Another high-profile coach is in the firing line, College Football Playoff hopefuls saw that ship sail and fans were blacked out from weekend’s biggest games.
There was plenty wrong in Week 10 of the college football season, here’s the worst of it with our Flop 10:
Hugh Freeze
He might be fired by the time you read this. It seems like we’ve lost a coach every Sunday for the past month, and Freeze’s number is next. Wasn’t this guy supposed to be an offensive genius? That ship sailed years ago. Auburn is a hard watch under Freeze, and he was booed off the Jordan-Hare field after the Tigers’ 10-3 loss to Kentucky on Saturday.
‘I wish I could ask for patience but that’s not really something that people want to give in this day and time, and I understand that,’ Freeze said postgame. ‘I just know we’re so dang close and if we had a few things go our way earlier in the year, I think we’re looking at a whole different deal. … I would love for their patience, but you’re probably not getting patience from them, because they want to see a better product on the field and so do I. I understand it.’
Georgia Tech
Ramblin’ Wrecked. The No. 7 Yellow Jackets’ CFP at-large hopes now hinge on the regular-season finale at Georgia. Lose that, and they have to win the ACC Championship game to make the playoff. By losing 48-36 to a meh NC State team, Georgia Tech has left itself with no margin for error.
YouTube TV, ESPN
By my count 23 games were unavailable to watch Saturday for folks with YouTube TV as the streaming service and Disney drag out its dispute. That included Georgia vs. Florida, Oklahoma vs. Tennessee and Vanderbilt vs. Texas.
YouTube TV claimed Disney threatened a blackout as a negotiation tactic and are now following through with the move. That meant no ESPN channels, ABC, SEC Network or ACC Network.
We don’t care whose fault it is. We just want to watch football. Fix it.
ACC officials
It wasn’t a banner day for refs in the ACC. First, they seemed to get a missed field goal call wrong against SMU. Thankfully, the Mustangs prevailed in OT over Miami, so it wasn’t decisive.
But a late call in the Duke-Clemson game certainly affected the outcome.
On 4th-and-10 with 49 seconds left, Duke QB Darian Mensah threw an incomplete pass. However, officials called defensive pass interference that extended the drive and allowed Duke to score a touchdown and a game-winning 2-point conversion.
‘It shouldn’t come down to that. We had plenty of opportunity to win the game, but that’s one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen in my entire coaching career. Ever,’ Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said.
Houston
The Cougars were on the rise, came in ranked and were creeping into the playoff talk after their win over Arizona State last week… So subsequently they lost at home to West Virginia, who was previously winless in Big 12 games.
Tulane
Tulane coach Jon Summral suggested UTSA piping in crowd noise at The Alamodome as reason for the Roadrunners’ 21-0 record in regular-season conference home games under coach Jeff Traylor.
That gave Traylor plenty of ammunition, while the home fans had plenty of reason to make noise Thursday night.
‘A coach that said we basically cheated the last six years, which disrespects everything we’ve done the last six years, in my opinion,’ Traylor said.
The Green Wave were likely looking past the Roadrunners to next week’s AAC showdown with Memphis. Four turnovers doomed Tulane, which now is one of six teams in the AAC with one conference loss.
‘We need to feel the pain for this one for a little while,’ Summral said postgame. ‘This should hurt. It should sting. This should suck, and it does. Then we have to move forward. We’ve got a pulse (in the conference race), which means we’ve got a chance. We still have a lot to play for, and we still have a lot in front of us.’
Miami
All that talent, wasted — again.
Carson Beck, who was on this list a few weeks ago for throwing a teammate under the bus, seemed to cast blame at the coaching staff the Hurricanes’ OT loss at SMU. ‘They ran the same thing the whole time… I just execute the play that’s called.’
Full disclosure: His interception in OT (which was not the receiver’s fault this time) opened the door for the Mustangs’ upset.
South Dakota State
‘There’s no getting around it. South Dakota State’s 24-12 loss to Indiana State on Saturday was one of the worst losses in the Jackrabbits’ Division I era,’ wrote Matt Zimmer of Sioux Falls Live. ‘It is without a doubt the worst loss SDSU has suffered at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium, where a crowd of 15,842 witnessed a devastating disaster.’
So what happened?
The FCS 5th-ranked Jackrabbits lost at home to an Indiana State team that had lost six in a row, hadn’t beaten SDSU in a decade and was a 32-point underdog. Woof.
Indiana football doubters
Seems like no matter what Indiana does, folks (ahem, Paul Finebaum) constantly find ways to diminish their results. While many elite teams are struggling to put opponents away, all Curt Cignetti’s team does is bludgeon them. On Saturday, IU won 55-10. A week after beating everyone’s darling, UCLA, 56-6. It’s hard for folks to comprehend, but IU is good — really good. So it’s OK to admit you’re wrong, Paul.
Boise State
The lede from the Idaho Statesman summed it up: ‘Pick any Halloween adjective you’d like — ghastly, frightful, horrid — and it still probably can’t do justice to Boise State’s game Saturday afternoon against Fresno State.’
The Broncos had an outside shot at the playoff, having only lost to potential CFP teams Notre Dame and South Florida. That’s gone after a 30-7 to Fresno State at home Saturday. It’s worth noting starting QB Maddux Madsen left the game with injury, but Boise was a 17.5-point favorite.
“I want to talk to Bronco Nation: I truly apologize for the product that they watched today,” coach Spencer Danielson said postgame. “They saved their money, they find a way to come out and support our team, and what they watched today was not the standard.”
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