In the video, Small's wife can be seen encouraging the senior kicker while she holds the hand of his mother, who appears to be praying. The anticipation only builds as you watch the family's eyes follow the kick to a hushed stadium.
As the kick goes through, Small's mother breaks down in tears, having never opened her eyes even as the crowd erupts when the kick sails through the uprights. After being overwhelmed with emotion herself, Small's wife proceeds to hop the wall and rush the field with the rest of the 12th Man.
After the game, Small said in his postgame press conference that the kick ranked as the "third best moment of my life"—right after marrying his wife over the summer. The kicker also joked that he knows exactly what to get Jimbo Fisher after hitting game-winning field goals on the coach's last two birthdays.
“I didn’t know what to get him, so we thought as a team that we should get a win for him," Small said.
Iowa also moved to the No. 2 spot thanks to their win over Penn State on Saturday. The Nittany Lions dropped to No. 7 after they lost quarterback Sean Clifford in the first half of the game and eventually lost 23–20.
Cincinnati, the country's top-ranked non-Power 5 team, moved to No. 3 to join the College Football Playoff picture. Oklahoma joined them as well when they jumped to No. 4 after their thrilling comeback win against Texas on Saturday.
Kentucky is off to one of the best starts in program history, sitting at 6–0 for the first time since 1950, and was rewarded with the No. 11 spot. The Wildcats will visit the top-ranked Bulldogs this week in an epic SEC clash.
AP Top 25
1. Georgia
2. Iowa
3. Cincinnati
4. Oklahoma
5. Alabama
6. Ohio State
7. Penn State
8. Michigan
9. Oregon
10. Michigan State
11. Kentucky
12. Oklahoma State
13. Ole Miss
14. Notre Dame
15. Coastal Carolina
16. Wake Forest
17. Arkansas
18. Arizona State
19. Brigham Young
20. Florida
21. Texas A&M
22. North Carolina State
23. SMU
24. San Diego State
25. Texas
Others receiving votes: Auburn 106, Clemson 63, Baylor 62, UTSA 22, Mississippi State 7, Kansas State 3, Air Force 2, Appalachian State 2, Pittsburgh 1
Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler was benched in the second quarter of the Red River Showdown on Saturday after Texas broke out to an early lead.
With eight minutes left in the first half and No. 21 Texas leading 35-20, five-star recruit Caleb Williams entered the game for Rattler after the sophomore fumbled for his second turnover of the afternoon for the No. 6 Sooners.
Three plays later, Texas scored its fifth touchdown of the half. The Longhorns' 38 first-half points are the most they have ever scored in a half against Oklahoma.
Rattler left the game having completed eight of 15 passes for 111 yards with an interception along with minus-9 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown. The preseason Heisman contender has dealt with boos and chants from Oklahoma fans for Williams to replace him throughout the season.
There was plenty of action to start the Red River Rivalry game between No. 6 Oklahoma and No. 21 Texas, but nothing generated as much buzz as a fox running wild on the field at the Cotton Bowl on Saturday.
Early in the first quarter, the fox was seen running along the sideline before it escaped behind the advertising boards behind the end zone.
The fox wasn't the only one that had a free pass into the Oklahoma end zone early on. By that time, less than two minutes into the game, Texas already had a 14–0 lead thanks to a 75-yard touchdown pass from Longhorns quarterback Casey Thompson to Xavier Worthy and a short rushing touchdown from Bijan Robinson following a blocked punt.
By the end of the first quarter, Texas had extended its lead to 28–7 with Thompson throwing three touchdowns.
While the fox stole the show to those at the game, the ABC broadcast failed to show its jaunt down the field, leading fans on social media into a comedic uproar.
At one point in the not-too-distant past, these 10 coaches were the most popular men on campus—if not the whole town, or even the state. They’re not going to get fired—well, maybe not—but the romance is gone. What will it take to bring it back?
First category: the homeboys who have gone from beloved to besieged.
Paul Chryst (11), Wisconsin. The good old days: Hometown kid who came back as head coach and won 52 of his first 66 games leading the Badgers. That included three Big Ten West championships. Chryst’s no-frills aura, both personally and the way his teams played, was ultra-Wisconsin.
Now: Chryst is 5–8 in his last 13 games, including a 1–3 start to this season.
The big problem: Chryst’s offense has disintegrated. The Badgers are 117th nationally in scoring and 123rd in pass efficiency, while lacking the customary sledgehammer running game to rely upon. There has been brutal quarterback play, and the fabled Wisconsin offensive line is a shell of its former self. And the mistakes keep multiplying: Chryst’s team is last nationally in turnover margin.
What will bring back the love: Honestly, playing a bunch of Big Ten West opponents may work wonders. The three Power 5 opponents Wisconsin has played thus far were all undefeated at the time, and two of them still are (Michigan and Penn State). Shaky as they have been, Chryst’s team could be favored in every remaining game except Iowa.
Stephen Lew/USA TODAY Sports
Ed Orgeron (12), LSU. The good old days: Native Cajun gets his dream job in 2016, wins national title in 2019 with one of the most impressive seasons in college football history. Along the way he beats Nick Saban in Tuscaloosa and drops a “Roll Tide what? F--- you!” in the postgame locker room. Instant legend status is decreed by the LSU faithful.
Now: Orgeron is 8–7 since winning that natty, with home losses to Mississippi State and Auburn in that span—and a 38-point beatdown from Saban in Tiger Stadium as well. LSU is actually an underdog at Kentucky Saturday.
The big problem: Orgeron was always a CEO type, which meant he was only as good as his coordinators when it comes to coaching up the perennial LSU talent. With Joe Brady and Dave Aranda, life was good. Without them, life is about .500. Offensively, here are LSU’s yards per play in the last four seasons: 5.50 in 2018; 7.89 in ’19; 5.52 in ’20; 5.63 in ’21. Guess which year featured Brady and Joe Burrow? Defensively, LSU has improved since the Bo Pelini debacle of last year but still ranks 11th out of 14 in the SEC in yards allowed per game.
What will bring back the love: Anything less than a 5–2 record the rest of the way, finishing 8–4, likely will not be well received. Even that won’t thrill anyone. Five of the remaining games look like toss-ups, with only Louisiana-Monroe in the sure-win category and Alabama looming as a potential beatdown loss. The Dash has been comparing Orgeron to Gene Chizik since the opening loss to Mississippi State last year, and Chizik was canned at Auburn two years after his one miracle season as a head coach.
Tom Allen (13), Indiana. The good old days: Indiana native and longtime former high school coach in the Hoosier State was elevated from assistant to head coach in late 2016. Allen leads Indiana to an 8–5 season in ’19, its best record in 25 years, then follows it up with a 6–2 mark last year and a No. 12 final ranking, its highest since 1967.
Now: With a load of veteran talent and high expectations, Indiana is 2–3, with a close win over Western Kentucky and losses by a combined 66 points to Iowa, Cincinnati and Penn State. Granted, all three of those opponents are unbeaten and ranked in the top five nationally, but the Hoosiers have backslid since last season.
The big problem: Much like Orgeron, Allen has benefited from excellent assistant coaches but is now feeling the effects of staff brain drain. Former offensive coordinator Kalen DeBoer is doing good work as the head coach at Fresno State; former defensive coordinator Kane Wommack is doing the same as head coach at South Alabama; and the move by former assistant head coach Mike Hart back to his alma mater, Michigan, has been felt as well. Also, quarterback Michael Penix is not the same player as he was last year before his season-ending knee injury.
What will bring back the love: Allen built up an enormous amount of goodwill before this season, so he’s fine long term. But this season is brutal—the next four opponents have a combined record of 18–2. If the Hoosiers can get through that gantlet 2–2 or 1–3, they still have a shot at a bowl game. Simply put, Indiana has the toughest schedule in the country and may not be able to finish .500 or better.
Pat Fitzgerald (14), Northwestern. The good old days: South Sider and former Northwestern hero linebacker becomes the winningest coach in school history, capturing the Big Ten West twice, most recently last year.
Now: Northwestern is 2–3, winless against Power 5 opponents, and coming off a 56–7 loss to Nebraska. The Wildcats surrendered 657 yards and 8.88 yards per play against the Cornhuskers, both of which appear to be Fitzgerald Era defensive lows.
The big problem: Two seasons after fielding the worst offense of his tenure, Fitz might now have his worst defense. Longtime coordinator Mike Hankwitz retired after the 2020 season, and replacement Jim O’Neil came in after spending the last 11 years in the NFL. He’s working with an inexperienced group that lost most of its mainstays from last year’s elite unit, and the defensive rebuild is not on schedule.
What will bring back the love: Fitz has justifiably earned Coach for Life status at Northwestern. But part of elevating the product is also elevating expectations, and with the opulent new facilities at his disposal, Northwestern has made a commitment to being annually competitive in the Big Ten. “This type of record will never happen again,” Fitzgerald said after the 3–9 bust of 2019. While this season likely will not spiral to that point, getting to .500 won’t be easy.
Mike Neu (15), Ball State. The good old days: Former Ball State quarterback led a breakthrough season in 2020, with the Cardinals going 7–1. They won the MAC championship game in an upset over Buffalo, then routed San Jose State in the Arizona Bowl in another upset. Neu was rewarded this summer with a contract extension through ’25, and a $15 million indoor practice facility was opened in the spring.
Now: Ball State (2–3) stopped the bleeding with an impressive 28–16 win over Army on Saturday. That ended a three-game losing streak, a disappointing turn of events for a program that brought back a ton of super seniors.
The big problem: The Ball State offense, which had scored 30 or more points in 11 of its last 12 games, has not reached that mark against FBS competition this season. Fifth-year senior quarterback Drew Plitt had his most productive game of the season against Army, but before that had been struggling to produce big plays and finish drives.
What will bring back the love: Success is fickle in the MAC, but Ball State still has everything in front of it with seven league games remaining. The Army game might have marked a turning point.
Second category: The offensive genius import who is taking his SEC lumps.
Jimbo Fisher (16), Texas A&M. The good old days: Last year Fisher led the Aggies to a 9–1 record, losing to only national champion Alabama and narrowly missing the College Football Playoff. They finished the season ranked fifth in America, leading to an overly exuberant and fiscally heedless pay raise for Fisher, now signed on to make more than $90 million over 10 years. As recently as two weeks ago, A&M was ranked seventh in the AP poll.
Now: A&M is unranked after consecutive losses to the two teams many expected to be fighting for the SEC West cellar, Arkansas and Mississippi State. Now the Aggies are last in the division, with Alabama up next. Playoff hopes have been flushed.
The big problem: A&M has scored a total of 42 points in three games against Power 5 competition. Starting quarterback Haynes King was injured Sept. 11, and backup Zach Calzada has not been a dynamic replacement for an offense that ranks near the bottom in the SEC in explosive plays. The defense isn’t helping much in terms of producing short fields; A&M has not recovered an opposing fumble yet this season and has not forced a turnover the past two games.
What will bring back the love: Showing up in a big away against the Crimson Tide on Saturday would certainly help. After that the schedule gets easier, providing an opportunity to pile up wins.
Dan Mullen (17), Florida. The good old days: After a two-point loss to Alabama Sept. 18, Mullen was being lauded for his ability to keep the Gators at the forefront of the SEC after major personnel losses from 2020. He was 31–10 at Florida, and some believed Mullen’s team could beat Georgia and retain the SEC East title.
Now: In 2018, Mullen became the first Florida coach since the mid-1980s to lose to Kentucky, and then he did it again Saturday. While the Wildcats are 5–0, that didn’t sit well with Gators fans accustomed to having their way with Big Blue. Chances of repeating as SEC East champion all but disappeared with that loss.
The big problem: Mullen has gotten conservative offensively with this team, running the ball 59% of the time and not trusting his quarterbacks in the passing game. When he ate all three of his timeouts on a timid offensive possession to end the first half against Kentucky clinging to a 10–7 lead, Florida fans who remember Steve Spurrier were apoplectic. Fifteen penalties and a blocked field goal that was returned for a touchdown were not well received, either.
What will bring back the love: Putting up 50 on Vanderbilt on Saturday will help. Then comes crucial games at LSU and in Jacksonville against Georgia, followed by what should be four more wins. Mullen will be fine once the Kentucky-related outrage wears off.
Eli Drinkwitz (18), Missouri. The good old days: He started his Missouri tenure 5–3 and earned a bowl bid in his first season. Combine that with offensive fireworks, a glib tongue and some notable successes on the recruiting trail, and Drink was the straw that stirred Columbia.
Now: Mizzou has lost five straight to Power 5 competition, bottoming out in a tire fire of a home blowout against Tennessee on Saturday. The Tigers surrendered 62 to the Volunteers, their most points allowed at home since 1932.
The big problem: Drinkwitz is presiding over a disastrous defense. Line coach Jethro Franklin was fired after the Tennessee debacle, and first-year coordinator Steve Wilks is on thin ice if this season continues in the direction it’s going. Missouri is dead-last nationally in run defense, and it’s hard to fix that without new linemen.
What will bring back the love: Drinkwitz has bought himself time with his recruiting, and Missouri is not an impatient place to begin with (though new athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois brings a more competitive edge to the job). To gain bowl eligibility, Mizzou needs to beat North Texas, Vanderbilt, South Carolina and … someone else, among Texas A&M, Georgia, Florida and Arkansas.
Third category: the Pac-12 guy whose team cannot score.
Justin Wilcox (19), California. The good old days: He was 7–6 and 8–5 in 2018 and ’19, Cal’s first consecutive winning seasons since ’08–09. The latter season was capped by a Redbox Bowl victory over Illinois, the Golden Bears’ first bowl win over a Power 5 opponent since ’08.
Now: Cal has lost seven of its last nine, going 1–3 last year and starting this one 1–4. After three close losses this season, the Golden Bears bottomed out in a 21–6 home defeat against not-very-good Washington State on Saturday.
The big problem: Cal’s offenses have never been very potent under Wilcox, and there is no sign of that changing here in Year 5. After scoring on their first drive against Wazzu, the Bears had 11 straight empty possessions. Chase Garbers has played a lot of football in four seasons at Cal without developing into a high-efficiency quarterback, but he’s not getting a lot of help from the running game, either.
What will bring back the love: Wilcox upset Oregon last year for Cal’s only win. Doing it again in Eugene on Oct. 15 would certainly help.
Karl Dorrell (20), Colorado. The good old days: Dorrell began his tenure in Boulder with four straight victories last season, including upsets of UCLA and Stanford.
Now: Colorado hasn’t beaten an FBS opponent since that 2020 start. The Buffaloes are 1–4 this season, scoring a total of 34 points in four straight defeats.
The big problem: The quarterback position has fallen apart under Dorrell. Last year he made do with converted safety Sam Noyer at that position, but he transferred to Oregon State (one of many QB transfers out of the program in recent years). This year’s starter, J.T. Shrout, injured a knee in August and was lost for the season. That left the position in the hands of freshman Brendon Lewis, and it hasn’t been pretty. Colorado is 126th nationally in pass efficiency and 127th in passing yards per game.
What will bring back the love: After an open date, Colorado hosts winless Arizona. If the Buffs don’t win that one, the only answer is ski season.
An Oregon loss to an unranked team after climbing to No. 3 in the polls is extremely on-brand for this 2021 college football season. But an Oregon loss in overtime on the road without its offensive coordinator and several injured players, in a game that turned on an untimed down touchdown to end regulation after a shaky penalty flag, is not a College Football Playoff eliminator. This stunning, bizarre and controversial defeat at Stanford was not Farmageddon.
Relax, Ducks. You’re still in this thing.
Once you get past the ruthless domination of Georgia and Alabama, everyone is fallible. It’s just a matter of how ugly a team’s warts are. And while Stanford is no juggernaut, this 31–24 OT defeat comes with a pile of extenuating circumstances that must be kept in mind, if pollsters—and ultimately the CFP selection committee—are going to be fair.
Stan Szeto/USA TODAY Sports
Oregon still has arguably the best win of the season, at Ohio State. That should keep the one-loss Ducks ahead of the one-loss Buckeyes, for sure, and probably ahead of every other one-loss team. The number of undefeated teams that belong ahead of Phil Knight University coming out of this weekend is five: the Bulldogs, the Crimson Tide, Iowa, Cincinnati and Penn State. You can also make an argument for Michigan, BYU, Michigan State and Kentucky, but I’m not sure it’s a convincing one.
So while some harm was done to the Ducks’ résumé here in a wild affair at Stanford Stadium, it is not irrevocable harm. There will be one-loss teams in the playoff come December. Oregon could be one of them if it wins out.
Pac-12 cannibalism, an annual rite of autumn, is not a disqualifier. That September victory in the 100,000-seat cathedral of a Big Ten blueblood outweighs the teeming mediocrity of Oregon’s conference—for now.
If you want to peek ahead and assume that the top teams keep winning—a really risky assumption this season—the playoff race could unfold this way: Alabama and Georgia both make the CFP after arriving at the Southeastern Conference championship game undefeated; the Big Ten champion (Iowa or Penn State) locks up another bid; and the fourth spot comes down to a taffy pull between undefeated Cincinnati, one-loss Oregon and Big 12 champion Oklahoma. Throw BYU into the stew if you’d like as well.
Injury-riddled as they are coming out of Palo Alto, I believe the Ducks are O.K. with still being in the mix to potentially win a résumé contest for a fourth playoff spot.
“None of us are happy, content or proud of our final result of our performance,” coach Mario Cristobal said. “And we're a driven bunch that doesn't B.S. ourselves.”
This isn’t B.S., it’s truth: this was a struggle from before kickoff for depleted Oregon. Defensive back Bennett Williams, with three interceptions and 20 tackles on the season, missed the game after being injured in practice Friday; center Alex Forsyth was out with back spasms; and most importantly offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead was a game-day scratch due to a non-COVID-19 illness that arose Saturday morning.
From there, factor in a very good start for Stanford bouncing back from a loss to UCLA. The Cardinal took a 17–7 halftime lead, slowing down the Ducks in the passing game.
Then add an injury to leading rusher CJ Verdell late in the third quarter. Cristobal afterward termed it “a pretty significant injury” but isn’t sure of Verdell’s long-term status.
Despite all that, and despite a poor performance by quarterback Anthony Brown (“Excuse my language, but I played like s---,” he said), Oregon was in position to win. The Ducks led 24–17 when this game went haywire in the final minutes.
Cristobal made a bad decision to throw on second-and-18 with 2:14 left, stopping the clock and allowing Stanford coach David Shaw to save a timeout for the Cardinal’s final offensive possession. Then, with Stanford in disarray and facing a second-and-19 at its own four-yard line, Tanner McKee went to work on a desperation drive that had to impress 1970 Heisman Trophy winner Jim Plunkett, who was in attendance.
McKee fired a slant pass to John Humphreys for 27 yards. Then McKee was sandwiched by two Ducks on the next play, leaving him prone on the grass and leading to a targeting call and ejection for Oregon star pass rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux. McKee left the game for just one play, then returned to fire more strikes into the middle of the field—13 yards to Benjamin Yurosek, 13 more to Bradley Archer—and suddenly the Cardinal were on the Oregon 31 in the final minute.
Then, another Ducks defensive penalty for a hit on McKee, this time roughing the passer, followed by one more slant to Yurosek to the Oregon 3-yard line. From there, Stanford transitioned from slants to fades, trying to use its tall receivers to win jump balls in the end zone. This is a David Shaw tradition.
“Over the last 15 years since we came here with coach [Jim] Harbaugh and I was the offensive coordinator … we’ve had a lot of guys go up and get the ball,” Shaw said. “Across the board, we've got two 6' 5" tight ends, a 6' 5" receiver, 6' 4" receiver and a 6' 3½" receiver who's 235 pounds. We're going to test people outside. If we don't make one, guess what, we're going to come back and do it again.”
On what appeared to be the final play of regulation, they came back to the fade. And this time, the 6’ 5” Humphreys drew a flag on the 5’ 11” Mykael Wright for holding. It was not the most egregious of penalties; it was the third flag of the drive on the Ducks; and it extended the game to one untimed down to decide whether it was over or would continue to overtime.
“We didn’t play with enough discipline,” Cristobal said. “We didn’t coach with enough discipline.”
Gifted with that final chance, McKee came to the line of scrimmage planning one final fade. He saw the coverage he wanted on the left side of the field and glanced in the direction of receiver Elijah Higgins, tipping him off that the pass was coming his way. Then McKee lobbed it into the Northern California sky and everyone in the stadium held their breath.
“You just have to trust your guy to go get it,” McKee said.
When Higgins came down with it, Stanford suddenly and improbably had life. From a second-and-19 at its own four with less than two minutes to play, it had tied the game. Oregon had to be in shock.
In overtime, McKee fired a strike to Humphreys for a touchdown, and Oregon was stopped on its set of downs. Down went the Ducks, onto the field went the Stanford students. Up in the air went the Pac-12 race, as another wrinkle was added to the national picture.
“Right now our team has to heal up and our team has to get better,” Cristobal said. “Our team has to make sure that times like this, when the noise surrounds your program, you got to make sure that you stick together and have each other’s back and go attack the processes that are going to put you back on track to be 1–0, to continue playing in a conference that has a lot of good football teams, a lot of good football players.”
That sentence sounds like a little bit of P.R. work on behalf of the Pac-12 for Oregon’s benefit. This is what coaches have to do once they lose a game, and certainly what they have to do when they play in a league that hasn’t measured up nationally in recent years.
It is customary for the nation to write off the Conference of Champions as soon as it runs out of undefeated teams, and we are at that point now. But hold the burial shovels. Oregon retains its hole card from the Horseshoe, and a loss that turned on an iffy flag on the final play of regulation, on a day when the Ducks’ play-caller called in sick, is not enough to disqualify them from the playoff race.
For the first time since 1986, Kentucky has knocked off No. 10 Florida in Lexington, pulling off a 20–13 upset on Saturday. The Wildcats's defense stood tall in the second half, holding the Gators to just three points and stopping Florida on a fourth-and-goal play from inside the 10-yard line with just 22 seconds remaining to secure the win.
Kentucky's offense did just enough, as Florida outgained the Wildcats, 382–224. Kentucky took the lead in the third quarter on a blocked field goal that was returned 78 yards by Trevin Wallace for the touchdown.
Kentucky running back Chris Rodriguez Jr. rushed for 99 yards on 19 carries with one touchdown, while Wan'Dale Robinson caught four of the Wildcats's seven completed passes for 65 yards and a score. Florida quarterback Emory Jones went 23-for-31 for 203 yards, one touchdown and one interception, while rushing for 63 yards.
Kentucky last beat Florida in 2018 in Gainesville, which snapped a 31-game losing streak in the series. In 1986, the last home win for Kentucky over Florida, the Gators finished 6–5, while Kentucky ended up 5-5-1.
Such a historic win was celebrated by fans rushing onto the field. The Kentucky social media team also had a little fun with some Twitter trolling at Florida's expense:
It was just three weeks ago that Oregon was being celebrated for its impressive road win at Ohio State and heralded as the savior to end the Pac-12's dubious College Football Playoff drought. Now, those national title dreams have hit an enormous, tree-sized speed bump.
Stanford upset No. 3 Oregon, 31–24, in overtime on Saturday to hand the Ducks their first loss of the season. The result leaves the Pac-12 without an undefeated team as the calendar has barely turned to October, making it the only Power 5 league with no unbeaten teams left.
Stanford held a 17–7 halftime lead before the Ducks answered with a 10–0 third quarter to even the score. The Ducks went ahead, 24–17, early in the fourth quarter and seemingly had the game won as they had the ball inside the Stanford 40-yard line with under three minutes to play. But penalties stalled the drive, and the Ducks were forced to punt it away with two minutes left.
Oregon penalties aided Stanford's ensuing drive, and the Cardinal faced a fourth-and-goal from the Oregon 4-yard line with just one second left on the clock. The ensuing play resulted in an incomplete pass, but a holding penalty against the Ducks gave Stanford one last chance to tie the game.
Stanford scored a touchdown on the opening possession of overtime, then stopped Oregon on fourth down on the following series to secure the win.
The last time the Pac-12 had a team get selected to the CFP was in the 2016 season, when Washington was the No. 4 seed and lost to No. 1 Alabama in the semifinals, 24–7. Oregon made it to the first-ever CFP in 2014, advancing to the national championship game before losing to Ohio State.
Cincinnati might have further solidified its playoff résumé on Saturday. The Bearcats held off a late push by Notre Dame, winning 23–14 to snap the Fighting Irish's 26-game home win streak.
The pivotal victory marked Cincinnati's third top-10 win ever in program history, its first since 2006 against Rutgers. It was also the first time the Bearcats had won a top-10 road game (they were previously 0–23).
Cincinnati ran out to an 17–0 first half lead while the Irish offense looked disjointed. It wasn't until the final 90 seconds of the third quarter that Kyren Williams's touchdown carry to spark Notre Dame's offense to life. Drew Pyne threw to Braden Lenzy for a 32-yard touchdown minutes later, bringing the game within four points halfway through the fourth.
However, Cincinnati answered with a touchdown of its own on the next drive, pushing ahead 24–13, and held on until the end.
Although it may be early given that it's just Week 5, Saturday's performance arguably further solidified Cincinnati's playoff résumé and proved its value a Group of Five contender.
The rest of Cincinnati's schedule could be smooth sailing, with the two biggest games remaining being home dates with UCF in two weeks and SMU in late November.
Georgia was without starting quarterback JT Daniels against No. 8 Arkansas on Saturday. However, the No. 2 Bulldogs did not need much from their passing attack as they ran for 273 of their 345 total yards in a 37-0 shutout over the Razorbacks.
With the win, Georgia (5–0) earned consecutive shutouts for the first time since 2006 and back-to-back shutouts in SEC play for the first time since its national championship-winning season in 1980. The Bulldogs also improved to 12–6 against top 10 opponents under head coach Kirby Smart, including 4–0 at home.
Bulldogs quarterback Stetson Bennett, who started in place of the injured Daniels, threw just 11 times for 72 yards in the win. Georgia's loaded backfield of James Cook, Zamir White, Kenny McIntosh and Kendall Milton accounted for 260 yards and three scores.
Cook led the stable of running backs with 87 yards followed by White, who finished with two touchdowns on 68 yards.
Entering Saturday's game, the Razorbacks had not allowed any points in the first quarter, outscoring their opponents 34–0. Georgia led 21-0 after the first quarter and never looked back holding onto the ball for nearly 37 minutes of game time.
Georgia leads the country in scoring defense, allowing just 4.6 points per game.
The Bulldogs have yet to see Daniels shine against top competition this season. But if Saturday is any indicator, they may not need him to.
Kiffin apologized for his comments on Monday, though it doesn't appear as though his pregame bombast has lost him any love in either Oxford or Tuscaloosa. Kiffin posted a picture Thursday featuring various brands of popcorn, thanking the Alabama and Ole Miss fans for their generosity despite the blowout loss.
The Ole Miss program continued to lean into the joke on Thursday. The first 5,000 fans at Vaught Hemingway Stadium on Saturday will receive free popcorn, a nice pregame snack before Ole Miss hosts No. 13 Arkansas. Perhaps Kiffin can back up his pregame proclamation with Nick Saban out of town.
Kiffin enters Saturday 8–6 at Ole Miss as he continues his second season with the program. He is 70–40 in 10 seasons as a college head coach, including stints at Tennessee, USC and Florida Atlantic.
Clemson need a break. The Tigers were the first, but certainly not the last, team to get suffocated by Georgia’s defense. We didn’t know it then, but the offensive performance in that game was a feature, not a bug in the system. It’s the clunkers against every other FBS team that has the Tigers in the college football penthouse version of a tailspin.
Clemson is fourth in the 247Sports team talent composite, with the best of everything money can buy—including facilities and coaching staff—as well as one of the best defenses in the country. Despite that, the Tigers sit with two defeats after losing in overtime to NC State in Week 4. In addition, they had to pull off a goal line stop against Georgia Tech and beat Boston College by only one possession.
Adam Hagy/USA TODAY Sports
Clemson’s offense isn’t just struggling this season by its own lofty standards. Whether you dice the stats up by average or counting or conventional or advanced, they are simply horrible through five games. It’s hard to find anything the Tigers excel at on that side of the ball.
+ denotes DJ Uiagalelei's ranking of FBS passers with minimum of 50 attempts * denotes non-garbage time possessions in FBS vs. FBS games
Stats sources: CFBStats.com, bcftoys.com, cfb-graphs.com, Sports Info Solutions data hub
Saturday’s Boston College win was a step in the right direction in that they gained 6.4 yards per play and ripped off explosive plays in both the running and passing game. But only scoring 19 points—including the decision to kick a field goal on the two-yard line instead of going for it on 4th-and-goal—hints at a lack of confidence in the offense to get the job done.
It is a unit searching for an identity to hang its hat on. It’s personified by its quarterback, DJ Uiagalelei, in an empty stadium working deep into the night after the BC win.
As most things in football do, things start up front for Clemson. It’s no secret the program does not develop offensive line talent at a rate commensurate with its peers in the sport’s upper echelon. Since Dabo Swinney took over at Clemson in 2009, the school has had only three offensive linemen drafted into the NFL. Alabama has had 14, Ohio State 11 and Oklahoma 10.
Clemson is entitled to miss at quarterback (and even calling Uiagalelei a miss at this point is unfair to a player who has started only seven games in his college career). But generational talents are, well, generational. And Clemson got two back-to-back in Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence.
Similar to how Ohio State’s defense now faces the sting of not having a Bosa brother or Chase Young on its defensive line, there’s a dropoff from the astronomic heights typically enjoyed at the premier position permeating to the rest of that side of the ball. Combine offensive line play that isn’t great with a QB who has not played to his potential and sprinkle in the loss of a touchdown waiting to happen in Travis Etienne, who went to the NFL, and you’ve got an offense that is struggling to find its footing.
There are high hopes for 2022 commit Cade Klubnik, just like there are for any five-star QB from Texas with a rocket arm. But no matter who plays quarterback for Clemson next year it bears wondering what system he will play it in. The big question for the Tigers is whether what they’re doing on offense has simply grown stale.
Adam Hagy/USA TODAY Sports
Quarterbacks coach Brandon Streeter is in his second stint with the program and has been around since the 2015 season. Robbie Caldwell has been offensive line coach since ’11, as has Tony Ellliott (originally as just a running backs coach before adding a co-offensive coordinator title in ’15 and taking the sole reins of the offense in ’20 after Jeff Scott left for USF).
Oklahoma and Ohio State share similar levels of continuity with their offensive staff, but Alabama notably does not. The Tide have had four offensive coordinators since 2014, and while they have all run the same system, they’ve each been able to put their own spin on things—which is only natural when you have so many different people calling the plays. The Bama comparisons for Clemson come naturally, given that the two teams have combined for five of the seven playoff-era championships and that there has been only one CFP title game that didn’t feature at least one of them.
This will be the test of Clemson’s family model and Swinney’s belief in continuity. Saban adapted and more or less switched what Bama did on offense in a way that mirrored Swinney’s hero, Bear Bryant. Clemson may not need something that drastic to solve its problems on offense, but something’s broken. And despite an elite defense, it is very much within the realm of possibility for the Tigers to lose again this season. Clemson will not get to the heights it’s accustomed to in 2021, but where it goes from here is what’s most intriguing.
Iowa and Cincinnati broke into the top five of the latest AP Top 25 poll while Clemson dropped out of the poll for the first time since 2014.
Following a dominant 51–14 win over Maryland, Iowa is now third in the nation where Oregon previously sat before its overtime loss to unranked Stanford. Looming next weekend is a highly-anticipated Big Ten showdown between the Hawkeyes and No. 4 Penn State in what will be the first game between top-five teams at Kinnick Stadium since 1985 when No. 1 Iowa beat No. 2 Michigan.
Cincinnati's win over then-No. 9 Notre Dame on Saturday propelled the Bearcats to their highest ranking since 2009, when coach Brian Kelly led the team to a fourth-place regular-season finish.
Last week, Clemson saw its streak of 97 straight weeks in the top 10 come to an end after its second straight loss. Now, the Tigers find themselves out of the Top 25 entirely, ending their streak of 107 consecutive weeks in the rankings, following an unconvincing 19–13 win against Boston College
Alabama, who received 53 of 62 first-place votes, and Georgia remain in the top two spots after their respective wins over now-No. 17 Ole Miss and No. 13 Arkansas. Overall, nine ranked teams, including four top-10 teams, lost this weekend.
Kentucky enters the rankings for the first time this season after its surprising 20-13 win over then-No. 10 Florida. Texas moved back into the rankings at No. 21 ahead of its Red River Rivalry with No. 6 Oklahoma this weekend.
AP Top 25
1. Alabama (53)
2. Georgia (9)
3. Iowa
4. Penn State
5. Cincinnati
6. Oklahoma
7. Ohio State
8. Oregon
9. Michigan
10. BYU
11. Michigan State
12. Oklahoma State
13. Arkansas
14. Notre Dame
15. Coastal Carolina
16. Kentucky
17. Mississippi
18. Auburn
19. Wake Forest
20. Florida
21. Texas
22. Arizona State
23. NC State
24. SMU
25. San Diego State
Others receiving votes: Clemson 96, Texas A&M 41, Oregon St. 27, Baylor 24, Mississippi St. 18, Virginia Tech 13, Stanford 11, UTSA 10, Pittsburgh 6, Fresno St. 5, Texas Tech 4, W. Michigan 3, Kansas St. 2, Appalachian St. 2, UCLA 1, Boston College 1.
"In a time of need, we turned to our community," Salt Lake City police chief Mike Brown said in a statement. "We asked people to come forward and to share the information they had. Because of those tips and the unrelenting pursuit of justice from our homicide detectives, we have arrested the person accused of murdering Aaron Lowe. So many lives have been impacted from this senseless shooting."
Buk is also accused of shooting a 20-year-old woman who has not been identified by police and remains in the hospital in critical condition.
Lowe was a sophomore at the university and was the recipient of Utah's Ty Jordan Memorial Scholarship in August.
The scholarship honored Jordan, a 19-year-old tailback who died after an accidental shooting in December 2020. Jordan and Lowe were also high school teammates in Mesquite, Texas.
•Spread: Indiana +12.5 (-110) | Penn State -12.5 (-110)
•Moneyline: Indiana (+400) | Penn State (-500)
•Total: 52.5– Over (-110) | Under 52.5 (-110)
•Public (Spread) Betting Percentages: IND 36% | PSU: 64%
•Game Info: Saturday October 2, 2021 7:30 pm ET | ABC
The line has risen since No. 6 Penn State opened as a -9.5-point favorite as money continues to arrive backing the Nittany Lions over Indiana (2-2 SU; 1-3 ATS) with a line currently displaying Penn State as 12.5-point favorites at SI Sportsbook.
Penn State (4-0 SU, 3-1 ATS) has outscored its four opponents by a combined score of 126-60. Senior quarterback Sean Clifford ranks third in the Big Ten through four games throwing for 1,158 yards and eight touchdowns.
While earning wins over Idaho and Western Kentucky that fail to move the needle, Indiana has lost by a wide margin when they have faced ranked competition. The Hoosiers have lost to Iowa and Cincinnati by a combined 42 points. Although Penn State has won eight of the last 10 matchups against Indiana, the Nittany Lions will have revenge on their mind after seeing their six-game winning streak over Indiana snapped when they lost last season 36-35 in overtime.
Happy Valley, at night, bettors should expect a “white-out” in the stands and domination on the field.
•Spread: Mississippi +14.5 (-110) | Alabama -14.5 (-110)
•Moneyline: Mississippi (+475) | Alabama (-600)
•Total: 79.5– Over (-110) | Under 779.5 (-110)
•Public (Spread) Betting Percentages: MISS: 48% | ALA: 52%
•Game Info: Saturday October 2, 2021 3:30 pm EST | CBS
The line has slightly ticked up since its opening in favor of No. 1 Alabama (4-0; 2-2 ATS) as 14-point favorites over No. 12 Mississippi (3-0 SU; 2-0-1 ATS) at SI Sportsbook to a line now standing at 14.5-points in favor of the Crimson Tide.
Pay attention to the massive line movement in this matchup involving the total points in this matchup. The total opened at 76.5 and has since risen three points to a total now displaying a demand of 79.5.
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Mississippi will be looking to end Alabama’s dominance in the series as the Tide has won five straight games dating back to 2016. The Vegas steam believes the efficiency of Matt Corral and the Mississippi No. 5 SEC passing attack will make this a back-and-forth matchup. Corral has completed 72.7 % of his passes, producing 997 yards and nine touchdowns with zero interceptions.
Last season’s matchup produced 15 touchdowns in a 63-38 win by Alabama. Look for this game to be close between these two high-powered SEC rivals with plenty of points scored. Back the over on the total on Saturday.
•Spread: Washington +1.5 (-110) | Oregon St -1.5(-110)
•Moneyline: Washington (+105) | Oregon St (-120)
•Total: 57– Over (-110) | Under 57 (-110)
•Public (Spread) Betting Percentages: WSH: 41% | OGST: 59%
•Game Info: Saturday October 2, 2021 9:00 pm EST | Pac-12 Network
The line has flipped from its opening of Washington as 2.5-point road favorites to a spread displaying Oregon State as a 1.5-point home favorite over the Huskies. Money continues to arrive on the Beavers at SI Sportsbook.
Oregon State (3-1 SU; 3-1 ATS) will be looking for their second straight Pac-12 win after defeating USC 45-27 as 10-point road underdogs. On the flip side, Washington (2-2 SU; 1-3 ATS) will be looking to extend their winning streak to three games after wins over California and Arizona State.
Oregon State’s B.J. Baylor (442), who leads the conference averaging 105.5 rushing yards and seven touchdowns, will now face a Washington run defense that ranks second to last in the conference allowing 101.8 rushing yards per game and six touchdowns through four games. Baylor is likely the key to an Oregon State victory on Saturday.
By The Data
Washington is 8-0 SU in its last eight games against Oregon State dating back to 2012
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Frankie Taddeois a successful high-stakes fantasy football player who created the first-ever DFS program ever offered in a Las Vegas sportsbook. Frankie is SI Betting's Senior Analyst and provides his significant experience and resources in the sports betting scene. You can follow Frankie on Twitter@Frankie_Fantasyfor his latest betting and fantasy insights from Las Vegas.
Notre Dame on Saturday, because Irish defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman spent four years as an architect of the Bearcats’ Blackcat defense.
“You can know too much,” Cincy coach Luke Fickell says. “Then, when you know too much you try to stop everything, and it makes it difficult because there’s only so much that you can do and only so much that you can expect kids to understand. Sometimes knowing too much is not a good thing.”
If you need to get all the way to a sixth degree of separation to connect any two major college football coaches, you probably aren’t looking in the right place. Consider Fickell and Freeman’s overlaps. Fickell, a standout defensive lineman at Ohio State in the mid-1990s, was a graduate assistant with the Buckeyes in ’99 before leaving to coach at Akron for two years. In 2001, when the Zips played the Buckeyes, he knew OSU’s personnel but not the coaching staff, as it was Jim Tressel’s first year at the helm. Fickell would soon become acquainted when he went to work for Tressel and Ohio State in various roles from ’02 to ’16 (Tressel’s nephew Mike is the current Cincinnati defensive coordinator, replacing Freeman).
As linebackers coach in Columbus, Fickell coached Freeman directly as the Buckeyes made it to back-to-back national title games in the 2006 and ’07 seasons. Freeman went on to the NFL, where he had to medically retire, and then surprised his old coach in ’10 by calling to ask to join the Buckeyes’ coaching staff as a graduate assistant.
Freeman, now the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame, previously held the same position at Cincinnati for four seasons.
Matt Cashore/USA TODAY Sports; Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer/USA TODAY Network
“I don’t think this is what you really want to do,” Fickell recalls telling Freeman. He said Freeman was so smart and not the typical “meathead that only wants to play football and coach football.”
Fickell tried to send him under Ohio State AD Gene Smith’s wing and down the administrative route. But when a different football GA was unable to join the staff, as Fickell tells it, Freeman came on in the end and was a graduate assistant for a year before beginning his assistant career in full with stints at Kent State and Purdue under Darrell Hazell (a former Ohio State assistant coach).
In 2016 the Purdue coaches were fired and Fickell was hired at Cincinnati. Freeman and another assistant were among the first calls Fickell made to put a staff together. Freeman temporarily moved into Fickell’s Columbus home to help put plans in place for the full move to the Queen City. Fickell was working two jobs at the time, getting his Buckeyes defense ready to play a College Football Playoff game by day and building a plan for the Bearcats with roommates Freeman and running backs coach Doug Phillips by night.
Any familiarity with Ohio State didn’t help much when it faced the playoff-bound Buckeyes early in the 2019 season, but a few weeks later, the chief innovation of Freeman’s time in Cincinnati got a full debut against UCF: a new base defense to take space away from increasingly spread-out offenses in the AAC.
Freeman and the defensive staff came into that season expecting to stick with the base four-down linemen D that powered them to 11 wins in 2018, but days before the ’19 season started, one of the team’s starting safeties was lost for the year with a knee injury. His replacement’s strong suit wasn’t playing down in the box manned up against a slot receiver. So the Bearcats tinkered with substituting a defensive lineman off the field and adding a fifth defensive back, dubbed the “dollar” safety. The move took some getting used to for Fickell, a four-down guy at heart, but it paid dividends and the Knights scored only 24 points (their second-lowest in any game from ’17 to ’20) against Cincy’s Dollar. The Bearcats went on to the AAC title game.
Notre Dame declined to make Freeman available for this story, but Freeman did speak to Chris Vasseur of the Make Defense Great Again podcast in March about that Cincinnati defense.
“The whole premise of it was that we wanted to put people in space,” he said on the podcast. “When you play the UCFs, you play the Tulsas, you play the Houstons now, some of those spread teams that make you defend 53 ⅓ blades of grass [the width of a football field] … a lot of these RPO teams, a lot of these Air Raid teams are looking for space.”
The defense has some similarities to the tite front popularized by Iowa State, albeit with different principles built in regarding use of man coverage and how players fit the run. That ISU defense is coordinated by Jon Heacock, who was Freeman’s defensive coordinator at Kent State. Heacock’s brother, Jim, also coached at Ohio State from 1996 to 2011, overlapping heavily with both Fickell and Freeman.
At Notre Dame, Freeman took over a defense that had made its bones for years under Clark Lea with a 4-2-5 base (replacing a linebacker with a hybrid defensive end while still using five defensive backs). He’s not running the exact system he ran at Cincinnati so far, but there are many similarities.
“There are some nuances to what [the Irish] do now that are different than when they were here, so it’ll be interesting to game-plan those and see what things we feel like we can do,” Cincinnati offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock says. “So, as much as it is the same structure defensively to a certain extent, there’s also some new things that they’ve added to it and some changes they’ve made to the base way that they played defense when Marcus was here that’ll make it a little more of a challenge for sure.”
Those changes are garnering results. Against both Purdue and Wisconsin, the Irish were very stout after shaky opening performances against Florida State and Toledo.
So with all of the Bearcats’ knowledge of Freeman and how he approaches the game, what’s usable? That’s the question for them to sift through during this week of game-planning.
Denbrock and Cincinnati passing game coordinator Gino Guidugli immediately used the same word when describing what kind of play-caller Freeman is: “aggressive.” That comes through in how the DC described his approach to defense to Vasseur.
“I’m not trying to beat you in a chess match; that’s not my philosophy,” Freeman said. “I believe that hey, we’re going to be multiple, but we’re going to do what we do in terms of our kids are not gonna get confused. They’re gonna get good at the things we ask them to do.”
Freeman believes playing hard and playing physical is a fundamental skill that can be improved upon, and instead of spending a lot of time trying to have an answer for every route combo an offense can give you, one should work on fundamentals and be great at those.
“Are you playing defenses or are you playing defense?” Freeman said on Make Defense Great Again.
Cincinnati’s coaches know to expect a boatload of man coverage, but Guidugli says they’re noticing more zone coverage out of Notre Dame than they came to expect from Freeman at Cincinnati. It’s not just the staff’s familiarity with some of the defensive looks it may go against; it’s the players’ as well. While the Bearcats have not yet faced whatever changes Freeman is employing in South Bend, they play against the defense all the time in spring practice and fall camp.
Yes, Freeman and Denbrock know each other as opposing play-callers, but that is not rare in this profession—although it adds some juice to Saturday’s top-10 clash. Nobody has more familiarity with Notre Dame in general than Denbrock. He coached with Brian Kelly at Grand Valley State in the 1990s and at ND with Kelly from 2010 to ’16.
Denbrock knows Freeman better than most defensive coordinators, and vice versa. What advantage it affords either side will play out on the field. There are X’s and O’s micro advantages to consider, but there is also the Jimmys and Joes element of coaching against a friend.
It would be easier if there was some animosity, but Denbrock assures that there isn’t. The motivation of going up against a friend is what makes this week truly special.
“It’s like you and your brother out in the driveway playing basketball,” he says. “No way did you ever want your brother to ever beat you because you’d have to sit at the dinner table and listen to it. It’s kinda the same type of mentality.
“Lifelong friendships aren’t at stake over the outcome of the game on Saturday, but quite frankly, catching the crap you’re gonna have to deal with for losing the game is not gonna be easy.”
“The freedom to engage in far-reaching and lucrative business enterprises makes players at academic institutions much more similar to professional athletes who are employed by a team to play a sport, while simultaneously pursuing business ventures to capitalize on their fame and increase their income,” the memo said.
Neither the NCAA nor representatives for the five largest athletic conferences immediately responded to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Abruzzo also noted that players across the country had engaged in collective action following the killing of George Floyd — actions that “directly concerns terms and conditions of employment, and is protected concerted activity.”
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The process behind the picks is briefly explainedin my Week 1 column. Most of the time, the computer spits out something within one or two points of the real line (and at that point, sharp plays and whale plays are what’s moving the line anyway). But if the computer gives something more than three points, it’s worth a second look.
Favorites
-BYU (-8) over Utah State
-Memphis (-11.5) over Temple
-Texas (-4.5) over TCU
-Appalachian State (-9.5) over Georgia State
-USC (-7) over Colorado
-Eastern Michigan (-1) over Northern Illinois
-Tulane (-3.5) over ECU
-UCF (-15.5) over Navy
-Florida (-8) over Kentucky
-Oklahoma (-10.5) over Kansas State
-Army (-5.5) over Ball State
Dogs
-Michigan (+1) over Wisconsin
-Syracuse (+5) over Florida State
-Troy (+7) over South Carolina
-Ole Miss (+14.5) over Alabama
-Boston College (+16) over Clemson
The Big Dogs
-Arkansas (+19.5) over Georgia
-Louisiana-Monroe (+32.5) over Coastal Carolina
-Rutgers (+16) over Ohio State
