College football week 9 is in the books. After every week fans can take away things from what happened on the field. Here are 5 things learned from college football week 9.
Ohio State looked sluggish offensively against Penn State, as they couldn’t run the ball well in the first half of the game. They needed their defense to help them win the game; one player, in particular, stepped up big time. J.T. Tuimoloau was a heralded recruit, but maybe he became a national name after his performance against the Nittany Lions.
His stat line was: six total tackles, three tackles for loss, two interceptions, one pass defended, one forced fumble, one fumble recovery and a touchdown scored. It was the best game of his career and was needed. The Buckeyes may not be undefeated if Tuimoloau wasn’t on the roster. He has the ability to do even more damage down the stretch for the Buckeyes.
It may have been crazy to say during the preseason, but Tulane is now in control in terms of making a New Year’s Six Bowl Game. They had a bye this week, but are 7-1 through nine weeks of the season and have a nice win over Kansas State. Even without playing, the ranked Green Wave got some help to put them in this position.
Cincinnati was in the driver’s seat to be the group of five representatives in the New Year’s Six Bowls. They lost on the road to UCF, which is now their second loss of the season. While Tulane is in a good spot, they do play Cincinnati the last week of the regular season and could play them in the AAC Championship Game. After their big win, UCF could also be a team that makes it to the New Year’s Six Bowl for the group of five and the play Tulane in two weeks.
In a battle for second place in the Big 12, Kansas State defeated Oklahoma state in a blowout. The Wildcats won 48-0 for a really impressive performance. With the win, they sit right behind undefeated TCU in the Big 12 standings and now control their own destiny in terms of making the Big 12 Championship Game.
The Wildcats have a loss to Tulane earlier in the season, but then bounced back. They then lost to TCU, but were dealing with quarterback injuries. In the game against Oklahoma State, their backup Will Howard led them to the big win. The Wildcats can make the Big 12 Championship Game and win it if one of their top two quarterbacks are healthy.
There was a lot made out of how the matchup between Tennessee and Kentucky and how their styles were different. Tennessee likes to move the offense quickly and score tons of points. Kentucky likes to control the clock and play defense to edge out games.
In this game, Tennessee showed that they can dictate the tempo and style of the game. They blew out Kentucky, winning 44-6. Showing they can do that against teams who want to play differently is important because Tennessee might have to do something similar next week against Georgia.
South Carolina was ranked after starting the season at 5-2. They played Missouri, who had just one win in SEC play entering the game. The Gamecocks struggled to generate any offense and lost the game 23-10, which means they will likely be unranked in week 10.
What makes things worse is that South Carolina probably shouldn’t have been ranked to start with. Their biggest win of the season is over Kentucky, when they were without their starting quarterback Will Levis. Other than that, their next biggest win is over Texas A&M who is now in danger of missing a bowl game. There wasn’t much they had accomplished other than doing fairly well against a week schedule that warranted them being ranked, but ultimately polls always have problems.
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