Untold stories of the Air Raid revolution, from pregame hot dogs to Phil Collins photo ops
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Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff Writer
Long before the world knew Mike Leach or Dana Holgorsen or any of the other oddballs, eccentrics and revolutionaries of the Air Raid fraternity, Hal Mumme was a high school coach in Copperas Cove, Texas, with a problem.
It was 1986, the NBA and a young superstar had captured the attention of the school’s best athletes. Even Mumme’s own son came home from school one day and announced he wanted to be Michael Jordan.
This was Texas, and most coaches still romanticized the notion that football had to be torture for it to be worthwhile. There was a machismo to the running game, ramming head-on into each other and surviving battles of attrition, with defenses built around big, physical players meant to win those battles.
“My generation’s football coaches fought World War II,” Mumme said, “and they were pretty damn determined to make us relive it every day in practice.”
So Mumme, who had already gone from being the nation’s youngest coordinator at UTEP at 27, was now 31, looking to reboot his career after the Miners’ whole staff had been fired, and he had a wild idea. What if he made football fun? What if he actually used the entire field?
And so the beginnings of the Air Raid were born, 67 miles away from Austin, where just 10 years before, Texas coach Darrell Royal was running the wishbone and repeating his maxim: “Three things can happen to you whenever you throw the football, and two of ’em are bad.” But Mumme, who idolized Royal, realized that the same thing that made the wishbone work, spreading the ball in space to skilled athletes, might work even better as a passing offense. So he went all-in.
A decade later, Mumme burst onto the national scene at Kentucky, walking around on SEC fields, eating hot dogs, wearing flip-flops and listening to Jimmy Buffet before becoming the only UK coach in the past 100 years to beat Alabama. His creation made 5-9 slot receivers superstars and walk-on quarterbacks Heisman winners. Mumme made it possible for Mike Leach, a lawyer from Pepperdine, to become a college football icon, for Lincoln Riley, a Texas Tech walk-on himself from tiny Muleshoe, Texas, to lead two of the most storied programs in history. He made football interesting for unpedigreed coaches who loved the sport, but who would rather write books about Geronimo than sleep in their offices or run the damn ball.
“The Air Raid is not an offense,” TCU coach Sonny Dykes said. “The Air Raid is a way of life.”
“It’s a mentality,” Riley said, “more than a collection of plays.”
These mavericks changed the course of football history and rewrote record books, paving the way for Patrick Mahomes to win two Super Bowls while forcing Bill Belichick and Nick Saban to give into wide-open passing attacks. How they did it was never boring.
Last year, Dykes, a former Mumme assistant at Kentucky, made a historic run to the national title game after a 5-7 season. This year Deion Sanders, who used to pick Mumme’s brain and called Leach for offensive staff recommendations, is using the same wide-open principles at Colorado during its program jump-start, turning his own son, Shedeur, into a Heisman candidate at QB.
With the sport still mourning Leach, the most famous and revered coach in the extended Air Raid family, following his death in December, we set out to find tales from the rise of the game-changing offense that illustrate the methods behind their collective madness.
The test pilot
For every Tim Couch or Kyler Murray or Caleb Williams, the bluest of blue-chip prospects, there are dozens of record-setting Air Raid quarterbacks who were unwanted by anyone else, then ran up the gaudiest of numbers.
Dustin Dewald blazed the trail in Copperas Cove. He was one of those players who got disillusioned with the drudgery of football in the 1980s, so he quit to join the golf team after watching his older brother get pummeled over and over as their QB.
“We got our heads kicked in trying to run the ball down the throats of bigger, more powerful teams, lining up in the Power I with an offensive line that averaged 195 pounds,” Dewald said. “It was just ridiculous. Hal came in and said, ‘All that’s going to change.’ It did. I think it was the first time in 10 years we didn’t have a losing season in Cove.”
Between 1978 and 1985, Cove went 10-69, including two 0-10 seasons. In Mumme’s first year in 1986, the Bulldogs went 5-5. They were still outmanned, but Mumme, who began by using the run and shoot, gave them a shot in every game. Then against district rival Georgetown, the opposing coach, Art Briles, blitzed Mumme relentlessly, making it difficult for more complex plays to develop.
“I decided I was never going to let that happen to me again,” Mumme said, reducing his offense to a collection of short passes and horizontal crossing routes.
Dewald threw the ball more than all but a handful of schools in Texas that year. There had been only two scholarship players in the previous 10 years at Cove, but he signed with Stephen F. Austin. Then, he went through the same cycle, quitting due to boredom and joining the golf team at Tarleton State. There weren’t any college teams he knew of where he could replicate his experience. Until he went home to Cove to visit.
He stopped by the football offices to congratulate Mumme on his new job he’d just landed at a small college, Iowa Wesleyan. By the time he left, Mumme had once again recruited him to play quarterback for a team that was similar to Sanders’ Colorado experiment: IWU was coming off an 0-10 season and had just two players returning.
“We tried to have a team meeting after I got introduced at the press conference and they told me there were going to be 40 guys,” Mumme said. “I walk in, there’s two, and the three that I brought with me. I just gave ’em the same speech I was going to give ’em anyway about working hard in the offseason, and we’re going to win games. One kid just got up and walked out. I guess he decided, ‘This is bulls—, I’m not doing this.’ So we had four.”
Leach was one of only two applicants for Mumme’s offensive coordinator job, and they quickly realized they were kindred spirits. It was a leap of faith: The high school coach took a $20,000 pay cut to try to prove himself in college again. The lawyer who could’ve made $200,000 a year instead was making $12,000, and the golfer took on student-loan debt to go to school in Iowa — where none of them had ever been.
They went 7-4 the next year, then, by 1991, started tinkering and added the up-tempo element where they never huddled and ran plays at a frenetic pace. Opposing teams had never seen anything like it and had no idea how to stop it. In Dewald’s accidental career, he threw for 12,045 yards, 115 TDs and set 25 NAIA records. He threw for 4,418 yards and 45 TDs in 1991, including one game where he set national records with 86 attempts and 61 completions. Leach sent out press releases to national media, coining the name “Air Raid” in the process and building the mystique.
While it may have appeared the gaudy numbers were because of an intricate playbook, it was actually the opposite. There was no playbook at all. The philosophy was making things as barebones as possible.
Don’t practice plays you won’t call in a game. Don’t call plays in a game you don’t practice. Don’t throw to a covered receiver and don’t pass up an open one.
The plays came from LaVell Edwards at BYU, with Mumme saying he’s watched every offensive snap of Edwards’ career. He picked his favorites — four passing and two rushing — that seemed to always work. His practice drills, the real backbone of the Air Raid, according to the coaches, were all about details of that limited set, and were all based on Bill Walsh’s 49ers practices.
So he made every practice consistent and repetitive and drilled until they were mind-numbingly boring. Do it until you can’t screw it up, and let muscle memory win. And if it works, keep doing it. Mumme said he once called the same play 52 times in a game for Dewald.
Decades after helping launch the revolution, Dewald has watched teammates like Bill Bedenbaugh, an Iowa Wesleyan offensive linemen who’s now considered one of the best O-line coaches in the country at Oklahoma, along with Holgorsen, his old IWU wide receiver who’s become another of the sport’s most idiosyncratic coaches, and he finds it amusing that he still understands almost everything they do.
“For years, I would go visit [Leach or Mumme] every year for at least one home game and spend days with them at practice and on the sidelines of games,” Dewald said. “The last time I visited Mike at Washington State, I looked at the script for the game and it was crazy. I actually knew what to do on 90 percent of it — and it was almost 30 years after I stopped playing. Just to see what they’ve all accomplished has been mind-blowing for me, how much it’s changed the game and how successful they’ve all been has been, really, cool to watch.”
It won’t work, until it did
Chris Hatcher is convinced Mumme isn’t the inventor of the Air Raid. He claims the title.
Hatcher signed at Valdosta State to play for Mike Cavan, a former Georgia assistant who had coached under Vince Dooley and was Herschel Walker’s lead recruiter. They were an I-formation team with a few passing concepts.
Mumme arrived at Valdosta after Cavan left for another job and, armed with talent he’d never had before, he initially made the same mistake he criticized other coaches for: He overcomplicated things.
“I don’t care what anybody says, I’m the guy that invented the Air Raid,” Hatcher said. “I was not smart enough to comprehend all this stuff Hal wanted to do. So we had to dummy it way down for me. And then that’s when the Air Raid took off. That is the truth.”
Hatcher learned to appreciate the beauty of perfecting and running an offense so simple that he had a little extra time on his hands, enough to visit a frat party the night before homecoming and leave with a parting gift.
“You didn’t have to be in the film room all night because it didn’t matter what the defense was doing,” Hatcher said. “We were so good at it that you had time to go out and steal a cannon in the evening. It was a legit Civil War cannon, now, too. Let’s not act like it was a little peashooter.”
Hatcher threw for 11,363 yards and 121 touchdowns and set 29 school records. During his senior year in 1994, he led the Blazers to their first postseason berth, advancing to the quarterfinals, and when it was all said and done set 29 VSU passing and total offense records. He won the 1994 Harlon Hill Award, often called the D-II Heisman, as the Blazers went 40-17-1 in his career.
This captured the attention of Kentucky athletic director C.M. Newton, who wanted to match the basketball program pace. He handpicked Mumme, which raised eyebrows among purists who believed such a gimmick offense wouldn’t work in the big, bad SEC. But Kentucky already had a homegrown star quarterback in Tim Couch, albeit one who was last seen losing 65-0 in his first start to Florida — and defensive coordinator Bob Stoops — and attempted just 84 passes over seven games.
First, Mumme enlisted Hatcher, now a graduate assistant, to convince Couch not to transfer. (They went to Hooters and talked it out.) He stuck around, working with Hatcher, who was in charge of getting Mumme’s play scripts prepared for Couch’s wristband. Mumme would say Play 1 or Play 2, and Couch would call what’s on the wristband. Quarterbacks often would check into different plays freely, but in one game, Couch took it to an extreme.
“We get about three or four first downs and Couch ain’t run a play Mumme’s called yet,” Hatcher said. “We go down and score, and the whole time Mumme is on the headsets using a few choice words to me.”
Mumme accused Hatcher, who often changed the play himself when playing for Mumme, of purposely telling Couch not to run Mumme’s calls.
“I can’t believe you’d do this to me,” Mumme said, according to Hatcher. “Then it finally hit me. Couch was using the wristband from the week before, and didn’t change it out. Every play was wrong, and we went down and scored anyway. My point is, when you rep the plays so much, we feel like it doesn’t matter. I can pick me a handful of plays that should work against just about anything you’ll see. I like to say we’re a well-coached backyard football team.”
Couch’s mastery paid off in 1997 when he threw a 26-yard touchdown pass to Craig Yeast in overtime to lead Kentucky to a win over Alabama 40-34. It was Kentucky’s first win over Alabama in 75 years — something the Wildcats haven’t done since. It came just a year after Couch threw for 13 yards (UK had 67 total yards) in an entire game against Stoops’ Florida defense under Steve Spurrier. Couch threw for 348 and 406 yards in the next two meetings. While the Gators ended up pulling away and winning both games handily, it was frustrating for Stoops, and their mentality impressed him.
“I liked how [Leach] and Hal Mumme were over there standing together,” Stoops said. “I took note of the casual nature of the two of them. But they were the most difficult to deal with.”
A little extra mustard
Nothing Mumme did was by accident. He doesn’t dispute any contentions that he and Leach were arrogant.
“There’s no question,” Mumme said. “We always thought we were smarter than everybody else. We always thought we had better ideas than everybody else. And we pretty much did. That’s why everybody’s trying to do it now.”
Mumme could be combative with reporters, and Leach could be aloof. And they weren’t worried about too many other opinions.
“We played Jimmy Buffett during warmups,” said West Virginia coach Neal Brown, who played wide receiver at Kentucky under Mumme. “I don’t know if that gets it going for you.”
“It got me and Mike going,” Mumme said, laughing. “We weren’t worried about anybody else.”
They loved causing a stir or annoying other fans, like when Leach mocked Texas A&M’s Corps of Cadets as head coach at rival Texas Tech.
“How come they get to pretend they are soldiers?” Leach said. “The thing is, they aren’t actually in the military. I ought to have Mike’s Pirate School. The freshmen, all they get is the bandanna. When you’re a senior, you get the sword and skull and crossbones. For homework, we’ll work pirate maneuvers and stuff like that.”
The Aggies were not amused.
Then again, Leach and Mumme were, which was the point. Jeff Allen can testify.
Before Allen became the only staff member that’s been with Nick Saban for his entire Alabama tenure, a trusted confidante and sports medicine guru, he was an assistant trainer at Kentucky — but most importantly, he was Mumme’s hot dog guy.
UK was about to play at LSU in Death Valley, then coached by embattled coach Gerry DiNardo. Mumme marched into the training room on Wednesday with a request that befuddled Allen.
“Hey, during pregame, when I’m talking to DiNardo, I want you to bring me a hot dog,” Mumme said.
Allen didn’t understand. He’d been with him for more than five years at this point, and this was a new one.
“Finally, over the next day or two, I said, ‘Why do you want a hot dog while you’re on the field talking to their head coach?” Allen said, “He said, ‘Because they’re going to be so uptight to begin with. I want to show ’em how carefree and how relaxed I am, and it’s going to make them even more nervous.'”
Mumme was very specific that he wanted mustard on it. He sent a student for the hot dog and was on the field during pregame when he saw Mumme, who he hadn’t talked to yet on the day of the game. He thought, “well here goes nothing,” and headed over.
“I looked at him and said, ‘Coach, here’s your hot dog,’ Allen said. “He looked at me and goes, ‘Oh, thanks Jeff.’ Then he said, ‘Hey, hold on, hold on. Does it have mustard on it?'” Allen assured him it did, all the while playing it straight.
“I can still see DiNardo’s face,” Allen said. “He was like, ‘What in the world is happening here?’ And I swear to you, Hal just stood there talking and eating that hot dog. I walked off and I turned around and I wanted to see it again. And there they are talking and Hal is just chomping on a hotdog right there on the 50-yard line of Tiger Stadium. And our players were seeing it. They were laughing. They were dying during warmups watching it.”
The Wildcats were 0-24 on the road against ranked teams since 1977. They were 9½-point underdogs. They played fast and loose and kicked a walk-off field goal to win at the buzzer 39-36, sealing one of the biggest wins in school history. It led Kentucky to a bid in the Outback Bowl, the first New Year’s Day bowl for the Wildcats since 1952.
“I’m not saying we won that game because of the hot dog,” Allen said. “But I don’t think it hurt.”
The Air Raid goes mainstream
On Dec. 1, 1998, Oklahoma hired Stoops. The Sooners hadn’t had a winning season in six years and were coming off a 12-22 stretch in three years under John Blake. Stoops, then 38, was a hot commodity as a defensive coordinator. Hiring someone to run his offense was his first big decision.
“My initial talks were with Turner Gill, who was at Nebraska at the time,” Stoops said. “That didn’t really work out. And then I got to thinking. … I didn’t know [Leach], but the more I thought about it, the more I referred back to how challenging it was to handle Kentucky. If they can be that good at Kentucky, why couldn’t we be as good or better at Oklahoma? So I went with it.”
It was a bold move. Leach had never been a playcaller, and let’s face it, he was pretty weird.
“I thought Mike was really interesting,” Stoops said. “Mike had a little different way of doing things. But let me tell you something: He was a hell of a leader. He was demanding, as aloof as he might be. He wanted things done a certain way and they damn sure better be done that way or you were going to hear it. He might look laid back, he was demanding, very demanding.”
That was a learning curve for the rest of the staff, who couldn’t figure out if this was all an act, or if Leach was for real.
“It was completely different from anything that any of us had seen in the offensive meeting room,” former Oklahoma assistant and Kansas head coach Mark Mangino said. “It did take time to get used to.”
So did Leach’s personality. The staff was all staying at a hotel in Norman, and somehow Mangino’s room became the center of the action.
“I couldn’t get him out of my room when I was living in the Residence Inn,” Mangino said. “Every night, somebody delivered a couple cases of beer, a box of cigars, and we sat around and called recruits till about 11:30.”
By midnight, everyone was gone. Except Leach.
“Mike used to like to watch those simulcasts of Howard Stern. And those things would run till 4 in the morning. I’m in my bed trying to sleep. And here’s Leach at 3 in the morning, he’s laughing at Howard Stern, he’s drinking a beer and he’s having a good time.”
Stoops, too, had a learning curve.
“I learned after the first few weeks late at night not to stop in and check in on Mike,” Stoops said. “One night, it’s 11 or something, I’m ready to go home, and he starts telling me a story about Geronimo. After about 20 minutes, I said, ‘Mike, I’m going home. I’m the head coach, I get to go when I want.'”
Mangino, meanwhile, couldn’t shake him at night, and he couldn’t get through to him by day. In a staff meeting, Mangino suggested a running play. Leach couldn’t have been less interested. Mangino suggested trying it at practice, and Leach blew him off again. Mangino said maybe he’ll practice it anyway.
“Mike said, you could put it in all you want, you could run it during every play of inside drill, but I’m never going to call it in a game,” and Mangino and Leach nearly came to blows, Stoops said, laughing.
An irritated Stoops called them into his office and made them hash it out. Stoops made it clear that he had given Leach full control, and they’d do it his way. Leach and Mangino became good friends.
The Big 12 was never the same. The new-look Sooners went 7-5 and made their first bowl game in five years. Texas Tech hired Leach, and Mangino took over, finally getting to put in a couple of wrinkles of his own.
Mangino had a season’s worth of reps in place, and he said he ran about 80% of Leach’s offense. “And it worked,” he said. The Sooners won a national championship, going 13-0 behind Josh Heupel, a lightly recruited junior college quarterback Leach found at Snow College.
From the @kfor archives, Mike Leach at his last OU practice with Josh Heupel on Dec. 8, 1999. You can see the emotions as he talks with Heupel. Leach was introduced as the Texas Tech head coach the next day. pic.twitter.com/xm65rAhAes
— KFORsports (@KFORsports) December 14, 2022
“They were the ones that invented it … but we [Oklahoma, Leach, Texas Tech and the Big 12] were the ones to make it popular,” Stoops said. “They weren’t getting the national attention at Kentucky until we started it. And then, of course, we kept it and won the national championship.”
Liftoff in Lubbock
Leach became a star at Texas Tech. He took down No. 1 Texas, guided the Red Raiders to a bowl game in all 10 of his seasons and finished as the program’s all-time winningest coach at 84-43.
Dykes was part of Leach’s first staff that replaced his dad, Spike Dykes, who had retired.
“We were doing all this stuff that was really analytics, but they didn’t know it was,” Dykes said. “We were going for it all the time on fourth down or going for it in our own territory. My dad would be like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘It gives us a chance to beat Texas. Instead of losing by 14, we might lose by 50. But we also might win?'”
It became one of the most influential eras in college football. In Mumme’s days in Kentucky, Urban Meyer and Sean Payton were among the earliest coaches to visit to try to learn what the Air Raid is all about. In Lubbock, Leach made sure his doors were wide open, and there were visitors everywhere.
Leach made sure his coaches knew that he wanted them to teach visitors anything they wanted to know.
There was only one issue: “They didn’t believe us,” said Lincoln Riley, who was a student assistant for Leach, because the entire offense was so simple.
“I’ve never been to a place where you had more coaches around constantly,” Riley said. “Mike was so open to people coming in. You think just Texas high school coaches? No. I’m talking professional coaches, college coaches from all around the country, high school coaches from all around the country, every single year. There’s a group from Japan that came, groups from England that came over, I mean, you name it, we had ’em.”
Dykes and Holgorsen, who were receivers coaches and later co-offensive coordinators, would handle a lot of high school coaches on their visits. Dykes said he can remember walking out to the parking lot one day and overhearing the coaches leaving convinced the offense couldn’t be that simple, that Leach & Co. were holding things back.
“‘Those sumb—— wouldn’t tell us anything,'” Dykes recalled them saying. “And we told them everything.”
Muleshoe High’s David Wood coached Riley and his brother Garrett Riley, now the offensive coordinator at Clemson, and watched as they passed over small-school offers to head to Lubbock to learn from Leach. Over time, he said, you could see the Tech influence take hold and spread throughout high school football, with Muleshoe being one of the early adopters, because Lincoln returned to help him install it while he was still a walk-on quarterback at Tech.
“We were a run offense, but once we realized how simple it was, we didn’t think it was going to be that hard to switch,” Wood said. “We used to run maybe 30 plays in practice because you analyze every play and tell every player what they did wrong and then you’d run the play again and make sure everyone did it right. The way Leach did it, when we watched it, you got to coach on the run. So we were able to get like 120 plays a practice instead of 30 plays a practice.”
Wood said when Riley set out for Lubbock in 2002, there were maybe two schools in the Texas Panhandle that were running a spread offense.
“I would say probably 70 percent of the teams we played when I retired [in 2017] were running it,” he said. “Maybe 80.”
The Big 12 became known for its shootouts, and Leach’s earliest quarterback rooms were filled with future stars and coaches, all of whom waited their turn, many of them just to start for one season. Kliff Kingsbury, who had originally signed with Spike Dykes, threw for more than 5,000 yards as a senior in 2002 and set seven NCAA records in his three years as a starter at Tech. His backup, B.J. Symons, set the NCAA passing record with 5,833 yards in 2003, and Symons’ backups, Sonny Cumbie and Cody Hodges, each passed for more than 4,000 yards in a season as starters.
They did it all because Leach repeated the same things he and Mumme had always preached, particularly in the film room.
“The worst coaching point he would ever give us, and the one that we all hated, was: ‘This guy was open. This guy was open. This guy was open. This guy wasn’t open. And he’s the one guy you threw it to!” said Cumbie, now the head coach at Louisiana Tech, imitating Leach’s monotone cadence. “I don’t care if it’s two-high [safety coverage], one-high. Is it man? Is it zone? Is this guy open? Yes. Throw it to him.”
Something’s in the air tonight
Mumme’s Kentucky era ended in an NCAA investigation, with Mumme resigning in 2001 amid findings that an assistant coach was sending money orders to players in Memphis. Mumme was cited for a “failure to monitor,” but was not punished by the NCAA.
Since then, he’ll sign up to coach anything, anytime, anywhere, including stops at New Mexico State, reviving football after 20 years at Southeastern Louisiana or stops at Division III schools Belhaven in Mississippi and McMurry in Texas.
“I’m the Johnny Appleseed of football,” Mumme said. “I always thought that was a great story. It’s not that I set out to do that — I never set out to get kicked out of Kentucky — but when you look back on it, providence had a plan. We spread it a whole lot of places it wouldn’t have been otherwise.”
And despite his offense being almost the norm now, rather than catching teams by surprise, it still works as it was intended: As a sort of money ball, beating teams that you have no business beating.
At McMurry, he took over a program that had three winless seasons in the previous decade, including an 0-10 mark the year before he arrived. Three years later, they were 9-3 and 7-1 in the conference.
Out of the spotlight, Mumme still made history. And he did it in the most Mumme way possible.
McMurry opened the 2011 season with an 82-6 loss to Stephen F. Austin, who was ranked in the FCS at the time. After getting down early, Mumme would just keep going for it on fourth down over and over. He was down 35-0 at halftime, and it only got worse from there. But he wouldn’t stop.
“Losing by 50 was the same as losing by 1,” Dykes said. “Hal never cared.”
The next week, Mumme gave the team four days off. He showed them five plays from the first half where it easily could’ve been 35-28 instead of 35-0. They were set to face UTSA the next week, a D-I team coached by Larry Coker, who’d won a national championship at Miami. Mumme’s quarterback, Jake Mullin, like Dewald, wasn’t on the team when he arrived. He played baseball, but was a quarterback on the intramural team when Mumme found him.
“They said they created this offense for teams without much talent, which was great for us,” Mullin said, who, like Dewald, ended up throwing for more than 12,000 yards in his career. “Whenever [Mumme] got there, there was not much there. I mean, I remember I was bigger than my left guard.”
Mumme took the team to the Menger Hotel in San Antonio, his favorite place, where Teddy Roosevelt recruited Texans at the bar to serve in his Rough Riders. He took the team on a tour of the Alamo the night before the game. The next day, McMurry upset UTSA 24-21 in front of 31,000 fans in the Alamodome, one of the only upsets of a D-I team by a D-III team in history, and Mullin threw for 372 yards.
“The Menger’s filled with ghosts, we did have a ghost sighting in there,” Mumme said. “Between the Menger ghosts and the Alamo ghosts, they probably helped us out.”
Mumme’s fascination with history earned him an invitation from then-McMurry professor Don Frazier to a party for his new book, “The Alamo and Beyond.” Also invited? One of the world’s largest collectors of Alamo memorabilia in the world: Phil Collins. Yes, that Phil Collins.
Frazier didn’t want Collins to be constantly accosted at the event, so he invited Mumme because he said half the table of Texans would rather talk to Mumme about the Air Raid and Leach than to a British rock star. Even about the Alamo.
Mumme got his copy autographed by Collins. The inscription reads:
“To coach… Something’s in the air tonight. Cheers. Phil Collins.”
The next chapter
Mumme, 71, keeps spreading the gospel. He is part of the operations group of a new spring league called the International Football Alliance with teams in Mexico and Texas, and will coach one of the teams. His son, Matt, who never became Michael Jordan, instead stuck with the family business and is now the assistant head coach at Colorado State.
Mumme has seen his little creation change the sport, including watching some of the most storied running teams of his lifetime at USC and Oklahoma be completely transformed. Now, it’s finally broken through to the final frontier: the Big Ten, where Wisconsin, under Leach acolyte Phil Longo, is following the same formula as Oklahoma: Join forces with a defensive head coach (Luke Fickell) and flip the offense. Harrell, the former Leach quarterback, is the new offensive coordinator at Purdue as well.
“A couple of days before Mike passed, we talked and he was just ultra excited that we’re bringing the Air Raid to the Big Ten,” Longo said. “It’s the most excited I’ve ever heard him. So it meant something to me that he was happy that we were making moves, and he’s the only one who didn’t seem shocked by it.”
Mason Miller, Leach’s offensive line coach at Mississippi State who is now the offensive coordinator at Tarleton State, has worked for either Mumme or Leach basically since 1994 when he played running back at Valdosta State. He said the Air Raid family has become so big that it has its share of “little sibling rivalries,” but that when they all get together, “we’re like magnets to each other.”
Leach’s loss has been profound on the family. But out of that loss, there’s a new beginning.
Leach’s son Cody spent two years as a volunteer coach at BYU under Kalani Sitake, and spent his dad’s final year as a graduate assistant at Mississippi State. Now, he’s an assistant special teams coach for the Bulldogs, who has completed his Air Raid certification — a service Mumme offers to keep spreading the word to coaches anywhere — and is studying his dad’s old game tapes stored in Gatorade coolers in his garage.
“I wish I could have gotten more time with him,” Cody, 27, said. “But Dad being so famous, being on TV, the occasional ‘Friday Night Lights’ cameo and other random stuff in media, I can always find him. Not everyone has that kind of opportunity where your parent is so well-documented that you can just find them and pull them up anytime.”
There’s another Mumme-Leach pairing in the works, with Cody hoping to follow his father’s path.
“He knew so many other amazing coaches and all the guys he knows, I’ve known for a long time too,” Cody said. “So I have plenty of people to be able to talk to. His was the first generation, and it’s kind of taking off into other branches. For me, it’s a legacy.”
Stoops says he can’t help but look around and see how profound their impact was.
“It goes back to Mike,” he said. “And Hal’s not talked enough about. He and Mike were joined at the hip. Between the two of them, I don’t know that anyone’s had a stronger influence on coaches. It goes on and on. The influence is huge. These tentacles from them go all over the place. They branch out from the two of them everywhere.”
Jake Trotter and Chris Low contributed to this story.
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Bill Connelly
It took a while for college football to orient itself this season. Three of the top four teams in the preseason AP Top 25 poll started poorly, and only one really recovered. Nine of the preseason top 17 went 8-4 or worse. Meanwhile, some teams that were expected to be good — preseason No. 20 Indiana, No. 21 Ole Miss and No. 23 Texas Tech — turned out to be playoff-caliber dynamite.
Things were pretty messy for a while as the sport figured itself out, but once the hierarchy was established, it was established. Over the past three weeks, teams ranked 14th or higher in the AP poll have gone a combined 35-3, and all three losses were to opponents ranked 16th or higher.
The ACC and the coaching carousel did their best to ensure that there was always something messy and/or chaotic happening, but we’ve reached Championship Week with the balance of power firmly set. Now we get to find out if college football decides to offer one last burst of absolute nonsense. Here’s everything you need to follow during what is likely to be either a very orderly or incredibly fraught Championship Week.
All times Eastern
Championship Week chaos scenarios
This weekend is basically setting up like college football’s version of one of those “We can do this the easy way or the hard way” moments in a mob movie. If Texas Tech and Virginia win as favorites in the Big 12 and ACC championship games, respectively, and if Alabama beats Georgia as it almost always does — since 2017, Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs are 1-7 against the Crimson Tide and 107-8 against everyone else — then college football will have chosen the easy way.
If it unfolds that way, we’ll be able to predict with near certainty who will be in the College Football Playoff. The at-large bids will go to current No. 1 Ohio State or No. 2 Indiana (whichever loses the Big Ten championship game), No. 3 Georgia, No. 5 Oregon, No. 6 Ole Miss, No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 8 Oklahoma and either No. 10 Notre Dame or No. 12 Miami, depending on how much overthinking the playoff committee decides to undertake. Per SP+, however, there’s only a 22% chance we get those three results. And things could get weird if we stray from the script.
(* If No. 11 BYU’s ranking slips, therefore putting Notre Dame and Miami next to each other in the rankings, the committee could decide to move Miami ahead because of the Hurricanes’ head-to-head win. It’s what they tend to do when teams with a head-to-head result end up next to each other. I personally think that win is the only reason Miami deserves to rank even as high as 12th — they have neither played nor beaten any other ranked teams, and they lost to two unranked teams in by far the worst of the power conferences. Notre Dame’s résumé undoubtedly has similar holes, but the committee had many weeks to rank Miami ahead of Notre Dame and didn’t do it, and it would be impossibly silly to do it after a week in which neither team — and only one of their 2025 opponents — played a single game. I’m extremely ready to go back to a BCS-like formula.)
What if BYU beats Texas Tech (23% chance, per SP+)? Last year, Clemson became the first official bid thief of the 12-team playoff era with its win over SMU in the ACC championship game. This year, BYU appears to be the designated thief. The Cougars have lost only to No. 4 Texas Tech and, at 11th, could claim to have been slighted by the committee. They clearly need to win to get in, and if they do, they will likely steal Notre Dame’s (or Miami’s?) ticket. The Fighting Irish, who have won 10 straight games by an average of 43-14, were ranked ninth for three straight weeks before mysteriously slipping to 10th on Tuesday. That puts them in line to get snubbed with a Big 12 upset.
What if BYU wins and Alabama loses (13% chance)? Last season, SMU made the CFP despite losing in the ACC championship game; from that, we derived that the committee had decided not to punish a team for earning a 13th game when others around it in the rankings had not. The Mustangs did fall from eighth to 10th, however. It wasn’t enough to knock them from the playoff field, but they still dropped.
So what will happen if Alabama loses to Georgia, perhaps by a solid margin? Will Bama fall behind Notre Dame? And if BYU has also won … will that mean the Cougars steal the Tide’s bid?
Tuesday’s rankings give us reason to doubt that Bama would move at all, of course. In fact, the only real justification for the Tide jumping Notre Dame this week is that the committee was giving itself a cushion in case of a Bama loss. There is, after all, no universe in which the Tide beating 5-7 Auburn in the last minute was more impressive than Notre Dame beating 4-8 Stanford by 29, and I wouldn’t think that A&M falling from third to seventh would make the Irish’s loss to the Aggies look significantly worse. Regardless, now the committee might not have to worry about eliminating Bama with a bad performance in Atlanta. But what if BYU wins and the Tide lay an absolute egg?
What if Duke wins (32% chance)? BYU aside, Championship Week’s biggest chaos agent is clearly Duke. Manny Diaz’s 7-5 Blue Devils eked out an ACC championship bid thanks to a set of tiebreakers that will almost certainly be redrawn soon. They are only 3.5-point underdogs against Virginia, and a Blue Devils win could give a playoff ticket to a second Group of 5 champion. James Madison would be first in line, though an 11-2 UNLV team will be intriguing if JMU loses and the Rebels finally figure out how to beat Boise State for the Mountain West championship.
Of course, with the lengths the committee went to avoid ranking another G5 team besides Tulane — JMU and North Texas didn’t make it in until this week, and barely at that — Duke itself could still simply hop JMU. The Blue Devils hold about four teams’ playoff hopes in their upset-minded hands.
And before you complain about undeserving teams making the field, this is how playoffs work! Teams with bad records reach the high school playoffs all the time. So do the champions of various lower-budget FCS, Division II or Division III conferences. Four teams with losing records have made the NFL playoffs since 2010. This is the way it should be. We should let more conference champs in, actually.
These are the chaos scenarios to watch for. Now let’s talk about the actual games.
Saturday, 8 p.m., Fox
Back in the BCS days, the people in charge would change the way the computer ratings portion of the BCS formula worked anytime they disagreed with the results. Constantly saying, “I don’t like that, let’s change something” creates a worse process as often as not.
One year into the 12-team playoff era, the college football world declared, “I don’t like that, let’s change something.” When the “top four conference champions receive first-round byes” rule produced odd results in Year 1 — namely, byes going to No. 9 Boise State and No. 12 Arizona State — the title-winner byes were immediately ditched. As a result, we get the most low-consequence No. 1 versus No. 2 December game imaginable. Barring an absolute blowout, Ohio State and Indiana are likely to receive top-four seeds and first-round byes no matter what happens in Indianapolis on Saturday.
Now, Indiana is playing for its first Big Ten title in 58 years; that’s pretty big. Plus, since both quarterbacks, IU’s Fernando Mendoza and OSU’s Julian Sayin, are among the three betting favorites in the Heisman race, it’s hard not to look at this game as a winner-take-all situation for that award. (Root for a defensive slugfest, Diego Pavia!) But this might turn out to be the first of two Hoosiers-Buckeyes games, and the second one will be much bigger.
This one will still be educational, though, and I have two huge questions:
Will Indiana’s offensive line hold up? In 2024, the Hoosiers lost to only the two national title game participants, Ohio State and Notre Dame. In both games, the IU defense mostly held up, but the offense vanished: Whereas the Hoosiers averaged 464 yards in wins, they gained a total of 429 yards in the two losses. Quarterback Kurtis Rourke’s injury limitations didn’t help, but IU running backs averaged only 4.0 yards per carry, and Rourke took eight sacks in 60 pass attempts.
This season, Indiana ranks first in rushing success rate* and a solid 35th in sack rate allowed. Backs Roman Hemby and Kaelon Black keep the Hoosiers on schedule, and Mendoza gets the ball out of his hands quickly. The offense performed well enough against a pair of SP+ top-10 defenses (Iowa and Oregon), but Ohio State’s defense is the best in the country. How well will the Hoosiers hold up, especially up front?
(*Success rate: How frequently an offense is gaining 50% of necessary yardage on first down, 70% on second and 100% on third and fourth.)
Can Ohio State turn on the explosiveness? Ryan Day and coordinator Brian Hartline have created a sturdy offensive structure for maximizing Sayin’s ridiculous accuracy and keeping the redshirt freshman out of awkward downs and distances. The Buckeyes operate with one of the nation’s slowest tempos, and Sayin throws the ball as quickly as possible. He has completed a record 78.9% of his passes, and with a good-not-great run game as a complement, Ohio State ranks second nationally in success and three-and-out rates.
The tradeoff, however, is a major lack of big plays.
The Buckeyes rank just 111th in yards per successful play (11.5), and while we know all about the epic talent of receivers Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate, Sayin very selectively looks deep. That keeps both the negative and big-play counts low.
Big plays are the way to score on Indiana, however. The Hoosiers have allowed only 11 offensive touchdowns this season: Six were from 44 yards or longer, and two more were set up by gains of 40-plus. IU is fifth in success rate allowed and ninth in sack rate — the Hoosiers don’t let you dink and dunk all the way down the field. Can Ohio State create chunk plays without exposing Sayin to hits and mistakes?
Current line: OSU -4 (down from -5.5 at open) | SP+ projection: OSU by 0.9 | FPI projection: IU by 0.1
Saturday, 4 p.m., ABC
If Alabama beats Georgia, we could end up with a situation in which a) the extremely top-heavy Big Ten gets only three CFP teams, but they all get top-four seeds and first-round byes, and b) the SEC gets five teams, but none of them are in the top four. Granted, there’s also a chance that the committee surges Bama up to fourth in this scenario, but based on the season the SEC has had, “five bids and no byes” would be apt. It currently has no top-five teams in the SP+ rankings, but it still has seven of the top 13 and, comfortably, the best average rating.
Of course, for all the talk of parity within this conference, we’re getting our fourth Bama-Georgia title game in eight years, and a Georgia win — the Dawgs are favored — will be its third title in four years. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose and whatnot.
Writing about Alabama this season has been a strange experience. The Crimson Tide have mostly been “little things” masters, owning the red zone on both ends, winning the field position and turnover battles and closing games out beautifully, going 4-1 in one-score games. But they have also only rarely looked dominant despite the legion of former blue-chippers on their roster. They’ve ranked between ninth and 12th in SP+ for the past seven weeks, and in that span, they’ve played almost precisely to projections (which suggests that the ranking is pretty accurate).
They beat Georgia 10 weeks ago, however, and that brings them back to Atlanta to face a Georgia team that … has rarely dominated despite the legion of former blue-chippers on their roster. The Dawgs are also 4-1 in one-score finishes, and while they had to lean heavily on offense early in the season — they beat Tennessee 44-41 and beat Ole Miss 43-35 — they’ve allowed just 22 total points in their past three games, a run that includes their one truly resounding performance, a 35-10 blowout of Texas.
In the teams’ first meeting, two major habits came to bear. Alabama, which ranks eighth nationally in points per drive in the first half (and only 33rd in the second), bolted to a 14-0 lead and led 24-14 at halftime. In the second half, however, Georgia took control, tilting the field and creating a pair of red zone opportunities to Bama’s zero. A fourth-down stop in the fourth quarter, however, made the difference in a 24-21 Tide win. For the game, the Dawgs averaged 6.7 yards per play to Bama’s 5.2, but the Tide won 19 of 27 total third downs and finished plus-1 in turnovers. That was just enough.
This was one of five games in which Georgia took snaps while trailing in the second half. It was the only one the Dawgs didn’t win. For whatever their upside might be this year, there’s never going to be any question about their ability to brawl for 60 full minutes.
Georgia’s defense has rounded into form of late, but the Dawgs still face an awkward matchup with the Tide offense, in that it defends the run far better than the pass and Bama is happy to abandon the run and put the game in Ty Simpson‘s hands. Regardless, the early going will be huge: Georgia is more experienced and more effective at playing from behind. And if you’re rooting for the “What happens if Bama gets genuinely thumped?” scenario, Georgia going up early is an obvious step one.
Current line: UGA -2.5 | SP+ projection: UGA by 2.8 | FPI projection: Bama by 0.3
Saturday, noon, ABC
I don’t think we’ve talked enough about how good Texas Tech is this season. I mean, everyone knows the Red Raiders are good — they’re 11-1, they’re fourth in the CFP rankings and defenders Jacob Rodriguez and David Bailey are surefire All-Americans. They aren’t exactly flying under the radar. But while SP+ has locked in pretty well on most teams, it continues to underestimate Tech’s capabilities, even while ranking it third nationally. The Red Raiders overachieved against projections by an average of 14.0 points in November, winning four games (including one against BYU) by an average of 42-9. In fact, the only time they’ve really underachieved all season was in their 26-22 loss to Arizona State, when they were without starting quarterback Behren Morton. They even managed to overachieve in three other partial or whole games without Morton. This is a scary team.
BYU has all the motivation in this one, however, knowing that its playoff hopes are now fully win or bust. (The Cougars might also get an “Our head coach just chose us over Penn State” boost.) Will that make a difference? Or is Tech just too damn good?
BYU’s defense played brilliantly in the teams’ first meeting, a 29-7 Tech win on Nov. 8. The Cougars held Tech to just a 33.3% success rate, 13 percentage points below its season average, and allowed the Red Raiders just two touchdowns in seven red zone trips. The score was only 13-0 at halftime, and wasted opportunities made it seem like Tech could be vulnerable to a comeback, but the BYU offense just couldn’t deliver. For just about the only time all season, BYU’s Bear Bachmeier looked like the true freshman he is, throwing for just 188 yards at 4.5 yards per dropback and losing an interception and fumble. Given enough opportunities, Tech finally put the game away.
An upset will require the same high level of defensive play and far better execution on offense. Having running back LJ Martin at full strength will help — Martin was hurt the week before the first matchup and gained just 35 yards in 10 carries against Tech. His 222-yard performance two weeks ago against Cincinnati suggests he’s playing at a high level, and BYU should get another couple of recently banged-up starters back as well. But we just don’t know what exactly will beat the Tech defense because almost nothing has.
The Red Raiders have given up more than 17 points just twice all season and only allowed one team, Kansas State, to top 4.8 yards per play (the Wildcats averaged a still pedestrian 5.2). BYU might be able to hold Tech under 28 points with another strong effort, but it might take the best performance of Bachmeier’s life to hit 28 or more.
Current line: Tech -12.5 | SP+ projection: Tech by 11.7 | FPI projection: Tech by 4.3
Saturday, 8 p.m., ABC
As fun as it’s been to envision wild scenarios that might unfold if Duke wins the ACC, Virginia could put an end to all of this creativity by simply repeating what happened the last time the Cavaliers met the Blue Devils. Three weeks ago, they put together probably their most complete performance of the season in a 34-17 romp.
Success rate: Virginia 40.3%, Duke 31.0%
Yards per play: Virginia 7.0, Duke 4.4
Field position margin: Virginia plus-6.7 per drive
Third downs: Virginia 12-19, Duke 4-15
Sacks: Virginia 4, Duke 0
Turnovers: Virginia 2, Duke 1
UVA played far more efficient ball than the Blue Devils, enjoyed eight gains of 20-plus yards to Duke’s three and won 23 of 34 total third downs (67%). The only reason the game finished as close as 17 points was because of two Hoos turnovers, one of which was a pick-six.
Virginia has been the better team in 2025, but these teams’ first game was a bit of an outlier. UVA’s seasonlong averages aren’t quite as advantageous, and Duke’s offense has been especially strong down the stretch. The Blue Devils have scored more than 30 points in four of the past five games (UVA being the exception), and Darian Mensah finished the regular season first in the ACC in passing yards and third in Total QBR.
Mensah has been a high-volume, high-accuracy playmaker, and Duke has improved from 71st to 23rd in offensive SP+ in a single season.
Unfortunately for Duke, the defense has fallen from 31st to 91st. Against seven top-60 offenses this season, including Virginia’s, Duke allowed 36.4 points per game. Virginia’s offensive production trailed off over the back half of the season, but the Hoos still torched the Blue Devils: Chandler Morris threw for 316 yards, Trell Harris caught eight balls for 161 yards and J’Mari Taylor rushed for 133 yards in 18 carries.
Mensah and receivers Cooper Barkate and Que’Sean Brown torched Clemson and Wake Forest — defenses that grade out about as well as UVA’s — and Duke could absolutely turn this into a track meet. But Virginia probably has the advantage in a track meet too.
Current line: UVA -3.5 | SP+ projection: UVA by 7.3 | FPI projection: UVA by 1.5
Friday, 8 p.m., ABC
With four of five Group of 5 title games taking place Friday night, we’ll have a clear view of the stakes of Virginia-Duke by Saturday morning. But it’s safe to assume that the winner of this game, pitting two ranked teams with soon-departing head coaches (UNT’s Oklahoma State-bound Eric Morris and Tulane’s Florida-bound Jon Sumrall) in potentially very rainy conditions, is in.
For all of the money being thrown around to stars in today’s college football landscape, the best offense in the country, per SP+, was crafted in Denton, Texas, and features a true freshman (RB Caleb Hawkins), a redshirt freshman who didn’t start in high school (QB Drew Mestemaker) and transfers from Kent State, Abilene Christian, Shepherd University and the now-closed Limestone University. North Texas is averaging 46.8 points and 511.8 yards; the Mean Green have topped 50 points seven times and even scored 36 in their lone loss.
The Mean Green’s schedule, however, has lacked. They’ve played only one team currently ranked higher than 57th in SP+ (South Florida), and they lost to the Bulls by 27 points. Granted, that margin was mostly due to the worst middle eight of all time — USF went on a 28-0 run between the 0:02 mark of the second quarter and 11:35 of the third — but it still counts, and UNT hasn’t had another chance to prove itself against a particularly good opponent.
Tulane is good. Granted, the Green Wave have allowed 38.5 points per game and 7.1 yards per play to the only two top-20 offenses they’ve faced. But they’re improving on D — they solidly overachieved against defensive projections down the stretch — and they have an offense that can keep up in a track meet: They’re 10th nationally in passing success rate, with Jake Retzlaff combining 2,717 passing yards with a solid 621 non-sack rushing yards.
Neither of these defenses is amazing, but neither gives up a ton of big plays either. This one will probably come down to which defense allows the fewest big shots and easy points
Current line: UNT -2.5 | SP+ projection: UNT by 8.2 | FPI projection: UNT by 2.0
Friday, 7 p.m., ESPN
Troy has reached the Sun Belt championship game through sheer perseverance. Gerad Parker’s Trojans won three straight wild one-score games early in the season. They also overcame an early-season QB injury, with Tucker Kilcrease filling in for Goose Crowder, who is back in the lineup and slinging the ball around well. Good pass defense and random offensive spurts have given them a chance at a third Sun Belt title in four years.
The odds, of course, aren’t great. JMU did lose four times as a favorite last year, and distractions can always strike when your coach is leaving, but Troy is a three-touchdown underdog, and JMU will be hunting for style points in super-chilly Harrisonburg.
JMU’s defense ranks first in success rate allowed and has allowed more than 5.1 yards per play just once all season. They boast difference-makers at each level, from defensive ends Sahir West and Aiden Gobaira up front to safety Jacob Thomas in the back. The offense was surprisingly inconsistent early in 2025 but ignited against Old Dominion and hasn’t looked back: In their past six games, the Dukes have averaged 48.5 points and 7.4 yards per play. Alonza Barnett is 14th nationally in Total QBR in that span, distributing the ball beautifully to five different pass catchers.
The only close call JMU has suffered since the offensive ignition came against Washington State: The Cougars kept the tempo at a crawl, won third and fourth downs and limited the Dukes to just 50 snaps. It still didn’t work — JMU scored on two long second-half touchdowns and won 24-20. But if Troy pulls a scare, it will be from a similar recipe. The Trojans can land some shots defensively, and they’re pretty good on third down and willing on fourth. But the margin for error here is minimal.
Current line: JMU -23.5 (up from -21.5) | SP+ projection: JMU by 20.2 | FPI projection: JMU by 18.4
Friday, 8 p.m., Fox
Since the start of 2023, UNLV is 30-10 overall, an incredible run for a program with minimal historical success. The Rebels have gone 5-3 against power conference programs in that span, and they’re 18-7 in the Mountain West. Just imagine how great things might be if they could actually beat Boise State: The Rebels are 0-4 against the Broncos in this span, including losses in back-to-back MWC championship games. If momentum means anything in this sport, however — I often doubt it does — and the Rebels can adapt to cold and rainy conditions in Boise, the timing might finally be right.
Five weeks ago, this matchup seemed unlikely. UNLV had lost two straight games, giving up 96 combined points to Boise State and New Mexico and falling to 123rd in defensive SP+. BSU, meanwhile, had just lost quarterback Maddux Madsen to injury and had fallen 30-7 to Fresno State. The Broncos would lose to San Diego State in their next game, too.
BSU quarterback Max Cutforth found his footing, however, and helped to lead a blowout of Colorado State and a comeback win at Utah State. UNLV, meanwhile, suddenly found a defense and beat its past four conference opponents by an average of 38-16. The Rebels have looked so good that they rose from 71st to 41st in SP+ in just four weeks.
Madsen, who is scheduled to return Friday, threw for 253 yards and four touchdowns in BSU’s 56-31 win over UNLV in Week 8, while Dylan Riley rushed for 201 yards in just 15 carries. Even in the Rebels’ improved state, they still aren’t defending the run well. UNLV can keep up in most track meets, and holding the Broncos under 35 will give it a chance. But that might not be guaranteed.
Current line: BSU -4.5 (up from -1.5) | SP+ projection: UNLV by 0.4 | FPI projection: BSU by 4.0
Friday, 7 p.m., CBSSN
For the second straight season, a second-year FBS program will play for the CUSA title. Last year, second-year Jacksonville State wiped the floor with Western Kentucky; now Kennesaw State gives it a go against the champs.
Jerry Mack’s first KSU team has found success by raising its floor: The Owls don’t rank high in many of the categories I track, but they’re also near the bottom in almost none. They defend the run well — linebacker Baron Hopson is ridiculously good in this department — they hit on some deep passes to Gabriel Benyard and Christian Moss, and they wait for you to make mistakes.
JSU lost a ton from last year’s conference title squad, but after a wobbly 3-3 start, the Gamecocks found an offensive rhythm by running the hell out of the ball: Cam Cook has rushed for 1,588 yards, and not including sacks, quarterback Caden Creel has added 1,008. The defense is decent but clutch offensive play has allowed the Gamecocks to win six of seven games despite five finishing within one score.
These two met three weeks ago in a game decided by big plays and turnovers. Jax State scored on a second-quarter Hail Mary, Creel produced completions of 50 and 52 yards (plus a 40-yard rush), and the Gamecocks picked off three passes in the red zone in a 35-26 win. None of that’s particularly sustainable, though, especially since KSU has been the better overall red zone team in 2025.
Current line: KSU -2.5 (flipped from JSU -1.5) | SP+ projection: KSU by 1.4 | FPI projection: KSU by 0.3
Saturday, noon, ESPN
Miami is playing in the MAC championship game for the third straight season — the Redhawks won in 2023 and lost last year — while WMU is enjoying its best campaign, and first title game appearance, since 2016.
Chuck Martin’s Redhawks lost basically every offensive starter and half the defense after last season and landed only a few major contributors from the transfer portal. But they got rolling after an 0-3 start, and when quarterback Dequan Finn left the program in November, redshirt freshman Thomas Gotkowski took over and led comfortable wins over Buffalo and Ball State.
WMU also started 0-3, but the Broncos have since won eight of nine — losing only to Miami, in fact. Thanks in part to otherworldly outside linebacker Nadame Tucker (18.5 TFLs, 12 sacks, 4 forced fumbles), their defense ranks 46th in defensive SP+, their highest ranking since 2000.
Miami turned the tables late in their Week 9 matchup. WMU took a 17-9 lead into the fourth quarter, but the Redhawks outgained the Broncos 160-61 in the fourth, forced a turnover and finished the game on a 17-0 run. Gotkowski has gotten away with mostly quick passes to the sideline, but the Redhawks might need him to ramp up the playmaking to maintain their Week 9 advantages. Otherwise WMU could seize its first title in nine years.
Current line: WMU -2.5 | SP+ projection: Miami by 1.2 | FPI projection: WMU by 0.2
Smaller-school showcase
Let’s once again save a shout-out for the glorious lower levels of the sport. The smaller-school playoffs are hitting top speed, so here’s a game you should track at each level.
Division II quarterfinals: No. 16 Newberry at No. 13 Albany State (ESPN+, 1 p.m.). The Division II quarterfinals feature projected blowout wins for the three best teams — Ferris State, Harding and Kutztown — but the last semifinal spot will go to one of two upstarts.
Both Albany State and Newberry are seeking their first D-II semifinal appearance. ASU is the projected favorite because of defensive end Derrick Drayton and a defense that allows just 13.3 points per game. Newberry, however, just upset No. 4 West Florida thanks to 416 passing yards and two touchdowns from quarterback Reed Charpia. Do the Wolves have another upset in them?
SP+ projection: Albany State by 7.3
Division III round of 16: No. 6 Saint John’s (Minn.) at No. 4 Wisconsin-River Falls (1 p.m., ESPN+). Saint John’s has been to only one semifinal since winning the 2003 D-III national title, but the Johnnies are flying thanks to quarterback Trey Feeney and an offense averaging 50.4 points per game. UWRF, meanwhile, is looking for its first quarterfinal appearance in 30 years, and Kaleb Blaha and the Falcons also wing the ball around like crazy and score lots of points (47.5 PPG)! Track meet in River Falls!
SP+ projection: Johnnies by 1.4
NAIA quarterfinals: No. 7 Lindsey Wilson at No. 1 Grand View (1 p.m., local streaming). It’s the No. 1 team in the NAIA polls vs. the No. 1 team in NAIA SP+. Grand View is NAIA’s standard bearer; the Vikings are the defending national champions and have gone a cool 83-5 since 2019. The defense allows 8.4 points per game thanks to ace pass rusher Jackson Filer (23 TFLs, 11 sacks). But Lindsey Wilson is scoring 44.8 points per game with absurd run-pass balance. And there’s a chance of afternoon snow in Des Moines!
SP+ projection: LWU by 1.5
FCS round of 16: No. 18 South Dakota State at No. 4 Montana (2 p.m., ESPN+). So is South Dakota State suddenly South Dakota State again? The Jackrabbits needed a miracle finish against North Dakota to assure themselves a spot in the playoffs, but with quarterback Chase Mason healthy and back in the lineup, they crushed New Hampshire 41-3 in last week’s first round. Mason’s in-season injury might end up being Montana’s misfortune — SDSU is unbeaten when he starts, and now the Grizzlies have to beat the Jacks just to reach the quarterfinals. Luckily they have quarterback Keali’i Ah Yat and a pretty fantastic offense themselves.
SP+ projection: Montana by 5.6
GRAPEVINE, Texas – Welcome to the College Football Playoff, Tulane.
The No. 20 Green Wave dismantled No. 24 North Texas, providing the selection committee with its first answer of conference championship weekend.
The committee gathered Friday night at its headquarters in the Gaylord Texan resort to watch Group of 5 conference championship games that will impact its final ranking on Selection Day. It was only the beginning of conference championship weekend, but how these games unfolded with the committee watching will determine its five highest-ranked conference champions — and how that order will impact the contenders around them.
Here’s an early look at what Friday night’s results meant to the playoff race, starting with the Sun Belt and the American Conference.
Tulane 34, North Texas 21
With Tulane’s win against North Texas, the American champs locked up a spot in the playoff, as they will be the committee’s fourth-highest ranked conference champion. The Green Wave will earn the No. 11 seed and face the committee’s No. 6 team on the road in the first round. If the committee keeps Ole Miss at No. 6, Tulane will get a rematch against the Rebels. Ole Miss beat Tulane 45-10 on Sept. 20 in Oxford and will have home-field advantage again as the higher seed.
James Madison 31, Troy 14
With Friday’s win against Troy, JMU‘s path to the playoff is straightforward: Duke needs to beat Virginia and win the ACC. If that happens, the committee will reward JMU with the No. 12 seed as its fifth and final conference champion — and it would come at the expense of the ACC champion, which would be excluded. The question is if the conference will be excluded entirely, though — or if No. 12 Miami will still sneak in, even without playing this weekend. That could happen if BYU loses to Texas Tech in the Big 12 title game and drops behind Miami — putting the Canes right below No. 10 Notre Dame. In that scenario, the committee could look at Miami’s season-opening win against the Irish as one of several tiebreakers it uses to separate comparable teams.
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Andrea Adelson
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Duke coach Manny Diaz says his team has embraced all the doomsday scenarios that have been laid out this week as his 7-5 team prepares to play No. 17 Virginia in the ACC championship game.
If Duke wins the game, there is the possibility the ACC champion would get left out of the 12-team College Football Playoff, as three Group of 5 teams are ranked higher than the Blue Devils. No. 24 North Texas and No. 20 Tulane play in the American title game, while No. 25 James Madison plays Troy in the Sun Belt title game, both on Friday.
“We love it, doomsday scenario and nightmares and this and that the other,” Diaz said. “Our guys deserve to be here. That’s the first thing. There’s a notion that we won a scratch-off lottery-ticket-type deal to get here. We won by the most objective metric possible. We won the second-most games in the league, and everyone else who won the same amount of games that we won, we had the hardest schedule.
“We complain all the time about the subjectivity in college football and rankings and committees and whatnot, and this is the most objective way to determine who the champions are, and the two teams are here that deserve to be here. We’re one of them.”
Duke finished in a five-way tie in the ACC at 6-2. One of the teams that finished in that tie was No. 12 Miami (10-2), a team on the bubble for an at-large CFP berth. The Blue Devils won the fifth tiebreaker, which was conference opponent win percentage. Miami coach Dan Radakovich said earlier in the week the ACC should revisit its championship game tiebreaker policy to ensure the league was putting its “best foot forward.”
Diaz noted his team finished plus-16 in turnover margin in conference games, one of the biggest reasons it is in Charlotte.
The two teams met earlier in November, with Virginia winning 34-17. The top five conference champions are guaranteed a spot in the CFP, regardless of conference. Duke lost three nonconference games, including two on the road to teams outside the Power 4 — at Tulane and at UConn.
Diaz has remained adamant that despite seeing three Group of 5 teams ranked, if his team wins the ACC, it deserves to make the field.
He also noted the point spread in the Big Ten title game between Indiana and Ohio State is the same as the point spread in the ACC title game. Ohio State and Virginia are each favored by 4.
“Those guys in Vegas, they tend to know things,” Diaz said. “No one’s talking about how Indiana doesn’t deserve to be in the Big Ten championship game, because, of course, they do. And I think Duke deserves to be here the same exact way.”
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