Key storylines in Penn State-Ohio State, Tennessee-Alabama, the Anxiety Bowl of Clemson-Miami

Like a bucket full of Halloween candy, Week 8 has something for everyone — with juicy matchups across the country. 

There are four ranked-on-ranked showdowns — Penn State at Ohio State. Tennessee at Alabama. Utah at USC. Duke at Florida State. — and one very sweaty game in South Florida between a pair of angsty ACC programs. 

With the QB injuries at Duke and Utah, let’s dive into some matchups and narratives in the other three marquee games on Saturday.

Here are three key storylines for three of the biggest games of Week 8.

Can James Franklin finally beat Ryan Day?

Penn State-Ohio State is chalked with interesting matchups and pressing questions. Both defenses are among the nation’s best, with the Nittany Lions ranking No. 1 overall in stop rate, yards per play and havoc rate. 

Neither team can really run the football with any consistency, and the 1-on-1 battle between future 1st Rounders Marvin Harrison Jr. and Kalen King will be a matchup to keep an eye on all afternoon. Kyle McCord is up and down, but Ohio State can produce explosive plays. Can Penn State? Have the Nittany Lions been playing opossum offensively all season, holding certain bullets in the chamber?

They rank 129th nationally in explosiveness, with quarterback Drew Allar (just 6.9 yards per attempt) dinking and dunking their way to 7-0. That won’t cut it if PSU hopes to upset Ohio State in The Shoe on Saturday. Still, Allar hasn’t turned the ball over all season, and four giveaways in the game last year is what doomed PSU’s upset bid. 

So with all that in mind, can James Franklin finally “break through the door” and lead his team over the hump this weekend? Thus far, the Nittany Lions have delivered on an offseason full of hype, but now the pressure is on Franklin to do something he hasn’t done very often since taking over in Happy Valley: Beat one of PSU’s top rivals. 

Franklin is 0-4 against Ryan Day, and just 1-8 in nine games against the Buckeyes. Overall, he’s 4-14 against Michigan and OSU. If Penn State is truly a title contender this season, it must beat one — if not both — rivals. Franklin has done a nice job at Penn State, but it’s time he proves he can start winning these games against Top 10 teams (3-15 record). 

Can the Vols win two straight SEC slobber knockers?

The Third Saturday of October delivered the game of the 2022 season: Touchdowns galore. A walk-off field goal. Goal posts in the Tennessee River. 15 years of misery up in smoke. 

Tennessee 52, Alabama 49. 

Well, I think we’re in store for something much different Saturday afternoon in Tuscaloosa. The total on this fall’s Third Saturday of October is 48.5. 

While Tennessee has been plagued by drops, Joe Milton can’t throw the ball into the ocean right now (zero games over 290 yards, under 60% completion percentage in three of the last four games, three INTs the last two weeks), either. 

The passing attack is really struggling, so the Vols are leaning more on a ground game that leads the SEC in yards per carry (5.88) and yards per game (231). Junior speedster Jaylen Wright headlines a three-man rotation and he’s averaging over 7.1 yards per rush. 

In last weekend’s win over Texas A&M, Tennessee rode its run game and pressure defense to get past the Aggies in an ugly 20-13 win. Tennessee is much-improved against the run this season (No. 20th nationally on standard runs) and the Vols are outstanding at creating negative plays (No. 6 in sacks, No. 7 in tackles for loss). They have a Top 20 defensive success rate. 

Can they produce a similar performance against the Tide on Saturday? The Vols haven’t won in Tuscaloosa since 2003, and suffice to say Nick Saban is going to have a much sounder defensive gameplay for Josh Heupel’s offense than he did a year ago. 

The run game and Tim Banks’ defense must lead the way if Tennessee hopes to remain in the SEC East race and beat Alabama in back-to-back seasons. The Tide’s OL continues to offer little resistance for opposing DLs (worst-sack rate in the country, 130th in sacks allowed), so they can be got by James Pearce, Tyler Baron & Co. 

They can’t run the ball, either. 

But Jalen Milroe has become college football’s Matt Olson — he’s either hitting home runs (20 passes over 25 yards) or striking out (sub-60% completion percentage and four picks on intermediate throws) — and the Tide’s defense has started to flex as one of the best overall units in the country in recent weeks. 

We know Alabama can win a rock fight. It’s done so all season. Tennessee proved capable of doing so for the first time under Heupel last week. Can the Vols do it again?

Who wins the Anxiety Bowl: Clemson or Miami?

It’s not even Halloween yet, and either the Tigers or Hurricanes will end Week 8 with three ACC losses. Talk about your Saturday night scaries. No wonder a game featuring two of the conference’s premiere programs is buried on the ACC Network.  

Both Clemson and Miami entered the 2023 season with expectations, but the season has not gone according to script for either program. The Tigers coughed up their opener at Duke and then failed to put away Florida State at the end of September. A loss at Miami on Saturday — something that hasn’t happened in 67 years for Clemson — would move them to 4-3 for the first time since 2010 when Dabo Swinney was forced to fire a young OC named Billy Napier at the end of the year. 

He hired Chad Morris, kickstarting Clemson’s storied run. But it sure seems like we’re entering a new era with the Tigers. Swinney spent the week lamenting unrealistic expectations among the Tigers’ fan base and openly hoping to “lighten up the bandwagon.” 

Lose at Miami, to a team that’s reeling, and that won’t be a problem. 

As for the Hurricanes, they’re coming off back-to-back losses, with Mario Cristobal gifting away a win vs. Georgia Tech and then watching his team get waxed at North Carolina. 

They can’t stop turning the ball over (nine in the last two games, 12 for the season, which is 100th nationally), and quarterback Tyler Van Dyke is dinged up with an undisclosed injury. They have all sorts of questions in the secondary and they’ve hardly resembled the team that trucked Texas A&M in Week 2. They do lead the ACC in yards per play (7.33), but they’re going up against the No. 1 defense in the conference coming off a bye week. 

Cristobal really needs this one Saturday night. Both programs are in fragile states currently, but Clemson did win the ACC just last season. Conversely, Cristobal went 5-7 in Year 1 and had to fire most of his hand-picked coaching staff. He’s yet to win an ACC home game (0-5), and Florida State and Louisville are still on the schedule. 

Whichever program loses Saturday night is going to have some bad Anxiety Bowl blues for the rest of the 2023 season.