The greatest week in the college football season (aside from the College Football Playoff): Rivalry Week.
Ohio State-Michigan, also known as The Game. Indiana-Purdue. Oregon-Washington. Alabama-Auburn, also known as the Iron Bowl. LSU-Oklahoma. Georgia-Georgia Tech, also known as Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate. That’s really what all these rivalries feature.
You readers all know the vibes when it comes to these matchups. A number of these games are absolutely pivotal in deciding the fates of some teams hoping to make the College Football Playoff, and some matchups are critical in deciding seeding and who earns the coveted first-round byes in the bracket.
This is always a fun one to write for yours truly every year, so let’s jump right into it!
Indiana finishes the greatest regular season in program history
We all knew this was coming, and yet it’s still hard to believe that this is an actual reality.
The Indiana Hoosiers are 12-0. The Indiana Hoosiers have completed an undefeated regular season for the first time in their program’s history. And the job that head coach Curt Cignetti has done to completely turn around this program and turn it from the perennial punching bag of the Big Ten into a team that simply does nothing but win…it has been nothing short of phenomenal.
The Hoosiers destroyed a hapless Purdue squad in West Lafayette by a score of 56-3, a little less dominant than the 66-0 shellacking that was last season’s victory in Bloomington, but who’s really counting, right?
Admittedly, the offense didn’t quite look like themselves through the first quarter or so, as Fernando Mendoza got off to a bit of a rocky start. But once Indiana settled in and got going, it was smooth sailing from that point on.
As they have done so often this season, the Hoosiers leaned on their ground game, and once again, it did not disappoint in the slightest. Indiana ran for a whopping 355 yards and five touchdowns as a team, and Purdue was simply helpless to stop them. Roman Hemby ran for 152 yards and a score on 12 carries. Kaelon Black racked up 66 yards and a touchdown. Khobie Martin ran for 51 yards and a score. And Fernando Mendoza even found the end zone with his legs.
And not to mention, Alberto Mendoza, Fernando’s younger brother and Indiana’s backup quarterback even got some extended playing time, as he completed both of his passing attempts and even tossed a touchdown. He also added 59 yards on the ground.
It was a complete team win in a season that has featured so many of them. Indiana is a well-oiled machine, designed to wear down and dominate their opponents and win football games no matter what it takes.
Now awaits the College Football Playoff. And the Hoosiers are a bonafide national championship contender, and at this point, absolutely no one should be surprised if they are hoisting up the College Football Playoff National Championship trophy in January.
Georgia is one of the teams that no one wants to play in the College Football Playoff
It seems like not enough people are talking about Georgia as a legitimate national championship contender. It seems like all the media can talk about are Ohio State, Indiana, and Texas A&M, and all that stuff. To me, it kind of sounds like Georgia and Alabama are the two teams that are “left out,” so to speak, of that elite, national title-contending tier.
Well, Georgia should be feared. And their win over bitter rival Georgia Tech in the game dubbed “Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate” (which is an awesome name for a rivalry game, by the way) showed precisely why.
Not even taking into consideration their track record over the past few seasons, the Bulldogs are always, always a threat to hoist the national championship trophy. And in this game, it’s not even like Georgia played all that well. And yet, they still found a way to win the game.
Gunner Stockton was, frankly, not good for much of the game. He only completed 11 of his 21 passes for just 70(!) passing yards, a touchdown, and an interception. I mean, when your starting quarterback throws for just 70 passing yards, odds are, you didn’t win the game.
Well, Georgia is not like most teams. For the struggles that their offense went through, their defense largely shut down a potent Georgia Tech rushing attack. The Yellow Jackets only mustered 69 yards on the ground all game. And not to mention Georgia Tech features one of the best dual-threat quarterbacks in the country in Haynes King. King only ran for 39 yards and only threw for 181 passing yards, along with an interception.
It’s what I’ve been saying all season: great teams find ways to win games like those. Elite teams find ways to win games like those. National championship contenders find ways to win games like those.
And the Georgia Bulldogs are all three of those.
This was a massive missed opportunity for Texas A&M
Talk about disappointment.
In a game that was hyped up to be quite possibly the best game of a stacked Rivalry Week (outside of The Game, but more on that later!), Texas-Texas A&M was…certainly something. Too bad it was not really much of anything that it was previewed to be.
This game was a defensive slog pretty much all the way through. Don’t be fooled by the 27-17 final score; this contest was 10-3 in favor of the Aggies at halftime. Yeah.
There was not a whole lot to come by for either offense for much of the contest. It wasn’t really until the Longhorns started to blow it open early in the fourth quarter that they officially pulled away. Texas’ defense did a good job of gameplanning for Marcel Reed, as Reed and the Aggies’ offense struggled. Reed only threw for 180 yards and he tossed two interceptions. He did add 71 yards on the ground but did not find the end zone through the air or on the ground.
Arch Manning wasn’t a whole lot better, but he was, well, better. He only completed 14 of his 29 passes, and he only threw for 179 yards, but he did throw a nice touchdown pass and racked up 53 rushing yards and an electric score with his legs.
He and the Texas offense did enough to get out of this one with a win while the defense continually frustrated and confused Reed and the Texas A&M offense.
But for Texas A&M, this was a giant opportunity to push back against all the "fraudulent" allegations from the rest of the college football world and officially cement themselves as one of the premier national title contenders in the sport. They had a chance to officially cement themselves as the undisputed third-best team in the nation behind Ohio State and Indiana.
Instead, they pretty much faceplanted. And now the “fraudulent” allegations will get louder as the Aggies head into the College Football Playoff Selection Show with very little momentum.
Texas Tech has cemented itself as a top-five team in the country
Throughout the back half of the season, I repeatedly said that the three best teams in the country were Ohio State, Indiana, and Texas A&M, in that order. Now, I have added on a fourth team to that tier in Georgia.
And it might be time to add a fifth to round out the top five, because Texas Tech has looked every bit like a legitimate contender for the national championship, and they have made their case as a consistent top-five team in the nation.
That was all but proven as the Red Raiders finished an incredibly impressive 2025 regular season with a 49-0 obliteration of West Virginia in Morgantown. I know that the Mountaineers were 4-7 going into this game, but Morgantown is never an easy place to play. The fact that Tech played as well as they did in a hostile environment shows their poise and toughness.
Behren Morton was exceptional, as he completed 25 of his 32 passes for 319 yards and three touchdowns. The Red Raiders also tallied 188 rushing yards as a team, as Cameron Dickey ran for 79 yards while J’Koby Williams added 60 yards and a touchdown. Star linebacker and Heisman candidate Jacob Rodriguez even got in on the action, punching the ball into the end zone for an offensive touchdown he will likely never forget.
Texas Tech has a considerable amount of momentum heading into not only the Big 12 Championship against BYU, but into the College Football Playoff Selection Show. The Red Raiders will have a tough test in the aforementioned Big 12 title game against a tough BYU team that will be looking for some revenge after being pummeled in Lubbock earlier in the year, but make no mistake: Texas Tech is one of the five best teams in college football until proven otherwise.
Ole Miss could be a dark horse national championship contender
There is no denying that Ole Miss will make the College Football Playoff, even after all the, ahem…drama that has surrounded now-former head coach Lane Kiffin. If you somehow haven’t heard by now, Kiffin has left Oxford to take the head coaching position at LSU. And now, defensive coordinator Pete Golding is the head honcho, with that position expected to become full-time from now on for Golding.
Regardless, morale seems to be high in Oxford. The players seem to love Golding and are ecstatic about the idea of him being the permanent head coach at Ole Miss. And the other reason morale is high is that the Rebels have a ton of momentum heading into the postseason following their 38-19 win over rival Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl.
There was not a whole lot that went wrong for Ole Miss in this one, as while Mississippi State kept themselves within striking distance for about a half, the Rebels turned up the heat big-time in the second half.
Trinidad Chambliss was once again spectacular and continues to make his case as one of the most underrated quarterbacks in the nation. Chambliss completed 23 of his 34 passes for 359 yards, and he tossed four touchdowns in front of a raucous crowd in Starkville.
It also helps that running back Kewan Lacy torched the Bulldogs’ defense for 143 yards and a touchdown on 27 carries. And while Mississippi State put up a decent effort and got 173 yards and two scores on the ground from their quarterback Kamario Taylor, Taylor was not effective enough throwing the ball. He threw for just 178 yards and tossed a brutal interception in the second quarter when Mississippi State was down by just seven.
But this was a largely complete win for the Rebels, and there is no question that a win like this always feels good, especially when it comes against a hated rival. Add in the fact that it seems like virtually every single player and coach is completely in on Pete Golding as the new head coach, and the vibes are still pretty good in Oxford. Look out for this Ole Miss team as the CFP draws ever closer.
And last but not least…
Ohio State *finally* gets the monkey off their backs
It was about time.
Yes, Ohio State has finally flipped the script on the past four seasons of frustration and misery when it comes to their head-to-head battles with bitter rival Michigan. It’s the greatest rivalry in college football, and for the past several years, Michigan had owned this series.
Until this past week, when Ohio State finally vanquished the Wolverines by a score of 27-9 to snap their four-year losing streak against those guys in maize and blue and come out on top in the bitter rivalry once again.
Admittedly, in the first quarter, that didn’t look like it was going to be the case at all. Julian Sayin seemed rattled by the crowd at the Big House, and after Michigan got on the board first with a field goal, Sayin threw an interception in Buckeye territory. It seemed like it was going to be another year where Michigan simply owned Ohio State.
But Sayin must have just laughed to himself in the cold, snowy Ann Arbor air. And perhaps he just thought to himself, “So you have chosen…death.”
From that point forward, there wasn’t much Sayin and the Ohio State offense did wrong. Sayin was near-perfect after his turnover, and he ended up with 233 passing yards and three touchdown passes. He really started rolling after hitting Jeremiah Smith for a 35-yard score (that did have a little bit of controversy added to it), and from there, he seemed to be in the zone.
And the longer the game went on, the more Sayin’s comfort level and confidence grew. It culminated in him unleashing this picture-perfect 50-yard dime to Carnell Tate to put the game out of reach for good in the third quarter.
For as much as I’ve talked about momentum, this remains true: a team with all the momentum remains the most dangerous type of team. And Ohio State is certainly that team right now. An argument can be made for several teams being in that category, but the Buckeyes have to be feeling on top of the world right now: an undefeated season, the number one team in the nation, and dominating their most bitter rival and snapping a four-year losing streak to them, all while on the way to the Big Ten Championship against Indiana.
Buckle up, everyone. Dec. 6 in Indy is going to be a treat.
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