College Football Week 14 Takeaways
The Playoff Push and the end of Ryan Day
The regular season portion of the 2024 College Football season has come to a close. Many teams remain in the hunt for the College Football Playoff, while others will return to the drawing board and focus on building toward next season.
Nonetheless, there is still plenty on the line, especially after another week full of upsets and exciting finishes.
Here are a few thoughts from the final week of the regular season.
Is anyone really the No. 1 team?
With so many highly ranked teams going down in recent weeks, many will argue that there is no true No. 1 team in the country and that the field is wide open. While I agree with the latter, I don’t think the former is true.
Oregon has been ranked No. 1 in every edition of the College Football Playoff rankings this season and is the only 12-0 team. Add that they’ve switched to one of the country’s premier conferences and not missed a beat, and you have a perennial contender.
The Ducks are far from perfect and have had close calls against some teams they should have blown out, but the overall makeup of their roster is as balanced as you’ll find across the country. They can play with anybody and have proven it each week.
The Mountain West will claim the Group of Five playoff spot
Tulane and Army (American Athletic Conference) gave it a good run, but it seems we are down to Boise State or UNLV making the College Football Playoff. Tulane now has 3 losses on the season, and it’s difficult to see the committee putting the Green Wave in the field with multiple G5 teams with 1 or 2 losses. I think Army still has a small chance if it can win the AAC Championship to get to 11-1, but its margin of defeat against Notre Dame does not help its case.
The easy choice would be Boise because it is 11-1 and its only loss was to No.1 Oregon by a mere 3 points. However, the Broncos still need to beat UNLV for a second time, which is never easy. The first matchup between the two schools was close throughout, and Boise came away victorious after a 4th-quarter Ashton Jeanty touchdown run.
UNLV has a solid case with a win on Saturday. It would prove it can handle the other top team in its conference, plus make the Runnin’ Rebels a conference champion. Still, UNLV’s body of work is not nearly as impressive, and Boise would make a much more competitive effort in the playoff.
South Carolina makes a playoff push
Many wrote off the Gamecocks after a closer-than-preferred season-opening win over Old Dominion. Yet, South Carolina finds itself in a great position entering Conference Championship Week.
No, the Gamecocks are not playing for the conference title, but they are ranked No. 13 in the AP Poll, sitting right behind Alabama in the SEC standings, and have three wins against ranked teams. The case is there for an at-large bid, but unfortunately, losses to Alabama, LSU, and Ole Miss could be detrimental, particularly with a potential head-to-head comparison with the Crimson Tide when it comes to one of the final at-large bids.
Ryan Day is done at Ohio State
Ryan Day has become one of the coaches everyone doubts in big games, and it is absolutely a product of how things have turned out on the field. Day’s Ohio State Buckeyes entered Saturday’s rivalry game against Michigan as the No. 2 team in the country with a chance to secure a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game and solidify their status as a CFP team once again.
Instead, Day’s team laid an egg and lost to the Wolverines for the fourth year in a row. That doesn’t fly around Columbus, and it is especially inexcusable to lose to this year’s five-loss version of Michigan football as the No. 2 team on your home field.
Ohio State will still make the College Football Playoff, but its seeding took a big hit. They can say whatever they want in public and won’t fire him before the playoffs because it would be too big a distraction, but Day’s track record gets worse by the day as he fails to live up to the standards the program has set. The only thing that might save him would be a national championship.