Week 4 of the college football season presented the first taste of what we would consider to be "Separation Saturday." With a handful of marquee games between ranked opponents, some with College Football Playoff aspirations, there was plenty to prove. Some -- like Wisconsin, Auburn and Georgia -- made the most of their opportunities. Others -- looking at you, Michigan -- were obvious pretenders.
Weeks like these always lead to overreactions, and that's OK. We are creatures of the moment. Overreactions are as just as much a part of the game as touchdowns. So with Saturday's action mostly in the books, let's look at the biggest overreactions from the action and how absurd -- or completely warranted -- they might be.
Same ol' Notre Dame? Yeah, same ol' Notre Dame. Eventually, as they say, you are what you are. And Notre Dame is a tier below elite. That's not a massive dig, mind you. A lot of quality programs reside here. Overall, the Irish have been plenty fine under coach Brian Kelly. A lot of teams will gladly take College Football Playoff and BCS National Championship appearances. Where they've come up jarringly short, though, is in big games. Fox Sports pointed out this week that Notre Dame is 1-18 vs. top five teams in the last 20 seasons. Make that 1-19 following a 23-17 loss to Georgia.
It was a weird game in many ways. Notre Dame had an opportunity to win even though it had only one drive longer than 30 yards. The Irish also beat the heck out of themselves with penalties (12 for 85 yards) and two turnovers. In that sense, it felt like Georgia outplayed them. And yet, with the help of some ill-advised timeouts and conservative play-calling from Georgia coach Kirby Smart, this one was never truly out of reach. Creating narratives can be tricky like that since the margins between winning and losing can be razor thin. In the end, though, what matters is the score and Notre Dame far too often hasn't won the big ones.
UCF finally got exposed in its loss to Pitt. This will be the jumping off point for a lot of folks who take aim at UCF's schedule. It was, as usual, a talking point in the broadcast. Really, it boils down to this: a lot of people are going to take delight in No. 15 UCF's stunning 35-34 upset at Pitt. Declare yourself national champions ad nauseam to anyone within earshot and you're bound to have the knife twisted a little more on days like this. In the big picture, though, not much changes for the Knights. They can still make a New Year's Six bowl as the highest-ranked Group of Five team, though there's no more room for error. Plus, Boise State looks awfully good and UCF will need help in addition to winning out. But UCF's 27-game regular-season win streak was going to end eventually. Play sloppy on the road with a freshman quarterback, and you're setting yourself up for a loss. it just so happened to come today.
Texas' defense redeemed itself against Oklahoma State. There's definitely some truth to this after the Longhorns were burned repeatedly by LSU. A 36-30 win over Oklahoma State wasn't easy, and certainly not clean at times, but it did mark a couple of notable improvements for Texas' defense. The first is the Horns survived a high-powered offense while playing shorthanded. Texas was without defensive back B.J. Foster to start with, and ended up losing what felt like its entire secondary to injuries over the course of the night. Yet the Horns played well when the field shortened. On that note, the Longhorns defensive front was exceptional. Oklahoma State had to settle for two field goals near the goal line and came up short on another fourth-down play. The other end of that story was Cowboys coach Mike Gundy calling what was, frankly, one of his worst games in a minute. His fake field goal on fourth-and-6 in the fourth quarter was truly bizarre and it failed miraculously.
The SEC West will be the most compelling race this year. Divisional imbalance across college football has made conference races secondary to divisional counterparts. Take the SEC West, for example. No. 2 Alabama, No. 4 LSU and No. 8 Auburn all won on Saturday, though Auburn's 28-20 victory at No. 17 Texas A&M was far and away the most impressive. Alabama and LSU are two of the top five teams in college football right now, and Auburn boasts a strong resume that can only get stronger. October and November are going to be all kinds of fun in this division, which is asserting itself as the deepest in all of college football.
Let's have a talk about Arkansas. Are the Razorbacks the worst team in the SEC? How about in the Power Five? They might be after losing to San Jose State 31-24 -- and keep in mind, too, that they had to come back from 17 points down against the Spartans only to give up a late go-ahead score. Things in Fayetteville are so bad that even the social media team won't tweet out the score. Coach Chad Morris, once an up-and-coming name, is now 4-12, and this certainly feels like rock bottom. Before you argue, note that San Jose State was 0-24 vs Power Five teams since 2007. That was the longest streak in the country of its kind.
Wisconsin's defense is championship-worthy. Looks that way, doesn't it? Posting a shutout for nearly 11 straight quarters is impressive no matter the context. There are good defenses that have allowed far more on the scoreboard through four games, regardless of the competition. In that vein, there's plenty to be said about Michigan and coach Jim Harbaugh. However, the Badgers' defense has been posting insane numbers. With that in mind, Wisconsin doesn't figure to be tested, at least on paper, until its Oct. 26 road trip to No. 6 Ohio State. That'll tell us plenty. For now, though, bask in a well-coached, hard-nosed defense that's going to be part of a lot of wins.
Rank SMU, cowards. If we don't know much about a lot of these teams this early in the season, then now is the time when we can take some liberties in the weekly top 25 polls. I would argue, however, that SMU looks the part of a top-25 team after a 41-38 win at No. 25 TCU. Should that come to fruition, it would mark the first time since 1986, according to Bruce Feldman. Now, the Horned Frogs may not be a team worthy of being ranked, but the Mustangs are 4-0 with wins over Arkansas State, North Texas and now TCU. Not the most amazing resume, but not a bad one as all of those teams figure to at least be good enough to make a bowl at the end of the year. Coach Sonny Dykes quietly won a transfer quarterback lottery with former Texas starter Shane Buechele, who's been a nice fit in this offense. SMU looks like an upper-tier AAC team.
Never schedule Appalachian State in nonconference play. This is unequivocally true. Mountaineers only aim to cause you harm. Consider that App State blocked a field goal in the final moments to beat North Carolina 34-31 on Saturday. That play, of course, looks awfully familiar to one from Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2007. Oddly enough, the Mountaineers had not beaten a Power Five opponent since upsetting Michigan that season. But time is a flat circle, etc. etc.
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