As I looked at the upcoming games last Wednesday, I noticed that this past weekend could be special. There were a lot of good matchups and under-the-radar games. And I saw that these games were completely spread out throughout the day. So, I set up four TVs, kicked my feet up and watched it all unfold.
I started at 9:00 am with College Gameday and finished with Utah’s upset of undefeated and top ten-ranked USC at around midnight eastern time. Gameday was great last week. They went to Knoxville, Tennessee for the Vols’ battle with Alabama. The crowd was going crazy, and they had the great Peyton Manning as their guest picker. Lee Corso was thankfully okay and back on the show. He ended up putting on the Smokey dog head as he predicted Tennessee to win the big game.
Coach is back and he's picking the Vols to beat Alabama! pic.twitter.com/MWH8bT2uGk
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) October 15, 2022
The noon slate included a top ten battle in Ann Arbor, Michigan when tenth-ranked Penn State came into the Big House to take on number five-ranked Michigan. Gus Johnson was on the call and was amazing as usual. This was a good, back-and-forth game until the second half as the Nittany Lions just couldn’t stop the Wolverine run game. Michigan ran away with the game and won 41-17.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma bounced back at home and beat Kansas by ten. They debuted some sweet new all gray uniforms as well. Texas escaped at home and beat Iowa State by three, and Illinois beat Minnesota to earn their sixth win on the season. To cap off the noon games, previously undefeated Coastal Carolina was blown out at home by Old Dominion, 49-21.
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The 3:30 games are where things really heated up. You had three top 25 matchups all happening at the same time: 3 Alabama vs. 6 Tennessee, 8 Oklahoma State vs. 13 TCU, and 15 NC State vs. 18 Syracuse.
Oklahoma State was leading the whole game until TCU tied it late and ended up winning in double overtime. NC State struggled on the road without their quarterback Devin Leary and were anemic offensively, losing to the still somehow undefeated Orange, 24-9.
An under-the-radar game that started around the same time was 25 James Madison at Georgia Southern. This is the Duke’s first season in FBS and they were undefeated and ranked. They were the first team to crack the top 25 in their first season ever at the FBS level. They ended up losing to the Eagles in a close one that came down to the wire, with Clay Helton’s team coming away with the upset win, 45-38.
Other under-the-radar matchups at this time included Arkansas vs BYU and Wisconsin vs Michigan State. Arkansas handled the Cougars 52-35, but the Badger-Spartan game went into double overtime, with Michigan State surviving at home after a Braelon Allen fumble in the second extra period.
The Tennessee vs Alabama game deserves its own article – or articles – quite frankly. This could very well end up being the game of the season. This was the most hyped-up game of the season so far and Neyland Stadium was going absolutely crazy. The school’s weather team found out that the crowd caused a couple of small earthquakes during the game.
Looks like the Sequoyah Library (@knoxreads) MAY have picked up a slight #earthquake (tremors) at nearby Neyland Stadium tonight during the @Vol_Football game thanks to the raucous crowd! #GoVols
(H/T @CC_StormWatch) pic.twitter.com/EQezKXGHNs— Ken Weathers ⚡️? (@lucky13wxman) October 16, 2022
Tennessee hadn’t beaten the Crimson Tide since 2006, and that means they had never beaten Nick Saban. That all changed on Saturday. Tennessee jumped out to a 28-10 lead and Bama slowly came back and tied it up. It was back and forth after that, and the game was tied at 49 as it was nearing the end. Alabama had a 50-yard field goal to take the lead with 21 seconds left but he missed it to the right. Tennessee then threw two passes and got the ball into field goal range and set up an attempt with only two seconds remaining. He ended up hitting it and the crowd stormed the field. Tennessee won 52-49 and the fans tore down the goalposts, walked them through the streets of Knoxville, and then threw them into the Tennessee river. It was a wild scene.
THE GOAL POST MADE IT IN THE TENNESSEE RIVER pic.twitter.com/BXxJfd69MO
— Vol Report (@AllVolReport) October 16, 2022
Then came the late games. LSU vs Florida, 4 Clemson vs Florida State, 16 Mississippi State vs 22 Kentucky, and 7 USC vs 20 Utah were the biggest games of the night. LSU handled Florida in the Swamp while Clemson won in Tallahassee. Kentucky won a good game at home by ten to hand the Bulldogs their second loss of the season.
Utah and USC went back and forth all night and Utah looked to have tied the game up in the final minute after a Cameron Rising scramble for a touchdown on fourth and goal. But they were going for the win and got the two-point conversion to go up 43-42. They held off Caleb Williams and the USC offense to win by one.
Cameron Rising. That’s the tweet. pic.twitter.com/QFnifnpQjk
— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) October 16, 2022
Some other good night games were Stanford vs Notre Dame, Memphis vs East Carolina, and North Carolina vs Duke. Stanford won by two in South Bend, East Carolina won by two in four overtimes, and North Carolina came back to beat rival Duke by three.
There was amazing college football occurring throughout the whole day on Saturday. I can’t remember the last time a game day was this jam-packed with great matchups and great games. A lot of the time when you have good matchups, they don’t end up being good games. That was not the case this past weekend.
All I can say is I hope the rest of the season can live up to this past weekend because if it does, we are in for a wild remainder of 2022.
