On the season’s penultimate Saturday, the biggest winner was a team that didn’t play. Alabama’s fourth-quarter offensive explosion against Auburn spoiled any Midwest or West Coast fantasies about the SEC eliminating itself entirely, but Ole Miss’ 31-17 upset of No. 4 Mississippi State opened the door for several College Football Playoff aspirants. In an unfortunate twist, though, two of the three teams knocking on the door, Ohio State and Baylor, saw their star quarterbacks suffer injuries. Meanwhile, TCU, fifth in last week’s committee rankings prior to their Thanksgiving night rout at Texas, sat back and watched the carnage. Come Tuesday night, when the committee issues its final warmup poll prior to the big one on Dec. 7, the Horned Frogs should find themselves no lower than fourth. Saturday started with what figured to be anticlimactic edition of the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry but instead turned dramatic when the 5-6 Wolverines hung with the Buckeyes into the fourth quarter. Urban Meyer’s team ultimately prevailed, 42-28, but the unfortunate story of the game was J.T. Barrett’s devastating ankle injury. The standout redshirt freshman, who took over for fallen Heisman candidate Braxton Miller in August only to emerge as a contender himself, went down with what would later be diagnosed as a fractured ankle. He will miss the rest of the season. Discussion immediately turned to how the committee will handle football’s equivalent of Cincinnati star Kenyon Martin’s injury just prior to the 2000 NCAA basketball tournament. …
Continue Reading: Week 14: TCU, Baylor, Ohio State all positioned to make playoff pushes
