Daily briefing: On CFP rankings, Minnesota’s Mohamed Ibrahim and Northwestern’s two-way player
Ivan Maisel’s “Daily Briefing” for On3:
CFP rankings should put Georgia fans in – ahem – a mood
The CFP Selection Committee did Georgia a favor in its initial rankings by putting the Dawgs No. 3, behind Ohio State, while their next opponent, Tennessee, is No. 1. Georgia coach Kirby Smart will encourage his team to ignore the rankings and focus on the next play. But the rankings almost surely will ratchet up the crowd at Sanford Stadium to be as loud and raucous as, say, the Vols’ fans at the Alabama game three weeks ago. Don’t they understand we’re national champions? Add the emotion of the death of former coach and athletic director Vince Dooley – the last time Georgia played between the hedges without Dooley occurred on November 16, 1963, six days before the assassination of John F. Kennedy – and the atmosphere at Sanford Stadium on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern should be epic.
The comeback player of the year? Mohamed Ibrahim
College football has a gazillion awards, give or take, but there’s not a Comeback Player of the Year trophy. That’s too bad for Minnesota running back Mohamed Ibrahim, who suffered an Achilles injury in the 2021 season opener and has made it clear all season that he has made a complete recovery. Ibrahim, a 5-foot-10, 210-pounder, has rushed 170 times for 955 yards and 13 touchdowns in seven games (he missed the Purdue game with a “lower leg” injury), which are on par with the numbers he achieved in the seven-game 2020 season (201 carries, 1,054 yards, 15 touchdowns). Nebraska interim coach Mickey Joseph, whose Huskers will attempt to stop Ibrahim this week, said, “One-on-one tackle, he will probably run through that. He has big tree trunks – do you see how he is built? He is a good-looking dude.”
Meet Duke ‘Thick-Six’ Olges
The lone bright spot for Northwestern on a dismal Saturday night in a dismal season (1-7 overall, 1-4 in the Big Ten) was sophomore defensive end/tight end Duke Olges. Yeah, you don’t see many DE/TEs, do you? Olges caught a knee-high 1-yard touchdown pass in the Wildcats’ 33-13 loss at Iowa. It’s not easy for 6-4, 265-pound players to catch a ball at their knees. Olges has played a bit of tight end this season but made his first two catches against the Hawkeyes. ESPN play-by-play man Anish Schroff called Olges “Thick-Six.” From what I hear, that’s not Olges’ nickname, but in this age of NIL, if I were him, I’d start printing T-shirts yesterday.