The College Football Clean-State Top 25: NC State Dominates North Carolina for Week 13’s No. 1 Rank

It’s the final Clean-Slate Top 25 of the regular season, which gives us one last chance to assign a ranking to each team based solely on what they accomplished this week in college football. Let’s dive in.

1. NC State: The Wolfpack never trailed against North Carolina, building a 26-7 lead at halftime that was never seriously threatened in the last two quarters of a 39-20 win. NC State scored on its first eight possessions and held the ball for 40 minutes, and Payton Wilson threw in this nifty interception along with 15 tackles, two tackles for loss and a sack.

2. Oregon: Oregon’s probably always going to be a school known for offense first and foremost, but we should acknowledge that the defense put the clamps on Oregon State in a 31-7 win. The Beavers went one-for-six on third downs in the second half (and three-for-11 in the game) and didn’t have a run longer than six yards. This is not to discount the efforts of the Duck offense, which helped their colleagues by holding the ball for nearly 19 minutes in the first half and not punting until midway through the fourth quarter.

3. Michigan: The three fourth-down conversions Michigan pulled off will get a lot of the attention (as will the two turnovers the defense forced), but a lot of Michigan’s best work in its 30-24 win over Ohio State was on first down. The Wolverines averaged 7.4 yards per first down snap and did even better than that in the second half when they gained 148 yards on 15 first down plays.

4. Kentucky: Louisville gained a lot more yardage than the Cats and was better on third down, but it committed several key turnovers and gave up a kickoff return TD to fall to Kentucky 38-31. Kentucky running back Ray Davis finished with three touchdowns and 127 yards from scrimmage on 18 touches.

5. Alabama: 4th and goal from the 31 is one of the silliest possible scenarios to find yourself in, much less in a rivalry game when you’re down four points late in the fourth quarter. So it makes perfect sense that was the setting for Crimson Tide QB Jalen Milroe throwing the game-winning touchdown for Alabama to beat Auburn 27-24.

This is the most Auburn thing that Alabama’s ever done, and it did it to Auburn! In Auburn! 

6. Oklahoma State: After trailing BYU by 18 points at halftime, the Cowboys ripped off 21 straight points before the Cougars sent things to overtime, where Oklahoma State punched its ticket to the Big 12 title game with a BYU fumble. Ollie Gordon, who scored twice in overtime, finished with five rushing touchdowns on 34 carries, joining a very short but distinguished list in the process.

7. Texas: The Longhorns ran for 104 more yards than Texas Tech gained as an offense (198 yards). They also passed for more, though that gap was only 28 yards. The Red Raiders had 14 first downs and nine punts, which is not what you would call a desirable ratio, and they also threw three picks. Despite all the yardage Texas piled up in its 57-7 win, it did a lot of its scoring damage from short fields; five scoring drives, all field goals, were on possessions that gained less than 35 yards.

8. San Jose State: Needing a win and some favorable computers to make the Mountain West Championship, the Spartans took care of the first bit by beating UNLV 37-31. Things got a little dicey in the final 11 minutes when San Jose State nearly blew a 20-point lead, but before that, the Spartans scored on seven of their nine possessions and had seven plays that gained at least 20 yards. (The computers didn’t cooperate because they’re out to get us.)

9. Appalachian State: Needing a win over Georgia Southern and some help from JMU to get back to the Sun Belt Championship, the Mountaineers dominated the last three quarters against the Panthers to win 55-27 (and got the assist they were looking for from the Dukes). Appalachian State only had two possessions after the first quarter that didn’t end in a score, excluding its final kneeldown as it averaged over 8.5 yards per play over the final three frames.

10. Cal: The Bear defense forced four turnovers and stopped UCLA on fourth down on three different occasions, which is how the Bruins turned five red-zone possessions into a 33-7 defeat. They also consistently set the Cal offense up with great field position; the longest of Cal’s six scoring drives only had to go 54 yards, and its two touchdown drives went 11 and 25.

11. Old Dominion: Facing a 21-0 halftime deficit, the Monarchs held Georgia State to three points in the second half as it clawed back to score the go-ahead touchdown in a 25-24 win on the final play of the game. That capped an incredible sequence where Old Dominion scored 11 points with less than two minutes to go.

Georgia State’s field goal drive gained 35 yards and was by far its longest march of the second half. No other Panther possession after halftime gained more than 16 yards.

12. James Madison: Denied the chance to formally hold the title of Sun Belt East champions, JMU decided to just seize the unofficial title instead, beating Coastal Carolina 56-14. Dukes quarterback Jordan McCloud threw for five touchdowns and ran for another, and the offense consistently benefitted from good field position; five drives started at the 50 or better for JMU.

13. Penn State: Usually, one team has destroyed another when it gains three times as much yardage on offense. Penn State multiplied Michigan State’s offensive output by more than ten times, 586 to 53, but we cannot apply this math to the final score as the Spartans were shut out 42-0. It gets even more bleak if you look at the second half, where Michigan State ran 23 plays and gained -36 yards.

14. Missouri: Ended the season with a tidy 48-14 win over Arkansas. The Tigers jumped out to a 41-0 lead, forced five three-and-outs and didn’t let the Razorbacks cross midfield until the very end of the third quarter. Arkansas got sacked five times and gave up 11 tackles for loss.

15. New Mexico State: The Aggies needed a 52-yard field goal on the game's last play to walk away the winners of a 17-14 battle against Jacksonville State after it blew a two-score lead in the second half. 

But it was in that position thanks to strong red zone defense. Jacksonville State averaged just over two yards per play in the red zone and only scored one touchdown on six trips inside the Aggie 20. The other five possessions resulted in three short field goals, one kick missed and one interception.

16. Iowa State: Prepare for one of the most confusing facts you’ve ever seen.

That stat was true before the Cyclones got the ball in Kansas State territory after a turnover in the fourth quarter, but it only wound up being slightly inaccurate. Iowa State finished with 42 points and ran five plays across the 50. And only one of those was any good! Kansas State did its best to keep up but fell seven points short, as the Cyclone defense held Wildcat QB Will Howard to four of 14-for-50 yards and a pick on the last three Kansas State possessions.

17. Clemson: Clemson’s offense still looks a little rickety; Cade Klubnik threw 27 passes and only got 100 yards, and the Tigers didn’t move into the South Carolina red zone until the last possession of the game. But after allowing South Carolina to score a touchdown on an 81-yard drive in the first quarter, the Clemson defense forced eight straight punts, and the Gamecocks didn’t run another offensive play in Clemson territory.

18. Iowa: I already reviewed the incredible weirdness that was the end of Iowa’s 13-10 win over Nebraska, but let’s just stop one more time to tip the hat to the Iowa defense, a unit that held Nebraska to 10 first downs and forced three turnovers even while the offense (and special teams!) were mucking about.

19. Tulane: There are many ways to win a football game. One of the most reliable is “force five turnovers and turn most of them into points.” That worked for Tulane, who scored its first touchdown on a 10-yard drive after a pick and turned two other UTSA turnovers into short drives for a touchdown and a field goal en route to a 29-16 win. The Tulane defense also threw in three sacks, six passes broken up and three stops on fourth down.

20. Boise State: Ashton Jeanty provided most of the offense for the Broncos with 14 carries for 107 yards and a score and five catches for 118 yards and another touchdown. Air Force had four possessions in the second half where it trailed by one score but couldn’t get closer than the Boise 34-yard line on any of them, losing 27-19 and sending the Broncos to the Mountain West Championship game two weeks after Boise State fired its head coach.

21. Washington: There was plenty the Huskies could have done better in a 24-21 win over Washington State in the Apple Cup, but the sheer guts of this call on fourth down deep in Washington territory in a tie game deserves your time and admiration.

22. Northwestern: The fourth quarter of Northwestern’s 45-43 win over Illinois featured five touchdowns (one on a fumbled kickoff recovered and run in by the kicking team), a field goal, a muffed punt, two interceptions and a Northwestern punt from the Illinois 35-yard line. That’s simply too much for one quarter; please try to spread this out a little more next time.

23. Purdue: Came back from a ten-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat Indiana 35-31, thanks in part to what must have been the most frustrating third-down conversions Hoosiers fans have ever beheld.

Would this make you mad enough to pay Tom Allen more than $15 million to go away? Because that’s how mad it made Indiana!

24. Rice: A narrow 24-21 win over FAU is not normally cause for celebration, but this week it allowed the Owls to deploy one of the greatest college football dad jokes of all time.

25. West Virginia: On the one hand, this is not the play Baylor’s defense wanted to end the year on.

On the other, being done is a blessing of its own for this season of Bears football, I suppose.