College football results, updates, and fun stuff for Week 10

Ole Miss suffered one of the most heartbreaking losses in recent college football history this past Saturday, when what appeared to be a game-winning touchdown over Auburn instead turned into a game-losing touchdown and a season-ending injury for star wide receiver Laquon Treadwell. The loss likely ended the Rebels’ chances of securing a playoff berth, and the defeat coupled with the horrific injury brought back old memories for Ole Miss.

The pain from that loss was compounded the next day, when the Opelika-Auburn News used a graphic image of Treadwell’s injury on its front page.

Florida State mounted a major comeback against Louisville to keep its loss column unblemished. You may have thought the Noles were in trouble in the first half, but surely Tomahawk Nation commenters knew Jimbo Fisher would make the needed adjustments and keep America’s Supreme Champion Despite The Haters™ going.

“Guess it’s just not our year” said the fan of the undefeated team, completely seriously and without a trace of sarcasm. I think we can all agree that’s the main theme of this year for Florida State. Please let us know where we can send the canned goods for you and your fellow unfortunates.

This week provided us with a different kind of look at the College Football Playoff committee’s leanings. Last week, the committee was reacting to nine weeks at once. This time, with only one week of games since the last polls, we got to find out how it would react on the fly.

Peter Berkes has already covered most of what we learned from Tuesday night’s rankings. I will add one other thing:

The second edition of the 2014 College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday night, and while the Playoff picture remains as murky as ever, we’re able to pull a few new things from the latest rankings.

1. Not all wins and losses are created equal

Last week, we got to see for the first time how the College Football Playoff committee ranks teams. The reaction was generally positive, with the committee’s focus on strength of schedule above all else becoming clear. This week, we got to see for the first time how the committee handles a single weekend’s worth of impact.

With No. 4 Ole Miss losing, Tuesday night’s biggest questions were which team would jump up to replace the Rebels and how far those Rebels would fall. The Ducks beat out Alabama and TCU for one spot in the if-the-season-ended-right-now Playoff picture. Ole Miss landed at No. 11 and among the one-loss teams, likely since its losses were to ranked teams and very close (though the committee intends to discount margin of victory).

Current Odds: 1/2

A month ago, I wrote that the “status quo of this Heisman race will be ‘Mariota leads by significant margin’ until or unless he does something to slip from the front.”

Last week: Beat Indiana 34-10, lost his athletic director

This year’s record: 4-5 (2-3 Big Ten)

Record at Michigan: 30-18

Contract: $3.25 million through 2017

Buyout: About $3 million

The good news for Hoke: He arrested Michigan’s slide with a win over reeling Penn State three weeks ago and had his team legitimately interested in beating Indiana Saturday, probably Michigan’s most complete performance of the season. If Hoke had any chance of surviving despite an embarrassing loss to intrastate rival Michigan State last week, it could come from a solid November and .500 record.

There have been 15,723 possessions in 594 FBS games this season. Only 62 drives (0.4 percent) have ended via fumble at or inside the opponent’s 6. The chance of two of these instances happening in back-to-back possessions is around 0.002 percent, or one in about 62,500. Have this happen in the fourth quarter of a close, important game, and you’re maybe looking at one in between half a million and a million. Or, as Auburn fans are beginning to call it, “November.”

One can guess that the odds of this event also including the season-ending injury of an elite team’s best offensive player are ... well ... let’s just stop there.

It’s not easy to predict what the College Football Playoff committee will do when it releases its second poll Tuesday. After all, we don’t have any real insight into the committee’s selection criteria beyond what it did in the previous week, because it’s never issued an updated ranking before. Last week’s was the first ranking it had ever published.

Of course, that won’t stop us from trying. We at least have an official ranking to start with, and with only a few games impacting the top 10 or so this week, guessing which teams end up where shouldn’t be too difficult.

PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- Saturday’s weather was determined to make a caricature out of Rutgers. The New Brunswick campus is a pretty place, and it went through great lengths to make itself ready for Homecoming and a potential season-saving win. Then the cold and the wind and the rain ruined everything.

If you were unsure whether a New Jersey university could fit in the Big Ten, you weren’t convinced by a gloomy hour-long train ride from New York City, and certainly not by the crowd or anything that happened on the field.

Week 10 of college football wrapped up with a number of contenders going down. Ole Miss, Georgia, East Carolina, Utah and Arizona each lost for the second time this season, while Big 12 contender West Virginia lost its third game in a narrow one against TCU.

No. 1 Mississippi State remained undefeated, as did No. 2 Florida State, but with Ole Miss’ loss came an open slot in the top four -- at least in the Playoff rankings. The polls keep last week’s top four of Mississippi State, Florida State, Alabama and Auburn, switching the Tide and the Tigers.

It sure feels like ECU’s reign atop the Underdogs Poll was a long one. But the truth of the matter is that after just four weeks of holding off Marshall and company, the Pirates are king of this ship no more. In the end, it wasn’t the Thundering Herd that pushed ECU off the plank (pirate puns for the win!). No, Bill Cosby’s favorite Owls and an obsession with shooting themselves in the foot were what got the best of the Pirates this past Saturday.

So for the fourth time this season, we have a new leader. Marshall, which began this season as the top-ranked team in our preseason poll (and didn’t even play this past week), has outlasted ECU and BYU to reclaim its title. But, as is the case with any regime change, we’ve got a fierce battle to take control, with a pair of Mountain West teams chomping at the Herd’s heels.

Saturday you’re a hero on the gridiron, Sunday you’re a champion of the scanner. Such is life for Mike McNeely of the Florida Gators.

On Saturday he helped execute a stunning fake kick for a touchdown in a win over rival Georgia:

Since August, projecting this season’s bowl games has meant following the sport’s usual chestnuts (teams will end up being ranked by their number of losses, with big wins and losses maybe moving the needle a little bit), with no idea whether those would be outdated in this new era.

But now that one gets to combine last Tuesday’s initial College Football Playoff committee rankings with Saturday’s results, we might actually start getting somewhere here. Based on the first round of rankings, it’s strength of schedule above all else -- with teams still more or less tiered by losses, of course. And we’ll have a little bit better look this Tuesday, when we get the first-ever update to the Playoff rankings.

That screen play’s design does not read, “Win the game and save the season, no matter what.”

Laquon Treadwell could’ve let himself be tackled inside No. 3 Auburn’s 5-yard line and taken more time away from Gus Malzahn’s response to the No. 4 Rebels likely going up, 38-35, with seconds left. He decided to win it all.

Star Ole Miss wide receiver Laquon Treadwell will miss the remainder of the season after a tragic injury suffered in Saturday night’s loss to Auburn. Ole Miss announced that Treadwell had surgery Saturday night for a fractured left fibula and a dislocated ankle.

The sophomore appeared to score the leading touchdown with 90 seconds to play, weaving his way through the Tigers’ defense before fighting to the goal line (trapping his leg under an Auburn tackler and causing the gruesome injury). Replay showed he fumbled the ball just before the end zone, giving Auburn the ball and the win.

1. Florida State

What weight can crush the Seminoles’ dreams when they already support heaven and earth on their mighty shoulders? A championship would be but another pebble on the mighty burden they already heave skyward with such ease! And without the intervention of outrageous luck, like freaky fumble recoveries for touchdowns!

1. No. 3 Auburn 35, No. 4 Ole Miss 31

As far as brutal, soul-destroying defeats go, you’ll be hard pressed to find anything that tops the one that happened to Ole Miss on Saturday.

After a 45-42 overtime home loss to Tennessee, head coach Steve Spurrier declined to take any questions from media members who assembled for his postgame press conference. He gave a brief prepared remark -- reading from a sheet, as he often does -- about most of his players playing well and about how losses are unenjoyable. Then he left.

Odd moment, especially considering he’s generally one of the most talkative and media-friendly coaches in football. He’s had his share of prickly moments, though, and this will probably be one he apologizes for.

One of the nation’s top 10 teams was nearly handed a frantic comeback loss by an unranked opponent Saturday. Notre Dame was able to collect itself in the fourth quarter, scoring three late touchdowns en route to a 49-39 victory over Navy in Annapolis.

Notre Dame took a 28-7 lead in the second quarter, but a spirited comeback attempt by Navy saw them take the advantage before the fourth quarter. The Midshipmen scored 24 straight points over the next 14 minutes, leading 31-28 heading into the fourth quarter.

It was one of the best games of the year with two of the best teams of the year—until it turned into one of the season’s worst moments. In the end it was No. 3 Auburn pulling out a monumental victory, 35-31, but the story’s about No. 4 Ole Miss WR Laquon Treadwell, who’s almost certainly out for the season.

Auburn and Ole Miss traded blows throughout the second half, with each of the game’s last three touchdowns changing the lead, and Ole Miss spent most of the last few minutes threatening to score a go-ahead touchdown.

The Arkansas Razorbacks nearly wore another SEC power down with their running game, but No. 1 Mississippi State would just not go down. The Bulldogs recovered from an early 10-0 deficit to win 17-10 in Starkville Saturday night.

Arkansas took a 10-7 lead into halftime despite being outgained 217-160 by the Bulldogs, in large part thanks to three Mississippi State turnovers. The Razorbacks were only able to turn those takeaways into seven points -- Alex Collins’s one-yard touchdown -- and could have been leading by a larger margin at the break.

It looked like Ole Miss’ Laquon Treadwell had scored a huge touchdown. No. 4 Ole Miss trailed No. 3 Auburn 35-31, but Treadwell followed blockers, found space, shedded tacklers and fought to the end zone:

Via ESPN