College football saw a new level of balance on Saturday, with four games involving ranked teams going into overtime and another four decided by three points or fewer.
This tied the record for the most overtime games in one day since Sportradar began tracking this data in 2000. The only other day with four overtime games was September 27, 2003. It was also only the tenth time Sportradar recorded at least three overtime games on the same day.
The overtime games included No. 4 Penn State’s 33-30 win over Southern California, No. 8 Tennessee’s 23-17 victory against Florida, No. 13 LSU’s 29-26 win over No. 9 Ole Miss, and No. 23 Illinois’ narrow 50-49 win against Purdue.
In other close matches, No. 3 Oregon beat No. 2 Ohio State 32-31, No. 7 Alabama won against South Carolina 27-25, No. 18 Kansas State defeated Colorado 31-28, and No. 22 Pitt topped California 17-15.
Coaches believe that the transfer portal and teams changing conferences have made the competition more even. Oklahoma coach Brent Venables, whose team moved from the Big 12 to the Southeastern Conference this season, experienced a close game recently when the Sooners came back to win 27-21 over Auburn.
“I think you would be naive if you don’t believe that the portal hasn’t had a dramatic effect on some of the parity that you’re seeing,” Venables said.
“The margins are closer than they’ve ever been in the game of college football, and you’re seeing that week in, week out, so you got to always be prepared, ready to play.”
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer mentioned that he expects tough games to happen often. His team went from defeating then-No. 1 Georgia to losing to Vanderbilt, then barely winning against South Carolina within three weeks.
“We talked a lot about different things that South Carolina would do that would be tougher matchups for us,” DeBoer said.
“Areas and the strengths of their team that were maybe different than what Vanderbilt offered a week ago. That’s the way it’s going to be every single week.”
Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi mentioned that not knowing the opponents well is a factor. California is a new team in the Atlantic Coast Conference, so the game felt like a process of figuring things out.
“That’s the problem when you play these teams just once — you don’t know how they’re going to play, what they’re going to do,” he said.
“That’s why I always liked that Coastal Division, because you get used to playing people and find out. But obviously, the next time we get to play them, we’ll know a little bit more about how they’re going to try to defend you, and that’s part of the chess match out there.”
USC has moved from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten and faces tough competition regularly. All three of the Trojans’ conference losses were by seven points or fewer, making Saturday’s loss even harder to accept.
“Came down to the last play, and it hurts to not be able to get this done,” USC coach Lincoln Riley said. “We’ve had a few games like this, where we’ve had chances to win right there at the end — and to not make the plays, to not have some of the breaks bounce your way, it’s a gut punch. There’s no doubt about it. We’re very disappointed with not finishing it off.”
