Culture
What we learned about the CFP in Week 11: Mizzou’s ‘Playoff hunt’? One-bid ACC? Assume nothing
The 12-team College Football Playoff has made it challenging to pinpoint just how big the fall’s biggest games are. For decades, the result of a regular-season game could feel definitive. Even if it wasn’t quite so, it could be pretty darn close.
That’s not the case anymore.
After the number of unbeaten teams shrunk to four in Week 11, we’ve learned that using the phrase “If they win out” is fraught with peril and the SEC seems to be headed for a massive logjam.
Magnificent 7
After Missouri beat Oklahoma 30-23 in a bonkers game that included five touchdowns in the fourth quarter — four in the final 3:18 — Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz proclaimed his team still alive in the Playoff race.
Coach Drinkwitz says tonight’s win was big because it keeps Mizzou in the playoff hunt pic.twitter.com/AG0nL3bW6K
— Unnecessary Roughness (@UnnecRoughness) November 10, 2024
“That’s right. I said it. Playoff hunt,” Drinkwitz said.
Really?
Well, put it this way: Mizzou is now one of seven SEC teams that could finish the regular season 10-2, along with — in alphabetical order — Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas and Texas A&M. Those six all landed in the CFP selection committee’s top 16 last week.
Only two SEC games are remaining matching any of those seven teams. Next week, Georgia tries to bounce back from its second loss of the season against Tennessee in Athens. On Thanksgiving weekend, Texas goes to Texas A&M.
Georgia had a chance to vote Ole Miss off the island, but Rebels coach Lane Kiffin finally broke through with a top-five victory to remain very much alive. Now the Bulldogs, preseason No. 1 and the favorites to win the national championship, are in danger of missing out on a 12-team bracket.
Unthinkable.
The Crimson Tide rolled past LSU 42-13 to unofficially, but undeniably, eliminate the Tigers from Playoff contention. Tennessee and the winner of Texas-Texas A&M control their paths to the SEC title game, which is better than the alternative, but control feels like an illusion this season.
As for Mizzou and Drinkwitz, nobody should apologize for going 7-2, especially a program that does not regularly churn out double-digit-victory seasons. The reality is Missouri, which was ranked 25th by the selection committee last week, clearly sits seventh in the SEC’s Playoff pecking order.
The Athletic’s projections model gives Missouri a 0.3 percent chance of making the Playoff. So, you’re saying there’s a chance?
SEC CFP and title odds
| Team | CFP bid | SEC title | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
|
78% |
42% |
8-1 |
|
|
75% |
9% |
7-2 |
|
|
68% |
10% |
7-2 |
|
|
62% |
10% |
8-2 |
|
|
39% |
13 |
8-1 |
|
|
12% |
12 |
7-2 |
|
|
4% |
4 |
6-3 |
|
|
0.3% |
0.3% |
7-2 |
Hurricane warning
No. 4 Miami had been tempting fate and hoping for quarterback Cam Ward to pull it out of precarious situations for most of the last month and a half. Four times in the previous five games, the Hurricanes fell behind only to have Ward and their potent offense bail them out and keep them unbeaten.
Ward ran out of second-half magic against Georgia Tech, and now the Canes’ path to the Playoff has narrowed. SMU, 13th in the committee’s initial rankings, had a productive off week. The Mustangs are now alone atop the ACC standings.
Miami’s loss was the 10th this season by an AP top-10 team against an unranked team. That means the rankings at the time of the games, which means Georgia Tech has two of those victories after starting the season by beating preseason No. 10 Florida State in Ireland. Yes, sometimes early-season upsets are not what they appear to be.
Still, that list includes Kentucky over Ole Mis, Arkansas over Tennessee and, of course, Northern Illinois over Notre Dame. It almost added Utah over No. 9 BYU later Saturday night.
It has been a fun season.
Thanks to Pitt’s loss to Virginia, Miami is still in control of its ACC championship hopes heading into an off week. The Canes conclude the season with games against Syracuse and Boston College — both very winnable. Then again, so was Georgia Tech.
“We have a bye week with everything in front of us to play for,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said.
The Yellow Jackets ran for 271 yards and held the ball for nearly 35 minutes. Two failed fourth-down conversions by Miami in Georgia Tech territory were essentially the difference in a 28-23 loss.
The bigger issue for Miami is that the prospect of getting into the Playoff just by reaching the ACC Championship Game just went down. Look at all those SEC teams potentially sitting there with two losses. Then take a peek at the Big Ten, where the odds continue to rise that its four CFP contenders (Oregon, Ohio State, Indiana, Penn State) all will win at least 10 regular-season games.
If the Hurricanes reach the ACC title game, they are likely to do so having beaten only one ranked team (Louisville).
That measurement can be a little deceiving and random. Is there that much difference between team No. 25 and team No. 30? Not really.
Still, the ACC moved closer to being a one-bid league Saturday.
ACC CFP and title odds
| Team | CFP bid | ACC title | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
|
70% |
36% |
9-1 |
|
|
42% |
26% |
8-1 |
|
|
38% |
36% |
7-2 |
|
|
1% |
2% |
6-3 |
GO DEEPER
College Football Playoff 2024 projections: Indiana up to 92 percent chance to make field
2024 BYU = 2022 TCU
BYU’s unbeaten season appeared to be over when quarterback Jake Retzlaff was sacked near his goal line on a fourth down with less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter. The Cougars have dodged a few losses on the way 9-0, but no escape was greater than Saturday night’s against rival Utah.
A holding penalty on the Utes wiped out what likely would have been a decisive sack, and the Cougars took their second chance and drove to set up a game-winning field goal in the waning seconds. The 11-point halftime deficit was the largest BYU has overcome to win since 2002 against Utah State.
“We won this game. Someone else stole it from us,” Utah athletic director Mark Harlan told reporters. “This was not fair to our team. I’m disgusted by the professionalism of the officiating crew tonight.”
Utah Athletic Director Mark Harlan Post Game pic.twitter.com/eKjy4PpedU
— Elijah Grayson Murray (@elijahgmurray) November 10, 2024
OK, then.
The Cougars remain alone in first in the Big 12, a mere game ahead of Colorado, which had its own come-from-behind victory on Saturday night.
Indiana already has locked up this season’s best turnaround, the perennial Big Ten doormat now in contention for a conference title after going 3-9 last season. BYU is not quite that, but the Cougars went 5-7 in their first season in the Big 12 last year and were picked to finish near the bottom of the conference again.
Sound familiar?
TCU took a similar path to the Playoff in 2022. These Cougars are no Hypnotoads, but they are most definitely a vibes-based operation.
Big 12 spoiler
Kansas has had one of the most disappointing years in the country, starting the season ranked and losing its first five FBS games, none by more than 11 points.
The Jayhawks now have won two of three, with only a two-point loss to Kansas State preventing a three-game winning streak. Quarterback Jalon Daniels and company pretty much eliminated Iowa State from the CFP race with a 45-36 victory Saturday.
Kansas can continue to play spoiler for the next two weeks. The Jayhawks visit BYU next week and host Colorado after that.
Keeping BYU out of the Big 12 Championship Game at this point is going to take at least two losses by the Cougars. Avoiding that is not going to be as easy as it might have looked a few weeks ago.
BYU goes to Arizona State in two weeks. As good as the turnaround in Provo has been, Sun Devils coach Kenny Dillingham’s has been even better in Tempe. Arizona State (7-2, 4-2) is also still in contention for a spot in the Big 12 title game.
And BYU closes its regular season at home against Houston, which has won three of its last four.
Big 12 CFP and title odds
| Team | CFP bid | Big 12 title | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
|
59% |
32% |
9-0 |
|
|
41% |
42% |
7-2 |
|
|
14% |
11% |
7-2 |
|
|
8% |
7% |
7-2 |
|
|
3% |
3% |
7-2 |
Tested Hoosiers
It took 10 games, but finally somebody made Indiana work deep into the fourth quarter.
Indiana is 10-0 for the first time after beating defending national champion Michigan 20-15 in what was by far the Hoosiers’ worst offensive game of the season.
“I’m glad we won,” coach Curt Cignetti said. “I don’t like the way we played.”
10 games, 10 wins. pic.twitter.com/OU9Bi4I8Xi
— Indiana Football (@IndianaFootball) November 10, 2024
Considering Indiana improved to 11-62 all-time against Michigan, I’m pretty confident that sentence never had been uttered by a Hoosiers coach after beating the Wolverines.
Indiana gets a week off before playing at Ohio State. It would seem that the Hoosiers have built up enough credit to sustain a loss to the Buckeyes and get into the Playoff, but the strength of schedule metric is still hanging around Indiana like an anchor. The Wolverines are now 5-5.
Big Ten CFP and title odds
| Team | CFP bid | B1G title | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
|
99% |
63% |
10-0 |
|
|
99% |
20% |
8-1 |
|
|
95% |
8% |
8-1 |
|
|
92% |
9% |
10-0 |
(Photo: Ed Zurga / Getty Images)
“Window seat with garden view / A perfect nook to read a book / I’m lost in my Jane Austen…” sings Kristin Chenoweth in “The Girl in 14G” — what could be more ideal? Well, perhaps showing off your literary knowledge and getting a perfect score on this week’s super-size Book Review Quiz Bowl honoring the life, work and global influence of Jane Austen, who turns 250 today. In the 12 questions below, tap or click your answers to the questions. And no matter how you do, scroll on to the end, where you’ll find links to free e-book versions of her novels — and more.
On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.
Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”
With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”
How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.
By ‘A Lady’
Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)
Where the Magic Happened
Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.
An Iconic Accessory
Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.
Austen Onscreen
Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.
Jane Goes X-Rated
The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.
A Lady Unmasked
Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”
Wearable Tributes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.
The Austen Literary Universe
On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)
A Botanical Homage
Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.
Aunt Jane
Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.
Cultural Currency
In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.
In the Trenches
During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”
Baby Janes
You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.
The Austen Industrial Complex
Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.
Around the Globe
Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.
Playable Persuasions
In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.
#SoJaneAusten
The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.
Bonnets Fit for a Bennett
For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.
Most Ardently, Jane
Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Stage and Sensibility
Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.
Austen 101
Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”
W.W.J.D.
When facing problems — of etiquette, romance, domestic or professional turmoil — sometimes the only thing to do is ask: What would Jane do?
A famous poet once observed that it is difficult to get the news from poems. The weather is a different story. April showers, summer sunshine and — maybe especially — the chill of winter provide an endless supply of moods and metaphors. Poets like to practice a double meteorology, looking out at the water and up at the sky for evidence of interior conditions of feeling.
The inner and outer forecasts don’t always match up. This short poem by Louise Glück starts out cold and stays that way for most of its 11 lines.
And then it bursts into flame.
“Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” comes from Glück’s debut collection, “Firstborn,” which was published in 1968. She wrote the poems in it between the ages of 18 and 23, but they bear many of the hallmarks of her mature style, including an approach to personal matters — sex, love, illness, family life — that is at once uncompromising and elusive. She doesn’t flinch. She also doesn’t explain.
Here, for example, Glück assembles fragments of experience that imply — but also obscure — a larger narrative. It’s almost as if a short story, or even a novel, had been smashed like a glass Christmas ornament, leaving the reader to infer the sphere from the shards.
We know there was a couple with a flat tire, and that a year later at least one of them still has feelings for the other. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re still together, or where they were going with those Christmas presents.
To some extent, those questions can be addressed with the help of biographical clues. The version of “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” that appeared in The Atlantic in 1967 was dedicated to Charles Hertz, a Columbia University graduate student who was Glück’s first husband. They divorced a few years later. Glück, who died in 2023, was never shy about putting her life into her work.
But the poem we are reading now is not just the record of a passion that has long since cooled. More than 50 years after “Firstborn,” on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Glück celebrated the “intimate, seductive, often furtive or clandestine” relations between poets and their readers. Recalling her childhood discovery of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, she declared her lifelong ardor for “poems to which the listener or reader makes an essential contribution, as recipient of a confidence or an outcry, sometimes as co-conspirator.”
That’s the kind of poem she wrote.
“Confidence” can have two meanings, both of which apply to “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson.” Reading it, you are privy to a secret, something meant for your ears only. You are also in the presence of an assertive, self-possessed voice.
Where there is power, there’s also risk. To give voice to desire — to whisper or cry “I want you” — is to issue a challenge and admit vulnerability. It’s a declaration of conquest and a promise of surrender.
What happens next? That’s up to you.
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