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…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-09-22 01:19:19

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