We only get 13 to 14 of these Saturdays every year. That’s why, unlike Sam Leavitt with the football in the red zone, it’s important to protect them at all costs. It was another eventful Saturday. Several teams found themselves behind the eight ball coming into the weekend, and following it, several more found their playoff hopes dead and buried.
Here’s what we learned in Week 11.
1. The path to the SEC championship is a three-team race
If the season ended today, it would once again be Alabama and Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. Hooray. The reason is the tiebreaker between the three two-loss SEC teams: Texas, Alabama and Tennessee. Of those three, Alabama would win the current tiebreaker because of their opponents’ winning percentage being the highest by 0.0062% through Week 11.
All three of those teams are still in position to make it to Atlanta to face Georgia. The Bulldogs are a near-lock to make it at roughly 99% odds. At this point, if all three win out, you would expect someone other than Alabama to be their opponent based on the records of teams left on Texas’ and Tennessee’s schedule.
This year’s SEC Championship Game will be the last one ever.
2. Lane Kiffin may win big at LSU, but Year 1 has been a failure
What the heck happened? It was not supposed to end like this. On paper, it’s understandable that LSU could finish the season with four losses. All four losses have come against ranked opponents, and they were leading in three of the four as well. What is hard to move past is the way this team has lost with Lane Kiffin as the head coach.
Red zone turnovers. Blown leads. An inability to win in crunch time. These are all staples of this LSU football team in Year 1 of the Lane Kiffin era.
Listen, just because you spend more money than God on a roster doesn’t mean you’re always going to win. Look at the Dodgers. Heck, look at Oregon and Texas A&M. That being said, the way LSU is losing games this season is a massive concern about the mindset and focus of where the program currently is versus where it needs to be.
LSU took a lead against Alabama late in the third quarter. They subsequently gave up three touchdowns to the Tide and lost 31-13. On Saturday against Texas, they had a 21-10 lead with six minutes left in the third quarter. After that, they had four possessions. Three of those were three-and-outs and all four ended in punts. In total, the LSU offense ran 15 plays for minus-1 yard in the fourth quarter and the Tigers lost to Texas 22-21.
That’s inexcusable. It’s not time to move on from Lane Kiffin at all. He will win here in Baton Rouge. However, it is once again time to move on from the gimmicks and anything else lacking in substance on that sideline.
3. The CFP committee has to drop Alabama this week
Alabama’s No. 3 ranking was weird to begin with. It’s not that their résumé at the time wasn’t deserving of a high ranking. They had played the No. 1-ranked strength of schedule and had three ranked wins under their belt. However, ranking them ahead of an undefeated UCLA team seemed very dumb considering they had two losses.
This week, the committee should be forced to drop them. Those three ranked wins will most likely dwindle down to one because of South Carolina and LSU’s losses. Both of those teams slipped to 6-4 after losses. Even worse, their third ranked win (No. 11 Kentucky) also lost. We saw this play out with Indiana a week ago when all eight of the teams they beat this year lost on Saturday. The committee dropped them five spots during a bye week. Alabama’s struggle win against four-win Vanderbilt certainly didn’t do them any favors, but Alabama should fall considerably after that performance.
