College football winners and losers: Clemson and Michigan keep themselves in the playoff picture with big wins

Clemson and Michigan kept themselves in early season playoff contention on Saturday, though it’s more than fair to still have some questions about both teams.

The No. 21 Tigers were the more convincing team with a 59-35 win over NC State as No. 18 Michigan needed a late fourth-down touchdown to avoid a second-half collapse in a 27-24 home win over No. 11 USC.

Let’s start in Clemson, where the Tigers’ offense looks totally different than it did in a 34-3 Week 1 loss to Georgia. Clemson (2-1) has scored 101 first-half points over its last two games since the shellacking and opened the scoring less than two minutes into Saturday’s contest when QB Cade Klubnik ran 55 yards for a TD.

The Tigers were up 28-0 after the first quarter and cruised the rest of the way against an NC State team starting a freshman QB in CJ Bailey. He was making the first start of his career after former Coastal Carolina QB Grayson McCall was injured in Week 3 against Louisiana Tech. By the time NC State scored 21 points in the fourth quarter, Clemson was just looking to run the clock out.

You can’t argue against how good Clemson has looked in its wins over Appalachian State and the Wolfpack, but you can wonder just how real they are, too. Appalachian State fell to 1-3 with a blowout home loss to South Alabama on Thursday and NC State was blown out by Tennessee with a healthy McCall in Week 2.

Michigan, meanwhile, moved to 3-1 thanks to a heroic effort from Kalel Mullings in the fourth quarter. After USC took its first lead of the game in the fourth quarter, Mullings broke a 63-yard run before scoring the game-winning TD with 37 seconds to go. He rushed 17 times for 159 yards and two TDs despite no threat of a forward pass from Michigan QB Alex Orji.

Orji was 7-of-12 passing for 32 yards on Saturday as Michigan ran 46 rushing plays. The offensive plan to run the ball was exactly what coach Sherrone Moore wanted.

Michigan has long been a team that values running the ball over passing it. But this is a new extreme. Michigan QBs have thrown for 491 yards on 90 attempts over the first four games of the season.

Is it sustainable to keep winning with passing numbers like that? The Wolverines certainly hope so, but there’s plenty of reason to question if it’ll work. There were surely plenty of Michigan fans pessimistic about the team’s chances of a comeback before Mullings broke off the big run. This is a team that’s clearly not built to trail in late-game situations.

But it’s also a philosophy that could work through the month of October. Michigan’s next four games are against Minnesota, Washington, Illinois and Michigan State before No. 9 Oregon visits Ann Arbor to start November. With the way the Michigan defense played on Saturday, it’s not inconceivable to think Michigan’s offense does enough without substantial passing improvement to put the Wolverines at 7-1 over the first two months of the season.

Clemson also should keep winning. With Florida State’s struggles, the Tigers look to be the class of the ACC along with Miami and don’t face a ranked team until hosting Louisville on Nov. 2. It’s not too early to start envisioning a matchup between the Tigers and Hurricanes for the ACC title, even if you want to see a little more from Clemson’s offense to clear the memory of that Georgia game.

Here are the rest of this week’s winners and losers.

James Madison: The Dukes scored 53 first-half points in an incredible 70-50 win at North Carolina. QB Alonza Barnett III had the game of the weekend. He was 22-of-34 passing for 388 yards and five touchdowns while also rushing 13 times for 99 yards and two scores.

JMU racked up 611 yards of total offense on the Tar Heels as UNC turned the ball over five times with three fumbles and two interceptions, including a pick-6. It’s an embarrassing loss for North Carolina after the Heels started the season 3-0, but it’s also a vindicating win for James Madison after coach Curt Cignetti went to Indiana in the offseason and QB Jordan McCloud transferred to Texas State.

West Virginia: The Mountaineers posted a huge comeback after a lengthy thunderstorm delay in their 32-28 win over Kansas. Storms delayed the game in the fourth quarter and Kansas took a 28-17 lead with 5:39 to go. West Virginia cut the lead to three with 3:27 to go, and then scored the go-ahead TD with 26 seconds to go when Rodney Gallagher III caught a 15-yard pass from Garrett Greene.

The win gets West Virginia back to 2-2 and drops Kansas to 1-3 as QB Jalon Daniels continues to struggle. He fumbled on the Jayhawks’ final possession and also threw an interception. Greene threw two interceptions himself but was 15-of-30 passing for 295 yards and rushed 17 times for 87 yards.

Buffalo: The Bulls got their first win over a ranked team since beating No. 12 Ball State in the MAC title game in 2008 with a 23-20 overtime win at No. 23 Northern Illinois. Buffalo trailed 14-3 at halftime before tying the game in the fourth quarter and taking a 20-17 lead with 3:28 to go. NIU got a field goal to force overtime, but Kanon Woodill’s 42-yard field goal attempt in OT was blocked. That set the stage for Upton Bellenfant to kick a 37-yarder for the win and demoralize the Huskies in their first game since beating Notre Dame in South Bend.

Indiana: The Hoosiers are 4-0 after an easy 52-14 win over Charlotte at home. Former Ohio QB Kurtis Rourke was 16-of-20 passing for 258 yards and had two total touchdowns while eight players combined to rush 41 times for 222 yards and six scores. Indiana’s opening schedule hasn’t been incredibly tough; its best win is at UCLA in Week 3. But with Maryland and Northwestern on tap over the next two weeks, Indiana has a very good chance of being bowl eligible by the end of Week 6 and could even sneak into the AP Top 25 on Sunday.

Losers

Auburn: The Tigers still have a quarterback problem. QB Hank Brown started for the second time this season but threw three picks in the Tigers’ 24-14 home loss to Arkansas. Brown was replaced in the second half by Payton Thorne, the man who started Auburn’s first two games. Thorne found KeAndre Lambert-Smith for a 67-yard TD in the fourth quarter that pulled the Tigers to within three, but Arkansas went on a 12-play drive that took 6:12 to put the game away on a TD run by Ja’Quinden Jackson. We’ll see who coach Hugh Freeze names the starter before next week’s game vs. Oklahoma. The matchup is the first of three straight games against ranked opponents for the Tigers.

Memphis: Much like Northern Illinois, the good feelings from Memphis’ big win over a power conference opponent didn’t last long. The Tigers lost 56-44 at Navy in a game that could be a huge blow to Memphis’ playoff hopes at the end of the season. After stuffing Florida State’s run game in Week 3, Memphis was gashed by Navy’s option attack for 361 yards and five TDs on just 39 attempts. The Midshipmen were also effective through the air as Blake Horvath was 9-of-12 for 192 yards and two scores in addition to his 90-yard TD run and three other rushing scores.

Virginia Tech: The Hokies have now lost 12 straight non-conference games against power conference opponents after Rutgers got a 26-23 road win. The Scarlet Knights went up 14-0 in the first quarter and never trailed, though Virginia Tech fought back in the fourth quarter with back-to-back touchdowns to tie the game at 23-23.

Jai Patel hit a 24-yard field goal with 1:56 to go, however, and Kyron Drones threw a third-down interception with 1:24 remaining to seal the game. After losing to Vanderbilt in Week 1 and Rutgers on Saturday, Virginia Tech’s last non-con win against a power opponent still dates back to a win over West Virginia in the 2017 season opener.

Houston: It’s going to be a long first season for coach Willie Fritz. The Cougars were blown out 34-0 at Cincinnati to drop to 1-3. QBs Donovan Smith and Zeon Chriss combined to throw for 92 yards and an interception on 21 attempts and Houston also fumbled twice as it became the first power conference team to get shut out in 2024. The Cougars played Oklahoma tough in Week 2, but it’s hard to see more than a couple Big 12 wins on the schedule the rest of the season with three of their four home games against ranked opponents.