Georgia is the new No. 1 team in the Associated Press Top 25 poll after Miami’s loss to Notre Dame on Saturday night.
The Bulldogs also bolstered their resume with a 42-7 win over Ole Miss. Miami didn’t fall too far, dropping to #5.
Kentucky wasn’t so lucky, falling from sixth to 13th after a 34-6 loss to Tennessee.
Oregon’s 41-28 victory over Ohio State was another big result, with the team heading in opposite directions. The Ducks are three spots ahead of the Buckeyes.
Saturday’s games likely served as a College Football Playoff eliminator for some big teams. Ohio State, LSU, Ole Miss and Missouri now all have three losses, giving them a narrow and perhaps impossible path to the CFP.
Tigers coach Lane Kiffin isn’t in the hot seat yet, but the honeymoon period in Baton Rouge is likely over.
If you enter the stadium with an entourage like that, you better win. You certainly can’t lose to an 18-point rival at home.
Thanks to the transfer portal, coaches no longer benefit from the grace period they once enjoyed. LSU’s roster has a reported price tag of $40 million or more. When that’s the case, a three-loss season won’t be enough.
Things can still get worse for the Tigers too. They still have to face Texas and Tennessee before concluding the regular season against Arkansas.
Even though LSU is 9-3, the first year of the Kiffin era will likely be considered a disappointment.
In North Columbus, Ohio State coach Ryan Day may finally be running out of time.
Failing against USC was bad, but Luke Fahey was making his first career start for the injured Julian Sayin. The Buckeyes still had a lot to play for. They almost certainly would have earned a spot in the CFP as a team with two losses.
Now that’s also off the table, and that will put even more pressure on Day.
Ohio State has one of the most spoiled fan bases in sports. Going back generations, the Bucks have rarely been terrible, and they’ve been in the Top 10 almost every year since Jim Tressel joined the team in 2001. The 2011 season was the last time they failed to muster more than 10 wins with a full schedule.
Even taking all of this into account, we’ve reached a point where even Day’s most vocal supporters might struggle to make an affirmative argument in his favor.
The last time Day looked seriously threatened, a run at the national title prevented a coaching change. That lifeline is most likely out of the question given what happened this weekend.
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