2022-23 NCAA Football (Championship Week)

(11) Utah 47-24 (4) Southern Cal

I thought Utah would be a problem for USC and that turned out to be the case. USC went up 17-3, then got outscored 44-7. Yipes! Southern Cal is set up for next year (I assume they'll be pre-season top 5), but, man, if Utah could've gotten it done against Florida way back in week 1, they'd be on their way to the playoff right now. USC is out of the playoff and deservedly so, if they'd won this game I'd be cool with them in but losing twice to Utah puts Ohio State back in play. 

(10) Kansas State 31-28 (OT) (3) Texas Christian

Only caught snippets of this game, looked incredibly even to my eye. Neither team took the upper hand until K State was able to stop TCU on the goalline in OT, which pretty much doomed the Horned Frogs. Good W for Kansas State, but not a bad enough L to knock TCU out of the playoff, which is the correct move (though I would've moved the Buckeyes to #3 to set up a Michigan-Ohio State rematch). Georgia is not unbeatable but TCU will need to bring their best offense to keep up. 

(14) Louisiana State 50-30 (1) Georgia

It was not unthinkable that LSU would put together the right game plan and that UGA would just have a dud performance. I thought LSU mostly was pretty good, but UGA did not have a dud game and the Bulldogs just ran over LSU, which was not unexpected. UGA is good, that D is almost as good as last year but the offense is capable of grinding to a halt, so as solid as UGA has looked all year, this playoff should be plenty competitive. 

(22) Central Florida 28-45 (18) Tulane

Looks like Tulane did whatever they wanted on offense. Tulane had a solid season, won their conference (regular season and tourney style) and deserved a better ranking than their final #16. 

(9) Clemson 39-10 (23) North Carolina

Yawn. Clemson finally brought their offense, good for them. UNC was a rickety ship all season long but especially down the stretch they just weren't a very good squad. As annoying as the ACC teams were this year, I gotta say Clemson is actually underrated in the final poll. 

Purdue 22-43 (2) Michigan

Yeah, that's about right. Time for the Big 10 to give up the divisions, right? Purdue was never even ranked in the top 25 all year long, they were clearly just an afterthought going into the championship. Michigan was the better team from beginning to end. 

My top 12:

1) Georgia (yup, best pretty much all season long)

2) Michigan (won all their games, including at Ohio State and the B-10 championship)

3) Ohio State (bad loss to Michigan is the only blemish on their record)

4) Texas Christian (didn't take the Big 12 Championship but otherwise weathered all the ups and downs of their conference, they had a great season and totally deserve to be in the playoff)

5) Utah (they came closer than you think of being a top 4 team and beating Southern Cal twice is pretty impressive; yes, three L's but all to ranked teams on the road, I just think they were a much better team than you realize)

6) Alabama (yeah, finishing #5 is time to panic in Tuscaloosa, let's hope they drive themselves straight to mediocrity, just as Florida State and Nebraska shot themselves in the foot back in the day)

7) Clemson (I have them ahead of Tennessee, because their brutal loss to South Carolina wasn't as bad as Tennessee's; don't get me wrong: I think Clemson's offense is not very good and the ACC was annoying at best, but Clemson righted the ship after an embarrassing L and won their championship, which is more than I can say for UT)

8) Kansas State (a sneaky good team all year long, their 3 L's are all disappointing but not unforgivable; up against Bama in the bowl game and I'm curious to see if they can hang)

9) Tennessee (good season, beat Alabama and LSU, but couldn't hang with Georgia and then got smoked by South Carolina which is actually kinda lame; nice team but they were at best the 3rd best team in the SEC, how great was that this year?)

10) Southern Cal (they should probably be higher but the fact that they had the playoff on their plate and couldn't figure out how to stop Utah brings them a bit lower; good season, set for a great return next year)

11) Penn State (well, they got clocked by Michigan and Ohio State, but they easily handled everyone else they played; curious to see how they match up with Utah)

12) Tulane (hey, man, they've got some nice W's on their resume this year and they won their conference season and tourney and that's impressive; good offense, they'll be a tough out for somebody in a bowl)