Stock Up/Stock Down: C.J. Stroud Silences Doubters, Luke Fickell Gets Signature Win, Wisconsin Drops to 1-3

By Griffin Strom on October 5, 2021 at 8:36 am
C.J. Stroud
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As far as the Buckeyes are concerned, stocks are up across the board this week.

Ohio State outperformed expectations on both sides of the ball against Rutgers, finishing a game in which it was only favored by a couple touchdowns with a 39-point margin of victory.

Several other Big Ten powers upped their stock as well, with teams like Iowa, Penn State and Michigan all remaining unbeaten through five games this weekend.

The same cannot be said for many other high-profile programs, though, and we're perusing both sides of the equation today as we keep you up to date on which college football stocks to buy and which to sell.

Stock Up

C.J. Stroud

There will be no more debate about who should be QB1 in Columbus.

After a week off that C.J. Stroud said earned him both time to heal and reflect, the redshirt freshman dazzled in New Jersey, throwing for 330 yards and five touchdowns, with just one more incompletion than he had scores on Saturday.

Finally armed with confidence and momentum, Stroud has the sixth-best total QBR (85.3) and passer rating (181.9) in the country, with the latter statistic being higher than any full season of Justin Fields, Dwayne Haskins, J.T. Barrett or Braxton Miller under center for Ohio State.

Stroud is at the helm of the No. 2 total offense in the country, and it feels like the unit is only just starting to hit its stride.

The Ohio State defense

The much-maligned and oft-criticized Ohio State defense has suddenly strung together back-to-back lights-out performances for the Buckeyes.

Holding Akron to seven points wasn’t something Ohio State could truly use as a calling card, but allowing just six points to an improved Rutgers team through three quarters certainly is. Without the 125 yards of offense the Scarlet Knights put up on the Buckeye backups in the fourth quarter, Ohio State could have held Rutgers under 300 yards for the game.

Denzel Burke, Tommy Eichenberg and Ryan Watts all intercepted passes, with Burke returning his for a touchdown to give the Buckeye secondary its third pick-six in the past three games. 

Reliable contributors have begun to assert themselves in starting roles for the Buckeyes, and the team has benefitted in the past two weeks without doubt.

RELATED Film Study: How Ohio State Transformed into a Two-Deep Defense in As Many Weeks

Luke Fickell

Ohio State's former defensive coordinator is no longer without a true signature win.

Cincinnati has been nothing short of stellar since the start of the 2018 season – Luke Fickell’s second at the helm – but even with a 35-6 record during that period entering Saturday, the Bearcats had not beaten a ranked non-conference opponent outside of Army.

Fickell and company topped Indiana by two touchdowns a couple weeks ago, but a 24-13 win over then-No. 9 Notre Dame was even better. Desmond Ridder and the Bearcats verified the legitimacy of their No. 7 ranking and moved up to No. 5 in Sunday’s AP Poll, marking the program’s highest peak since Brian Kelly coached the team in 2009.

Fickell’s stock continues to skyrocket as the former Buckeye has the highest-ranked team in Ohio for the fourth-straight week, and quite possibly a real College Football Playoff contender as well.

Iowa

Maryland entered the weekend with flashy offensive numbers to boast and an undefeated record to boot. All of that meant nothing on Friday.

The Hawkeyes forced seven Terrapin turnovers in the interdivisional matchup, including six interceptions and five from Taulia Tagovailoa alone. But we already knew the Iowa defense was among the best in the country.

What we didn’t know, necessarily, was that the Hawkeye offense could come alive to the tune of a 51-point performance. Spencer Petras had the best night of his career with 259 yards passing and five total touchdowns, and Kirk Ferentz and company appropriately jumped to No. 3 in the AP Poll for their efforts.

Iowa is the class of the Big Ten as far as rankings are concerned at present, and with an upcoming matchup with Penn State on the schedule, they’ll have a chance to prove it on the field as well.

Michigan

If the Wolverines aren’t for real this year, they’re making it pretty difficult to tell.

After dropping their past two matchups with Wisconsin in rather deflating fashion – not to mention losing five of the past seven meetings in the series – Michigan got a win over the Badgers for the first time in three years.

The victory may not age quite as impressively if Wisconsin continues its slide, but the Wolverines secured a three-touchdown win in Madison nonetheless, giving Jim Harbaugh a 5-0 start to the year.

Michigan is back in the AP top 10, and with games against Nebraska and Northwestern on the horizon, it seems likely the Wolverines will only continue to climb in the coming weeks should they stay on track.

Penn State

The Nittany Lions proved once again Saturday why this year is a whole lot different than 2020.

Indiana’s Michael Penix Jr. made one of the most memorable plays of last year to down Penn State and kickstart the Hoosiers’ rapid ascent. But on Saturday, Penix couldn’t muster a single point of offense as Indiana fell 24-0 to a Penn State team that ranks No. 4 in the country.

Auburn is the only one of the Nittany Lions’ first five opponents to crack 20 points, as Penn State now has the third-best scoring defense in the country, allowing just 12 points per game.

James Franklin’s run game has sputtered at times, but Sean Clifford continues to have a career year at quarterback, and Penn State could make noise as a CFP contender if it can notch wins against the likes of Iowa and Ohio State in the next few weeks.

Stock Down

Paul Chryst

For the first time in more than 30 years, Wisconsin has won just one of its first four games to start a season.

That’s right, it’s been since 1990 that the Badgers have been 1-3 to begin their schedule, and Paul Chryst is now 5-8 in his past 13 games dating back to the final two contests of the 2019 season.

Two seasons ago Wisconsin breezed past Michigan 35-14, and last year it gave the Wolverines a 49-11 beating. But one week after an all-out fourth-quarter collapse led to a 41-13 loss to Notre Dame, the Badgers were blown out 38-17 by the maize and blue.

Chryst told members of the media after the game that he should absorb the heat instead of his players, and he might just have a point.

Oregon

Perhaps Oregon isn’t quite as good as we thought.

The Ducks suffered their first defeat of the season Saturday, and the 31-24 overtime loss to unranked Stanford was enough to drop them from No. 3 in the country to No. 8, which is one slot lower than the Buckeyes, who Oregon beat just three weeks ago.

Even worse for Oregon, star running back C.J. Verdell suffered a “pretty significant” leg injury in the game, according to head coach Mario Cristobal. Given that the Ducks are just No. 82 in the country in passing offense, the loss of their leading rusher could be troublesome moving forward.

Oregon doesn’t have a single ranked opponent left on its schedule, and that could either work for or against the Ducks by the time the regular season comes to a close.

Florida

The Gators have lost multiple games for the 12th straight season.

Florida was a failed two-point conversion away from potentially sending things into overtime with Alabama just a couple weeks ago, but now Dan Mullen and company have dropped two of their past three games as then-No. 10 Florida was upset 20-13 by unranked Kentucky on Saturday.

The field was stormed and couches burned in the streets of Lexington on Saturday as the Gators’ CFP hopes went up in smoke.

Clemson

Yes, Clemson won on Saturday. Yes, D.J. Uiagalelei did finally break his sub-200 passing-yard streak. But no, the Tigers did not raise their stock with a 19-13 win over Boston College.

In fact, Clemson dropped out of the AP Poll for the first time since 2014, as it might have been a bad shotgun snap away from suffering its third defeat of the season on Saturday.

The Clemson offense has now scored less than 20 points in three of its five games this season, and two of the team’s three wins on the year have come by just six points to unranked opposition.

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