Week 7 Review
An early look at the College Football Playoff
Yet again, Michigan has put together a dominant performance.
They started very shaky. In the first 7 minutes of the game, Indiana looked like the better team. McCarthy couldn’t hit his targets, the line was losing its battles to Indiana, and the run game was weak. On the opposite side of the ball, the Indiana team found holes in our defense and put together some nice drives.
All of this lasted for a very short while. From then on, Michigan started to dominate. I think this is due to our NFL-level coaching staff. In the last 3 years, we have been notorious for starting games slow, but making game-changing halftime adjustments. For example, this season, Michigan outscores opponents 93-0 in the 3rd quarter.
After the first quarter slump, they basically played a perfect game. McCarthy threw no incompletions after the first quarter. His connection with Colston Loveland started to heat up, as they connected for a huge touchdown.
McCarthy’s play this season has been seriously incredible. Aside from his stellar play in the passing game and his crazy escape ability, he is also the 3rd leading rusher on the team. His connection with Roman Wilson continued, with a 9th touchdown pass of the year. Wilson is now tied with Jehu Chesson for the most receiving touchdowns since 2015.
Corum’s 2 touchdowns got him to 12 on the year. He is already on pace to break his record of 18 from 2022.
The youngsters also got involved today, with a touchdown from Semaj Morgan and Karmello English. Tyler Morris was also able to make significant contributions. Backup RB Benjamin Hall made his first appearances, but looked very strong. Defensively, Keon Sabb was able to grab his second interception of the year, along with a pick from Rod Moore.
The Michigan defense has yet to allow more than 7 points, and the offense has made sure that they’ve never won by less than 20. Unfortunately, we still haven’t played a ranked opponent, so that stat doesn’t really mean anything.
The rest of the country had an eventful Saturday. Washington and Oregon had a shootout, eventually resulting in a Washington win. Both teams are exclusively reliant on their passing attack, and both seemed incapable of stopping the other. While this game was an impressive show of the PAC-12 air raid, I am still of the opinion that any Big 10 or SEC contender would beat them by a large margin. The PAC 12 defenses are simply too weak, and this was proven by USC on Saturday.
Notre Dame needed to save its season, as they already had 2 losses and were basically eliminated from the playoffs. USC was undefeated coming into this game. However, Notre Dame was much much much better. They turned over Caleb Williams 3 times, and that led to 3 scores. As good as he is, he wasn’t able to handle the ridiculous amount of pressure from the Notre Dame defense. They forced all kinds of mistakes and bad throws.
Looking to the future:
The PAC 12 has a new front runner in Washington, and they are the favorite to make the CFP from that conference. However, USC, Washington, and Oregon, and Utah all play each other still. This could shake things up in the PAC 12.
Georgia continues its dominance in the SEC. It’s looking like a rematch of Georgia-Alabama in the SEC championship. If Georgia is undefeated going into that game, they should make the playoff no matter the result.
The Big 10 gauntlet starts next week with Ohio State-Penn State. The 3 front runners of the Big 10 will all play each other in the coming weeks, and most likely, only one of them can make the playoff.