A soft college football slate in Week 13 brought some clarity in a still-muddy playoff picture, setting the stage for a dramatic rivalry week that could bring titanic shifts to the postseason lineup.
Oregon and Oklahoma fended off old rivals in new conferences, while Pitt upset Georgia Tech to put the ACC in a very precarious position.
Oregon outruns USC, keeps Big Ten Championship hopes alive
Oregon ran over USC all day and took down its old rivals 42-27, moving closer to an at-large playoff bid while effectively knocking out the opposition from the race.
Despite allowing an opening drive touchdown, the Ducks responded with touchdowns on consecutive drives from Jordon Davison and Kenyon Sadiq. But they didn’t seize control of the game until Malik Benson took a Trojan punt 85 yards to the house to give Oregon a lead they would not relinquish.
USC quarterback Jayden Maiava kept his team close with a pair of second-half touchdowns. However, Oregon came up with answers on each subsequent drive to hold the Trojans at bay and maintain their advantage. The knockout blow came on the last of an 11-play, 79-yard scoring drive that ended with a Noah Whittington touchdown run.
The Ducks’ win kept them in play for the Big 10 championship, and they will need a win against Washington and a loss from either Ohio State or Indiana to compete in the conference championship game in Indianapolis.
Oklahoma’s defense rises again, silences Missouri
Time and again down the stretch, Brent Venables’ defense has come up large. They did so again, shutting down the Missouri offense en route to a 17-6 win.
The Sooners took their first lead of the day in the second quarter when John Mateer found Isaiah Sategna III on a short route over the middle. The speedy receiver then accelerated and sprinted past everybody for an 87-yard touchdown on third-and-seven.
Mateer and company would stretch the lead when the junior quarterback found JaVonnie Gibson over the middle for an eight-yard score. With their dominant defense playing at the height of its powers, the two-score lead essentially salted the game away early, and the little hopes the Tigers had of a second-half comeback were ended when Beau Pribula was picked off by Jacobe Johnson late in the third quarter.
Oklahoma will host LSU on senior day in Norman next week, and a win would all but guarantee their first playoff appearance as a member of the SEC.
Pitt comes up clutch against Georgia Tech; ACC picture in disarray
Pitt raced out to a 28-0 lead and held off a furious Georgia Tech rally to win 42-28.
Freshman quarterback Mason Heintschel threw all three of his touchdown passes in the first half to power the Panthers ahead, but the Yellow Jackets would respond with a pair of touchdowns to cut their deficit in half before the break.
On the precipice of bringing the game to within a score, Haynes King was intercepted in the end zone by Braylan Lovelace, who proceeded to race 100 yards the other way and score for Pitt and swing the momentum back in the Panthers’ favor. A late 56-yard touchdown rush from Ja’Kyrian Turner would salt the game away and move the visitors to 8-3.
The result leaves an intriguing picture for the ACC Championship game. While six teams are mathematically alive, Virginia and SMU control their own destiny. However, with automatic bids going to the five highest-ranked conference champions, outcomes resulting in SMU, or even five-loss Duke, winning the ACC could result in the conference being left out of the playoff entirely.
Best of the rest: FCS Edition
In a soft week for the FBS schedule, we turn to the FCS slate, where many conference championships were decided in the last week of the regular season.
Yale took down Harvard 45-28 to win the Ivy League and earn the conference’s first-ever automatic playoff berth, as the league will participate in the FCS playoffs for the first time ever. Quarterback Dante Reno led the way for the Bulldogs, passing for 273 yards and throwing three touchdown passes.
In “The Brawl of the Wild,” Montana State traveled to Missoula and beat cross-state rival Montana 31-28 to win the Big Sky conference. It was the Bobcats’ seventh win in the last nine matchups in the rivalry, and a dominant rushing attack led them to victory: they rushed for 241 yards and two touchdowns as a team.
Just down Interstate-40 in Cookeville, Tennessee Tech finished off an 11-1 season with a 20-17 win over UT-Martin. Kicker Dom LeBlanc booted the game-winning field goal with 11 seconds to go from 35 yards out, securing the Golden Eagles’ first outright Ohio Valley conference championship since 1972.
Tennessee will face off against Vanderbilt on Senior Day in what could be the biggest matchup in the history of the cross-state rivalry.
