College Football Risers and Fallers After Week 13 - 2024 College Football

With now just rivalry week left in the books for college football’s regular season, the playoff picture continued to shape up and was further refined in a wild Week 13. 

The craziness started in the noon slate, as Ohio State proved that they are among the nation’s top teams as they rolled over Indiana. Ole Miss lost a third game, falling at the hands of Billy Napier’s Florida Gators. The midday slate was headed by a narrow Penn State win on the road at Minnesota along with a thrilling early field storm in Tempe as Arizona State knocked BYU off. Colorado tumbled from the playoff race at the hands of Kansas, which is storming from a 1-5 start to potential bowl eligibility.

Quite possibly the game of the day was Illinois’ win over Rutgers, which included a missed 58-yard field goal negated by a timeout that turned into a fourth-and-long last-second game-winning touchdown. The madness continued into the night slate, as Oklahoma rolled over Alabama in Norman and Auburn took down Texas A&M in a candidate for the game of the year that spanned four overtimes. This week produced a number of risers and fallers - let’s dive in.

Stock Up

Will Howard, QB, Ohio State

Ohio State’s quarterback is the face of their success this season. Will Howard has stepped in and fully embraced the role of being a leader and a loud voice on the team, even if he does play in more of a game-manager role.

Will Howard ran up the score on Coach Cig then put one out in his face

pic.twitter.com/IcR205NjPT

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) November 23, 2024

Howard has played incredibly this season, with his latest showing a 22-for-26, 201-yard, two-touchdown performance en route to a 38-15 win over Indiana. He has done nothing but improve his draft stock and prove that he was the missing piece in last season’s Buckeye team.

Billy Napier, Florida

Florida fans may have to eat their words if Billy Napier continues to win on this trajectory. Napier’s team stunned Ole Miss 24-17 on Saturday behind a strong performance from freshman quarterback DJ Lagway. Against all odds, the Gators are now bowl eligible and will likely finish the regular season with seven wins despite the horrendous start to the year.

Devin Neal, RB, Kansas

With all of the talented running backs set to enter the NFL Draft this season, Kansas running back Devin Neal gets severely overlooked. That should no longer be the case after his dominant performance in the huge win over Colorado on Saturday.

Week 1⃣3⃣ #Big12FB Offensive Player of the Week presented by @totinos

Devin Neal | @KU_Football pic.twitter.com/g1PjlWqSom

— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) November 25, 2024

Neal carried the ball 37 times for 207 yards and three touchdowns while catching four passes for 80 yards and another score. At 5-foot-11, 215 pounds, Neal has NFL size and skill. He will be a great back at the next level, as he has proven he already is great.

Big 12 Chaos

It’s been going on for weeks, but the Big 12 race took yet another turn this Saturday as BYU fell to Arizona State and Colorado lost to Kansas. We now have a four-way tie on the top of the conference between Arizona State, BYU, Iowa State, and Colorado with one week to go before conference championship week. Buckle in.

Stock Down

SEC

The SEC continues to beat each other up, but the latest weekend of SEC action may have taken things too far. Ole Miss suffered a third loss at the hands of Florida, Alabama was destroyed by Oklahoma for their third loss, and Texas A&M lost their third game to Auburn. Each team’s at-large playoff hopes took a significant hit. 

With the shakeup, Texas A&M still controls their own destiny with a matchup against Texas this weekend. For Ole Miss and Alabama, there is a lot less hope.

Army Black Knights

Prior to this weekend, Army still had a good shot to sneak into the CFP field as the Group of Five participant. All hope disintegrated as the Black Knights fell 49-14 at the hand of Notre Dame. The loss was Army’s first, but also showed that they cannot compete with other playoff-caliber teams.

Jalen Milroe, QB, Alabama

Alabama’s quarterback had his worst game of the season in the 24-3 loss against Oklahoma on Saturday. Jalen Milroe completed 42% of his passes for 164 yards and three interceptions, completely smothered by Brent Venables’ defense.

JALEN MILROE WITH HIS THIRD INTERCEPTION OF THE GAME 😳

SOONERS ARE FEASTIN' ON DEFENSE 🔥 pic.twitter.com/s1B4vgkzcL

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 24, 2024

In Alabama’s three losses, Milroe has rushed for a combined 28 yards. If his running ability can be taken away, he becomes a lot more inefficient. He’s still an elite athlete, but the first-round chatter has to stop.

Boise State Broncos

They won on Saturday, but confidence in Boise State has to be dwindling after narrowly escaping the past two weeks against San Jose State and Wyoming. The Broncos have two more games to prove that they belong in the playoff: Oregon State this week and then Colorado State or UNLV in the MWC title game. Winning both is possible, but falling in an upset is very possible as well as they’ve proven to be vulnerable.

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