Chaos is what makes college football fun and the CFB gods had plenty of that for us in Week 6. It's always the quiet ones, you know? The lighter the slate of "good games," the more likely it is for Saturday to turn into the Red Wedding.
This time, it was Penn State and Texas who saw their seasons go up in smoke. The Nittany Lions shockingly loss to previously winless UCLA. The Longhorns went on the road to 1-3 Florida and got got.
How will these and other results from the first half of the college football Saturday impact the rankings?
Projected college football rankings after Penn State-UCLA, Texas-Florida, Alabama-Vanderbilt
- Ohio State
- Oregon
- Miami
- Ole Miss
- Oklahoma
- Texas A&M
- Indiana
- Alabama
- Texas Tech
- Georgia
- LSU
- Tennessee
- Vanderbilt
- Georgia Tech
- Florida State
- Missouri
- Michigan
- Iowa State
- Notre Dame
- Illinois
- Texas
- Penn State
- BYU
- Virginia
- Arizona State
Penn State embarrassed themselves vs. UCLA
This feels like the biggest upset in college football since 40-point underdog Stanford beat No. 1 USC in 2007 — at least the Trojans could rationalize that loss as the product of John David Booty playing with a broken finger. Penn State fans will do their own rationalizing. They traveled across the country after an emotional OT loss. UCLA had the interim coach boost and a former five-star QB who finally played like one.
But those excuses will do little to actually ease the pain of this loss. Because no matter how you spin it, it was bad. B-A-D. Penn State had not lost consecutive games in 46 outings. They were a 24-point favorite playing an 0-4 team that had fired their head coach. After the Bruins lost to Northwestern, we couldn't help but look ahead and wonder if they'd win a single game the rest of the way. No one in their right mind would have pegged this one as the one they'd get.
If it was just a fluke loss, the Nittany Lions might be able to explain it away. It didn't feel like that. The Bruins pushed Penn State around, rushing for 269 yards and three touchdowns. Defensively, they generated six tackles for loss. If not for a punt block returned for a touchdown, UCLA might have won the thing comfortably.
Penn State deserves to drop, significantly, for this one. Alabama fell 13 spots for losing to Florida State. It feels a reasonable fate for PSU. There's no shame in losing to Oregon. There's shame in losing to this UCLA team though. Moreover, the Nittany Lions' best win is now a 34-0 victory over Florida International — a team that ranks 118th in FPI. I've dropped them behind Notre Dame, another two loss team whose losses are stronger than Penn States and whose wins are much better, and Texas, more on them in a second.
Texas showed us who they are at Florida
In a much more predictable outcome than the above, Texas went to Gainesville and fell to the Florida Gators, 29-12. Arch Manning threw for 263 but matched two passing touchdowns for two interceptions. He took six sacks. The Longhorns managed a pathetic 52 yards on the ground. They hardly looked like a ranked team, let alone one in the top 10.
Texas' resume is starting to look just as poor as Penn State's. Their best win is against San Jose State, who ranks 91st in FPI. Their loss to Ohio State on the road is arguably more impressive than Penn State's loss to Oregon with homefield advantage. And their loss to Florida is exponentially better than the Nittany Lions' to UCLA. The Bruins didn't have enough fans in the stands for a proper field storming. The Swamp is at least a hostile environment. So the Longhorns can take solace in being ahead of PSU for now.
There's a valid question whether either of these teams should even be ranked at all. I'm willing to be merciful, mostly because BYU, Virginia, Arizona State and other unranked squads don't have great resumes themselves.
Alabama brought Vanderbilt back to earth
If it's any consolation to Penn State and Texas, Alabama looked dead in the water after their loss to FSU. It's a long CFB season though and there's always time to bounce back. The Crimson Tide have done that with consecutive wins over Georgia and Vanderbilt.
Ty Simpson is only growing in confidence. He threw for 340 yards and two touchdowns, with a performance marred only by an interception. Running back Jam Miller carried the load on the ground, gaining 136 yards on 22 carries. As for the defense, they did well to bottle up Diego Pavia, forcing him into three turnovers.
I'm not ready to crown Alabama just yet, but they're passing the test at the moment.