Charlie Strong post game press conference - West Virginia [Nov. 12, 2016]
Ten takeaways from a college football weekend that set the table for what could be an epic closing week of the regular season:
No. 1: Charlie Strongs tenure at Texas is near an end, and it could be part of massive coaching turnover in the Lone Star State in the coming weeks.
But it would cost a lot of money.
Strong, Texas Techs Kliff Kingsbury and Texas A&Ms Kevin Sumlin are sitting on seats of varying degrees of heat. Rices David Bailiff and UTEPs Sean Kugler also could be gone. And it is highly likely that Houston will have a position to fill when Tom Herman upgrades.
Yet the amount of money it would take to make the first three go away is pretty staggering. Strongs buyout is $10 million Texas boosters will take care of that one. But it would also cost a ton to get rid of Kingsbury (a reported $9.4 million) and Sumlin would be owed even more money than either Strong or Kingsbury if A&M were to fire him.
Kansas likely applied the final blow to Strong on Saturday night, beating the Longhorns in overtime. It was the Jayhawks first Big 12 win since 2014 and snapped a 23-game losing streak to FBS opponents.
Simply put, it is a humiliating loss for Texas. It left the Longhorns 5-6, and dropped Strongs Texas record to 16-20. The remainder of his tenure could be measured in hours at this point. Stay tuned Sunday.
Then get ready for Herman Watch in Austin.
Kingsbury experienced his own humiliation Saturday, watching his horrendous Red Raiders defense surrender 66 points to 3-8 Iowa State. It was the most points the Cyclones have scored in 36 years, and their 608 yards total offense will keep Texas Tech 128th and last in the nation in total defense.
Sumlin at least got a victory Saturday, beating UT-San Antonio in unimpressive fashion, 23-10. The Aggies Friday game against LSU is likely to have a far greater impact on Sumlins approval rating with boosters and administration than this outcome. If A&M wins that game to get to 9-3, and given the colossal buyout, it seems highly likely hed be back in 2017.
Charlie Strong is 16-20 at Texas. (Getty)
MoreNo. 2 : College Football Playoff winners from the weekend: Washington (10-1), which bounced back from its loss to USC by walloping Arizona State 44-18, and could well move up to No. 5 in the CFP rankings in place of Louisville; Colorado (9-2), which beat Washington State by two touchdowns and will clinch the Pac-12 South with a home victory over Utah next week; the Big Ten, which saw its chances of a second team in the bracket stay intact with wins by Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin and Penn State; and, if you insist, the Big 12, which is now headed for a Bedlam showdown between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State Dec. 3 for the league title.
The further inflation of Team Helium, Oklahoma, was proceeding full-speed Saturday night after the Sooners blew out West Virginia in Morgantown. Yet I cant think of a single reason to rank Oklahoma higher than eighth at this juncture. You certainly cannot put the Sooners ahead of Penn State, which has the same record (9-2) with a three-point victory over a team that beat Oklahoma by 21 (that would be Ohio State) and I would slot Penn State seventh this week.
Oklahoma State (9-2) has its own issue: a home loss to Central Michigan of the Mid-American Conference. No other playoff contender has anything remotely as damning on its rsum as a defeat at the hands of the fourth-place team in the MAC West. There were mitigating factors to that loss, of course the game should have been over before the Chippewas winning play, but the officials screwed it up. Yet Oklahoma States go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter never should have stood, either the Cowboys were flagged on a blatant hold on the scoring play, yet the officials somehow picked up the flag.
Read More
What was true in September remains true in late November: the Big 12 isnt good enough to make the playoff. Just because the Sooners and Cowboys have beaten up on the league doesnt suddenly eliminate what happened in non-conference play.
No. 3: There is one other team that saw its playoff hopes remain alive Saturday: Florida.
Yes, Im serious.
The Gators (9-2) won the Relocation Bowl, stopping LSU at the goal line as time ran out for a 16-10 triumph in Baton Rouge. This was a game that was supposed to be played in Gainesville in October but was re-scheduled into a road game, amid great acrimony between programs and fan bases. And the fact that Florida won it means that it simply needs to win its next two games to crash the playoff: at Florida State and over No. 1 Alabama in the SEC championship game Dec. 3.
Thats all. Nothing too terribly difficult.
If the Gators somehow finish with three wins over ranked teams away from home, capped off by slaying the Bama dragon, they could not be denied a place in the four-team bracket. And Alabama likely couldnt be, either. If the SEC back-doored its way into having half the CFP field there would be no end to the caterwauling but there is a scenario in which it happens, no matter how unlikely.
No. 4: The happiest man in college athletics Saturday probably was a man who is no longer in college athletics recently retired Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley.
It was Foley and Florida who stood firm about postponing the original LSU date due to Hurricane Matthew, and it was Foley who bore the brunt of the barbs from LSU people over that decision. He also was the man who agreed to a rescheduling that turned that contest into a road game.
To see his school pull off the upset, despite a rash of injuries, had to be rewarding.
The bad feelings between the two programs were evident before kickoff, when a brief skirmish between sides took place on the field. That included star LSU running back Leonard Fournette shoving Florida assistant coach Torian Gray twice and then Fournette suited up and played when he was not expected to due to a nagging ankle injury.
Fournette finished with 40 yards on 12 carries. He was not in the game at the end when LSU was stacked up at the 1-yard line. Instead that was backup Derrius Guice, who appeared to start out in the wrong direction when taking a pitch from quarterback Danny Etling on the final play. Guice tried to go over the top and was stopped, resulting in a huge victory for the Gators.
Florida coach Jim McElwain now has taken the Gators to the SEC title game each of his first two seasons, another reason why Foley had to be a happy man Saturday. His hiring of McElwain was questioned by some Florida fans, but it has worked out well. Now wait until he gets a quarterback who can play.
No. 5: Mark Dantonio is the closest thing to a nemesis Urban Meyer has had in five years at Ohio State.
Meyer is now 3-2 against Dantonio, with two season-ruining losses and a pair of one-point victories. The latest one-point escape was Saturday, when the Buckeyes barely got out of East Lansing with their playoff hopes intact after holding off the 3-8 Spartans.
Dantonio coached a gusto-filled game, with reverses and a fake punt and other high-risk decisions. The most prominent of those decisions was to go for two after scoring with 4:41 remaining, when an extra point would have tied the game.
I had less of a problem with that decision it was consistent with his approach to the entire game than with the play call. After riding running back L.J. Scott downfield, Michigan State opted for a pass by Tyler OConnor who would finish the day 6-for-16 for 105 yards, with two interceptions. His pass into double coverage was picked off, and Ohio State survived.
No. 6: Dantonio wasnt the only coach to roll those two-point dice and see them come up snake eyes. San Diego States Rocky Long did it, too.
Longs gamble came at the end of a wild sequence of events. The Aztecs trailed Wyoming in Laramie by seven points with 1:07 left and were on their own 1-yard-line yet they somehow drove 99 yards for the score. The touchdown came when Quest Truxton captain and MVP of the All-Name Team made a diving catch of a deflected pass in the end zone. The play originally was ruled incomplete but correctly overturned upon review.
That gave Long the chance to go for the win. Like Dantonio, the fatal flaw was the play call. San Diego State went away from the nations leading rusher, Donnel Pumphrey, and instead tried a throwback to the tight end. It fell incomplete, and Wyoming moved a step closer to a wholly unforeseen Mountain West Conference divisional title.
No. 7: Michigan beat Indiana, but did little in the process to ease concerns about its quarterback situation.
With Wilton Speight out for the game (the year?) with a shoulder injury, John OKorn got his first start since October 2014, when he was at Houston. In precarious weather conditions, OKorn was less than OK he threw for just 59 yards and ran for 19, completing just 7 of 16 passes.
Michigan still is playing cute with Speights availability or lack thereof heading into the showdown at Ohio State on Saturday, but this much seems clear: if the Wolverines dont get more productivity out of the QB position in the Horseshoe than in the past two games (18-42 for 162 yards), they have little chance of winning.
No. 8: The Colorado renaissance is the biggest surprise in college football in 2016.
The Buffaloes clinched at least a share of the Pac-12 South division by beating Washington State, although they would lose a tiebreaker with USC if they cannot beat Utah this week. Having a chance to win that division is amazing when you consider that the Buffs have finished last in it the previous four years.
Mike MacIntyre looks like the favorite for national Coach of the Year honors, having elevated Colorado to 9-2 in his fourth season. The home-field advantage is back at Folsom Field for a program that hasnt been good since the Gary Barnett era.
But in terms of in-season renaissance, its hard to beat Colorados competition for the Pac-12 South title, USC. The Trojans thumped crosstown rival UCLA late Saturday to improve to 8-3, after a 1-3 start. If Colorado loses to Utah and USC wins the South, then wins the Pac-12 title game, is there any chance a red-hot team with three losses against a rigorous schedule could wiggle into the College Football Playoff? Probably not, but nobody wants to play the Trojans the way they are performing lately.
No. 9: Rutgers is a member of the Big Ten East. Technically, at least.
In reality, the Scarlet Knights are the leagues scarlet letter, wearing an A for Awful. In five games against divisional opponents, Rutgers has been outscored 257-27, with four shutout losses. The latest of those was a 39-0 beating from Penn State on Saturday night.
But they can hold out hope of at least scoring in the season finale against Maryland. The Terrapins (5-6) have given up 38 or more points four times against division opponents.
No. 10: Remember how excited everyone was after the Texas-Notre Dame shootout on the opening weekend of the season? Yeah. The two teams now are a combined 9-13, with the Fighting Irish assured of a losing season after being beaten at home by Virginia Tech on Saturday. Notre Dame finishes the season 2-4 in South Bend.
Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/10-takeaways-charlie-strongs-time-at-texas-appears-to-be-at-an-end-072228180.html
