Saturday turned out to be 2014's (first?) College Football Playoff moving day.
Some teams, like Auburn and Michigan State, went down. Others, like Alabama, will probably move up. Before we try to make sense of all the madness, let's talk about the Crimson Tide for a moment.
Throughout the second half of Alabama's 20-13 overtime win against LSU in Baton Rouge, LSU was playing keep-away from Alabama. And, for the most part, it was working. While LSU was successful in keeping Alabama's offense off the field for most of the second half, the Tigers only turned its giant advantage in plays and time of possession into two field goals, the latter of which came off an extremely short field after Alabama running back T.J. Yeldon fumbled as he twisted his ankle with 1:13 left at the Alabama 6-yard-line.
And after LSU's Colby Delahoussaye kicked a go-ahead 39-yard field goal with 50 seconds left, Alabama had one more shot.
Quarterback Blake Sims drove the Tide to the LSU 10 thanks to two huge passes to Christion Jones and DeAndrew White, the first two deep passes Sims had completed all night.*
An Adam Griffith field goal sent the game into overtime and Sims found White again in extra time for the game-winning touchdown. LSU had an opportunity to tie, but QB Anthony Jennings threw four-straight incompletions.
With No. 3 Auburn's loss to Texas A&M earlier in the day, No. 5 Alabama knew that a win was likely going to move it into the top four. Yes, No. 6 TCU was incredibly impressive in demolishing Kansas State 41-20 Saturday night, but the cachet from that win won't trump Alabama's enough to move ahead of the Crimson Tide.
Sure, LSU wasn't as highly ranked as the Wildcats, but LSU coach Les Miles entered Saturday night 46-3 at home at night. A fourth loss will be seen as a big accomplishment for Alabama, even if LSU may be rueing playing for a field goal late in regulation.
Another team moving up? Baylor. The Bears – remember, Baylor beat TCU earlier this season in a furious second-half comeback*– started Saturday at No. 12 in the College Football Playoff rankings thanks to a weak nonconference schedule. After trouncing No. 15 Oklahoma 48-14, Baylor is set to move ahead of at least four teams, including Auburn and Kansas State.
The other two are likely No. 7 Michigan State and No. 10 Notre Dame. Both of those teams saw their playoff chances disappear with second losses on Saturday. Notre Dame fell at Arizona State and Michigan State's vaunted defense was lit up by Ohio State at home. Yes, Ohio State has just one loss, but that loss is to Virginia Tech. The Buckeyes are still going to be on the outside looking in.
Assuming Mississippi State, Florida State, Oregon and Alabama are the top four teams, here's our best guess as to how teams Nos. 5-15 will look like on Tuesday.
5. TCU (+1 from last week)
6. Arizona State (+3)
7. Baylor (+5)
8. Auburn (-5)
9. Ole Miss (+2)
10. Ohio State (+5)
11. Nebraska (+2)
12. Kansas State (-5)
13. Michigan State (-5)
14. Notre Dame (-4)
15. UCLA (+3)

Here are the rest of Week 11's winners and losers:
WINNERS

Memphis: The Tigers are bowl eligible! And sitting pretty at the top of the American! It was hardly pretty. In a 16-13 win over Temple, the Owls dominated possession 42:57 minutes to 28:53 minutes, but fell just short in almost every way that mattered, especially on the final drive, which started at the Tigers’ own 20-yard line and ended with the game-winning field goal by Memphis’ Jake Elliott from 31 yards out. Being bowl eligible for the first time since 2008 is nice, but the Tigers are also perched atop the conference with a 4-1 mark. Their final three games: at Tulane, then home against South Florida and UConn. Memphis may have finally recovered from the last five seasons.
Isaiah McKenzie: Georgia could pull plenty of positives from their 63-31 whipping of Kentucky, but McKenzie’s returns stole the show. He opened the game with a 90-yard kickoff return for a touchdown, and his 59-yard punt return with just over 11 minutes to go in the third quarter was maybe more impressive as he started on one sideline and ended up flying down the other to cement the rout over the Wildcats.




Oregon: The Ducks made its #Pac12AfterDark game against Utah a little more exciting than it probably needed to be, but eventually rolled to a 51-27 win to clinch the Pac-12 North title, a spot in the conference title game and probably the No. 3 position in the College Football Playoff rankings. Not a bad night for an Oregon team that was facing a potential upset after Utah crawled within three with 11:48 remaining. But quarterback Marcus Mariota, who continues to strengthen his hold on the Heisman race, threw a touchdown pass and ran for another to help cement the victory. While the Ducks might not get a lot of style points for its early play, its ability to close out the Utes in the fourth quarter was quite impressive.
Duke: In the Blue Devils’ last 19 games on the football field, they are 16-3. In their last 19 games on the basketball court, they are 14-5. Strange times in Durham, but they’ll certainly take it. With a 27-10 win over Syracuse, Duke pushed its record to 8-1 overall and 4-1 in the ACC. And don’t look now, but the Blue Devils have home games against Virginia Tech (4-5, 1-4), North Carolina (4-5, 2-3) and Wake Forest (2-7, 0-5) to close out the regular season. Duke should finish 11-1 overall and seems destined for a date with Florida State. That should hopefully go better than last year’s 45-7 drubbing at the hands of the Seminoles.


Luke Falk: Washington State could have come out flat after losing quarterback Connor Halliday to a broken leg last week, but instead, new starting QB Luke Falk led the Cougars to a 39-32 win over Oregon State –*on the road, no less. Falk was very impressive, completing 44 of 61 passes for 471 yards and five touchdowns, no interceptions. So while losing Halliday at the very end of his career was a heartbreaker, it seems Washington State is in great hands with the freshman.

Corey Coleman: Coleman played a big role in Baylor's blowout of Oklahoma. The 5-foot-11, 190-pound Coleman hauled in 15 catches for 224 yards, both career highs. Coleman also set a record for most receptions in a game against the Sooners. The sophomore caught a 33-yard touchdown from Bryce Petty in the second quarter and later ran one in from five yards out in the third. Coleman was part of a Baylor offensive attack that put up 544 yards on the afternoon and improved its record to 8-1 on the season.

LOSERS
Oklahoma: For a brief few moments, it seemed like the Sugar Bowl version of Trevor Knight had shown up to lead Oklahoma in a scorching of Baylor. Trailing 3-0 in the first quarter, Knight led back-to-back drives, scorching the Earth in Norman with his legs and zipping passes through the air, and before Baylor knew it, the Sooners were up 14-3 and had the Bears swaying. But Baylor would score 45 unanswered points from there, and Knight would suffer a scary hit that would see him carted off the field in the fourth quarter with the game already long gone. The Sooners opened the year No. 4 in the AP poll, riding high after throttling Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, but lost close games to TCU (37-33) and Kansas State (31-30) before getting thumped by 48-14 by Baylor. The loss wasn’t about a ton of turnovers or terrible mistakes, it was about the Sooner defense getting absolutely run over by the Bears’ high-powered offense.
It seemed like a foregone conclusion that Oklahoma would represent the Big 12 in the inaugural College Football Playoff, but any hope of that happening has been eliminated with three games still to play. The only consolation? Baylor stopped just short of handing Oklahoma its worst loss in the Stoops era. The Bears won by 34, two points shy of USC’s 36 in the 2005 BCS title game. So there’s that.
Iowa: Whew, that offensive-fueled turnaround by the Hawkeyes flew face-first into the ground in Minnesota. The Golden Gophers dominated Iowa in a 51-14 win, making their 28-24 loss to Illinois last week look even more bizarre. Minnesota racked up 429 total yards, including 291 on the ground, and collected three turnovers while never losing the ball once (they were dancing it up afterward). On the same day the Iowa State team that beat them earlier this year lost to Kansas 34-14, the Hawkeyes were completely listless and looked as poor as they did in that Week 3 rivalry flop. Quarterback Jake Rudock, who was sacked four times, threw an interception and lost a fumble, finishing with just 10 completions on 19 attempts for a scintillating 89 yards. The same Iowa team that scored 24 points or more in the five games leading up to Saturday is going to need to rediscover those offensive chops before traveling to Illinois next week (Iowa should win, but hey, it’s Iowa) and closing out at home against Wisconsin and Nebraska, the only teams other than Minnesota ahead of the Hawkeyes in the West. But hey, they never gave up.
Ferentz just challenged a call in the last 30 seconds of a game he was losing 51-7.
— Jamie (@chuckycrater) November 8, 2014
Everett Golson: In the biggest showdown of the season for the Irish, who need to win out to have a shot at the College Football Playoff, Golson put up one of his worst performances. He completed just 22 of 41 passes, threw for 446 yards, but got intercepted four times. One of those was returned 59 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter, and another returned 58 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter. The latter wasn’t really Golson’s fault, but it added to his misery. He has 17 turnovers in the past six games and was sacked seven times on Saturday. It could be chalked up as something to build on, but you’d hope after as many starts as Golson has made for the Irish, the turnovers would be much lower by now.
North Dakota State: Farewell, longest winning streak in FCS history. The Bison fell for the first time in 34 games on Saturday, losing to Northern Iowa 23-3. The Panthers' final touchdown was scored by running back Darrian Miller, who transferred to UNI from Kansas before the season. The last time North Dakota State lost was in 2012 against Indiana State. During the streak, the Bison won two FCS championships and defeated Kansas State in 2013 and this season against Iowa State, which beat Iowa, which beat Northern Iowa. Oh, and speaking of Iowa State and Kansas ...

Kansas: The Jayhawks beat the Cyclones 34-14 on Saturday. That was good enough in Lawrence to tear down the goalposts apparently. The Jayhawks are 1-5 in the Big 12 and beat a team that is now 0-6 in the Big 12. Embarrassing. But that’s Kansas football.

Max Thompson, Sam Cooper and Graham Watson also contributed to this post.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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