The Week That Will Be: Georgia on My Mind
The Horns hope that their best ball is yet to come
Last Week: 2-4 ATS 2-4 SU
For the Year: 46-43-1 (.511) (-$170) ATS 66-24 (.733) SU
The 2024 College Football Playoff starts tomorrow.
Are the Texas Longhorns the team to beat?
No.
Texas is not the best team in the field.
It would be a fallacy to call a team that allowed six sacks and 15 tackles for loss in their last game and one that hasn’t scored a touchdown in six quarters and one that has scored 20 points or less in three of their last four games the best team in the field, or the favorite to win the tournament.
It is a bit perplexing the offensive problems this team has had — the gumbo is only as good as the roux. This Texas offense lacks playmakers – even with a healthy Isaiah Bond they don’t have a wide receiver that would be above the depth chart over any of the three NFL Draft picks in the same room last year. The running back room with the injuries is a downgrade. Their tight end, bless his heart, as much as he has stepped up this year and made himself a NFL Draft choice this spring, isn’t as talented as the guy last year.
Finally, their quarterback hasn’t played as well as he did last year, either. We can talk about the chicken and the egg and what has to do with what until we are blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is, this Texas offense has underperformed in the second half of the season.
However, the beauty of a tournament like this is...what happened until now doesn’t matter.
Playoff brackets are about matchups and peaking at the right time. It is how Eli Manning has two Super Bowl rings, matching his brother Peyton, despite Peyton’s vastly superior career.
It’s about TCU beating Michigan, or a former wide receiver coach from a non-blue blood defeating the mighty Nick Saban.
Texas’s defense is the best in all the land. Pete Kwiatkowski might very well have to go Coach Bill Yoast right there on the field and tell the defense “not one more yard” in order to win this tournament. But these playoff games sometimes tend to turn into track meets.
Thus, the Texas offense must use this opportunity to reset and step up.
Quinn Ewers can go from pre-season Heisman finalist favorite to talk about him transferring (as ridiculous as it was) to his draft stock skyrocketing right up the board again shall he have a strong showing in this tournament. His ceiling is more than good enough for this team to win it all, but his floor might not be enough.
If the Longhorns are to do this, someone in the next 30 days will step up into Longhorn lore and become just as synonymous as 4th and Five or Street to Peschel.
Great moments are born from great opportunity.
You have had to listen all year to “Texas ain’t nobody PAWL”. You have had to hear all year that you weren’t tough enough for Michigan. You had to hear all year that Arkansas was going to upset you and Florida was going to upset you and Kentucky was going to upset you and Texas A&M was going to upset you.
This moment is what you thought about the day after New Orleans last year. It’s why you got up pre-dawn to run sprints at DKR on the cold, dreary January mornings. It’s why you torture yourself on the practice fields in August.
It’s why you came to Texas in the first place, to win championships.
Texas is not the most complete team in this field.
But it can be.
And that is sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines.
SMU @ Penn State –8.5
This is only the third meeting between these schools, but there is a modicum of bad blood going back to 1982 when SMU felt that their claim to the national championship was stolen by Joe Paterno and Penn State. The only blemish on the record of the Pony Express Mustangs was a tie with Arkansas, while the Nittany Lions were routed by unranked Alabama during the season. Paterno had just turned the ripe old age of 56 and many members thought it might be his last chance, so they voted Penn State #1.
I was surprised that Penn State was able to score 37 points on Oregon while rushing for 292 yards – they were down 28-10, so perhaps the Ducks simply fell asleep, but for the game they averaged 7.0 yards per play while the Ducks averaged 6.2. The Nittany Lions may well rely on the running game of Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton, but SMU is third in the country in rushing defense per carry. If they are have issues running the ball, Drew Allar has saved his worst appearances for his best opponents, throwing for just 146 yards and an interception against Ohio State and throwing for only 5.8 yards per attempt and two interceptions against Oregon.
The big question here is – how does Penn State handle a mobile quarterback? They didn’t really face one this year, unless you want to count Ohio State’s Will Howard, and the only people that think Howard is mobile is B.J. Foster and those who think facemasks ruined the game. The Mustangs will want to rely on Brashard Smith, the former WR from Miami who converted to running back and rolled up almost 1600 all-purpose yards this season and 18 touchdowns.
Everyone wants to talk about SMU’s schedule but Penn State beat – Illinois? But I think the moment will ultimately be too big for the Mustangs, and the weather (28 degrees and snow showers) won’t be on their side, either.
Penn State 24 SMU 17
Indiana @ Notre Dame –7.5
Indiana is 1-13-1 all-time in South Bend, but most of those matchups were before the Kennedy administration, as these teams have met only once in the past 65 years, despite their campuses being less than 200 miles apart. That meeting was in 1991, in the very first televised Notre Dame game on NBC, featuring Trent Green and Vaughn Dunbar for the Hoosiers and Rick Mirer, Rodney Culver and Jerome Bettis for the Irish.
The most interesting matchup here is Indiana’s rush defense against the Notre Dame rushing attack. The Hoosiers gave up just 2.74 yards a carry this season, and it wasn’t all against the bottom feeders in the Big 10. They gave up just 69 yards on 34 attempts to Michigan and 115 on 29 attempts to Ohio State – they gave up 100 yards rushing just four times this season, with 137 being the opponent high water mark.
Notre Dame’s rushing attack is on another level, however. They have rushed for 200 yards 8 times this season and scored 40 touchdowns on the ground. They have scored 31 points in eight straight games and have scored 49 or more points in five of those games.
Even if they are able to contain the run, Indiana will have to score. They didn’t fare well against the defensive lines of Michigan and Ohio State, and might be facing the best of all here.
Notre Dame 27 Indiana 21
Tennessee @ Ohio State –7.5
Two questions here, first what is Ohio State’s mental state in this one? Ryan Day has been given the dreaded vote of confidence, but what if they lose this one by three touchdowns? Anything less than a national championship and it will be a sour mood in Columbus all off-season. Hell there might be one even if they win.
Second, how will Ohio State’s banged up offensive line hold up against a tough Tennessee front? The Vols average just 2.9 yards per rush given up, and can get after the quarterback, too. If Nico Iamaleava can give them anything, they have a real chance to come in here and pulling off an upset.
Ohio State 28 Tennessee 17
Clemson @ Texas –12
The Clemson Tigers won their 8th ACC Championship in 10 seasons two weeks ago, have two shiny new national championship trophies in their trophy case and this weekend marks their 7th playoff appearance since the formation of the concept – but make no mistake, this is not the Deshaun Watson or Trevor Lawrence Tigers – this is Clemson’s first trip to the playoff since 2020.
It’s been a strange year for the Tigers, they started by getting their doors blown off by Georgia in their season opener, but then won six in a row and 9 of 11 to close out the season – but didn’t beat a ranked opponent until SMU in the ACC Championship game, but didn’t drop a true road game all season.
Their offense, led by former TCU offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, was a lot more explosive in the first half of the season. Partially that is because they were playing Wake Forest and Appalachian State and the like, but part of it is because about halfway through the season their running back Phil Mafah sustained that will require surgery to get better, but he is clearly hindered by it (he hasn’t scored a touchdown since November 2nd ). Even worse, their backup running back (and I use that term lightly because he only had 43 carries all season) Jay Haynes is out with an injury – so it is up to Mafah and quarterback Cade Klubnik to move the ball on the ground.
Klubnik is draft eligible this season but probably could benefit from another year in college. He’s thrown for 3,300 yards and 33 touchdowns with only five interceptions, but tended to feast on weak opponents (378 yards against App State) than the good ones (142 yards against Georgia). They ask him to do a lot, as he had 40+ attempts three times this season, including 56 against Louisville (for only 228 yards) in a game that did not go to an extra period. He tends to hold on to the ball too long – and as a result was sacked 20 times this season, but 15 of those were in November/December.
Besides Carson Beck, this is likely the most talented quarterback the Longhorns have faced this season, but he’s certainly not keeping the defensive coaches awake staring at the ceiling this week.
Defensively the Tigers still have the fingerprints of Brent Venables all over them – they like to be aggressive getting after the quarterback and love taking the ball away from the opponent – sometimes at the expense of big plays and big efforts from offenses that know what they are doing. Depth is also a concern – their starting defensive linemen are up there in terms of what the Longhorn offense has faced this season, but they can’t have Travis Hunter-like snap counts and the defense suffers as a result, giving up 4.5 yards per rush, only good enough for 77th in the country.
I think Dabo Swinney is a goober, but the man has the track record, so if the Longhorns were playing an ACC opponent with this same makeup and playing style but they were wearing NC State uniforms I would have zero consternation, but Dabo tends to get these guys up for big games so I expect their best shot – but it won’t be enough to outlast the Horns.
DKR should be rocking.
Texas 28 Clemson 17
For entertainment purposes only. Save your money for Atlanta (again).