11 winners and 11 losers from college football's hectic Black Friday

The last day of college football’s regular season (non-Army-Navy edition) is here. But on Black Friday, we got what amounted to a pretty full day of action — more than on any other non-Saturday all year, and far more suspenseful than several actual Saturdays. The outcomes of Friday’s games had a significant bearing on the national postseason race.

So, who made out well? Who hurt themselves? Who’s just in extreme, unending pain? (Virginia.) Let’s breeze through the opening portion of this huge weekend.

Winner: Oklahoma
Loser: West Virginia

The Sooners won a 59-56 barnburner at the Mountaineers’ stadium to clinch a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game over their hosts. The Sooners’ defense gave up 8 yards per play, but that was OK, because the offense rang up 10. Will Grier lost despite 539 yards, four TDs, and no picks. This was the football equivalent of getting into a Morgantown bar fight and stumbling out to the street with scratches but no real damage on you. (Did that also happen literally somewhere in Morgantown on Friday? It’s certainly possible.)

Winner: Kyler Murray’s increasingly legit Heisman campaign

What an absolute stud. Murray has been great all year, but he’s never been greater on a bigger stage than he was Friday: 20-of-27 for 364 yards, three scores, and a pick, plus nine runs for 114 yards and another TD that looked like something out of NCAA Football.

His 17-yard run on a second-and-9 on OU’s final drive iced the game, allowing the Sooners to kneel a few times and not give the ball back to Grier.

Tua Tagovailoa’s probably winning the Heisman, and he’ll probably deserve it by way of being unspeakably dominant and slightly outpacing Murray in efficiency stats while facing harder defenses in general. But if Tagovailoa struggles against Auburn, Murray might have a shot heading into Championship Weekend. A few weeks ago, it looked like Bama’s QB would win the trophy by a trillion votes.

Winner: Texas

The Longhorns looked ugly in beating Kansas, but they locked up a Big 12 title spot of their own. They’ll play an OU defense that has not gotten better since UT got coordinator Mike Stoops fired. They will also play Murray, of course, which is a lot less enticing.

Winner: Washington
Loser: Washington State

The Huskies were underdogs against the rival they’re almost never underdogs against. The Cougars remained in the Playoff race, and though it wasn’t as simple as win-and-in for them, they were playing at home and would’ve been favorites in the Pac-12 title game, too.

It didn’t work out for Wazzu. Gardner Minshew had by far the worst game of his Cougs career against UW’s excellent pass defense. Jake Browning and Myles Gaskin had big numbers. Chris Petersen’s team remained the usual gold standard of the North, even in a year that included three quick losses and saw UW become an early national afterthought.

Loser: the Pac-12

The Pac-12 has again eaten itself and will miss the Playoff for the second year in a row and the third time in five years.

Loser: Penn State or Florida, maybe

Both Apple Cup teams are now likely to take up spots in non-Playoff New Year’s Six bowls. Wazzu seems definite, and UW should get there, too, if it wins as a favorite against Utah in the Pac-12 Championship Game. The Nittany Lions or Gators could easily fall out.

Winner: Virginia Tech
Loser: Virginia

The Hokies kept up what’s now a 15-year winning streak against their lowly in-state rivals, who came back from a 14-point deficit to go ahead in the final minutes, only to let the Hokies tie the game on a fumble-recovery TD before fumbling the whole game away in OT, when a touchdown would’ve meant a walk-off win. That epic failure also allowed the Hokies to, for now, maintain their 25-year bowl appearance streak.

All of this on the day UVA was favored in this game for the first time since 2003, and just months after the Hoos men’s basketball team lost to a 16th seed. The poor souls who root for this school. I feel as bad for them as I could possibly feel for University of Virginia fans and alums.

UVA is the new Kentucky — the mediocre team that occasionally has an above-average season but never, ever beats the rival it wants to beat most. It might be Minnesota, but the Gophers’ losing streak to Wisconsin is one game behind UVA’s to Tech, at 14.

Tech got to ruin its rival’s spirit, though it might still lose to Marshall with bowl eligibility on the line next week. That would be a hysterical outcome for 129 other FBS fanbases, none more so than the one that’s feeling the most down in the dumps today.

Winner: Memphis:

The Tigers beat Houston 52-31 to win the AAC West. Next, they’ll get to try to end UCF’s 24-game winning streak, which has included Memphis creating close calls in both last year’s league title game and Week 7 this year. Memphis has pulled off something rare and impressive: being a Group of 5 team, losing a rising-star head coach (Justin Fuente) to a bigger program (Virginia Tech), and not taking steps backward.

Fun fact: Memphis’ S&P+ ranking this year (26th, before beating UH) dwarfs its 55th in Fuente’s last year, 2015. Mike Norvell’s done quite a job.

Loser: Major Applewhite

A brief timeline of events:

Before 2017: Houston hires Applewhite as head coach. University president Renu Khator says Houston defines success as a 10-2 season and “we’ll fire coaches at 8-4.”
2017: Houston goes 7-5, albeit with one of those losses in a bowl game.
2018: Houston goes exactly 8-4, pending a bowl result, with this Memphis loss.

Overwhelming evidence says Houston does not actually fire coaches for going 8-4. But for the second year in a row, Houston doesn’t even get to try to be UCF’s foil in the AAC Championship Game. At some point, Houston might fire a coach for that.

Loser: Anyone who likes UCF or college football generally, because that injury to Knights QB McKenzie Milton is awful

This starts with Milton, the star junior QB who left UCF’s win at USF after suffering what looked like a grisly right knee injury. Milton’s been one of the three or four best QBs in the country for two solid years now, as well as the most important piece of one of the most compelling (and successful) stories in the sport. Every account I’ve seen of Milton is that he’s a great kid. Without any of that taken into account, it’s an upsetting injury.

Losing Milton going forward will make the Knights’ championship game path a lot harder, obviously. They were already going to have to play the team that’s come closest to beating them the last two years, multiple times. It also hurts the sport in general, because no matter your thoughts of UCF’s Playoff case, it’s a lot better to have that team at full strength and to have such a brilliant player on the field. Ugh.

Loser: Charlie Strong

USF started 7-0, then lost five in a row. The gap between them and their northern rivals has become a chasm, as evidenced by UCF following last year’s whisker-thin win with a 38-10 romp in the War on I-4. USF blog The Daily Stampede asks the question:

Unfortunately it’s time to look into this option, even if it might seem harsh and ridiculous to anyone who doesn’t follow USF closely. https://t.co/pB7EHHWlST
— The Daily Stampede (@StampedeSBN) November 24, 2018

That was fast, yeah, but it’s not some hot take to ask. Things are bad.

Winner: Mississippi State

The Bulldogs’ 35-3 romp over Ole Miss was Thursday, but let’s talk about it here. MSU rang up a solid 6.1 yards per play and, more notably, destroyed Ole Miss’ offense to the tune of 3.5. Nick Fitzgerald, who’s never been much of a passer and certainly hasn’t been this year, threw 18 passes and at least reached triple-digit yardage with a TD and no picks, making for a really nice sendoff for a QB who’s given it a hell of an effort in Starkville.

Also, there was a big brawl, and MSU won that by default because of the score. Even the MSU band zapped Ole Miss’ new mascot, Tony the Landshark, by playing “Baby Shark.” When a 32-point win against your rival is only part of your dominance, you’re a winner.

Loser: Mississippi State

The result compelled Ole Miss to fire defensive coordinator Wesley McGriff on Black Friday. The Rebels entered the weekend 109th in Defensive S&P+ and might somehow rank lower when everything’s finished. They had to make a change, and Mississippi State will have to live with being the team that sealed the deal to help its rival get better.

Winner: Ole Miss

The Rebels were playing this year under an NCAA-mandated bowl ban, which they’d tried to get overturned but couldn’t. But they finished with five wins, so the Rebs really just imposed a bowl ban on themselves for the second year in a row. That’s how you stick it to the man.

Winner: Oregon

The Ducks breezed past Oregon State in Corvallis to win the Civil War, 55-15. That’s great. Is Oregon State awful? Yes. Did Oregon lose the last time it visited Reser Stadium? Sure did. Is there such a thing as a road rivalry win that isn’t good? Absolutely not.

Justin Herbert was in street clothes on the sideline late in the game. Hopefully he’s OK. He’ll have a good bit of time before Oregon’s bowl, should he play in it.

Winner: Miami (Ohio)

Also not on Thursday, but: Miami won its sixth game when it won at NIU on Tuesday, 13-7. Getting a few extra weeks of practice and the money associated with a bowl is a big thing, so anyone who gets to bowl eligibility in Week 13 is a huge winner.

Loser: Coastal Carolina
Loser: Akron

All that stuff I just wrote about Miami? It would’ve been great for the Chanticleers, too. They entered the weekend 5-6, needing only a win at 2-9 South Alabama to make a bowl for the first time in their two-year history as an FBS program. And they lost.

Akron, which was 4-6 with a game still to come next week at South Carolina, lost to Ohio. The Zips probably would’ve missed a bowl anyway, but now they don’t get a shot next week.

Winner: Arkansas fans

Their team lost 38-0 to Mizzou. But these folks don’t have to watch another Arkansas football game until next fall. They could be the biggest winners of all.

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