#Nuggets: No. 1 beats No. 1, Alabama and Clemson go down, and the highest-scoring game in college football history

AP voters 1, CFP committee 0. The No. 1 team in the country met the No. 1 team in the country, and it was pretty clear early who's the best team in the nation.

CFP No. 1 Tennessee got on the board first thanks to an opening drive fumble, but AP No. 1 Georgia scored three straight touchdowns to take commanding and unrelenting control of the game, as well as status as the top team in the SEC East, and indeed the nation. 

A Volunteer offense that has not been stopped all season was stopped repeatedly. A general rule of thumb: things are going well for you when your offensive lineman strives with all his might to get the ball out of the end zone and avoid a safety. 

Tennessee did not score a touchdown until its 10th possession, with the score 27-6. An offense that entered Saturday ranked second in the nation at 3.95 points per drive averaged 1.18 points on its 11 drives. 

The defending national champions, and now the clear favorites to defend that national championship, have one clear weakness. Like many defending champs, the 2022 Bulldogs are not immune to the human tendency of playing their best only when their best is required, which showed itself a little bit in the fourth quarter on Saturday. 

But I can't spot a whole lot of other weaknesses. Georgia 27, Tennessee 13 was an emphatic statement that the field will have to wrestle the national championship out of the Bulldogs' jaws.

Brian Kelly, professional football coach. For a while there was a strain of thought that Brian Kelly was bound to be an NFL coach. I'll admit I bought into it myself. His CEO management style seemed like a fit for the League, and the Notre Dame spotlight provided a natural springboard to a major market team like the Giants or Eagles.

That talk faded after a while, and disappeared completely when he took the LSU job. Kelly may or may not have fit in Philly or NYC, but he sure as gumbo didn't fit in Baton Rouge. The dance. The accent. Kelly was aware of his fish-out-of-water status and leaned into it, but he leaned the wrong way. Many seemed to be rooting for him to fail.

Kelly will not fail at LSU. The man has won 270 games as a head coach and counting at LSU, and win No. 270 was probably the most satisfying yet. 

LSU's season began with a loss on the final play to Florida State, a discombobulated mess of a game ending with a blocked extra point. LSU beat Ala-friggin-bama on the final play of the game, and likely won the SEC West in the process.

The Tigers made Alabama work for everything, keeping the Tide out of the end zone until the fourth quarter. 

When LSU fell behind 15-14 after the Tide's first touchdown, the Tigers took the lead 17-15. When Alabama rocked back in front 21-17, LSU scored a touchdown with 1:47 left to take a 24-21 lead. When the Tide offense obtained a 1st-and-10 with 37 seconds to play, LSU's defense forced a field goal.

And when Alabama scored a touchdown in the top of the first overtime, LSU won the game in two decisive plays: a 25-yard zone-read keeper by Jaylon Daniels (277 total yards, three touchdowns), and then a dot to Mason Taylor for the win. 

"It felt like the right time," Kelly told ESPN afterward.

Kelly admitted he got emotional after the game, for good reason. His 2012 and 2020 Notre Dame teams were beaten soundly by Alabama in the BCS/CFP, evidence of a ceiling made of steel he lived under at Notre Dame. At LSU, he beat Alabama in his first try.

Is this Nick Saban's most disappointing Alabama team? Players and coaches do not ask for the expectations heaped upon them, but heavy is the head the wears the preseason crown. Alabama began 2022 as a clear No. 1, garnering 54 of the 63 first-place votes in the preseason AP poll. They had -- and, indeed, still have -- the reigning Heisman winner, with talk that Will Anderson could become the first defensive lineman to win the award.

And now that team will not even win its own division. (LSU has not clinched the West yet, but wins over Arkansas or Texas A&M would do it.) This fall will join 2019 as the only tournaments in the 9-year Playoff era not to include Alabama. Considering that season was marred by a Tua Tagovailoa injury, the question is between this one and the 2010 team -- a group that returned Mark Ingram, Julio Jones and many key pieces of the '09 title squad, but finished 10-3 -- as the most disappointing of Saban's 17 Tide teams. The 2010 team was the last to lose twice before the Iron Bowl, until this one. 

Granted, Alabama's two losses have come by scores of 52-49 and 32-31, both on walk-off scores. It's not as if the Tide are getting blown off the field.

But the Tide still struggle to impose their will on the ground, they commit too many penalties in the secondary, and their leading wide receiver is a transfer running back. Alabama has played four games against teams of comparable talent. All four were decided at the buzzer, and so it makes sense the Tide is 2-2 in those games. 

In a season where Alabama was anticipated to be historically great, instead the Tide are merely pretty good.

SMU and Houston stage the highest-scoring game in FBS history. Clayton Tune completed 36 passes for 527 yards and seven touchdowns and rushed 12 times for 111 yards and a touchdown, in a game his team lost by 14 points.

SMU scored touchdowns on its first nine possessions, out-lasting Houston for a 77-63 victory. 

In a game that produced 20 touchdowns, it was the defensive plays that stood out. And while Tune produced 638 yards of total offense and eight touchdowns, SMU's Tanner Mordecai played turnover free football while hitting 28-of-37 throws for 379 yards with nine touchdowns while adding 54 yards and one more touchdown on the ground. 

Tune and Mordecai's 16 touchdown passes are an all-divisions NCAA record -- and they both ran for a touchdown, too. 

Shootouts are often compared to track meets or basketball games, but really they're tennis matches, and SMU managed to break Houston's serve. 

The Mustangs and Cougars opened with a volley of seven consecutive touchdowns, broken by Tune interceptions on consecutive drives, both of which turned into SMU touchdowns. The second Tune pick set the stage for a 3-play, 62-yard touchdown drive that provided the Mustangs a 42-21 lead -- at the 4:16 mark of the second quarter. SMU led 56-35 at the half. After Houston recovered an onside kick with 3:35 to play trailing 77-63, SMU picked Tune a third time in the end zone, denying him his eighth touchdown pass of the night and allowing the Mustang defenders to leave Ford Stadium with some sense of pride.

Notre Dame exposes No. 4 Clemson. Six of the top seven in the initial College Football Playoff rankings were the top six teams in net yards per play. The seventh team was Clemson, No. 4 according to the committee but No. 34 in net yards per play, nestled in between South Alabama and North Texas.

That was a red flag for Clemson's championship chances, and Notre Dame turned that flag orange. 

The Irish properly humbled the fraudulent Tigers, blocking a punt for a touchdown and scoring the game's first 28 points on their way to a 35-14 win.

Notre Dame's Drew Pyne went 9-of-17 for 85 yards, and was by far the most effective quarterback on the field. DJ Uiagaleilei finished 27-of-39 for 191 yards with a touchdown and an interception, and was pulled for a second time this season for freshman Cade Klubnik. 

Dabo Swinney should face hard questions about whether he's playing the quarterback that gives his team the best chance to win the game, and what he's doing to advance the Tigers' schemes after promoting from within at both coordinator spots. 

This Clemson team will not make the College Football Playoff for the second straight season, and right now an ACC title does not seem likely, either.

FRIES

Seen and Heard

This week's edition is devoted to Gus Johnson, analytics, and "analytics." 

So, No. 7 TCU rallied to beat Texas Tech, 34-24. The Frogs came from behind yet again, rallying from a 17-13 deficit with three straight fourth quarter touchdowns. But that's not really what I want to talk about.

The key stretch in the game came early in the fourth quarter. Trailing 20-17, Joey McGuire went for a 4th-and-2 at his own 36. As you'll see here, Texas Tech offensive coordinator Zach Kittley called a great play, but backup quarterback Donovan Smith just didn't make the right read in the heat of the moment. Toss that ball to the running back and he not only gets two, he's in the clear with a blocker in front of him. That's football.

Then, trailing 27-17, McGuire again went for a 4th-and-4 at his own 45. Tyler Shough's pass was incomplete, and Fox's Gus Johnson just about lost it.

Too often, the broadcast booth confuses "analytics" as a mystical force, wherein a 130-pound man with a TI-83 and a pocket protector utilizes a glass candle to warg into the head coach's mind, when really all it requires is a simple understanding of probability, common sense, and risk-reward. 

What's more likely: that Texas Tech punts the ball with 9:28 to play and gets it back in a timely enough manner to mount two scoring drives, or that it gains four yards on a single play? 

According to the Pro Football Reference win probability calculator, Texas Tech had a 2.6 percent chance to win at the moment of Johnson's rant. Punting the ball and getting it back at their own 30 with eight minutes to play -- the best case scenario in that moment -- increased their odds by 0.7%, but a 4-yard gain tripled their already-slim odds. 

Johnson is far from alone here -- ESPN's Dave Pasch, Dusty Dvoracek and Tom Luginbill did not cover themselves in glory, but that's a different conversation -- but at this point it's embarrassing for the networks to have their on-air talent less educated on fourth down thinking than the teams their covering and the audiences to which they're speaking. On-air talent can, will, and should come to their own conclusions, but executives should require that they educate themselves on the material first.

The Super 16. Here's this week's FWAA-NFF Super 16 poll.

1. Georgia
2. Michigan
3. TCU
4. Ohio State
5. Tennessee
6. Oregon
7. LSU
8. Utah
9. Ole Miss
10. UCLA
11. USC
12. Alabama
13. Clemson
14. Penn State
15. Texas
16. Tulane

Odds and Ends

a. Let's start by saluting the troops. Air Force opened the day with a 13-7 win over Amy, clinching the Academy's first Commander-in-Chief's Trophy since 2016 and its 21st overall.

b. Playing without 24 players, Texas A&M dropped its fifth straight game, extending the Aggies' losing streak to five, its longest in 42 years.

c. Northwestern -- and the weather -- held CJ Stroud to 76 passing yards. Last year, that was a bad quarter for Stroud. What is going on in Columbus? The No. 2 Buckeyes' 21 points tied for the lowest since the 2016 Fiesta Bowl shutout, the game that brought Ryan Day to Columbus.

d. UTSA continues to find ways to win. The Roadrunners moved to 7-2 with a 44-38 double OT win at UAB, fending off a collapse in a game they led 31-17 in the fourth quarter. Jeff Traylor is 14-4 in 1-score games as a college head coach.

e. Speaking of winning close, No. 24 Texas, uh, did it? The Longhorns won a close game and won on the road in fending off No. 13 Kansas State 34-27, but they led 31-10 at halftime. Texas has scored one second-half touchdown in its last three games combined. 

f. Baylor is in position to defend its Big 12 title. With a 38-35 win at Oklahoma, the Bears are 4-2 and can win their way into the Big 12 Championship with victories over, gulp, Kansas State, TCU and Texas.

g. Kalen DeBoer and Washington earned a big win on Friday night in defeating No. 23 Oregon State, 24-21. A year after going 4-8, the Huskies are 7-2. 

h. With everything going on, kudos to Michigan State for following their worst performance with their best in going on the road and beating No. 16 Illinois, 23-15.

i. Auburn-Mississippi State was wild. State led 24-3 in the second quarter, but Auburn fought back to take a 33-30 lead. State tied it with a 44-yard field goal with 29 seconds left. Then. after the kickoff nailed an Auburn front line player, State took over at midfield and kicked its second field goal in half a minute, but the 56-yard try was short. Mississippi State won the game with a touchdown in overtime.

j. Even with a loss, it was a good day for Auburn.

k. And speaking of Auburn, Arkansas ended the Bryan Harsin era with a 41-27 win at Jordan-Hare last week. Auburn candidate Hugh Freeze then went to Fayetteville and beat Arkansas, 21-19. The Flames led 21-3 and barreelly held on -- KJ Jefferson's 2-point plunge was ruled short of the goal line and, honestly, it was a 50-50 judgment call. Either way, the Flames are 8-1 and 1-0 in SEC play.

l. BYU stopped a 4-game losing streak by going on the road and ending Boise State's 4-game winning streak. Cougars 31, Broncos 28.

m. Have we considered the possibility that Miami and Texas A&M infected each other with something? Before a sold out home crowd and a national ABC prime time audience, the Canes went out and got whooped, 45-3.

n. I spent a solid month worried Kansas would start 5-0 and miss a bowl game for the 14th straight season, but the Jayhawks beat a beat up No. 18 Oklahoma State, 37-16. They then immediately talked crap to CFP No. 1 Tennessee.

o. No. 20 Syracuse became the first team in ACC history to lose three straight after starting 6-0, falling 19-9 to Pitt. 

p. No. 22 NC State earned a big win over No. 21 Wake Forest, 30-21. Sam Hartman threw three more picks, while freshman MJ Morris has stepped up and saved the Wolfpack's season.

DESSERT

Florida grad Ben Chase is devoting his entire fall to establish the record for most college football games attended in a single season, and my guy Cole Cubelic quietly ravishes the guy!