I simply refuse to believe the 2022 college football regular season is already behind us. It feels like just yesterday we were reacting to the handful of Week 0 appetizer contests!
Luckily, this year’s rivalry week was a good one. It was headlined by yet another massive rendition of The Game between Michigan and Ohio State with Big Ten Championship and College Football Playoff stakes on the line.
Elsewhere, we got more clarity in the CFP race as No. 1 Georgia and No. 4 TCU capped off perfect regular seasons while USC got one step closer to finding itself in the final four. Clemson saw its nation-leading home winning streak come to a close on Saturday, opening the door for non-champion Buckeyes or Alabama team to sneak in with a bit of chaos.
A lot could still change depending on the results from next weekend’s championship games, but for the last time in the regular season, here are the winners and losers from a wild weekend of college football.
Winner: An ascendant Michigan
Though the Wolverines ended their losing streak against the Buckeyes last season, this one almost felt even more impactful for coach Jim Harbaugh’s team. It was UM’s first win at Columbus since 2000, and it finished off a 12-0 regular season, the first time Michigan has entered the postseason without a blemish since its national title season in 1997.
The Wolverines have been the more consistent team all season, and they proved it on Saturday despite Heisman-candidate running back Blake Corum seeing just two carries as he recovers from injury. Backup Donovan Edwards went for 216 yards and two touchdowns, while quarterback JJ McCarthy lit up the Buckeyes with three passing touchdowns.
The defense, meanwhile, likely ended C.J. Stroud’s Heisman hopes as he threw two interceptions in this game, though he did throw for 349 yards.
Michigan was embarrassed by Georgia in the CFP last year, but with a more dynamic quarterback in McCarthy and an elite rushing offense, this team could be more equipped to make a splash. It’s hard to believe this program was feeling quite a bit of anxiety after a poor 2020 season.
Loser: Ohio State hits replay
This game went from being competitive to a Michigan blowout rather quickly, and Stroud’s turnovers paired with a lack of aggressive decision-making from coach Ryan Day allowed this one to get out of hand down the stretch.
Dropping one game in a rivalry you’ve dominated is one thing. After all, no streak lasts forever. But dropping back-to-back — with the stakes as high as they’ve been in the last two seasons, no less — surely isn’t making anyone in Columbus feel great.
To be clear, any questioning of Day’s job security is preposterous. He’s 45-5 with two Big Ten titles and a playoff win. But for a program that has had a fairly easy route to the CFP since its inception, that may not be the case moving forward.
After the loss last year, Day brought in Oklahoma State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles to rework the scheme. It will be a hard offseason for the Buckeyes as he heads back to the drawing board once more.
Winner: South Carolina ends the year with a ton of momentum
South Carolina went a bit outside the box with the Shane Beamer hire. Beamer, who had no previous head coach or play-calling experience, represents the modern archetype of the CEO-esque head coach who is much more focused on building a winning organization as opposed to delving into the minutiae of the scheme and the Xs and Os.
That can certainly be a bit of a gamble, especially in the SEC, but the returns on Beamer through two seasons are hard to deny. After a 7-6 campaign in Year 1, the Gamecocks are 8-4 and ended the season with back-to-back top-10 wins against Tennessee and Clemson — ending a seven-game skid against the latter, which dated back to 2014.
Those two wins certainly went a long way toward putting Beamer’s program on the map. South Carolina has historically had some high moments but has struggled to sustain success for more than a couple years at a time or take things to the next level. With Spencer Rattler likely coming back, this team has a chance to make some noise in the SEC in 2023.
Loser: Sour close to a good Year 1 at Oregon
It’s hard to evaluate Year 1 at Oregon under Dan Lanning. At 9-3, it was far from a failure of a campaign for the Ducks, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that this was a team capable of more.
All Oregon needed for a shot at USC in the Pac-12 title game was a win over Oregon State, but the plucky Beavers overcame a 31-10 second-half deficit to stun the Ducks, who will not play in the championship thanks to Washington’s win over Washington State, which created a three-way tie for second place that will send Utah instead.
The Ducks bounced back very well from an ugly 49-3 loss to Georgia in Week 1, ripping off nine straight wins. A loss to a resurgent UW squad ended this team’s playoff hopes, but it remained in the championship game driver’s seat after overcoming last year’s futility against Utah with a 20-17 win last week.
The future is undoubtedly bright in Eugene, but this team missed the opportunity to go from good to great.
Winner: USC, Heisman favorite Caleb Williams roll again
After a relatively friendly beginning to the season, the Trojans end the year on a gauntlet with three ranked opponents in UCLA, Notre Dame and Utah in the conference championship. USC is now 2-0 to start that stretch after a 38-27 win over the Fighting Irish on Saturday night.
Caleb Williams scored four total touchdowns and is now the clear frontrunner to win the Heisman Trophy with one game to go, thanks in part to a rough day from Stroud. Lincoln Riley’s transfer-heavy squad has some flaws, but this product is nothing short of phenomenal for a team that missed a bowl game last year.
The Trojans get the chance to avenge their lone slipup of the year against Kyle Whittingham’s Utah team, and with a win, they will almost certainly become the first Pac-12 team to make the CFP since 2016.
Loser: LSU's playoff hopes die in College Station
Keeping with the theme of overachieving first-year coaches, Brian Kelly’s LSU team ended what has been a fantastic Year 1 on a low note, falling 38-23 in College Station to a Texas A&M team that had already been eliminated from bowl contention at 4-7.
The Tigers, who previously ranked No. 5 and had great shot at making the CFP if they won out despite two losses, saw their playoff hopes end as they fall to 9-3 in Kelly’s first campaign.
It’s been a successful year for Kelly regardless, but this result renders next week’s SEC Championship Game utterly meaningless in a national sense as the Bulldogs will likely make the four-team CFP field regardless of the result.
Quick Hitters - Winners
- Mississippi State: Mike Leach’s Bulldogs had some disappointing outings this year, but they end at 8-4 with a win in the most important game on the schedule as Leach captured his first Egg Bowl title.
- Tulane: With a win on Friday over Cincinnati, the Green Wave earn a spot in the AAC Championship in a rematch against UCF, the only team to defeat them in conference play. The winner of that one will likely head to the New Year’s Six, but Tulane will have to see what happens with coach Willie Fritz, who has emerged as a leading candidate at Georgia Tech as of publication.
- Missouri: Unexpectedly, the Tigers will be going bowling after upsetting Arkansas on Friday afternoon in a 29-27 win. Coach Eli Drinkwitz wasn’t really under any pressure as he just received a raise and extension, but this will certainly help the vibes in Columbia this offseason.
- Florida State: FSU coach Mike Norvell entered the year with a lot to prove, and his team rose to the challenge. It’s 9-3, ranked and ended the season with a win over the Gators to end a three-game skid in the rivalry on Black Friday.
- Nebraska: It doesn’t mean much in a 4-8 season, but the Cornhuskers managed to play spoiler against Iowa, ending the Hawkeyes’ division title hopes. This was the first win for Nebraska, who hired former Baylor and Carolina Panthers coach Matt Rhule on Saturday, since Oct. 7.
- Purdue: Thanks to Iowa’s loss to Nebraska and the win over rival Indiana, the Boilermakers emerge from the complete mess that is the Big Ten West to win their first division title since the league moved to the current format. Purdue earns the right to (probably) get crushed by Michigan in Indianapolis next week.
- Oregon State: With all due respect to the Beavs, it doesn’t really get more “little brother” than this in terms of in-state rivalries. OSU’s win gives it just its third in the series since 2007, and coach Jonathan Smith is now 9-3 and earned his second victory over the Ducks. Smith is a former Oregon State quarterback, and he has this program on a very solid trajectory.
- Duke: I’m not sure there’s been a more underrated first-year coach this season than Mike Elko in Durham. The Blue Devils went just 3-9 in the final season under Dave Cutcliffe, but Elko — a former Texas A&M defensive coordinator — has this team at 8-4 after beating a good Wake Forest team in the finale. Were it not for a three-point shootout loss to rival North Carolina, Duke would have won the Coastal Division in Year 1.
- TCU: For a team that has played with fire all year, it was nice to see the Horned Frogs sail smoothly to a 62-14 win over Iowa State ahead of a much-anticipated rematch against Kansas State in the Big 12 title game.
Quick Hitters - Losers
- Ole Miss: The Rebels end the year losing three of their last four games, certainly not the way you want to conclude a season that began with quite a bit of promise. On the bright side, Ole Miss managed to keep coach Lane Kiffin after a quite public flirtation with Auburn.
- North Carolina: Both teams in the ACC Championship will enter coming off a loss as the Tar Heels lost to an NC State team that is down to its fourth-string quarterback in Ben Finley, who got the rivalry win in his first career start. UNC ends the regular season with back-to-back losses, and there’s a good chance it takes a third against Clemson.
- Clemson: Looking at the other half of the ACC title game, the Tigers come into this one licking their wounds after their 40-game home winning streak came to an end against their biggest rival, no less. Clemson will have a crucial offseason ahead, but unbelievably, this team still has the chance to reach the 12-win mark this season.
- Wisconsin: The Badgers dropped a winnable game on Saturday against a struggling Minnesota team to finish 6-6. It was a disappointing year in Madison, but it seems the hype around interim coach Jim Leonhard may have been a smoke screen as the Badgers announced Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell as the next head coach on Sunday. This is a home-run hire, and the future is bright for UW.
- Miami: The Hurricanes ended a stinker of a Year 1 with a blowout loss against a mediocre Pittsburgh team. Miami finishes 5-7 and won’t be playing in a bowl game in Year 1 under Mario Cristobal. The former Oregon coach is recruiting well and should have a lot more talent in the coming years, but this is certainly not what UM fans wanted to see in 2022.
- Liberty: On Saturday morning, reports indicated that Auburn planned to hire Flames coach Hugh Freeze — for some reason. Liberty played like a team that received that news shortly before kickoff, losing 49-14 to New Mexico State in one of the biggest spread upsets in years. To add insult to injury, Freeze to Auburn became official on Monday.
- Willie Taggart: The former Oregon and Florida State coach was fired at Florida Atlantic after an overtime loss to Western Kentucky on Saturday, finishing with a 15-18 record in Boca Raton. Taggart is just 46 and boasts an impressive turnaround at South Florida on his resume, but with a 71-80 career record, it seems fair to wonder if we’ve seen the last of Taggart, at least as a head coach.
- Appalachian State: What a strange, strange season for the Mountaineers. Let’s recap: This team upset Texas A&M in College Station and hosted College GameDay — which it won on a wild hail mary — and very nearly beat North Carolina in Week 1. It also finished 6-6, thanks to a loss to rival Georgia Southern in overtime on Saturday, and since two of those wins came against FCS opponents, App State won’t be bowling this year, unfortunately.
