CFB Blitz: Week 11 takeaways

College Football Blitz recaps the most important developments from the day's top games and examines their significance moving forward.

Texas A&M is in the playoff

Predicting college football outcomes can feel damn near impossible most of the time, but it's probably a safe bet to take a Mike Elko defense against a true freshman quarterback. Matt Zollers is going to be seeing Aggies in his nightmares Saturday after Texas A&M held the first-year Missouri passer to only seven completions for 77 yards.

Beau Pribula's injury took almost all the shine off Saturday's ranked matchup between Texas A&M and Missouri, with the Tigers simply unable to move the ball through the air. Despite 219 yards rushing from Ahmad Hardy and Jamal Roberts, Missouri was bringing a water gun to fight the fire that is the unbeaten Aggies. Texas A&M's defense posted seven tackles for loss on just 56 total plays and forced two fumbles in the win. Elko's team held leads of 21-0 and 31-10 in the second half and is now 9-0 for the first time since 1992.

With South Carolina and Texas the only remaining Power 5 conference games on the Aggies' schedule, you can mark them down in pen to be in the 12-team playoff field come December. Even two shocking losses would still see Texas A&M post a 10-2 mark on the campaign - a virtual lock for the postseason.

Pray for the ACC tiebreaker admin

It's a good thing Stanford is now in the ACC because the conference might need a graduate from the highly respected academic institution to figure out football tiebreakers this season. With Virginia's and Louisville's home losses to unranked Wake Forest and Cal, respectively, the conference title race is officially off the rails. There are now five teams tied with one conference loss on the season, including a Duke team that's 5-4 overall.

That leaves Louisville and Miami as the only programs with two losses near the top of the ACC standings, both needing a little help to reach the title game in early December. Fortunately for them, there are plenty of matchups between the seven teams listed still to be played.

Oh, and in the basement battle, Clemson finally won a home matchup over an embattled Florida State squad, and Bill Belichick beat Frank Reich in a conference game that required the visitors to travel 2,800 miles. Welcome to the weird world of the ACC in 2025.

QB benching season in the SEC

Imagine telling someone in August that Garrett Nussmeier and DJ Lagway would be benched by interim head coaches in Week 11. However, that's exactly what happened Saturday, as both talented passers were replaced due to poor play in favor of the backups while on the road.

Interim LSU coach Frank Wilson made the move with Nussmeier in his debut calling the shots, pulling the senior in the third quarter of the loss to Alabama. Nussmeier was 18-for-21 versus the Tide when benched, but offered almost nothing down the field with just 121 yards passing. Several poor decisions also led to some crucial sacks, prompting Wilson to finally decide he'd seen enough and opt for Michael Van Buren.

Florida firing Billy Napier as head coach would have been believable. What no one saw coming was Lagway's benching that followed. The reason for the sophomore's struggles this year is clear: he can't stop throwing interceptions. Lagway already had a five-pick showing this season at LSU, and he threw three interceptions in three quarters in a blowout loss at Kentucky. Granted, the Gators were missing a significant amount of their roster Saturday, but Lagway time and again made poor choices with his tosses, bringing turnovers into play. He leads the nation with 12 interceptions on the campaign.

Nussmeier is out of eligibility and bound for the NFL following this season, but Lagway will be an interesting name to watch going forward. Although he and his family have insisted he's sticking at Florida, a new coach is on the horizon in Gainesville. While that person will surely be intrigued by the former five-star prospect, it's long past closing time for the turnover party.

The Drive, Indiana edition

The FOX broadcast of Indiana-Penn State started with an on-field interview in which Jenny Taft informed Curt Cignetti that the Hoosiers had never won in Happy Valley. Cignetti didn't miss a beat before dropping his reply: "This team has never played here."

It was an interesting response because both were absolutely right. While the Hoosiers had never won at Beaver Stadium, this version of Indiana ain't the same program that holds the FBS record for most all-time losses. This one features dudes who will be competing on Sundays, and that's what wins games in the dramatic moments.

Fernando Mendoza, go ahead and book your trip to the Heisman ceremony in December. The star quarterback delivered his biggest moment of the season in the game's dying minutes, seemingly unbothered by a four-point deficit in a hostile road environment. The Cal transfer drove 80 yards in 1:15, making multiple big-time throws to put the Hoosiers back up for good. Charlie Becker's incredible grab to set Indiana up deep in Penn State territory was great, but it looked pedestrian compared to what Omar Cooper had in store.

The catch of the year secured the win for Cignetti and Indiana, keeping them perfect on the campaign. The second-year coach admitted postgame that he'd never seen anything like that in his career - something Indiana fans are getting used to saying since Cignetti turned the program around.

Give Pavia the Auburn job

Auburn might as well wrap its coaching search tonight and name Diego Pavia to the position for next season. The Vanderbilt quarterback once again demonstrated that nobody has more ownership over the Tigers, piling up almost 500 yards of total offense in a thrilling overtime victory to make him a perfect 3-0 in his career against Auburn. Add the other two wins to the mix, and Pavia has almost 900 yards of offense and nine touchdowns versus the Tigers.

Pavia's brilliance helped the Commodores roar back from a 20-10 halftime deficit to secure the win and give Vanderbilt its most victories in a season since 2013.

From the Auburn side of things, life without Hugh Freeze began with a bang on offense and 38 points on the scoreboard. That comes after a dismal three-point showing at home last week versus Kentucky. The team's new offensive staff seems to have realized something Freeze never did: Ashton Daniels is QB1, and nobody can guard the receiver duo of Eric Singleton and Cam Coleman. The strategy seems obvious after Saturday, but that clarity was missing under Freeze. Daniels threw for 353 yards on the night - over 100 more than Jackson Arnold recorded in a game this season - while Singleton and Coleman combined for an absurd 21 catches, 245 yards, and two touchdowns.

Although the fan base certainly won't be thrilled with the defensive performance, it had to be somewhat therapeutic to see the offense put up points at a breakneck pace.

Punter leads Wisconsin in passing

First, let's admire this perfectly executed fake punt by Wisconsin's Sean Hunt for a 24-yard gain.

Great play, but I'm sure you're asking why we're sharing this. Turns out, that was about it from the passing game for the Badgers, with Hunt finishing the contest against No. 23 Washington as the team's leading passer. Now for the craziest part: Wisconsin won!

The Badgers entered play Saturday already without starter Billy Edwards and lost backup Danny O'Neil early to injury. In total, four players attempted passes for Wisconsin, with the punter leading the way at 24 yards. That was somehow enough, as the defense forced two turnovers and the running game piled up 157 yards.

The improbable win gave Luke Fickell his first top-25 victory at Wisconsin in the same week he learned he would return next season regardless of how things finish.

New-era Texas Tech is a problem

It's not every day you get a top-10 matchup in Lubbock, and Saturday's contest between BYU and Texas Tech brought the Red Raiders' favorite son, Patrick Mahomes, back to campus. Mahomes' tenure was a perfect representation of what Texas Tech was for almost the entire 2000s: an explosive passing attack that lit up scoreboards offset by a defense that barely existed. For example, Mahomes once threw for 734 yards in, of course, a loss to Oklahoma. But what we witnessed Saturday on the field was the furthest thing from your dad's Texas Tech, and that has the Red Raiders in the driver's seat for the Big 12 title game.

We've touched on the dominant Texas Tech defense earlier this season, but we may have undersold its excellence. BYU entered with the nation's 14th-ranked rushing attack at 5.39 yards per carry, but managed only 2.5 yards per carry for 67 yards Saturday. The Red Raiders' defense also excelled on third and fourth down, holding BYU to 4-for-17 in those situations and getting off the field with ease.

There's plenty of game-breakers all over the field for Texas Tech, but none more important than linebacker Jacob Rodriguez. Just ask BYU.

If anything, the 29-7 scoreline flattered the Cougars, thanks to the ongoing struggles of Texas Tech's red-zone offense. The Red Raiders entered Saturday ranked 98th nationally in red-zone touchdown scoring at just under 58%. That's only getting worse after five red-zone trips yielded just one touchdown for Texas Tech. Yes, it didn't matter, but if the Red Raiders have intentions to make a CFP run, they must clean up that area.

Oregon out-Iowas the Hawkeyes

A rainy smashmouth game with only 250 combined passing yards, four field goals, and seven punts? That sounds a helluva lot like you're walking in an Iowa wonderland. A Kirk Ferentz-special was precisely what went down Saturday at Kinnick Stadium, but Oregon left with the victory in a dramatic finish against the Hawkeyes.

As if the elements didn't make passing hard enough, the Ducks were also missing their top three receivers. That forced Oregon to pound the ball on the ground, and that's exactly what it did. Noah Whittington's 117 yards led the way, as four players rushed for 261 yards on 36 carries. Compiling a hefty 7.3 yards per carry when the defense essentially knows you're running the ball is an incredible total.

OK, we've hyped up the running game enough. Now, let's get to a throw - THE throw - that went a long way toward deciding this contest. Dante Moore proved why he's a future first-round pick with one of the most clutch tosses you'll ever see.

That set up the game-winning field goal to keep Oregon very much alive in the race for the Big Ten and CFP.

UCLA, USC, and Washington may have seemed like odd fits when they joined the Big Ten prior to last season, but the Ducks always appeared more than capable of taking on the conference's identity. They showed that to be the case Saturday, much to the delight of their head coach.

Explosive Georgia shows up

We called out Georgia last week for another underwhelming SEC win versus Florida, and it looked like that was on the menu again early in Saturday's game at Mississippi State. However, the Bulldogs rebounded with an unfamiliar weapon - the explosive play. Georgia entered the contest with only 36 total plays of at least 20 yards this season, ranking 76th nationally - a surprising number given the collection of talent the Bulldogs have. But they hit that number seven times over 60 minutes in Starkville, with Nate Frazier and Noah Thomas running wild in a blowout win.

Frazier's 59-yard touchdown was part of an absurd 181-yard output on just 12 carries from him, while Thomas took a 64-yard reception to the house to help break things open. Georgia finished with 567 yards - including 303 on the ground - and a whopping 30 first downs. This is exactly the performance Kirby Smart wanted before next weekend's blockbuster matchup with Texas.