College Football Risers and Fallers After Week 7 - 2024 College Football

Week 7 of the college football season did not disappoint and honestly from this point on, every weekend ahead of us gets more and more exciting. More games have championship implications with the 12-team playoff on the horizon, and a few teams’ playoff hopes are on life support following some shocking Week 7 losses.

Although most of the excitement was in the 3:30 and evening slates, the noon slate offered a thrilling Alabama win over South Carolina, Iowa, and Wisconsin both scoring 40-plus points and a game-winning 68-yard touchdown run for Georgia Tech’s Jamal Haynes. The theme of the week was last-minute wins and comebacks in big-time games, which is everything that we love about college football.

Texas rolled over Oklahoma, Penn State edged out USC in overtime, Purdue came storming back to fall short against Illinois in OT, and BYU squashed Arizona in the midday slate. To cap the night off, Tennessee dodged Florida in OT, LSU came storming back to beat Ole Miss in OT, Vanderbilt beat Kentucky, Iowa State survived West Virginia, Oregon squeaked out a win over Ohio State, and Kansas State edged out Colorado. 

Stock Up

Kaleb Johnson, RB - Iowa

Ashton Jeanty has collected so much media coverage, and rightfully so, that Kaleb Johnson is falling under the national radar. Iowa’s junior running back leads the Big Ten and is second only to Jeanty in national rushing yards with 937 on the season.

Jeanty is a monster but Kaleb Johnson needs more love pic.twitter.com/vOnJo4r2s7

— Megan (@MeganMakinMoney) October 12, 2024

Johnson is 6 feet tall and 225 pounds but runs with the patience of Le’Veon Bell. He has singlehandedly revitalized Iowa’s offense, which was famously historically bad a season ago. The junior ran for 166 yards and two touchdowns while also catching three passes for 22 yards and a score, accounting for three of the Hawkeyes’ four touchdowns. His stock is strongly on the rise.

Tyler Warren, TE - Penn State

Perhaps no single player saw their stock rise more on Saturday than Penn State’s Tyler Warren. The senior tight end shattered records in the thrilling overtime win over USC as he collected 17 receptions for 224 yards and a touchdown. Warren also completed a pass for nine yards and ran once for four yards, lining up all over the field as Penn State’s version of Taysom Hill.

Tyler Warren snapped the ball and caught the touchdown ON THE SAME PLAY

pic.twitter.com/kWOUDQ9chE

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) October 12, 2024

With no clear-cut TE1 in the draft class next year, Warren did everything he could on Saturday to assume that position. The senior was the most dominant player on the field in a big-time game and he put himself firmly on the map for both opposing defensive coordinators and NFL scouts.

BYU Cougars

Many people, me included, saw Arizona traveling to Provo as an upset opportunity. The Cougars had none of that, dominating the game from start to finish en route to a 41-19 win. BYU is now 6-0 and tied atop the Big 12.

The playoffs are firmly in sight, although this team needs to keep taking it one week at a time. Next up is an Oklahoma State team that has been trending downward. There are currently no ranked teams on the rest of the schedule going forward, although we have seen upsets happening all over the Big 12. UCF, Utah, Kansas, Arizona State, and Houston make up the rest of the schedule for the Cougars.

DJ Lagway, QB - Florida

After Graham Mertz tore his ACL, Florida’s freshman quarterback kept the Gators afloat and delivered a timely 27-yard touchdown pass to Chimere Dike with 29 seconds on the clock in Knoxville on Saturday night to send the game to overtime.

Lagway is not built like a true freshman and is now going to get ample experience the rest of the season with Mertz gone for the year. The Gators still play on the road at Georgia and Texas and host LSU and Ole Miss. Lagway will see some real competition to close out his freshman season, giving him the experience he needs to continue to develop into a potential future first-rounder.

Stock Down

Ryan Day, Ohio State

The margins keep shrinking and Ryan Day continues to come up short in big games. Ohio State is one of the best teams in the nation and nobody thinks otherwise despite coming up short a point against Oregon on Saturday night, but the pressure under Day has heated up significantly.

People are going to crush Will Howard, but Ryan Day not having them prepared after the penalty is what ultimately cost them. You can’t leave the field with a timeout in that situation. Just can’t happen.

— Jordan Strack (@JordanStrack) October 13, 2024

Ohio State cannot afford another loss if they want another shot at the Ducks in the Big Ten championship and there are some tough games still on the schedule: Nebraska, Penn State, Indiana, Michigan. Day needs to break through and win a big game or else his seat will become one of the hotter ones across the CFB landscape.

Utah Utes

Utah not only fell late on Friday night to Arizona State in an all-time upset for their second loss of the season, but the Utes also lost quarterback Cam Rising for likely the rest of the season.

Not to mention that Rising had a bad game in the first place, throwing zero touchdowns and three interceptions. The Utes’ season is now on life support and behind freshman quarterback Isaac Wilson it's hard to see things getting much better.

Ole Miss Rebels

Winning in Baton Rouge at night is no easy task, but Ole Miss needed this one to keep themselves firmly in the playoff hunt. Instead, the Rebels squandered a 23-yard touchdown pass with 27 seconds on the clock and fell in overtime.

The schedule going forward does not look too challenging aside from a road game against Georgia, but with the home loss to Kentucky on the resume this one had to be had. Lane Kiffin’s team’s season is heading downwards quickly.

Alabama Crimson Tide

At least they won this week, but Alabama’s bounce back game after the shocking loss to Vanderbilt was not pretty by any means. Beating South Carolina by two points in the manner that they won was very short of impressive, and there is a lot of reason to be concerned for the Crimson Tide going into Tennessee this weekend.

The final minutes of South Carolina-Bama:

—Missed SC FG
—Bama TD
—SC toe-tap TD
—SC missed a two-point conversion
—SC recovered onside kick
—Bama game-winning pick in the end zone

Cinema 🍿 pic.twitter.com/oPScyZlxOT

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 12, 2024

Jalen Milroe struggled, throwing two interceptions in the narrow win. The Tide still have massive road games against Tennessee, LSU, and Oklahoma along with home matchups with Missouri and Auburn. This team looks defeated and lethargic after falling to Vanderbilt, and it is hard to see Kalen DeBoer’s team turning it around to look like the team that we saw in the Georgia game.

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