Here are eight takeaways from a chaotic Week 8 in college football:
1. Georgia remains top Dawg as Texas gets a glimpse at what it takes to fully be in the SEC
Three years ago, when the Texas Longhorns announced they were going to join the SEC, everybody from the school’s hierarchy to the most casual fans would have imagined a weekend like this in Austin.
The latest Game of the Week would kick off at Darrell K. Royal Stadium with the top-ranked home side hosting the program, in this case the No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs, which has largely come to embody the gold standard of the sport. International dignitaries in town for an F1 race would make burnt orange fashionable. Maybe even the oppressive central Texas weather would cooperate and make things more than bearable.
What they likely did not envision, though, was it culminating in a 30–15 loss that said just how far Steve Sarkisian’s program still has to go in order to be fully back as much as it did about the visitors everyone seemed to doubt coming in.
The Bulldogs largely dominated the game despite not playing their best. They were fast, physical and simply the better side despite quarterback Carson Beck throwing three interceptions and making life much harder than it should have been in one of the more lopsided losses a top-ranked team has been involved in recently.
Texas didn’t lead for a second and had to regroup at halftime just to make things respectable after staring down a 23–0 hole. Starting quarterback Quinn Ewers kept turning the ball over so much that he was benched in the second quarter … only to return to action and need 43 attempts to get 211 passing yards. Backup Arch Manning had a brief appearance, but even he couldn’t turn into the necessary spark to light a comeback. The Longhorns had a few moments of life as the game settled in but never seemed willing to fully seize the bull by the, ahem, horns.
However, it was a controversial call/no call that will be best remembered. Facing third-and-10 at the Georgia 31-yard line, Beck dropped back and sailed a pass that Jahdae Barron appeared to pick off and nearly run back for a score. Defensive pass interference was called as boos rained down from a six-figure crowd. Following a subsequent replay on the stadium video boards that showed offensive pass interference, if anything, Texas fans proceeded to hurl bottles and other items onto the field.
Sarkisian pleaded for all to stop, but the bullying seemed to work as officials then reversed the call during the time it took Texas staffers to clear the field. The interception stood, and Jaydon Blue scored two plays later to make it a one-score game.
Tension convention? Sure, it was the perfect opportunity for Georgia to clench up and allow momentum to swallow it whole in an environment it was in for the first time since 1958. Instead, the Bulldogs showed that championship mettle which has been so present during this recent run, marching 89 yards in 11 plays before Trevor Etienne punched it in from the 1-yard line on fourth-and-goal.
Texas never got any closer.
“Nobody gave us a chance,” a fiery Smart told ABC after the game. “Your whole network doubted us. Nobody believed us. They [the officials] tried to rob us with calls in this place, and these guys are so resilient. We talked about intent. What was our intent when we walked on the field? Our intent was not to take pictures, not to do all the superstar stuff.
“Our intent was to eat.”
That they did. Against Texas, against the doubters, and even, in the end, against the officials. If that doesn’t make it mean more for Georgia, there’s very little else in the SEC that does.
2. Cam Ward continues to carry Miami, which is locked on an ACC collision course with Clemson
The Miami Hurricanes have a bona fide Heisman Trophy contender at quarterback, possess an incredible knack for making plays down the stretch and are sitting at 7–0 following their third consecutive one-score escape against an ACC foe.
Much of the credit comes down to Cam Ward. The signal-caller’s latest masterpiece (319 passing yards, four touchdowns) was on full display during the team’s 52–45 win at the Louisville Cardinals. Ward, who has now thrown for 300-plus yards in eight consecutive games, converted a key third-and-17 late in the fourth quarter and was pinpoint with his passes. His legs allowed him to escape pressure on nearly every drop-back despite an aggressive pursuit from the Louisville defense.
It isn’t sustainable for a true national title contender to keep playing in one-score shootouts, but if you have Ward coming up clutch like he has, it might not matter until the calendar flips to December. With the Duke Blue Devils (yes, that 6–1 Duke football team) the lone remaining threat on a schedule that doesn’t have a ranked team left, the Canes making the ACC championship game unscathed is closer to reality than most would have guessed coming into the season.
The Clemson Tigers are doing their part to be on the opposite sideline. The Tigers got off to a slow start against the pesky Virginia Cavaliers, but eventually woke up and ran off 35 consecutive points. QB Cade Klubnik has surpassed his passing touchdown total from last season in just seven games and the team won its sixth straight by double digits since an opening loss to Georgia.
The slate has been favorable, but there’s something to be said for Dabo Swinney’s crew taking care of business in such an efficient manner to look like a real contender in the ACC once again.
3. Are you all aboard the Indiana wagon? If not, it’s time to jump on.
For the first two months of the season, the Indiana Hoosiers have been a nice underdog story.
In the wake of a 56–7 shellacking of the Nebraska Cornhuskers in front of a national audience, the plucky Hoosiers are no longer deserving of a pat on the head. No, now is the time to start taking IU seriously in the Big Ten race amid the program’s best start since 1967 and to jump fully onboard the growing bandwagon Curt Cignetti is captaining.
Indiana, now 7–0, remains one of just two teams in the country (Army being the other) which still hasn’t trailed in a game this season. The Hoosiers have yet to allow a point in the first quarter. They play hard, smart, win in all three phases and their head coach is a swagger-inducing quote machine. What’s not to like?
Maybe most impressive was the way the Hoosiers manhandled the Cornhuskers and the famed Blackshirt defense that entered giving up just 11.3 points per game (seventh in FBS)—all largely without starting quarterback Kurtis Rourke. The Ohio Bobcats transfer banged up his throwing hand in the second quarter and spent the second half in street clothes, but the Hoosiers barely skipped a beat. Backup Tayven Jackson scored two touchdowns on just eight attempts while the run game didn’t blink at a stacked box to finish with 215 yards.
Buckle up in Bloomington because the Notre Dame Fighting Irish aren’t the only College Football Playoff contender emerging in the state.
4. Oklahoma’s offense is broken, and Brent Venables has arrived at a crossroads
It is never good for any Oklahoma Sooners head coach to be compared to John Blake.
Yet, he was the head coach who came to mind Saturday as the Sooners trailed 32–3 to the South Carolina Gamecocks going into the locker room—the biggest halftime deficit for the home team at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium since Blake helmed the program in 1997. The final score didn’t wind up looking much better (35–9) and it increasingly looks like OU will have to upset at least one AP Top 25 team to make a bowl game.
That’s not where anybody expected head coach Brent Venables to be midway through Year 3 in Norman, much less an administration that handed out a hefty contract extension a few months ago as a show of faith going into the SEC. Venables isn’t just putting a bad team out on the field, he’s doing so with a completely unwatchable product.
Against the Gamecocks, starting quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. threw an interception on the first play from scrimmage to set the tone. He completed three passes to his teammates and two to the other team before getting benched. Jackson Arnold, the five-star who started the season with such high expectations, now cannot redshirt to preserve a year of eligibility and wasn’t markedly better after entering the game, completing half of his passes for 225 yards (54 yards came on one play).
South Carolina’s defense outscored Oklahoma, 14–9, (courtesy of a pick-six and fumble return) and had four turnovers and nine sacks—the most ever allowed by a Sooners offensive line.
“I’m incredibly hurt for these players,” Venables said. “We’re all falling incredibly short right now.”
That starts with Venables, first and foremost.
5. Lincoln Riley is out of answers after the latest USC collapse
If there’s a modicum of solace for Oklahoma fans, it may be the fact that Venables’s predecessor might be in worse shape after Lincoln Riley’s USC Trojans led for 59 minutes in College Park but still walked away a 29–28 loser to the Maryland Terrapins.
The Trojans have now lost three in a row and four of their last five to open Big Ten play. They’ve had a fourth-quarter lead in every game this season but are 3–4 overall (1–4 in the league).
Against the Terps, USC turtled thanks to an offense that became a shell of itself earlier on, putting together just one sustained drive after halftime while having a field goal blocked that would have extended the lead to two scores in the fourth quarter. It’s one thing to collapse on the road, it’s another to do so to an opponent that just got blown out by Northwestern and was previously winless in conference play.
Riley maintained USC was “close” after three losses by a combined 13 points. But close to what? Right now it’s the bottom of the standings as the Trojans sit 16th in an 18-team league. More concerning for the is the man with an eight-figure salary apparently doesn’t have any answers on where to go from here.
“I don’t know,” a dejected Riley responded when asked about struggling to close out wins.
Once a lock for the top five of every head coach ranking, the transported Texan has lost nine of his last 14 at USC and is two games worse than Clay Helton was after 34 games in Los Angeles. That may be just as damning for Riley in the big picture as much as getting field-stormed by Minnesota and Maryland.
6. Brady Cook wins the tough guy award of the week
Listen, there was no reason for neutrals to partake in watching the Missouri Tigers’ 21–17 win over the Auburn Tigers. However, for those who followed along, you caught some incredible heroics courtesy of Mizzou quarterback Brady Cook.
The senior injured his ankle on the Tigers’ opening drive and was driven down the street to get an MRI at a local hospital as play continued. He eventually warmed back up at the program’s indoor facility and made his way back onto the field just in time to engineer a remarkable 17-play, 95-yard go-ahead touchdown drive in the final minutes. That sequence included a 14-yard scramble to convert one third down plus a strike to wideout Luther Burden III on fourth down before running back Jamal Roberts found the end zone with 46 seconds left.
Drinkwitz said Cook went to the hospital for an MRI during the game. He told the team "I've only got 2 1/2 games left on Faurot Field, I'm not missing this one in the hospital."
— Power Mizzou (@PowerMizzoucom) October 19, 2024
7. The troops keep marching on
The Army Black Knights still haven’t trailed all season and quickly moved past the East Carolina Pirates, 45–28, to extend the nation’s longest winning streak to 11. Quarterback Bryson Daily may start hearing his name mentioned on the fringes of the Heisman conversation after a career-high five rushing touchdowns Saturday gave him a school-record 19 on the ground after just seven games.
Daily put him in the spin cycle.
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) October 19, 2024
📺 ESPN2 pic.twitter.com/c34gyNv8Ry
Meanwhile, the Navy Midshipmen are 6–0 after thumping the Charlotte 49ers, 51–17, for their best start since 1979. QB Blake Horvath threw three touchdowns on 13 pass attempts and didn’t have to do much work after halftime because cornerback Dashaun Peele recorded two pick-sixes that helped lock up the program’s first bowl bid since 2019.
8. The Big 12 continues to defy expectations, so good luck making sense of it
The Big 12 is a coin-flip league to rule all, where any result is possible on any given day.
Take the BYU Cougars, who are somehow 7–0 and atop the standings despite being unable to play a single normal game of football. You may have missed that they gave up an incredible, methodical drive to the Oklahoma State Cowboys … only to chaotically march down the field in the blink of an eye to score a touchdown and remain undefeated.
Joining them atop the standings are the Iowa State Cyclones, which rallied in the second half of a wild game against the UCF Knights to start 4–0 in league play for the first time ever. Oh, they’re also off to the best start in school history since 1938.
The Cowboys, one of the preseason favorites to win the conference, still don’t have a Big 12 win.
Then, there’s the modern college football Rorschach test that is the Colorado Buffaloes. The Buffs are still in the running for a spot in the conference championship game after breezing past the Arizona Wildcats and have the program’s best start since 2018. Deion Sanders is just a win away from bowl eligibility and has a much more complete team than a year ago, especially considering two-way star Travis Hunter missed the second half of the 34–7 laugher in Tucson for precautionary reasons.
The Cincinnati Bearcats are also 5–2 overall and have two losses by a combined four points this season. The Bearcats just knocked off the resurgent Arizona State Sun Devils and travel to Boulder next week for a matchup nobody predicted would have CFP implications.
The most surprising outcome came in Lubbock where the Texas Tech Red Raiders came in as one of three undefeated teams in the league and were looking to earn bowl eligibility with a homecoming date against the Baylor Bears. The Bears, which had lost three in a row and seemed on the verge of letting head coach Dave Aranda go, promptly dismissed any such notion to with a 59–35 win.
College football is often a sport that fails to make sense and nowhere is that more apparent than in the Big 12.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as College Football Week 8 Takeaways: Georgia Welcomes Texas to SEC.
