Quarterback Devin Leary is out to rewrite his narrative at Kentucky
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Devin Leary is always ready to answer the question. He thinks about it a lot.
He mentioned it when he first met Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops and he brought it up with offensive coordinator Liam Coen during spring exit interviews. It’s the whole reason he’s here, really. Leary would be cashing NFL checks already if it weren’t for that big, looming question about his health.
Leary is injury-prone. Like it or not, the narrative persists. Oh, he can argue against the label and make a compelling case, but the details are often ignored in favor of the big, glaring headline.
“Man, I just took two bad hits,” Leary said, beginning a speech he has repeated again and again since his 2022 campaign ended suddenly after a wonky throw against Florida State.
Leary was a burgeoning star quarterback for NC State in 2021, throwing 35 touchdowns and just five interceptions, but that season was bookended by a broken leg after a seemingly routine slide five games into the 2020 season and a torn pectoral muscle after his right arm hit a defender following a throw six games into 2022.
No pulled hamstrings. No ACL tears. No sprained ankles or sore elbows. Leary hasn’t dealt with any routine injuries that typically befall a QB. Indeed, after renowned surgeon Dr. James Andrews assessed Leary’s MRI last fall, he lamented it was the first time he’d ever seen a QB with that type of pec injury.
Injury-prone? Heck no, Leary insists. Strange things happen, and he was just unlucky enough to have them happen to him twice.
The more Leary dodges the label, however, the more it feels like it defines him as he prepares for his sixth season of college football and his first at Kentucky. He entered the transfer portal in December as one of the most sought-after players in the country. He has legitimate NFL aspirations when this year is done. But for now, what’s on his mind is simply proving he can get back on the field, escape the wrath of the injury gods for another year, and fight that narrative with his arm instead of his words.
“I pride myself on being tough and taking hits and standing in there,” Leary said. “But that’s just a part of my journey, and I’ve learned to embrace it.”
Leary’s journey was never supposed to include a pit stop in Lexington. After his stellar 2021 campaign ended with a canceled bowl game, he considered leaving school for the NFL, but instead opted to polish his résumé for one final season at NC State. Last summer, he worked out at the Manning Passing Academy with soon-to-be draft stars Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson and Will Levis, and he held his own. By the time the 2022 season began, NC State was ranked in the preseason top 10, and Leary was named the ACC’s preseason player of the year.
And then it all fell apart.
In the days after the injury, NC State coach Dave Doeren said he was hopeful Leary could return later in the 2022 season, but Leary said he instantly knew his year was over. His final numbers for the season that was supposed to propel him into the NFL: 11 touchdowns, four picks and less than 1,300 yards of offense.
Leary flew with his mother to Alabama for a consultation with Andrews, still hopeful he could recover in time for the NFL combine. The news wasn’t good.
Andrews offered two options. Leary could attempt to rehab the injury, and if all went perfectly, he could possibly throw during the combine or a pro day. But if the rehab didn’t remedy the problem, he’d need surgery, and he’d set his return date back even further. If he opted for immediate surgery, he faced an extended recovery that would see him plummet on draft boards. Oh, and just to add another wrinkle, it would be the first time Andrews would ever perform the required procedure on a quarterback.
“It turned my whole world around in one conversation,” Leary said.
Leary and his mother retreated to a waiting room and called his dad. The three talked it over and opted for surgery. Once that decision was made, it opened the floodgates for even more world-altering choices.
“I had to reevaluate everything that I was planning for the following year,” Leary said, “… and that included where I was going to play.”
Leary said he kept Doeren informed each step of the way, but after five years in Raleigh, he ultimately decided it was time for a change of scenery and entered his name into the transfer portal.
The first call Leary got came from Kentucky receivers coach Scott Woodward. Back in high school, Leary had attended a camp at Wagner University at the behest of a coach from Florida, but it was Woodward, then an assistant at UMass, who made a real impression on the young QB. Six years later, that relationship paid dividends for both.
Leary was widely considered among the best players available during the winter portal window, and he had interest from dozens of schools. Leary eventually narrowed his options to five and took just two official visits — to Kentucky and Auburn.
He knew before he left campus in Lexington, however, that he wanted to play for the Wildcats.
Woodward was the one who opened the door, but Leary found support in Kentucky’s most recent QB, Levis. The two actually met while at the airport waiting for a flight to the Manning Passing Academy in 2022. At the time, they talked about possibly sharing a stage at the 2023 NFL draft. When they met again at UK, just two months before Levis would head to the NFL combine, the conversation was much different.
“I’m sitting with Will, and he’s talking about why I should come to Kentucky,” Leary said. “It’s crazy how the world spins around sometimes.”
It was Kentucky’s new offensive coordinator who sealed the deal for Levis, however. Coen helped Levis blossom into a star as a transfer QB in 2021, but Coen soon departed to work as the OC for the Los Angeles Rams. At the end of 2022, Coen opted to return to his college roots, coming back to Kentucky to groom another transfer. Still, it was that one-year hiatus in L.A. that convinced Leary he’d found a home with the Wildcats.
“He pulled up three or four plays they ran here in 2021,” Leary recalled, “then they pulled up three or four plays from the Rams, and Matthew Stafford is running the exact same concepts.”
Leary’s NFL dreams have been delayed a year, but in Coen, he saw a coach who could make him a better QB when those dreams finally become reality.
Coen did his homework on Leary, too. Years ago, Coen had worked with a QB at Maine named Danny Collins. Coen loved the guy. He was tough, singularly focused, lived in the film room. He had a big arm but thrived by reading a defense. He played with a chip on his shoulder, Coen said, was beloved by his teammates and played with a little New Jersey swagger. Leary checked all those same boxes, right down to his home state.
“You see the ball jump off his hand on the film,” said Coen, who even watched Leary’s NC State teammates’ press conferences to see how they spoke about their QB, “but you see a player who everyone gets better when he plays.”
The key there, however, is the last part: “When he plays.”
Leary’s missed 15 games over the past three seasons, and when he arrived at Kentucky in January, it was with no guarantees he’d be throwing without pain.
Andrews helped provide a protocol for Leary’s return, slowly ramping up his workload until he’d regained his lost arm strength. Leary tested his arm for the first time in early March, just before Kentucky began spring ball. The goal was 60 throws vs. air.
“The first 10 throws,” Leary said, “my arm feels shot.”
Slowly, things improved. Doctor’s orders limited how many throws he could make each day, and by Kentucky’s first scrimmage of the spring, Leary looked like his old self.
“You can see the toughness, and he has the ability,” Stoops said. “We were trying to limit his throws a little bit, but there were certain throws that jumped out at us.”
His new teammates had taken notice, too. At NC State, Leary was the unquestioned leader after five years of hard work and big wins. At Kentucky, he took a more measured approach, hoping to earn respect with his game rather than rock the boat in a new locker room.
It was that first scrimmage when it all came together. The offense was down and needed a big play. Leary read the defense, took the snap and zipped a laser over the middle between two defenders for a huge gain. The entire tone of the practice changed. With one throw, it was clear: Leary’s arm was back, and his role was established.
“All the guys were juiced up,” said right guard Eli Cox. “And that’s when you know.”
There are still some unknowns for Leary. Coen wants him to work more under center this season — something he rarely did at NC State. Coen has been impressed by Leary’s field awareness — a gift, he said, that reminds him of Stafford — but he also thinks Leary sometimes lets the big picture get in the way of his precision. Leary has earned the respect of his teammates, but this summer, during seven-on-seven drills, is when he’ll need to become a more vocal leader of the offense.
And yes, there is still the question of his health, because after two serious injuries in three years, the narrative won’t die until Leary puts it to rest on the field.
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David Hale
The SEC would have you believe that its depth of talent, unparalleled in all the world outside of, perhaps, the all-you-can-eat menu at Olive Garden, makes it nearly impossible for any team to run the gamut of a full season unscathed, but for most of its recent history, this has been more bluster than reality. For all the hype, the powers of the league — Georgia and Alabama, primarily — have slugged their way to championships, with the occasional scare coming only when they had grown bored with their dominance and toyed with their prey.
But the 2025 season appears different. Nearly half the league’s games have been decided by a touchdown or less. The balance of power seems to sway like an LSU fan after a 12-hour tailgate, as teams’ fortunes rise and wane, sometimes from quarter to quarter, and Week 12’s action was the perfect showcase for this heart-pounding reality.
Texas A&M was left for dead at halftime against a struggling South Carolina, but emerged like an Auburn booster after a loss to Kentucky, ready to dish out whatever’s needed to change its fate.
Oklahoma, its playoff hopes on the brink, rode into Tuscaloosa and exposed the flaws in Alabama’s seemingly impenetrable armor with a relentless defense that tormented Ty Simpson and nabbed a trio of takeaways.
Florida, having shed the weight of a coach forever on the hot seat, went to Oxford with sights set on an upset, pushing Ole Miss well into the fourth quarter.
And Georgia, welcoming Texas to Sanford Stadium for the first time, took its share of body blows, but delivered the knockout punch with a third-quarter drive that included a pair of gutsy fourth-down calls, before rolling to a 35-10 win that might have ended the Longhorns’ postseason dreams.
Nothing came easily in the SEC on Saturday, a day with so much unexpected drama that even rapper Waka Flocka had to rescue a bunch of Kentucky fans stuck in a stadium elevator in what was surely the most heroic act by a hip-hop artist in service to the SEC since Flo Rida felled a shark that had boarded their boat and stolen Jim McElwain’s clothes.
Waka Flocka Flame didn’t just attend Kentucky vs. Tennessee Tech. He also helped rescue some Kentucky fans stuck in an elevator at Kroger Field.https://t.co/lhVORgHwRE pic.twitter.com/aGXklA9VPi
— KSR (@KSRonX) November 15, 2025
Like scaling mountains or waiting tables at Waffle House after midnight, life in the SEC is not for the faint of heart.
Saturday delivered one of the most epic comebacks in recent SEC history, as Texas A&M erased a 30-3 halftime deficit thanks to Marcel Reed‘s dynamic second half, in which he completed 16 of 20 passes for 298 yards and 3 touchdowns, and the Aggies did the impossible — beating a 3-7 team by a point.
Reed’s three first-half turnovers put A&M in the hole, and though he certainly earned savior status in the second half, the Aggies’ fortunes largely turned after a police officer bumped shoulders and exchanged words with South Carolina players following a touchdown.
0:41
Texas state trooper sent home after making contact with South Carolina players
A Texas state trooper was relieved of game-day duties during Texas A&M’s game against South Carolina after making contact with Gamecocks players.
Officials confirmed the state trooper was immediately relieved of his gameday duties, and after the Aggies followed the altercation with a 28-3 run, he was quickly reassigned to Johnny Manziel’s entourage.
A&M played with fire, but survived. Things weren’t so simple for Alabama.
The Tide’s lack of a consistent run game has been a concern all season, and the reliance on Simpson’s arm to burnish the entire offense seemed to be flirting with disaster, like wearing a white shirt to Dreamland.
Still, it was the Tide that managed to move the football at times. Oklahoma managed just 212 yards — nearly half Alabama’s tally. But three takeaways led to 17 Sooners points, and a missed field goal proved the difference in a 23-21 Oklahoma win.
With losses to Texas and Ole Miss already, the Sooners’ path to the playoff was limited, but Saturday’s win was a massive step forward.
To celebrate, Oklahoma played “Dixieland Delight” and “Sweet Home Alabama” in the locker room — their most on-the-nose playlist since using Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” after beating Michigan — and wore T-shirts reading “Hard to Kill,” that, we assume, were purchased from Steven Seagal’s estate sale. Brent Venables, after arriving at his postgame press conference by bursting through a wall like the Kool-Aid Man, touted the win as a watershed moment for a program that hadn’t beaten a top-five team on the road since 2017.
If Saturday was the chance for Oklahoma to prove its playoff bona fides, however, it may have been a death blow for rival Texas.
Georgia jumped out to a 14-3 lead, but the offense suddenly got stuck in the mud, and a Gunner Stockton interception midway through the third quarter seemed to open the door for Texas. The Longhorns scored six plays later to pull within four, and they had the Dawgs backed into a fourth-and-1 at their own 36 on the ensuing drive. This should’ve been the point in which the wheels came off for Georgia. Instead, Kirby Smart chose to go for it, Stockton hit Chauncey Bowens for a 10-yard completion, and the drive continued. Four plays later, Georgia faced another fourth down, and this time the Dawgs converted thanks to a Texas penalty. They scored on the drive, executed a brilliant on-side kick, scored again, and the rest was easy.
The win was a credit to Stockton, who continues his run of understated greatness this season. He threw for 229 yards and four touchdowns, connected with eight different receivers, threw just five incompletions, and revealed that it was actually him who solved the government shutdown by playing an emotional rendition of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” on air guitar on the floor of the Senate. But it was a reminder, too, that Smart is the closest thing college football has to Keyser Soze, utterly unflappable in the face of risk because no one else has the stomach to stop him.
Add in Florida’s flirtation with an upset in Oxford, taking a 24-20 lead into the fourth quarter, and even LSU’s 23-22 win over Arkansas that was definitely just to spite Brian Kelly, and it was as rollicking an SEC Saturday as we’ve gotten in a while.
“It just means more” is as often a punchline as it is a tagline, but in Week 12, it was impossible to argue. In the SEC, nearly every snap came with a dose of drama and intensity that felt like playoff football. That a sizable number of these teams will soon be part of the real playoff now seems beyond a doubt.
More:
Trends | Under the radar
Heisman five
Week 12 vibe check
Each week, a few top-25 matchups reframe the playoff picture. But beneath the headlines, dozens of small twists can add up to even bigger impact. We collect those here.
Trending up: USC‘s second-half offense
In what Iowa fans described as the most mind-boggling act of creativity since Kirk Ferentz mowed crop circles onto Matt Campbell’s lawn, the Hawkeyes lined up receiver Reece Vander Zee in shotgun, then threw a pass to QB Mark Gronowski for a touchdown to go up 21-7 on Iowa midway through the second quarter.
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Reece Vander Zee connects for 5-yard TD pass
Reece Vander Zee connects for 5-yard TD pass
But, in keeping with state law, Iowa’s offense hit 21 points and then called it a day, with its final four drives ending with two punts, an interception and a turnover on downs, allowing the Trojans to storm back for a 26-21 win.
Makai Lemon keyed the win for the Trojans with 10 catches for 153 yards and a touchdown. But the turning point in the final dagger for Iowa may have come on an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on an assistant coach who had stepped onto the field of play that kept a drive alive and allowed USC to run out the clock. Afterward, the assistant was severely punished when he wasn’t allowed to get In-N-Out burger with the rest of the team.
Trending down: A playoff spot for the American
Two weeks ago, Memphis was poised for a playoff spot, with the committee noting that the Tigers were its No. 1 team out of the Group of 5, despite not being ranked in the top 25.
Since then, Memphis has lost to Tulane and, on Saturday, 31-27 to East Carolina, and then again when the Pirates’ social media team delivered some salt to the wound — and sent it UPS.
Delivery Update 📦 pic.twitter.com/PVG6K0nMTM
— ECU Football (@ECUPiratesFB) November 16, 2025
Meanwhile, USF‘s playoff hopes all but evaporated as Navy ran for 338 yards to beat the Bulls 41-38.
Now, like Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the American is about to find out what happens when you leave the door open for James Madison, which walloped App State 58-10 on Saturday. The Dukes are 9-1, their lone loss coming to Louisville in a game in which they led in the second half. The Dukes can make a persuasive case as the top team in the Group of 5. The lone smudge on JMU’s résumé is that its best win this season came against boredom, as the rest of the Sun Belt saved on revenue-sharing payouts by fielding teams made up of guys they found waiting for barbecue sandwiches at the Gulfport, Mississippi, Buc-ee’s.
Trending up: Miami‘s offense
After spending much of the past month running an offensive scheme best described as “what if we gave a chimpanzee the keys to a 1993 Honda Accord,” Miami finally seemed to rekindle its early-season magic in an emphatic 41-7 win over NC State.
Carson Beck threw for 291 yards and three touchdowns, the ground game ran for 214 yards despite missing starting tailback Mark Fletcher Jr., and at no point did Mario Cristobal have to threaten to revoke offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson’s access to the good cappuccino machine, forcing him to instead use the travel coffee machine that Al Golden left in the office in 2015.
Will such an impressive victory be enough to erase the committee’s doubts about the Canes’ playoff worthiness? Only time will tell — and, no, sorry, we’re being told the committee actually watched Miami (Ohio)’s loss to Toledo and has dropped the Canes from the rankings.
Trending up: Pitt‘s bigger goals
There’s a rule in sales that you should underpromise and overdeliver, so kudos to Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi, who suggested this week that the Panthers could give up 100 points to Notre Dame and still be good. Well, Pitt allowed a meager 37 points — 63 fewer than we might’ve expected. That, folks, is a massive success.
Oh, sure, Pitt still lost 37-15, as the Irish tormented freshman QB Mason Heintschel (four sacks and a pick-six) all game, and Jeremiyah Love ran for 147 yards, but that’s beside the point. It’s a little like watching any Nicholas Cage movie since 1992. Once you realize he wasn’t trying all that hard, it’s kind of impressive how entertaining “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” turned out to be.
And, to Narduzzi’s larger point, Pitt remains well-positioned to make a run at an ACC championship, assuming the ACC doesn’t take the simpler path and pivot to a Savannah Bananas traveling sports comedy act by December.
Trending down: Protecting leads at Wrigley Field
Michigan entered the fourth quarter at Wrigley Field on Saturday leading Northwestern by 12, thanks to stellar performances by tailback Jordan Marshall (142 yards, two scores) and receiver Andrew Marsh (12 catches, 189 yards), but things quickly fell apart.
The Wolverines turned the ball over on three straight drives, allowing Northwestern to take the lead 22-21 with just over two minutes to go.
But in a nod to Cubs fans, who had gone more than a month without seeing the bullpen blow a late lead, Northwestern was happy to fill that void. Michigan drove 50 yards on 11 plays, converting a trio of third downs, before Dominic Zvada drilled a 31-yarder to win it 24-22.
On the upside for Northwestern, at halftime, Tony Petitti sold the naming rights to every fourth-quarter Big Ten collapse to fast-food giant Arby’s — “When it’s the fourth quarter and your stomach is in knots, think Arby’s!” — and that blown lead just nabbed the Wildcats an extra $146.50 in revenue.
Trending up: Leaving no doubt
UCF traveled to Lubbock, hoping to pull an upset against Texas Tech, but Jacob Rodriguez and the Red Raiders’ defense weren’t having it.
Rodriguez racked up nine tackles, Texas Tech had four sacks and eight tackles for loss and the Red Raiders had two takeaways while holding the Knights to just 230 yards of offense in a 48-9 win.
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Texas Tech cruises at home vs. UCF
Texas Tech cruises at home vs. UCF
Texas Tech looks increasingly like the one team outside the Big Ten and SEC capable of making a deep playoff run after winning its past four games by a combined 126 points — each by at least 23 — while its defense can make a case as the country’s best.
We must admit, it’s nice to finally see a team from a small town without a lot of hoopla achieve such immense success, knowing all it took was some good, old-fashioned Texas gumption, the will to work every day and $30-some million donated by oil barons who decided to support the football program, because buying the moon involved way too much red tape.
Trending down: The forward pass
On Saturday, Baylor QB Sawyer Robertson threw for 430 yards against Utah. Utes QB Devon Dampier threw for 80 yards. And the Utes won 55-28.
Instead, the Utes relied on the ground game, rushing for 380 yards and five touchdowns, led by Byrd Ficklin, who had 166 yards and two scores, in spite of his name clearly being a pseudonym Adam Levine uses when checking into hotels.
It was the type of old-school, blue-collar, hard-nosed performance that Kyle Whittingham said reminded him of his own goatee, and keeps the Utes’ playoff hopes alive with just two games remaining.
Trending down: Doomsday scenarios in the ACC
In the ACC’s ongoing quest to see how bleak things can get before its games require a parental warning, the league entered Week 12 facing a small but real possibility that it could miss the College Football Playoff.
For that to happen, Duke would need to win out, claim the league’s title with four losses, then be passed in the rankings by two Group of 5 champions.
Was it likely? No. Would it have been the final straw before Jim Phillips flipped over his desk, lit his special ACC commissioner card that gets him 20% off at Bojangles on fire and moved into the woods to live a life of quiet solitude alongside Paul Johnson? Yes. Yes, it would.
Fortunately for the ACC, however, it sidestepped at least one banana peel on its way to inevitably tumbling off a cliff, as Virginia thrashed the Blue Devils 34-17, thanks to 133 yards and a pair of touchdowns from tailback J’Mari Taylor.
With Duke’s title hopes thwarted, the ACC can now safely turn its attention to embarrassing itself in basketball season.
Under-the-radar play of the week
Notre Dame speedster Jadarian Price returned the opening kickoff of the second half 43 yards — the last 11 of which he dragged Pitt kicker Sam Carpenter, who had grabbed hold of his undershirt and went for a ride.
The return set up a Notre Dame touchdown, but the good news for Carpenter was that he earned 1,100 rewards miles and, when combined with his Jadarian Extra credit card, puts him just one more trip away from Price having to give him a piggyback ride anywhere in the continental U.S.
Under-the-radar game of the week
In a back-and-forth game in the Ivy League, Penn turned an 11-play drive into a 30-yard field goal with 22 seconds left to go up 43-42 with 22 seconds to play.
But the only time you should write off Harvard is if your dad can claim your tuition as a business expense for his venture capital firm.
The Crimson got completions of 21 and 18 yards from QB Jaden Craig, setting up Kieran Corr for a 53-yard field goal to win it.
ABSOLUTE CINEMA
KIERAN CORR DRILLS A 52-YARD FIELD GOAL TO WIN IT
📺 https://t.co/8oOFxoFh06
📻https://t.co/hEVv11DZR8
📊https://t.co/OtJ5xL5LM1#GoCrimson pic.twitter.com/J78Rwq7yKL— Harvard Football (@HarvardFootball) November 15, 2025
Harvard is 9-0 this season and 6-0 in Ivy League play, but just as importantly, those cretins from Penn learned a valuable lesson about messing with Harvard men, who’ll now don their victory smoking jackets, recline in an oversized leather chair made from the hide of the world’s last unicorn, swirl a snifter filled with the tears of local street urchins and twirl their mustaches as they recall their many great victories over their lessers.
Heisman five
We’ve reached the “put you best defensive player into the game on offense” portion of the Heisman campaign, and frankly, we couldn’t be more excited about it.
1. Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza
Mendoza threw for 299 yards and four touchdowns in a dominant 31-7 win over Wisconsin Badgers, leading Badgers fans to ask for some clarification on how that was possible, as they had been led to believe the forward pass had been outlawed in 2022.
2. Ohio State QB Julian Sayin
A blowout win over UCLA afforded Sayin few opportunities to show off, and even his highlights really belonged to Jeremiah Smith.
JEREMIAH SMITH ONLY NEEDS ONE HAND 😱
📺:NBC@OhioStateFB pic.twitter.com/NPs9bCm7s2
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 16, 2025
Sayin finished 23-of-31 for 184 yards and a touchdown, a snoozer by his standards, but at least it got him home before his 11 p.m. bedtime so he won’t be grumpy for play group in the morning.
3. Georgia Tech QB Haynes King
King was amazing yet again as Georgia Tech narrowly survived Boston College, 36-34. He threw for 371 and ran for 53, and all of it was necessary as the Yellow Jackets defense struggled once again. The Heisman isn’t exactly an MVP award, but if a player’s value to his team matters, then it’s hard not to have King near the top of any ballot. Despite missing Tech’s game against FCS Gardner-Webb, King is second among all Power 4 players in total offense, which is evidence enough for his Heisman candidacy. But what’s far more impressive is that 52% of his 3,066 yards this year have come while the Jackets were trailing.
This was Brent Key after Georgia Tech’s win.
Now imagine if he didn’t have one of the best QBs in the country to save his team repeatedly this year. He might as well be binging “The Hunting Wives,” Doordashing Chipotle for the ninth time in a week and sobbing quietly while pondering doing something unthinkable — like taking the Auburn job.
4. Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love
It’s near impossible to capture just how astonishing Love’s running style is, on par with some of the world’s greatest artists like Mikhail Baryshnikov, Fred Astaire or the Tasmanian Devil.
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Jeremiyah Love hits a nasty spin on his way to a 56-yard TD
Jeremiyah Love spins past a defender, then breaks free for a 56-yard touchdown for Notre Dame.
On Saturday, he ran for 147 yards, scored his 17th scrimmage touchdown of the year and all but guaranteed Notre Dame a playoff berth, as the Irish steamrolled Pitt to move to 8-2 with only games against woeful Syracuse and Stanford remaining.
5. Texas Tech LB Jacob Rodriguez
It’s common knowledge defensive players have no shot at the Heisman unless they do a little something else, as Charles Woodson did in 1997 when he starred as a DB, corner, and successfully rid the Upper Peninsula from the scourge of yeti attacks. So, Texas Tech stepped up Rodriguez’s long-shot candidacy by giving him the ball on offense at the goal line Saturday, and Rodriguez proved his value by plowing into the end zone from 2 yards out.
Linebacker Jacob Rodriguez with his FIRST CAREER OFFENSIVE TD for @TexasTechFB ‼️
And he hit the Heisman as his celebration 👀 pic.twitter.com/zzOWSXR1Qr
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 15, 2025
Rodriguez’s odds of making it to New York skyrocketed afterwards, as he now checks the boxes of the nation’s top defender, an offensive weapon, and he possesses a mustache that perfectly toes the line between Golden Age Hollywood leading man and 1980s highway cop who sits behind a billboard waiting for bootleggers to zoom past.
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Adam Rittenberg
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Oklahoma players and coaches gathered in different spots around Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium, posing for pictures and savoring every second of the team’s best win as an SEC member and its best under fourth-year coach Brent Venables.
When the 11th-ranked Sooners finally retreated to their locker room, their victory playlist began with “Dixieland Delight,” Alabama’s cherished late-game anthem, and then, of course, “Sweet Home Alabama.” Written off in most College Football Playoff projections after its home loss to Ole Miss on Oct. 25, Oklahoma responded with consecutive road wins against Tennessee and Saturday at No. 4 Alabama, holding off the Tide 23-21.
The Sooners recorded their first road win against a top-five opponent since their victory over Ohio State in 2017, featuring another famous postgame celebration with quarterback Baker Mayfield’s flag-plant at Ohio Stadium. OU ended Alabama’s 17-game home winning streak and became the first team to beat the Tide in consecutive seasons since Ole Miss in 2014 and 2015. The Sooners also registered their fourth win against an AP-ranked opponent this season, tying Alabama for the most in the FBS.
“I’m not a boastful or braggadocious kind of guy, but, man, I’m going to brag on our guys, and they deserve it,” Venables said. “They put a lot into this opportunity, and we’ve created vision for that, so I got to follow through. I’m like, ‘Hey, man, this is what victory looks like. This is how we’re going to do it. And I want to see you guys dancing, carrying on, just having some joy in the moment.'”
Oklahoma won despite generating only 212 yards of offense, its fewest since 2022 and OU’s fewest in a win since 2001 against No. 5 Texas. The Sooners rode their defense, which forced three Alabama turnovers, half of the Tide’s season total entering Saturday, and scored on Eli Bowen‘s 87-yard interception return in the first quarter.
The defense needed one final stop as Alabama took possession with 7:14 play, needing only a field goal to win. Even after “Dixieland Delight” sent the crowd into a frenzy and Alabama converted a key fourth down, an Oklahoma defense playing without top pass rusher R Mason Thomas and others clamped down on the Tide, who were held scoreless for the final 22:27.
“It was all red, and the lights were on, but we fed off the energy,” Oklahoma defensive lineman Taylor Wein, who had a strip-sack fumble and two quarterback hurries, said of hearing “Dixieland Delight” in the closing minutes. “Little do they know, they think that they’re feeling their team, they’re feeling us, they’re getting us ready to go.”
Wein was one of many Oklahoma players wearing a T-shirt that read “Hard to Kill” on the front and “Enough is Enough” on the back after the game. The Sooners stressed those themes after the loss to Ole Miss, recognizing that a third defeat would probably end their CFP hopes.
“How much is enough?” said kicker Tate Sandell, who went 3-for-3 on field goal attempts, including a 52-yarder. “It’s just having that mindset of staying alive, blue collar, roll your sleeves up and just find a way, and being hard to kill in the process.”
Venables thought the Sooners could “separate ourselves” on special teams, and they delivered, not only with Sandell’s field goals but forcing a Ryan Williams fumble on an Alabama punt return and partially blocking a Conor Talty field goal attempt at the end of the first half to preserve a 17-14 lead. The Sooners had 10 points off turnovers and overcame the massive yards differential by limiting major mistakes and doing the little things to win.
“Who’s it not pretty for? What does that mean?” a smiling Venables asked. “I happen to like it.”
Oklahoma had a more dominant defensive effort last year against Alabama, keeping the Tide out of the end zone. But the 2024 Sooners lost their final two games to finish 6-7 and raised questions about the trajectory under Venables, a first-time head coach.
But this season’s OU team has responded to both of its losses and key injuries, including to quarterback John Mateer, to be in position for a return to the CFP.
“They haven’t flinched,” Venables said. “When the fire is raging and things are looking a little desolate, they have responded several times this year, and they certainly have the last couple of weeks, when it mattered the most. They put respect on our brand again this week.”
Oklahoma must refocus for home games against Missouri and LSU, but the magnitude of Saturday’s win will resonate.
“The pictures after the game, you love the moments, the memories you create,” defensive tackle David Stone said. “We’ll have that for a lifetime.”
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