Kirk Herbstreit lists his top seven teams from Week 9

As we enter November, we’ve seen some truly impressive performances from teams throughout the season. Now, after the ninth week of the season, Kirk Herbstreit is back with another batch of teams that impressed him on Saturday.

Herbstreit shared his seven top-performing teams from week nine on Twitter on Monday. Oregon led the way after their 29-point win over Utah with Kansas, Georgia Tech, Arizona, NC State, Louisville, and Arizona State also making his cut.

Here are my top performing teams of WEEK 9

1- @oregonfootball
2- @KU_Football
3- @GeorgiaTechFB
4- @ArizonaFBall
5- @PackFootball
6- @LouisvilleFB
7- @ASUFootball pic.twitter.com/sd7meNYNT4

— Kirk Herbstreit (@KirkHerbstreit) October 30, 2023

1. Oregon Ducks

Oregon has been one of the season’s best teams and that didn’t change this weekend. After failing their last test in a ranked road matchup in the Pac-12, the Ducks passed their latest one with flying colors in a 35-6 rout of Utah – a game that Herbstreit and College GameDay were on site for on Saturday morning.

QB Bo Nix put up three total touchdowns, Bucky Irving and Traeshon Holden rushed for two more scores, and the Duck defense forced a pair of picks from Bryson Barnes. It was yet another dominant outing and one that brought Oregon another step closer to a Pac-12 Championship berth and, potentially, the College Football Playoff.

2. Kansas Jayhawks

Lance Leipold and the Jayhawks had themselves a homecoming weekend in Lawrence. It all started because of a 38-33 win over No. 6 Oklahoma that snapped an 18-game losing streak to the Sooners.

KU hung the most points that anyone had on OU’s defense all season while also forcing three turnovers. That justified their sold-out crowd to tear down the goalpost inside David Booth Stadium as Kansas is also now going bowling for the second consecutive year for just the second time in program history.

3. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

An even-numbered game simply means Georgia Tech wins. As their season-long trend of trading wins and losses continued, it worked out for them as No. 17 North Carolina was the latest the fall victim to the Yellow Jackets.

The Tar Heel defense bottomed out in Atlanta as they gave up a season-high of 46 points with the home team scoring all of their points in the second and fourth quarters. Add in the surprise of Haynes King outdueling Drake Maye and GT was able to pick up their second-ranked win of the season under Brent Key.

4. Arizona Wildcats

Arizona had been very sneakily competitive with the best in the Pac-12 this month. Oregon State learned that the hard way this weekend as the Beavers came to Tuscon and lost 27-24 to the Wildcats.

‘Zona had given their best shots to Washington and USC before blowing out Washington State in the three games before this one. In the end, they found a way to get it done in a closely contested matchup and move one win away from their first bowl-eligible campaign since 2017.

5. NC State Wolfpack

Waiting for basketball to start, huh? NC State put that narrative to rest quickly with their 24-17 win over Clemson this weekend.

The Wolfpack were not happy with how they entered their bye week. They made up for it in their first performance back as they mustered enough offense and locked it down defensively, specifically by taking two interceptions off of Cade Klubnik. The homecoming win also gave Dave Doeren a tie for the lead in program wins in Raleigh.

6. Louisville Cardinals

In some sense, it’s fair to question the level of competition that Louisville has faced this fall. Even so, at some point, you have to play the team that’s in front of you and win. For the second time this season, the Cardinals did exactly that against a ranked opponent.

For the second time in four weeks, Louisville won over a Top-20 team. They did so by shutting Duke out by a score of 23-0. The defense zeroed the Blue Devils while RB Jawhar Jordan ran loose for 163 yards and three touchdowns to further put the Cardinals in contention for a potential spot in the ACC Championship.

7. Arizona State Sun Devils

Although they’d come close over the past few weeks, Arizona State still hadn’t felt victory since their season opener. That finally changed this weekend as the Sun Devils took an 11-point victory off Washington State and made their way into the final spot on Herbstreit’s ranking.

ASU’s offense assaulted the Cougar defense with over 500 yards of offense for the outing in Tempe. After losing eight straight games in the Pac-12 over the past year, including their first four this season, the Sun Devils officially broke that streak as well as their overall six-game losing streak with the 38-27 win.