<
        >

          Twenty games that made college football's Rivalry Week, well, bedlam

          play
          Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma to reach Big 12 Championship (2:49)

          The Cowboys snap a six-game losing streak to the Sooners and keep their playoff hopes alive. (2:49)

          • Bill ConnellyNov 29, 2021, 07:00 AM ET
            Close
              Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.
            Follow on X

          After college football's national championship game each year, we publish my "Top 100 Games of the Season" list, a love letter of sorts to the season gone by. This isn't that list, but it could be. After an already weird and wild season, 2021 gave us maybe the best weekend of rivalry games we've ever seen. From Iowa-Nebraska early on Black Friday to Bedlam late Saturday night, the weekend was a festival of breathless nonsense and high-impact oddity.

          Before we set our sights on the Championship Week ahead, I wanted to commemorate this spectacular weekend by walking back through the 20 most memorable games of the week, many of which will show up on the aforementioned Top 100 Games list in a few weeks.

          How wild is this 20-game list? It doesn't even include (A) Coastal Carolina's overtime comeback win over South Alabama, (B) UCF's walk-off goal-line stand against USF, (C) a five-point Texas victory over Kansas State earned in part by a red zone fourth-and-1 stuff, (D) Washington State planting its flag on Washington's field after an Apple Cup blowout or (E) the Egg Bowl, aka the paragon of Rivalry Week wackiness.

          I hope you enjoyed this weekend as much as I did. (And unless you're a fan of one of the losing teams below, you probably did.) It was something to behold.

          The 20 most memorable games of Rivalry Week

          20. Texas State 24, Arkansas State 22

          Down 11 heading into the fourth quarter, Arkansas State scored twice to cut the lead to two, forced a late punt and drove to the Texas State 30 with 26 seconds left. On third-and-1, however, Lincoln Pare was stuffed for a 1-yard loss. Instead of trying to convert the fourth down, Arkansas State coach Butch Jones sent kicker Blake Grupe on to attempt a 48-yard field goal into a stiff wind. It came up about 10 yards short.

          (Games aren't always memorable for good reasons.)

          19. Oregon 38, Oregon State 29

          Needing to win to clinch the Pac-12 North, Oregon bolted to a 24-3 lead ... then fell asleep. It was 31-15 when the Beavers recovered a surprise onside kick with 10 minutes left and quickly made it 31-21. Oregon put the game away with a long touchdown drive, but this one kept your attention. We got a solid late-game tussle in the end zone too.

          18. Florida 24, Florida State 21

          A game that featured six fumbles, five interceptions and a perfect 50% postgame win expectancy* for each team. Florida took a 24-7 lead early in the fourth quarter, but FSU scored twice on long drives and cut the lead to three in the final minute. The Seminoles then clinched the loss with what genuinely might have been the worst onside kick attempt of all time.

          (Again, it doesn't have to be good to be memorable.)

          * Postgame win expectancy takes the predictive stats from a given game (a lot of the things that end up going into SP+), tosses them into the air and says, "With these stats, you could have expected to win this game X% of the time." Florida-FSU was a genuine toss-up.

          17. Holy Cross 13, Sacred Heart 10
          16. UT Martin 32, Missouri State 31
          15. Incarnate Word 35, Stephen F. Austin 28

          If the first round is any indication, the FCS playoffs are going to be dynamite. Three of eight first-round games went down to the wire.

          The playoffs began in Worcester, Massachusetts, where Holy Cross enjoyed its first-ever playoff win despite leading for only 14 seconds. With time about to expire, Matthew Sluka connected with a double-covered Jalen Coker for the 35-yard winner.

          Down in San Antonio, Stephen F. Austin scored twice in three minutes to take a 28-21 lead deep in the fourth quarter, until Cameron Ward's final-minute strike to Taylor Grimes forced overtime. In the extra session, Ward threw another touchdown pass, and SFA turned the ball over on downs to seal a Cardinals win.

          As Incarnate Word was wrapping things up, things were going haywire in Springfield, Missouri. Hosting their first playoff game in 31 years, Bobby Petrino's Missouri State Bears took a 31-26 lead into the fourth quarter, but UT Martin's John Ford picked a pass off with 3:44 left, and a 37-yard Dresser Winn-to-Donnell Williams strike gave the Skyhawks the lead. MSU twice drove to midfield in the final minutes but couldn't get any farther.

          14. Minnesota 23, Wisconsin 13

          For those concerned that an expanded playoff might render the outcome of certain playoff games meaningless, a quick reminder: Bragging rights and schadenfreude are both delicious.

          I bet Minnesota thinks so, anyway. The Golden Gophers outscored the rival Badgers 17-3 in the second half to seal a 10-point win. The victory brought Paul Bunyan's Axe back to Minneapolis for just the second time in 18 years and prevented Wisconsin from winning the Big Ten West. Most rivalry games don't have national title implications, but they remain the lifeblood of the sport all the same.

          13. North Texas 45, UTSA 23

          Honestly, UTSA was lucky to get to 11-0. The Roadrunners won two games with a postgame win expectancy of 10% or lower (the wins over Memphis in September and UAB last week), and regression to the mean struck them hard in rainy Denton. They lost three fumbles, and smoking-hot North Texas -- once 1-6, now 6-6 -- went on a 28-0 midgame run.

          12. Michigan State 30, Penn State 27

          The game itself was one of runs -- 14-0 MSU, then 20-3 PSU, then 13-0 MSU -- and was decided in part by a fourth-down stuff and two late Penn State fumbles. But really, it was the climate that made this one memorable.

          Snow football rules.

          11. Central 30, Wheaton 28

          The second round of the Division III playoffs featured three absolute barn burners, but nothing could top what unfolded in Pella, Iowa, where a 34-point fourth-quarter brought three late lead changes and the Dutch's walk-off winner from Blaine Hawkins to Tanner Schminke.

          10. Iowa 28, Nebraska 21

          It will become one of the tidbits we remember most from 2021: Nebraska went 1-8 in Big Ten play this year ... with a +0 point differential. They lost eight games this season by one score. Through that lens, it almost felt as though this one was preordained -- the team that doesn't lose close games against the team that doesn't win them -- but it sure seemed different when Nebraska took a 21-6 lead deep into the third quarter. A quarterback change, a blocked punt, a safety and Spencer Petras' 2-yard score with 2:58 left eventually sealed the deal for the Hawkeyes.

          9. Baylor 27, Texas Tech 24

          Texas Tech enjoyed large statistical advantages, but the Bears clinched a spot in the Big 12 championship game thanks to two fumble recoveries (which led to 10 points), 295 combined rushing and receiving yards from Abram Smith and Trestan Ebner and a late, 53-yard missed field goal from Tech. Baylor's postgame win expectancy: 2%!

          8. Virginia Tech 29, Virginia 24

          It probably says everything about this weekend's absurdity that this game -- which featured three Tech comebacks, two game-changing fumbles, a late safety and a heroic last-gasp drive by injured Virginia quarterback Brennan Armstrong that fell short after the Cavaliers attempted a throwback pass to an offensive lineman on third-and-13 -- ranks eighth.

          7. Shepherd 38, Notre Dame (Ohio) 34

          As with Division III, the second round of the Division II playoffs featured three down-to-the-wire affairs. But the battle between the Shepherd Rams and the second-best Notre Dame in the country saw six lead changes, 926 total yards and a chaotic mess of a game winner from Tyson Bagent to Josh Gontarek.

          "Throw it away! Throw it away!"

          I've said it a thousand times by now: The more small-school football you watch, the healthier you become.

          6. Kent State 48, Miami (Ohio) 47

          This game had already featured 28 fourth-quarter points and four touchdowns of at least 49 yards when, down seven in overtime with the MAC East title on the line, Miami scored on its first play then went for two and the win.

          Win your division with a pass breakup and you get a fist bump from the ref. If it's not in the rulebook, it should be.

          5. LSU 27, Texas A&M 24

          A note to Oklahoma fans complaining about Big 12 officiating conspiracies: While there were certainly some tough calls/non-calls in OU's loss to Oklahoma State, by far the toughest call of the week came in the conference the Sooners will soon be joining.

          With Texas A&M up four, the Aggies' Demani Richardson yanked the ball out of Trey Palmer's hands on a punt return with two minutes left, well before the whistle blew, but officials decided Palmer's forward progress had been stopped and gave LSU the ball. The Tigers promptly drove 85 yards, scored the decisive touchdown -- a gorgeous, 28-yard strike from Max Johnson to Jaray Jenkins -- and sent departing coach Ed Orgeron out a winner.

          4. NC State 34, North Carolina 30

          Friday night's masterpiece was almost forgotten by the time all of Saturday's nonsense had unfolded, but it shouldn't have been. Needing a win to keep its division title hopes alive, NC State took a 14-0 lead in the first quarter, but UNC outscored the Wolfpack 30-7 over 45 minutes to take a 9-point lead. Then things went off the rails.

          Devin Leary and Emeka Emezie connected for a 64-yard touchdown with 1:35 left, and the Wolfpack recovered a perfectly executed onside kick. Leary and Emezie again hooked up, this time from 24 yards out, to give the Pack an unlikely lead. But there was still 1:09 left. UNC quickly drove into Wolfpack territory, but Derrek Pitts Jr. picked off a last-second heave in the end zone, and somehow State survived.

          3. Alabama 24, Auburn 22

          Alabama had lost three of its previous four trips to the Plains, and two of those losses knocked the Crimson Tide out of national title contention. It sure looked for a while like history would repeat itself. Auburn led 10-3 with two minutes left, having just stuffed Bama's Trey Sanders on fourth-and-1. Tank Bigsby burst to the left and came within a yard of a game-clinching first down, but he allowed himself to get dragged out of bounds by Jordan Battle, stopping the clock.

          After the Tide stuffed Bigsby on third-and-short to force a punt, they got the ball back at their 3 with 1:35 left, instead of about 55 seconds. They scored the game-tying touchdown -- a wonderful, 28-yard pass from Bryce Young to Ja'Corey Brooks -- with 24 seconds left. And after Auburn somehow decided not to go for two points and the win in its first overtime possession, the Tide eventually sealed the win in their fourth overtime possession.

          2. Michigan 42, Ohio State 27

          It had been 10 years and one day since Michigan took down Ohio State. And while the Wolverines' victory didn't feature the down-to-the-wire twists and turns that define this list, the narrative shift this game brought will live throughout this coming offseason. (This will be less true, of course, if Michigan slips up against Iowa in the Big Ten championship game and misses the College Football Playoff.)

          For all we know, the Buckeyes might resume their business-as-usual dominance in 2022. But in a season in which Big Burly Manball rediscovered its utility in the college football landscape -- Georgia, its main purveyor, is far and away the national title favorite -- Michigan simply pushed its rival all over the field. Hassan Haskins and Blake Corum combined for 34 carries, 256 yards and five scores (all from Haskins), while the Wolverines' front held Ohio State's explosive backs to 3.9 yards per carry and sacked quarterback C.J. Stroud four times. After years of ending seasons on a sour note, Jim Harbaugh and Michigan are one win away from their first CFP bid.

          1. Oklahoma State 37, Oklahoma 33

          Bedlam doesn't usually live up to its name, but when it does, it's the wildest game on the planet. From poor Brent Parker's last-second drop in 1988 to Oklahoma State's two Les Miles-engineered upsets at the turn of the century to Tyreek Hill's last-minute punt return in 2014, this series has had plenty of indelible, if infrequent, moments. If Saturday night's battle was one of the game's last iterations -- Oklahoma leaves for the SEC soon, after all -- it's going out on top.

          You will almost never find a game with more twists, turns and silliness. The first half featured 476 total yards, a 100-yard Brennan Presley kick return and a late interception that OU used to tie the game at halftime. The second half featured massive special teams miscues (not one, but two punts muffed inside the 5, and at almost the exact same spot on the field) and long stints of defensive dominance.

          The Sooners took a 33-24 lead thanks to a safety and one of the muffed punts, but OSU struck back in the fourth quarter, scoring first on a 37-yard option keeper by Spencer Sanders then on a short run after the other muffed punt. OU twice drove inside the OSU 40 in the game's final 90 seconds but turned the ball over on downs both times, and the Pokes secured a win in one of the biggest games in the history of the rivalry.

          The Cowboys will play Baylor in the Big 12 championship game, and with a win, they could be only a break or two away from the CFP. We had been spoiled with an incredible weekend of football even before Bedlam kicked off on Saturday night. But that turned out to be the main event.

          Playoff hypotheticals

          Rivalry Week reaped some pretty obvious playoff implications. Ohio State's chances of reaching the CFP, per ESPN's Allstate Playoff Predictor, slipped from 54% to 6%, while Michigan's odds rose by a similar amount, from 30% to 72%. Oklahoma was at 12%, and it is now eliminated, with Oklahoma State absorbing most of OU's odds for itself and rising to 32%.

          What happens next? To attempt an answer, I'm going to dive back into the hypotheticals that I've been using in recent weeks. Let's try to put a ranking next to all the hypothetical contenders that could exist next Saturday night, when the conference title games have all wrapped up.

          1. 13-0 Georgia (SEC champion)

          2. 12-1 Alabama (SEC champion)

          The top seed remains obvious. Georgia has been the best team in the country from wire to wire, and for as shaky as Alabama has looked of late, it would be shocking if the Crimson Tide ranked anything other than first if they were to upset the Dawgs in Saturday's SEC championship game.

          Odds of existence, per SP+: 13-0 Georgia 67%, 12-1 Alabama 33%.

          Georgia is an early touchdown-or-so favorite per the sportsbooks, and SP+ gives the Dawgs a 7.4-point advantage.

          3. 12-1 Michigan (Big Ten champion)

          If Michigan indeed holds serve and beats Iowa for the Big Ten championship, the Wolverines will almost certainly be the No. 2 seed behind the SEC champion. Maybe Georgia only falls to second after a loss to Bama, but an extra win over a top team would make Michigan's résumé awfully impressive.

          Odds of existence, per SP+: 74%.

          SP+ gives the Wolverines an 11.1-point edge over Iowa, again similar to the early sportsbook lines.

          4. 12-1 Georgia

          If the Dawgs lose, they almost certainly won't fall far. And even if the committee is giving serious thought to a 13-0 Cincinnati in the No. 3 spot -- which, if history is any indication, is unlikely -- the unconscious desire to avoid an immediate Bama-Georgia rematch might assure that UGA ends up in the 2-versus-3 game no matter what.

          Odds of existence, per SP+: 33%.

          5. 13-0 Cincinnati (AAC champion)

          It's still pretty easy for us to talk ourselves into conspiracies here. Before being left with no choice, the CFP committee had shown absolutely no interest in ranking a Group of 5 team in the top six, much less the top four, and we can still craft a scenario in which two teams from a group of 11-2 Bama, 12-1 Oklahoma State and 11-1 Notre Dame end up ahead of Cincinnati next week. But it's awfully unlikely at this point. It's not a guarantee that the Bearcats are in if they beat Houston in the AAC championship game, but by this point, it's close.

          Odds of existence, per SP+: 76%.

          Houston is a damn good team at this point, but SP+ still gives the Bearcats a 12.4-point edge, while the books opened a bit more conservative with around a 10-point spread.

          6. 12-1 Oklahoma State (Big 12 champion)

          7. 11-1 Notre Dame

          8. 11-2 Alabama

          If Alabama loses to Georgia while Michigan and Cincinnati both win, the final spot in the CFP would theoretically come down to Notre Dame, Alabama and, if Oklahoma State can take down Baylor, the Cowboys. Notre Dame, obviously, is an independent and sitting in the clubhouse at 11-1.

          When the first CFP rankings were released a few weeks ago and had one-loss Alabama at No. 2, I was appalled. It was too early for a blemished team to rank that high, and if the Tide won out until Atlanta, it felt like the committee was all but committing to dropping them no lower than fourth. But Bama's mediocre recent form, which included narrow wins over LSU and Arkansas (and now Auburn) gave the committee an out. It dropped the Tide to third last week, and I'm betting it won't vote a two-loss Tide into the top four unless Oklahoma State loses and Bama loses a very, very close game. If I'm wrong ... well ... it won't be the first time.

          This vote likely comes down to Oklahoma State and Notre Dame then. The Fighting Irish could rank higher than the Cowboys this week, but I'm guessing an extra win over Baylor would push the Pokes ahead. The Playoff Predictor agrees ... barely. In the event of Georgia, Cincinnati, Michigan and Oklahoma State all winning, it gives Georgia, Michigan and Cincinnati all nearly certain CFP odds, while Oklahoma State is at 50%, Notre Dame 45% and Alabama 20%.

          Odds of existence, per SP+: 12-1 Oklahoma State 54%, 11-2 Alabama 67%.

          The Cowboys have a stiff test ahead of them if Baylor quarterback Gerry Bohanon is healthy enough to be effective, and the odds are good that we'll have at least one game-changing upset this week. But if Oklahoma State gets to 12-1, I like the Pokes' chances of landing in the top four.

          9. 11-2 Iowa (Big Ten champion)

          Let's be honest: we're probably not getting past the top eight here. But if things go genuinely haywire -- Georgia obliterates Bama, Cincinnati and Oklahoma State both lose, and Iowa utterly destroys a hungover Michigan -- that could let Iowa in the door. The Playoff Predictor is not entertaining this possibility, but I say it's on the board.

          Odds of existence, per SP+: 26%.

          Those are Iowa's odds of winning, but obviously, blowout odds are lower than that.

          10. 11-2 Michigan

          11. 10-2 Ohio State

          12. 11-2 Baylor (Big 12 champion)

          13. 11-2 Pitt (ACC champion)

          In the event of the aforementioned chaos and a narrow and/or controversial Iowa win over Michigan, a wild card's wild card could move into the conversation. We aren't going to worry about odds here because this isn't going to happen, but for one last time in 2021, I wanted to entertain the thought of a playoff-bound Pitt.