11 winners and 7 losers from college football’s Week 11

College football’s postseason inches ever closer. After a Week 11 that had no blockbuster games but several really fun ones, the picture’s getting just a bit clearer.

The same disclaimer as every week goes here: Many, many teams win and lose every week, and this list is not exhaustive. Think of it as a list of extra big winners and losers.

Finally, the world has smiled down on students and alums of this hardscrabble school. The Wildcats won the Big Ten West by beating Iowa and getting losses elsewhere from Purdue and Wisconsin. They will probably be a light snack for Michigan (or Ohio State, but probably Michigan) in the conference title game, but maybe they won’t be.

Since an embarrassing home loss to Akron back in September, the only losses they’ve taken were by three to the Wolverines and by 10 (in what was a one-score game for a while) to Notre Dame. And this moment was really cool:

Bedlam was extremely Bedlam in two ways:

The Sooners probably don’t control their own Playoff fate. But they’re still in the hunt and still better than the other half of this one-sided rivalry.

The Buckeyes played Michigan State with their Playoff hopes on the line and avoided losing because of Dark Spartan Magic. That alone is an achievement.

The ugliest “big” game of the year, bar none. It featured multiple horrible punts, shanked field goals, dropped passes and interceptions, and third-quarter intentional safeties somehow gone even more awry than those words suggest on their own. The Spartans did two cool things — one a 47-yard run by backup QB Rocky Lombardi that seemed to totally fool Greg Schiano’s defense, the other a wideout pass for a long touchdown, which an ineligible-man-downfield penalty in turn wiped out. All of us who sat through this sordid mess of a 26-6 Buckeye win are losers, except, of course, the winners themselves.

There were no marquee matchups, and only one Power 5 game turned out to be all that good. Speaking of that game ...

There’s a solid chance it won’t get Texas into the Big 12 title game or anything, but the Longhorns won the day’s most exciting game on a REVERSE MICHAEL CRABTREE. That’s to say their winning touchdown in the final seconds at Texas Tech ...

... was the same exact play as Crabtree’s legendary score to beat them in 2008:

I hope UT fans found some catharsis in that. I would have.

The Florida QB shushed his own booing home crowd multiple times. He also went 15-of-21 for 161 yards, a touchdown, no picks, and a 151 rating in beating Will Muschamp’s South Carolina in The Swamp.

Franks even had a 38-yard punt. What brilliance.

The Jayhawks came close to beating rival Kansas State in the last minute. Then quarterback Payton Bender forced a fumble against himself to seal a loss:

Beating K-State with lame-duck coach David Beaty — whom the might school fired ahead of time just so he couldn’t save his job with a win here — would’ve been amazing.

The Panthers put a death grip on the ACC Coastal by running over Virginia Tech. They’ve won three of their last four, and of their four losses, three were against Penn State, UCF, and Notre Dame. (They also lost to 1-8 North Carolina, because reasons.) Any Pitt win or Virginia loss the next two weeks clinches the division for Pat Narduzzi’s team and puts it in the league title game against Clemson, a team that, uh, might not be all that excited about that.

He’s become a regular member of this bad half of this list. Bill Connelly writes:

To North Carolina head coach Larry Fedora’s credit, his Tar Heels are still fighting. They just fell to 1-8 following a 42-35 loss to rival Duke in Durham, but they obviously haven’t quit. Their last five losses have all been by 10 or fewer points, and they didn’t let the Blue Devils run away with the game, holding them scoreless over their final four drives and getting the ball with a chance to tie late.

So there’s that. He can at least say they’re an engaged, competitive 1-8.

On the bright side, UNC beat Pitt earlier this year, and Pitt might just go ahead and win the ACC. How can you fire the only coach to beat the conference champ?

(I’m kidding about Pitt winning the ACC. I think.)

The Aggies came from behind to avoid a loss to Ole Miss, which would’ve been their fifth of the year. Five losses was right where S&P+ projected A&M before the year, but it’s still probably for the best for Jimbo Fisher to not have five losses in his first 10 games after replacing a guy who got fired for perpetually going 8-5.

The Cougars beat Colorado, 31-7. They were supposed to do that. It’s been established that the Buffaloes aren’t able to beat good teams. But it was still nice to see Wazzu, down 7-0 after a quarter, put on the jets and blow someone out on the road. The Cougs still need help, but with every week that passes, they become a more plausible Playoff team. Whether they sneak into the final four or not, they look like an increasingly sure New Year’s Six team.

The Terps, who’ve been sitting on five wins for a few weeks, were driving toward bowl eligibility late in their game at Indiana. Down two, they got to the Hoosiers’ 48 with a minute left and a timeout to spare. Then quarterback Tyrrell Pigrome fumbled a game-winning chance away. Maryland now has to beat either Ohio State or Penn State to avoid missing a bowl for the second straight year. Neither will happen, so this one will sting. Their players still deserve credit for playing hard with all kinds of turmoil unfolding around them.

ODU is 3-7 on the year. Its three wins:

The Monarchs are bad this year, but when they win, it’s fun as hell. They’ve packed more fun into three wins than plenty of teams will pack into eight or nine.

Entering the week, the Bulldogs had a fair NY6 case, even if you granted that whoever wins the AAC is likely to take the Group of 5 auto-bid. Then they lost a weird, somewhat controversial game at Boise State. The New Year’s bowls are now out of the question for Jeff Tedford, and that’s a shame given how good Fresno’s been. Utah State is now the Mountain West’s lone New Year’s case, two weeks ahead of a huge game against Boise.

The Bearcats beat USF. They still have just one loss, and they play unbeaten UCF next week. Temple technically remains between Cincy and UCF in the standings due to a tiebreaker over Cincy, but if the Bearcats can beat the Knights and all of these teams otherwise win out, the AAC East would fall into some tiebreaker chaos. (You can try to figure it out here, but enough things can still change that it might be a futile exercise.)

In short, though, if Cincy can beat UCF in Cincy, the Bearcats will have a decent shot at the division and thus an inside track to that New Year’s bid.

The Wolfpack, ranked 14th and still with a New Year’s Six bowl chance, had leads of 16-6 and 23-13 in the second half against Wake Forest. They blew all of that by giving up two touchdowns in the last 6:07 to drop a third game out of four, squandering the considerable good faith the Playoff committee had shown it after a blowout loss at Clemson and a narrower loss to Syracuse. NCSU’s now bound for a fine but mediocre season, as is its historical standard. Any hopes this year would be special are now dead.

Yeah, that’s a ball bouncing like 26 yards off a dude’s face mask, setting up a scoop-and-score touchdown for Army against FCS Lafayette. I had no idea that was physically possible. I am equal parts bamboozled, awed, and giddy. Would you just look at this kinetic energy?

It’s just tremendous.