The College Football Clean-State Top 25: Washington-Oregon Instant Classic Highlights Week 7

Do not look for Oklahoma, Texas or Ole Miss in this week’s Clean-Slate Top 25, the ranking that looks only at what happened this week in college football and ignores history with the fervor of a high school senior coasting through spring semester. Do not look for Alabama, either, as there will be no points awarded for barely beating this edition of the Arkansas Razorbacks. 

But I do have top ten Rutgers because nobody can stop me from that or any of these other rankings!

1. Washington: Michael Penix Jr. was awesome. So was Bo Nix. Oregon and Washington both got good production out of their running games; their defenses both came up with some timely stops that looked like they would swing the outcome in one direction. It feels a little simplistic to say “Washington won 36-33 because Oregon narrowly missed a 43-yard field goal at the end of the game” given all the back-and-forth that came before it, but sometimes simple happens to be true. If these two end up meeting for a Pac-12 championship rematch, I won’t be mad at it given how the last two Nix vs. Penix bouts have gone.

2. Michigan: Trailing Indiana 7-0 after the first quarter, the Wolverines scored on their next eight possessions (seven touchdowns, one field goal), while the Hoosiers never again held the ball inside the Michigan 30-yard line. Somehow, despite winning 52-7, no Michigan player had 100 yards rushing or receiving. Everybody gets a turn behind the wheel of Jim Harbaugh’s Fun-Time Football Bulldozer!

3. Ohio State: College football fans and media members feel a compulsion to sniff out upsets before they happen. We crave chaos and disorder and we remember when we’ve been rewarded with it before. That is, in part, how one could talk themselves into Purdue possibly beating an Ohio State team missing some key contributors.

Naturally, the Buckeyes won 41-7 as Purdue struggled badly on third down, going three of 17 on the day. Ohio State didn’t even need an especially clean day, losing the turnover battle 2-0 and getting flagged nine times, but the defense only allowed the Boilermakers to complete 40% of their passes. Never try to identify the upset. Let it find you, like a butterfly landing gently on your arm on a beautiful summer day.

4. Stanford: How can you not find it delightful that the official highlight video Stanford put together for this game starts with 1) only 24 minutes left in regulation and 2) Colorado up by 29 points? To make up that kind of deficit, you usually need a turnover or a weird special teams play, but none materialized for the Cardinal in a 46-43 double-OT win. The defense got stops and the offense scored, and while sometimes the former set the latter up with good field position, two of Stanford’s touchdown drives started inside their own five. 

5. UNC: A small Miami lead at halftime swung to a 21-point deficit for the Canes with 11 minutes to play after the Tar Heel defense held Miami to the following on its first four drives of the second half: a lost fumble, a pick, a three-and-out and a turnover on downs near midfield. UNC managed to overcome 147 penalty yards in a 41-31 win; Miami got more first downs off Tar Heel flags (five) than by running the ball (three).

6. FSU: Is it possible to win 41-3 and feel like you missed several opportunities? For Florida State it was; the Seminoles recovered a fumble on the Syracuse five and came up with no points after a failed fourth-and-goal and turned it over on downs again on their next drive when they failed to convert fourth-and-one at the Syracuse 26. There was another FSU drive that started at the Orange nine-yard line after a big punt return that ended in a field goal. None of these things mattered in the slightest; Florida State had six offensive plays that gained at least 25 yards and Syracuse only managed two.

7. James Madison: Dominated Georgia Southern 41-13. The Dukes scored on all four of their first-half possessions and three of their first four after halftime; on defense, they picked off the Eagles three times and forced them into 21 third downs. We are rapidly approaching the place where, if the NCAA sticks to its guns and refuses to let JMU play in a bowl game as part of their FBS transition, the Dukes should just finish the year undefeated and put up a national championship banner anyways.

8. Missouri: The Tigers entered the fourth quarter trailing Kentucky by one point but knocking at the door of the end zone. Two plays later, they held the lead and never relinquished it as Kentucky’s offense melted down on the next three drives, losing twelve yards before punting on the first and then throwing interceptions on the second and third. Most of Kentucky’s damage came in the first quarter when they opened with consecutive touchdown drives. After that, the Wildcats only had three drives that gained more than ten yards and lost 38-21.

9. Arizona: The Wildcats ran wild over Washington State, winning 44-6 and more than doubling the Cougars’ offensive production (516 yards to 234). Pick a stat and Arizona probably won that battle. They even had more punts downed inside the 20. Some blowouts are like a tidal wave, smashing into you all at once. This one was more like coming home from vacation to find a water leak that, over the course of the week, has ruined your floors; Arizona scored at least ten points in every quarter but never had more than 14.

10. Rutgers: With 14:31 left in the game, Michigan State, leading 24-6, punted from their own 27-yard line. Or at least they thought they did; a formation penalty pushed them back to the 22 and required another punt. It didn’t go great:

When it got the ball back, Michigan State had to punt again (this time successfully), and Rutgers drove for another touchdown. Adding a two-point conversion made it 24-21. Then Rutgers recovered an extremely tricky onside kick:

And the very next play was the score that put Rutgers ahead 27-24, where they’d stay for the rest of the game, thanks in part to holding the ball for the last seven minutes to keep Michigan State from a chance to tie or win. I can’t imagine how the Spartan offense even coped with this; after that fumbled punt snap touchdown, they only ran six plays the rest of the game. (Granted, it would have helped had those plays gained more than a total of two yards.)

11. Notre Dame: I think if you told USC fans before this game the defense was going to hold Notre Dame to 251 yards of offense, they’d conclude the Trojans would be on the winning side of a 48-20 final score. But Caleb Williams threw three interceptions in the first half and Notre Dame turned all of them into touchdowns on offense. USC lost another turnover in the second half, which the Irish converted into points more directly by running that fumble back for a touchdown. 

12. Pitt: Louisville bringing Jeff Brohm home and immediately jumping out to 6-0 this year was another nice narrative; Pitt did not care about that plot arc and beat the Cardinals 38-21. The Panther defense finished with four sacks, one fumble recovery and two interceptions, one of which was run back 86 yards for a score right as it looked like Louisville was ready to counterpunch in the third quarter. Pat Narduzzi hates happy endings for you!

13. Oregon State: The Beavers had been winning games with defense and running the ball, so naturally they beat UCLA 36-24 by averaging 10.8 yards per pass and giving up 287 yards on the ground. To be fair, Oregon State did force three UCLA turnovers, all in the first half, which it converted into 17 points; UCLA only forced one and turned it into a field goal. Say, that 14 net points off turnovers is about the final margin! Perhaps there is a lesson in that!

14. Duke: Despite missing starting quarterback Riley Leonard, Duke had no trouble dispatching NC State in a 24-3 win. NC State’s longest drive gained 50 yards, and their only scoring drive gained zero (a field goal after an interception in Duke territory). Please take a moment to consider that Duke is one of the only stable things in the ACC, and maybe in college football altogether. Hold those you love close to you. We don’t know what this strange Blue Devil future holds.

15. Iowa State: A very responsible exercise in responsible saving by Iowa State — a touchdown here, a field goal there, a healthy number of defensive stops — that didn’t let Cincinnati make things interesting in a 30-10 Cyclones win. The Iowa State defense rendered the Bearcat passing attack entirely ineffective, as Cincinnati QBs went 15/29 for 99 yards, one touchdown and two picks. Only 16 of those yards came in the second half. 

16. TCU: Horned Frogs, the Clean-Slate Top 25 is perfect for you this week. All the bad and dumb things that happened to TCU before this week don’t count, but beating BYU 44-11 absolutely does. Josh Hoover entered this game with 23 career passes in college, so naturally he threw 58 passes for 439 yards, four touchdowns and a truly mind-cracking video from the TCU social media department.

17. Liberty: After entering halftime with Jacksonville State tied at 10, the Flames put together three 75-yard-plus touchdown drives in the second half. The first covered 12 plays, the second six, and the last took a whopping 16 plays to complete as Liberty won 31-13 on Tuesday night.

18. Oklahoma State: Kansas has been a very fun team to watch under Lance Leipold and a good story to boot, and it almost looked like that would be the case against the Cowboys after the Jayhawks came back from a two-score deficit to take an eight-point lead in the third quarter. But Oklahoma State shut down the Kansas running attack (90 yards on 29 attempts) and forced two turnovers in the fourth quarter to win 39-32.

19. Tulane: Went back and forth with Memphis until the fourth quarter, where the Green Wave forced a turnover and effectively ended two other drives with timely sacks while scoring twice to win 31-21. Makhi Hughes had 130 of Tulane’s 144 rushing yards, 66 in the second half on 12 carries. 

20. Colorado State: Down 30-10 to Boise State with about six minutes to play, Colorado State looked positively cooked. They mounted an effective touchdown drive to cut that lead to 13, but the clock, down to four minutes, was still against them. Then they recovered an onside kick, scored another touchdown, held Boise State to a three-and-out, and pulled off a miracle Hail Mary to win the game.

Here’s the part that’s particularly fun to me: Boise State did almost the exact same thing to Colorado State in 2017! 

21. Georgia State: Beat Marshall 41-24 by absolutely dominating the fourth quarter with two killer touchdown drives. The first started at the Georgia State 25 and, eight plays later with a touchdown. The second, with the Panthers holding a ten-point lead, started at their own 17 and included five first downs (one off a Marshall personal foul) and ground away over six minutes of clock on the way to the final touchdown of the game.

22. Air Force: The Falcons tried to give this game away in the fourth quarter twice with fumbles on consecutive offensive snaps. The first gave Wyoming the ball on the Air Force 25 and was converted for a touchdown (with a blocked extra point), and the second gave the Cowboys the ball at the Air Force 29 with the score tied. But the defense pushed Wyoming back six yards, the Cowboys missed a 52-yard field goal, and Air Force broke a long run for a touchdown three plays later to win 34-27.

23. Florida: For years, the go-to insult SEC fans would use against the Pac-12 and Big 12 was that their games lacked any meaningful defense. These were showcases for B+ quarterbacks to put up huge numbers in track meets where whoever scored last won. In completely unrelated news, Florida beat South Carolina 41-39 as Graham Mertz (423 yards and three touchdowns) outdueled Spencer Rattler (313 yards and four TDs).  

24. Houston: There are lots of things on a college football field I would not like to experience personally. I would prefer never to be the victim of a blindside sack. I don’t think I would enjoy biting very hard on a double move and watching a receiver glide into the end zone while I’m flat on my back. I suspect it feels very unpleasant to have a punt blocked when you’re in midair. And now, thanks to Houston’s 41-39 win over West Virginia on the final play, I know that I certainly would not like to be a defensive back watching this catch and wondering how this all came crashing down.

25. Troy: Shut out Army 19-0 in West Point, forcing four turnovers and five punts. Twelve of Troy’s points came from field goals, the kind of slow-scoring creep that made an Army miracle comeback seem possible. But Army is not Stanford, which is probably good because I have no idea how the Tree would hold a gun.