The regular season is basically over. All that's left for the majority of programs are to wait for bowl game allocations, wait for coaches to be fired, and wait for flights to be tracked.
Week 14 was the dramatic reveal for the Power 5 conferences. Conference championship games are set for this Friday and Saturday. Only the Big XII, with its ten teams, has a regular season game remaining on the schedule. What happened in Week 14 to get us here? This feature will talk about the week that was.
The SEC Trips Over Itself
Federal law dictates that we must recognize the SEC as being the "toughest" and "best" conference in college football. Failure to pay tribute to the league subjects a first-time offender to a fine. That said, the league took it on the chin last week. The SEC went 0-4 against the ACC and finished 5-6 overall against teams from the four other Power 5 conferences.
The only Power 5 teams the SEC beat in Week 14 were from the SEC.
Louisville rallied to beat Kentucky and shut out the Wildcats from the postseason. Florida State held off Florida toward that same end, leaving the Gators home for the holidays. Georgia Tech stung Georgia in overtime at Athens. Finally, Clemson manhandled South Carolina for its first win in six tries against its in-state rival.
Three league games deserve some comment here. One, Alabama rallied to beat Auburn in the Iron Bowl, securing its place as a hopeful one-seed in the playoff. Alabama's Amari Cooper had a Biletnikoff-caliber day receiving (13 receptions, 224 yards, and three touchdowns). Alabama should be alarmed that it conceded 628 yards of offense to Auburn, including 456 yards passing to a converted safety. Alas, four-straight second-half touchdowns surged Alabama to the win.
Second, Missouri beat Arkansas to secure its place in the SEC Championship Game. Arkansas, the designated chaos team for Ohio State fans since the beginning of October, failed to do anything of value for Ohio State fans' playoff hopes. It failed to beat Alabama. It failed to beat Georgia. It failed to beat anyone noteworthy. Missouri's berth in the SEC Championship Game is unfortunate for those of us that wanted Alabama to play Georgia in the Georgia Dome.
That said, there is something to be said about the two-time SEC East champion having a home loss to three-win Indiana on its record.
Finally, Ole Miss won the Egg Bowl, handing Mississippi State its second loss. This will deny the SEC a second team in the first College Football Playoff.
Root hard for Missouri on Saturday, but, perhaps, don't get your hopes up too much. I expect Alabama to hammer Missouri.
Oregon Gets a Mulligan with Arizona
UCLA needed to defeat 6-5 Stanford in the Rose Bowl to win the Pac-12 South's berth in the conference championship game and get a rematch with Oregon. Instead, UCLA lost by three touchdowns to one of the most anemic offenses in the country. The berth for the Pac-12 South instead went to the winner of the Territorial Cup, Arizona.
Yes, Rich Rodriguez is one game from a Power 5 conference championship. He also won an important rivalry game at the end of the season, ending a streak of excruciating losses dating to the 2007 season with West Virginia. Who knew?
Arizona may be a top-ten playoff rankings team on Tuesday but is not a credible threat to sneak into the playoff with its two losses on record. Arizona winning the Pac-12 on Friday would eliminate Oregon from the playoff for good, which is something Ohio State fans would not mind.
Oregon, which secured the Pac-12 North several weeks ago, throttled Oregon State in Corvallis on Saturday night.
How Much More Grace Does Baylor Get?
Baylor is a team college football writ large wants to embrace 100-percent. Through a combination of ingenuity and Texas-sized money, the program is now a mainstay in top-25 rankings.
However, Baylor's improved quality of play, resources, and talent far exceed the schedule it provides for itself. The program is still playing the same kind of teams out of conference that it would play ten years ago when its aspirations were to limp to a .500 record and a bowl game.
It is an uneasy relationship in which pollsters, voters, and fans want to love Baylor but are looking for any reason to cast doubt on Baylor as a fraud. It starts with the non-conference schedule and continues with limp efforts like we saw on Saturday. Baylor needed a failed two-point conversion and recovered onside kick to beat four-win Texas Tech by a score of 48-46.
The immediate reaction to this game characterized Baylor as a safe omission from the playoff unless multiple teams ahead of it lose this week (including Alabama, Florida State, Texas Christian, et cetera). Is that necessarily the case? Baylor has that win over Texas Christian earlier this season (the only loss so far for the Horned Frogs) and has one last chance to make an impression on Saturday night when it hosts Kansas State.
Elsewhere in College Football
Auburn fired its defensive coordinator after its loss to Alabama. Texas A&M did the same after its loss to LSU.
Nebraska fired Bo Pelini. Only two coaches have at least nine-wins every year since 2008. Bo Pelini is one. Nick Saban is the other.
TCU looked the part in mauling Texas by 38 points on Thanksgiving.
Virginia Tech secured a 6-6 season in rallying to a four-point win over Virginia.
North Carolina thumped Duke in its own stadium last week en route to denying Duke a second-straight division crown. It followed that the next by losing at home to NC State by four touchdowns.
Pittsburgh beat Miami by 12 points on Saturday night and has swept its schedule of former Big East teams (Boston College, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Miami).
USC hammered Notre Dame by five touchdowns. The Irish lost five of its last six games after the near-miss in Tallahassee.
