There are still six unbeaten teams left in college football.
The top-five teams in the College Football Playoff rankings all earned their 11th wins of the season last Saturday. No. 4 Florida State had the highest margin of victory at 45 points against North Alabama, but it didn’t come without a cost.
PODCAST: Despite chalk at the top, week 12 had intrigue
Seminoles quarterback Jordan Travis left the game in the first quarter with a horrific left leg injury. He announced on Monday that his college career is over while stating “the great memories created here at FSU will never fade.”
Here are some noteworthy quotes as focus turns from Week 12 to Week 13.
Ryan Day, Ohio State
The Buckeyes were without All-American linebacker Tommy Eichenberg last week against Minnesota.
Eichenberg missed a second-straight game as he dealt with an upper-body injury. He leads Ohio State with 73 tackles this season.
The Buckeyes took care of business against the Golden Gophers, defeating them 37-3 on Senior Day. Eichenberg, a graduate, tried his hardest to get into the game, but head coach Ryan Day said the decision to keep the linebacker out ultimately fell on him.
“We’ll get Tommy back for next week,” Day said. “Tommy was ready to play in this one and I had to pull him back, and it was almost a fistfight. But I won. It took some even, I mean, I’ll be honest, it took some late night texts last night. He wanted to play, and this is a guy who has put so much into this program. Coming back, and for senior day for him not to be out there was really hard for Tommy, really hard. But I just explained to him there’s just too much on the line moving forward to risk any kind of setback, that we need him at his best and he was, after some calming down, he was OK. But it was not easy for him to not play in this game, athat was my decision. He was ready to go. He pushed himself to get to a point but he’ll have another great week of practice and be at 100% going into next week.”
Jerry Kill, New Mexico State
New Mexico State marched onto Auburn’s home field and upset the Tigers 31-10, holding them without a touchdown in the second half.
It was the first time in Aggies program history that they defeated a team from the Southeastern Conference. They were paid around $1.7 million by Auburn to play them last Saturday.
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Aggies head coach Jerry Kill is in just his second season with the program. He has 11 years of experience as a skipper, taking stops at Northern Illinois, Minnesota and TCU before joining New Mexico State prior to the 2022 season.
The Aggies are 9-3 and will play in the Conference USA championship game Dec. 1 against undefeted Liberty. But until then, Kill and New Mexico State will enjoy its win over Auburn.
“We walked in — and I probably shouldn’t say it but you know, life’s short and I may not be here tomorrow, something I’ve always said — I walked in, I said, ‘Hey, we just got 1.7 million to play a southeast conference team,’ so how about that,” Kill said. “One-point-seven million and winning the game, and so the kids, they’re all fired up. They’re wondering when they’re going to get it. They want it to be all NIL money.”
Sherrone Moore, Michigan
The Wolverines became the first program in college football to reach 1,000 wins in program history with their 11th-straight at Maryland last Saturday.
They did it without head coach Jim Harbaugh, who accepted and served the second of a three-game suspension as a result of the Big Ten Conference’s investigation into in-person scouting. It’s also the fifth time Harbaugh has been suspended from a game this season.
READ: Syracuse fires head coach Babers
Michigan offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Sherrone Moore served as acting head coach once again, and he said he wants Harbaugh edited into the postgame celebrations of the 1,000th win.
“First we need to edit coach in there. There’s enough technology in the world today that we can get that done so we can do that,” Moore said. “But I mean, just it’s historic to be a part of this university, this place, this team, so really cool just to be a part of it. Guys are just ecstatic to get that 100th win, but they all knew exactly what time it was right after that. They all know what’s ahead so I’m super excited for that challenge.”
