College football winners and losers from Week 10: Oklahoma scores big while idle, Alabama & Ohio State raise questions
College football Week 10 winner: Purdue against top-5 teams
Call them the Spoilermakers because, whenever Purdue is up against a top-five team in the country, Jeff Brohm is going to have his team ready to pull off the upset. Iowa already learned that lesson this season and, on Saturday, the Boilermakers taught the same to Michigan State with an emphatic win that, as mentioned, handed Sparty their first loss of the season.
Purdue is an imperfect team but, with good defense and an explosive playmaker like David Bell, they’re dangerous to any team that isn’t ready for their best shot. And lo and behold, look who’s on the schedule next week for the Boilermakers: An Ohio State
College football Week 10 loser: Alabama and Ohio State’s claims to playoff spots
Alabama getting put at No. 2 in the College Football Playoff rankings was wild in itself and it looked even wilder on Saturday night against LSU. With an opportunity to make a statement saying the Crimson Tide were deserving of that spot, they got pushed to the brink by the Tigers with a lame-duck head coach in Tuscaloosa. Not exactly a ringing endorsement that they’re the second-best team in the country.
And while Ohio State was left out of the top four, the Michigan State loss opened the door for their spot in there. Now, they’ll probably get in, if we’re being honest. But does anyone really feel good about that after they almost lost to Nebraska? The answer should be no and, frankly, if some other team makes a strong move, that could be a notch against the Buckeyes.
College football Week 10 loser: Dan Mullen
By all accounts, the biggest win for Dan Mullen on Saturday was that the Florida athletic department allowed him to fly back to Gainesville from Columbia.
Already likely on the hot seat, Mullen didn’t do himself any favors this week by shirking reporters when they tried to bring up his lack of recruiting prowess. But on top of that, he then went to play a pretty bad South Carolina team and watched his Gators get run off the field in a 20+ point loss.
Florida deserves better than what Mullen is delivering right now and the coach legitimately looks as if his team might be quitting on him. The big question is if we get to the end of the season before the Gators announce that they’re making a change.
College football Week 10 winner: Arizona and UNLV
Around the middle of Saturday while there were ranked teams in action, there was another big moment as the Arizona Wildcats snapped the longest losing streak in college football with a victory over an admittedly very short-handed Cal team. That victory left UNLV as the new owners of the longest losing streak in the country.
But wait — the Rebels later in the day then got the best of New Mexico, giving UNLV the program’s first win since 2019!
After those two wins, there are now no teams remaining in the FBS level of college football without a win. If that’s not the literal definition of a winner, I’m not sure what we’re doing here.