College Football Sunday Summary; Cleaning Out Some Space

As we approach the holidays, a certain amount of house cleaning is in order. Family and friends are coming, so we need to purge some things and proudly display others. We even managed to do it with streaming service changes over the last few days, so that we keep only what we need. That’s what college football did over the weekend. It started purging things it did not need and putting the keepers on display.

The Horns Are Cleaned

Look, at the beginning of the season, many bought into the “Texas is back,” and “Arch for Heisman” theories. And Texas is back to some degree. They are a program to be reckoned with. No, Arch is not in anyone’s Heisman conversation, and please spare us the plan to promote him in advance of next season. Let him earn the accolades on the field, please.

But Texas is getting cleaned out of the college football playoff race. Saturday’s loss to Georgia took care of that. The Longhorns played on Saturday the way they have played much of the season…sporadically. A 21-0 UGA fourth-quarter outburst made the Bulldogs look like the national championship contender again. And it gave Texas its third loss of the season. At 7-3, 4-2, Texas is not going on the College Football Playoff holiday table.

The ACC As Dust Bunnies

You know when you are cleaning the floors, and under some furniture are the little particles of dust that seem to escape brooms. That is the ACC.

During the week, a couple of media folks started a concept that the conference could be left out of the playoff if a four-loss Duke team wound up as the conference champion. The theory of leaving out a P4 champion flew around with momentum like a dust bunny. Well, now we can all stop clutching Aunt Concetta’s pearls.

Duke got handled by Virginia and is out of the ACC title race. Heck, the ACC race is so crazy that on just one day, the Blue Devils went from conference contender to needing at least a split of its last two games just to be bowl eligible.

Getting Out the ACC Dust Buster

Just so there is clarity and cleanliness where possible, after Saturday, with a Georgia Tech last-minute win and Virginia’s bounce back against Duke, here is what we are looking at. GA Tech and UVA are 6-1 in conference play with one ACC game left. GA Tech has only one loss on the overall record, but the Yellow Jackets still have to face UGA at the end of the season.

UVA is 9-2 overall and closes the regular season against VA Tech. Pitt and SMU are each 5-1 in conference play with two games left. But they are both 7-3 overall, so less sparkly on the bigger stage.

The bottom line is the ACC is going to get a team into the playoff, but it is entirely possible it will be only one.

Cleaning Up Our Televisions

The house guests will want to watch football during the upcoming holidays. It’s the traditional way. So, can we clean up what we see? Will someone please tell Pat McAfee to keep his dam* shirt on?

Dude, we did not go through all of the tumult with ESPN and our streaming services over the last two-plus weeks to have to tune in and see your lobster-red chest. You ain’t all that to look at. We have gone from decades of entertainment with Lee Corso’s headgear pick to having Nature Boy rip off his shirt and jump on chairs and desks. We want a discount on our ESPN fees if we keep seeing that.

Cleaning Up the Promotions

Are we the only ones who noticed that over the weekend, ESPN was still running promos for ESPNBet, their online/app-driven gambling service? The app is shutting down in its current iteration because the relationship between ESPN and Penn Entertainment is over. The ESPN/Penn category market share has been in the single digits for a year now.

ESPN will be partnering with DraftKings under a different enterprise name, so why would they encourage people to continue to sign up for ESPN Bet?

Cleaning Up Its Skeletons in the Closet

But that 27-point comeback is the biggest in Texas A&M history. It’s ironic because A&M is also in the record books for the second biggest “come from ahead” loss in college football history. In 2017, Texas A&M was up 44-10 over UCLA with 4:08 left in the third quarter at the Rose Bowl. The Bruins scored 35 unanswered points against the Aggies for the 45-44 win.

The Clean SEC

The conference is comparatively nice and tidy right now. Texas A&M (7-0 conference record), Georgia (7-1 in SEC play), Ole Miss, and Alabama (each 6-1) are still in the race for the conference championship and conceivably the playoff, even with Bama’s loss to Oklahoma on Saturday.

Cleaning Up the Committee

Mack Rhoades, the glib chairman of the College Football Playoff Committee, has been replaced. He is under two investigations by his employer, Baylor University. One has to do with his role as athletic director at the Waco school. The other is an administrative issue.

Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek has replaced him as chair of the committee. He doesn’t have much else to do. He is only looking for a new football coach for his Razorbacks.

A Clean Look

You know, at Sunday Summary, we like to showcase special edition football gear that schools roll out for an intended purpose.

With Veterans Day having been last week, many schools held military personnel celebrations this last weekend.

Wake Forest went with its shiny, black helmets and the Deacs script in military camouflage. It was a clean, on-point look.