We've finally reached the finish line of a college football regular season that has simultaneously felt like the longest slog ever and an absolute blink. Exhausted ACC teams are dropping out of bowl consideration left and right, while teams like Arizona State and Washington State are each getting ready to play only their fourth game of the season.
We've got 10 mostly exciting conference championships on the docket, plus a Tennessee-Texas A&M game that could carry College Football Playoff implications. But for importance and gravitas, it's clear that two Saturday games stand out from the pack: No. 2 Notre Dame vs. No. 3 Clemson in the ACC championship (4 p.m., ET, ABC) and No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 7 Florida in the SEC championship (8 p.m., ET, CBS). So let's talk about them.
What has changed since South Bend?
Notre Dame all but punched its playoff ticket when it handed Clemson a 47-40 double-overtime defeat on Nov. 7. All the Fighting Irish had to do from that point forward was remain unbeaten, and they did so, parrying challenges from Boston College and Syracuse and pulling away from North Carolina in a 31-17 win in Chapel Hill.
The UNC win was particularly impressive. The Tar Heels are third in offensive SP+, have averaged at least 6.2 yards per play in every non-ND game on the schedule and just humiliated a solid Miami defense to the tune of 62 points and 778 yards. The Tar Heels gained 135 yards and scored 14 points on their first two drives against Notre Dame, too, but the Irish shut them down from there. And I mean shut them down: UNC scored three points and averaged 3.8 yards per play over its final nine possessions.
The Irish got sloppy against Syracuse, giving up touchdown runs of 40 and 80 yards, but overall they are ninth in defensive SP+, 15th in success rate allowed and third in havoc rate (tackles for loss, passes defensed and forced fumbles divided by total plays). They invade your backfield and force third-and-longs as well as just about anyone, and they've performed well enough overall to get coordinator Clark Lea hired away as Vanderbilt's coach.
The Irish offense has only grown in confidence since the Clemson win. Against the Tigers, the Irish fell into a sustained slump, scoring only six points in an eight-possession span midgame. But with the season on the line, they drove 91 yards in 1:48 to score a last-minute equalizer and scored touchdowns in both overtime possessions. Since, they've been virtually unstoppable. After averaging 34.8 points per game and 6.1 yards per play before Clemson, they averaged 40.3 and 7.2, respectively, afterward. Ian Book is running around like Johnny Manziel, Kyren Williams has rushed for 1,000 yards and picks up blitzes like Marshawn Lynch, Javon McKinley has become exactly the deep threat the Irish needed (past six games: 30 catches, 539 yards, 3 TDs) and the offensive line remains one of the best in college football. The Notre Dame line was 19th in offensive SP+ before Clemson, and it's now 10th.
I'll admit to feeling like Notre Dame was finished when it took the field for the final drive of regulation against Clemson. The Irish had meekly stalled out in each of their previous two drives, and there was no reason to think the next would be any exception. But when Book hit Avery Davis for 53 yards to set up the tying touchdown, it changed not only the game; it also seemed to change the Fighting Irish themselves.
Containing Clemson
As good as Notre Dame has been, it of course makes sense that Clemson is favored. The Tigers did, after all, take the Irish to overtime on the road despite missing not only quarterback Trevor Lawrence, but also their most important defensive player, linebacker James Skalski.
As good as Lawrence is, missing Skalski was nearly as big a deal. In the three midseason games he missed because of a groin injury, Clemson gave up 32 points per game (albeit with help from a couple of return touchdowns). The Tigers have otherwise given up 12.4 per game. It appears likely that Skalski will be on the field in Charlotte on Saturday.
Lawrence's return is obviously huge, too. The likely No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL draft has continued to improve in 2020 despite turnover at the receiver position.
2018: 417 dropbacks, 65% completion rate, 7.9 yards per dropback (including sacks and scrambles)
2019: 450 dropbacks, 66% completion rate, 8.4 yards per dropback
2020: 269 dropbacks, 69% completion rate, 9.0 yards per dropback
Lawrence has lived up to his otherworldly recruiting hype and has worked to leave a legacy that extends beyond the football field. He has been everything you could possibly want in a star recruit.
As strange as it feels to say, though, there are still holes in his, and Clemson's, respective games. He might be the top draft prospect, but if we end up with the most likely CFP -- a field of Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Clemson -- his No. 9 ranking in Total QBR would rank the lowest of the four starting QBs. (Bama's Mac Jones ranks first overall, Ohio State's Justin Fields second, Notre Dame's Book seventh.)
The main area for improvement: throwing against man defense. Compare:
Lawrence vs. zone coverage: 66% completion rate, 10.7 yards per dropback, 86.3 raw QBR
Lawrence vs. man coverage: 43% completion rate, 7.1 yards per dropback, 63.2 raw QBR
While Lawrence's numbers have risen each year against zone (8.7 yards per dropback in 2018, 9.1 in 2019, now 10.7), the exact opposite trend has happened against man (9.0, then 7.8, then 7.1).
This almost certainly has something to do with the quality of Clemson's receiving corps. He had Tee Higgins and Justyn Ross in 2018-19, after all, and now he doesn't. The Tigers have loads of former star recruits lined up out wide, and Cornell Powell has come on strong late in his senior season (past three games: 16 catches, 427 yards, 3 TDs). But if you can play solid man coverage -- and not that many college defenses can -- you can frustrate the Tigers.
Notre Dame doesn't do a ton of this. Its man-to-zone ratio is about 33% man, middle of the road in college football. But the Irish give up just a 43% completion rate when they play it (15th in FBS) and a 40.1 raw QBR (29th). Thanks to the brilliant work of players such as Adetokunbo Ogundeji and Daelin Hayes (combined: 57 pass pressures, three forced fumbles, 20 forced INCs/INTs), the Irish can generate pressure without bringing the house, and you don't have much time for someone to get open.
Against Lawrence's replacement D.J. Uiagalelei in November, the Irish traded pressure for containment. Or at least, that's what they thought they were doing. Clemson has probably the best bailout weapon in the country in running back Travis Etienne (758 rushing yards, 512 receiving yards), and the Irish backed off on both the blitzing and man defense. In 26 combined rushes and receptions, Etienne gained only 85 yards in South Bend, but while that helped the Irish in key situations, Uiagalelei did still throw for 439 yards -- 161 to Powell, 134 to Amari Rodgers. Only three of his passes came against man coverage. Will that ratio shift this time around with Lawrence at the helm? If it does, will Etienne have a big day in turn?
Florida vs. flukes, Bama vs. history
Most of what I do on the statistical side of football has to do with separating noise and funky bounces from the more sustainable aspects of the sport. As I wrote on Sunday, there was a whole lot of funkiness associated with Florida's baffling loss to LSU on Saturday in the Swamp.
It's the ultimate stats-versus-eyeballs experiment: We saw Florida make ridiculous mistakes and blow the game in every possible way, and it downgraded our view of the Gators. The stats, meanwhile, saw a team that dominated the most controllable areas of the game and would have won the game about 99% of the time. SP+ didn't downgrade the Gators at all, and that created quite the wide split between the SP+ projection and the betting line for Saturday's SEC championship:
SP+ projection: Bama 37.1, Florida 27.1
Estimated Caesars projection: Bama 45.7, Florida 28.8 (Bama -17, over/under of 74.5)
In general, a loss like Florida's last Saturday often creates a betting opportunity. The market overadjusts because of a fluke occurrence and gives the victim of said fluke a couple of extra points. That's a good time to bet.
The problem is, Alabama's just too damn good for that to matter.
Nick Saban's 14th Crimson Tide team might be his best. At least, it could be if it finishes the job. (On paper, the 2018 Alabama team would have gone down as one of the best teams ever but face-planted against Clemson in the national title game.) Their SP+ rating of plus-33.3 puts them in the 99.6th percentile of FBS; in the past 60 years, only two teams can match or top 99.6%: 1971 Nebraska and 1974 Oklahoma. There's elite company, and there's that.
The scariest part: SP+ is still underestimating the Tide. Alabama is overachieving its SP+ projections by an average of 11.6 points per game, eighth most in the country. Since their Oct. 10 scare at Ole Miss -- a game that only sort of qualifies as a scare, since they still won by 15 -- the Tide have won their past seven games, all against SEC competition, by an average of 49-11. Since giving up 48 points to Ole Miss and 24 in the first half to Georgia, they have given up a total of 53 points in 13 halves of football. This is in no way the most impressive iteration of the SEC as a whole, but damn.
If you average SP+'s per-game error in its Alabama and Florida projections -- plus-11.6 points for Bama, minus-2.7 for Florida -- and add that to the projection above, you end up with a projection of Bama by 17.2, almost exactly the current line. So maybe the betting market isn't overreacting to the Florida-LSU fluke.
You aren't going to win first down against Bama (but you might win second)
This is an obvious generalization, but one could make the case that first downs are game-planning downs and third downs are playmaker downs -- as in, somebody please go and make a play. Second down? That's where the playcaller's true philosophy, his id, makes the most sustained appearance. Does he look for a downfield strike? Does he try to create third-and-manageable? Is he just looking to avoid third-and-long?
Before last year's national title game, I wrote about how Clemson's superpower was second-downs perfection. If there's anything close to kryptonite for the Alabama offense, it might come on second down, too.
When a unit is particularly good or bad, I sometimes find value in looking at how it performs in its best and worst moments. For Alabama's offense -- first in offensive SP+, first in success rate, third in scoring offense (first among non-MAC teams) -- anything less than a touchdown in a given drive is a failure. And if we separate the Tide's TD drives from all of its others, we see a pretty clear split.
Alabama touchdown drives:
First down: 9.4 yards per play, 59% success rate, 22% explosive play rate*
Second down: 11.2 yards per play, 72% success rate, 26% explosive play rate
Third and fourth down: 12.0 yards per play, 96% success rate, 26% explosive play rate
Alabama non-touchdown drives:
First down: 5.9 yards per play, 52% success rate, 13% explosive play rate
Second down: 3.5 yards per play, 28% success rate, 5% explosive play rate
Third down: 3.6 yards per play, 27% success rate, 8% explosive play rate
* Sports Info Solutions defines an explosive play as a rush of at least 12 yards or a pass of at least 16.
Two things stand out from those lists. First, the big plays. Obviously. On Alabama touchdown drives, a quarter of their plays qualify as explosive -- mainly passes to the patently unfair receiver duo of DeVonta Smith and John Metchie, though sophomore tight end Jahleel Billingsley has emerged as another option of late (past four games: nine catches, 179 yards). That's ridiculous, and if you can't rein that in, nothing else really matters.
The other thing, however, is that on the rare occasion that a drive falls apart for Alabama, it begins to do so on second down. The Tide are efficient on first downs no matter what, but while they have a 72% second-down success rate on TD drives, it's only 28% on the others.
This is a down where Steve Sarkisian, the former LaVell Edwards quarterback and former USC offensive coordinator when the Trojans were at their most swaggerific, likes to call some downfield shots. Alabama faces the third-shortest second downs in the country on average (only Western Michigan and Utah face shorter), and Mac Jones has paired an otherworldly 83% completion rate with an average of 15.6 yards per completion on these downs. But if those shots don't connect, a more chastened Sarkisian plays it safe on third down and gives you a chance to get off the field -- maybe the only chance you're going to get.
You never know if you're up for the challenge of facing the Alabama offense until you do, but while the Florida defense has been disappointing as a whole -- the Gators were projected third in defensive SP+ but are currently 22nd -- they are at least pretty good on second downs. They have allowed only a 57% completion rate and a 112.1 passer rating on second downs, compared to a 161 rating on first down and a 142 on third.
If Florida can force Alabama to convert third downs and work more slowly down the field and potentially get some pressure on Jones (which few have done), it can work doubly in its favor -- not only is Bama not scoring easily, but Florida is playing to maybe its biggest defensive strength: forcing field goal attempts. The Gators rank seventh in goal-to-go touchdown rate allowed. If you're holding Bama to three points on a given drive, you're doing your job. You're also giving your own awesome offense, led by likely Heisman finalist Kyle Trask, a bit more margin for error. Trask & Co. don't need a ton of that.
Safe to say, Trask is going to have to have a huge game regardless. Arkansas' defense did a downright heroic job against Alabama's offense last week, holding the Tide to 6.2 yards per play, their lowest since the first game of the season, and allowing only a 143 passer rating to Jones, easily his lowest of the year. But the Tide still scored 52 points because Smith returned a punt for a touchdown and the skyrocketing Bama defense gave the offense constant short fields: in the first half alone, the Tide scored on drives that started at the Arkansas 5, 47 and 49. Holding one Bama unit below its normal standards doesn't mean you're going to do it to the others, too.
Week 14 playlist
Besides the two games above, here are 10 games you should pay attention to if you want to get the absolute most out of this final weekend of the regular season, from both information and entertainment perspectives.
All times Eastern.
Early Saturday
Big Ten championship: No. 4 Ohio State vs. No. 14 Northwestern (noon, Fox)
One would assume that, since Ohio State is currently fourth in the CFP rankings, the Buckeyes won't suddenly be punished more for their small sample size and that a win over the Wildcats would get them into the CFP. A few extra style points might not be the worst idea, though, and those are generally hard to come by against a Northwestern defense that prevents big plays and forces field goal attempts instead of touchdowns as well as any in the country.
Big 12 championship: No. 6 Iowa State vs. No. 10 Oklahoma (noon, ABC)
Spencer Rattler vs. Brock Purdy? No, Jon Heacock vs. Alex Grinch.
No. 5 Texas A&M at Tennessee (noon, ESPN)
There are admittedly much better uses of a time machine than this right about now, but if you had access to one, it would be awfully fun to go back 12 months and tell the younger version of you that, in 2020's championship weekend, one of the most important games of the playoff race would be A&M-Tennessee. If Northwestern pulls an upset in Indianapolis and Tennessee does the same in Knoxville, this playoff race goes to a really strange place no matter what happens in the ACC and SEC title games.
Saturday afternoon
Ole Miss at LSU (3:30 p.m., SECN)
Need a palate cleanser amid all the games of actual importance? Flip over to the SEC Network and take in what will probably be an absolute mess of a football game. Ole Miss could clinch a winning record with its fourth consecutive win and its first win in Baton Rouge since 2008. Nothing's that easy, right?
MWC championship: No. 24 San Jose State vs. Boise State (4:15 p.m., Fox)
SJSU played a "home game" against Nevada last week ... in Las Vegas ... with New Mexico's markings all over the field. Now Boise visits Vegas with a conference title on the line. What a run this has been for the Spartans, but a stout Broncos team is favored in this one.
Saturday evening
AAC championship: No. 23 Tulsa at No. 9 Cincinnati (8 p.m., ABC)
Cincinnati should rank sixth at worst in the CFP rankings, and it's appalling -- but not at all surprising -- that the CFP committee has treated Luke Fickell's Bearcats the way it has. But the work's not over: Tulsa plays fantastic defense and knows how to keep games close.
Late Saturday
Arizona State at Oregon State (10:30 p.m., ESPN)
Arizona State is at or near the top of my "Wish I Could Have Seen More of Them in 2020" list -- the Sun Devils can run the ball as well as anyone in the country -- and basically every Oregon State game has come down to the wire. This should be a fun one.