Week 7 Rundown

Just when you think things are becoming clearer, and you start putting together Playoff scenarios, it all falls gloriously apart.  Four top 10 teams lost and 3 barely survived.  If your name isn't Alabama, you need to be on upset alert every week.  Georgia, West Virginia, Washington, and Penn State all went down.  Notre Dame almost fell to the Pitt dream-destroying machine.  Texas had a massive let down as predicted.  And defending national champs UCF had to pitch a 2nd half shutout to win by 1 at Memphis.  Even Miami lost to Virginia.  What a fantastic little bit of chaos.

LSU put itself right back in the national conversation with a win over Georgia.  Many thought Georgia was ascending to the elite where they are dominant year-in and year-out.  Not so fast.  LSU is chugging through their brutal schedule and taking down highly ranked teams as they go.  If it wasn't for Oregon losing to Stanford they would probably be in the national conversation for a Playoff berth.  As it is, the PAC 12 is hanging by a thread to stay in the Playoff conversation.  Is Texas the frontrunner in the Big 12 now since they beat Oklahoma?  If so, the Big 12 is in trouble for a Playoff spot because Texas looks capable of losing to anybody, but also beating anybody.  The ACC is down to Clemson.  No one seems to want to win the division opposite of Clemson.  After all these years I still don't know who is in which division.  I just know Clemson is by far the favorite, but they have to play an undefeated NC State this weekend.  NC State almost beat them a couple years ago to derail the Tigers national championship season.

Penn State is done as a contender after losing to Michigan State.  Penn State has developed quite the habit this year of playing to the level of their opponents.  Michigan is probably the only contender behind Ohio State at this point for the Big 10.  Michigan's loss to Notre Dame doesn't look that bad, so if they can beat the Buckeyes somehow and win the Big 10, they will probably be in.  But projecting scenarios is foolish as we saw this past weekend.  It's a game played by 18-22 year old kids so anything can happen any given Saturday.