The last full Saturday of the college football season — and it’s hard to call it “full,” considering all the games Friday — is always a bittersweet occasion because after this the schedule becomes seriously constrained. But we have a rivalry game with massive stakes (Michigan-Ohio State) and a rivalry game with fairly large stakes (Notre Dame-USC), plus other rivalry games with normal bragging rights on the line, and that works.
College football on TV: Michigan-Ohio State, Notre Dame-USC are the stars
The stakes for Michigan-Ohio State are abundantly clear: The winner will advance to the Big Ten championship game and probably secure a spot in the College Football Playoff no matter what happens in Indianapolis next weekend. If the game isn’t a blowout, the loser could still be in pretty good shape for a CFP berth, depending on how other games shake out this weekend and next. … Clemson maintains faint CFP hopes and can’t afford a loss to South Carolina, something that last happened in 2013. The Tigers have won their past seven games against the Gamecocks, and a win Saturday would set the record for consecutive victories in the rivalry. South Carolina quarterback Spencer Rattler was having a decidedly mediocre season until last weekend’s blowout upset of Tennessee, when he passed for 438 yards and a school-record six touchdowns. …
It’s a strange season indeed when no one is talking about the Auburn-Alabama Iron Bowl, but the Tigers have fired their coach and the Crimson Tide already has two losses, so here we are. Alabama will need to truly clobber Auburn and then have a whole lot of chaos happen elsewhere to even have thoughts of the playoff, and even then it might be a long shot (no two-loss team ever has made the final four). With almost no passing game to speak of, the Tigers will rely upon running backs Tank Bigsby and Jarquez Hunter; both have topped 100 rushing yards in each of the past two games. But Alabama is allowing only 3.08 yards per carry, tied for eighth nationally. It almost certainly will be the final home game for Crimson Tide quarterback Bryce Young, last year’s Heisman Trophy winner who seems destined for the top of the NFL draft after this season. …
USC is favored to beat Notre Dame for the first time since 2016, and a victory would go a long way toward a CFP berth for the one-loss Trojans. USC’s defense remains over-reliant on turnovers to make stops, and at some point the takeaway luck is going to run out. In last weekend’s win over UCLA, for instance, the Trojans had four takeaways but still allowed the Bruins to score six touchdowns. USC’s offense has been an impressive machine — the Trojans rank first nationally in yards per drive and second in points per drive — but Notre Dame’s defense recently held Clemson to 4.3 yards per play (more than a yard below the Tigers’ average) and last week smothered Boston College in a 44-0 shutout.
Source: WP
