Week 11 Reactions and Takeaways | Indiana Escapes, Oregon Survives the Cold, ACC is Dead
Plus, Texas Tech is the king of the Big 12, Georgia and Alabama continue to roll, and Mike Norvell's seat is hotter than a barbecue grill on the 4th of July.
Entering Week 11, there was some hope that some major upsets could transpire. That unfortunately didn’t play out, but we did see some excellent football games, including two awesome games in the Big Ten.
And, for the first time in what seems like forever, a coach didn’t get fired! What a novel concept.
YouTube TV and Disney’s stupid dispute wasn’t resolved, though. That’s a bummer, though I’m sure most of you all have come up with some sort of solution to watch sports at this juncture. It is getting ridiculous, and if it isn’t sorted out soon, I say that we all turn off our televisions, walk out of our living rooms, go outside, touch some grass, and be merry and cheerful. After all, the holidays are coming up, and being beholden to the whims of major corporations that can’t seem to get their act together is just a terrible time.
Sorry about that little tangent. I’m not bitter, I promise.
Anyway, on to this week’s takeaways. You’ll probably be able to tell, but I focused more on vibes than any analytical thinking in this edition. It just felt like the right thing to do. If you want somebody that crunches down the numbers and tells you why the results took place, go watch ESPN or something. Oh, wait. Never mind, just read this instead — I’m sure it’ll suffice.
Indiana Escapes Happy Valley
There really hadn’t been a moment so far this college football season. There had been great games, sure, but there wasn’t that signature play — at least in my eyes — that captured the nation’s attention.
That was until Omar Cooper Jr. and Fernando Mendoza arrived on the scene Saturday afternoon in State College.
Down 24-20 with less than a minute to play, Mendoza — one of the most unlikely Heisman Trophy candidates I can think of in years — threw a floater off his back foot toward the back of the end zone, hoping someone, anyone, would be there to catch it. Luckily for him, Cooper Jr. was there to play the hero role as he leaped up, plucked the football out of the air, and then miraculously got his left foot down inbounds.
It was an improbable catch that ended an improbable comeback for a Hoosiers team that’s found itself at the precipice of something it’s rarely accomplished — competing for a Big Ten title. That goal was on the verge of hitting a pretty sizable setback had it not been able to take down a Penn State squad that’s been a zombie ever since it fired James Franklin following a 3-3 start to the season. But Indiana made the big plays when it mattered most, with the Cooper Jr. catch being the most dazzling of them all.
Oregon Takes Down Iowa in a Rock Fight
Terrible weather in Iowa City means only one thing: a beautiful football game. Oregon is not unaccustomed to cold, wet, and miserable conditions, which probably made the transition from playing a fast-paced style to a “we’re going to throw mud in your face and bully you” style a little easier.
Still, it wasn’t easy for the Ducks to pull off the road win, as they required a walk-off field goal to get out of Kinnick Stadium with a victory. They’re lucky to do so, as many College Football Playoff hopes and dreams have died at the hands of the Hawkeyes.
Quarterback Dante Moore didn’t play the best game of his career, but he made the big-time throws when it mattered most, including a spectacular throw and catch to Malik Benson on the final drive of the game. It’s those types of throws that separate the good quarterbacks from the great ones, and Moore has continued to show all season that he’s closer to the latter than the former.
The Ducks might not be as potent as they were a season ago, yet they keep winning, which is all you can ask from a team that’s been battered and bruised since the opening kickoff of the first game. Watch out for Oregon — it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
The Big 12 Runs Through Lubbock
West Texas might as well be on a different planet in the eyes of most of America. I bet that prior to Saturday afternoon’s top-10 tilt between BYU and Texas Tech, many folks hadn’t sat down and watched a full Red Raiders game in years, if not decades. It probably hadn’t been since the spectacular upset of then-No. 1 Texas in 2008, when Michael Crabtree single-handedly ended the Longhorns’ dreams of winning a national title, that anybody had paid serious attention to the goings-on in Lubbock.
But 2025 is a year where we’re all turning our eyes to new horizons, and one of those new places is the Texas Tech football program. After paying what seemed like a bajillion dollars over the offseason to essentially overhaul the roster, the Red Raiders find themselves in the driver’s seat to win the Big 12 and subsequently make the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history.
There have been impressive wins for Texas Tech throughout the season — the drubbing of Utah particularly comes to mind — yet the complete domination of BYU, a team that hadn’t suffered a loss all year, was extremely impressive. Texas Tech controlled the game from start to finish, and while the 29-7 score is striking, it should’ve been a lot more. The Red Raiders left a ton of points on the field, and had they just scored touchdowns instead of kicking countless field goals, this would’ve been a blowout of epic proportions.
Either way, Texas Tech is well positioned to make the CFP, which is something I’m sure everybody in Lubbock is elated about. After all, that’s why it paid all that money. It appears that investment will be cash well spent.
