Ole Miss' triumph, Miami's pain headline Week 11 college football winners and losers

Well, that was interesting.

Though the biggest game of the day in Week 11 ultimately didn't live up to the hype, with Alabama demolishing LSU in its own stadium with College GameDay in town, we saw a pair of results that will certainly shake up the College Football Playoff race in the weeks to come.

Miami suffered its first loss of the year on the road against Georgia Tech, reopening the door for several other ACC teams, while Georgia took its first loss to an opponent not named Alabama since 2020 as it fell on the road against Ole Miss in a game that wasn't particularly close.

We're about to enter Week 12, and the competition to earn a spot in the inaugural 12-team CFP field is on. There's a lot that's still left to be determined, but in the meantime, here are the winners and losers from Week 11.

Winner: Lane Kiffin gets his signature win at Ole Miss

Lane Kiffin has hit pretty much every benchmark that Ole Miss could have possibly hoped for when hiring him ahead of the 2020 season. He's won 10 games twice in his first four seasons, including the first 11-win season in program history last fall.

But the only thing that had been missing for Kiffin before Saturday was a signature win to hang his hat on. Now, he's got one as his team knocked off the Georgia Bulldogs to remain in the College Football Playoff hunt at 8-2.

It was a rough start for Ole Miss, which saw a Jaxson Dart interception on the opening drive and ultimately lost him due to injury briefly, though he would return. But it ultimately could have been even worse for Georgia than it was as Ole Miss had to settle for several field goals in the first half before outscoring them 12-3 in the second as fans stormed the field at Vaught Hemingway Stadium.

Kiffin invested heavily in the defense in the transfer portal, and it paid dividends on Saturday. Georgia averaged less than two yards a carry on the ground against the ferocious Ole Miss front, and Carson Beck threw for just 186 yards on 31 attempts while getting sacked five times.

Many wrote this team off after losses to Kentucky and LSU earlier this season, but Ole Miss changed everything with Saturday's win. Now, Kiffin's two-loss team just needs to take care of business against Florida after the bye and rival Mississippi State to close out the season for it to be feeling good about its CFP odds.

Loser: Miami runs out of luck

The Hurricanes played with fire throughout their 9-0 start, and on Saturday in Atlanta against a sneakily competitive Georgia Tech team, they finally got burned.

We've seen Miami struggle in games against Cal and Virginia Tech (and, to a lesser extent, Duke) but quarterback Cam Ward always came through with enough unbelievable plays to eke out wins. This time, that magic ran out.

Ward still had a fantastic game, throwing for 348 yards and three touchdowns, but Miami struggled to finish drives in this game. It looked like Ward and the 'Canes would still pull it off as they got the ball back with less than two minutes to play, but on second and 10 deep in his own territory, Ward fumbled on a sack and gave the Yellow Jackets the ball — and subsequently, the win.

Miami probably didn't need to win the ACC championship to make it to the CFP if it entered that game undefeated, but now, a two-loss finish may not be enough to secure an at-large bid. The Hurricanes would get the tiebreaker over a Clemson team with just one ACC loss as well, but a theoretical matchup with SMU in Charlotte could prove to be a must-win after this loss, given the schedule Miami has faced (which barely ranks inside the top 40 nationally in terms of difficulty, per ESPN's Football Power Index).

Winner: Coming full circle on Colorado

I don't know if you've noticed, but I've done my best to deliberately avoid hyperbole when it comes to Colorado in this column, especially after the media roller coaster during the start of Deion Sanders' first season in Boulder in 2023. But we're now in November of his second season, and the Buffs are a legitimate College Football Playoff contender.

So, let's talk about them.

It's been a fairly quiet 7-2 start for Colorado, which has one loss in the Big 12 and kept its conference title hopes alive with a 14-point road win against Texas Tech on Saturday. That's especially apparent when you compare it to the attention last year's 4-8 team received.

But this year's iteration at Colorado seems to be improved in practically every way. With better offensive line play due to portal acquisitions, the offense has been much more consistent. Defensively, the Buffaloes have issues against the run but have been more than solid against the pass, in large part thanks to a front seven that leads the Big 12 in sacks.

Colorado has mostly received attention for its off-the-field endeavors during prime time, but with a clear path to the conference championship game — if it wins out — Sanders' team has a very real shot of making some noise in the postseason.

Loser: Georgia has a problem on offense, and it starts with Carson Beck

Georgia entered the year widely projected as a national championship favorite in large part due to the hype surrounding quarterback Carson Beck, a projected top-10 draft pick who was expected to elevate the offense in his second year as a full-time starter.

But now, as the Bulldogs fall to 7-2, it's clear that just has not been the case. And while there are several factors to blame — losing Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey to the NFL certainly didn't help things — that doesn't absolve Beck of the blame.

The veteran quarterback has been abysmal in recent weeks. He's tossed 12 interceptions in the last six games, a stretch that includes three outings with a trio of interceptions. Georgia's defense remains strong as ever, but for the first time since Smart got things rolling in Athens, the offense is proving to be not just the weak link but a legitimate hindrance to success.

It's why the Bulldogs are one loss away from being essentially guaranteed to miss the CFP for the second-straight year, and after another game in which Beck had more interceptions (1) than touchdowns (0), it's fair to wonder if Smart will ponder a change if it's more of the same in a must-win home game against Tennessee on Saturday.

Quick Hitters - Winners

• Cal: 0-4 starts in conference play don't come more brutal than they did for the Golden Bears, which are just nine combined points from being undefeated on the season. But Cal finally got on the board in ACC play with a 10-point win on the road over Wake Forest.

• UCLA: Another California school that had a rough start in its new conference, UCLA looked like one of the worst teams in the Power Four but has now reeled off three Big Ten wins in a row. Saturday's against a previously 6-3 Iowa team was by far the most impressive of the three.

• Boston College: In a key matchup between teams occupying the ACC middle class, the Eagles moved to 5-4 with a home win against a Syracuse team that entered at 6-2 on the year.

• Georgia Tech: Brent Key secured bowl eligibility in his second full season at Georgia Tech with what was the biggest win of his tenure and second in a row over the Hurricanes after last year's fumbling debacle.

• West Virginia: Neal Brown's seat seems to be warming up again in Morgantown, and Saturday's road win against Cincinnati was one he absolutely had to have as the Mountaineers move to 5-4.

• Kansas: The Jayhawks have turned in three impressive showings in a row after a rough start to the season. They dominated Houston, gave Kansas State all it could handle and upset ranked Iowa State on Saturday. It will take winning out to make a bowl game, and Kansas could shake things up in the Big 12 quite a bit as its next two games come against BYU and Colorado.

• Indiana: Indiana continues to look the part of a CFP team, beating Michigan on Saturday to move to 10-0 for the first time in program history. Next up after the bye is the game everyone has been waiting for against Ohio State.

• South Carolina: Vanderbilt has been the talk of the SEC, but South Carolina put the Commodores in their place with a 28-7 road win. The Gamecocks continue to impress and have now earned another big win.

• Alabama: The Tide still have some issues, but a road win against LSU was huge for Kalen DeBoer as he looks to keep Alabama in the playoff mix.

• Arizona State: The Sun Devils have been one of the biggest surprises in the entire Power Four, and they're now 7-2 after holding on to beat UCF in what was another impressive game for quarterback Sam Leavitt.

• Penn State: The Nittany Lions responded well to last week's loss, dominating a middling Washington team at home in the whiteout game.

Quick Hitters - Losers

• Iowa: The Hawkeyes seemed to be taking some strides, especially on offense, but nothing looked particularly good in a road loss to UCLA on Saturday.

• Iowa State: It was a rough weekend in the Hawkeye State. The Cyclones' CFP hopes have all but come crashing down after back-to-back losses, this time to a Kansas team that entered the game at 2-6.

• Virginia Tech: The Hokies seemed to be improving down the stretch and had a big opportunity at home against Clemson coming off a loss, but Virginia Tech couldn't get enough going offensively as it fell 24-14 in Blacksburg.

• LSU: The Tigers' hopes of earning a CFP bid essentially died in Baton Rouge on Saturday night. LSU once again had no answer for a mobile quarterback in Jalen Milroe, and it suffered its third loss of the season after another rough outing for quarterback Garrett Nussmeier.

• Pittsburgh: The Panthers are having a surprisingly successful season, but their outside ACC hopes likely ended with a home loss to Virginia as Pat Naruzzi's team has now dropped back-to-back games.

• Oklahoma: Brent Venables' first SEC campaign has largely been a disaster, but he had a chance to earn a big road win against a ranked Missouri team. However, the Sooners squandered a late lead and lost the game on a fumble returned for a touchdown in the final seconds.

• Utah: Utah had a chance to salvage its own rough season by ruining its biggest rival BYU's, but the Cougars managed to kick a game-winning field goal down two after a defensive holding penalty on Utah. That was controversial enough for athletic director Mark Harlan to take the press conference podium after the game to excoriate Big 12 officials and call the game "stolen."

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Ole Miss' triumph, Miami's pain headline Week 11 college football winners and losers