College Football Roundup Week 9: What It All Means, Winners, Losers, Overrated, Underrated

College football Week 9 roundup with the 5 things that matter, winners and losers, overrated and underrated parts of the weekend, and what it all means.

College Football Week 9 Roundup

Week 9 Roundup
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Week 9 scoreboard, all the predictions
Week 10 opening lines | AP | Coaches
College Football Playoff Top 25 Prediction
Big Game Reaction: MSU, Georgia, OSU, more
Ranking the 15 Teams Still Alive For Playoff

– MSU’s statement: One Really Big Thing
– UGA-Florida: Most Overrated Thing
– Gary Patterson: Most Underrated Thing
– Welcome to November What It All Means, Week 9

– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

Winners & Losers From Week 9

Winner: Michigan State RB Kenneth Walker

How do you go from being a relative no-name to the Heisman front-runner? You set the foundation with a strong start to the season, you have a few big games here and there to generate a buzz, and then when everyone is watching and you’re on the big stage, you beat your biggest rival by rushing for 197 yards and five touchdowns in a 37-33 win.

Loser: Everyone else in the Heisman race

With Walker’s monster performance against Michigan – and with Ole Miss QB Matt Corral losing to Auburn, Texas RB Bijan Robinson and Oklahoma QB Spencer Rattler long out of the picture, and with Clemson QB DJ Uiagalelei not even a thought – the 2021 Heisman race has come down to Walker, Alabama’s Bryce Young once he has a signature moment, and the entire Georgia defense. And …

Winner: Oklahoma QB Caleb Williams

As debuts go, this one is a whopper. Already in the midst of an amazing few weeks ever since he took over the 2021 season with his fourth down run for a score against Texas, he took it up a few notches with a 402-yard, six-touchdown pass day against Texas Tech.

In just over five games he has hit 72% of his passes averaging 11 yards per throw with 14 touchdowns and one pick. That, and 281 rushing yards and four touchdowns, and more signature Heisman moments than the rest of the field combined.

Loser: Texas

To go way-painfully dated with the reference, if Williams is the best debut since Pearl Jam’s Ten, then Texas is every hair metal band after the release of that and Nirvana’s Nevermind.

The Longhorns were rolling right along on the way to a blowout win over Oklahoma and an almost certain run to the Big 12 championship, and then came that run by Williams. Texas melted down and still hasn’t recovered. After losing at Baylor, it’s now on a three-game losing streak with work to do at 4-4 just to go bowling.

Winner: The Paul Bunyan Axe game

From out of absolutely nowhere, things are starting to set up for the Wisconsin trip to Minnesota on November 27th to be a giant deal in the Big Ten race. There’s a great chance the winner goes to the Big Ten Championship.

After blowing out Northwestern, the Gophers are rolling on a four-game winning streak after the weird loss to Bowling Green. They have to deal with Illinois, at Iowa, and Indiana before getting the Badgers.

Wisconsin rumbled over Purdue and the D stuffed Iowa. The offense has stopped screwing up, and the defense continues to be a brick wall. It gets at Rutgers, Northwestern, Nebraska, and then the trip to Minneapolis.

Loser: Conference USA’s possible showcase moment

It could’ve been so amazing, and it should still be a good game. UTEP made it a fight in a 28-25 loss to Florida Atlantic. Had it won, it would’ve been 7-1 going into its showdown against unbeaten UTSA. It would’ve been a shot for Conference USA to have enjoyed some positive national attention for a bit – and it could still happen in a light week of big games overall.

Winner: Washington State Cougars

How was Wazzu going to recover from an ugly 1-3 start? How could it go on after the school’s uglier breakup with head coach Nick Rolovich? It moved forward by winning, going 4-1 in the last five games.

After shocking Arizona State 34-21, and thanks to an earlier win over Oregon State, Washington State is in a position to take the Pac-12 North if it can win out against at Oregon, Arizona, and at Washington.

Loser: All those who had Florida State +9.5 and/or the under on the 48 point total vs Clemson

You are not alone … you are not alone … you are not alone …

– MSU’s statement: One Really Big Thing
– UGA-Florida: Most Overrated Thing
– Gary Patterson: Most Underrated Thing
– Welcome to November What It All Means, Week 9

NEXT: The really big college football thing was …

The Really Big College Football Thing Was …

Michigan State won, and Jim Harbaugh lost.

Here’s the thing about Jim Harbaugh and his time at Michigan – he doesn’t lose to bad teams.

2021 Michigan State is a great team.

Throw out everything that happened in 2020 – that was a weird aberration of the season in just about every way. Before that – and this year, too – Michigan always beat the mediocre under Harbaugh and only lost to the elite of the elite.

Again, outside of 2020, Harbaugh’s only loss to a team that didn’t finish with ten wins was the wild walk-off 14-13 night game at Iowa in 2016. It’s been easy for too many to forget that losing was a regular occurrence at Michigan before Harbaugh showed up.

Despite all the bluster and hype and fan hoo-ha, dogging any Michigan coach for losing to Ohio State right now isn’t really fair. However …

The Michigan head coach really can’t lose to Michigan State.

The Michigan head coach just lost to Michigan State. Again.

Michigan fans might not like it, but they get it when it comes to Ohio State. But lose to “little brother” and there’s a big, big problem.

What Michigan and Harbaugh can’t blow off about 2020 was how a bad Spartan team won 27-24. Excuses – fair or not – don’t matter when the score check is now Mel Tucker 2, Jim Harbaugh 0.

And that’s really where this all should be right now. The media narrative is about Harbaugh losing to another great team – I just did the same thing – when it’s the other guy and the other team that’s the real story now.

The Michigan State 37-33 win over the Wolverines was one of the best games of the year – Oklahoma-Texas was better, but that’s for another day. Both teams played well, both teams deserved to win, and both teams are still deep in the Big Ten title chase with Ohio State still on the respective slates.

It’s not like the Spartans are playing with house money now for a fan base that knows recent success – it’s still the only Big Ten program other than Ohio State to get into the College Football Playoff – but 8-0?

A win over Michigan? The puck on the stick with a shot to play for the Big Ten title by winning out? A running back who’s probably the leader right now for the Heisman?

This is really big, really fun stuff for a program that seems to be just getting started with a whole new style and era now under a rising superstar head coach in Tucker.

And best of all of the Spartan fan base, it’s going to be almost a full three years of bragging rights over that self-proclaimed Leaders and Best school.

– Wazzu, Texas: Winners & Losers
– UGA-Florida: Most Overrated Thing
– Gary Patterson: Most Underrated Thing
– Welcome to November What It All Means, Week 9

NEXT: The most overrated college football thing was …

The Most Overrated College Football Thing Was …

Georgia beat Florida.

This was Georgia vs. Florida.

This was the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party – and yes, I’m demanding that comes back. As we’ve learned, fans and people in 2021 don’t need alcohol to act like entitled jerkweeds – which was partly why the nickname was ditched after a slew of problems. Cocktail parties – when done tastefully – are wonderful.

But I digress.

This was supposed to be one of the hardest-hitting, toughest battles of the college football season.

This was when that Florida team that pushed Alabama to the brink was going to show up with all of its own NFL and multi-star talent and give the No. 1 team a push, and …

It was a coronation.

How mismatched was this? Stetson Bennett had the Stetson Bennett game – he was fine, throwing for 161 yards and a score and coming up with a nice run – with two picks, and it totally didn’t matter.

Georgia turned the ball over three times, it had the ball for under 28 minutes, and it was outgained by the Florida O. If you had told Gator fans all of that was going to happen – along with the Stetson Bennett two picks – they’d have been giving you the giant hugs you so richly deserve.

But it was 34-7.

It was 27-0 before Florida finally got on the board in the final moments, and even then, all that late touchdown did was anger Georgia as it came back and scored again.

At some point Georgia has to be tested, doesn’t it?

We might be witnessing a defense that ranks up there with some of Nick Saban’s greatest creations at Alabama – comparing recent times to recent times – but that means that these big games going forward might just be performance art.

We got that in 2019 with LSU, and in 2020 with Alabama. Now we’re getting that, but with a defense for the ages.

– Wazzu, Texas: Winners & Losers
– MSU’s statement: One Really Big Thing
– Gary Patterson: Most Underrated Thing
– Welcome to November What It All Means, Week 9

NEXT: The most underrated college football thing was …

The Most Underrated College Football Thing Was …

Gary Patterson is no longer the head coach of the TCU Horned Frogs.

His first full season at TCU was in 2001. The program was a member of the WAC – sky point – when he took over as the interim head coach in 2000.

Patterson had a few nice seasons going 21-4 in 2002 and 2003 as a member of Conference USA, but a clunker of a losing 2004 campaign soured that a bit before the program moved to the Mountain West. That didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.

And then … kaboom.

It might be a bit of an overstatement to suggest that Patterson changed the future and stature of an entire university, but TCU went from the Mountain West world to the big-time of the Big 12 thanks to a phenomenal seven-year run.

Under Patterson, the Horned Frogs had six seasons with 11 or more wins in seven years in the Mountain West. They had three top seven finishes in a row, and they shocked a Wisconsin team – helped by head coach Bret Bielema forgetting to use his unstoppable rushing attack until it was too late – in the 2011 Rose Bowl to finish 13-0 and No. 2 in both polls.

Just when it seemed like the program couldn’t handle life in the Big 12 after its first two seasons, it came within one fourth down stop against Baylor away from going to the first College Football Playoff in 2014.

How much can one play change college football history? Had TCU won that epic battle with the Bears, Ohio State doesn’t get into the CFP and, obviously, doesn’t win the national title.

And, of course, under Patterson, TCU holds the distinction of winning the worst sporting event ever played – the 2018 10-7 Cheez-It Bowl over Cal.

After that, TCU went 21-22.

On a three-game losing streak and after a blowout loss to Kansas State in the midst of a lost season, it became time for the program to move on from a guy who had chance after chance after chance to move on to bigger schools and much bigger gigs.

The Big 12 is changing. With Texas and Oklahoma leaving and some new schools coming in, the conference is about to be a whole lot different and everyone – throw Texas Tech in there, too – is about to get ready to start anew.

TCU is about to start over, too. It’s getting that chance in this position because Patterson spent the last two decades guiding it here.

– Wazzu, Texas: Winners & Losers
– MSU’s statement: One Really Big Thing
– UGA-Florida: Most Overrated Thing
– Welcome to November What It All Means, Week 9

NEXT: What It All Means: Week 9

What It All Means: Week 9

Okay, November. Be interesting.

There really might not be a whole lot of drama at this point if Georgia really is the stuff, but at least it’s going to be an interesting ride to get to the final destination.

Is this just about the Bulldogs? Are we in for yet another clunker of a College Football Playoff with the one great team taking over yet again?

After all of the early upsets, is the CFP really going to be the SEC champion, Ohio State, Oklahoma, and some fourth team that ends up getting dropkicked by the SEC Champion 45-3?

Will Alabama have something to say about it all if it gets to the SEC Championship at 11-1?

Will Ohio State keep progressing, will Caleb Williams really be the spark for Oklahoma, or …

To twist the phrase, are we about to be in for something completely different?

What if Michigan State really is that good?

What if this Wake Forest thing is for real?

Week 9 Roundup
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Week 9 scoreboard, all the predictions
Week 10 opening lines | AP | Coaches
College Football Playoff Top 25 Prediction
Big Game Reaction: MSU, Georgia, OSU, more
Ranking the 15 Teams Still Alive For Playoff

What if Oregon doesn’t stumble again and the team finds its way to 12-1?

What if Baylor gets hot the rest of the way, or what if we have a wild upset in the Big Ten Championship to screw everything up – be careful of that Wisconsin defense if it gets a cut at whatever comes out of the East.

What if Tennessee rises up and gets that O going in an upset over Georgia, or Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma twice, or, heaven forbid …

What if Cincinnati really does start to look the part of a team that has to be in the College Football Playoff?

There is a bit of a fait accompli aspect with so many big powerhouse teams doing their big powerhouse things, and we know, as always, those quirky outlier teams get to this point only to buckle under the weight of November.

But we’re overdue for something weird.

We have yet to see a massive upset that matters in a conference championship game during the College Football Playoff era.

We haven’t seen a College Football Playoff without Alabama, Ohio State, or Clemson in it – by the way, while the CFP is off the table, don’t 100% count out Clemson in the ACC title chase.

What if the SEC implodes and we do get Wake Forest, Michigan State, Oregon, and Cincinnati?

What if a freshman who didn’t make his big debut until the middle of the season wins the Heisman?

Or, what if Georgia really is that good and we’re seeing something amazing with that defense in the age of pyrotechnic offense?

It’s college football. It’s November. Let’s go.

– Wazzu, Texas: Winners & Losers
– MSU’s statement: One Really Big Thing
– UGA-Florida: Most Overrated Thing
– Gary Patterson: Most Underrated Thing
– Welcome to November What It All Means, Week 9