College football Week 4 takeaways, SEC superlatives, Heisman watch, playoff picture
College football takeaways from Week 4 see Oklahoma and LSU upset, K.J. Costello and Kyle Trask do their best Joe Burrow impression. Oh, and Alabama is still pretty, pretty, pretty good.
College football started a few weeks ago but it feels back now that the SEC hit the field and we got a pair of massive upsets in the Top-10.
No. 3 Oklahoma falling at home to unranked Kansas State after surrendering 17 fourth-quarter points while Spencer Rattler threw three interceptions was the first curveball we saw on the afternoon. Like Barry Zito in his prime, we saw plenty more throughout the day. The Sooners choking with another abysmal defensive effort was just the start as the afternoon saw Florida’s Kyle Trask match Joe Burrow with six touchdowns in the SEC opener, but it was hardly even the most impressive day from an SEC quarterback.
Stanford transfer K.J. Costello shredded an LSU defense unlike any quarterback before him with an SEC record 623 yards and five touchdowns in Mississippi State’s upset over the reigning national champions. This was the first loss for the Tigers since losing to Texas A&M in seven overtimes on Nov. 24 in 2018.
If you want to talk about the opposite of what Costello and Trask did, look no further than Georgia who had to turn to their former fourth-string quarterback to save them from total embarrassment vs. Arkansas. ARKANSAS!
From the good quarterback play to the bad quarterback play and the highlights and lowlights from across college football in Week 4, there was plenty to dissect, so let’s whip around the nation, beginning in the ACC where Miami took little brother Florida State to the woodshed.
The ACC isn’t just for Clemson any longer
Miami embarrasses Florida State — The season is already over for Florida State and it’s just a question of how much worse it’s going to get before it starts getting better. After flopping vs. Georgia Tech in the season-opener, first-year head coach Mike Norvell missed the rivalry game vs. Miami due to testing positive for the coronavirus. Not like his presence would have helped them avoid a 52-10 boat-racing at the hands of their in-state rivals.
Miami got their fourth win in a row over the Seminoles, which is the longest streak in this rivalry since the Hurricanes won six straight from 2000-2004. FSU won seven straight from 2010-2016 but the Seminoles may as well just opt out of the rest of the season to risk further embarrassment.
Virginia Tech has a sneaky-good impressive win — No one is going to wax poetic when you beat NC State, but give credit when it’s due for Virginia Tech that was without 23 players and two assistant coaches due to COVID-19 and still throttled the Wolfpack, 45-24. Justin Fuente‘s team has been up and down during his tenure, but in the first game without defensive coordinator Bud Foster, the Hokies had a stellar outing as they get a much-needed spark in what could be a promising season for the team in Blacksburg.
There’s no defending Oklahoma’s defense
Same old Oklahoma — We all know Oklahoma is great offensively and whoever the quarterback is will be in the running for the Heisman Trophy. But at the same time, as potent as the Sooners offense is, the defense is the total opposite. The Oklahoma defense surrendered 17 fourth-quarter points to Kansas State to lose at home and their playoff hopes could be dashed after two games. Normally, Oklahoma waits until playing an SEC team in the playoff to have a total collapse. At least they got that out of the way before pumpkin spice season.
Lincoln Riley is one of the best offensive innovators in the game and would be coveted by a dozen NFL teams if he wanted to leave Norman, but his inability to recruit difference-makers on defense or hire a coach to install a system capable of stopping anything is why we can’t take the Sooners seriously as national championship contenders until further notice. Sorry, Spencer Rattler, your Heisman hopes are done this year too. You had to be perfect and three interceptions vs. Kansas State ain’t that. He’ll still be my pick next year when Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields are not his direct competition.
Texas avoids the scare — The Big 12 almost saw their only two ranked teams suffer embarrassing losses but Texas pulled off a 15-point comeback in the last 2:39 to force overtime and escape the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
Sam Ehlinger wasn’t pretty for all four quarters but he was clutch late with three touchdowns and the game-tying two-point conversion to force overtime.
I’m not convinced Texas is elite yet by any means, but they still may be good enough to win the Big 12 for the first time since 2009. How has it been more than a decade since Texas won their conference?!
Chris Klieman is a star for Kansas State — It’s a great day to be a Wildcat. After losing their season-opener to Arkansas State, Kansas State got in the win column with an impressive win over Oklahoma.
It’s the second straight win over the Sooners for head coach Chris Klieman who is already looking like a star on the rise in his second year in Manhattan after winning four FCS national championships at North Dakota State.
He’s got a star in the making in 5-foot-5 freshman running back Deuce Vaughn who had 45 yards and a touchdown on the ground and a game-high 129 receiving yards on four receptions, including a 77-yard jaunt. He’s the next Darren Sproles.
SEC showcases the best and worst in quarterback play
Georgia quarterback problem — Phew! It looked ugly out there for the first 30 minutes when Arkansas took a 7-5 lead to the break. Georgia benched D’Wan Mathis in favor of Stetson Bennett IV, who is appropriately named considering he’s the fourth-string quarterback. Well, he was at least. Now? He may be the starter depending on the health of JT Daniels who was still not medically cleared for the season-opener.
The Dawgs looked much better in the second half when they remembered they’re Georgia and they were playing Arkansas.
Bennett finished with 211 yards and a pair of touchdowns, but if this is the type of play Kirby Smart‘s team is going to get from the most important position, they won’t win a fourth-straight SEC East title.
With Auburn up next, I’d expect Daniels to be cleared to start otherwise Georgia is going to lose to their cross-division rival and their title hopes will disappear.
LSU is in for a rough 2020, like the rest of us — Look, there was no way LSU could match what they did last year when they had arguably one of the best seasons of all-time behind Joe Burrow. I picked the Tigers to finish in third place in the SEC West and predicted they’d lose to Mississippi State, which they did, however, I didn’t expect them to look this bad in the process.
Sure, it didn’t help they were without All-American cornerback Derek Stingley, Jr. who was hospitalized with an illness, but K.J. Costello threw for an SEC record 623 yards and five touchdowns. Yikes. They’re going to have to give up their DBU tag after that performance. 2020 is going to be a rough year for Ed Orgeron’s Tigers after losing 14 players to the NFL Draft and a few more to opt-outs. They’ll always have 2019 though. Considering 2020 is going to be a rough year for the rest of the country, they may as well keep celebrating 2019 until New Year’s.
Alabama is in good hands with Mac Jones — While life after Burrow is going to be hell for LSU, life after Tua Tagovailoa for Alabama is going to go pretty swimmingly. Mac Jones played really well in relief of an injured Tua last season and picked up where he left off with 248 yards and two touchdowns on a workmanlike 18-of-24 passing.
Jaylen Waddle is stepping into the shoes left by Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs III and had 134 yards and two touchdowns on eight grabs. Devonta Smith is pretty good too, hauling in eight catches for 89 yards. They’re the best wide receiver duo in the nation. Oh yeah, the weapons don’t stop. Najee Harris ran for three touchdowns.
But wait, there’s more!
All-American linebacker Dylan Moses made his return to the lineup after missing all of last season with a torn ACL and helped spearhead the defense that held Missouri to six points in the first three quarters before the starters yielded for the fourth quarter.
Florida is worthy of the hype — I picked the Gators to win the SEC East and after one game, they’re looking like that’ll be a pretty savvy pick. Quarterback Kyle Trask proved worthy of being the preseason first-team All-SEC pick, the first Florida quarterback to earn that distinction since Tim Tebow. And it’s Tebow who envisioned this type of start in part because he has the nation’s best tight end, Kyle Pitts, who had 170 yards and had four touchdowns of Trask’s six touchdowns in the romp over Ole Miss.
Auburn good enough — Auburn was a tough team to get a read on in the preseason, like a lot of teams without spring practice and limited practices. But they were good enough to beat an underrated Kentucky squad after sweating an 8-7 lead at halftime. Quarterback Bo Nix threw three touchdowns, two going to Seth Williams who is in line for a big year.
Mike Leach turned K.J. Costello into Joe Burrow in one game — It only took one game, but Mike Leach turned K.J. Costello into the second coming of Joe Burrow. The Stanford transfer had a rocky 2019 before an injury ended his ineffective season with the Cardinal.
Leach left Washington State for the lure of the SEC and together this duo smashed school and SEC records in their first outing. And it came at the home of the reigning national champions no less.
Costello’s 623 yards are a new SEC record as he entered the Heisman conversation by becoming only the second Mississippi State quarterback since 1992 to win at LSU. The other? None other than the GOAT Dak Prescott who led Mississippi State to the No. 1 ranking shortly after upsetting LSU in 2014.
Big Ten returns to the AP Top 25
The AP Top 25 will see the return of Big Ten teams when the new rankings are dropped at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday afternoon. Expect to see Ohio State at No. 2 where they were in the preseason poll or perhaps at No. 3 behind Clemson and Alabama. The Buckeyes should be joined by Wisconsin, Penn State, Michigan and Minnesota in the Top 25. They’ll be tough to maintain their positions considering they won’t actually play until Oct. 24 but when they do, the eye test will have to win out over overall win-loss records.
Pac-12 predictions
The Pac-12 is officially back. Well, they will be the first weekend of November when they have their first games. Oregon has been decimated by players opting out but I still like the Ducks to emerge from the North and make it back to the Pac-12 Championship Game. And I think they’ll see Kedon Slovis and the USC Trojans for the right to play in the Rose Bowl. Even if one of those teams is undefeated, I don’t think the playoff committee will seriously consider them considering they’ll have such a reduced schedule. However, if the Big 12 champ has two losses, that could be the opening they need to get in. That said, it’s more likely it just opens the door for the SEC Championship Game loser to get in.
Return of the MAC
(Return of the Mack) come on
(Return of the Mack) oh my God
(You know that I’ll be back) here I am
(Return of the Mack) once again
(Return of the Mack) pump up the world
(Return of the Mack) watch my flow
(You know that I’ll be back) here I go
Mark Morrison sang it best. The MAC has returned. MACtion is one of the treats we love as college football and the league will be playing primarily on Wednesdays this November and December. It’ll be a short six-game schedule but it’ll be awesome to get all 10 FBS conferences in action for the stretch run. The MAC was the first conference to postpone their season and I didn’t think they’d reverse course after losing their Big Ten payout games considering the thin margins for the athletic department, but I’m just glad the players and coaches will have an opportunity to show what they can do, even if it is a six-game season.
Heisman watch
- Trevor Lawrence, Clemson QB
- Justin Fields, Ohio State QB
- Sam Ehlinger, Texas QB
- Kyle Trask, Florida QB
- K.J. Costello, Mississippi State QB
Playoff picture
- Clemson
- Ohio State
- Alabama
- Florida
First two out: Texas, Notre Dame
For more NCAA football news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage by FanSided, including Heisman Trophy and College Football Playoff rankings, be sure to bookmark these pages.