Aside from the opening weekend, Week 6 delivered some of the most high-profile action we’ve seen all year, including three games between ranked opponents.
That didn’t result in a ton of chaos, unfortunately. The top 10 of the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll, for instance, remains unchanged entering Week 7. But that doesn’t mean it was devoid of excitement.
There were entire day was packed with great games throughout the morning, afternoon and evening blocks. As someone who tries to watch as many games as humanly possible on Saturdays, it was honestly a bit stressful.
Let’s try to make sense of all the action as we’ve now reached the halfway point of the regular season. Here are the winners and losers from Week 6 of the college football season.
Winner: Interim head coaches
We’ve seen a shocking amount of movement in the coaching sphere to start the season. We’re less than halfway through October, and five Power Five jobs already sit open. Several others (*cough cough* Auburn) could open any day now.
The efficacy of early firings has been questioned, especially in the case of Nebraska’s Scott Frost, who the school paid an extra $7.5 million to go away just a few weeks early. But Week 6 seemed to vindicate those decisions all around.
Georgia Tech’s Brent Key is now 2-0 after beating a good (albeit rebuilding) Duke team. The Jackets also beat ranked Pittsburgh on the road last week. Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s Jim Leonhard — who may be getting a legitimate audition for the full-time role — demolished a bad Northwestern team.
Nebraska’s Mickey Joseph beat Rutgers on the road Friday night, while Shaun Aguano got his first win at Arizona State, taking down a ranked Washington team despite losing quarterback Emory Jones. Colorado had a bye after firing Karl Dorrell, but perhaps this bodes well for the winless Buffs in next weekend’s homestand against California.
Loser: LSU's hopes at a quick rebuild
After the season-opening loss to Florida State, most wrote off LSU as a team in the midst of a rebuilding year. But the results in the coming weeks called that into question. FSU is much better than we thought at the time, despite back-to-back tough losses, and the Week 3 win over Mississippi State looks better and better as time goes on. Maybe this LSU team was starting to figure things out.
Saturday’s 40-13 loss to Tennessee served as a bit of a wake-up call. The Tigers were outclassed, and this game wasn’t competitive from the opening kickoff — literally. Jack Bech muffed the kick, setting the Vols up for a quick touchdown. They never looked back.
LSU’s defense wasn’t exactly embarrassed against one of the best offenses in college football, and it moved the ball to some degree of success. But in the biggest test of the Kelly era so far, the Tigers were totally unprepared against a better team at home.
This thing is going to take some time, but LSU can get back on track with a winnable game at Florida next weekend.
Winner: UCLA's patience
If you told a Bruins fan when they hired Chip Kelly heading into the 2018 season that he would have just an 18-25 record in his first four seasons, given his track record and the resources the program afforded him, they would certainly be disappointed.
UCLA’s patience with Kelly has been easy to doubt, but it’s paying off in 2022. The Bruins are 6-0 after taking down defending Pac-12 champion Utah on Saturday and seem like a lock to surpass last year’s 8-4 mark, which is currently Kelly’s best season.
This team is a legit contender in the Pac-12, and the matchup against USC in November could have playoff implications. You rarely see patience in this sport, so it’s nice to see a long leash pay off.
Loser: Nepotism
Iowa has delivered some hilariously terrible offensive performances this year, but Saturday’s 9-6 loss at Illinois may take the cake. Since hiring the current offensive coordinator in 2017, the Hawkeyes have ranked 117th, 92nd, 99th, 88th, 121st and (currently) 131st — dead last — in total offense. At most schools, this would have resulted in dismissal years ago.
But Iowa isn’t most schools. That’s because the offensive coordinator in question is Brian Ferentz, son of longtime head coach Kirk Ferentz. Let’s call this what it is: nepotism. And it’s an embarrassment that Iowa continues to allow it to happen, especially in a sport already replete with inequitable hiring practices.
Slate writer and Split Zone Duo podcast host Alex Kirshner put this better than I could.
Keep talking about the Brian Ferentz thing. It's an embarrassment for the coaching industry, and it's unfair to Iowa's fans, players, and non-blood relative staff.
It's not beating a dead horse, because the horse continues to be allowed to run the Kentucky Derby every year.
— Alex Kirshner (@alex_kirshner) October 9, 2022
Brian has spent 11 of his 15 years as a coach working under his father. He went from offensive line coach to run-game coordinator to offensive coordinator in a span of five years, and even if I suspend my disbelief enough to buy that he deserved the job in the first place, it’s hard to argue he’s still around for any reason other than blood relation.
Ferentz is hamstringing his program because he won’t do what’s necessary. And I get it, it would be hard to fire your son. That’s why coaches (or anyone, for that matter) shouldn’t hire their children in the first place.
College football is not a family business, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Iowa is starting to tire of the presence of both members of the Ferentz family.
— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) October 7, 2022
Winner: BERT!
So, in less depressing news, Illinois is 5-1. That’s a thing that’s true.
Bret Bielema has impressed since taking the job in Champaign, and after the win over Iowa, his team looks like it could be a real competitor in a wide-open Big Ten West. Minnesota is still likely the team to beat here, and the division could be on the line when the two teams face this weekend.
But the Big Ten West is bad this year, even by Big Ten West standards. Two of these teams have interim coaches, so why not Illinois?
Loser: Florida State regressing to the mean
Saturday’s tough loss at NC State doesn’t take away from how improved Florida State looks this season, despite the ugly interception from Jordan Travis that cost it a potential win. But FSU has now dropped back-to-back games against a pair of the best teams in the Atlantic, and its likely staring at a third with Clemson up next.
There’s no denying this team has taken a major step forward this season. It’s better in all phases of the game, but aside from a win over LSU that lost some value this week, the resume isn’t wildly impressive. This should be a bowl team, but the ceiling seems considerably lower now than it did a few weeks ago.
Winner: Notre Dame's quiet resurgence
Remember all the Marcus Freeman 0-2 jokes? Me neither. The Fighting Irish have won three straight games, two of which came against Power Five opponents and the third against a ranked team in BYU on Saturday.
This team now sits at 3-2 entering Week 7 and is playing considerably better football than it was a month ago. Is the program where fans want it to be? Certainly not. But Notre Dame beat a good team this past week, and every remaining game outside of Clemson and USC looks pretty winnable.
Freeman may be in the process of salvaging a solid debut season.
Loser: Will Levis-less Kentucky
Losing to a top-15 Ole Miss team on the road because of a lost fumble at the end is one thing, but losing to a floundering South Carolina team at home is hard to stomach. In the Wildcats’ defense, they didn’t have quarterback Will Levis. But his absence doesn’t explain all the problems.
It wasn’t exactly a bad game from backup Kaiya Sheron, and running back Chris Rodriguez had a bad game. The defense played well enough to win.
Turnovers have been a problem for this team, even with Levis, and UK has now lost two-straight. Levis or no, Kentucky feels like it sits squarely behind Georgia and Tennessee in the SEC East right now.
Winner: James Madison's unprecedented success
Just six weeks into James Madison’s time at the FBS level, the Dukes are ranked in the AP Top 25. They were one of the best programs in the FCS for a long time, and at 5-0 on the year, they don’t seem to have skipped a beat when making the jump.
This is, flat-out, the best team in the Group of Five right now. It’s an absolute travesty that this team won’t be eligible for the postseason until next year as part of its transition, because JMU would be the favorite to earn the Group of Five’s auto-bid for the New Year’s Six.
The Dukes are going to make some noise in the coming years.
Loser: An increasingly bleak Year 1 in Miami
The Hurricanes have now dropped three straight after a 27-24 loss at home to North Carolina on Saturday, and they now sit at 2-3 in Mario Cristobal’s inaugural campaign. The recruiting momentum from the offseason feels like a distant memory.
Year 1 isn’t (or at least, shouldn’t be) a referendum on Cristobal, but it’s hard not to be disappointed by the product on the field. It isn’t all negative, as quarterback Tyler Van Dyke had a bit of a bounce-back game, but with remaining contests against Clemson, Florida State, Duke and Pittsburgh, it may be a fight to make a bowl game.
Completely, entirely unrelated: Middle Tennessee State lost 41-14 to UAB on Saturday. Do with that information what you will.
Quick Hitters
- Winner: TCU. The Horned Frogs looked great in a 38-31 win over Kansas that lived up to the GameDay hype. First-year coach Sonny Dykes sits at 5-0.
- Loser: Missouri. It’s been a tough few weeks for the Tigers, who have now dropped three-straight one-score conference games and are 2-4 on the season.
- Winner: Houston. The Cougs almost suffered another bad loss to Memphis, but they overcame a 32-19 deficit with just over four minutes to play to get the win.
- Loser: Virginia. The Cavaliers lost 34-17 at home to a Louisville team that may be about to fire a coach. This is a tough rebuild for coach Tony Elliott.
- Winner: Mississippi State. The Bulldogs are one of the hottest teams in college football after Saturday’s 40-17 beatdown against Arkansas.
- Loser: Northern Illinois. The defending MAC champions made their living in one-score games last year, but the Huskies have struggled this fall. They’re 1-5 after a 52-32 loss to Toledo.
- Winner: Georgia. Nothing cures a couple weeks of sloppiness like playing a team coached by Bryan Harsin, who is still employed, last I checked.
- Loser: Vanderbilt. Clark Lea had a chance to earn a massive first SEC win at Vandy, but his team squandered a 10-point lead as Ole Miss pulled away in the second half. Good luck against Georgia.
- Winner: Tennessee. The Vols looked the part of a top-10 team, and this year’s game against Alabama might actually be worth watching.
- Loser: Iowa State. The Cyclones didn’t exactly look horrible in a 10-9 loss to Kansas State, but this team is now 3-3. On the bright side for ISU fans, Matt Campbell may be killing his chances of taking a better job.
- Winner: UConn. Is that back-to-back FBS wins for the Huskies? You bet! In Jim Mora Jr. we trust, I guess.
- Winner: Colorado State. The Rams got out of the winless category on a walk-off field goal against coach Jay Norvell’s former team in Nevada. To add insult to injury, the win leaves rival Colorado as the FBS’ only winless team.
