4 days Ago By FTW Outdoors
There are just two weeks left in the 2024 college football regular season, and it still feels like there are a wide range of potential outcomes with the College Football Playoff field. The coming weeks will give us more clarity, but as things currently stand, several conference races are wide open, particularly in the SEC and Big 12. That's in large part thanks to Georgia's win over Tennessee, which set up an SEC race featuring six teams with two losses or fewer, and previously unbeaten BYU's loss to Kansas on Saturday night.
Week 12 wasn't the most loaded slate of games, but it gave us a few thrilling and surprising results. Here are the winners and losers. Following a loss to Georgia in which the led in the second quarter before an injury knocked star true freshman quarterback DJ Lagway out of the game, athletic director Scott Stricklin made the surprising announcement that coach Billy Napier, who many believed occupied the hottest seat in America, would return in 2025.
The statement raised some eyebrows given Florida's on-field struggles during the Napier era as well as stalled recruiting momentum with a 2025 class that ranked outside the top 50. A blowout loss to Texas with a shorthanded roster in the immediate aftermath didn't make the decision any more understandable. But it did have one instant effect: renewed confidence in the coaching staff.
It immediately paid dividends with Florida landing a star-studded visitor list for Saturday's game against LSU, and even more importantly, the Gators got the win. It wasn't the most dominant performance and beating a Tigers team that is trending in the wrong direction shouldn't completely erase concerns about Napier. But now, with a huge test against coming up before the Gators close the regular season at Florida State, there's a big opportunity for this team.
A bowl berth seems likely, and Lagway has shown flashes of absolute brilliance in his four starts. That an 8-5 finish remains on the table, given the schedule and this team's early season struggles, is quite impressive. And while that wouldn't mean Florida is back under Napier, it would certainly give the program a lot of momentum heading into 2025.
At halftime on the road against Texas A&M, LSU looked like it was well on its way to the first CFP appearance under coach Brian Kelly. The Tigers led 17-7 after a dominant halftime performance as they looked poised to seize control of the SEC race. Then, the second half happened, and in the 10 quarters since LSU entered the locker room with a 10-point lead, it's been outscored 100-35 while taking three losses in a row that have torpedoed the entire season.
Everything that was working earlier in the season no longer seems to be. The running game is non-existent, the passing game has been severely hampered by downgrades at receiver and pass protection that has not held up in recent weeks, reaching a crescendo with seven sacks allowed against the Gators' defensive front. With a four-loss finish — the worst regular season total of the Kelly era — now a guarantee, it's fair to question where things are trending for the Tigers.
Even with a Heisman winner at quarterback, this program couldn't find a way to be nationally competitive. The high school recruiting is promising, but with the results on the field and Michigan's pursuit of No. 1 prospect and Tigers commit Bryce Underwood, there's a serious risk of an elite 2025 recruiting class falling apart.
Kelly's buyout will prevent any hot seat conversations until at least 2025, but it's hard to imagine LSU feels like it has gotten what it paid for when it lured him away from Notre Dame with a massive, fully guaranteed contract. Georgia's offensive ineptitude in recent weeks . Quarterback Carson Beck's erratic play was a major part of the problem, though poor protection from the offensive line and a lack of rushing consistency was also partially to blame.
The problems had been on display for a while, but they really caught up to the Bulldogs in a loss to Ole Miss last week. However, against Tennessee with its CFP hopes essentially hanging in the balance, Georgia delivered its best game in quite a while on offense. Beck was fantastic, completing 25 of 40 passes for 347 yards and two touchdowns.
More importantly, he had no interceptions after tossing 12 in his previous six games. The Bulldogs put up more than 450 yards and ultimately pulled away with the defense taking care of business against Nico Iamaleava and the Tennessee offense. Georgia still doesn't look like quite the dominant team we've come to expect from Kirby Smart's program in recent years, but it proved on Saturday night that it's still very much a College Football Playoff contender.
BYU's 9-0 start was certainly impressive and one of the biggest surprises of the college football season, but it always felt a bit tenuous. The Cougars were the beneficiaries of a lot of good luck, and that luck finally ran out against a Kansas team that has played much better than its 4-6 record in recent weeks and has now knocked off the league's top two teams in back-to-back weeks. The Cougars remain in position to make the Big 12 title game, and a win would guarantee it a spot in the College Football Playoff.
But while there's still quite a bit to play for in Provo, the last few weeks have been a nightmare scenario for the Big 12 as a whole. Iowa State's two losses have essentially knocked it out of the at-large conversation, and while Colorado and Arizona State have had very solid campaigns and find themselves in the conference title race late into the season, both those teams probably need an auto bid to sneak into the field barring a lot of chaos. Now, BYU's chances of making the playoff with an at-large bid in the event that it lost in the Big 12 championship — or on Saturday against the in a game that could be a conference title play-in — are likely gone.
The Big 12 has been exciting this season, but unfortunately, it has seemingly cannibalized itself too much. : The just keep winning, this time in dominant fashion over Utah as they move to 8-2 and remain alive in the Big 12 race. : It was a bit close for comfort, but Cade Klubnik came through with a long, game-winning touchdown run after the Tigers squandered a lead on the road against Pittsburgh.
Clemson needs some help to reach the ACC title game, but this was one Dabo Swinney's team couldn't afford to drop. : The punched their ticket to the AAC title game emphatically with a 35-0 win over Navy in what was a play-in game. They'll face a potentially unbeaten Army team with the winner serving as the next team up for the Group of Five CFP spot if Boise were to falter down the stretch.
: The Mustangs are in the ACC driver's seat after Miami's loss to Georgia Tech, and they remained that way with a 10-point win over Boston College on Saturday. : The Cardinal has had some brutal results in ACC play this season, but it came out of nowhere to knock off a ranked Louisville team that was riding high after upsetting Clemson the week before. : I think it's pretty clear Dave Aranda isn't going anywhere.
Baylor is 6-4 after a 14-point road win over West Virginia, and it's been a surprisingly successful season for a coach many assumed to be pre-fired coming into 2024. : A CFP bid is probably out of the question for the Gamecocks, but that doesn't change the fact that it's been a massively successful season in Columbia. South Carolina knocked off ranked Missouri on a last-second touchdown, and if it can earn a rivalry win over Clemson, it will finish 9-3.
: The Sun Devils didn't even look like a bowl team on paper coming into the year, but now sitting at 8-2 after a convincing win over Kansas State with a game against BYU on Saturday, it's time to starting talking about Arizona State as what it is: a playoff contender. : The Jayhawks have won back-to-back games against Iowa State and BYU amid a nice late-season turnaround. They need to win out against Colorado and Baylor to make a bowl, but that doesn't seem to be entirely out of the question.
: It's been a fantastic season for the Mids, but the hopes of an Army-Navy AAC championship came to an end with Navy's blowout loss at the hands of Tulane. : The haven't had as much success this season as their Pac-12 holdout counterpart Washington State. They're 4-6 after a 28-0 loss to an Air Force team that isn't all that good.
: It's hard to maintain momentum, but the Cardinals fell victim to a cross-country road trip in a loss to a previously 2-7 Stanford team. : The seem to be in real danger of missing another bowl game after a 5-1 start. They've lost four in a row and now need to win one of the final two against Wisconsin and Iowa to reach the postseason for the first time since 2016.
: A 14-point home loss to Baylor and a previously hot-seated Aranda probably isn't doing anything to quiet the calls for Neal Brown's job in Morgantown. : The Tigers' disappointing season continued as they squandered an opportunity to earn a ranked road win against South Carolina. : The Cougs' outside hopes of a CFP at-large bid officially ended on Saturday as they squandered a 14-point halftime lead in a loss to New Mexico on the road.
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