Texas needs answers, the better OSU and more college football takeaways
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ESPN staff
We are now 11 weeks into the college football season, and only three undefeated teams remain: Georgia, Cincinnati and UTSA.
Just as we all predicted at the beginning of the year.
Saturday saw Michigan rally past Penn State, Oklahoma have its bid for perfection end at the hands of Baylor, a game-winning 62-yard field goal and a wild overtime game between Texas and Kansas that ended with a stunning two-point conversion.
All in all, our reporters make sense of Week 11 and what happens next.
Steve Sarkisian needs answers, fast
The Texas-Oklahoma rivalry has often been a game where legends are made and coaches’ legacies are defined. In this year’s version, as we all know by now, Texas took a 38-20 lead into halftime and Longhorns fans were celebrating their new coach’s arrival on the scene.
Thirty-eight days later, it appears that was the beginning of a freefall for Texas. Oklahoma stormed back to win, the first of four straight games in which Steve Sarkisian lost a halftime lead. On Saturday, during Texas’ fifth straight loss — the Longhorns’ longest skid since 1956, the year before Darrell Royal was hired — they added a new historic footnote, becoming the first Big 12 team to lose at home to Kansas since 2008. That’s not the legacy Sarkisian envisioned when he arrived in Austin and proclaimed back in July, “We’ve got a roster that is one that is more than capable of being competitive at a high level.”
First seasons are rarely predictable. Nick Saban went 7-6 in Year 1 at Alabama, losing to a 6-6 UL Monroe team in the process. But Saban had a track record, having already won a national championship at LSU. Sarkisian, unfortunately, does too. He went 5-7 in his first season at Washington, but that was taking over a team that went 0-12 the season before, so there was optimism. Since then, however, Sarkisian has never lost fewer than four games in a full season as a head coach at Washington or USC. Last year, Texas lost three games by a total of 13 points and Tom Herman got fired.
The Longhorns are making the wrong kind of history. They entered Saturday 79-0 as a favorite of at least 24 points since 1978 — Kansas was 0-100 as a 24-point underdog in that same span — and yet the 31-point underdogs pulled off the win in Austin. Then there’s the soap opera factor: Off the field, discussions of late have centered on an assistant coach’s pet monkey, a starting wide receiver’s argument with Sarkisian and subsequent departure, and players leaking videos of angry coaches.
It’s fair to say Texas has hit rock bottom. This is one school that doesn’t like being embarrassed. And right now it is. — Dave Wilson
Let’s do a little blind résumé comparison:
Team A is 9-1 with a 5-1 mark against FPI top-50 opponents (with a 12.2 points-per-game margin) and three wins vs. teams ranked at game time. Its lone loss came on the road by three points to a preseason AP top-10 team. Its ESPN Strength of Record is No. 6 nationally.
Team B is 9-1 with a 4-1 mark against FPI top-50 opponents (with a 10.6 points-per-game margin) and one win vs. a team ranked at game time. Its lone loss came at home by seven points to a preseason AP top-10 team. Its ESPN Strength of Record is No. 9 nationally.
So, which team would you have ranked higher?
Odds are, most folks would say Team A, though it’s certainly close. But when it comes to the AP poll, the coaches’ poll and, likely, the College Football Playoff committee’s ranking, it will be Team B that’s ahead by a significant margin.
This has a lot to do with the things we, as voters, fans and analysts, tend to notice most easily. Team A is Oklahoma State and Team B is Ohio State.
The Buckeyes seem incredibly impressive because they’ve routinely put up a lot of points. But against good teams their margin of victory is actually less than Oklahoma State’s. Against teams such as Rutgers, Akron and Maryland, however, they’ve won by an average of 42 points per game. The Cowboys, on the other hand, blew out TCU on Saturday, but played close games against Tulsa and Boise State in September, which helped frame the narrative that they are a team that has been more lucky than good.
We also tend to lean more heavily on offense than defense as a metric for success, and on that front, no one outdoes Ohio State. The Buckeyes lead the nation in offensive EPA. On defense, however, Ohio State is barely better than the FBS average. Oklahoma State, on the other hand, has one of the nation’s best defenses, holding every team it has faced to 24 points or fewer (Georgia is the only other team to do that). It’s the antithesis of the Mike Gundy teams we’ve come to know over the years, but that doesn’t make it any less talented.
None of this should serve as an indictment of Ohio State, which certainly appears to be a supremely talented team, perhaps one of the few that could truly challenge Georgia. But if we’re going to appreciate the Buckeyes’ ceiling we need to also consider the Cowboys’ accomplishments. Through 11 weeks only Georgia, Alabama and Notre Dame have won more games against FPI top-50 teams, and only Georgia has more wins against teams ranked at game time.
Let’s stop overlooking Oklahoma State. The Cowboys aren’t winning the way we might have expected, but they are winning, and at this point, they belong in the thick of the playoff conversation. They should be in serious consideration for the committee’s top four. — David Hale
Why isn’t Dave Clawson linked to more job openings?
The biggest surprise of the ACC season has been the 9-1 start by Wake Forest, which beat NC State 45-42 on Saturday. The Demon Deacons — who are a heartbreaking field goal against North Carolina away from being undefeated — are 6-0 in the Atlantic division and on a collision course to face Pitt in the ACC Championship Game.
Reshaping the culture of a team isn’t a foreign concept to Clawson, who has a reputation for building contenders at each of his previous stops. In 1999, he earned his first head job at Fordham, where he took the program from being winless to winners of the Patriot League and earning a berth in the 2002 FCS playoffs. He was excellent with Richmond and Bowling Green as well.
Now, at Wake Forest, he has infused plenty of energy into the city of Winston-Salem as the Demon Deacons are knocking on the doorstep of their first conference game appearance since 2006, when they defeated Georgia Tech 9-6 to collect their most wins in program history (11). A victory over Clemson next week would give them 10 victories and secure a chance to tie the single-season win total.
This begs the question: With so many programs searching for their next coach, why isn’t Clawson’s name being attached to more vacancies? Aside from a down pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the Demon Deacons have totaled at least seven wins each year since 2016. — Jordan Reid
Where’s the love for Ole Miss‘ defense?
The only time anyone dared to mention Ole Miss and defense in the same sentence a year ago was to talk about how bad the Rebels were on that side of the ball. Even earlier this year, after Ole Miss survived 52-51 against Arkansas, coach Lane Kiffin sounded anything but pumped about the Rebels’ defense.
“We stopped them on one play in the second half, so that’s a good thing,” said a shrugging Kiffin, whose Rebels gave up 676 total yards and 37 second-half points before the Hogs’ two-point conversion pass to win the game sailed incomplete.
Since then, Ole Miss’ defense has been one of the more improved units in the SEC, and the No. 10 Rebels (8-2, 4-2 SEC) are making a push to be the first Ole Miss team in school history to win 10 games in the regular season, with matchups remaining against Vanderbilt and Mississippi State.
In each of its past four wins, Ole Miss’ defense has given up 24 or fewer points, and it was the 31-26 victory at Tennessee the week after the Arkansas game that really showed the mettle of D.J. Durkin’s defense.
Kiffin told his players in the locker room after that game: “We’ve said for a long time when you go on the road in a hostile environment that you pack your run game and pack your defense. The defense showed up today and really won the game for us.”
Granted, nobody is comparing this Ole Miss defense to some of the better ones in the SEC, but the Rebels are tied for 66th nationally in scoring defense (26.2 points per game). That’s after finishing 117th nationally a year ago (38.3 PPG).
Kiffin told ESPN prior to the season that he would be pleased with a top-70 ranking in scoring defense, and Durkin & Co. have delivered. The Rebels have really helped themselves in turnover margin. They’re tied for second nationally at plus-12 and are second in the SEC with 19 forced turnovers.
Quarterback Matt Corral and the Ole Miss offense have still been the heart and soul of this team, but the defense has played well enough that the Rebels don’t feel as if they have to score 40-plus every game to win.
That’s a credit to Durkin and his guys for taking it on the chin a year ago (and taking some serious criticism) and coming back in Year 2 by doing their part to put the Rebels in a position to have a historic season. — Chris Low
Kansas looking to build on historic win
Before his team outlasted Texas in overtime on Saturday, Lance Leipold didn’t know Kansas had not won a Big 12 road game since 2008. The Jayhawks coach had only been part of this KU season and saw no value in looking back further.
What Leipold knew is a team that had accepted more than its share of change had been overdue for a win like Saturday’s. Leipold said the result can carry Kansas through the rest of the season and into 2022, when the team can realistically expect more.
“We made strides, we felt like we had, but it wasn’t showing up on the scoreboard,” Leipold told ESPN on Sunday. “We’re a long ways away from it right now, but if we ever want to play games in December, we have to play well in November. We’ve been selling that since the K-State game, and are going to keep emphasizing that.”
Kansas’ historic win featured plenty of surprising performances, none bigger than quarterback Jalon Daniels. The sophomore completed 70% of his passes for 202 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions, while adding 45 rush yards and a touchdown.
Daniels started six games as a true freshman in a hopeless situation last fall — he was only 17 years old for his first three starts. He only got the nod against Texas because of injuries to primary starter Jason Bean and reserve Miles Kendrick.
“He’s been through a lot, took a lot of hits last year, but he doesn’t flinch and he plays with extreme energy and confidence,” Leipold said. “That really sparked us. He can flush a bad play, but he didn’t have many, and statistically he did a lot of really good things for us.”
Leipold is the best coach to call Kansas home in quite some time. Those in coaching circles celebrated the hire Kansas made on the last day of April. Leipold understands player development and program development.
Kansas beat Texas with a third-string quarterback throwing to Jared Casey, a walk-on listed as a fullback who is actually Kansas’ fifth-string tight end (“because you don’t have many 5-9 tight ends in Power 5 football,” Leipold said). There are finally genuine reasons for KU fans to be excited.
“This group’s really accepted the change in the structure and the process that we’re expecting,” Leipold said. “We’ve been able to see a lot of differences in the small things that we’ve been doing, but it hasn’t correlated completely onto the field. To see them get this and complete a game and find a way to win it late, I’m really happy and proud.
“It also will help continue to build confidence within the program of what needs to be done on a daily and weekly basis.” — Adam Rittenberg
There are eight spring games being played on Saturday, each by high-profile programs surrounded by questions.
Oklahoma transfer quarterback Dillon Gabriel arrives in Eugene coming off a 30-touchdown season last year with the Sooners. The question is, can he do even more with Oregon this coming season? Nineteen Colorado players have entered the transfer portal since its opening on April 16. How can coach Deion Sanders and the Buffaloes use the portal to its advantage to fill in those gaps?
We break down key position battles, potential breakout players and must-see newcomers for Saturday’s games.
Position battle to watch: The Terps have five players competing for the starting quarterback job following the departure of Taulia Tagovailoa, the Big Ten’s all-time leading passer. Sophomore Cameron Edge, redshirt junior Billy Edwards Jr. and NC State transfer MJ Morris have an edge in experience over redshirt freshman Champ Long and redshirt sophomore Jayden Sauray.
Coach Mike Locksley isn’t expected to name a starter until deep into summer camp. Edwards Jr. had seven rushing touchdowns in eight games last season — including three against Michigan. He was often used in short-yardage situations, and the staff would like to see if he can throw it a bit more. Morris played in nine games and started seven over the past two seasons for NC State, where he totaled 1,367 passing yards, 14 touchdowns and six interceptions. Edge played in two games and threw the ball just three times. — Heather Dinich
Most intriguing newcomer: Freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola has been the talk of Lincoln ever since he pivoted from Georgia to sign with the Huskers. Raiola has been competing throughout the spring with Heinrich Haarberg, who started in all five Nebraska wins in 2023, and fellow freshman Daniel Kaelin, who became the first in-state prospect to become an Elite 11 finalist. Both Haarberg and Kaelin are capable of winning the starting job, and Raiola can’t count on landing the QB1 title despite arriving at Nebraska as ESPN’s top pocket passer and the No. 11 overall recruit in the 2024 class.
Coach Matt Rhule told me that Raiola’s “courage” to move within the pocket and look downfield, even when pressured, has stood out. Rhule is in no rush to end the quarterback competition, but Raiola’s spring game performance will be under the microscope. — Adam Rittenberg
Position battle to watch: Quarterback. Rutgers coach Greg Schiano has marked this season for a potential breakthrough, and has enough back on defense, running back and other spots to deliver. To keep pace in the expanding Big Ten, though, the Scarlet Knights need more from a passing game that finished 124th nationally in yards and 125th in efficiency.
Returning starter Gavin Wimsatt and Minnesota transfer Athan Kaliakmanis, who started last season for the Gophers, have competed throughout the spring. They will be throwing to a group of young receivers who have drawn good reviews from Schiano, including freshmen Ben Black and KJ Duff. Wimsatt has started 19 games for Rutgers throughout the past two seasons but must show he can distance himself from Kaliakmanis. — Rittenberg
Most intriguing newcomer: It’s hard to look beyond Oklahoma transfer quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who is coming off a 3,660-yard, 30-touchdown season with the Sooners. The Ducks will be Gabriel’s third team during his college career, and after watching what Dan Lanning and Co. did with Bo Nix the past few years, it will be fascinating to see what they can get out of Gabriel in Eugene starting with the spring showcase.
Gabriel is no stranger to fresh starts — this will be his sixth season in college and, though he had a down year in 2021, he’s never thrown for fewer than 3,000 yards. Oregon has the talent to be a title contender, but a lot will rely on how Gabriel fits and excels within the Ducks’ system starting now. — Paolo Uggetti
Breakout player: Running back TJ Harden. With Carson Steele departing for the NFL after tallying over 3,000 rushing yards in three seasons with the Bruins, the stage is set for Harden to take on a bigger role in his third year at UCLA. Harden had a strong sophomore campaign, with 827 yards and eight touchdowns, and is primed to get more carries under a new-look Bruins attack. The spring game will be a display of a new-look UCLA team under first-time head coach DeShaun Foster and former NFL offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy. But Harden — much like returning quarterback Ethan Garbers — are two of the players who should bring some semblance of continuity while excelling under a new offensive system. — Uggetti
Most intriguing newcomer: The Wildcats’ defense suffered heavy losses — both to the NFL draft and to the transfer portal with the departure of head coach Jedd Fisch to Washington. But new coach Brent Brennan brought some promising additions with him from San José State, including defensive lineman Tre Smith who was a first-team All-Mountain West edge rusher last season and had 6.5 sacks.
Everyone knows the Arizona offense will be a force in the Big 12 under returning phenom quarterback Noah Fifita, but it will likely be the defense — and players like Smith — who will determine how many wins Brennan can get in his first year. The Wildcats’ spring game should be an interesting test case of how that defense is jelling and how a player like Smith fits within it. — Uggetti
Breakout player: Defensive lineman Sean Martin missed the 2023 season, with coach Neal Brown saying he had an illness that led to him even being limited in practice. It was a blow for the Mountaineers as Martin showed flashes in 2022 in 12 games (eight starts), including registering two sacks against Oklahoma and six tackles, a sack, 1.5 tackles for loss and a forced fumble against Baylor. Brown said Martin is back, bigger and stronger at 6-foot-5, 295 pounds, and believes he could play his way into being an early-round NFL draft pick. — Dave Wilson
Most intriguing newcomer: Linebacker Kaleb Elarms-Orr arrives from Cal after racking up 87 tackles last year (third in the Pac-12 with 7.9 per game), including 15 against Arizona State, and was second team all-conference. He’ll plug into a new 4-2-5 defense run by Andy Avalos alongside linebacker Namdi Obiazor, a change from Joe Gillespie’s 3-3-5 scheme that ranked 100th in total defense last season.
Elams-Orr has all-conference potential and will be a crucial piece to fixing a defense that gave up 69 points to Oklahoma in the season’s final game. — Wilson
Position battle to watch: Running back. With senior Nakia Watson and his five seasons of tailback play no longer in Pullman, the competition to be the Cougs’ leading back come this fall appears to be wide open. Wazzu also dismissed sophomore running back Jaylen Jenkins from the team due to violating team rules in the middle of last season.
Djouvensky Schlenbaker, Dylan Paine and Leo Pulalasi all have minimal experience but are returning players looking to increase their carries this year. Schlenbaker and Pulalasi are two who have shown glimpses of their talent in the past, while Paine is a walk-on who has been around for five seasons now. Rounding out the group are two, three-star freshmen prospects Wayshawn Parker and Josh Joyner, who could get their share of opportunities to show off their potential too. — Uggetti
Position battle to watch: Cornerback. Last season, Travis Hunter showed off his versatile skill set, catching 57 passes for 721 yards and five touchdowns as a starting receiver, while racking up 31 tackles, three interceptions and five pass breakups starting at cornerback. This spring he’s shown more of his versatility, and we have the chance to see that on display in the spring game Saturday.
Hunter has shifted inside to play nickelback. Cornerbacks coach Kevin Mathis told reporters earlier in the spring that the decision to have Hunter take reps at nickel was a byproduct of a scheme that new defensive coordinator Robert Livingston has installed. Plus, it will allow him to cover the slot, where the best-opposing receiver lines up often. Transfer cornerbacks Preston Hodge and DJ McKinney have impressed in the early going, while former five-star cornerback Cormani McClain has entered the transfer portal. — Andrea Adelson
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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
ELMONT, N.Y. — The New York Islanders‘ Ilya Sorokin got the start in Game 3 as a rested goalie seeking to give his team a fresh start after trailing the Carolina Hurricanes 2-0 in their opening-round series.
But things turned rotten quickly for Sorokin. He gave up three goals on 14 shots before he was pulled 7:14 into the second period. Semyon Varlamov, who started the first two games of the series, stopped all eight shots he faced in relief, but it wasn’t enough: The Hurricanes defeated the Islanders 3-2 on Thursday, and New York now faces elimination Saturday afternoon at UBS Arena.
Coach Patrick Roy, who made the decision to start Sorokin, refused to directly address his goalie’s performance in Game 3.
“I’m going to say this: We win and we lose as a team. So I’m not going to go there. But what I’m going to say is sometimes we make changes as a coach because we feel we just want to change the momentum in the game. I’ll leave it at that,” said Roy, who had a Hall of Fame career as an NHL goaltender.
When asked how getting pulled could impact Sorokin’s confidence, Roy deflected again.
“Right now I’m focusing more on the team than focusing on our goalie,” he said.
Varlamov started the Islanders’ first two playoff games in Raleigh, posting a .905 save percentage and a 3.03 goals-against average. He gave up six goals on 63 shots. That included two goals in the span of nine seconds in Game 2, as the Hurricanes tied it and took the lead in shocking fashion during the third period.
Roy justified making the goalie change Thursday because Varlamov had faced 39 shots in Game 2 and the Islanders intended to use both goalies in the postseason.
Varlamov said he respected Roy’s decision to bench him for Game 3, even after he was called back into action following Sorokin’s removal.
“I trust Patrick on the decisions he makes,” Varlamov said. “He’s a head coach. We have to respect any decisions they make as a coaching staff.”
Sorokin, 28, got the majority of starts this season, appearing in 56 games to Varlamov’s 28. But Varlamov, 35, won seven of his last eight starts to lead the Islanders to a playoff berth in April, and earned the crease to begin the playoffs.
Carolina scored against Sorokin just 4:46 into Game 3 as a Brent Burns shot deflected off an Islanders defender’s stick. Defenseman Dmitry Orlov made it 2-0 at 10:25 on a shot that Sorokin couldn’t get over to fast enough to stop.
After Peter Engvall cut the lead to 2-1 at 2:48 of the second period, Carolina’s Sebastian Aho beat Sorokin on another stoppable shot to make it 3-1 at 7:14 of the second period. Roy signaled to Varlamov that he was replacing Sorokin.
After being pulled, Sorokin stood in the hallway to the dressing room, hunched over with his mask still on, looking devastated.
“It’s the game. Anything could happen. It’s not the first time,” Varlamov said of his friend and teammate. “I mean, what are you going to do? You have to move on and then forget about it and then just get ready for the next game.”
After finishing second in the Vezina Trophy voting for the NHL’s best goaltender last season, Sorokin posted his worst save percentage (.908) and goals-against average (3.01) of his four-season career. He begins an eight year, $66 million contract extension next season for the Islanders, who did not make him available for postgame comments.
Before Game 3, Roy recalled how his goaltending coach with the Montreal Canadiens described him and backup goalie Brian Hayward as different kinds of automobiles.
“Hayward was a Cadillac. He was comfortable. I was the Ferrari. I could be a little more bumpy,” said Roy, who then applied the analogy to the Islanders. “We had the Cadillac in the first two games, and now we’re going with the Ferrari.”
Unfortunately for the Islanders, they experienced engine failure in Game 3 and the Hurricanes took control of the series.
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