How Oklahoma State, Michigan, Notre Dame and Wake Forest could benefit from Week 11 volatility

Just two weeks remain in the 2021 regular season, and all we’re certain of is that Georgia looks awfully good. Beyond that, nearly everything seems debatable, and Week 11 proved particularly adept at illustrating just how foolish many of our assumptions have been.

Oh, sure, there were the truly hilarious twists of fate. Six weeks ago, Florida came within a two-point try of toppling Alabama, and on Saturday, the Gators coughed up 52 points to an FCS team. A month ago, Texas had a massive lead over Oklahoma at the half, and on Saturday it served up the most embarrassing result of the season, a 57-56 loss at home to lowly Kansas.

Indeed, the point-and-laugh response to seeing two of college football’s blue bloods puke on their own shoes will be the main takeaway from Saturday’s festivities.

But we already knew Florida and Texas weren’t sniffing the College Football Playoff. The more important news from Week 11 is the teams still in the hunt who proved they deserve a much longer look than we’d previously afforded them.

Oklahoma’s playoff hopes took a big hit with a 27-14 loss to Baylor, but its rival Oklahoma State that should be the top story in the Big 12. Mike Gundy had survived this season with a dominant defense, but Saturday was the complete package. The defense held a TCU team that had exploded for 562 yards in a win over Baylor last week to just 242 on Saturday. The offense, meanwhile, rushed for 295 yards on the night Oklahoma State retired Barry Sanders’ jersey. It was all business on defense, and a coming-out party on offense — or, in Gundy parlance, a mullet of a game.

Ohio State finally delivered a truly dominant performance against a good team with a 59-31 win over giant-killer Purdue, but that shouldn’t overshadow another gritty win from Michigan in the Big Ten. The Wolverines’ 21-17 win over Penn State was reminiscent of nearly everything they’ve done this year — ugly, physical, strangely thrilling — anchored, once again, by the two most…