There’s nothing SEC commissioner Greg Sankey can tweet that will put lipstick on a disastrous day for his conference’s quest to stack the CFP bracket.
As Ole Miss, Alabama, Texas A&M go down, Indiana wins by not losing twice in one day.
A crazed Kenny Dillingham becomes lasting image of this wacky college football season.
Greg Sankey’s X account went silent Saturday.
Nothing the SEC’s commissioner could tweet would erase the sting of a disastrous day in his conference’s quest to stack the College Football Playoff.
Just days ago, Sankey took to Elon Musk’s social media platform to stump for SEC teams’ playoff bona fides, posting a graphic that showed strength of schedule metrics favoring teams from Sankey’s conference.
By Sunday morning, Sankey’s propaganda campaign had withered. His most recent X activity shows a repost of a soccer score, because, why would Sankey post about the expanded conference he orchestrated cannibalizing itself on the football field?
Saturday began with six SEC teams in playoff contention.
By the end of another savage day in this feral season, three of those contenders had suffered a crippling third loss.
What seemed far-fetched a week ago – three bids for the ACC?!? – is now in play, because Florida, Oklahoma and Auburn wouldn’t roll over for Mississippi, Alabama and Texas A&M.
Lane Kiffin and his Ole Miss Rebels puckered up tightly in The Swamp as their playoff hopes burst under Billy Napier’s thumb. So, yeah, I guess Florida isn’t hiring Kiffin. Maybe, Ole Miss should hire Napier. Just kidding.
There’s no kidding about how the Rebels blew their season. They went 0 for 3 on red-zone opportunities against Florida. After Ole Miss went for broke on the offseason player-buying circuit, Mark Stoops and Napier spoiled Kiffin’s dream season. That’s gotta hurt.
The only silver lining for Kiffin is that Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer elbowed him out of the way for the day’s most embarrassing defeat. Send for DeBoer’s offensive guru card. Membership revoked after Alabama mustered three measly points in a loss at woebegone Oklahoma. The Sooners hadn’t beaten a Bowl Subdivision team in nearly two months until Alabama arrived in town.
Your turn, Texas A&M. In losing to Auburn in four overtimes, the Aggies somehow found a way to allow Auburn to score 43 points – the same Auburn that mustered seven points against Vanderbilt and leads the conference in turnovers.
The morals of this story?
First, you should never, ever tweet.
Second, it pays to play cupcakes in November.
Tennessee and Clemson became Saturday’s big winners by feasting on opponents that showed up to collect a paycheck.
The Vols blasted UTEP. By virtue of SEC teams around them crumbling, they could zoom from being the first team out of the CFP bracket last Tuesday all the way into position to host a first-round playoff game.
Clemson dunked on The Citadel. When Dabo Swinney stumped for his team’s playoff résumé a week ago, it came off as a halfhearted pitch I’m not convinced even Swinney believed.
Now, if Clemson beats South Carolina next weekend, the Tigers could become the first team in history to qualify for the CFP despite losing at home to Louisville.
Parity finally arrived in college football. It’s an all-consuming monster that even managed to muzzle college athletics’ most powerful figure.
Here’s what else I’m mulling in this ‘Topp Rope’ view of college football:
12-team CFP bracket gives us a beautiful mess
Much of this playoff drama would have been irrelevant if we still had a four-team playoff.
Ole Miss would have been eliminated long ago, and we’d be left to debate whether the ACC’s champion or Notre Dame deserved the final spot in a playoff quartet including Oregon, Ohio State and the SEC’s champion.
Without this expanded playoff, we’d have less motivation to tune in while a manic, wide-eyed Kenny Dillingham cussed out officials for appropriately applying clock-stoppage rules that punished Dillingham’s coaching malpractice. Arizona State won anyway, despite Dillingham’s best attempts to throw away the victory.
Sure, this bigger playoff format invites flawed and fraudulent teams into the field, and it’s becoming a messy contest of who can survive mediocre opponents, but as a crazed Dillingham shouted profanities while officials viewed a replay, with Arizona State fans on the field celebrating a game that hadn’t finished, how could we not be entertained?
Indiana wins by not losing twice in one day
Indiana Hoosiers, you can exhale, because the Gators and Sooners had your back.
‘The answer is so obvious,’ Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti said, before winking and nodding, when asked whether Indiana should still be considered a playoff team after its 38-15 loss at No. 2 Ohio State.
What’s obvious is we must rewire our brains as to what we think a playoff team looks like, because, yeah, a team that’s 23 points worse than Ohio State probably remains a playoff team.
Three and out
1. If Boise State reaches the finish line with a 12-1 record and a Mountain West title, the Broncos could seize the CFP’s No. 4 seed and a playoff bye. Consider, the committee’s options for the final bye will either be a Big 12 champion with at least two losses or a Group of Five champion. The Broncos’ only loss came by three points at Oregon, so why shouldn’t Boise State snatch that bye? Imagine the look on Dillingham’s face if he’s informed that the Mountain West champion received a bye and the Big 12 champion is headed to Columbus, Ohio, for Round 1.
2. I predict the top 12 of Tuesday’s CFP rankings: 1. Oregon, 2. Ohio State, 3. Texas, 4. Penn State, 5. Notre Dame, 6. Miami, 7. Georgia, 8. Tennessee, 9. SMU, 10. Indiana, 11. Boise State, 12. Arizona State. First team out: Clemson.
3. My latest ‘Topp Rope’ playoff projection: Oregon (Big Ten), Georgia (SEC), SMU (ACC), Brigham Young (Big 12), Boise State (Group of Five), plus at-large selections Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Indiana, Texas, Tennessee, Miami. Next up: Clemson.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. The ‘Topp Rope’ is his football column published throughout the USA TODAY Network. Subscribe to read all of his columns.