Start believing in Texas, stop trusting Miami and more college football Week 10 takeaways

And now, 20 Final Thoughts from college football’s Week 10, when I learned to never again take Multiview, Key Plays and low latency for granted.

1. The season’s first College Football Playoff rankings come out Tuesday. The way this season is going, the committee ought to rank Ohio State, Indiana and Texas A&M 1-2-3, then put down “We have no idea” for spots 4-12.

Also: It might as well use a placeholder the rest of the way that just says: “ACC champ.”

2. The ACC has been waiting more than 20 years for its three biggest national brands, Florida State, Clemson and Miami, to all be nationally relevant at the same time. There was a brief moment in September when all three were ranked in the top 15, but the Noles and Tigers quickly fell apart. And there was a brief moment in early October when the Hurricanes were ranked No. 2 in the country.

But after a Saturday that saw both No. 8 Georgia Tech and No. 10 Miami go down in the ACC race, out-of-nowhere Virginia is now alone in first place at 5-0, followed by five teams with one loss. That’s six teams with a realistic chance to reach the conference title game — and 2-2 Miami isn’t one of them.

3. As impressive as the Canes looked early in the season, when they beat Notre Dame, hammered Group of 5 darling USF and routed Florida, I had trouble envisioning Mario Cristobal landing the plane. And now I remember why. Miami led 20-17 with one minute left at SMU when an unnecessary roughness flag — one of 12 penalties on the day — allowed the Mustangs to pick up a fourth-and-9 en route to a game-tying field goal. And then in overtime, Canes star Carson Beck threw his sixth pick in three games. SMU drove for a walk-off touchdown to win 26-20.

Cristobal, 63-31 over eight seasons at Oregon and Miami, has become the sport’s resident “does less with more” guy. He has the most talented roster in the ACC, yet he has gone 3-4 in his last seven conference games, with all four losses to teams that were unranked at the time. And now the Canes are all but eliminated from the conference title picture.

This team has a better shot than last year’s to get an at-large berth at 10-2 thanks to those two good nonconference wins, but Cristobal and Beck don’t elicit much confidence that they can win their last four.

4. NC State’s Dave Doeren is the longest-tenured coach — 13 seasons — that most fans outside the ACC would not recognize if he walked into their local 7-Eleven. He’s had a lot of 8-5/9-4-type teams that couldn’t get over the hump. His 13th team is 5-4 and had lost its two previous games 36-7 (at Notre Dame) and 53-34 (at Pitt). But it now owns victories against both No. 15 Virginia — in a nonconference game — and No. 8 Georgia Tech.

Wolfpack QB CJ Bailey and running back Duke Scott went off in a 48-36 win against the previously undefeated Yellow Jackets. Georgia Tech’s defense had been shaky much of the season and imploded in this one. Star QB Haynes King’s 511 yards of offense weren’t enough.

Brent Key’s team no longer controls its fate to get to Charlotte, but it may be the conference’s lone hope for an at-large berth, given its chance for a marquee win against rival Georgia.

5. After weathering two months of Arch Manning blowback and Steve Sarkisian angst, No. 20 Texas somehow heads into the first CFP rankings of the season with all its goals intact. The Longhorns, now 7-2 and 4-1 in SEC play, topped No. 9 Vanderbilt 34-31 at home to earn their second ranked win of the season, behind a season-best performance from their oft-maligned star quarterback. Which they needed from Manning, because his Commodores counterpart, Diego Pavia, had 408 yards of total offense and nearly led his team back from a 34-10 deficit.

Arch and friends have three games left, including at No. 5 Georgia and home against No. 3 Texas A&M. Don’t shoot the messenger, but if the Horns add a third top-15 or so win, we may need to start talking about 9-3 Texas making the CFP.

6. No. 5 Georgia is now 5-1 in SEC play and has come from behind in four of those five wins. Rival Florida, playing its first game under interim coach Billy Gonzales, led 20-17 in the fourth quarter and was driving for more until the Dawgs stuffed a fourth-and-1 in the red zone. Georgia freshman running back Chauncey Bowens broke a 36-yard touchdown run, Kirby Smart’s defense held again (helped by an extremely close incomplete pass call on a Florida diving catch) and Gunner Stockton refrained from scoring to kill the clock late in Georgia’s 24-20 win.

Georgia is either extremely fortunate or extremely tough — possibly both — to keep pulling out these close Ws. It has only two conference games left, at Mississippi State (5-4) and home against Texas (7-2), and could unofficially clinch a CFP berth by mid-November.

7. The only way someone is going to slow down Ohio State’s ridiculous passing game is to generate pressure on quarterback Julian Sayin without blitzing. Because there is no defending the Buckeyes’ two stud receivers, Carnell Tate and Jeremiah Smith. Sayin connected on all of his 11 targets to the pair, including two 57-yarders and a 45-yard touchdown, and he totaled four TD passes in No. 1 Ohio State’s 38-14 rout of spiraling Penn State. Sayin will start to garner serious Heisman buzz down the stretch.

Preseason No. 2 Penn State has now lost five straight, the last two coming under interim coach Terry Smith. Next week it faces … No. 2 Indiana.

8. The 9-0 Hoosiers are just merciless. They went to Maryland, spotted the Terps a field goal, then proceeded to bludgeon them 55-10, rushing for 367 yards and forcing five turnovers. It was IU’s fifth time this season reaching 50 points, an absurd feat for anyone, much less the Big Ten’s all-time losingest program.

Meanwhile, its opponent is taking the “September Maryland” meme way too literally. The Terps started 4-0, took the last week of September off and have now lost their past four games. Since 2023, Maryland has gone 12-2 in August and September and 4-15 in October and November.

9. On Thursday, Nebraska reaffirmed its faith in third-year coach Matt Rhule, giving him a two-year extension to fend off potential interest from Rhule’s alma mater, Penn State. He’s now guaranteed to make at least $71 million through 2032. But apparently even that is not enough to break the two-decade hex that seems to permanently hover over Lincoln.

The Huskers went up 14-6 in the first half on No. 23 USC. So, of course, their star quarterback, Dylan Raiola, went out with an ankle injury shortly after halftime. The Trojans, led by running back King Miller, rallied to win 21-17, handing Nebraska a staggering 29th straight loss to ranked opponents. Rhule himself has lost 19 straight, dating to his time at Baylor. The Huskers fell to 6-3.

USC, on the other hand, is now 6-2 and 4-1 in the Big Ten. Don’t shoot the messenger, but we may need to start talking about the Trojans as a possible fourth Big Ten CFP team.

10. My main takeaway while watching Saturday night’s Oklahoma-Tennessee game was that neither of them looked like a Playoff team. But the 18th-ranked Sooners are still alive after going into Neyland Stadium and defeating the No. 14 Vols 33-27. The star of the game: OU field goal kicker Tate Sandell, who, while donning the shortest pants I’ve ever seen on a football field, hit three 50-plus-yard field goals to keep the Sooners from squandering the short fields their defense kept creating.

Oklahoma is, at best, sixth in line among the SEC’s Playoff contenders — behind Texas A&M, Alabama, Ole Miss, Georgia and Texas, to whom it lost head-to-head. But stranger things have happened.

11. Remember when Clemson was a preseason top-five team? After losing a 46-45 shootout to Duke at home, Dabo Swinney’s team is now 3-5, ensuring its worst season since going 6-7 in 2010. It would be more shocking if Swinney’s program hadn’t been gradually eroding for five years while he struggled (refused?) to adapt to the NIL/portal era. But the bottom has fallen all the way out this season. The two-time national champion coach is not on the hot seat yet by any means, but it’s not a stretch to think he could be next season. (Current buyout: $60 million, but that doesn’t seem to stop anyone these days.)

Clemson did get hosed by the officials Saturday. It appeared the Tigers had made a game-sealing, fourth-down stop with 43 seconds left, but cornerback Avieon Terrell got called for defensive pass interference on a play where Duke’s receiver tackled him. But the game didn’t end there. The Blue Devils, 5-3, scored a touchdown on the next play, went for 2 and got it. Duke QB Darian Mensah threw for 361 yards and four TDs against Clemson’s once-proud defense.

12. Clemson’s slide began around the same time OC Tony Elliott, a 12-year member of Swinney’s staff, took the Virginia job in 2022. It was a grind to rebuild, but in Year 4 Elliott has the Cavaliers alone in first place in the ACC.

Virginia, 8-1, went cross-country to Cal and earned its seventh straight win, 31-21 against the sliding Bears. It was yet another nailbiter finish for Elliott’s team, which was clinging to a 24-21 lead when Cal, 5-4, got the ball back at its own 14 with 34 seconds left. But on the first play of the series, Virginia’s Kam Robinson stepped in front of a Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele pass and returned it to the house.

The Cavs’ last six wins all came down to the final minute. Their luck has to turn at some point … but maybe not?

13. I thought we might make it through a Sunday for once without a coach getting axed — but then Auburn’s Hugh Freeze managed to lose 10-3 at home to a 2-5 Kentucky team. That’s as bad as it gets for a third-year coach who is now 6-15 in SEC play, including 2-9 at home, at a school known for legendary impatience with its coaches.

Auburn paid a then-record $21.4 million buyout to Gus Malzahn in 2020, then another $15.3 million for firing Bryan Harsin after less than two seasons. And it will cost the school another $15.4 million if it cans Freeze after three seasons. I have no doubt Auburn will find it.

14. Unlike in the ACC, Saturday’s results brought considerable clarity to the Big 12 standings. No. 13 Texas Tech’s 43-20 win at Kansas State, on top of Utah handing No. 17 Cincinnati its first conference loss and West Virginia upsetting No. 22 Houston, sets up a clash for first place next week when 8-0 BYU visits the 7-1 Red Raiders. Those two and the Bearcats are the only Big 12 teams left with fewer than two conference losses.

Texas Tech started slow in Manhattan, but the dam eventually broke due to Tech’s havoc-wreaking defense. It forced five turnovers, including two forced fumbles by all-everything linebacker Jacob Rodriguez. Later, No. 24 Utah limited Cincinnati QB Brendan Sorsby, the nation’s fifth-rated passer, to an 11-of-33 day in a 45-14 rout. The 7-2 Utes, whose two losses were to Texas Tech and BYU, can be scary good when they get rolling, but they will need help to get to Arlington.

15. What a weekend for SMU’s Rhett Lashlee. First, the 42-year-old became the latest coach to leverage this crazy coaching carousel (his alma mater Arkansas is open) to get a rich contract extension, this one through 2032, that will reportedly make him one of the 10 highest-paid coaches in the country. As of now, that threshold is $10 million a year. Then he promptly led the Mustangs to their first top-10 win since their pre-Death Penalty era in 1983.

While SMU is only 6-3, it is 4-1 in the ACC. Which means, in theory, it can still reach the ACC title game, win and make a return trip to the CFP.

16. With Sam Leavitt forced to undergo season-ending foot surgery, Arizona State’s journeyman backup quarterback Jeff Sims enjoyed quite a redemptive moment Saturday. The sixth-year senior ran for a school-QB-record 228 yards on 29 carries in the 6-3 Sun Devils’ 24-19 win at Iowa State, now 5-4.

Sims was a three-year starter at Georgia Tech who transferred to Nebraska, where he struggled badly and lost the job after two games. Then he went to ASU and got beat out by Leavitt on last year’s Big 12 title team. Saturday marked Sims’ 27th career start but his first win as a starter since 2022 at Georgia Tech. And now he’ll carry ASU the rest of the way.

17. The American entered Week 10 with two teams still unbeaten in league play. Now there are none. On Thursday, UTSA trounced a good Tulane team 48-26, behind a near-perfect game from QB Owen McCown. It got so bad for the Green Wave that coach Jon Sumrall benched veteran QB Jake Retzlaff after his second interception. Then on Saturday, upstart North Texas took down previously 7-0 Navy 31-17, behind running back Caleb Hawkins’ 197 yards and four TDs.

18. The Mountain West race took two unexpected turns Saturday. After first-place Boise State lost quarterback Maddux Madsen to injury in the first quarter against Fresno State (he was later on crutches on the sideline), the 6-3 Bulldogs trounced the Broncos on their home field, 30-7. Then another primary contender, UNLV, fell 40-35 to New Mexico for its second conference loss. Kudos to first-year Lobos coach Jason Eck, whose 6-3 team became bowl-eligible for the first time since 2016.

San Diego State, 7-1, is now alone in first place with a 4-0 conference record. Sean Lewis’s Aztecs lost 36-13 to Washington State in Week 2, turned around and beat Cal 34-0 the next week and haven’t looked back. I still assume the American’s champ will get the Group of 5 Playoff berth, but SDSU is entering the picture.

19. Army, which came in 3-4 and fighting to get bowl-eligible, got a much-needed win in dramatic fashion at Air Force. Tied 17-17 with 24 seconds left, Black Knights QB Cale Hellums — who had four completions to that point — uncorked a 42-yard pass to Brady Anderson to set up Dawson Jones’ walk-off field goal to win 20-17. Both Army and Navy beat 2-6 Air Force, so the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy will be decided Dec. 13 in Baltimore, when Army-Navy takes place.

20. For the first time this season, Final Thoughts gets to include a Bill Belichick Power 4 win.

North Carolina finally broke through with Friday night’s 27-10 win at Syracuse. Tar Heels quarterback Gio Lopez had his best game of the season. Meanwhile, on the other sideline, Syracuse coach Fran Brown inexplicably started a true freshman walk-on from the lacrosse team, Joe Filardi, who completed four passes, then got pulled for another freshman, Luke Carney, who got sacked on his only dropback.

UNC, now 3-5, hosts 3-6 Stanford next week. Don’t shoot the messenger, but if the Tar Heels win we may need to start talking about them as a potential bowl team.

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