2024 Week 13 Results
Not So Fast, My Friend
Hoooooooo boy, what a weekend in College Football. Just when we thought maybe things were starting to clear up in the Playoff and Conference races, November chaos strikes hard. A lot of teams with win out and in situations going into these last two weeks, should be easy to figure out the 12 detereming teams right? Well, let’s take a quick glance at what we just witnessed this weekend.
7 teams that were all very hopeful for the playoff just took a big step back and now it is anyone’s guess as to how this will shape up. But at least going into the last week all the conferences should be clean and we know who will be playing in championship games, right? Well…
One week left and we have 8 of the 12 teams in the Big 12 still alive for the title game. Buckle up everybody, the chaos is far from over! We have just rivalry week and conference championship week left to get everything into place. In the Pickem, we are narrowing in on our race up at the top of the season standings with now 6 people eclipsing the 400 point mark, but still with 15 people within 20 points of that number, and all it takes is one bad week to fall out of that race. Our Wild Card is down to our final 16 and we will chop that number in half by the end of next week as we head into our final week which will be Championship Week. A hell of a race all around us! With that let’s dig into the recap and look ahead to these last two weeks.
The first game of our slate was one of the most anticipated games from the past few weeks, and our biggest game of the slate for sure. Undefeated and disrespected #5 Indiana (+13.5) traveled to #2 Ohio State looking to cement their season and secure their place in the playoff. After being tied 7-7 at half time things started to quickly unravel for Indiana though. As it quickly went from 7-7 to 21-7 with some bad special teams play.
Indiana couldn’t recover from that and ends up falling 38-15 as Ohio State covers. Leading to what will surely be even more debate with a less clear answer as the two prevailing thoughts coming out were both ‘they showed they belong’ and ‘they showed they have no chance.’ Good for them, the SEC decided to say Hold My Beer for the rest of the day.
In our Group of 5 game of the week we had a battle between Conference USA top dogs to clinch their spot in the conference title game. Early in the year Kennesaw State was getting some love as the FCS turned FBS team this year, but quietly under the radar Jacksonville State has been making a statement in their first FBS season. They have gone from this:
To now being undefeated in conference play and making noise in the Go5 sphere. And a familiar name in the coaching box trying to make a comeback is looking good after taking down Sam Houston State 21-11 to cover the -5.5 spread.
Now we can proceed to the theme of the week: the SEC is in turmoil. Our 3rd noon game had Ole Miss looking to lock in a playoff spot as they traveled to Florida with a 10.5 point spread. And right from the get Ole Miss was in a full on fist fight to just keep themselves alive in the game. Neither team led by more than 7 at any point, and as it came down to the last possession, Ole Miss was looking to score a touchdown to send it to overtime until:
Lane Kiffin was in his bag all game but it wasn’t enough. Maybe losing Judkins to Ohio State did have an impact in their super roster after all?
After the worst start imaginable, Billy Napier and Florida have found their grove and maybe he has coached his way back into a job as Florida becomes the surprise team of the SEC late in the season.
We stay in the SEC with Kentucky trying to play spoiler traveling to #3 Texas who was holding a 20.5 point spread. After leading by 21 at halftime it looked like Texas was in cruise control to win and potentially cover, until Quinn Ewers once again scared all of Longhorn Nation by limping off the field.
Texas would coast the rest of the game to pull out an easy 31-14 win but unfortunately for 53 of our entries they would not cover the 20.5 number to give Kentucky the win in our books. Early reports say Ewers will be good to go for what is an SEC Championship play in game against A&M this weekend. In a weird turn of it all, Kentucky would end up being the only road team to cover their spread in the Pick Em this week as our home teams went 9-1 ATS.
We head over to the Big 10 for our next game as Penn State looked to keep their Playoff run in full swing as they hope to host a game in the tournament as well. As 11.5 point favorites they went into Minnesota who always will play as a tricky team. Penn State would find themselves trailing most of the game as had to turn on their own afterburners to avoid joining the rest of the country in this collapse week. They scored a TD late in the 3rd to take the lead and after getting the ball back late up 1 they had a chance to ice it out or give it back to Minnesota for one final chance. After getting forced to fourth down it looked like Minnesota was going to get that chance to play full spoiler, until James Franklin took it into their hands and hoped to ice the game.
Penn State holds on to win by 1 and keep their season alive and kicking. They should be a lock to be in the playoff now, but in this year there are no guarantees!
Next up we had a massive Big 12 battle between two teams hoping to find that Big 12 playoff spot at the end of it all. BYU coming off their Kansas awakening went into Arizona State (-3.5) in a game that would put the winner in the drivers seat of the conference. What started out as a beatdown putting Arizona State up 21-3 at half quickly turned around after a hell of a halftime speech in the BYU locker room.
The speech clearly worked as BYU stormed back to make it a 28-23 game in the 4th quarter after missing a couple of 2pt tries to put the spread into serious jeopardy for Cougar supporters. But as the game was winding down and ASU looked to run the clock out we once again had our good friend November Chaos take front and center stage.
As that 4th down play ticked down to 0 the ASU fans thought they had won it and a fitting celebration ensued… with only one issue being that the clock did not actually run out.
But after narrowly avoiding a complete disaster by about 2 yards on the Hail Mary completion, ASU did infact pull out the win and cover the spread giving them the rare double storm rush.
Sticking in the Big 12 for the next game it was a true battle of runs. Colorado (-3.5) and Travis Hunter looked to continue their incredible Big 12 run by traveling to Kansas who was on their own run coming off two ranked wins over Iowa State and BYU the weeks before. Kansas had a game plan coming in and it was clear who they wanted to go after, and surprisingly it wasn’t Travis Hunter.
Kansas dictated the physicality in this game, and while Shadeur was able to keep up, their defense showed a bit of their true colors and Devin Neal had his game of the year for Kansas as they didn’t let up all game long.
Kansas wins outright 37-21 to the dismay of 68 Pick Em selections. Coach Prime said it best:
But don’t discount Kansas. They have almost singly handily sent the Big 12 into one of the most chaotic finishes ever. The Big 12 is WIDE open with just 1 week of regular season games to play.
As we head into the night slate I’ll start by acknowledging the lack of Texas A&M and Auburn having maybe the game of the year from the Pick Em. Chaos is all over and its hard to catch it all, but shoutout to them for an unreal game. In the night slate we started off with a fun Top 25 matchup that if the result had gone the otherway would have been the biggest chaos agent of the year. Undefeated Army took on Notre Dame in Yankee stadium in a game that was likely a Playoff elimination game for both teams. Notre Dame had a heavy 14.5 point spread they hoped to cover, and Army wanted to show they could play with the big dogs. And well, we all saw the Navy/Notre Dame game in a similar situation and how that ended, and sadly it was no different here. Notre Dame rolls easy to win 49-14 but the big thing coming out of this game is how Notre Dame is quietly becoming a juggernaut this year with no respect on their name.
The Irish look to lock up their Playoff ticket next week with a win over USC while Army is still alive to win the American and finish an incredible season strong with a win over Navy as well.
In our next game we had our first Championship game of the season in the newly minted Pac-2 conference! The long awaited battle between Washington State and Oregon State had slight Playoff implications with Washington State still being an outside shot at an 8-2 record. They went into Corvallis favored by 12.5 but as good CFB historians may know, the Oregon State Giant Killers under the darkest sky and they showed up today. Late in the night in a tie game Oregon State had their chance to slay another beast.
The Beavers are your 2024 Pac 2 Champs!
And we wrap it up with another SEC battle and a Playoff hopeful possibly seeing their lights go out under a November night sky. Alabama looking to keep pace in the SEC traveled into a fading Oklahoma team favored by 13.5. Alabama was our highest picked team of the weekend with 79 selections, but as we have all learned, things don’t come easy and Alabama learned that the hard way. The Sooners had Alabama shook all game long and Jalen Milroe proved a lot of haters right this weekend.
Alabama gets steam rolled 24-3 to pick up their 3rd loss and it is official panic mode in Tuscaloosa and all of the SEC for what the committee is going to do with these 3-loss SEC teams.
Just one more regular season week left and 2 more weeks left for us! Let’s take a quick look at what is up for grabs next week and what we can keep an eye on. A few teams have locked in their Conference Championship spots but every major conference is still up for grabs! Turkey week is truly going to be a feast.
And that will conclude our Week 13 slate. Jimmy F. takes the 1st place win for the week with an 9-1 record for 50 points just a week after finishing in 2nd place. A hot streak for Jimmy to close out the year! And Rich A. takes 2nd place at 8-2 for 46 points. In the Wild Card Andrew O. takes the top spot with 42 points for the bonus win. We drop our bottom 9 and we are headed into Week 14 with 16 left fighting for a final 8 spots in Championship Week before we crown 2 winners from the Wild Card. Overall standings are just as tight and we are going to have an exciting as hell finish in the PIck Em.
Check the standings page below to see who is left.
We are onto Week 14!
Check out the latest full standings here.