MAILBAG: What we will learn about Ohio State vs. Iowa, Michigan in Top 10, Florida and Florida State struggles

The Week 5 mailbag had several Big Ten inquiries about Ohio State, Michigan and Washington, plus a reader question about the last time Florida and Florida State were both this bad in the same season and most surprising September team of 2024 so far?

As always, you can hit me up on X with a DM or tweet @JesseReSimonton or you can email me at [email protected] for all future questions.

Let’s roll.

From Kenny: Will we learn anything about Ohio State this weekend against Iowa or are we just waiting until they play at Oregon in two weeks? The Buckeyes are rolling bad teams but that didn’t matter with Ole Miss.

If you think about teams in terms of neighborhoods, the Rebels have a nice house, but the Buckeyes live in a small gated community with just three or four other mansions. 

They’re not the same. 

Ohio State is rolling teams, though, and it’s doing so with ease. Chip Kelly has barely opened up the playbook and Jim Knowles’ defense is mostly playing vanilla-base and just out-talent’ing teams. 

I don’t believe the Hawkeyes, who are a solid Big Ten bunch, are capable of pushing the Buckeyes in The Shoe this weekend. They’re three-touchdown underdogs for a reason — Phil Parker’s defense isn’t *quite* as salty as season’s past, and while the offense is a tad better (hard to be worse!), it’s still way too one-dimensional. 

Ohio State is allowing just 3.4 yards per play (No. 2 nationally), and that NFL-loaded front-seven is going to sellout to stop Kaleb Johnson, who does rank No. 2 nationally in yards (685) and yards per carry (8.35). And that’s an issue, because Iowa doesn’t have a counter-move. 

Cade McNamara is averaging just 5.8 yards per throw, and has two picks with zero touchdowns the last three games. That’s not a recipe to engineer an upset — much-less even put a scare in this Ohio State team. 

Also a potential concern for Iowa? I mentioned that Parker’s defense isn’t quite as good this year, and although it still ranks in the Top 20 nationally in total defense, it has allowed more explosive plays than usual. The Hawkeyes have already allowed six plays over 30 yards — and Parker’s unit yielded nine total such explosives in all of 2023. That could be an issue when Iowa is tasked with stopping the alien that is Jeremiah Smith, plus Emeka Egbuka, TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins.

James asks: Why is Michigan still ranked in the top ten? How often are top ten teams underdogs to unranked teams? Think they lose to Washington?

Michigan is not a Top 10 team based on the eye-test, resume or record, and yet! That helmet, last year’s national title and the win over USC is doing a lot of heavy lifting for the Wolverines right now. 

How long will that last? Maybe not past this week. 

I don’t know how often a Top 10 team has been an underdog to an unranked team. I reached out to a couple gambling stat-heads, as well as ESPN’s Stats Inc., but as of publishing had yet to hear back. 

But Michigan is a 2-point underdog at Washington this weekend in a rematch of last year’s national title game. The early line on this game was the Wolverines -9, so it’s swung by more than two scores since the summer. 

Crazy! But not without merit. 

Michigan is a Top 10 team due to name cache only. They have the win over USC, but if that game were played again the Trojans would be favored. They struggled in wins over Fresno State, Arkansas State and Minnesota — hardly a trio of world-beaters. 

The Wolverines can’t throw the ball (130th passing offense nationally, worst among all Power Conference teams, and when they did ask Alex Orji (who has averaging just 3.7 yards per attempt) to complete a pass for a third down conversion, he threw an interception that allowed Minnesota to get back into the game. 

The Huskies are just 3-2 in Jedd Fisch’s first season, but they do have a Top 20 offense (7.2 yards per play) and Top 10 defense (4.1 yards per play). They’ve just been awful in the red zone (13 scoring drives on 18 attempts, 50% touchdowns), missed too many field goals and committed a ton of penalties that have ruined drives (8.6 flags per game, 121st nationally). 

Will Rogers has been a capable quarterback in Fisch’s system (1o touchdowns, zero picks, 75% completion at 9.2 per attempt), so if the Huskies can jump out to an early lead, that would totally throw off Michigan’s game-script. If the Wolverines can muck it up early, then Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant could take over and Kalel Mullings could grind down an undersized defensive front. 

KC asks: When was the last time Florida and Florida State missed a bowl game in the same season? Has it ever happened?

It has happened before, but just not for the reasons you probably think. 

Let’s go back to the days of Jimmy Carter in 1978, Doug Dickey was in his ninth and final season as Florida’s head coach, the Gators went 4-7, including a 38-21 loss to FSU in Tallahassee. As an aside, the very next season was the nadir of Gators’ football, with Charley Pell going 0-10-1 in his first season as head coach. 

The Seminoles, with the blowout win over Florida, went 8-3 in Bobby Bowden’s third year. But with just 15 bowl games, FSU was not invited to the postseason — one of only three times that happened in 34 seasons under Bowden. 

The last time both programs missed a bowl game due to subpar seasons was another 23 years prior in 1955, when the Gators went 4-6 and FSU went 5-5 (the two schools did not play that year, either). 

As for the present, neither team projects to make the postseason. At 2-2, the Gators have just a 14% chance to make a bowl game in a pivotal Year 3 for Billy Napier. 

Mike Norvell’s squad, which has missed the postseason twice already in 2020 and 2021, has even lower odds at at 5.3%. The Seminoles are 1-4, including a blowout loss at SMU last weekend, with games against Clemson, Duke, Miami and Notre Dame (a combined 17-2).

From Jason: BYU, Indiana and Duke are all undefeated. Which team has been a bigger surprise in your eyes?

It’s hard not to immediately respond with all three, but I did think Duke had a real chance at seven wins in Manny Diaz’s first season. The Blue Devils could eclipse that win-total, or that preseason prediction might look sound with a much tougher schedule awaiting in October and November. 

But BYU and Indiana? 

I was dead-wrong — and clearly so was most everyone else, including the Vegas odds-makers. 

The Cougs had a preseason win-total of 4.5 — this after going 5-7 in their first season in the Big 12. They had a tough non-conference slate (SMU, Wyoming and the Holy War with Utah) and they drew preseason projected Big 12 contenders like Kansas State, Kansas, Arizona and Oklahoma State. 

Well, Kalani Sitake’s team has been vastly improved defensively this fall (16th in yards per play allowed, 23rd in scoring vs. 92nd and 99th in 2023), and quarterback Jake Retzlaff is making just enough plays. Suddenly, BYU (at 2-0 in league play) is in the mix as a Big 12 contender and is on Way-Too-Early 2024 College Football Playoff projections. 

While I’m skeptical about Retzlaff and a BYU offense that ranks 95th in success rate and cannot run the ball at all, the defense is real and their schedule (Arizona, OK State and Kansas all come to Provo) isn’t nearly as daunting. 

Indiana probably takes the cake for September’s most surprising team, though. I was high on the Curt Cignetti hire, but I didn’t think the Cig Man would have the Hoosiers smoking like this in Year 1?

With a portal heavy roster (from quarterback Kurtis Rourke to basically every stud from JMU’s entire starting defense), Indiana has blasted its way to a 5-0 start. This is a team that was picked to finish 17th in the Big Ten (with a win-total of 5.5), and now it has a realistic path to 9-or 10 wins and a potential playoff spot. 

Just wild!

The Hoosiers are averaging 49 points per game. Yes, they’ve played the nation’s 109th-ranked schedule, but they still smoked UCLA and Maryland by multiple touchdowns. 

“I win. Google me.”

Curt Cignetti with an all-time answer for this reporter

pic.twitter.com/3vtizP2kzM

— Barstool Gambling (@stoolgambling) December 23, 2023

Cignetti talked smack from his opening press conference — “Google me. I win.” — but he wasn’t blowing hot air. The dude can coach, and his team is winning.