College Football’s Week 13:
DG’s “Pick Six” Taps #5 Indiana (10-0) at #2 Ohio State (9-1),
#19 Army Vs. #6 Notre Dame, Key ACC Matchups, Much More
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
Each week during college football season, we offer a “Pick Six” package of intriguing matchups — three “local” games that include one or more North Carolina-based team and three “national” contests that involve the Atlantic Coast Conference and/or the most prominent intersectional games.
Week 13: Top “National” Games
Game One
#5 Indiana (10-0) at #2 Ohio State (9-1), Sat., noon (FOX)
Latest Betting Line: Buckeyes a 13-point favorite
Regardless of what happens on Saturday, hats off to first-year Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti, who was an assistant at NC State under Chuck Amato in the early 2000s and more recently a very successful head coach at Elon and James Madison before he accepted the Indiana job.
Indiana, while a five-time national champion in men’s basketball, has only rarely been nationally relevant in football. In fact, the Hoosiers have finished in the national Top 25 on the gridiron only once in the last 35 years, and they rarely have had even a winning record against Big Ten competition.
IU’s track record against Ohio State specifically offers yet another illustration of this theme. The last time the Hoosiers beat the Buckeyes on the gridiron was in 1988, or 36 years ago, even though the two long-time Big Ten members have played each other in all but a handful of seasons during that period.
Yet here the Hoosiers are, still undefeated in late November and carrying an extremely high national ranking into Columbus.
Will #5 Indiana (10-0) beat #2 Ohio State (9-1), or even give the Buckeyes a close game, on Saturday afternoon? In short, probably not.
The Hoosiers’ best wins so far this season are those over 6-5 Washington (31-17 at home) and 5-5 Michigan (20-15 at home), so it’s not as if they went through a Murderer’s Row-style gauntlet to get to 10-0.
Nevertheless, it’s not easy to get to 10-0 under any circumstances, and Indiana has annihilated most of its opponents, in part with one of the most prolific offenses in the country. The Hoosiers are #2 nationally in scoring offense, behind only Miami, at about 44 points per game.
IU quarterback Kurtis Rourke is an extremely experienced and highly productive player who has had a sensational season so far, in his first and only year with the Hoosiers. The analysts at Pro Football Focus, whose staff analyzes every major college game, have Rourke as the #1 QB in the entire nation this season in their unique grading system.
Rourke is a 24-year-old married guy from Canada and a former Ohio University star who transferred to IU soon after Cignetti took the job, without any promise that he would be the Hoosiers’ starter. His story has become a truly amazing one.
Here’s a final fun fact on Rourke, because you know we at the North Carolina Sports Network can find an ACC angle in almost anything this side of a flood in Bangladesh: Rourke’s #1 school during his time in the transfer portal last December was Wake Forest.
Right before Rourke was going to take his trip to Winston-Salem, the Wake coaches told him not to come, because the Demon Deacons had just accepted a commitment from Louisiana Tech quarterback transfer Hank Bachmeier, who has turned out to be a good player for the Deacs this season.
Whether Rourke would have done at Wake Forest anything similar to the sensational work he’s done at Indiana is pure speculation, but the Hoosiers’ game in Columbus this week offers more real-world repercussions. If Rourke somehow has a great game Saturday and leads IU to an unlikely victory over the highly favored Buckeyes, he might just end up in the Heisman Trophy conversation, too.
Game Two
#19 Army (9-0) vs. #6 Notre Dame (9-1), Sat., 7 pm (NBC/Peacock)
Latest Betting Line: Fighting Irish a 14-point favorite
While it’s a lot of fun to see these two national brands both in the national rankings heading into this head-to-head matchup in New York City, it’s also true that Army hasn’t defeated Notre Dame on the gridiron in a long, long time.
The Fighting Irish have won 15 consecutive games in this rivalry, and the Black Knights’ most recent victory came way back in 1958, during an era when Army was regularly prominent in the national rankings and the two teams played each other more regularly.
For those who may not be students of college football history, Army actually claims five national championships on the gridiron, all during the first half of the 20th century.
More recently, #19 Army (9-0) has ended a season in the national Top 25 only twice in the last 65 years. That backdrop, along with the 2024 results for both teams, has this year’s matchup being billed as the biggest in the rivalry in more than a half-century.
The most fun part of this clash is that Army’s offense is, by far, #1 in the nation in rushing offense, at 335 yards per game, with veteran quarterback Bryson Daily running a triple-option scheme that put up 45 points on East Carolina earlier this season and 40-plus in four additional games. What can that well-polished Army ground attack do against Notre Dame’s very sturdy and accomplished defensive front?
The Black Knights also are #2 nationally in scoring defense, at only 10 points per game, holding every opponent except the Pirates to 14 points or fewer. Notre Dame is #3 nationally in scoring defense, at 11 points per game, with only Louisville scoring more than 16 points against the Irish.
Former Duke star Riley Leonard will lead the Irish against that statistically dominant Army defense, only with a lot more weapons at his disposal than anything the Black Knights will face on a football field this season.
In recent decades, Army has lost these games mainly because it just hasn’t been able to move the ball consistently against Notre Dame’s defense. That could happen again this year at Yankee Stadium, in front of both a huge in-person crowd and what might be a massive Saturday night national TV audience, too.
Game Three
#13 SMU (9-1) at Virginia (5-5), Sat., noon (ESPN2)
Latest Betting Line: Mustangs a nine-point favorite
SMU is a better team than Virginia in pretty much every area, and the Mustangs probably will win this game, although it’s Senior Day for the Cavaliers, and the visitors will be dealing with a long road trip from Dallas to Charlottesville, so perhaps anything is possible on Saturday afternoon.
If SMU continues to win, though, there should and will be an intense debate about the #13 Mustangs’ appropriate place in the College Football Playoff rankings. For now, they remain outside the top 10 even though they are 9-1, with their only loss coming by three points to a BYU squad that also is 9-1 and a fellow contender (with a #14 committee ranking) for the College Football Playoff.
Obviously, Oregon belongs at the top of those committee rankings, because the Ducks are 11-0 and have beaten quality teams such as 9-1 Ohio State and 9-1 Boise State. They went to Michigan and beat the Wolverines by three touchdowns, too.
However, the committee’s current pecking order with one-loss teams, including SMU of the often-disrespected ACC, can be confusing.
The starting point for any intelligent breakdown on these matters involves two basic elements. First, what was the caliber of your loss? Second, how good are your best wins?
Regarding the first element, SMU should be in good shape. Here’s the fundamental, three-part question that’s relevant for these purposes: How good was the team that beat you, where was the game played, and by how much did you lose?
Everyone would have to agree that SMU’s only loss, while at home, was to a high-quality team, 9-1 and highly ranked BYU, and it was by only three points. So that part of this equation should not be holding SMU back in any way.
The other most important factor boils down to this: What are your best wins?
Here, SMU doesn’t have a lot to brag about, because the Mustangs’ best victories are probably at 7-3 Duke, against 7-3 Pitt, at 6-4 Louisville and against 6-4 TCU. So those are four quality wins, but probably not great wins. It certainly wouldn’t hurt if those four teams finished well.
However, has anyone looked at the opponents of #3 Texas or #4 Penn State?
The Longhorns are in the Southeastern Conference now, but their best win is probably over a 5-5 Michigan team in Ann Arbor. Their next-best win is by three points at 6-4 Vanderbilt. That’s it, really. Their other SEC victims are either 5-5 or have a losing record.
To its credit, Texas has been absolutely mashing most of its other opponents, which drives up their analytics dramatically, but let’s not forget that even the Longhorns — who are 10 spots higher than SMU in this week’s committee rankings — haven’t beaten a single great team yet, either.
Meanwhile, in their toughest game of the season, the Longhorns got waxed, 30-15, by Georgia. Is losing by 15 to #10 Georgia — on your home field, no less — somehow a “better loss” than SMU’s three-point defeat versus #14 BYU?
Similarly, while Penn State’s single loss (20-13 at home to Ohio State) certainly qualifies as a high-quality defeat, the Nittany Lions haven’t yet beaten a single great team, either. The top candidates are 7-3 Illinois, 6-5 Washington and 5-5 Southern Cal.
It’s important to keep such things in mind for all playoff candidates, and not just SMU.
NOTE: For the complete Week 13 schedule (including television/streaming options) for all ACC and state of North Carolina teams, please click HERE.
