Clay Travis' Starting 11: The Power Trio Edition
Buckle up, this feels like it's going to be a wild ride to the championship.
I was looking at the national title odds this morning and I can't remember a point in time where the favorite was 3-1 or worse. But that's where we are. Here's the top eleven title contenders with their odds of winning the championship:
Before the season started I picked Georgia, Florida State, Michigan and USC as my four playoff picks. We managed to end September with all four of those teams still undefeated, but as I'll discuss below, I think the USC defense is close to disqualifying the Trojans from Pac 12 title contention. They just can't stop anybody.
But the other three?
I feel pretty good about those picks right now.
Let's dive into the Starting 11 and discuss the final week of September action.
1. Georgia outlasted Auburn, but is anyone in the SEC actually very good?
I give credit to Carson Beck for making some big throws in the second half at Auburn, but my goodness how good is Brock Bowers? One of you made the joke that in a year he'd be dating Taylor Swift, but Georgia basically decided to ride him for the second half and Auburn couldn't cover him. He's not just as good as any college tight end has ever been, he's as close to a guarantee on an NFL stud as I can remember at the tight end position. I would 100% draft him in the top seven or eight picks next year and feel comfortable about my team plugging him in for the next decade as a constant match up nightmare.
The Georgia Bulldogs haven't looked at that impressive yet. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
As for Auburn, I feel good about Hugh Freeze's turnaround of that program. I think he'll have Auburn back as a solid team by next year and by year three I think the Tigers will be back in the SEC elite. What he was able to do without any real downfield passing threat against a defense as good as Georgia's frankly, was really impressive.
Back to Georgia, do we really think they are that good? So far, I don't. In the SEC they have trailed in the second half in both of their games. Maybe they will continue to improve, but I still think the top end of the SEC this year just isn't that high, certainly not anywhere near as impressive as in much of the past twenty years or so.
I'm not sure who will get Georgia this year, but I'd be surprised if the Bulldogs, even against one of the easiest schedules in the SEC this year, manage to stay undefeated.
2. Duke lost in brutal fashion to Notre Dame, a week after Notre Dame lost in brutal fashion to Ohio State.
Credit to the Fighting Irish for converting a 4th and 16 on that final drive, but I can't imagine what watching the film was like for the Duke coaching staff.
With Notre Dame basically unable to block you in passing situations, you suddenly stopped rushing on 4th and 16, brought only three defensive linemen, dropped eight into coverage, without a spy on the quarterback, and allowed Sam Hartman, who made a fast decision and put his body on the line, to convert the 4th and 16 on a scramble that put his body on the line. Then, when it seems clear that a long field goal is going to decide the game, your defense collapses anew and gives up a long touchdown run. (Which then led to the two point conversion delivering a brutal beat to those of us who had Duke +5.5 in the game.)
Notre Dame had a nice bounce back win. (Photo by David Jensen/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images).
Then your star quarterback, Riley Leonard, the heart and soul of the team, gets knocked out on the final drive of the game and in the space of a couple of plays Duke went from being 5-0 and dreaming of ACC titles to just hoping their star quarterback won't be out for too long.
As for Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish season pivoted in a big way too, a loss here and Notre Dame is just hoping to play spoiler in the second half of the season. Now there's still quite a bit to play for in what remains a challenging trio: at Louisville, USC, and at Clemson. Win all three and the Irish might find themselves in the playoff mix come late November.
Sidenote: watch out for Louisville. They are one of the best surprises of the 2023 college football season so far.
The Cardinals are 5-0 and have a very good chance to beat Notre Dame this upcoming weekend.
3. Michigan, Penn State and Ohio State are all three looking like they may finish 11-1, setting up a three way Big Ten East tie.
I think it's fair to raise this issue as we approach the halfway point of the season.
Let's look at the remaining schedules.
First for Michigan: at Minnesota, Indiana, at Michigan State, Purdue, at Penn State, at Maryland, and Ohio State. Granted, Maryland is playing well this year and presently undefeated, but with the way this Michigan defense is playing, losing at Penn State and then beating Ohio State feels like a highly probable outcome.
Michigan looks headed for Big Ten royalty or more. (Photo by Steven Branscombe/Getty Images)
Penn State has UMass, at Ohio State, Indiana, at Maryland, Michigan, Rutgers and at Michigan State left on the schedule. Again, leaving out Maryland as a spoiler, 11-1 with the loss coming at Ohio State feels very reasonable.
Finally, Ohio State has: Maryland, at Purdue, Penn State, at Wisconsin, at Rutgers, and at Michigan. This game at Wisconsin is probably the toughest Big Ten West game left for any of these contenders, but tell me why a three way 11-1 three way Big Ten East tie isn't a decent possibility at this point?
It just feels like that's where we are headed.
And, wildly, tell me why all three of these teams couldn't, if everything broke right for them, all find themselves in the playoff mix.
4. Colorado acquitted itself well against USC in the second half.
I know the hype has been off the charts for the Buffaloes this year, but the second half performance and putting up 42 on USC speaks well for what Deion Sanders may be able to achieve in the years ahead at Colorado.
Now that the Buffaloes are 3-2 and out of the mix in the Pac 12 title hunt, what's a realistic final seven games for Deion and company in year one? Here's the remaining schedule: at Arizona State, Stanford, at UCLA, Oregon State, Arizona, at Washington State, at Utah. Honestly, other than Stanford, I don't see any of these games as likely wins. Even Arizona State will be a battle.
One bit of discussion I haven't seen much of so far, what's going on with recruiting? Right now Colorado is 75 in the composite recruiting class rankings. 75! I'm assuming Deion will do most of his work in the transfer portal, but that's still a bit surprising on the recruiting front, especially because most of the truly elite talent have already announced their schools and will be signing soon.
Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes lost Saturday but the future is plenty bright. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
So unless Colorado is stealing recruits, it's almost impossible for this recruiting class ranking to become a top 25 caliber class.
On the other side of the ball, I've seen enough to say it, USC can't win a title with this defense. This seems to be the consistent curse of Lincoln Riley. The defense, no matter what, always stinks.
As good as Caleb Williams is, and let's be clear, he's incredible, this defense isn't good enough to win a title with, it's just not.
5. Kentucky obliterated Florida.
I expected Kentucky to win for a third straight year -- they were my blood bank guarantee this week -- but I didn't expect to see the Wildcats rush for 329 yards, 329!, on Florida.
And they did it on just 36 carries.
That's nearly ten yards a rush.
I know, I know, there were some big runs popped, but the Kentucky offensive line physically dominated the Florida front.
This is honestly what I expected Tennessee to do two weeks ago in Gainesville. I know Florida has a good recruiting class lined up, but Billy Napier is going to hop right back on to a hot seat.The Gators still look like a 6-6 caliber team to me. (That's why I said after their Tennessee win that the biggest story to me from that game was how bad the Vols looked.) Figure Gator losses to Georgia, LSU and Florida State and then toss up games against South Carolina, Arkansas, and Missouri. Honestly the only game I see on Florida's schedule that's a very likely win is Vanderbilt.
As for Kentucky, could this be the year the Wildcats make a run at the SEC East?
Probably not.
Kentucky embarassed SEC foe Floria on Saturday afternoon. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images).
I expect Georgia to handle them next week fairly easily in Athens and Alabama, unfortunately for the Wildcats, rotates on the schedule too. Factor in Missouri, Tennessee and South Carolina as, at best, a 2-1 stretch and we're still talking on the top end about a three loss SEC season for Kentucky, I think. And Louisville is solid too, which means that game may be more difficult than we thought before the season started. So even at 5-0 right now, a 3-4 finish to go 8-4 wouldn't surprise me.
But would you have ever believed there would be a time when Kentucky would beat Florida three years in a row? I wouldn't have believed it. Mark Stoops deserves a ton of credit for what he's accomplished there.
6. Ole Miss outlasted LSU, which gave up 711 yards of offense to the Rebels in Oxford.
You want to talk about an uncomfortable situation? If LSU loses to Missouri in Columbia this weekend, look out. LSU fans are going to be enraged given the expectations that the Bayou Bengals entered the season with. And what they are paying Brian Kelly.
As for Ole Miss, we talked about a three-way tie situation in the Big Ten East, you need to root for Texas A&M to beat Alabama this weekend. If that were to happen then the Aggies come on the road to Oxford on November 4th. The bigger challenge, however, is that Ole Miss happened to draw a road game at Georgia as their cross-division opponent, which means, as I'll discuss below, the Alabama at Texas A&M game next week feels like it may well be for the SEC West title, especially if Alabama were to win.
Also, given what we've seen from LSU the past two weeks, especially on defense, against Arkansas and Ole Miss, have we put too much weight on Florida State's win over LSU in week one?
I still have the Seminoles ranked number one because I'm giving them credit for the two best wins of any team so far this season: neutral site against LSU and on the road at Clemson, but that's a wobbly number one in the Outkick poll, especially with how good several other teams have been and how poor that performance also was against Boston College.
7. Texas A&M's defense looks very good.
The Aggies stonewalled an Arkansas team that couldn't get out of its way in Jerry World on Saturday.
A&M dominated in this game, posting 414 total yards to Arkansas's 174 and running for over 200 yards.
Texas A&M hosts Alabama this weekend. (Photo by Aric Becker/ISI Photos via Getty Images)
If A&M had paid someone to come to College Station and hadn't gone to Miami, the Aggies would be ranked in the top ten for sure. As is, the game against Alabama feels very winnable. The Tide are only a 3.5 point favorite, which is one of the lowest regular season lines I remember seeing for an Alabama game in over a decade. Last year the Aggies were attempting passes for a road win in Tuscaloosa, two years ago, of course, they won.
I think this will be a defensive struggle and expect A&M to have a very good shot at victory.
8. Tennessee got revenge against South Carolina, but the Vols are one of many SEC teams out there it's hard to get a good read on after five weeks.
Tennessee was truly awful in the first half at Florida, but with the 41-20 win over the Gamecocks, the Vols now get a week off to prepare for Texas A&M in Knoxville.
Josh Heupel's Vols are 15-3 in their last 18 games and have won 13 in a row in Neyland Stadium. That should have Vols everywhere exulting, but the loss to Florida, especially against this Gator team, was just so crushing to the fan base that it's hard to have very high expectations.
The loss of wide receiver Bru McCoy will be big, but how do you predict the remaining seven games for the Vols based on how these first five have gone? Especially when five of those games are against current top 25 opponents. Tennessee gets Texas A&M and Georgia in Knoxville and then has to go on the road at Alabama, at Kentucky and at Missouri. 3-2 in those five feels like a really good outcome. That would get the Vols to 9-3 in year three of Heupel and give them a shot at back to back ten win seasons in a bowl game.
That's a heck of a turnaround.
But right now I think it's almost impossible to have much of a read on this team at all.
Like many of the SEC teams so far, Tennessee is an enigma.
9. How good is Washington?
I almost wrote about them last week in the Starting 11 because of how dominant they'd been.
But then they almost got tripped up in a late night Pac 12 game at Arizona.
Michael Penix, Jr. is playing at a Heisman level for the Huskies and in two weeks that game against Oregon is going to be must watch.
Quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and Washington are making noise. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images).
Then comes this finishing stretch in November: at USC, Utah, at Oregon State, and Washington State.
For now just know that Penix, Jr. is probably the most under the radar potential Heisman contender in the country.
10. My OutKick National Top Ten
As a reminder, these rankings are entirely based on what we've seen on the field so far this year, not what I expected to see before the season started. I have Michigan and Georgia, for instance, ranked lower than others do because neither team, in my opinion, has played against a top caliber opponent yet. Conversely, I have FSU and Texas ranked as high as I do because of the quality of their wins so far.
11. SEC power rankings 1-14
As a reminder, I only rank teams based on what we've seen on the field so far.