College football is unpredictable and delightful, which is why we live for what happens on Saturdays. And the seventh Saturday of the 2024 season did not disappoint, from a top-five showdown that lived up to the hype to a thrilling late-night comeback in Death Valley.
Each Sunday, I’ll publish my biggest takeaways from the college football weekend. I’ll highlight the most interesting storylines, track College Football Playoff contenders and specifically shout out individual and team performances that deserve the spotlight.
Here are my top takeaways from Week 7:
1. Oregon won the game of the year (so far).
It’s always amazing to me when a monster of a game lives up to the hype, and that’s exactly what happened at Autzen Stadium on Saturday night. There were seven lead changes and nearly a thousand combined yards of offense in Oregon’s 32-31 win over Ohio State. This game had a little bit of everything, from a player ejected after spitting on his opponent (!) to questionable officiating decisions at both the start and end of the game. Dan Lanning got his first win over a top-five opponent, and sixth-year senior Dillon Gabriel may have had his Heisman moment. Gabriel and the rest of the Oregon offense were largely spectacular against what had been a vaunted Ohio State defense entering Saturday. What’s crazy is that the Ducks should have won by even more; they left points on the board with a botched extra point, a failed two-point conversion, a missed field goal and the aforementioned spitting penalty that backed up Oregon in a goal-to-go situation. But the Ducks were the better team on the field Saturday, and, despite some mistakes, they figured out a way to pick up the biggest win of the season to date — which makes their path to the College Football Playoff quite straightforward. And it might not be the only time we see these two teams square off this season.
2. Ohio State’s defense let the Buckeyes down.
I still feel really good about the Ohio State offense, even despite the putrid clock management at the end of the game (which falls in large part on Ryan Day — even though an experienced quarterback should not be making those mistakes, either.) But I have significant questions about the state of the Buckeye defense after Jim Knowles‘ crew allowed 496 total yards of offense to Oregon. This has been a theme for this defense in its biggest games in recent years (which, of course, coincides with high-profile losses that Day has endured as the head coach). In the past four seasons, Ohio State has lost to Oregon twice and Michigan three times. In those five games, the Buckeyes have had a grand total of two sacks. They have talented players on that side of the ball, but they’re not generating the necessary pressure on opposing quarterbacks, and defenders like Denzel Burke are getting beat on the back end. Ohio State’s offense played well enough to win in Eugene on Saturday, but its defense was nowhere near championship-caliber. Can it improve enough by January to get the Buckeyes to the national title game? We’ll have to wait and see.
3. Kalen DeBoer is in for another uncomfortable week in Tuscaloosa.
It is good for Alabama that the Crimson Tide did not lose to South Carolina, despite all of the many opportunities the Gamecocks had to come back and win it late. But if you’re a team that just lost to Vanderbilt a week ago, you’d really like to win a game against inferior competition comfortably … and that is not at all what happened at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday. The Tide was again outgained by its opponent, as its defense allowed South Carolina to convert nearly 50 percent of its third downs a week after allowing Vanderbilt to convert two-third of its third downs, too. There are legitimate issues with the Bama defense, and if Alabama continues to play this way, it’s not going to make the Playoff.
Some of the disappointment that is DeBoer’s first season at Alabama can be explained solely by his predecessor. We were undoubtedly spoiled by Nick Saban. His teams were always among the best in the nation; they didn’t ever rebuild because they always reloaded. It was an insanely high bar every single year, and Saban’s teams almost always cleared it. DeBoer knew he was walking into a situation where he was replacing a legend, but I’m not sure he realized what it would be like to follow someone who set a standard of success that is so hard to replicate in college football today. And Alabama fans will not be very patient after another frustrating performance, even if this one did include escaping with the win.
4. Vandy remains America’s team — and this is a good football team.
A week after upsetting Alabama for Vanderbilt’s first-ever win over the No. 1 team in the AP poll, the Commodores beat Kentucky as double-digit underdogs. Diego Pavia and co. did it again, and they did so despite, as Saban would call it, the rat poison they endured all week. They were national darlings after the stunning upset of Alabama, and they said yes to basically every interview request possible. Pavia himself solicited new NIL deals and launched a podcast. And yet they remained focused on the actual football! The ‘Dores never trailed in Saturday’s game and remained very solid on both sides of the ball. Not that anyone who watched the Bama win would think this, but I feel the need to point out that Vandy is not fluky. This is a good football team that is no longer the punching bag of the rest of the SEC, which is both awesome to see and now suddenly a bit scary for the teams remaining on their schedule. The Commodores could be a tough out for Texas, LSU and Tennessee in the back half of the season … which is something I did not expect to write a month ago! How can you not be romantic about this sport?
5. It’s time to give James Franklin his runway.
No, but seriously! It’s time to build a new, longer runway at State College airport, and we can name it after Franklin! That win over USC was impressive enough to address the coach’s complaint this week. We’ve seen the Nittany Lions lose close games like this a decent amount under Franklin; entering Saturday, they’d lost five of their last six one-possession games in league play. This victory wasn’t easy to earn, as evidenced by Tyler Warren’s heroic stat line. We learned a lot about the Nittany Lions when they clawed back into this one, down by 14 points in the second half, to win in overtime. I’m not prepared to say they are better than either Oregon or Ohio State, but their ceiling now seems higher than it did even a week ago.
6. Tennessee might not be very good!
The good news for both Alabama and Tennessee is that one of these flailing programs will get to pick up a nice win next weekend. The third Saturday in October comes when it comes, and it doesn’t matter if neither team is playing particularly well at the moment. The Vols struggled mightily with a Florida team that is expected to part ways with its head coach at some point this season; the Gators have not mailed in the season, but they are nowhere near the top of the SEC standings — and it shouldn’t take overtime for a CFP-caliber team to beat them. Tennessee is not going to make the Playoff if it plays the way it has the last two weeks; there’s so much to shore up on both the offensive and defensive sides it’s hard to even know where to start. It’s time for Josh Heupel to earn those big bucks and get to work.
7. Who is the team to beat in the Big 12?
Is it 6-0 BYU, led by Jewish quarterback Jake Retzlaff? Or is it Iowa State, 6-0 for the first time since 1938? Both the Cougars and Cyclones are 6-0 and now in a three-way tie atop the Big 12 standings with Texas Tech — yet another team I’m not sure anyone would have predicted to contend in the conference before the season began. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: The Big 12 race is going to be the most fascinating conference race of the year. The teams in this league are so bunched up and evenly matched that anybody seems capable of beating anybody on any given day. (Well, except the current iteration of Utah. I don’t think the Utes can beat any of the top-half teams at this point.)
There are three teams tied atop the standings and five teams one game back. I consider all of them in the mix to get to the Big 12 championship game — yes, even Arizona State, a team that’s already surpassed its preseason win total (take that, Vegas!) and is among the nation’s biggest surprises. It’s only October, and maybe this league ends up cannibalizing itself to the detriment of its CFP chances, but boy is this shaping up to be a particularly wild ride.
8. Pitt is 6-0 for the first time since 1982 — when Dan Marino played for the Panthers.
The Panthers are flying under the radar a bit, in large part because of the other storylines in the ACC. You’ve got Miami and its late-game heroics that have kept it unbeaten. There’s the disastrous season in Tallahassee and the resurgence of Clemson following its Week 1 loss to Georgia. Those teams are sucking a lot of oxygen out of the room. But don’t ignore Pitt, which beat Cal with its defense on Saturday but has been winning in general with an offense led by redshirt freshman quarterback Eli Holstein, who has been terrific. After a few years of lethargic offenses, Pat Narduzzi hired Kade Bell from Western Carolina and seemingly gave him free rein. Bell’s offenses are fun, explosive and aggressive, and it’s been a lot of fun to watch Pitt become one of the most prolific offenses in the ACC. And, by the way, Narduzzi went for it on fourth down deep in his own territory in the second quarter against Cal … and was rewarded with a 72-yard touchdown run by Desmond Reid. So, even Narduzzi is getting in on the fun this season, which has been awesome to see.
9. Can Lincoln Riley turn things around at USC?
Riley has now lost eight of his last 13 games as the head coach of the Trojans. The second half of last season was, essentially, a freefall, which was pretty shocking considering he had the reigning Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback. But this season might be even more frustrating, with losses to Michigan, Minnesota and Penn State in games that USC easily could have won. There are lots of issues to point to, from slow starts and defensive lapses to line play and clock management problems. The larger issue is this is Riley’s third season at USC, and it’s not clear it’s a great fit. Riley’s offenses have been largely good (as they’re supposed to be), but he waited a season too long to make a defensive coordinator change, which cost him a potential trip to the CFP in 2022 and more than a handful of losses over his tenure. He’s picked fights with the media over seemingly benign lines of questioning. And he’s not recruiting at the level you’d expect USC to recruit if it was contending for national titles (which is what it’s supposed to be doing). I’m not going to say Riley is on the hot seat (yet), but this is turning into a situation to monitor moving forward.
10. By the end of next weekend, we should be able to identify the best team in the country.
Back in the offseason, we all circled Oct. 12 and Oct. 19 as important dates for the 2024 college football season. Even though we didn’t know specific rankings, we knew Oregon-Ohio State and Georgia-Texas would be hugely important games. It looks like both will end up being top-five showdowns, and by the time the clock hits zero in Austin next weekend, we should have a good understanding of the pecking order atop the sport — at least for the time being. It’s been a crazy season on par with that of 2007 (our usual benchmark for insanity), one that delivers us a handful of field storms each week. So, I suppose I should be careful about any definitive statements about the sport’s top teams this season. There appear to be a few really good teams — hello, Oregon and Ohio State — but they do have their flaws. Georgia has its issues. Alabama has some glaring flaws. Penn State jumped up to the top five of the AP poll last week, but I don’t know if they’re in the top tier of the sport this season at this point.
Texas appears to be the most well-rounded of the top teams, but the Longhorns haven’t really been tested yet, particularly on the defensive side because of how anemic the Michigan and Oklahoma offenses are this season. We’ll see if Georgia can give ’em a game — I think the ‘Dawgs can do just that, even on the road — but at the very least we’ll learn a lot about both Texas and Georgia on the heels of learning a lot about Ohio State and Oregon. And that should clarify an otherwise murky picture atop the sport. For now, at least.