Week six of the 2020 college football season could be called the week of upsets or the week of no defense in some conferences. It also cleared out some of the pretenders in the top 25.
Let’s look back at some of what took place this past weekend.
The Good
Clemson
The Tigers just continue to improve. The scary part is they don’t appear to have played as well as they can yet on either side of the ball. They took it to Miami this past Saturday and looked really good in every aspect of the game. Well, except the kicking game where they had three field goal attempts blocked. Coming in the questions were how would they stop the mobile Miami quarterback D’Eriq King, and how would the offensive line keep the talented Canes defensive line out of the backfield. The Tigers held King to just 12 of 28 passing for only 121 yards and two interceptions while keeping him bottled up most of the night. The Clemson offensive line had some issues in run blocking early on but settled in and held up well for the most part.
Georgia
The Bulldogs took a Tennessee team that came into their game with the SEC’s longest winning streak to the wood shed in the second half. It was close in the first half and even saw Tennessee take a 21-17 into halftime but Georgia held them scoreless the rest of the way, winning 44-21. The Bulldogs to this point appear to be a contender. Not only in the in the SEC East but the conference overall, and the for the playoff. This game should help with their confidence as they head into a matchup with Alabama that could very well be a preview of the SEC championship game later this year.
Bad
Florida
The Gators entered their game with Texas A&M as the fourth ranked team in the country and many expected them to roll over the Aggies. Especially with the numbers that Gator quarterback Kyle Trask had been putting up. Then their defense couldn’t seem to stop anything the Aggies did. Nothong, nada, zilch. They gave up 543 yards of offense with 338 of those coming through the air. The Gators have the offense to be very good, but that defense will keep them from doing anything of substance.
Alabama
Tide fans are not used to Nick Saban teams giving up half a hundred to anyone but that is almost what happened Saturday. Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss team hung 48 points on the vaunted Bama defense and rolled up close to 650 yards of offense, but still lost 63-48. The back and forth between Saban and Kiffin also reared its ugly head when Saban accused Kiffin of stealing signs after the game. Was this a one game anomaly or a sign of a bigger issue with Alabama. With Georgia up next, it won’t take long to find out.
Ugly
Louisville
This Cardinals defense is just bad. They gave up 46 points to Georgia Tech in their loss on Friday night. Louisville was suppose to take a step forward this season and be one of the better ACC teams in 2020. That just hasn’t happened. There are some pieces in place for Scott Satterfield to build around, but it is just going to take a little longer than expected to get that thing turned around.
LSU
The reigning national champions looked as far from last years team as they could have on Saturday. In a game against a not so good Missouri, they had four chances at the end of the game to get in from the one and could not do so. With the game on the line the team with the better players could not score from one yard out. So much for reloading in Baton Rouge. One hit wonder it is.