Crimson Tide RB Damien Harris suffers concussion in win over Citadel

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Alabama running back Damien Harris suffered what coach Nick Saban described as a "mild" concussion during a 50-17 win against The Citadel at home on Saturday.

Harris, a senior and the team's leading rusher, sustained a big hit during the third quarter. Trainers tended to him for several minutes, checking for a neck injury, but found none, according to Saban. Harris did not return to the game.

Harris led Alabama with 83 rushing yards on seven carries Saturday, including a 73-yard run. He has 678 rushing yards this season, with seven touchdowns.

Offensive lineman Alex Leatherwood twisted his ankle, according to Saban. Safety Deionte Thompson bruised his knee, but Saban said it did not appear to be a significant injury.

Alabama struggled early against The Citadel, going into halftime tied 10-10 before rebounding in the second half to win by 33.

Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who has been dealing with leg injuries for much of the season, passed for 340 yards and three touchdowns. He threw his 31st touchdown of the season, breaking Alabama's single-season record, which was previously held by AJ McCarron.

Years from now, your children will tell stories of the day Alabama was tied with The Citadel at halftime.

Deep within the Amazon, there are tribes that have never had human contact that, nevertheless, took shelter amid fears the world was ending because Alabama allowed 130 yards and two touchdowns to a running back from The Citadel.

Theoretical physicists spent much of Saturday on a conference call, with the only possible explanation for the events in Tuscaloosa being that we're all part of an artificial universe created by some superintelligent machine, and The Citadel's 10 first-half points represented an obvious glitch in the matrix.

Sure, the end result was a 50-17 Alabama win, another dominant performance on the scoreboard en route to another week atop the rankings. But for 30 glorious, strange, miraculous minutes, this was a real game, and The Citadel gave Alabama all it could handle.

How to explain it? Chalk it up to Sleepwalk Saturday.

Sure, the rest of the country called it Cupcake Saturday, as some of the best teams in the country took on a host of nobodies. But if you weren't all that interested in the matchups, neither, it appeared, were those heavy favorites.

Nick Saban's expression says it all during the first half on Saturday. Alabama looked more like itself in the second half. AP Photo/Butch Dill
Truth be told, the 10-10 halftime score must've been some sort of Nick Saban fever dream, the antithesis of rat poison. His halftime talk to his team might've made Richard Pryor blush, might've melted the faces of his players like the Nazis at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Whatever he said, it worked.

The same was true in Clemson, where the Tigers led Duke 14-6 and looked totally out of sync in the first half. Dabo Swinney is not quite as likely to require bleeping, but the Tigers woke up at halftime and cruised to an easy win too.

Michigan? Not quite so much. The Wolverines did find their groove, but they never quite pulled away from Indiana. It wasn't exactly the dominant performance Michigan could've used on a day when Notre Dame looked markedly better.

Michigan's Week 13 foe, Ohio State, was even worse. The Buckeyes needed a failed two-point try by Maryland to keep their playoff hopes alive, but after a blowout loss to Purdue and narrow escapes against Nebraska and Maryland -- all teams below .500 -- it's fair to wonder if the Buckeyes really belong in the conversation. The defense is a mess, and it's hard to envision how Ohio State would slow down the likes of Alabama or Clemson in a playoff matchup.

At Oklahoma, the same is true. The Sooners couldn't keep Kansas down, which is as ugly a sentence as you can write about a playoff contender. Only Rutgers has allowed more yards to the Jayhawks this season. If a team is mentioned in the same breath as Rutgers, the playoff committee should take notice.

Of course, the Sooners still managed to win, which is more than West Virginia can say. The Mountaineers led by 10 with less than 5 minutes to play but couldn't put away Oklahoma State. It was a stunning end for Dana Holgorsen's team, which will have a chance to kill the Big 12's playoff hopes against Oklahoma next week.

All of which brings us to the most interesting team of Week 12: UCF.

While the other top teams were sleepwalking, UCF completely frustrated No. 24 Cincinnati, winning its 23rd straight game and forcing the question to be asked yet again. Why not UCF?

The critics point to the defense because UCF gave up some points against Memphis and Temple. But this unit sure looks better than the defenses at Ohio State or Oklahoma.

The critics also will talk about those close calls, from an ugly first half against Memphis to the lackluster second half last week against Navy. But why does UCF get punished for the occasional sleepwalk when Saturday proved it can happen to anyone?

And then, of course, there's the schedule. No, UCF hasn't played a brutal schedule, but the Knights now have wins over Memphis (7-4), Temple (7-4) and Cincinnati (9-2). If they beat USF next week, that will be four wins over teams that finish 7-5 or better. That's as many as Notre Dame has and better than that of Michigan (3), Alabama (3), Oklahoma (1) or Ohio State (1).

So yeah, it's crazy that Alabama had a bad half. It's crazy that Ohio State nearly fell to Maryland. It's crazy that Oklahoma State pulled off an epic comeback.

Crazy things happen, and it sure would be fun to see if UCF could create a little more craziness in the playoff.

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Nebraska wins on late field goalNebraska gets its first lead of the game as Barret Pickering nails a 47-yard field goal.
Second thoughts on first-year coaches

A month ago, there was a GoFundMe to pay off Willie Taggart. Scott Frost was presiding over the longest losing streak in Nebraska history. Chip Kelly looked like he was still coaching the 49ers. It was a bad time to be a high-profile first-year coach.

By Saturday, however, those narratives have shifted quite a bit.

Taggart got win No. 5 at Florida State with a stunning come-from-behind effort against Boston College. Frost's Cornhuskers survived a frigid day against Michigan State's stout defense to come away with their fourth win in five games. And Kelly toppled rival USC for his third win of the season.

It's almost as if all those September hot takes might've been a bit premature.

Through Week 6, Taggart, Frost and Kelly were a combined 3-13 (with the three wins coming against Samford, Northern Illinois and Louisville, all by FSU). Since then, they're a combined 9-8, including three wins over bowl-eligible opponents.

Of course, no one is confusing 2018 with a good season at Florida State, Nebraska or UCLA, but each team has shown some signs of progress, which makes for a lot more room for optimism when it's time to turn the page to 2019.