Week 10 Stock Report: Alabama as playoff party crasher, Florida bowl hopes, Clemson, Deion Sanders
No preamble today. College football stocks are trading at a rapid rate.
Each Monday, I take note of whose stock — be it team, head coach, player, assistant, unit, Heisman candidacy, preseason narrative, etc. — is trending upward, whose is down and whose is holding.
Here is this week’s stock report:
📈 Stock Up: Alabama as a CFP party crasher
We’re a week removed from Halloween, but Alabama is giving off major Michael Myers vibes right now. Since losing to Texas, the Tide have rattled off seven straight wins and have settled on an identity — a pressure defense led by edge rusher Dallas Turner and an offense that trusts Jalen Milroe to make a play — with his arm or legs.
Fresh off the bye week, Alabama unleashed Milroe’s wheels against LSU, with the Tide quarterback rushing for a school-record four touchdowns on 20 carries for 155 yards. Unlike previous games, he didn’t hit a big shot downfield, but the Tigers were so terrified of getting burned over the top that they played two-deep, over-coverage that allowed Milroe to gain chunk plays with his legs.
Alabama isn’t the Death Star of old, but the Tide are improving every week. They’re coalescing and that’s terrifying for the rest of college football.
South Florida, Texas A&M and Ole Miss all had opportunities to bury the Tide. But they didn’t. Instead, Nick Saban’s team has the firepower and quarterback to run the table the rest of the regular season and seriously threaten Georgia in the SEC Championship — which could mean a potential spot in the final four-team College Football Playoff field.
📉Stock Down: Florida’s bowl hopes
In front of a sold-out crowd with the nation’s No. 1 recruit in attendance, Florida held its own funeral Saturday. Decked out in new all-black uniforms, the Gators likely killed their bowl hopes with an inexcusable loss to an Arkansas team that had just fired its offensive coordinator and was winless in the SEC.
They gave up 39 points to a team that couldn’t muster more than a field goal against lowly Mississippi State. Once again, the Gators made all sorts of mistakes on special teams — from just 10 men on the field for block attempts, a botched PAT and an illegal substitution penalty at the end of regulation that pushed the potential game-winning kick back five more yards.
It was missed.
“There’s a lot of blame to be spread out,” Napier said.
Perhaps, but it probably should start with the guy at the top.
Florida is now 5-4 with remaining games at LSU, at Missouri and vs. Florida State. All three teams are ranked and Florida will be an underdog in all three matchups. For a program with relatively recent championship expectations, UF is careening toward its third-straight losing season — something that hasn’t happened since the Truman Administration.
The Gators aren’t going to fire Billy Napier.
And they shouldn’t. Florida can’t keep churning through coaches. They definitely don’t want to eat a $32 million buyout, either. Napier is recruiting really well (a Top 5 class in 2024), but that’s pretty much it thus far during his tenure as UF’s head coach. Aside from Napier, there will be plenty of other offseason changes in Gainesville, and there should be. Napier will likely give up play-calling. He needs to hire a true offensive coordinator and a special teams coordinator.
Florida’s program is facing a real existential crisis entering an evolving SEC. The Gators have spiffy new facilities, an aggressive NIL collective and one of the nation’s best recruiting footprints, yet continue to fall further and further behind their rivals Georgia, Florida State and others.
Under Napier, their only identity is one of losses and self-inflicted mistakes. That better change fast, and missing 15 important practices for a team that’s banking on a lot of youth in 2024 isn’t going to help matters.
Stock Holding: Clemson
“I know we’re down and everybody’s throwing dirt on us, but if Clemson’s a stock, you better buy all you freaking can buy right now.” — Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney
Easy, Dabo. Easy.
Clemson definitely secured a cathartic victory over Notre Dame on Saturday, but while Swinney remains jazzed about the Tigers’ future despite their struggles in 2023, let’s pump the brakes on his program as a suddenly surging stock.
The Tigers stopped the bleeding Saturday, but they remain a wounded team with a very uncertain future. Swinney was right when he pointed out to Tyler from Spartanburg about all his 10-win seasons. But those are in the past now.
Clemson isn’t sniffing 10 wins or an ACC Championship this fall, and unless Swinney makes some drastic changes with how he approaches the transfer portal, assembles his staff and recruits offensive linemen, then his program will continue to recede toward the middle of the ACC.
📈 Stock Up: Michael Penix Jr. vs. Bo Nix for the Heisman Trophy
In On3’s latest Heisman Trophy poll, quarterbacks Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix made four of five ballots as Top 3 candidates — ironically not mine. I had both listed at No. 4 and No. 5 on my Top 10 list, but as we continue to navigate the 2023 season, both Pac-12 gunslingers look like they’re on a path for another dual in Las Vegas which could ultimately determine this year’s Heisman Trophy winner.
Right now, I have J.J. McCarthy at No. 1. I think Michigan’s quarterback has shown tremendous improvement this season and has been overlooked because of how badly the Wolverines are blasting teams. But McCarthy isn’t going to have the raw stats of Penix or Nix, and he could be penalized (unfairly so, IMO) for Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal.
There are no other obvious frontrunners right now, either, especially with Jayden Daniels (who absolutely deserves an invite to New York for his individual brilliance) now leading a three-loss LSU Tigers team, and Caleb Williams once again being let down by USC’s defense.
Penix has emerged as the odds-on favorite, but to win, the southpaw will need to beat Oregon again — or Nix could both knock the Huskies out of the CFP and snipe the Heisman Trophy all at the same time.
📉 Stock Down: Deion Sanders
It’s been tough sledding this week for the Deion Sanders sycophants online, as Coach Prime stuck his foot in the mouth after getting waxed by UCLA and then made the bizarre decision to demote OC Sean Lewis and promote analyst Pat Shurmur as Colorado’s new primary play-caller.
The move didn’t deliver the intended results, as the Buffs did play at a slower tempo in a 26-19 loss to Oregon State, but still couldn’t run the ball at all (31 yards on 11 carries).
That’s not a surprise, though. The same OL unit that Sanders ripped last weekend didn’t suddenly get new bodies. The Buffs didn’t add a 210-pound tailback out of the transfer portal midweek.
Lewis was considered Sanders’ best hire in his Year 1 staff, yet the former Kent State head coach is taking the fall for Colorado’s inability to block Shedeur Sanders (46 sacks allowed, the most in the Power 5) or have any semblance of a run game (last nationally in yards per carry).
Deion Sanders said he refused to “demean Sean Lewis” and “trust the process.”
He scoffed at any skepticism of the move, adding, “I’m not going to disclose all my thoughts, man. My thoughts are my thoughts. Just know that I made the decision, and I don’t stumble or stutter on it, and I’m not looking back. It is what it is, and that’s what it’s going to be. I make a decision to help this team win. You guys don’t know all the intangibles yet.
“You’re just looking from the outside of the crib, looking in. I got tinted windows and you can’t even see in the house, but you’re making conclusions on what I should and should not do.”
I still believe Deion Sanders is a quality coach. You don’t accidentally stumble into real success at Jackson State. He built that program. And even despite Colorado’s recent skid (losers of five of six), the Buffs are still ahead of schedule in 2023.
But this was a totally unnecessary move. It reeks of panic and the need to point blame somewhere.
There were always going to be questions about how Sanders would handle a slog of a rebuild. Losses piling up. Well, his recent comments coupled with his brash decision — one notable that makes Colorado worse both in the short-term and long-term — doesn’t assuage those concerns one bit.