Elms' Essentials: Week 12

Week 12 has come and gone in the college football world, and we are inching ever closer to the beginning of the postseason and the official bracket for the 2025 College Football Playoff. The country’s premier contenders are separating themselves from the rest of the pack, while there were some teams this week that faced some pretty steep adversity. Some climbed back and got better from it, and some…didn’t.

But that’s what I’m here to cover. Without further ado, let’s jump right into Week 12!

Business as usual for Indiana

Admittedly, things did get a tad bit dicey there in the first half for Indiana in the last home game of its season against Wisconsin. The Badgers’ solid defense made the Hoosiers’ offense hit a bit of a wall, and Fernando Mendoza had been sacked a number of times. The score was 10-7 in favor of Indiana at halftime.

However, considering what we have seen from the Indiana offense this year, you will not be surprised to learn that Indiana scored 21 unanswered points in the second half and Wisconsin did not score another point for the rest of the game.

Mendoza was once again stellar for the Hoosiers, as he had more touchdown passes than incompletions. Seriously. He went 22-for-24 for 299 passing yards and four touchdowns. He looked far better and more comfortable in the second half when his offensive line was doing a better job of holding up and he wasn’t being harassed as much by the Badgers’ defense.

There isn’t much “new” we learned about the Hoosiers (and the Badgers, too) in this one. Indiana is a complete lock for the College Football Playoff and a favorite to win the national championship. Wisconsin is 3-7 and going nowhere fast, and plenty in the Badgers faithful are calling for head coach Luke Fickell’s head. Not really, but you get the idea.

Oh well. Just another boring day dominating an opponent for Curt Cignetti and the Hoosiers.

Michigan is a paper tiger

Yes, I understand that Michigan is 8-2 and they have just one loss in Big Ten play (on the road against USC). However, the Wolverines should not feel good whatsoever about the way they played in this game, as they barely managed to escape with a 24-22 win over Northwestern at Wrigley Field.

Bryce Underwood was once again inconsistent, as he completed 21 of his 32 passes for 280 yards and posted an 84.6 QBR, but he also didn’t throw a touchdown pass and tossed two interceptions, one of which came with nine minutes left in the fourth quarter and came close to derailing Michigan’s hopes of a comeback if Northwestern hadn’t been forced to punt on the following drive.

There was some good from Underwood in this game, especially on the ground. He ran for a touchdown that faked out everyone in the stadium, cameraman included. But beyond that, it was a very up-and-down game for Underwood, which makes some sense considering he is still a freshman.

I believe that Underwood has the traits to be a very good quarterback for Michigan. This has been his first season playing at the collegiate level, and it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. However, these moments that he has gone through should, and most likely will, make him a better player down the line than he has been this season. It might seem like I’m hating, but he has been getting better.

And not to mention, a win is a win as they say. And for Michigan in this game, despite the adversity they had to fight through, that’s all that matters at the end of the day.

But as for the Wolverines as a whole, the offense is incredibly inconsistent and while the defense has been solid pretty much all year, it hasn’t received a ton of help on a consistent basis. That is one of the main reasons that no one should be scared of Michigan come postseason time. And with their showdown with Ohio State still looming in a couple of weeks, the Wolverines will be hard-pressed to make a run at the CFP.

Pittsburgh is *also* a paper tiger

I had my questions about the Pittsburgh Panthers going into their home contest against Notre Dame, and I also wondered why College GameDay went to Acrisure Stadium as opposed to Athens, Georgia for the Texas-Georgia showdown (which I’ll get to in a minute, don’t worry!). Perhaps because of Pat McAfee’s Pittsburgh roots? But regardless, I felt that Notre Dame was going to beat Pittsburgh convincingly.

You will never, ever guess what happened in this game: yes, Notre Dame beat Pittsburgh convincingly.

Now we see what happens when the Panthers actually play a real team. Pittsburgh was gashed 37-15 on their home turf by the Fighting Irish, and the game honestly wasn’t even that close. Notre Dame jumped out to a 21-3 lead at halftime and didn’t look back from there.

Irish quarterback CJ Carr didn’t even really play that well, as he went 21-for-32 for 212 yards, two touchdown passes, and two interceptions. However, the Notre Dame rushing attack did basically whatever they wanted against Pittsburgh’s defense, as the Fighting Irish outgained the Panthers on the ground 175 to 70.

Yeah. When your offense puts up 70 yards on the ground, more often than not, your team isn’t winning games. Texas A&M was the exception to this rule, except their quarterback threw for 439 yards and three touchdowns. Pitt’s Mason Heintschel did not perform to those standards, as he completed just 16 of his 33 passes for 126 yards and an interception. Eli Holstein didn’t do a whole lot better, as while he did throw a touchdown pass, he only completed three of his six passes for 23 yards.

Had Pittsburgh won this game, they likely would have begun to garner some College Football Playoff buzz as a possible contender. However, that dream is all but out the window now. While they should make a good bowl game, this feels like a massive missed opportunity for the Panthers.

Texas A&M continues to find the most incredible ways to win games

I believe I remember making a section title similar to this a few weeks ago, but even now it still remains true. Texas A&M continues to fight through adversity and find ways to win football games, and their undefeated season is still alive thanks to it.

The Aggies trailed a 3-6 (but admittedly quite talented) South Carolina team 30-3 at halftime. Yes, you read that score right. The Gamecocks had dominated Texas A&M in every sense of the word, and South Carolina looked like they were well on their way to a dominant win on the road in one of the most hostile environments in the country.

But for as awful as the first half was, that’s how good the Aggies played in the second half. Four of Texas A&M’s five second-half drives (excluding the final one at the end of the game that consisted of kneeldowns) were touchdowns. That’s how prolific the offense became in that second half. The way that the Aggies completely flipped the momentum of the game was staggering.

Marcel Reed had a wild game statistically speaking, as he completed 22 of his 39 passes for 439 yards, three touchdowns, and two interceptions. The running game for A&M did next to nothing outside of a critical touchdown run from EJ Smith in the fourth quarter, but the Aggies compiled just 64 rushing yards as a team.

But when your passing offense racks up 439 yards, then you can win games through the air too. And that’s precisely what Texas A&M did in this game. Combine that with some timely stops from their defense against LaNorris Sellers and the South Carolina offense, and the Aggies keep their record unblemished for another week.

Texas A&M is, at this point, hands down the third best team in the country behind Ohio State and Indiana. And that makes the College Football Playoff race that much more interesting. And it already was pretty darn interesting, because of one particular result in the SEC. Speaking of which…

Oklahoma just shook up the CFP race in a big way

Yeah, so, this game did not go at all the way I expected it to go.

I expected Alabama to win this game rather convincingly. The Tide were in front of their home crowd, and Oklahoma’s offense hadn’t quite looked right ever since John Mateer came back from his hand injury.

Well, it was Alabama’s offense that didn’t look right for the majority of this game. Oklahoma jumped out to a 10-0 lead by the end of the first quarter thanks in part to a bad interception by Ty Simpson.

The Tide did bounce back with a touchdown on the very next drive; however, star wide receiver Ryan Williams coughed it up on a punt return, which the Sooners recovered in Alabama territory. The next moment, Mateer was fighting his way into the end zone to extend Oklahoma’s lead to 17-7 in the second quarter.

After halftime, though, Alabama stormed out in front thanks to a four-yard touchdown run by running back Daniel Hill, and the Tide took a 21-20 lead with about seven and a half minutes remaining in the third quarter.

Those would be the last points that Alabama would score in this game. Alabama’s final four drives went as follows: a punt, a fumble, another punt, and then a turnover on downs. Oklahoma didn’t do a whole lot of anything with the ball either offensively, but they did just enough to get kicker Tate Sandell in range to attempt a 29-yard field goal, which he nailed.

From there, Oklahoma’s defense stood tall and stopped the Tide on fourth down with under a minute left in the game. The Sooners escaped Bryant-Denny Stadium with a 23-21 win and handed Alabama their second loss of the 2025 campaign.

Now the SEC race gets a little more complicated, as Alabama and Oklahoma are now practically on level ground. Texas A&M and Georgia are still the top dogs in the conference, but now one of the Sooners or the Crimson Tide have to be a contender to steal a lower-seed spot in the bracket. Oklahoma still has Missouri and LSU remaining on their schedule (both at home), while Alabama still has Eastern Illinois and the Iron Bowl game against Auburn (on the road, by the way) left on their slate.

It’s going to be a wildly fascinating race to the finish in the SEC. In this conference, it just means more or whatever it is they say.

And last but not least…

Texas is still overrated

Yes, a small part of me did enjoy putting the preceding phrase as the section title. Don’t judge me.

Either way, it is, in a way, true. Texas did not deserve to be ranked as high as they were (No. 10 in the AP Poll heading into this past Saturday’s game), and this manhandling at the hands of Georgia was proof of that.

To be completely honest, Texas was never really in this game. The offense struggled throughout, and Arch Manning went right back to looking like he did over the first eight weeks of the season. Manning threw the ball 43 times and completed 27 of those passes for 254 yards with a touchdown and an interception. And there were several instances where he was uncomfortable in the pocket, didn’t throw with good anticipation, and missed open receivers.

Georgia’s defense was able to get after Manning throughout the night, and that proved costly for the Longhorns. It was a central reason as to why they were unable to get virtually anything going on offense for much of the game.

And as for Georgia, Gunner Stockton had one of his best games of the season. He had just one more incompletion than touchdown pass, as he went 24-for-29 for 229 yards and four touchdown passes. The only blemish was an interception about halfway through the third quarter. But other than that, Georgia’s offense did what they needed to do while their defense kept harassing Manning and Texas’ offense.

And not to mention, Stockton accounted for 29 yards and another touchdown on the ground, and his scamper into the end zone in the fourth quarter put the game away for good.

Georgia keeps humming along, as they now stand at 9-1 and are pretty much a lock for the College Football Playoff. Texas, meanwhile, are now 7-3, and their hopes for the CFP are all but over.

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