The College Football Clean-Slate Top 25: Oregon Trounces Colorado for Week 4’s Top Spot

The Clean-Slate Top 25 returns to judge our nation’s FBS teams based solely on their performances in Week 4. Last week, for instance, Alabama strug-HA! Last week doesn’t matter! Banish it from your memory, as the past is merely a set of chains that can only bind you if you allow it! 

1. Oregon: The simplest way to express the imbalance of Oregon 42, Colorado 6: By the time the Ducks booted their first punt of the game, Colorado had already punted eight times. The Buffaloes didn’t move the ball inside the Oregon 35 until they were down 42, while Bo Nix completed his first 11 passes and finished the first half 22-of-24 with three touchdowns through the air and one on the ground.

2. Penn State: Beating Iowa 31-0 was the most dominant defensive performance of the week, even if it was against an Iowa offense so full of struggle that it warrants contract amendments. The Hawkeyes had ten possessions, and six of them turned into three-and-outs. Iowa hadn’t been shut out since 2000 when Brian Ferentz was still in high school.

3. Jacksonville State: Eastern Michigan’s last shutout isn’t quite as old (that took place in 2014), but the Tigers only allowed EMU to convert one third-down attempt, a third and one in the second quarter and stopped the Eagles on 14 other tries. Jacksonville State’s defense never allowed Eastern Michigan past the JSU 31-yard line, winning 21-0.

4. Kansas: Turned a three-point halftime deficit into a 38-27 win thanks to three long scoring drives to start the second half (two touchdowns and a field goal, with each drive covering at least 64 yards). The longest run BYU managed in the 38-27 loss was seven yards; Kansas had nine rushes that gained 10 or more and only had to call a third down play eight times.

5. Washington State: The Cougars broke an 11-game losing streak to ranked Pac-12 opponents; their last win against one came in 2018 against No. 24 Stanford. Cam Ward completed 19-of-20 passes in the first half for 293 yards and three touchdowns, which helped Washington State build enough of a lead to weather a 21-point fourth quarter from the Beavers and win 38-35.

6. Alabama: The Crimson Tide may not, in fact, be falling after the Alabama defense smothered Lane Kiffin’s offense and won 24-10. Ole Miss finished without a 100-yard runner or receiver for only the fourth time under Kiffin’s tenure. While Alabama’s still figuring out some issues on the offensive line, it turned things around in the second half, allowing no sacks or tackles for loss.

7. Washington: Michael Penix Jr. threw his last pass of the game with 20 minutes still left to play and checked out with the Huskies up by 40 points. The final score got slightly closer, as Washington beat Cal 59-32, but it’s hard to argue the Bears were ever in the game considering UW scored two touchdowns — on a pick-six and a punt return — before their “your neighbor who spends way too much money on fireworks” offense even ran a play.

8. Florida State: It wasn’t a particularly dominant effort for the Seminoles — the offense only managed three points in the second half, and the defense allowed Clemson to gain an average of 41.8 yards per drive (excluding kneel-downs) — but Florida State never let the Tigers pull away. Clemson built a ten-point lead twice in the first half, and FSU immediately scored a touchdown on the following possession, which was enough to put it in a to win in overtime 31-24.

9. Air Force: Put together a delightfully imbalanced offensive distribution in their 45-20 win over San Jose State, with two passes for 28 yards and 73 runs for 400 yards and six touchdowns. Both passes came in the second quarter, and even though the Falcons were down at halftime by three, they simply didn’t need anything but the ground game after that. Take the third quarter: Air Force got the ball first, put together a 15-play touchdown drive (all runs, obviously) that took nearly nine minutes off the clock, held the Spartans to a quick three-and-out, and then called nine more runs to evaporate the rest of the quarter on a drive that would end in a touchdown early in the fourth. Magnificent stuff.

10. Wyoming: The Cowboys put together a wild fourth quarter to beat Appalachian State 22-19. First, Wyoming quarterback Andrew Peasley threw a pick-six to fall in a 12-point hole. He then threw a 75-yard pass on its very next play from scrimmage to cut the deficit right back to five. The Mountaineers put together a long, clock-devouring drive that stalled out at the Wyoming 29.

Then this happened:

But I’m not finished! Appalachian State, now down three, moved quickly back into Wyoming territory, where it threw a pick that would have ended the game — except for a pass interference call against the Cowboys. At the Wyoming 20, needing a field goal to tie and having just thrown a pick that was called back, Appalachian State THREW ANOTHER INTERCEPTION. Wyoming Football contains multitudes.

11. Oklahoma: Played the part of “bend, don’t break” defense to near-perfection in a 20-6 win to welcome Cincinnati to the Big 12. Five Bearcat drives breached the Oklahoma 35-yard line. They resulted in two made field goals, one missed field goal, an interception and a turnover on downs. The offense was an airport hamburger: perfectly fine, nothing to write home about and should not be tweeted about by David Brooks.

12. Kentucky: Jumped out to a 24-point lead on Vanderbilt and sealed things with two interceptions in the second half, including Maxwell Hairston’s second pick-six of the game. 

A couple of late Vanderbilt touchdown drives made the 45-28 final score and Kentucky’s defensive numbers look a little worse than reality bears out; through three quarters, Vanderbilt’s quarterbacks completed just 33% of their throws and averaged 3.7 yards per attempt.

13. Utah: Only one side of the ball really showed out for the Utes, but the defense was so dominant that Utah was able to pull out a 14-7 win despite an inefficient rushing attack (2.13 yards per carry) not seen since a 2018 defeat to Washington, where Utah averaged 2.04 yards a run. UCLA quarterback Dante Moore got sacked seven times, completed 42.9 percent of his passes and yielded two turnovers, including a pick-six on the first play of the game. I don’t think Utah can rely on this kind of game all year, but the Clean-Slate Top 25 looks neither forward nor backward.

14. Georgia State: The Panthers never trailed in their 30-17 road win against Coastal Carolina, as the offense put together three long touchdown drives of 75, 75 and 80 yards. The Chanticleers were in third-down hell for most of Thursday night, facing an average distance to gain of 9.2 yards.

15. Ohio State: After Lou Holtz declared that Ohio State couldn’t win a national title because it’s not physical enough, Notre Dame apparently decided to make up for that gap and give the Buckeyes an extra player on the last two plays of the game: 

The Irish had three drives that made it inside the Ohio State 40-yard line but didn’t lead to any points, missing one field goal and failing to convert two fourth-down attempts. Fortunately, every Buckeyes fan is completely satisfied with the outcome, and Ryan Day should definitely check the Ohio State message boards to see just how beloved he’s become after a 17-14 win in South Bend.

16. Duke: UConn’s last drive, which covered 83 yards and ended with a touchdown, kept both this 41-7 Duke win from being a shutout and the final offensive numbers from being truly abysmal; the Huskies gained 69 yards through the air on that drive and only had 45 passing yards in the rest of the game. The Blue Devils made life especially stress-free for their offense in the first half, as all three of their touchdown drives started with Duke getting the ball on UConn’s side of the field.

17. Texas A&M-Commerce: Lost 10-9 to Old Dominion but 1. scored a touchdown on a one-handed catch with less than a minute to play: 

And 2. did the thing underdogs should always do in that situation and went for a two-point conversion to win rather than kicking the extra point and hoping for the best in overtime. It’s important to reward good decisions — even when they don’t work out.

18. Liberty: Three Liberty players (Billy Lucas, Quinton Cooley, and Kaidon Salter) finished with more rushing yards than Florida International put up (64 on 33 attempts) in a 38-6 Liberty win.

19. Georgia Southern: Outgained Ball State by 333 yards and won 40-3; the lone Ball State score was a 23-yard field goal with 7:15 left and the Eagles leading by 40 points, which makes it one of the sadder field goals possible.

20. Louisville: The first seven offensive drives for the Cardinals resulted in touchdowns and after the eighth ended in a punt, Louisville went back out for drive number nine and tacked on one more touchdown just for fun. Boston College wound up getting doubled up, 56-28, and Louisville only needed to run 62 plays on offense.

21. Fresno State: Also scored touchdowns on their first seven drives in a 53-10 demolition of Kent State but then later added a field goal instead of an eighth touchdown, which is why it’s one spot below Louisville. The logic of the Clean-Slate Top 25 is unassailable.

22. Texas: Baylor might be pretty bad this season, but when you hold the Bears to 13 rushing yards before their last two drives (where they gained another 47 but didn’t put any points on the scoreboard), you get to be ranked this week, Texas.

23. Georgia Tech: Forced five Wake Forest turnovers to beat the previously undefeated Demon Deacons by a final score of 30-16. The Yellow Jackets outpaced Wake Forest in yards per pass, yards per rushing attempt, field goal percentage and penalties. (That last one is bad, though it’s kind of amazing that Georgia Tech could commit 142 yards worth of penalties and still win by two touchdowns.)

24. Michigan: Went into the half only up 14-7 on Rutgers at home, then won the second half easily with a field goal, a pick-six and a 66-yard touchdown drive. If this game was frustrating to Michigan fans, it’s only because they’ve seen it play out in a much more lopsided fashion.

25. Indiana: Beating Akron in four overtimes isn’t ideal, but we might not have another chance to rank the Hoosiers this year so let’s just admire the trick play they called to beat the Zips and ignore essentially everything else.

(Also, come on, Big Ten social media managers! You know at this point in overtime we’re just doing two-point attempts, not touchdowns!)