Week 10 Winners and Losers: Pivotal SEC duels shake up College Football Playoff race

Between his awkward departure from Notre Dame and several early PR fumbles, there was nothing graceful about LSU’s hiring of Kelly. After an offseason full of jokes, a Week 1 loss to a Florida State team coming off a losing season with a head coach under pressure was the perfect punchline.

But Kelly’s the one laughing now.

Does Kelly’s win over the Crimson Tide mean that he’s guaranteed to become the fourth-straight Tigers head coach to win a national title? Of course not. But does it vindicate both his decision to bolt from Notre Dame — despite his unquestionably successful tenure at a blue-blood program — to the SEC, and LSU’s decision to back up the brinks truck to sway him? Absolutely.

This was supposed to be a rebuilding year on the bayou, but it’s turned into nothing of the sort. It would take a truly impressive collapse for this team to not win the West (which it could clinch as soon as next weekend if Alabama does its part against Ole Miss).

And though it seems unlikely, given the fact that this team would have to also take down Georgia in the SEC Championship, you can’t ignore LSU in the CFP discussions. Though no two-loss team has ever made the final four, the SEC champion has also never been excluded.

It didn’t seem possible heading into the season that the Tigers could be relevant in the playoff race by the second week of November, but hey, neither did beating Nick Saban in Year 1.

Kelly already has a top-five recruiting class in 2023 that could get even better over the next few weeks. Regardless of how the rest of this campaign plays out, this is going to be a scary team in the SEC in the coming years.

I’m well aware of the potential pitfalls in declaring Alabama’s reign over college football done. But given the relatively disappointing results in a season that, for the first time in a while, feels all but over after the first weekend in November, it’s hard to come to any other conclusion.

Alabama is underachieving with the most talented quarterback in program history, a dynamic playmaker in Jahmyr Gibbs and a defense littered with more five-stars than most programs have ever signed.

I’m out of excuses.

Of course, it’s all relative. The Tide will likely still finish with 10 wins (possibly 11 if the bowl game goes its way) and the floor doesn’t seem much lower than that as long as Saban is leading the team out of the tunnel.

Perhaps a better way to phrase it is that we could be witnessing the transition into a post-dynasty Alabama under Saban — a program that remains elite but isn’t dominant, at least in the way it used to be.

Kirby Smart won a national championship at Georgia last year and appears poised to repeat, as things currently stand. Given what Alabama is about to lose, does this program feel like it’s in a better position than the Bulldogs? I don’t think so. If Kelly is building a machine of his own within the division, ‘Bama’s route to Atlanta won’t be easy in the coming years.

Saban has adjusted before as he did in 2015 when he hired Lane Kiffin to innovate the offense. But can he do it again at 71?

It sure was fun to pretend Georgia wouldn’t run away with the SEC East again this year, wasn’t it?

Alas, the Bulldogs hit Tennessee with a major reality check after the Vols reached the No. 1 spot in the initial College Football Playoff Rankings, winning a 27-13 game in the rain in Athens that, in all honesty, shouldn’t have even been as close as it was.

Despite all the offseason turnover, UGA proved its defense remains the class of college football, absolutely smothering a Tennessee offense that looked entirely unstoppable against each of the Volunteers’ previous opponents.

I can’t sing the defense’s praises loud enough, but the aspect of this game that will likely keep opposing head coaches up at night is Georiga’s offensive performance against a Tennessee front that is stronger than people give it credit for.

The Vols kept the run game relatively in check, but they couldn’t stop Stetson Bennett IV, who dissected the secondary with explosive plays in the passing game and scored three total touchdowns (two passing, one rushing). If this team can now throw the ball downfield with relative consistency, we may not even need to play the rest of the games.

The phrase “Mickey Mouse offense” has been used at times to describe the Vols’ air-raid-derived philosophy under coach Josh Heupel. It’s a pejorative way of describing how few of its tenets translate to the NFL. I think that’s mostly sour grapes from teams that aren’t athletic enough (or simply can’t figure out how) to stop it.

But there’s certainly something to it. Tennessee ran into one of the few teams with the athletes in the defensive backfield to get this offense out of sync, and Georgia came in with a perfect game plan to neutralize the Vols.

UT runs the ball down your throat until you can stop it, and if you can, it spreads you out and stretches the field with its elite receivers. But Georgia stopped the run, and when the Vols looked to Hendon Hooker to save the day through the air, there was no rescue to be found.

Hooker didn’t throw a passing touchdown, and the weather may have played a factor, but that excuse only goes so far. Tennessee got boat-raced in this game, flat-out. The Vols’ CFP hopes aren’t done yet thanks to losses from Alabama and Clemson, but this team doesn’t look ready to beat the best.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to write positively about the Jayhawks, but they deserve it this week after snapping a three-game losing streak with a decisive 37-16 win over a ranked Oklahoma State team. With the victory, Kansas is bowl-eligible for the first time since 2008.

KU was the talk of college football after a second-year turnaround under Lance Leipold began with a 5-0 start. Since then, the Jayhawks lost electric quarterback Jalon Daniels and have struggled in recent outings.

Saturday’s win was a big moment for everyone involved — backup quarterback Jason Bean, Leipold and, of course, the fans who stormed the field in Lawrence to celebrate.

The next few months will be pivotal for this program. Leipold will almost certainly have several suitors in the coaching carousel this coming offseason after turning around the most moribund program in the Power Five. His name has been associated with openings at Wisconsin and Nebraska, and Big Ten money certainly talks after the conference inked a ludicrous new TV rights deal.

Only time will tell if KU can convince Leipold to stay, but for now, enjoy this one, Kansas fans. God knows you deserve it.

With the way this team has played this season, a letdown like Saturday night’s seemed inevitable for Clemson. I didn’t necessarily expect it to happen against this Notre Dame team, but the Irish have played better in recent weeks. Why not, I guess?

Nothing went right for the Tigers in this game. They had a punt blocked deep in their own territory to give Notre Dame its first touchdown, an