There we have it. The college football regular season has come to a close. Whilst there was only one real upset this weekend, it was a big one as the Gators fell to LSU. There were some other big results too, with UNC’s record setting rushing attack and Arizona State putting up 70 points. Here are the biggest winners and losers from Week 15.
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Winners
USC
I feel like this is becoming a recurring theme of the 2020 season. For the third time in five games, the Trojans managed to pull off a late fourth quarter comeback and win the game. Whilst they might not always look convincing, they are 5-0 and have won the Pac-12 South. Next week they will face Washington in the conference championship for a chance to play in the Fiesta Bowl.
This game really had it all. USC trailed 21-10 at the half and by 18 points in the third quarter. They clawed it back to 38-36 and with just 52 seconds left, Kedon Slovis took them on a game-winning touchdown drive. They had their defense to thank for a number of fourth down stops, but this was a game for offensive purists. Rivalry games really don’t get much better than this one.
Arizona State
You could tell things were going to go well for the Sun Devils from the get-go. They returned the opening kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown and didn’t stop scoring. By the time the final whistle went they had racked up 70 points, the most ever in the rivalry’s history. If you take out their garbage time drives they scored touchdowns on ten of their 14 drives.
The season hadn’t been going great to this point, with just two games played, both of which were losses. It doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things but this was ASU’s fourth straight win in the rivalry and sees them retain the Territorial Cup, one of the oldest trophies in all of college football.
Northwestern’s running game
Northwestern’s 2020 season has already been excellent. They’ve secured the Big Ten West after finishing bottom last season and have a spot in the conference championship game. This weekend they predictably saw off Illinois, putting on a clinic on how to run the ball.
Northwestern racked up a whopping 411 rushing yards, at an average of 7.1 per carry. They rarely deviated from the ground game, passing just 12 times for 82 yards. Despite a one-dimensional approach, Illinois were powerless to stop them. They have a really tough test next weekend against the Buckeyes in the conference championship game, but for now they can enjoy their victory and a 6-1 regular season record.
Sarah Fuller
Sarah Fuller already made history earlier this season when she became the first woman to play in a Power Five game. She played just one snap, a kickoff against Missouri, as Vanderbilt lost 41-0. This weekend she managed to add another record to her list. Against Tennessee she became the first woman to score a point in the history of the Power Five, with two successful PATs. Vanderbilt lost the game 42-17, but this game and this season will live long in the memory for these two records broken by Fuller.
Western Michigan
This is one of the rare times you’ll see a losing team on the winners list. A bit like Rutgers in Week 9, Western Michigan make the list for delivering of one of the craziest plays you will ever see. It isn’t every day that you see a last-second play that includes 15 laterals, a pitch invasion, and a touchdown. Admittedly the play didn’t count due to an illegal forward pass, but it was still incredibly entertaining.
Losers
Florida
This really was an unexpected result. The Gators entered their game with LSU as 23 point favourites. There was talk recently that a win here and a strong showing against Alabama in the SEC title game would put them in playoff contention. That hasn’t aged well, with everything falling apart against the reigning national champions..
The Gators beat themselves at the end, squandering an excellent chance to win. With the game tied at 34-34 they made a stop on third down and looked to have the ball back for a game-winning drive. Marco Wilson then made the inexplicable decision to throw the LSU player’s shoe across the field, incurring a 20 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. LSU then converted a 57 yard field goal, a school record, to win the game with seconds remaining.
Miami’s defense
The clash between Miami and UNC looked like one of the best games of the weekend on paper. In the end it was over before it really began. By halftime UNC had 34 points to Miami’s 3 and the game finished 62-26. Their defense was woeful, allowing a school record 779 yards and they couldn’t shut down the run at all. UNC’s dynamic duo of Javonte Williams and Michael Carter finished with a combined FBS record of 544 yards, averaging 10.3 and 12.8 per carry respectively.
The loss will have hurt Miami, who were riding high on a five game winning run. The Hurricanes’ excellent pass-rushing duo of Quincy Roche and Jaelan Phillips were getting pressure on Sam Howell, but it wasn’t enough to make a difference to the result. The result will see them drop below UNC in the AP rankings and miss out on the Orange Bowl as a result.
Arizona
Losing to your rival is always tough, but giving up 70 points to a team that had failed to win in their first two games of the season is especially bad. Arizona end the season at 0-5 and extend their winless run to 12 games. The last time they won was way back in October 2019 against Colorado.
It didn’t come as a surprise to hear that they had fired head coach Kevin Sumlin shortly after the game. The only surprise is that it took this long for them to make that decision. He had failed to lead the team to a single winning season in his three seasons with the Wildcats. They end their season without a win, with a $7.5m payout to Sumlin.
Anybody watching Army-Navy
I don’t think anyone was expecting offensive fireworks from this one, but this game was truly awful. The Black Knights ran out 15-0 but neither side was great and the numbers tell a depressing story. 19 of the 25 drives in the game ended in either a punt or a turnover. The two teams combined for just 12 first downs in the entire game.
They combined for just 279 yards of offense and just 37 yards passing. Only two passes were completed all game and they ran the ball on 92 per cent of plays. Navy’s offense managed just 2.8 yards per play, whilst Army were marginally better at 3. If you were lucky enough to avoid this game, save your time and don’t watch the highlights.
