Oklahoma, UCLA upsets show NFL still can't touch college football's unpredictability | Opinion
· Yahoo Sports
Stop it already. All of us.
Visit grenadier.co.za for more information.
No more wild College Football Playoff declarations. No more guarantee statements.
Just enjoy the carnage.
Forget about the greed and gluttony of the NIL era. Forget about college football moving closer and closer to the homogenized NFL.
It’s still the wondrously unpredictable weekly adventure that can’t be beat.
No matter how they argue and bicker over billions, or how they change conference landscapes, they will never, ever take away the very thing that has built and sustained college football for nearly two centuries.
The great unknown.
Like Oklahoma, with barely a functioning offense and coach Brent Venables on the verge of some drastic personnel decisions, rising up and beating No.1 Texas on a last-second field goal in the Red River Rivalry.
Like UCLA, which hasn’t been relevant since the 1990s, using a backup quarterback and forcing six turnovers to win at Big Ten heavyweight Oregon.
Like reeling South Carolina dismantling Florida in Gainesville after losing its previous eight SEC games. The same Florida team that three weeks ago looked like a lock for the CFP after crushing an Ole Miss team that a week earlier beat LSU and the most expensive roster in the game.
And speaking of a lock for the CFP, don’t even go there with UCLA. Don’t start looking at a fortunate Big Ten schedule, pencil-in Dubs and make plans for the Bruins to play a home game in the CFP Rose Bowl quarterfinal.
They’re not getting six turnovers every game. And that backup UCLA quarterback? Watch how quickly defenses scheme Ty Dieffenbach.
What do you think this is, Indiana?
“It only matters what we believe and what we do,” Venables said. “Our guys refuse to break.”
Who cares if you offense is one of the worst statistically in the nation, your offensive line is in shambles and your quarterback has lost all confidence? You get a blocked punt for a touchdown, an interception return for a touchdown and another interception to end a final potential scoring drive from Texas.
Then use the two biggest throws of the season from struggling quarterback John Mateer to Isaiah Satenga, and set up the game-winning 47-yard field goal.
Just like you drew it up.
Like those six turnovers UCLA forced and packaged with 5-feet-7 dynamo tailback Wayne Knight. Wouldn’t you know it, with NFL players all over the Oregon offense, Knight was the best player on the field.
He rushed for 103 yards and a touchdown, had another touchdown catch, and now everyone knows the James Madison transfer and his 10 total touchdowns in five games. He and the other JMU transfers who made their way to Westwood, and have UCLA dreaming big.
Like, you know, Indiana.
And speaking of the defending national champion Hoosiers, they barely escaped the day of carnage with two fourth quarter touchdowns in a 20-17 victory at Nebraska. The same Nebraska that has now lost 31 consecutive games against ranked teams, and hasn’t been a player in the sport in nearly two decades.
Yet for one perfectly imperfect Saturday, played well enough to have the defending national champions staring at a win-or-walk game next week against one-loss Ohio State.
We’re barely five years into this dysfunctional and seemingly debilitating NIL era, and already Indiana is the new king and UCLA is an emerging power. What in the wide, wide world of John Wooden is going on here?
You’re not getting this in the crushingly clinical NFL. Not feeling these high and lows week to week, not looking like a fool Saturday to Saturday with each declarative statement made.
It’s unpredictable and unmanageable. Anything is left to the imagination.
Or everything the NFL isn’t.
“This is not the normal UCLA,” said Bruins coach Bob Chesney. “That’s all changing now.”
Just enjoy the carnage.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB. Listen to him daily, from 12-2 p.m., on 1010XL-Jacksonville.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Oklahoma, UCLA upsets show NFL still can't touch college football's unpredictability | Opinion