Top CFP contenders hold serve on college Saturday; QBs Daniels, Nix shine … For those that don’t follow college football all that closely, the remaining Power-5 unbeaten teams – and favorites to make this year’s 4-team CFL playoff – facing testy opponents all won out yesterday as Michigan held off Penn State 24-15, Florida State edged Miami 27-20, Washington survived a 35-28 scare from Utah, while Georgia clobbered 9th ranked Mississippi 52-17. And if Georgia didn’t need any more help, the Bulldogs got some with the return to action of TE Brock Bowers and OT Amarius Mims, a couple of top 10 prospects for the 2024 draft, both of whom had missed extensive playing time with injuries. Also of note in the FSU-Miami game, the Hurricanes benched starting QB Tyler Van Dyke prior to the as he just had not played at all well the past month.
While all that was going, QBs Jayden Daniels of LSU and Oregon’s Bo Nix both had terrific games. Daniels, for example, had over 600 yards of total offence, including 372 passing and 234 rushing, and 5 TDs in the Tigers 52-35 win over Florida, while Nix threw for over 400 yards and 4 TDs leading the Ducks to a 34-19 win over Caleb Williams and the USC Trojans. Those outings almost assuredly vaulted both Daniels and Nix into the Heisman conversation – if they weren’t there already! They also have to have NFL scouts a lot to chew on; both have been considered in the group of second-tier QBs for 2024 behind USC’s Williams and Drake Maye; the issue for scouts, though, in addition to who was QB3 and beyond, but were any of those guys also worthy of a top 5-10 pick. We’ll let you know what we hear.
