarterback. 

We all know that Arch is more athletic than Peyton or Eli were, but my big concern about him coming into the year was how slowly he seemed to be diagnosing the game post-snap. I never expected the 21-year-old to be a supercomputer in the pocket, but in his limited action last year, it took him so long to get through his progressions, and more often than not, he’d be late to the backside dig or slow to get to his checkdown. That’s continued through five starts in 2025. 

Manning finished with 263 yards on 16 completions and two touchdowns to two interceptions. To me, though, the important numbers are his 3.50 average time to throw and his 20.3-yard average depth of target. 

Some of that was out of necessity as he tried to bring the team back, but much of it was Steve Sarkisian scheming up long-developing shot plays because he doesn’t trust his quarterback to be accurate or decisive enough on a down-to-down basis, so he’s looking to eke out as many exposive plays as possible. It almost worked too, scoring 21 points with an offense that posted a 35 percent success rate and a 12 percent explosive play rate. 

That’s an unsustainable model, but likely Sark’s only hope for offensive efficiency as long as he’s tied to Manning. Especially if Texas is going to get stuffed for a gain of zero or fewer yards on 42 percent of its carries, which it did in the Swamp. 

Check Please!: When it’s clear there won’t be a seat for you at the CFP table, it’s time to pay your check and go

4. James Franklin has more excuses than top 10 wins (UCLA 42 No. 7 Penn State 37)

James Franklin always loses the big games. James Franklin never loses any others. Saturday’s 42-37 loss to winless UCLA was Penn State’s first loss to an unranked opponent since October 23, 2021, and its first back-to-back losses since later that season. The magnitude of this upset loss wasn’t just significant for Penn State program history. It was the first loss by an AP Top 10 team to a team 0-4 or worse since 1985. James Franklin never loses that game; he did today, and it will almost certainly cost his team a spot in the College Football Playoff. 

In the postgame, Franklin shared a whopping five different excuses as to why Penn State lost the game. Let’s interrogate them. 

1. “We did not handle last week’s loss well.”: That checks out. Penn State was down 10-0 before ever touching the ball, thanks to an 11-play 75-yard touchdown drive and an onside kick that set up a field goal. That’s an unacceptable response to last week’s loss, especially in a world where even two losses to other CFP contenders would keep you in the playoff mix. 

2 and 3. “We also lost some players in that game, during the week.” Let’s lump these together because this is the best explanation for what Nico Iamaleava did to Penn State’s defense, rushing for 128 yards and three touchdowns. Penn State lost linebacker Tony Rojas to a long-term injury, and this was the first game without him. Former walk-on Dominic DeLuca, best known for his two-interception game in the first round of last year’s CFP, played in his stead. 

Now, DeLuca is a serviceable rotational linebacker, but Jim Knowles’ new three-safety structure, which he unveiled with Caleb Downs at Ohio State last year, put so much stress on the two linebackers as ostensibly the only second-level players who are asked to fit run gaps and cover sideline-to-sideline. Throw in the fact that Penn State has been a man coverage only secondary for three years under Manny Diaz and then Tom Allen, and you have holes in zone for Iamaleava to pick apart and DeLuca, helpless as a spy if Knowles was even willing to commit one. 

4. “Travel.” Courtesy of Tom Fornelli: Since the start of last season, Big Ten road teams traveling across the Rocky Mountains, entered the weekend 11-20 straight up and 12-19 against the spread. Everybody but Ohio State, Oregon, and Penn State was 5-19 straight up in those such games and 8-16 against the spread. Well, now Penn State doesn’t deserve the honor of being in the “everybody but” group. 

5. “Did not come out with the right energy to start the game. … That’s my responsibility.” Uhh, ya think? 

Technically, Penn State would have a good shot at an at-large CFP bid if it beat Indiana and Ohio State down the stretch, but are you willing to bet on the Nittany Lions in either of those spots? I’m sure not. 

5. Tommy Castellanos is who we thought he was (No. 3 Miami 28 No. 18 FSU 19)

With first-year defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman, Miami plays a fairly aggressive style, with a top 40 blitz rate in the country. That is liable to yield high-variance results against a quarterback like Tommy Castellanos, who entered the Week with an average depth of target of 14.8 yards on pressured dropbacks and leading an offense with a 97th percentile explosive play rate. 

The explosive plays did come for the Seminoles in Tallahassee, right in line with the staggering season average at 13 percent, but FSU finished with -27.32 expected points added when you strip out the explosive plays. Miami’s elite pass-rushing duo of Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor got after him all night, and with his Goonie’s-esque “never say die” mindset and Goonie’s-esque stature, he took too many chances and got burned too many times. That’s why Bill O’Brien couldn’t stomach him for an entire season at Boston College. 

Speaking of burned, Florida State is incredibly lucky that it got to see Ty Simpson in his first career start, because a thrower like that who can attack the middle of the field, if he were more comfortable, would have torched the Seminoles' defense. Carson Beck tuned them up for 241 yards and four touchdowns, with so many of his completions coming between the numbers.

If Tony White’s defense can’t get pressure, it has no chance in coverage. It did in Week 1, when Kadyn Proctor wasn’t in shape and Simpson didn’t trust his eyes, so he held onto the ball for too long. It didn’t in Week 6 against an elite offensive line, and the result was a 28-3 Miami lead through three quarters. 

Head of the table: The best individual performance earns the seat at the head of the table

6. Ohio State QB, Julian Sayin (No. 1 Ohio State 42 Minnesota 3)

Yes, it’s a lot easier when you’re throwing to Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate, but a 0.68 EPA/play and 12.22 yards/dropback performance against a Power 4 opponent is obscenely efficient regardless. The redshirt freshman played just three quarters before heading to the sidelines with a comfortable lead, but he put up a full game's worth of numbers. 

Sayin finished 23-for-27 for 326 yards and 3 touchdowns with a 97.6 QBR. He finished No. 1 in QBR for Week 6, besting Nico Iamaleava and Cade Klubnik, and for maybe the first time this season, was allowed to consistently push the ball downfield to his talented receivers. It seems you earn that trust when you’re willing to stand in the pocket and deliver this ball accurately up the seam. 

It was the sixth-best single-game performance by QBR this season, and the second-best against a Power 4 opponent (CJ Carr 98.1 vs. Arkansas Week 5). This Ohio State team could be better than last year overall, but it’s certainly better at the most important position. 

A seat at the bar: When all the tables are full, sometimes you can grab a seat at the bar, and maybe these emerging contenders will be seated soon

7. It’s time to take Virginia serious (No. 24 Virginia 30 Louisville 27 (OT))

I was not ready to buy into Virginia as a CFP contender following last week’s double-overtime victory against Florida State, but after beating Louisville on the road as a 6.5-point underdog, and after taking another look at the Cavaliers’ ACC schedule, it’s impossible not to. However, even this win was statistically unimpressive. 

Tony Elliot’s Wahoos finished the game averaging 3.44 yards per play, a 4th percentile performance, managed -0.31 EPA/dropback, were outgained by almost 150 yards, and lost their starting quarterback, Chandler Morris, to an injury in overtime. How did they do it, you may ask? Well, Virginia benefitted from a +2 turnover margin, 3.9 points of turnover luck according to Gameonpaper, and a missed field goal in the first half. 

Statistically, there is nothing to make me believe in this team, but with Washington State, North Carolina, Cal, Wake Forest, Duke, and Virginia Tech to the finish line, it is somehow possible that this team has lost its last game until the ACC Championship. 

8. Brendan Sorsby can carry the Bearcats (Cincinnati 38 No. 14 Iowa State 30)

Cincinnati is one underthrown Brendan Sorsby pass against Nebraska away from being undefeated and being viewed as a very real threat to make the Big 12 Title Game, which they very much still are. Despite Sorsby throwing for just 96 yards in that opening game at Arrowhead Stadium in front of Taylor Swift and her – let’s say physically gifted – fiancé, Sorsby is one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the entire country. 

He’s a tough runner, with good vision between the tackles and as a scrambler, often taking off north and south rather than bailing outside of the pocket. Yet, even when you strip away the value he adds in the designed run game, which accounts for 137 of his 291 rushing yards on the season and 47 of his 55 rushing yards against Iowa State on Saturday, he’s still fifth in the country in yards per dropback at 9.63 and ninth in EPA/dropback at 0.41. 

There is not a quarterback in the country more efficient than Sorsby with a similar usage rate, and few who match his efficiency at all. 

Cincinnati’s defense has major issues, ranking 133rd in the country in EPA/pass, despite having a cornerback named McDoom (a name that cool has to count for something, right). With a defense like that, you’ll have to win plenty of shootouts, but with a quarterback like Sorsby, you can. 

Appetizers: A little something to chew on from the week that was in college football

9. Does Stockton see it? And does that even matter? (No. 12 Georgia 35 Kentucky 14)

Plenty of quarterbacks can throw it, but the good ones can see it. Now, five games into his first year as the full-time starter, it’s not entirely clear if Gunner Stockton does. One of the toughest things to do as a quarterback is attack zone coverage. It requires throwing with anticipation and touch, but so far, Stockton has been best identifying his one-on-one matchups and throwing his fastball or his deep ball. 

In Week 6, Stockton finished with 196 yards and a touchdown on 15 of 23 passing, but his lone interception came when he just didn’t see a deep safety in zone coverage and threw the ball right to him. It wasn’t the only throw he had that could’ve gone the other way. This game had a SkyCast broadcast on SEC Network, which is infinitely superior to any sideline broadcast with Pat McAfee, and one of the reasons is that it presents you with the quarterback’s perspective, and on both of his turnover-worthy plays, it was troublesome to say the least. 

Another factor is that Georgia’s best wide receivers are man-coverage beaters. Zachariah Branch with his quickness in and out of breaks, and Colbie Young with his physicality at the catch point. That’s how you get splits like these. 

Whatever the reason that Georgia struggles against zone coverage, Stockton’s ability to run the ball, especially in the red zone, where he cashed in with two rushing touchdowns on Saturday, is the perfect antidote. Without his mobility, Georgia’s offense would be in trouble; with it, the Dawgs are still very much in the SEC Title race. 

10. Can we get Bryce Underwood some help, PLEASE (No. 20 Michigan 24 Wisconsin 10)

The numbers say that Bryce Underwood is eighth in the Big Ten in QBR with a pedestrian 59.2 percent completion rate. My eyes tell me that he’s already one of the best quarterbacks in the country, and you better believe I found some numbers to back it up.

Michigan allocated much of its resources in the offseason to fix its quarterback problem, flipping Underwood from his LSU commitment with an eight figure NIL package. They forgot, however, that it takes more than just a quarterback to have an effective passing game. 

Michigan came into Week 6 with 11 drops on Underwood passes and a 15.9 percent drop rate, the seventh highest of any quarterback in the country and the second most of any Power 4 QB. Then, despite finding playing time for promising freshman Andrew Marsh, the Wolverines had three more against Wisconsin. Through six weeks, Underwood’s adjusted completion rate is well over 70 percent, but he hasn’t connected on even 60 percent of his throws. 

Michigan has two more seasons to put the right pieces around Underwood to win a national championship, because he’s ready now. And I saw Michigan and not Sherrone Moore, because that process includes evaluating the coaching staff. Underwood doesn’t just need receivers, he needs an offense that leans into more spread principles and the RPO game to fully take advantage of all the problems that having a 6-foot-4, 230-pound quarterback who can likely run a 4.4, presents. 

Dessert: Whether it’s a rich play design or a decadent athletic display, here’s a sweet football treat

11. Supersize me

For the second straight week, Alabama found a way to get the ball into the hands of its 6-foot-7 360-pound left tackle, Kadyn Proctor, this time with a short-yardage carry, and you just absolutely have to love this big man football. 

I was torn between featuring Proctor or Louisville’s fake flea-flicker, even in a loss, but if we’re supersizing our dessert, doesn’t that mean we get two scoops? 

Kid’s menu: The CFP is a 12-team reservation that needs one kid’s menu for the Group of Six team

12. Alex Golesh’s audition tape 

If you want to make the jump from the Group of Five to a Power Four head coaching job, the timing has to be just right. This year is Alex Golesh’s best chance. He was a veteran-laden roster led by senior quarterback Byrum Brown, so if he doesn’t cash this roster in for a College Football Playoff run and one of the many P4 jobs that are already open, he may miss his moment. 

So, a week after Arkansas fired Sam Pittman, joining Virginia Tech, UCLA, and Oklahoma State with openings, and with Florida, Wisconsin, and Auburn all seemingly mulling a change, Golesh put out quite an impressive audition tape in the first quarter against Charlotte, surging out to a 23-0 lead, and allowing a zero percent success rate. 

This Friday night matchup was over immediately, and in just a few months, Golesh’s tenure at USF may be finished.