LSU 35, Florida 28

Before the season, eight SEC teams were ranked in each major poll – now approximately halfway through the season, there’s only one undefeated team left: Les Miles’s LSU Tigers, who have leaned on Leonard Fournette, a strong offense line, and a characteristically stout defense. After a tightly-contested win over Florida – a classic Miles game that was won on a fake field goal in the fourth quarter – the Tigers look every bit the part of a playoff contender: they face Alabama in three weeks on the road in a game that will likely play an enormous role in determining the SEC West.*

Considering the context, Florida acquitted themselves  well. With Treon Harris at the helm in place of suspended starting quarterback Will Grier, the Gators were forced to turn to a quarterback who’d proven to be erratic and ineffective in the past, but Harris played a solid game – especially for a visiting QB in Death Valley – throwing for two touchdowns and no interceptions. Even though Florida was completely unable to establish a running game (31 carries for 55 yards), the Gators put 28 points on the board, though half of them came on an LSU fumble on a punt return deep in Tigers territory and an electric punt return touchdown from freshman Antonio Callaway that tied the game late in the third quarter.

The most appealing game-within-the-game in this high-level matchup was Leonard Fournette and the LSU offensive line against their toughest test in a very solid Florida run defense: Fournette still notched 5.8 yards per carry on 31 attempts, though his longest carry of the day was just 25 yards. The big plays, surprisingly, were provided by a heretofore unproven passing game – a 52-yard flea-flicker to Malachi Dupre set up an early Fournette touchdown and Brandon Harris connected with Dupre again for a 50-yard touchdown in the waning seconds of the first half. Harris still hasn’t thrown an interception this season, allowing LSU even more comfort in their preferred style. The blueprint hasn’t changed for Les Miles: the Tigers want to control the game on the ground as much as possible.

Ultimately, it was a mostly even game – had LSU elected to actually kick the field goal, they likely still would have won – but  Fournette again showed why he’s the most impressive player in college football, very possibly its best. Florida, which would have pushed itself squarely into the playoff discussion with a win, still remains in the driver’s seat in the SEC East – they can lock up the division with a win over Georgia this weekend.

*Also at the forefront in the SEC West hunt is Ole Miss. The Rebels may have seen their playoff hopes slip away for good with a loss to Memphis this past weekend, but they still only have one loss in SEC play (to Florida), a tiebreaker over Alabama, and a home game against LSU later this season. Things aren’t looking great in Oxford right now, but they’re in it as much as anyone at this point.

[More footbaw after the jump]

Alabama 41, Texas A&M 23

Last year, Alabama absolutely torched Texas A&M 59-0, so there was nowhere to go but up for the Aggies, who managed to hold the game reasonably close throughout most of the game but never could get out of their own way. Alabama had three interceptions that were returned for touchdowns: a Minkah Fitzpatrick pick from 33 yards out to open the scoring, a 93-yard backbreaker from Eddie Jackson for a crucial 10- or 14-point swing in the second quarter, and another Fitzpatrick INT, this one a 55-yarder, that put the game out of reach at its final score. A&M responded well to the brutal Jackson interception, returning a punt for a touchdown before the half and scoring another early in the third, but the Aggies only managed a field goal in the last 25 minutes of game time.

For the second time in three weeks, Alabama easily defeated an undefeated conference opponent on the road; unlike the win over Georgia – a type of opponent that Alabama is built to destroy – shutting down the A&M offense was a positive sign that some specific weaknesses that the Bama defense has had against the various kinds of spread offenses were being addressed, specifically the ability to deal with a high-volume Air Raid attack. Sure, three pick-sixes are an extreme outlier, the type of statistical anomaly that distorts the game completely, but Alabama was in control for most of the game and looked the better team than A&M Saturday. Content to restrict QB Jake Coker to low-risk throws, Alabama turned to Derrick Henry, who carried the ball 32 times for 7.4 yards per carry and two touchdowns. On the other side of the ball, the Tide defense only allowed 1.3 yards per carry and had four takeaways total.

Even at the time, the Tide’s early-season to Ole Miss felt like somewhat of a fluke – the Rebels won the turnover margin by +5 and still just barely won – and it certainly didn’t disqualify them from playoff contention: they get LSU at home and have a very manageable remaining schedule outside of that game. Death, taxes, Alabama lurking around the national title race.

Utah 34, Arizona State 18

In a game befitting the Pac-12 South – a division that looked like one of the nation’s best before the season, but one that’s been very chaotic thus far – Utah defeated Arizona State: the Sun Devils scored all of their points on the back of special teams: a kickoff return for a touchdown, a punt return set up a field goal, and an inexplicable safety (a play in which Utah tried an illegal forward pass from its own end zone on a kickoff) helped ASU stay in the game, but Utah still managed to assert its will late in a game that was a little closer than the score would indicate.

It was an odd game. Despite the torrential rain in Salt Lake City, both teams were forced to throw the ball – Utah managed 2.3 yards per carry on the game (and a late 62-yard Devontae Booker romp for a score to put the game at its final margin affects that number), Arizona State somehow had just 0.5. Travis Wilson played well at quarterback for the Utes – especially considering the conditions – and connected with Kenneth Scott for some big gains on the evening. It was certainly not one of Utah’s best games, all things considered, but the play of their defense has to be especially encouraging moving forward.

Utah’s now the last man standing in the Pac-12 South: the Utes are 3-0 and everybody else has at least two losses – UCLA was run out of the building by Stanford last Thursday (and surely the crucial injuries at each level of the defense didn’t help there), USC has had its own drama and now has a new coach, Arizona State struggled early in the year but has come on a bit (though they needed to upset Utah to have a legitimate shot at the division), and Arizona has sort of faded into the background as injuries continue to mount there also. Now sitting at 6-0, Utah’s toughest remaining games are road trips to USC (where the Trojans are actually favored) and Arizona and a home game against UCLA, not exactly the gauntlet that it looked like before the season. College football is a wild and unpredictable sport, but it’s Utah’s division to lose at this point.

Elsewhere:

• In maybe the biggest game of the week, Michigan lost to State. Since it was a game with such national relevance, I was going to talk about it, but you know what, I don’t want to write about it and you don’t want to read about it. I’m coping with the loss better than I could have ever expected, thanks for asking. Let’s go win the Big Ten.
• There was another big game between Big Ten teams this past weekend, but Iowa went to Northwestern and mercilessly clobbered the Wildcats 40-10: even without Jordan Canzeri, the two top Hawkeye backs totaled 285 yards on 36 carries (almost eight yards per carry) and scored five touchdowns on the ground. This was Iowa’s toughest remaining regular season test – somehow, their toughest game of the year might be a non-conference win over Pitt that very much flew under the national radar about a month ago. Regardless of if they make it undefeated, to win the Big Ten, the Hawkeyes will have to go through the Big Ten East champion in Indy.
• USC faced a trip to Notre Dame in the wake of Steve Sarkisian’s firing and the Trojans played much better than many would have thought, though they ultimately ran out of gas and were outscored 17-0 in the fourth quarter for a 41-31 loss. ND was up two touchdowns in the second quarter before two long touchdown passes to JuJu Smith-Schuster and Adoree’ Jackson tied the game up right before the half, but the Irish were able to put up touchdown drives of 90 yards or longer in the fourth quarter to win the game. Notre Dame now goes on the road to face a surprisingly good Temple team and Pitt in back-to-back weeks, games that they need to win to reenter the playoff discussion.
• Stanford’s 56-35 win over UCLA this past Thursday triggered a little bit of playoff talk – pundits were quick to dismiss the Cardinal’s early-season loss to Northwestern as an anomaly and they’ve definitely played well enough since then to work their way into the playoff conversation if they win out. On the other hand, UCLA’s defense finally broke under the weight of all the season-ending injuries they’ve had this year (Eddie Vanderdoes, Myles Jack, and Fabian Moreau were maybe the best defenders the Bruins had), which isn’t a good sign heading into a game against Cal.
• In one of the country’s weirder rivalry games, Memphis took down Ole Miss 37-24 – the Tigers are now the class of a surprisingly solid AAC (that also features Temple and Houston, both of whom are still undefeated). Memphis quarterback Paxson Lynch was a star against the Rebels, throwing for 384 yards and three touchdowns. For the second straight year, Ole Miss has followed up a win against Alabama with multiple losses – they’ve been unable to parlay their success against the Tide into bigger things and, even if they manage to win the SEC – not likely, considering who they just lost to – they’re a very long shot to make the playoff now.
• Auburn barely escaped Kentucky on the road in a game between two of the SEC’s lower-middle class … Ohio State eventually turned to J.T. Barrett and won comfortably over Penn State … Baylor passed its first test of the season with flying colors, avenging their loss to West Virginia last season … Clemson and Florida State stayed undefeated with respective wins over Boston College and Louisville … Kansas played its best game of the year! (and still lost to Texas Tech by ten) … Pittsburgh, quite possibly the most positive surprise in the ACC, won on a late field goal against Georgia Tech, the conference’s biggest disappointment … Indiana allowed 28 unanswered points to Rutgers and blew a huge lead, losing 55-52 … Arizona managed to avoid an upset at the hands of Colorado, scoring three touchdowns in the fourth quarter and winning 38-31 … Oregon extended its win streak over Washington to 12, even though this was the best shot the Huskies have had in a long time … Missouri lost to Georgia 6-9 (nice).

Next Week

It’s Michigan’s bye and a lackluster slate of games: you should go outside, read a book, spend time with your friends, family, significant others, etc., do some yardwork, take a nap, whatever. I should do stuff like that too, but I’m afflicted with an unhealthy addiction to college football, so the games I’ll most likely tune in to are Cal – UCLA (Thursday night), Tennessee – Alabama (3:30 Saturday), Texas A&M – Ole Miss (7:00), and Utah – USC (7:30). Yes, it’s a really bad week for college football. Hopefully we can see Indiana upset Michigan State or something, because college football’s brand of deeply stupid insanity can strike at any moment, seemingly when we least expect it.