Thank you, Ducks, for not laying a road egg versus the Pac-6 before my first take on Puddles’s Playoff Flight Plan…
Here’s a look back at the College Football (CFB) week that offered a look ahead to Oregon’s championship hopes, and the next games that impact the College Football Playoff Picture. I will not be dissecting the Ducks prior week’s (VICTORY!) game – I’ll leave that to far more qualified Oregon scribes than moi. I pulled Mr. FishDuck away from his study of sites for NFL betting to look at the national CFB scene with me.
Will Our Beloved Ducks be one of the CFB Playoff’s Delighted Dozen? One of the twelve programs in the nation primed to go all the way? After two weeks of turbulence, I believe the Saturday flight of week three was a thing of Playoff-level beauty.
All Rankings via AP Poll / All times Pacific (PST)***
A Look Back at Week Three of the 2024 College Football Season
Here’s a few quick hitters from the games this past weekend:
Words to Live by in the Football World – Is Bobby Knight back with the Hoosiers? This past week, brand-new Indiana head football coach Curt Cignetti was asked how he felt about playing a game in the fabled Rose Bowl. Channeling his inner Bobby Knight, Curt responded: “We’re not going to LA to be awed by a stadium, to go surfing, or visit Disneyland, we’re going there to kick a**!” Curt’s Hoosiers rightfully hosed the Bruins 42 to 13. Indiana was picked to finish next to last in the B1G conference, and are now 3-0 to start the season. Cignetti is 122-35 in his coaching career and has never had a losing season.
LSU had tough running on South Carolina. (Screenshot from ESPN Video)
LSU on Fraud Watch – MAN, how has LSU looked? In an ode Joyce Kilmer. “I hope again to never see a team with the initials ‘USC.’ ” LSU head coach Brian Kelly, whose team lost to No. 11 USC 27 to 20 on a last-minute Trojans TD, was not able to escape his first encounter with a USC team unscathed. However, he again looked for a last-minute Tigers touchdown to defeat University of South Carolina, and was able to by a score of 36 to 33 this past weekend. The 16th-ranked Bayou Bengals were favored in both games and failed to cover.
Not So Fast Longhorns – No. 2 UGA journeyed to its most hated Dawg House, located in Lexington, Kentucky, where its 13 to 12 win over the Fighting Stoops was par for the Lexington course. In the past five seasons, UGA has been held under 20 points in only three games (!!!), all vs. Kentucky. Georgia will need to crank up the heat in Austin when they visit the Longhorns in a few weeks.
The Fansville Curse Strikes Again
On Saturday, now No. 1 Texas QB Quinn Ewers, like DJ Uiagalelei and Caleb Williams, suffered the BOZ QB Fansville Curse. Ewers was injured in the game vs UTSA, sustaining an injury described by Coach Sark as an “abdominal strain.” Fortunately, Ewers is expected to be back this season – after all, Chip Kelly experiences this condition every time he sees the Ducks rolling on teams like Oregon State without his guidance.
No Angst in Austin – Still, there’s only so much talent you can lose when Arch Manning is the backup to Ewers. As the latest Arch in the Manning Family, the 1st’s old man must have been a geneticist or something. He seems to have perfected a Magic QB Gene, placed fatefully in Archie’s embryo with instruction for all future Mannings to undergo the same treatment. Thus, after Archie (The First) balled out at Ole Miss and in the NFL, came Peyton Manning and Eli Manning, who dutifully performed the family rite on Nephew Arch Manning – gracing Texas with yet another fantastic quarterback this season.
After Ewer’s exit, Arch II was responsible for five Longhorns TDs. Four were through the air, and with Peyton and Eli using a small portion of their advertising dough, $50M, they must have sponsored some wheels on the kid too – Arch RAN with the football 64 yards for a fifth touchdown!
Florida State shocked again! (Screenshot from ACC Digital Network Video)
Don’t Let the Door Hit You in The Butt On Your Way Out – Florida State sued the ACC hoping to transfer out for B1G/SEC $$$. The ACC countered with a suit of its own. As Stewart Mandel noted after 0-3 FSU’s loss to Memphis, “It’s becoming harder by the week for the conference to prove damages.”
Rivalry Games and Brawls
Week three delivered only two top-25 vs. top-25 matches but it did give us several early-in-the-season rivalry games: The Apple Cup, The Civil War, The Rocky Mountain Showdown, and The Backyard Brawl.
In the Backyard Brawl, Pitt was down by 10 points to West Virginia with less than 5 minutes left. The Panthers rallied to score twice, the second TD coming with 30 seconds left, to win 38-34. This victory duplicated Pitt’s last-minute win vs. Cincinnati the week before.
College Football Playoff-Impact Game of the Week – In a non-conference game in The Little Apple, the Kansas State Wildcats took a big bite out of the Arizona Wildcats’ Playoff hopes. Behind the efforts of QB Sir Lancelot, er- Avery Johnson, 156 yards passing with 2 TDs and 110 rushing is no stat-line to sneeze at. Kansas State ended Arizona’s nine-game winning streak and defeated a ranked non-conference opponent at home for the first time since 2002, 31 to 7.
No. 13 K-State plays No. 14 Oklahoma State later on the schedule in Manhattan, missing No. 12 Utah and formerly-ranked Arizona in the regular season. They finish the regular season with a game at No. 20 Iowa State that could be a preview of the Big 12 conference championship game.
Some additional good news: QB Avery Johnson has an NIL deal with the Little Apple’s Pierre’s Grooming Palace. Now, for $25, he will share the secret behind his flowing, golden locks.
Purdue saw this often, but for the wrong team vs. Notre Dame (Screenshot from CBS Sports Video)
Financial Floundering at its Finest – Holy Toledo! Mississippi State paid the MAC’s Toledo Rockets $1.2M to use its Rockets to come on down to Starkville, Mississippi for a G5 body bag loss to a mighty SEC team. “How about no to the beatdown- and thanks for the dough,” says Toledo’s famous Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger, along with every Toledo Mudhens fan, Trapper John, Radar, Hawkeye, Hot Lips – even Major Burns. Toledo 41 – Cowbells 17.
Blow Out of the Week – The Boilermakers were blown up 66-7 by an angry group of Domers (No. 17) disturbed about using a Playoff Mulligan against No. 23 Northern Illinois. Next up for the Battered Boilermakers is a game versus the also Battered Pac-6 Beavers in Corvallis.
Speaking of, enough on week three. Let’s look ahead to Oregon’s bye week and games coming up on the schedule.
Week Four College Football Playoff-Impact Games
No. 6 Tennessee Volunteers -7.5 vs. No.15 Oklahoma Sooners – Norman, OK – Saturday 4:30 ABC – Bonus Over/Under Bet – Will the loser of this SEC Battle Between 2 SEC Behemoths drop one or two spots in the AP Poll?
No. 11 USC Trojans -6.5 vs, No. 18 Michigan Wolverines – Ann Arbor, Michigan – Saturday 12:30 CBS
In the preseason, ‘SC was a touchdown+ underdog.
Illinois is surprising their fans and foes. (Screenshot from Fox Sports Video)
No. 12 Utah Utes -1.5 vs. No. 14 Oklahoma State Cowboys – Stillwater, OK. – Saturday 1 PM FOX
An oft asked question, ‘Will QB Cam Rising be good to go?’
No. 24 Illinois Fighting Illini +6.5 vs No. 22 Nebraska Cornhuskers – Lincoln, Nebraska – FRIDAY 5 PM FOX
Who knew both of these teams would be 3-0 headed into the first conference game. No doubt the loser of this one will drop out of the AP Poll.
PUDDLES WEEK 4 GAME – Puddles has a 99.99% chance to fly away with a victory, and perhaps touchdown in an Eugene field for a nap.
Heck, maybe we should all take a nice pond-side nap, Duck fans. We deserve it.
Jon Joseph
Aiken, South Carolina
Top Screenshot from NBC Sports Video
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Jon Joseph grew up in Boston, Massachusetts but has been blessed to have lived long enough in the west to have exorcised all east coast bias. He played football in college and has passionately followed the game for seven decades. A retired corporate attorney Jon has lectured across the country and published numerous articles on banking and gaming law. Now a resident of Aiken South Carolina, Jon follows college football across the nation with a focus on the Conference of Champions and the Ducks.