No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Michigan, No. 4 Washington and No. 5 Florida State all took care of business last Saturday. 

PODCAST: Week 13 almost had all-out chaos

No. 6 Ohio State was the only undefeated team to lose its first game last weekend. The Buckeyes fell 30-24 to Michigan, and the Wolverines won the Big Ten East Division. 

Here are some noteworthy quotes as focus turns from Week 13 to Week 14. 

Ryan Day, Ohio State 

Ryan Day and the Buckeyes suffered rivalry defeat for a third year in a row on Saturday. 

No. 2 Michigan beat No. 6 Ohio State 30-24, and defensive back Rod Moore put the final nail in the coffin with a game-sealing interception with 25 seconds left. 

Day and the Buckeyes are familiar with this sort of rivalry aura. They’ve not met their goals of beating Michigan, winning the Big Ten Championship and capturing a national championship, and they haven’t met the first two since 2019. 

Day summarized his feelings after the game in Ann Arbor on Saturday. 

“Hard to describe now, just sick,” Day said. “The fact that we came up short in this game. You work your whole year for it, and we came up short.” 

Bo Nix, Oregon 

Oregon finds itself with an interesting scenario this upcoming weekend.

The Ducks are in the Pac-12 Championship game for a fourth time in five seasons, and this year, they’ll compete against the same Huskies team that beat them 36-33 in Week 6.

Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. will prove to be a stiff challenge for the Ducks after passing for 302 yards and four touchdowns in the first meeting between the two teams.

Fellow Heisman Trophy-contending quarterback Bo Nix is hot on Penix’s heels leading the country with 3,906 passing yards, and he said the Ducks are right in position that they wanted to be.

“That’s exactly how we wanted it because of the circumstances because we did lose the first one, and they’re going to be a great opponent,” Nix said. “They’re going to be very respected, and we just got to go out there and do our part.” 

Nick Saban, Alabama 

The Iron Bowl proved this year to be a classic once again.

READ: Texas A&M names Duke’s Mike Elko next head coach 

No. 8 Alabama held on for a 27-24 win at Auburn, and the Crimson Tide will roll into conference championship week on a 10-game winning streak. 

Crimson Tide quarterback Jalen Milroe threw the game-winning touchdown pass with 32 seconds on the clock in the fourth quarter against the Tigers. He found receiver Isaiah Bond from 31 yards out, and did so on 4^th and 31. 

Alabama earned its fourth-straight win over Auburn, and Saban has been around to recall some of the signature moments from the rivalry series. 

“So do I need to really say anything? I mean, it’s an unbelievable game,” Saban said. “I guess if you’re in this long enough, sometimes it goes against you in the last play of the game and sometimes you’re fortunate and it goes for you. And our players really stepped up, got a couple of stops when we needed to on defense, which we didn’t play great all day, but we got stops when we needed to, and offense put some drives together and we overcame adversity.” 

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No. 2 Michigan claimed the biggest win of the week and arguably the biggest one of the season so far. The Wolverines defeated No. 6 Ohio State 30-24 after defensive back Rod Moore sealed the game with an interception in the final minute. 

READ: Michigan State hires Jonathan Smith as head coach

No. 5 Oregon advanced to the Pac-12 Championship game, while Atlantic Coast Conference Championship participant No. 10 Louisville fell to Kentucky 38-31. 

Here are some of the top statistical performances from Week 13. 

Blake Corum, Michigan 

The Wolverines leaned heavily on the duo of running back Blake Corum and quarterback J.J. McCarthy, as the pair combined for three touchdowns against the Buckeyes. 

Corum split the job with running back Donovan Edwards, who rushed for over 200 yards a year ago against the Ohio State defense. Both had at least 10 carries and at least 31 yards rushing, and Corum played his role as the lead back. 

Corum averaged four yards per carry and earned his due down the stretch. He had just 19 rushing yards in the first half. 

When Michigan needed an inch, Corum provided a yard. When the Wolverines needed a yard, he gave them three. 

Corum finished with 88 rushing yards and two touchdowns. His first score helped him capture the Wolverines’ single-season rushing touchdown record, and Corum has 22 on the year. 

Both of Corum’s scores against Ohio State came within the red zone, as he ran in 22-yard and 1-yard touchdowns. 

Now, Corum and the Wolverines enter the postseason undefeated and hungry to defend two-straight Big Ten titles. 

Audric Estime, Notre Dame 

Notre Dame running back Audric Estime has had a strong season and should be in contention for All-American recognition. 

He added to his year on Saturday with a 238-yard performance at Stanford. It was a season-high rushing output for the junior. 

READ: Michigan rises to No. 2, Ohio State falls to No. 6 in latest AP Poll 

Estime broke of his longest run of the day against the Cardinal with a 39-yard score in the first quarter. It came on his fourth carry. 

The Nyack, New York, native tore up the field for four touchdowns, also a season-high for the Fighting Irish ball-carrier. 

Estime now owns the single-season rushing record at Notre Dame with 18 this seeason. 

Noah Fifita, Arizona 

Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita has enjoyed a solid season under the radar amid a flurry of fantastic quarterback play in the Pac-12. 

On Saturday, Fifita threw for a program-record 527 yards and five touchdowns. Fifita had two touchdown passes of less than 10 yards and added three of at least 21 yards. 

The Wildcats started fast and kept their foot on the gas pedal against Arizona State. The final time the two rival schools meet in the Pac-12 ended with Arizona in 59-23 triumph, and Fifita had a large role. 

By halftime Fifita already had 357 passing yards and two touchdowns. He only piled on more in the second half. 

With the win, Arizona improved to 9-3 and earned its highest win total since the 2014 season. 

Cody Schrader, Missouri 

No. 9 Missouri has had a season beyond expectations, and head coach Eli Drinkwitz said last week that the program has new respectability after reaching nine wins for the first time since 2014. 

The Tigers had another test in Arkansas on the road last weekend, and they emerged victorious in a 48-14 blowout. 

Former walk-on and running back Cody Shrader turned in his latest impressive performance, turning in 217 rushing yards and a touchdown. 

For a fifth-straight game, Schrader had at least 100 rushing yards breaking the Missouri school record. 

Schrader’s longest run went for 49 yards and his touchdown came from 3 yards out in the first quarter. 

Schrader leads the Southeastern Conference with 1,489 rushing yards. 

Taulia Tagovailoa, Maryland 

The Big Ten now has a new all-time leading passer. 

READ: No. 3 Wolverines focused on ‘keeping the main thing the main thing’ after 30-24 win over No. 2 Ohio State

Last season, Taulia Tagovailoa became Maryland’s all-time leading passing in career yards. This year, he’s broken the conference record eclipsing 11,200 yards. 

Tagovailoa and the Terrapins beat Rutgers on the road 42-24, and the quarterback threw for over 300 yards for the third time this season. 

Tagovailoa had 361 passing yards, a season-high, at the Scarlet Knights. He also added three passing touchdowns, and all three came within the first 20 minutes of the game for more than 17 yards. 

Tagovailoa leads the Big Ten with 3,377 passing yards and 25 touchdowns. 

The post Stat Pack: Week 13  appeared first on Saturday Glory.

The Wolverines’ head coach has been suspended for six of the 12 regular-season games this season. The team competed in what many considered a weaker nonconference schedule and emerged undefeated entering Saturday when No. 2 Ohio State stepped up to the challenge in “The Game.” 

Interim head coach Sherrone Moore has handled the critics and outside noise, managing the Wolverines to a 3-0 record in his time at the helm and through a 30-24 victory over the Buckeyes. 

“The biggest thing is we just try to focus on what we’re working on, keeping the main thing the main thing that as our guys say, not looking too far into the future, not looking at the past and doing what we can every single day just to get better and attack that moment,” Moore said. “So not trying to look at the outside world and what people were saying. We know what we have in that building, and staying together as a group is the most important thing for us.” 

PODCAST: Week 13 Preview: Rivalry Week is here

Michigan dominated the trenches and kept Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord off balance. McCord went 18-of-30 for 271 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. 

Moore credited the Wolverines for beating the Buckeyes for a third-staight season. He said this year is much different than the past two. 

“The players, the way they practice, the way they did in this game, is something we prepare for 365,” Moore said. “It’s not a one-week affair. It’s not something we just dropped that week. So it’s something that’s planned out very strategically.” 

Junior defensive back Rod Moore had the game-sealing interception with 25 seconds left in the fourth quarter. 

McCord dropped back to pass and ranged a throw over the middle, and Rod Moore came down with the pick and later said the game was “personal” to him. 

“Just being from Ohio, just in a sense, like, the whole game is personal every year,” Rod Moore said. “It’s so personal to me, and I’ll say before the defense went out there, I told myself, you’re either going to make the play or somebody else is to seal the game and I told them upfront, they got to get to the quarterback for us.” 

Michigan receiver Roman Wilson caught three passes for 36 yards and a touchdown. 

After the game, Wilson questioned Ohio State’s toughness and whether the Buckeyes had more of it than the Wolverines. 

“No, definitely not,” Wilson said. “I mean like I told our receivers this whole week, like, you got guys back there, like, there’s the thing that I thought too like guys who you want to put on like the Louis V, like the $1,000 outfit, like you want to act hard but when you’re out there like they’re not hard. Like I see the film, like, you’re not tough. Like I don’t think I’m the toughest guy in the world. But you know, I’m out there, I’m getting physical like I don’t think they wanted it like I wanted it.” 

READ: Moore’s INT seals No. 3 Michigan’s 30-24 win over No. 2 Ohio State 

Michigan is on its way back to Indianapolis to play in the Big Ten Championship game for the third-straight year. 

The Wolverines will get head coach Jim Harbaugh back on the sidelines in time for the postseason, and Sherrone Moore said they talked with their head coach postgame. He served a three-game suspension as a result of the Big Ten’s investigation into in-person scouting. 

Now, Michigan controls its destiny, and just might get the job finished this season. 

“The big thing he said to me was he loved me and do me, and I told him the same thing,” Sherrone Moore said. “I love him, and we got his back. So like I said in interviews, we got his back. We’ll do anything for him. Players will run through a wall for him, so would the coaches so we were just prepared to go win this game for him.” 

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