Michael Penix Jr. and the receiving corps behind the country’s most high-power offense
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Kyle Bonagura, ESPN Staff Writer
SEATTLE — When coach Kalen DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb got to work at Washington in early December 2021, the facility was a bit of a ghost town. DeBoer planned to fill the bulk of his staff with several of his assistants from Fresno State, but five of them remained with the Bulldogs to see out their bowl game.
Only Grubb and cornerbacks coach/recruiting coordinator Julius Brown joined DeBoer immediately, leaving them to evaluate the roster to determine what to prioritize in recruiting and through the transfer portal. One thing that stood out to Grubb right away was how much talent there was at receiver. The production from Rome Odunze, Jalen McMillan and Ja’Lynn Polk wasn’t eye-popping in 2021, but Grubb saw their potential.
There was just one problem.
“Rome, J-Mac and J.P. all were in the transfer portal or talking about transferring basically in the first week I was here,” Grubb said. “It’s just me and Kalen. Nobody else is here yet [on the offensive staff]. So, my first 10 days, all I did was watch film with those three guys and try to convince them on the reasons to stay.”
The pitch boiled down to this: DeBoer and Grubb had been successful everywhere they had been. Several receivers had put up big numbers in their offense and they had a vision for how to use all three to maximize their potential in different ways. Grubb showed them film of the offense from previous stops and how each player would fit in. Here’s a concept from Eastern Michigan. This is what they did at Fresno State. And, of course, there was the season DeBoer spent as the OC at Indiana in 2019, when the Hoosiers — the Indiana Hoosiers — ranked third in the Big Ten in offense.
Grubb’s intent was to get the receivers excited about the offense and understand how they’d be used, but as he showed the cutups from Indiana, Odunze couldn’t help but notice a certain left-handed quarterback.
“I was like, ‘Oh my goodness,'” Odunze said. “He’s placing the ball wherever he wants to every play.”
At around the same time, quarterback Michael Penix Jr. finalized his own transfer decision. After four years at Indiana, each of which ended prematurely due to injury, it was time for a fresh start. For Washington, which was in the market for a veteran quarterback, the stars were aligning.
“I had a lot of people calling me, a lot of people [direct messaging] me and stuff like that about transferring,” Penix said. “But I never answered. Once I heard from DeBoer, I knew where I wanted to be.”
Penix’s move to Washington couldn’t have worked out much better. The receivers stayed and over the past two seasons, the Huskies have been among the most explosive offenses in college football. This year, Washington ranks No. 1 nationally in total offense (569.4 yards per game), No. 1 in passing yards (446.4 ypg) and No. 3 in scoring (46.0 points per game), turning Penix into ESPN.com’s leading Heisman Trophy candidate in the process.
Penix can take a major step toward the Heisman on Saturday, when the No. 7 Huskies (5-0, 2-0 Pac-12) host No. 8 Oregon (5-0, 2-0) in a matchup of the nation’s two top-ranked offenses.
PENIX SHOWED SIGNS early he had a bright future in football.
His father played running back at Tennessee Tech and his uncle played at South Florida, so when he was old enough — around 4 or 5 years old — his parents signed him up. It was one of many sports he played to stay busy, growing up in Tampa, Florida.
As a freshman in high school, he earned his first scholarship offer — from nearby Florida Atlantic — preceding a standout career at Tampa Bay Tech, where he was the county player of the year.
For most of that time, Penix thought he was headed to the SEC. He committed to Tennessee under then-coach Butch Jones prior to his junior year in the spring of 2017 and spent the next two seasons preparing to go to Rocky Top. Then came the coaching change. Jones was out; Jeremy Pruitt was in.
“It was crazy. The new coach comes in and you’re like, ‘OK, I’m about to sign in a couple weeks,’ and you don’t hear anything from the coaching staff,” Penix said. Eventually Penix learned, through his high school coach, that his offer had been pulled. Instead, Tennessee signed J.T. Shrout, who made eight appearances in four years at UT, played the 2022 season at Colorado and is now at Arkansas State.
Left without many options so late in the recruiting process, Penix ultimately decided between Indiana and Florida State, choosing the Hoosiers, in part, because former UT graduate assistant Nick Sheridan was the quarterbacks coach in Bloomington.
“It was certainly a rapid process,” said Sheridan, who is now the tight ends coach at Washington. “But it was nice because at least for me, I had known Mike and his family for a long time. I think he had braces when we first met. He was just a kid.”
A kid with star potential. Penix earned playing time as a true freshman, but his season ended in October, while playing in his third game, when he suffered a torn anterior crucial ligament in a close loss to Penn State.
“That was my first time ever getting injured in my life,” Penix said. “I never had a sprained ankle or anything, so when I got an ACL tear — to be honest, going into college, I had never heard of an ACL tear. I didn’t know what that was.”
The rehab went about as well as it could have and Penix returned in time to compete for the starting job with two-year starter Peyton Ramsey in front of DeBoer, who arrived from Fresno State months earlier as the new offensive coordinator. In what was considered a surprise at the time, Penix beat out Ramsey.
“It wasn’t what Peyton didn’t do,” then-Indiana coach Tom Allen said at the time. “It was more of what I believe Mike can be.”
And in six starts that year, Penix showed flashes of what he could be, helping the Hoosiers to a 5-1 record in those games before a shoulder injury again ended his season prematurely. At the time, Penix’s QBR (81.6) was comparable to Clemson‘s Trevor Lawrence (82.0), Oregon’s Justin Herbert (77.5) and Iowa State‘s Brock Purdy (73.9), all of whom have since developed into franchise quarterbacks in the NFL.
The next two years followed a similarly frustrating script: He began the season as the starter only to see the season end in injuries (another torn ACL in 2020; a shoulder injury in 2021). By the time the 2021 season was winding down, Penix had graduated and knew it was time to move on.
“[The injuries were] my first time really seeing true adversity and I just had to understand that not everything’s going to be perfect and I’m going to have to persevere through a lot of things throughout my career — and I was able to,” Penix said. “It allowed me to get to where I’m at today, but it just gave me a different perspective of the game and just not take any play for granted.”
PENIX WAS UP front with Washington about his plan. He knew he had the talent to get a shot in the NFL, he just needed to prove he could stay healthy enough to earn that opportunity.
“He told us, ‘Hey, it’s my intention that I’m going to play one year and do really good and hopefully get drafted and move on,”’ Grubb said. “Because for Mike prior to [the 2022 season] he was like, ‘If things go well. I don’t want to risk getting hurt again.'”
The staff understood his logic and was happy to welcome him under those circumstances.
But before that, he had to win the job and earn the trust of his teammates. There was widely-held assumption that he was the heavy favorite to win the job after arriving in December, but the dynamics of the quarterback competition were interesting considering the other two players were the two-year returning starter (Dylan Morris) and ESPN’s former No. 1-ranked high school pocket passer (Sam Huard).
For Morris, what stood out immediately was how quickly Penix, who was already familiar with the new system having played for DeBoer, processed the game.
“From Day 1, I saw he was really talented throwing the ball, but it was the field vision,” Morris said. “That’s the thing I’ve come to understand about him and I really try to learn from him — his field vision is just on another level.
“I’m going through reads and am like, ‘OK, I’m allowed to throw this or that,’ but he’s alerting something that’s really not necessarily part of the progression. He just sees it and it’s kind of funny you ask him, ‘How’d you see that?’ ‘He’s like, I don’t know, I just saw it.’ I’m like, ‘Man, that’s pretty elite.'”
Penix wasn’t officially named the starter until about a week and a half before the Huskies’ 2022 opener against Kent State, but by that time the writing was on the wall. Shortly after, he was voted a team captain in a nearly unanimous player vote.
“We all kind of rallied behind him,” Odunze said. “And I feel like that gave him more confidence as well. But he just stepped up his leadership to another level just understanding that, hey, he’s going to be the leader of this offense and this team.”
After Washington went 4-8 the year before, the Huskies were a revelation in 2022. They reached the 11-win mark for the fifth time in school history, went 3-0 against ranked teams and capped the season with a win against Texas in the Valero Alamo Bowl to finish ranked No. 8 in the AP poll.
Penix led the nation in passing, finished No. 8 in the Heisman voting and, perhaps most importantly, he stayed healthy for the entire season. Short of winning the Pac-12, the season followed the script he hoped it would. Then he rewrote the ending.
Instead of opting out of the bowl game and declaring for the NFL draft — a reasonable route considering recent trends and his own injury history — Penix announced he was returning for another season.
“I just felt like we had unfinished business and there were more things that I wanted to accomplish and the more things I felt like this team could accomplish,” Penix said. “I knew I had the opportunity to be a part of it again, and I knew that just with another opportunity, we can do something great.”
To some degree, Penix’s understanding that he could make some money through name, image and likeness rules factored into the decision, but that was only part of it.
“This is one thing I love telling people, I think it’s the epitome of Mike, which is very different from — and not a lot of people would say this or report it or even admit it — but Mike made his decision prior to having any NIL deals in place,” Grubb said. “I just think that’s such a critical point of who Mike is that he wanted to be here and had enough trust in what was going to happen here. The reality was we knew something would happen [with NIL], but there were no contracts in place or ‘this is what it’s going to be’ or anything like that.”
Last week, Penix and Odunze became the first college football players to sign NIL deals with Adidas and will participate in brand marketing campaigns, the company announced. Penix also has deals with Beats by Dre, trading card company Panini America and local apparel company Simply Seattle, along with other opportunities lined up by UW’s NIL collective, Montlake Futures.
Penix’s decision to return had a domino effect with the team’s other top players, with at least five others — Bralen Trice, Zion Tupuola-Fetui, Tuli Letuligasenoa, Odunze and McMillan — also making public announcements they would return to school.
“I was going over everything I could, calculating everything I could, talking with my family, with my dad, who is heavily involved in that as well,” Odunze said of his decision. “I was going over everything, but in the back of my mind was always, ‘I’ll be coming back with Penix.'”
GRUBB’S EARLY VISION for how to use Odunze, McMillan and Polk has largely played out as prophesized. They made a strong case for the best trio of receivers in college football last season with a combined 195 catches for 2,937 yards with 22 touchdowns, perhaps rivaled only by Ohio State‘s Marvin Harrison Jr., Emeka Egbuka and Julian Fleming (185/2,947/30).
“They reset the bar completely here at Washington in terms of what it looks like to play receiver here,” receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard said. “And they’re trying to hold each other, let alone the young guys in the room, accountable to not only upholding but uplifting that standard every single day at practice.”
This year, they’ve taken it to a new level.
“I knew the offense, a lot of the plays and different coverages and different schemes. So I understood where I wanted my guys and where we had to get to in different areas of the field to be able to make those plays,” Penix said. “But now being in Year 2 now, everybody understands it. Everybody understands why Coach Grubb is changing the play or why he’s calling a certain play and the look that we want. It just allows everybody to play much faster and more on the same page.”
In Odunze, the Huskies have a prototypical No. 1 option. He’s a threat to stretch the field, but equally adept in the screen game or on underneath routes. ESPN NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. ranks Odunze as the No. 2 receiver in college football.
“I say this to everyone. Rome is a 10-year pro,” Grubb said. “I just don’t mean he catches really well — he could probably run for president, too. Responsible, tough, smart, personable. He’s the guy.”
But one of the keys to Washington’s success is how well the receivers complement each other. McMillan controls the middle of the field from the slot. Polk might be the best route runner.
The group got deeper in the offseason with the arrival of one-time UW commit Germie Bernard, who spent his freshman season in 2022 at Michigan State. Bernard’s 17 catches rank just behind McMillan (20) for fourth on the team, but had a breakout performance against Arizona on Sept. 30, when he led the team with eight catches for 98 yards.
Penix is among the national leaders in every meaningful statistical category despite exiting early in four of the five games because the score was already out of hand. Washington would rank in the top half of the country in scoring just using its first half scoring average (30.2 ppg).
FEW GAMES IN college football history have ever featured two offenses as explosive as Saturday’s game between Oregon and Washington.
Countering with their own Heisman candidate in quarterback Bo Nix, the Ducks rank No. 2 nationally in total offense (556.8 ppg), No. 1 in scoring margin (39.8 ppg) and No. 2 in scoring (51.6 ppg).
The teams’ combined 97.6 ppg is the most between teams 5-0 or better since 2008, and the highest combined scoring average entering a Pac-12 game all-time, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
It also marks the final time the schools will play as members of the Pac-12, before moving to the Big Ten as a package deal next season.
Given what is set to be impacted — College Football Playoff positioning, two Heisman campaigns, the final Pac-12 title race — this might be the most anticipated Oregon-Washington game of all-time and a chance for Penix to further cement his legacy at Husky Stadium.
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David Hale
During the long, dark months between the end of one season and the beginning of another, we tell each other stories, because we need something to fill the void. We dress those stories up, calling them things like “way too early” rankings, preseason predictions or scalding hot takes, and we sustain them with statistics, data and historical perspective. But ultimately, they are at best educated guesses and, at worst, outright lies.
Then Week 1 comes along and college football delivers us a heaping dose of the truth, exposing our deceptions to the world like the kiss cam at a Coldplay concert.
On Saturday, college football’s truth still seemed hard to believe.
We’ve spent months burnishing the image of our next Heisman Trophy winner, Arch Manning. Only, in Week 1, Manning’s offense was overwhelmed by the defending champs, as Ohio State dumped Texas 14-7.
We’ve spent the summer laughing incredulously at Florida State ‘s Tommy Castellanos, seemingly the only player foolish enough to poke the bear by taunting Alabama when, in fact, he was a fortune-teller. Nick Saban couldn’t bail out the Crimson Tide on Saturday, and the Seminoles, buried after a 2-10 season a year ago, toppled Bama in convincing fashion 31-17.
We’ve heard all offseason Clemson was the class of the ACC, a nearly perfect team built around loads of returning talent that, after Dabo Swinney lost a bet with Tom Allen on who’d win the three-legged race at the team’s annual team picnic, even added players from the transfer portal. On Saturday, however, Clemson’s offense looked woefully similar to those stagnant offenses of years past. LSU‘s defensive front steamrollered its way to a 17-10 win in what used to be Clemson’s Death Valley, which must now be referred to as Critical-but-Stable Condition Valley due to the stakes of this matchup between two teams with the same nicknames for their stadiums.
Yes, Saturday’s results revealed that all our offseason narratives were no different than the description on a John Mateer Venmo transaction — dangerous, hilarious and completely made up.
In Columbus, the preseason No. 1 Longhorns couldn’t crack the scoreboard for the first 56 minutes of action. This was to be Manning’s coming-out party after two years in waiting behind Quinn Ewers; instead, the day belonged to new Ohio State defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, a man hired only so Ryan Day wouldn’t have the weirdest-looking beard on staff. Patricia’s defense had an answer for everything Texas threw at it, holding Manning to just 17-of-30 passing, picking off a critical third-quarter pass to set up the decisive touchdown and stuffing the Horns on fourth down four times — including twice inside the 10-yard line.
It’s not that Ohio State’s offense wowed. A unit that proved deadly in last year’s College Football Playoff en route to a national championship mustered just 203 total yards — the Buckeyes’ worst regular-season output since 2015. But new quarterback Julian Sayin avoided any catastrophic mistakes and delivered a 40-yard dagger to Carnell Tate in the fourth quarter despite no one even knowing who his uncles are. If it wasn’t an emphatic endorsement for the 2025 version of Ohio State, it was a reminder the Buckeyes will not be swept aside without a fight.
In Tallahassee, Kalen DeBoer took another huge step toward having the word “tarmac” appear on his Wikipedia page. Since toppling Georgia last September and climbing to No. 1 in the AP poll, the Tide are just 5-5 overall, and Saturday’s loss to Florida State — a team that finished 2-10 a year ago — marks a new nadir.
In the aftermath, DeBoer was left scrambling for answers, saying, “There’s no excuse about what happened. We’ve got to play our style of ball. Last year isn’t this year. You’ve got to focus on the moment …” and there’s a long run past midfield by Castellanos.
Castellanos had promised a win, saying in June he saw no way Alabama could stop him. Lo and behold, he was right. The signal-caller who was benched at Boston College just a year ago ran all over an Alabama defense that seemed utterly flustered at times, despite FSU’s game plan including just nine completions.
Fewest completions in a win over Alabama since 2008:
FSU – 9, today
Okla – 9, Wk13, 2024
LSU – 10, Wk10, 2011
Mich – 11, bowl, 2024
Aub – 11, Wk14, 2013
Aub – 13, Wk14, 2010So, 3 all-time Saban classics (Cam, 9-6, Kick 6) and 3 of DeBoer’s 14 games as Bama HC.
— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) August 30, 2025
But it was FSU coach Mike Norvell who delivered his own truth in the fourth quarter. After a year in which he aged on the sideline the way a president does over two terms, Norvell promised he wouldn’t let this team roll over in the face of adversity. After Alabama charged back to within one score, FSU faced a fourth-and-1 at its own 36, and Norvell decided to go for it. It was a decision that would have been lambasted if it had failed and the Tide tied the game, but Alabama transfer Roydell Williams plunged ahead for 4 yards, FSU capped the drive with a touchdown, and Norvell’s message to his team couldn’t have been more clear. This year is different.
Things are different at LSU, too. While so much of the college football world had grown to love Brian Kelly’s annual Week 1 postgame press conferences in which he’d raise a podium over his head while decrying his lack of a ground game and yelling “Hunk smash!” this year’s Bayou Bengals actually played hard from start to finish and finally snagged a season-opening win.
In what was billed as a showdown between arguably the two best QBs in college football, it was the LSU defense that stole the show, tormenting Cade Klubnik throughout and holding Clemson to 31 rushing yards. Clemson’s last 19 plays were all passes, and Klubnik was under pressure on nearly all of them. Swinney may insist on bringing his own guts, but he keeps leaving his rushing attack at home.
So here we are, still not quite through with the opening scenes of the 2025 season, and we’ve already upended the Heisman race, slayed a giant and left Kelly with a smile on his face. What were the odds?
Of course, that’s the point, right? After an offseason in which conference commissioners tried to codify their own stories in the form of scheduling metrics, guaranteed playoff bids and TV revenue splits, a real Saturday of games is the respite from the narratives, a reminder that the games remain blissfully unpredictable.
After all, to paraphrase Lester Bangs from “Almost Famous,” the only true currency in this bankrupt world of college sports is the jokes you share with someone else when watching Alabama lose as a 14-point favorite again.
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Trends | Under the radar | Heisman five
Notes from the road | Best of Texas-Ohio State
Week 1 vibe check
Each week, major upsets, emphatic wins and stellar performances grab the headlines around the college football ecosystem, but there are also many smaller storylines that matter just as much. We try to capture those here.
Trending up: Trendy fashion choices
Georgia Tech upended Colorado on Friday 27-20, but the real buzz was all about the attire of return man Eric Rivers, who took the field dressed as though he was the lead singer of Talking Heads during the “Stop Making Sense” tour or had just been selected sixth overall in the 1999 NBA draft.
Pierrot, by Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1718-19 pic.twitter.com/dHRfgGYzPP
— ArtButMakeItSports (@ArtButSports) August 30, 2025
If the Yellow Jackets have any sense of humor at all, Rivers should line up for his first scrimmage play next week rocking a pair of parachute pants.
Trending down: Bad fashion choices
To honor the city of New Orleans on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Tulane had hoped to don its 2005 uniforms for its game against Northwestern on Saturday. The Wildcats denied the request, which led to a 23-3 whooping by the Green Wave and some spicy comments from Tulane coach Jon Sumrall afterward.
“When you disrespect the city of New Orleans, you’re going to run into it,” Sumrall said. “I’m not trying to be a jerk, but don’t disrespect the city of New Orleans.”
In contrast, after Florida State’s QB disrespected the city of Tuscaloosa this offseason, Alabama responded by writing a sternly worded letter to its commissioner insisting that, instead of a nine-game slate, the SEC move to a 12 conference games so this can’t happen in the future.
Trending up: In-game ad revenue
Deion Sanders delivered on his promise to have a portable toilet on the sideline for Colorado’s game against Georgia Tech, and he even got it sponsored by Depend.
Deion Sanders indeed has a portable toilet next to Colorado’s bench, to accommodate him following bladder reconstruction surgery.
And it’s sponsored. pic.twitter.com/GegvViVJQC
— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) August 29, 2025
While we’re certainly glad to see Sanders is feeling better, the Buffs’ loss makes this sponsorship feel as though it’s one of the worst on-field marketing disasters since Red Lobster sponsored Les Miles’ ill-fated sideline seafood tower during the 2015 Texas Bowl.
Trending down: The middle seat from ATL to SYR
Tennessee‘s offense certainly didn’t look any worse off after waving goodbye to Nico Iamaleava. Transfer Joey Aguilar threw for 247 yards and three touchdowns in a 45-26 win over Syracuse.
This, of course, was bad news for whichever member of the Orange had to sit next to Syracuse coach Fran Brown on the flight home, as Brown famously refuses to shower after a loss. Luckily, for just an additional $29.95, Spirit Airlines will furnish the team with one of those “new car smell” air fresheners to hang above Brown’s seat.
Trending up: Short road trips
UConn packed the house at Rentschler Field with its largest crowd since 2013.
A total of 37,594 in attendance today at The Rent!
The largest crowd since 2013 🫡 pic.twitter.com/FTGYFP1Spa
— UConn Huskies (@UConnHuskies) August 30, 2025
This could certainly be in response to fans getting excited after last year’s 9-4 campaign. Or it could be that the opponent, Central Connecticut State, drove up attendance. CCSU is actually closer to Rentschler Field (12 miles) than is UConn (24 miles).
Trending down: The Group of 5
On Thursday, the Group of 5’s playoff picture was upended when No. 25 Boise State — the lone ranked team outside the Power 4 — was stomped by USF Bulls 34-7. Then on Friday, the defending American champion, Army, fell in embarrassing fashion to FCS Tarleton State.
This could leave the door wide open for a surprise team from the Group of 5 to make a playoff run, but unfortunately Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti already called dibs on the spot and invoked the “no take backs” clause of his proposed playoff plan, so … congratulations Maryland. You’re in now.
Trending up: Upstaging celebrities
Much was made of the engagement of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift earlier this week, but the Kansas City Chiefs tight end didn’t manage the most romantic proposal of Week 1. That honor goes to this guy, who popped the question in the only truly romantic way possible: with mayonnaise.
LOVE HAPPENS IN MAYO LAND 💍 pic.twitter.com/WBLqschvhb
— Duke’s Mayo Classic (@DukesMayoBowl) August 30, 2025
We assume the wedding will be officiated by an anthropomorphic Pop-Tart, they’ll exit the reception by riding on the back of the Wake Forest Demon Deacon’s motorcycle, and they’ll honeymoon at the Bahamas Bowl which, this season, is probably being played in Little Rock, Arkansas for some reason.
Trending up: Lincoln Riley’s job security
USC thumped Missouri State 73-13, racking up nearly 600 yards of total offense and rushing for six touchdowns.
Riley would like to remind everyone that even if they get shut out against Georgia Southern next week, he would still be averaging 36.5 points per game, and that’s pretty good.
Trending down: Life expectancy for K-State fans
One week after seeing their team fall to rival Iowa State in the verdant hills of Ireland, Kansas State fans nearly suffered an even bigger indignity at the hands of a school mostly surrounded by cornfields, as North Dakota took a 35-31 lead into the final minute of the game.
Avery Johnson rode to the rescue this time, however, engineering a 10-play touchdown drive capped by a 6-yard completion to Joe Jackson to escape with a 38-35 win. Johnson threw for 318 yards and three touchdowns in the game and is now listed as the emergency contact on 86% of Kansas residents’ medical forms.
Trending up: The First State
Delaware toppled Delaware State 35-17 on Thursday, the Blue Hens’ first game as an FBS member.
With fellow newcomer Missouri State getting blown out by USC, that means that Delaware alone has the best winning percentage in FBS history (minimum one game). It’s the most exciting thing to happen in to the state since the new Hot Topic opened at the Concord Mall.
Under-the-radar game of the week
Entering Saturday’s action, Kent State had lost 21 straight games. The program was in shambles, and its last head coach, Kenni Burns, had been fired and (possibly) replaced by an AI program developed by some MIT dropouts who thought they were playing Minesweeper and accidentally coded a football algorithm.
And yet, the football gods smiled upon the Golden Flashes in Week 1, delivering a win in truly epic style.
Trailing 17-14 to Merrimack, a school that exists only in a child’s imagination, a player named — this is true — Da’Realyst Clark ran back a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown, putting Kent State up 21-17 with 5:28 to play.
1:17
Merrimack Warriors vs. Kent State Golden Flashes: Full Highlights
Merrimack Warriors vs. Kent State Golden Flashes: Full Highlights
Sure, Kent State has Texas Tech, Florida State and Oklahoma — all on the road — in its next four games, but that’s of little importance today because, for the first time in nearly two full calendar years, the Golden Flashes are victorious. Turns out, that AI that thinks the Greek god of wisdom is Toyotathon knows a little something about football after all.
Under-the-radar play of the week
During pregame celebrations in Eugene on Saturday, the famed Oregon Duck took a nasty spill and lost his duck head, exposing the human underneath. While that was good for a laugh, the mascot’s reaction was truly impressive, as he sprinted a solid 25 yards at full speed wearing feet made out of felt, all while (we assume) screaming, “Look away! Look away! I’m hideous!” before returning to his secluded lair beneath an opera house.
0:16
Oregon Duck loses his head and scampers off
Oregon Duck loses his head and scampers off
Heisman five
On one hand, Arch Manning saw his Heisman odds tumble after struggling in a 14-7 loss to Ohio State. On the other hand, at least he’s unlikely to have the Heisman stolen from him by Charles Woodson now, so he has got that going for him. Which is nice.
1. Oklahoma QB John Mateer
The Washington State transfer completed 30 of 37 passes for 392 yards and accounted for four touchdowns in a 35-3 win over Illinois State, a performance so impressive his friend sent him $50 bucks with the note: “Definitely not because of sports gambling.”
2. Florida State QB Tommy Castellanos
Some would call it ego. Some would call it cockiness. Castellanos would call his offseason commentary facts. After talking smack on Alabama in June, Castellanos backed it up with 230 total yards and a touchdown to take down the Tide 34-17. Given that head coach Mike Norvell is superstitious, we recommend Castellanos keep this up by insisting the Noles will hang 300 on East Texas A&M next week.
3. Georgia QB Gunner Stockton
Stockton threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more in a 45-7 win over Marshall on Saturday, then we assume he drove his F-150 over to the Burger King parking lot, sat in the back and listened to John Mellencamp cassettes while wearing a denim jacket and promising he’ll never waste his life working in the factory like his old man.
4. LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier
After throwing for 230 yards and a touchdown in a win over Clemson, Nussmeier now looks like the odds-on favorite to be the No. 1 pick in next year’s NFL draft. His dad, Doug Nussmeier, just so happens to be the offensive coordinator of the Saints, and he was in attendance for Saturday’s win. After the game, the younger Nussmeier responded to his dad’s enthusiasm that he could be drafted by the Saints by saying, “Oh, wow, yeah. That sounds great, but really, it’s OK. You don’t need to go to all that trouble. Really. I’m sure there are lots of other quarterbacks who need a good home and, honestly, just focus on them. I’ll go to the Rams. It’s fine. That’ll be fine.”
5. Iowa State QB Rocco Becht
One week after upending Kansas State in Ireland, Becht delivered the Cyclones a dominant victory over FCS power South Dakota, throwing for 278 yards and three touchdowns in a 55-7 win. By federal law, South Dakota now needs to add Becht’s image to Mt. Rushmore in place of Thomas Jefferson.
Notes from the road
How FSU pulled the upset
Florida State coach Mike Norvell talked for months about wanting his team to play with an edge, with desperation, with heart — three key intangibles missing last year during a miserable 2-10 season.
The college football world saw all of that on display in a 31-17 win over Alabama. But perhaps most jaw-dropping was the physical way in which the Seminoles dominated the Crimson Tide up front. After allowing an opening 75-yard drive, the Florida State defense clamped down from there — and allowed just 3 yards per rush for the game.
The revamped offensive line, with four veteran transfers, dominated in its own right — not only opening up holes, but pushing defenders backward at nearly every turn. Florida State rushed for 230 yards, a year after averaging 89.9 yards per game — ranking No. 128 in the country.
“We wanted to be the aggressor, and we were,” Norvell said. “Our players, they rose to the challenge. We talked all year, and I’ve used the buzzwords of edge and desperation. That goes to the heart, and you saw heart tonight. We saw a team that absolutely loves playing this game together and were physically dominant, emotionally together, and they responded. This is a first step, but it’s a big step.”
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Florida State fans storm field after Noles upset Alabama
Florida State fans storm the field after opening the season with a 31-17 win over No. 8 Alabama.
It is a big step because of what happened a year ago. Florida State came off a 13-1 ACC championship season with one of the worst performances in school history. Those outside the program questioned Norvell, questioned the program’s direction. He needed a win like this to remind the general public the Florida State is not what it showed a year ago.
On the flip side is Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer, who already went into the season with Crimson Tide fans skeptical about him and the direction of the program after a 9-4 debut that ended with a bowl loss to Michigan.
You will remember DeBoer got the Alabama job over Norvell, and now the pressure is rising as the successor to Saban. Alabama lost a season opener by two touchdowns for the first time since 1970.
“There’s no excuses about what happened,” DeBoer said. “Last year isn’t this year, and it’s going to be an uphill climb for us, but you can’t think of it in the big scope of things. You’ve got to focus on the moment. And the next moment is, ‘What happens tomorrow?’ And we’ll find out. We’ll find out.” — Andrea Adelson
Ohio State’s defense came ready
Ohio State opened its national championship defense with a dominating defensive effort. And for the second straight season against Texas, the Buckeyes produced a game-clinching stop.
Despite eight new defensive starters, the Buckeyes flew around all afternoon and flustered hyped Texas quarterback Arch Manning into a stunningly erratic performance.
The Buckeyes did not surrender a play longer than 15 yards until late in the fourth quarter. They also came up huge in the red zone.
In the first half, the Buckeyes stuffed a Manning quarterback sneak on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line. Then in the fourth quarter, cornerback Davison Igbinosun swatted away a Manning fourth-down pass to the corner of the end zone.
“Every time you get a fourth-down stop, it’s like a turnover,” Day said after the game.
After a Texas touchdown with 3:28 to play, the Longhorns got the ball back again with a chance to tie.
But just like last season — when Jack Sawyer’s strip sack and score propelled Ohio State to victory over Texas in the CFP semifinals and to the national championship game — the Buckeyes got the key final stop — as Caleb Downs tackled Jack Endries short of the marker on fourth down.
The Buckeyes’ defensive performance allowed them to ease quarterback Julian Sayin into his first start. Sayin was 13-for-20 for 126 yards and a score in his first start. Unlike Manning, however, Sayin avoided turnovers.
“We were fairly conservative [offensively] because we felt like our defense was playing well,” Day said. — Jake Trotter
Best moments from Texas-Ohio State
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — New quarterback Tommy Castellanos led a punishing rushing attack for Florida State with 78 yards and a touchdown as the Seminoles stunned No. 8 Alabama 31-17 on Saturday, ending the Crimson Tide’s streak of 23 straight wins in season openers.
Coming off a 2-10 season, Florida State handed a crushing setback to Alabama, which was viewed as a College Football Playoff contender under second-year coach Kalen DeBoer.
Castellanos, a transfer from Boston College, made headlines over the summer after saying legendary Alabama coach Nick Saban wasn’t there to “save” the Tide vs. Florida State in their Week 1 matchup and that he doesn’t “see them stopping me.” He backed up that jab by spearheading FSU’s dominant ground attack while staying efficient through the air, finishing 9 of 14 passing for 152 yards.
Students and fans swarmed the field at Doak Campbell Stadium to celebrate the upset by the Seminoles, who closed as 13 1/2-point underdogs at ESPN BET.
Under new offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn — who spent eight seasons as Auburn’s head coach — Florida State was physical from the start, finishing with 230 rushing yards and averaging 4.7 yards per carry. The Seminoles averaged just 89.9 yards during their disastrous 2024 season.
The Crimson Tide had not dropped a season opener since losing 20-17 to UCLA in 2001 under Dennis Franchione, and this defeat will ratchet up the pressure on DeBoer from the demanding Tuscaloosa faithful. His predecessor, Nick Saban, led Alabama to six national titles.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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