College Football Winners and Losers from September
The first month-and-change of the college football season is complete, lending us a decent-sized sample with which to declare some early winners and losers.
For certain players, coaches, teams and conferences, the end of September is a shame given how kindly this first month has treated them. For others, the calendar cannot turn soon enough.
The criteria of this list is pretty self-explanatory: Winners are entities that improved their public standing; losers are entities that hurt it.
For players, that could mean improving or worsening one's NFL draft stock and Heisman candidacy. For coaches, it could mean improving or worsening their job status and general repute. For teams and the conferences they play in, it's all about the College Football Playoff.
Sound off below, and let me know whom you would add.
Winner: Preseason All-America Running Backs
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Search any preseason list of the best players in the country or predictions for the All-America team, and you'll find a common thread at running back. Georgia junior Todd Gurley was almost always listed No. 1. Nebraska senior Ameer Abdullah and Wisconsin senior Melvin Gordon almost always followed next.
Five weeks into the season, nothing about that has changed. If anything, the trio might have separated from the pack. Abdullah leads the country with 941 yards from scrimmage. Gordon ranks fourth with 153 rushing yards per game. And Gurley is averaging 188.7 total yards against opponents from power-five conferences.
Plenty of other running backs have stood out this season. Tevin Coleman at Indiana continues breaking huge runs. James Conner at Pitt is a bowling ball up the middle. Alex Collins and Jonathan Williams at Arkansas are the best one-two punch in the country.
But in terms of individual talent?
There are Gurley, Abdullah and Gordon…then a Mount Everest-sized drop-off…and then there is everybody else.
Loser: Jameis Winston
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Jameis Winston hasn't played all that poorly. He's thrown four interceptions to one in his first three games last season, but for the most part, he's been close to the same player. He even flashed some unfamiliar rushing moves against Oklahoma State.
But he's also gone from fatiguing to massively fatiguing as an off-field character. It's no longer even slightly enjoyable to cover him. His name elicits groans when it comes across the Twitter blotter, which is often. Not this freakin' guy…not again!
His most recent fiasco, as you're no doubt aware, came after he jumped onto a table and yelled profanities in the middle of Florida State's campus. The nature of the expletives (which we won't reprint) was especially dense given the sexual assault charges he faced last year. It was a lack of self-awareness even Justin Bieber would condemn.
As a result, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner was suspended for a pivotal game against Clemson. Backup Sean Maguire led the team to a win (in a game it should have lost) to keep Florida State's national title hopes alive, but Winston's Heisman hopes went up in flames.
According to Bleacher Report's Mike Freeman, his draft stock might be following suit. One NFL scout told him that Winston has "gone from a top-three pick to a second-rounder" based on character concerns.
Not a shining way to start a Heisman defense.
Winner: Everett Golson
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Everett Golson led Notre Dame to a 12-0 regular season and No. 1 BCS ranking as a redshirt freshman in 2012. Since that time, however, his career had been a steady flow of downward momentum.
Notre Dame was throttled by Alabama in the national championship game, and Golson was suspended for the 2013 season because of academic impropriety. He returned this spring to find a new redshirt freshman wunderkind, Malik Zaire, playing quarterback and had to scrap and claw just to win his job back.
But once Golson stepped back on a live playing field, it was as if none of those things ever happened. He was back to being himself again—and what's more, a new-and-improved version. Golson 1.0 was good enough to compete for a national championship.
Golson 2.0 might be good enough to win it.
The redshirt junior has thrown for 1,142 yards and 11 touchdowns in four games, adding a feather to his cap with 25 straight completions (one shy of an FBS record) against Syracuse in Week 5. His QB rating of 164.6 is No. 4 among quarterbacks with 130 or more pass attempts. Only Kenny Hill has thrown more passes with a higher rating.
"There's not an area of Everett Golson's game that hasn't improved, from footwork to arm talent to decision-making," a professional scouting director told NFL.com.
"He can start in our league," another NFL scout told CBSSports' Dane Brugler.
Golson and his upward-trending stock will play Winston and his downward-trending stock in Tallahassee Oct. 18.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Loser: Brady Hoke
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Brady Hoke will not be the first head coach fired this season. That dishonor already went to…well, we'll get there in a second.
But no head coach has had a worse first month of the season than Michigan's Hoke. And it's not even all that close.
Hoke was on the hot seat coming into the season and the scorching hot seat after blowout losses against Notre Dame and Utah in which his team failed to score a single offensive touchdown. It reached the red zone all of zero times in those games, losing by a combined score of 57-10. He needed a lot to go right against Minnesota in Week 5 if he even wanted to entertain the thought of keeping his job.
Instead, things went as wrong as they possibly could have. The Wolverines got hammered by the Gophers, 30-14, and the score was the least of Hoke's concerns. After leaving quarterback Shane Morris in the game with obvious concussion-like systems, the entire Michigan athletic department had been dragged into disrepute.
Hoke's bumbling press conference Monday afternoon—followed by athletic director Dave Brandon's weaselly 1 a.m. press release that contradicted much of what Hoke said—did nothing to relieve the situation. Rather, it dumped a cubic ton of kerosene on an active fire, stoking the flames instead of fanning them.
It shouldn't be long now before Hoke is gone.
Winner: Upstart SEC West Quarterbacks
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Kenny Hill and Blake Sims were afterthoughts. They were stopgaps on a good day, bridges between the start of fall practice and the day their bluer-chip teammates—Kyle Allen and Jake Coker, respectively—were handed the starting job over them.
Or at least that's how the story was told.
Five weeks later, Hill has led Texas A&M to a 5-0 record and the No. 6 spot in the Associated Press Poll. Sims has led Alabama to a 4-0 record and the No. 3 spot in that same poll. Both rank in the top five of the Total QBR rankings at ESPN.com. The only full-time quarterback who ranks ahead of them is Marcus Mariota of Oregon.
Elsewhere in the dog-eat-dog nightmare of the SEC West, Dak Prescott has proved himself a Heisman contender for Mississippi State, especially in the Bulldogs' historic road upset at LSU. Unlike Hill and Sims, he played (and played well) last season, leading Mississippi State to a bowl game and victory. Much like Hill and Sims, there were reasons to think he would not look this good in 2014.
All three quarterbacks are active Heisman candidates, and their play is a big reason for the SEC West's historic early dominance.
Loser: Overrated SEC East Quarterbacks
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Opposite their West division counterparts, the quarterbacks in the SEC East have been a bit of a tire-fire this season.
The best of the bunch has been South Carolina's Dylan Thompson, who has not lived up to expectations (i.e., the precedent set by Connor Shaw) but at least looked competent throwing the football. The same cannot be said of Hutson Mason at Georgia, Jeff Driskel at Florida and, most surprisingly, Maty Mauk at Missouri.
Mason has yet to pass for 200 yards in a game, averaging 5.9 yards per attempt against Tennessee and 5.0 yards per attempt against Clemson. Driskel completed nine of 28 passes for 93 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions against Alabama. And Mauk completed 12 of 34 passes for an average of 3.9 yards per attempt against South Carolina.
Jon Cooper of Saturday Down South listed Mason and Mauk as Heisman dark horses after spring practice. Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee mentioned Driskel as a Heisman dark horse right before the break of fall camp. None of those players was expected to make a serious run, necessarily, but they were all expected to be above-average starters—to give their teams a chance to win against anyone.
So far, they have all been outplayed by Tennessee's Justin Worley.
Winner: Sonny Dykes
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According to the F/+ ratings at Football Outsiders, Kansas, Cal and Purdue were the three worst power-conference teams last season. All three finished outside of the national Top 100.
Let's check how they're doing this season:
| '13 Record | '13 F/+ | '13 Rank | '14 Record | '14 F/+ | '14 Rank | |
| Kansas | 3-9 | -19.0% | 101 | 2-2 | -10.6% | 95 (+6) |
| California | 1-11 | -20.2% | 103 | 3-1 | +3.2% | 52 (+51) |
| Purdue | 1-11 | -27.3% | 114 | 2-3 | -9.6% | 91 (+23) |
It isn't hyperbolic to call Cal the most improved team in the country. That claim has real statistical merit. The Bears are 3-1 after beating Colorado in overtime last week, and if not for a last-second Hail Mary in Week 4, they would be undefeated with a road win at Arizona on their resume. That would be almost Top 25-worthy.
For all of that, the credit must go to Sonny Dykes, the best of a resurgent group of second-year head coaches. It took him a year to get his system installed, but now that the ball is rolling, who knows when (or if) it will stop?
Remember, this is the guy whose offenses broke records at Louisiana Tech two seasons ago. The guy who was Mike Leach's right-hand man at Texas Tech. The guy tabbed one of the next offensive masterminds in college football. It was easy to forget all of those things last season. But now? It is close to impossible.
Cal leads the country with 13 plays of 40-plus yards, eight plays of 50-plus yards and four plays of 70-plus yards from scrimmage. Its quarterback, true sophomore Jared Goff, ranks No. 7 in the country and No. 2 in the Pac-12 in Total QBR, per ESPN.com.
Dykes has this team headed for a bowl game, which as recently as five weeks ago would have been considered a statement of lunacy.
Don't sleep on the Bears to pull a major upset this year, either.
Loser: Charlie Weis
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Charlie Weis and his "decided schematic advantage" could never get off the ground at Kansas, leading to his firing earlier this week.
Supposedly an offensive coach, Weis had an especially tough time moving the ball during his tenure with the Jayhawks, averaging just 14.7 points in 25 games against FBS opponents. That number deflates to 13.5 points in 20 games against power-conference teams.
The word "loser" is subjective considering Weis' buyout, which according to Steve Berkowitz of USA Today will pay the coach $5.625 million to sit on his couch between now and December 2016.
Combined with the severance still owed to him from Notre Dame, Weis will make $4.6 million to not coach two college football teams in 2015. In total, Kansas will have ended up paying just under $2.1 million for each of Weis' six wins at the school.
Hope he was worth it, Jayhawks!
Winner: Hot Seat Coaches Not Named Weis, Hoke, Beckman or Muschamp
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Weis is gone from Kansas. Hoke could soon be gone from Michigan. Will Muschamp might not last much longer at Florida. And who knows what is going on with Tim Beckman at Illinois?
Outside of that group, however, the first month of the year has been relatively kind to hot-seat coaches in power conferences.
Of the 10 hot-seat coaches I came up with in April—the group of four stated above plus Randy Edsall at Maryland, Kyle Flood at Rutgers, Dana Holgorsen at West Virginia, Paul Johnson at Georgia Tech, Mike London at Virginia and (contentiously) Bo Pelini at Nebraska—more than half of the list has taken a big step in the right direction.
Check out how their teams have improved:
| '13 Record | '13 F/+ | '13 Rank | '14 Record | '14 F/+ | '14 Rank | |
| W. Virginia | 4-8 | -6.6% | 76 | 2-2 | +13.5% | 21 (+55) |
| Rutgers | 6-7 | -12.4% | 91 | 4-1 | +5.8% | 43 (+48) |
| Virginia | 2-10 | -7.7% | 79 | 3-2 | +5.4% | 45 (+34) |
| Maryland | 7-6 | -1.4% | 63 | 4-1 | +7.9% | 33 (+30) |
| Nebraska | 9-4 | +9.1% | 39 | 5-0 | +11.1% | 30 (+9) |
| Ga. Tech | 7-6 | +12.1% | 34 | 4-0 | +6.7% | 41 (-7) |
Ironically, the teams showing the smallest improvement (or even regression) on the F/+ ratings, Nebraska and Georgia Tech, are the only two with undefeated records. As much as these ratings are a good indicator of past performance and predictor of future performance, however, it is wins that ultimately save a coach's job.
All six of these guys are off to a good start.
Loser: The Big Ten
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"The Death of the Big Ten" was the story of the first few weeks of the season, and even though the league has crept back toward decency, it is still a loser of the opening month on aggregate.
The only undefeated team remaining in the conference is Nebraska, and the Huskers were one Abdullah miracle away from needing overtime on their home field against FCS McNeese State. Michigan State is probably the best team in the conference, but the Spartans faded in the second half at Oregon in Week 2, blowing a nine-point lead at the exact same time Michigan was getting shut out against Notre Dame and Ohio State was losing to Virginia Tech in The Horseshoe.
The bottom and middle tiers of the Big Ten do not look much better. Indiana, Illinois and Iowa have struggled to beat their own FCS teams this season, Purdue was outscored 72-60 in games against Western and Central Michigan, Northwestern lost a pair of ugly home games to start the year, and Wisconsin, despite being 4-1 and ranked in the national Top 20, has not looked nearly as strong as it did in 2013.
If not for the two new additions to the conference, Maryland and Rutgers, the Big Ten would be on even more dire life support. Even with them, the prognosis does not look very good.
Whoever wins next week's Michigan State vs. Nebraska game will have to carry the Big Ten's flag for the season.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
