Ohio State and Michigan lived up the hype and delivered a high-pressure, down-to-the-wire matchup between two of the best teams in the Bowl Subdivision.
The win sends Michigan to the Big Ten championship game and a pairing with Iowa. A win there would make the Wolverines no worse than the second seed in the semifinals depending on what happens in the SEC championship game.
Beating the Buckeyes keeps the spotlight off coach Jim Harbaugh, who concluded his three-game conference suspension as part of the program’s sign-stealing scandal and will be back on the sidelines for the game against the Hawkeyes. A loss would’ve made it impossible to ignore the ongoing NCAA investigation into the scandal and the fact that Harbaugh was suspended for half of Michigan’s regular-season schedule.
Instead, the fallout from Saturday is reserved for Ohio State coach Ryan Day and the Buckeyes, who spent months honing a more physical style to better match wits with the Wolverines but were outmuscled in the second half.
A year ago, Ohio State lost to Michigan but still reached the College Football Playoff. Given the depth of Power Five contenders in this year’s race, the Buckeyes’ chances of finishing in this season’s top four are between slim and none.
The program will presumably head into next season with Day at the controls, though the scrutiny he’ll face after this loss could make this a moment to evaluate other opportunities, such as Texas A&M. With or without Day, it will be another offseason of intense self-reflection.
The Wolverines and Buckeyes lead Saturday’s winners and losers:
Winners
Washington
It took some luck, clutch kicking and overcoming some head-scratching play calls in the final minute, but Washington remained unbeaten with a 24-21 win in the Apple Cup against Washington State. This turns next Friday’s Pac-12 championship rematch against Oregon a playoff play-in game; the Huskies won 36-33 when the rivals met during the regular season. Washington was able to sneak past the Cougars despite another middling game from quarterback Michael Penix Jr., who completed 18 of 33 throws on just 6.2 yards per attempt. But he delivered a 65-yard scoring drive in the final two minutes that was capped by a 42-yard field goal as time expired. The Huskies have been living on borrowed time for months with a series of close-and-closer wins but is still just one victory away from a playoff berth.
Alabama
With Alabama down 24-20 and facing fourth-and-goal from the Auburn 31-yard line with under a minute left, Jalen Milroe took a shotgun snap, stood in the middle of a clean pocket for seven seconds and then found wide receiver Isaiah Bond in the back left corner of the end zone to steal a 27-24 Iron Bowl win and keep the Crimson Tide’s playoff hopes alive entering the SEC championship game against Georgia. Milroe made another late-in-the-day Heisman statement with 366 yards of total offense, including a team-best 107 yards on the ground, and two touchdowns passes without an interception. The miraculous win sends the Tide into December with just the one non-conference loss to Texas, making this season one of the most impressive of coach Nick Saban’s career.
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Oklahoma State
Down 24-6 at halftime to Brigham Young, the Cowboys rode three touchdowns from Ollie Gordon to force overtime and then topped the Cougars 40-34 in two extra frames to earn a spot opposite Texas in the Big 12 championship game. Pushed aside as a contender after September losses to South Alabama and Iowa State, Oklahoma State closed with seven wins in eight games to earn a shot at the second conference crown of the Mike Gundy era. The comeback win is heartbreaking for rival Oklahoma, which lost to the Cowboys earlier this season and needed a BYU win to earn a rematch with the Longhorns. Gordon’s 166 rushing yards and five touchdowns could be enough to get Gordon to Manhattan as a Heisman finalist.
Florida State
It wasn’t a perfect day: Louisville’s loss to Kentucky isn’t good for Florida State, which would’ve obviously preferred the Cardinals bring just one defeat into the ACC championship game, and Alabama beating Auburn to stay alive in the playoff could have the Seminoles looking over their shoulder when the committee issues the final rankings next Sunday. In the end, though, all they can and should do is focus on taking care of business and finishing the regular season unbeaten, confident in the belief that no unbeaten Power Five team would miss the top four. So far, so good. Backup quarterback Tate Rodemaker had 134 passing yards in his first start in place of Jordan Travis and the Seminoles scored a 24-15 win at Florida to head into the matchup with Louisville a perfect 12-0. Defensively, FSU held the Gators to just 232 yards and did a really nice job containing young quarterback Max Brown, who had just 86 yards on 16 attempts with an interception.
Michigan State
The Spartans closed the regular season on Friday with a 42-0 loss to Penn State, the final chapter in what has been one of the most miserable years in program history. One day later, some good news: Michigan State officially hired former Oregon State coach Jonathan Smith, a deft rebuilder who turned the Beavers into one of the top teams in the Pac-12 and a New Year’s Six contender. This experience will pay off as he takes over a team and program in need of a bottom-to-top overhaul.
The newly bowl eligible
Several teams clinched bowl eligibility just under the wire. That includes Central Florida, which beat Houston 27-13. Virginia Tech is back in the postseason for the first time under coach Brent Pry after a 55-17 win in the Commonwealth Cup against Virginia. Cal defeated UCLA in their final Pac-12 regular-season game to get bowl eligible. Also getting a sixth win on Saturday were South Florida, Rice, Marshall, Syracuse, Old Dominion, Louisiana-Lafayette and Northern Illinois.
Losers
Ryan Day
Day’s tenure is in danger of being swallowed up by his team’s failures in the game against Michigan, in the same way the John Cooper era at Ohio State isn’t remembered for two near-national championships in 1996 and 1998 but for his woeful record against the Wolverines. Day is now 56-7 overall with the Buckeyes, but three of those losses have come in this rivalry and all but one have come against teams in the top five of the playoff rankings. So these games against Michigan might be representative of a bigger issue for the program: Ohio State has feasted on lesser opponents but come up short against other members of college football’s upper crust, beginning with this bitter rivalry.
Louisville
Louisville’s playoff hopes aren’t altered too dramatically by a 38-31 loss to Kentucky — the Cardinals were almost certainly not going to make it anyway, so whatever. Not to say this one doesn’t hurt. The Cardinals outgained the Wildcats by more than 100 yards but turned the ball over three times, allowed a special-teams touchdown and couldn’t stop Ray Davis, who had 127 yards of total offense and three scores. The bottom line doesn’t change too much: Louisville can lock in a New Year’s Six bid by beating Florida State in the ACC championship game or as the next-best team from the conference should the Seminoles finish in the top four. Unfortunately, the loss puts a sour finish on what had been a remarkable debut regular season for coach Jeff Brohm.
North Carolina
UNC won six in a row to open the year but will limp into the postseason having lost four of six, capped by an ugly 39-20 loss at rival North Carolina State. The Wolfpack and coach Dave Doeren deserve huge credit for a nine-win season almost no one saw coming, especially given the team’s issues at quarterback and on offense. But this one was more about the Tar Heels and the feeling that this has been a wasted season: wasted for not making the most of the hot start, a ripe-for-the-taking ACC and what will likely be the final season for quarterback Drake Maye, a likely top pick in next year’s NFL draft. N.C. State did a nice job on Maye, limiting the potential All-America pick to 22 completions in 38 attempts for 254 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. Maye did have 106 yards and a score on the ground, though.
Florida
Florida is an undisciplined, inconsistent mess of a program that couldn’t even find a way to beat the Travis-less Seminoles at home when needing a win to earn bowl eligibility. The loss drops the Gators to 5-7 and makes Billy Napier the program’s first coach since Raymond Wolf in 1946-47 to suffer back-to-back losing seasons. Napier joins Wolf and Josh Cody (1936-37) as the only coaches to suffer losing finishes in each of their first two seasons. Yeah, in case it wasn’t clear: Napier is becoming a historically disastrous hire for Florida.
Colorado
Two months ago, Colorado was hailed as the biggest story in college football — if not the biggest story in all of sports — after opening the Deion Sanders era with wins against TCU, Nebraska and Colorado State. The Buffaloes would win just once from there, capping the regular season with quarterback Shedeur Sanders sidelined for a 23-17 loss to Utah. Playing fourth-string quarterback Luke Bottari, the Utes would make only 10 pass attempts against 53 carries for 268 yards.
The five-win club
Multiple teams went into rivalry weekend needing one win to land in bowl play but came up short. BYU and Washington State just missed on upsets. There’s also Navy, which trailed SMU 52-7 at halftime in a blowout loss. Minnesota couldn’t get over the hump after losing to Wisconsin for the first time in three years (though the Gophers should be the lone 5-7 team selected for a bowl). Illinois lost a shootout to Northwestern, 45-43. South Carolina was shut down in a 16-7 loss to Clemson. Florida lost, and to cap Saturday night, Colorado State lost to Hawaii as time expired. Earlier this week, Mississippi State dropped the Egg Bowl to Mississippi, Central Michigan lost to Toledo, TCU was destroyed by Oklahoma and, worst of all, Nebraska lost 13-10 to Iowa to end Matt Rhule’s first season.
The glad-its-over club
Well, at least it’s over. Mercifully, we won’t have to watch Baylor, Cincinnati, Nevada, Indiana, Pittsburgh and Houston ever again. The Bears couldn’t get a late defensive stop and lost 34-31 to West Virginia, raising the odds the program moves on from Dave Aranda. Cincinnati won more than 50 games the previous five years under Luke Fickell but went 3-9 under Scott Satterfield, closing with a 49-16 loss at home to Kansas. Pittsburgh also finished 3-9, and the less said about the Panthers the better.