October 17 compressed a season’s chaos into one day
Five of the top seven lost, but Alabama’s two-game offensive reversal and Georgia’s first defeat gave a historic Saturday consequences beyond one poll.
The Pate State“I think we're coming off the wildest Saturday in the modern college football era.”
Five of the top seven lost on October 17, something that had never happened in the history of the major media poll, which dates to 1936. That puts the day in the record book. The way it happened will keep it in people’s memory.
The comparison to 2007 is natural, but there’s an important distinction. That season built its reputation across weeks, as one contender after another fell. October 17 compressed the experience into three windows and a late kickoff. Texas lost after leading Florida 17–3. Georgia led Auburn 14–0 before Auburn scored 24 unanswered and won 27–24. Alabama was controlled from start to finish in a 26–10 loss at Tennessee. Notre Dame went to Provo favored by 10½ and lost to Brigham Young. Miami and Florida State went to overtime.
The sharpest example is Alabama, because the collapse wasn’t confined to October 17. The Crimson Tide opened 5–0 and scored at least 45 points in every win. They scored 248 points across those five games, then managed 27 total in consecutive losses to Georgia and Tennessee. Alabama lost 20–17 to Georgia on October 10 and 26–10 in Knoxville one week later.
That’s a two-game offensive reversal.
Georgia’s run makes it stranger. The Bulldogs entered October 17 at 6–0, one week removed from winning in Tuscaloosa. They had been No. 5 in the preseason media poll, eight places ahead of Alabama at No. 13, and reinforced that hierarchy by beating the Crimson Tide on their field. Then Georgia returned home, built a two-touchdown lead over Auburn and lost its first game.
So the SEC’s cleanest team became a one-loss team, and the league’s preseason No. 13 became a two-loss team on a two-game skid. Those developments were connected by seven days and a 27–24 Auburn win that almost disappeared from national attention when Georgia went ahead 14–0.
I don’t reduce October 17 to playoff expansion or use the larger bracket to explain away the losses. Expansion may soften the postseason cost for some teams, but it didn’t make Georgia surrender 24 unanswered points. It didn’t hold Alabama to 10 points after the Crimson Tide had averaged nearly 50 through five games.
Alabama gets the first clean answer on Saturday, October 24, when Texas A&M visits at 3:30 p.m. Eastern. A win ends the skid at two. A loss makes Alabama 5–3 after a 5–0 start and turns one chaotic Saturday into a much larger season problem.
Five of the top seven lost.
— JP