Technical Tidbits 10/24: Calm down, college football

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: top-10 Miami Hurricanes look poised to win ACC Coastal, proceed to implode massively before falling out of the top-25 just three weeks later. Yep, it’s happened yet again, this time after an ugly loss to Virginia Tech. The Hurricanes are simply not to be trusted, Al Golden or not, because they are clearly still being punished by the football gods for various NCAA violations or something equally sacrilegious. Their loss is great for the Jackets, whose chances of winning the Coastal went from almost zero to marginally greater than almost zero with no effort on their own part. If Tech can beat the Hokies in Blacksburg and run the table, Coastal Chaos could potentially ensue.

Penn State fans and casual observers around the world are touting the return of the Nittany Lions to national prominence after an impressive upset of No. 2 Ohio State by a final score of 24-21 over the weekend. Penn State, now 5-2 overall with losses to Pittsburgh and Michigan, is ranked in the top-25 for the first time since 2011 and has looked very good of late under former Vanderbilt savior James Franklin. Neither the Nittany Lions nor the Buckeyes are the best team in the B1G at this juncture; that distinction almost certainly belongs to Jim Harbaugh’s Wolverines or possibly to Rutgers, a team which has managed to pull off gritty wins over Howard and New Mexico while (less importantly) being outscored 256-59 by the rest of its schedule. We may have it rough, but there’s always Rutgers.

Let’s finish up with a quick rundown of the remainder of what proved to be a very strange and upset-filled weekend of college football.

• SMU handed the former top-5 Houston Cougars their second loss of the season in blowout fashion, denting Tom Herman’s otherwise sterling resume with a 38-16 victory. The first team to beat them, Navy, remains in the top-25.
• Texas Tech and Oklahoma combined for an FBS-record 1708 total yards in a game that just might define the term “shootout”. Red Raider quarterback Pat Mahomes went for 819 total yards all by himself, with the rest of his team adding on a few dozen more just for good measure. The Sooners would go on to win by a final score of 66-59.
• Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson continues rolling through the 2016 season, averaging over 30 points per game all by himself. That’s more than 61 FBS team as a whole are averaging this season, including Georgia Tech and Georgia among others.

Have a great Monday!