College football Week 4 overreactions: Tennessee takes big step toward making CFP; end is near for Mack Brown

Week 4's results also showed Nebraska really hasn't changed much and Hugh Freeze has underwhelmed at Auburn

By Will Backus

Sep 22, 2024 at 10:58 am ET • 5 min read

USATSI

Go ahead and pencil Tennessee into the College Football Playoff. The No. 6 Vols cleared their biggest hurdle yet by going on the road and opening SEC play with a 25-15 win against No. 15 Oklahoma, a likely cathartic moment for Sooners legend and current Tennessee coach Josh Heupel.

Tennessee's defense dominated and extended its streak to 19 straight quarters without allowing an offensive touchdown before the Sooners broke it midway through the fourth quarter. The Vols only scored six points in the second half while largely taking their foot off the gas and still walked out of Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium with their first road win against a top-15 team since 2006.

It wasn't entirely pretty. The offense looked a little disjointed over the last 30 minutes and the Vols were responsible for some really ugly penalties that could hurt them in closer games, but this was arguably the make-or-break game for Tennessee in 2024. Now it controls its destiny while walking a wide-open path.

Tennessee will be heavily favored in all but two of its remaining contests. One of those, against No. 4 Alabama, comes at home. Going on the road to play No. 2 Georgia is a tall task, but the Vols don't even need to win either game to make a 12-team playoff. Close losses to two top-four teams while maintaining a 10-2 record in the SEC will likely earn them plenty of leeway with the selection committee.

Split those games and the CFP is a guarantee. Barring a complete disaster, Tennessee should be seen as a lock at this point.

Same ol' Nebraska

No, not in a good way. The Huskers almost had us all fooled after a 3-0 start, including a dominant win against Colorado, that saw them climb back into the AP Top 25 for the first time since Week 2 of the 2019 season. Nebraska had a prime opportunity to gain even more legitimacy with a home game against No. 24 Illinois.

But if you've watched any Nebraska football since 2017 or so, you know how this story ends. Instead of getting their first win against a ranked team in eight years, the No. 22 Huskers fell 31-24 after a disastrous overtime period.

Nebraska has now lost 25 straight games against top-25 teams. Coach Matt Rhule is 2-20 all-time against ranked opponents. It seems most people put the cart before the horse in saying that Nebraska would be 7-0 by the time it rolled to Columbus for a huge game against Ohio State. All that time it shouldn't have been overlooking Illinois.

And if the Huskers can't get by Illinois at home then what's a reasonable outlook against the likes of Rutgers and Indiana -- both teams that are exceeding expectations amid undefeated starts with legitimate Power Four wins on the ledger. Nebraska is still much closer to that middle tier of the conference, at best, than it is to actually breaking through in the Big Ten.

It's time for Mack Brown to hang it up

Brown is a walking legend on the sideline. He's one of a handful of active coaches with a national championship to his name and he's had an incredibly accomplished career across multiple stops at different levels of college football. He deserves his flowers.

But Saturday showed that his time in North Carolina is over. The Tar Heels have already smashed into their ceiling with Brown running the show and are now caught in the ensuing tailspin. It certainly doesn't get much worse than a 70-50 loss, at home, against James Madison.

North Carolina allowed a program-record 53 points in the first half. It probably goes without saying, but the defense looked worse than it ever has under Brown -- and that's been a consistent problem. The Tar Heels are on their third defensive coordinator since 2019, including their second in the last three years. Geoff Collins clearly isn't cutting it, but at some point this consistent problem falls on the head coach.

Maybe the game has passed Brown by. There's not much upside left to tap, if any.

Hugh Freeze is all flash, no substance

Freeze can recruit with the best of them. He knows how to generate excitement, and capture the attention of the annual hype machine, with an impactful offseason. It's when the whistle actually blows that his deficiencies start to show.

Auburn's start to the 2024 season is, frankly, indefensible. The Tigers put so much effort into improving their roster in the offseason. They addressed major needs at both wide receiver and offensive line, with what should have been significant talent upgrades in both areas.

Not that it has availed them anything. A 21-14 loss to California was bad enough. A 24-14 loss, at home, against an Arkansas team that won a single SEC game in 2023 is a new level of embarrassment.

The one area that Freeze didn't improve, despite having the opportunity to do so, was at quarterback. That bit Auburn in the California loss, and it hit a new low against the Razorbacks. Hank Brown and Payton Thorne combined to throw four interceptions. Though Thorne and Brown haven't been great, it falls on Freeze for either not finding a better option or not scheming better around some of their deficiencies.

At least the Tigers can hang their hats on recruiting wins and loaded visitor weekends. Freeze certainly doesn't provide any reason to celebrate on the field.

Kalel Mullings is most important player in college football

Not the best player in college football. There are plenty of names ahead of him on that list. It's hard to find an individual player that means as much to his team, though, and that's considering the fact that another of Michigan's running backs (Donovan Edwards) was on the cover of EA Sports' College Football 25.

Mullings may have single handedly saved No. 18 Michigan's season Saturday afternoon. The Wolverines still have a really tough schedule and should be seen as longshots to make it so far as the Big Ten Championship Game at this point -- let alone the College Football Playoff -- but a loss to No. 11 USC would have completely tanked any of those hopes.

Instead, Mullings decided to put his team and its struggling offense on his back. The former linebacker had 17 carries for 159 yards and two touchdowns. On Michigan's go-ahead drive late in the fourth quarter, he toted the rock eight times for 84 yards and the decisive touchdown on fourth-and-1 from USC's 1-yard line to seal Michigan's 27-24 victory.

It was his 63-yard run earlier in the drive that really changed the game's dynamic. He spun out of the grasp of two USC defenders -- dragging one of them a good few yards -- and almost broke free for an 80-plus yard touchdown before he was tracked down just inside USC's 20-yard line.