11 observations from Week 10 of the college football season

Eleven takeaways from Week 10 of the college football season:

More of the same for Alabama-LSU: For all the hype about how different this Alabama team is offensively (and it’s all deserved), Saturday’s 29-0 win didn’t look all that different from the last few renditions of this rivalry. If Alabama was the ultimate measuring stick for whether LSU has fixed its offense, the answer was delivered in resounding fashion. Because LSU couldn’t move the ball — again — the Crimson Tide basically had this thing on cruise control pretty early. Even when the game was just 9-0 early on, it was only superficially competitive because the LSU offense didn’t present much of a threat to either make big plays or sustain drives. 

If nothing else, LSU proved that Alabama isn’t going to score 50 easy points every time out against quality teams. But that doesn’t matter if you can only muster 196 yards of offense, and that was the whole ballgame. 

In reality, only two relevant pieces of news came out of this game: One is that LSU is eliminated from any playoff consideration. That means the SEC’s only real hope of getting two teams into the field would be for Georgia to beat Alabama in the SEC championship game. 

Second, Tua Tagovailoa sure seemed to be grabbing at that right knee an awful lot after having to manage a sprain the last few weeks. Tagovailoa was able to play — he even took his first snaps of a fourth quarter this season — but obviously you don’t want him to be hobbling around out there as we get into the championship part of the schedule. It doesn’t seem to be a huge concern, but it’s something to watch. 

More:No. 1 Alabama dominates with shutout of No. 4 LSU to lock up SEC West title

Michigan moving up: For the last few weeks, a consensus has formed around the idea that Clemson is a clear No. 2 with a big gap to whichever team you prefer at No. 3. But Michigan deserves some consideration to be right there with Clemson based on the way the Wolverines have played recently. Saturday’s 42-7 win over Penn State was another defensive masterclass, limiting a very dangerous offense to 186 yards after holding Michigan State to 94 and Wisconsin to 283 yards (75 of which came on the final drive in garbage time) its previous two weeks. Michigan is the best defense in the country statistically by a pretty good margin (220 yards against per game coming into this weekend), and its offense continues to improve as quarterback Shea Patterson looks more comfortable in his first year with the program. 

More:Michigan is now clear favorite to win Big Ten. Anything else a letdown

By this point, Michigan’s season-opening 24-17 loss at Notre Dame was a long time ago. And while that loss may very well be a deciding factor in how the College Football Playoff selection committee evaluates both Michigan and Notre Dame, it doesn’t seem like a very relevant game in terms of how you evaluate Michigan now. 

While Notre Dame is also a different team, having made a quarterback change from Brandon Wimbush to Ian Book, it took Michigan a few weeks to figure out its identity, especially with Patterson just coming into the program via transfer in the spring. Michigan has made up a lot of ground since then, and that is a physical defense with a lot of NFL-type guys who could make things hard for Alabama and Clemson. 

Though Michigan will be ranked behind Notre Dame until the Irish lose, if they played again next week on a neutral field, I would pick Michigan based on the way the two teams look right now. 

More:No. 3 Notre Dame survives Northwestern's upset bid

Dana Holgorsen has brass ones: It’s been hours, and I still can’t believe that with a shot at the Big 12 title game (and a potential playoff bid) hanging in the balance, Holgo went for two with 16 seconds left at Texas and came out of it with a 42-41 win. 

“That was an easy decision when you have (No.) 7 at quarterback (Will Grier) and (No.) 13 at wideout (David Sills),” Holgorsen said in a post-game interview on Fox. “We’ve been saving that one. We’ve got a lot of confidence in it.”

After West Virginia burned two different formations on the two-pointer before timeouts (one called by each team), the third different play was actually pretty simple: Grier dropping back, waiting for Texas’ defense to overcommit to the right side of the field, then waltzing into the end zone going left. 

Still, given everything that was on the line, it was a gutsy decision by Holgorsen to try to win it right there rather than play for overtime. If you don’t make it, Texas probably winds up in the Big 12 title game while you're at home. But give Holgorsen credit for staying true to who he is. 

More:Will Grier and No. 10 West Virginia stun No. 15 Texas in final seconds

Big 12 could cannibalize itself out of the playoff: When the Big 12 added a championship game before last season, we knew it would be a guaranteed regular season rematch since the 10-team league plays a round-robin schedule. We also knew it was possible that the same teams would play two weeks in a row. And now that appears likely to happen with West Virginia and Oklahoma, which will play the night after Thanksgiving in Morgantown, then probably again eight days later in Arlington, Texas. Since both teams already have a loss, that means one of them is guaranteed to be a two-loss team on Nov. 23. And if the loser of the first meeting turns the tables in the championship game, that will all but eliminate the Big 12 from the playoff. The irony, of course, is that the Big 12 changed the schedule to prevent a double dose of Bedlam, as Oklahoma and Oklahoma State had played for the conference title on the final weekend of the regular season two straight years. No matter what the Big 12 does, it just can’t game the system. 

Something to think about: James Franklin isn’t on the hot seat or anywhere near it right now, but if I were advising him about the next part of his career, I would suggest this might be a good time to take a look around if a top-level job (like, perhaps, Southern Cal) opens up. For all the success Franklin has had at Penn State, he’s not yet reached the level where he can sustain two disappointing seasons in a row without feeling the heat. And that’s something to consider if the last five weeks at Penn State are a harbinger for next year — when things may very well get tougher with quarterback Trace McSorley moving on. Penn State was absolutely taken apart Saturday by Michigan, continuing a meltdown that started percolating when the Nittany Lions blew it against Ohio State (for the second year in a row), couldn’t recover enough to beat Michigan State and scratched together some very fortunate wins over Indiana and Iowa. 

That may not be fair coming off back-to-back top 10 finishes, including a Big Ten title, but Franklin does get some (well-deserved) criticism from the Penn State fan base for his game management snafus and a string of close losses the last couple years against the Big Ten heavyweights, one of which absolutely cost the Nittany Lions a playoff spot last year. There are also some statistics (like 0-11 in road games against ranked teams) that are starting to pile up against him. Still, you’d rather have Franklin running your program than not. For now. 

But just ask Gus Malzahn how well that insulates you when you hit a rough patch. 

More:College football's winners and losers for Week 10 topped by West Virginia's bold gamble

Georgia headed to Atlanta: The Bulldogs became the first team in any conference to wrap up a division title this season, clinching the SEC East via a routine 34-17 win in Lexington. Though Kentucky has been a great story, the difference in talent between the two programs really became apparent on this kind of stage. The only way Georgia might have been susceptible was if it suffered from any sort of hangover after the big win in the “Cocktail Party” game over Florida. But the Bulldogs broke out offensively with 331 rushing yards against what had been a terrific front seven to deflate any hint of drama. We’ll see if the Bulldogs can get up emotionally for a third straight week when Auburn goes to Athens next Saturday. 

More:No. 5 Georgia runs past No. 12 Kentucky for SEC East title

If Clemson gets a test before the playoff, it'll be next weekend: Raise your hand if before the season you pegged the Tigers' trip to Boston College as their biggest hurdle for an ACC title. Though Clemson's systems have been fully engaged for several weeks now (the Tigers did as they pleased in a 77-16 dissection of Louisville), Boston College added another nice win on Saturday, beating Virginia Tech 31-21 in Blacksburg. The Eagles are 7-2 and are really good at running the football and should at least be able to prevent Clemson from snoozing through the entire ACC schedule. In fact, if the Eagles somehow sprung the upset, they'd actually have the tiebreaker over Clemson for the ACC Atlantic Division title. Given how many teams are still alive for playoff bids, the Tigers would be well-served not to stub their toe here. 

Why did ESPN apologize?: Publicly apologizing to the SEC for political commentator James Carville's appearance on College GameDay was not just unnecessary, it should be considered an embarrassment to all parties involved. First of all, Carville, an LSU fan, has made his feelings about the targeting call on Tigers linebacker Devin White last week well-known. In fact, he pretty much said the same stuff — suggesting an SEC conspiracy to help Alabama — earlier in the week on the Paul Finebaum Show. Of course, it’s a ridiculous accusation but it’s not the first time the SEC has heard this theory. In other words, ESPN knew what was coming and had Carville on anyway. So why the apology? No need for a decoder ring here. ESPN and the SEC have a very lucrative relationship both as the primary carrier of television rights and in the SEC Network. And the SEC’s sensitivity to criticism is not exactly a secret, particularly when it comes to the editorial control it exhibits over who and what is on the SEC Network’s airwaves. You’d think the SEC, the conference that isn’t shy about beating its chest over being the biggest and baddest, could handle some criticism or ribbing (and Carville’s was rather mild, to be honest). Instead, everyone in this comes off looking small. 

More:ESPN apologizes for James Carville's comments alleging SEC conspiracy to help Alabama

Florida State sinking to new lows: It’s quite a commentary on how far the Seminoles have fallen this season that they were getting run off the field again, this time by N.C. State, and it barely registered a reaction on social media. It’s almost always news when a program like Florida State is bad, but the Seminoles now feel irrelevant. They’re too hopeless to notice. It’s not just the losses that are concerning in Willie Taggart’s first year, it’s the nature of them. The Seminoles were barely competitive Saturday in a 47-28 loss to the Wolfpack, and it was fourth time this year they've lost by at least three scores. Florida State will close the season now with three ranked teams (Notre Dame, Boston College and Florida), which means the program's 36-year bowl streak is very likely to be broken. 

Florida might be regressing to the mean: It’s been a solid first season for Dan Mullen, but nobody really expected the Gators to be a top-10 type of team. And they’re not. In the micro view, Missouri 38, Florida 17, is one of the season's most surprising scores because Missouri’s been disappointing most of the year and the Gators have exceeded expectations at 6-2 coming into the game. But when a team plays above its head for an extended period of time, a crash is more than likely coming at some point. The bigger surprise here isn’t that Florida struggled, it’s that Missouri looked really good one week after the heartbreak of a 15-14 loss to Kentucky on a touchdown that occurred following a pass interference penalty in the end zone with 0:00 on the clock. Though Missouri was never likely to make a move this quickly on Barry Odom, an alum who has been there just three season as head coach, this was definitely a well-timed win to quiet some of the murmurs rippling through the fan base.