Greetings, BBN!
Texas, our Top State last week, fared pretty well once again this week, with the Longhorns scoring a top-10 win over Vanderbilt, Baylor blasting UCF 30-3, and Texas Tech staying on top of
the Big 12 with a Kansas State road win. Houston took a bad home loss to West Virginia, but overall, things stayed pretty stable.
Many other states got CFP dreams smashed to bits on Saturday, though. Florida and Georgia saw their Miami and Georgia Tech teams get shocked on the road, and Tennessee lost two SEC contenders in one day to the conference’s newbies. Indiana and Ohio sure were untouchable, though—the Hoosiers and Buckeyes are pretty much on a 12-0 collision course regardless of what their states or all the others do in the rest of November. Let’s see what state was at the bottom, and which was on top, in Week 10:
The Bottom State: Tennessee
The CFP hopes of the state of Tennessee were almost completely dashed last weekend, with the Tennessee Vols succumbing at home to Oklahoma and the Vanderbilt ‘Dores coming up short at Texas after a furious 4th quarter rally pulled them within three and an onside kick rolled out of bounds. Both teams might be out of the running now, though Vandy could still have a case as a 10-2 team. The only thing that went right for The Volunteer State was that Memphis took care of business in the American on the road against Rice to improve to 8-1. If they make the American title game and win it, that’ll be the state’s most likely CFP bid.
The Top State: Kentucky
3-0. For the first time this season, the state of Kentucky went 3-0 in FBS football, with the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, the Louisville Cardinals, and the Kentucky Wildcats winning conference games to earn a three-team state sweep.
WKU’s 35-16 win over New Mexico State was their seventh of the season and fifth in conference play. U of L’s win at Virginia Tech was also their seventh and put them in a tie for third in the ACC standings.
But Kentucky—Kentucky!—after four straight losses and an 0-5 start to SEC play, went on the road to Auburn, realized the Tigers are the only team in the country with a worse offense than them, and slowly choked them like an anaconda 10-3 in a 14-punt game that, while making it almost impossible to watch on TV, got the Cats their first SEC victory.
None of these wins were crazy upsets or big CFP-picture wins, but the state of Kentucky went 3-0 when most other states took at least one hit somewhere, and that’s good enough to make Kentucky the Top State of Week 10!
