A sputtering offense, a stubborn coach and a $76 million buyout: Inside Jimbo Fisher’s Texas A&M downfall
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Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff Writer
SHORTLY AFTER TEXAS A&M athletic director Ross Bjork fired Jimbo Fisher, he described what the Aggies are seeking in a replacement. They’re looking for a coach who’s open to change, adaptable, organized, easy to work with, has a creative offense and is more of a CEO type than someone who’s in the film room all night.
It sounded like he was describing the opposite of Fisher.
Fisher was fired Sunday morning late in his sixth season at Texas A&M with more than $76 million remaining on his fully guaranteed contract. He was undone by an offense — his offense — that didn’t keep up with the trends in college football, ranking 101st nationally in scoring during a disastrous 5-7 season in 2022. He was undone by a stubbornness to change, waiting until Year 6 to even hire an offensive coordinator. He was undone, sources say, by his ego and his insistence on making each and every decision.
No doubt there were tantalizing highs: Fisher’s 2020 COVID-year team finished 9-1 against an all-SEC schedule and notched a 41-27 win in the Orange Bowl to finish the season at No. 4, the Aggies’ highest season-ending ranking since their 1939 national championship season. Fisher remained popular with players until the end and recruited at a level never seen before in College Station. In 2022, he landed one of the most touted recruiting classes in modern history, ranked No. 1 nationally.
But the low points were lower than the Aggies could have bargained for. There were five seasons with four or more losses, including that 2022 campaign, in which the Aggies opened the season at No. 6, only to crash to a 5-7 record amid a six-game losing streak. It was the program’s first losing season since 2009. Somewhere in that mess was a home loss to Appalachian State in which Fisher’s offense managed 180 yards and nine first downs. The Aggies became a joke. They were the biggest underachievers in the country.
Meanwhile, Fisher’s singular focus on running his program his way didn’t endear him to many people on campus. Fisher was the decision-maker on everything, and if you questioned why something was done a certain way, you were likely to be met with an angry response, sources said. (Fisher did not return a message seeking comment for this story.)
That included habits like Fisher’s desire to travel to road games on Thursday nights, meaning players and staff left campus shortly after practice, and sometimes didn’t get to hotels until late in the evening or early mornings. Then they’d wake up on Friday mornings and have meetings and just wait around for the game.
“No one does that,” one Power 5 operations director said. “It impacts academics, takes staff away from their families — and there’s nothing to do. You’re just asking for players to get in trouble.”
A staff member agreed: “You just felt like you were there for so long. That kind of wears on the players.”
The results bear that out. The Aggies have lost nine straight road games dating to the 2021 season. They were 0-9 against ranked teams on the road during Fisher’s entire tenure. When something wasn’t working, it seemed like Fisher was reluctant to change.
“You have to adapt, you have to evolve,” Bjork said at a news conference after Fisher’s firing. “I’m not going to say whether he did or didn’t, but it didn’t work.”
Looking back, that 2020 season was obviously an anomaly. As issues piled up, Fisher, enabled by his contract, doubled down on doing things his way.
“There was no hope that this would ever get better because what was going to change?” a staff member said. “He wasn’t going to listen to anybody else. It was just going to continue the way that it was.”
In the end, the Aggies decided it was no longer worth throwing good money after bad. They decided it was worth $76 million to send Fisher out the door a day after a 41-point win.
“Modern-day football requires, to me, a certain type of leadership,” Bjork said. “You’re moving forward and you’re making change and you’re dialed into what the young men want and what they expect in terms of style of play and the system and the culture and the day-to-day.”
He didn’t see that happening under Fisher.
“To me, [the lack of] all of those things were just leading to lack of confidence,” Bjork said.
AFTER THE WORST offensive season of Fisher’s career — the Aggies averaged 22.7 points a game last season — Fisher hired Bobby Petrino to take over the offense. The Aggies had a potential superstar at quarterback in Conner Weigman and skill position talent all around him, including receiver Evan Stewart. There was cautious optimism around the 2023 season. A longtime SEC personnel director called Texas A&M’s roster one of the best three in the league this year.
But after the Aggies sputtered in October losses to Alabama and Tennessee, scoring just three points in the second half of each loss, Fisher’s future appeared precarious for the first time, even accounting for the massive buyout that would accompany his firing. And for the second year in a row, offensive line troubles forced the Aggies to play their third-string quarterback.
Fisher’s in-game decisions remained a source of frustration. Against Alabama, he chose to punt on fourth-and-1 at the Tide’s 45-yard line in the third quarter of a 17-17 game. Alabama scored six plays later and never trailed again. That one call became emblematic of larger issues for a fanbase that felt, even against the best teams in the league, Fisher was playing too conservatively, almost not to lose as opposed to trying to win.
“If it wasn’t a full yard, inside a yard, [we] probably would have went,” Fisher said.
Fisher runs a complex, pro-style offense and multiple staffers indicated that while Petrino was calling the plays, a large portion of the plays he was calling were still Fisher’s offense.
The offense worked when everything clicked, but proper execution became increasingly difficult with the revolving door at quarterback and the transfer portal leading to the addition of new players unfamiliar with the system.
Even when it didn’t work, Fisher stayed the course.
“We’ve had things there,” Fisher said after those losses to Tennessee and Alabama in which the offense scored 33 points combined. “It’s just a matter of executing plays. It has been shocking that we haven’t been able to go out and execute like that.”
But it was Fisher’s job to get them to execute, and “just gotta execute” became the defining phrase of his tenure.
“It’s too complicated,” a former player said. “And that’s why I think you saw a lot of struggles with it. It just seemed like all these pieces have to go right for a play to work. There’s a lot of thinking. There’s not a lot of just going out and playing. And I think that’s a big deal.”
And it didn’t help that the quarterbacks were battered. In this year’s game against Tennessee, Pro Football Focus said Max Johnson was pressured on 25 of his 39 dropbacks, or 64.1% of them.
According to ESPN Stats & Information research, Texas A&M QBs were hit on 51.7% of their dropbacks in the Alabama and Tennessee games. Among the 75 FBS teams with a minimum of 50 dropbacks over that two-week span, A&M was the only school with a QB contact percentage of more than 50%. The next closest were Kent State at 49.4% and Akron at 47.2%.
Kellen Mond started all 36 games in Fisher’s first three seasons in College Station. But since 2021, five different quarterbacks have made starts, the most in the SEC. During that span, the Aggies have had 15 games with fewer than 200 passing yards.
In the seven seasons before Fisher’s arrival, Texas A&M produced nine first-round draft picks. In the six years since, despite signing 70 ESPN 300 players, the fourth most in the FBS behind Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State, it has had one: Kenyon Green, a guard. A&M has produced just two skill-position draftees that signed with Fisher: Isaiah Spiller, a fourth-rounder at running back last year and De’Von Achane in the third round this season.
Other schools made Fisher’s stagnant offense a point of emphasis. Johntay Cook II, a Texas high school receiver who was No. 32 in the 2023 ESPN 300, told On3 during his recruitment it was a concern.
“A&M has the players but not the scheme,” Cook said. “I mean A&M is running like the Wishbone offense. It’s cool and all, but if Jimbo opened it up that would be serious.”
Cook ended up signing with Texas.
But that wasn’t the only recruiting problem. Fisher prized talent above all, as most coaches do. But there were several high-profile players who committed to A&M who couldn’t stay out of trouble.
Five-star cornerback Denver Harris was suspended twice, then transferred to LSU, where he is on scholarship and in school, but not practicing with the team because of disciplinary issues. Four-star corner Smoke Bouie and five-star wide receiver Chris Marshall were suspended and transferred. Bouie has since been dismissed at Georgia and Marshall was removed from the Ole Miss roster and is now at Kilgore College, a junior college in East Texas.
Sources said discipline was a recurring issue at A&M, with Fisher preferring to let his players lead the locker room. A former player spoke of “individualism” on the roster, with players often not being punished for missing meetings or being late.
“There was 100% a lack of discipline, a lack of accountability,” a former player said.
Last season, Fisher suspended Stewart, Bouie, Marshall and Harris for the Miami game because of a curfew violation. Harris, Marshall and offensive lineman PJ Williams were suspended indefinitely for a locker room incident before the South Carolina game.
Since the Aggies signed the No. 1 class in the country in 2022, they have gone 11-11. Sources at Texas A&M indicated there was a concern that if Fisher had remained, the exodus into the transfer portal would have been significant. The Aggies were in a no-win situation, so they made the move early in hopes that a new coach could rerecruit the roster.
“The assessment that I delivered was that we are not reaching our full potential,” Bjork said at a news conference of a conversation with the Texas A&M’s president, Gen. Mark A. Welsh. “We are not in the championship conversation and something was not quite right about our direction and the plan.”
FISHER GOT OFF to a rocky start when he first arrived in Texas and met with a 7-on-7 coach in the Houston area. This immediately raised eyebrows among the Texas High School Coaches Association, the most powerful group of its kind in the country, which had encouraged “straight-line recruiting,” going through the player’s high school coaches, rather than private trainers.
“It was just a matter of not really knowing the climate and how we’ve been working hard to keep that element out of Texas,” D.W. Rutledge, the organization’s executive director, told The Dallas Morning News in Dec. 2017.
When Mack Brown arrived at Texas, he extended a welcome to high school coaches, hiring Dallas Carter’s Bruce Chambers to his first staff, and keeping him on board for 16 years. Brown was a fixture at the THSCA convention, sending every one of his coaches to shake hands and invite coaches to campus.
Every year at the coaches’ convention, there is a keynote panel that includes every Division I coach in the state. This year, Fisher was the only coach who didn’t show. His presence was expected and his absence was not explained. That raised eyebrows across Texas.
“I just believe that if you coach in this state, you need to know when the Texas High School Coaches Association convention takes place and you need to be present,” said Lee Wiginton, the head coach at Allen High School and the past president of THSCA. “Texas A&M is a prestigious program in our great state. When their head football coach doesn’t attend our convention, it’s simply not a good look in the eyes of the Texas high school coaches.”
Fisher was the only coach in the state in recent years not to do interviews or appear on podcasts with Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine, often called the Bible of football in the state (and a publication that put Fisher on the cover when he arrived in College Station). Sources spoke of their surprise that Fisher didn’t offer a scholarship to John Paul Richardson, a wide receiver who is the son of Aggies great Bucky Richardson. Richardson instead signed with Oklahoma State and has since transferred to TCU. He had 49 catches for 503 yards last season. On A&M’s roster, only Stewart, who had 53 catches for 649 yards last season, surpassed those numbers.
The Aggies started to see comparisons to all the stories they’d heard from Florida State before Fisher headed to College Station. “Jimbo was adamant that he wasn’t going to shake hands and kiss babies,” one influential FSU booster told ESPN in 2020.
Compared to Texas, which currently sits at No. 7 in the College Football Playoff rankings and will join Texas A&M in the SEC next year, the Aggies felt like they were “stuck in neutral” according to Bjork, and couldn’t afford to take any more chances.
The early signing period and the opening of the portal were coming quickly. There was a bowl game to contend with in the middle of that. There were staffing vacancies that needed to be filled. (After recruiting the historic 2022 class, director of player personnel Marshall Malchow departed for Oregon to join Dan Lanning’s staff and Fisher replaced him with Kevin Mashack from Indiana. In June of this year, Fisher abruptly fired Mashack and did not replace him this season.) There were likely to be more coaching changes, particularly along the offensive line. Bjork said this week that he didn’t believe Fisher had the blueprint to fix all of those issues.
“How was the plan going to be executed?” Bjork said. “Was there going to be any hope? Were we going to have the right performance next year? I didn’t see all that lining up for success.”
In the end, the Aggies were tired of being embarrassed. And so they paid Fisher more than triple the largest buyout in college football history. Bjork compared the program to a car driving too slow in the fast lane and holding everyone back.
With Fisher out of the way, Bjork says the Aggies will learn their lessons from the contract and the extension. They’re focused on finding the right fit, rather than worrying about winning a news conference or making a splash hire.
“You take the spirit, you take the passion that’s here. … We were 5-4 going into our last home game and we had 103,000 people that showed up on a Saturday night to support our team,” Bjork told ESPN. “There’s no other place like that. And so if you couple that enthusiasm, those resources, what we have to offer in the facilities world, the NIL world, all the support that people receive here at Texas A&M…”
Wiginton said Fisher’s departure offers the Aggies a chance to find someone who will take pride in his role in Texas. Bjork said it’s a chance to get a coach who embraces the current state of college football and to start over with a clean slate.
“It’s going to be a positive environment,” Bjork said. “We’re going to hire the right coach. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.”
Mark Schlabach contributed to this story.
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
If we are, as some scientists have hypothesized, living in a multiverse in which all possible outcomes occur along some timeline, then we can still rest easy knowing that our lives are in fact unique and special and touched by some higher power because in no other possible universe could what unfolded on Saturday in college football happen again.
It was a rough Saturday for the top teams in the sport, and none suffered a more horrific fate than Alabama.
A week ago, the Tide escaped Georgia in what seemed like the best game of the year, a harbinger that their dynasty didn’t end with Nick Saban’s departure; it was simply a changing of the guard to Kalen DeBoer’s Bama.
And on Saturday, the king was replaced again, usurped by the court jester’s good-for-nothing roommate.
Vanderbilt did the impossible, knocking off No. 1 Alabama 40-35 in a game that might not technically qualify as the biggest upset in the sport’s modern era but certainly fits the bill in spirit, but it was really just the beginning.
Nothing about Week 6 screamed drama. It was a week in which just one pair of top-25 teams met on the field — and that turned out to be a snooze, as Texas A&M romped over No. 9 Missouri. The other powers — Georgia, Penn State, Ole Miss and Oregon — seemed to sleepwalk to easy enough wins.
Then No. 10 Michigan lost to unranked Washington. Then No. 11 USC lost to unranked Minnesota. Then No. 4 Tennessee lost to unranked Arkansas. The weekend that was supposed to provide only the dullest of chalk ended up giving us one of the most stunning strings of upsets we’ve had in years — five of the nation’s top 11 losing on the same day for the first time since 2016. A sixth team, Miami, needed a miracle (and a helpful review) to escape at Cal.
Saturday delivered utter absurdity, a Mad Libs of final scores that left the AP poll in tatters. But no outcome was more incredible than what happened in Nashville.
That Alabama found itself suffering through a hangover in Nashville is no surprise. The win over Georgia had felt so seismic, an exclamation point for a program used to making statements.
By halftime on Saturday, the hangover looked a bit more serious than we might’ve expected. But by the time Commodores tight end Kamrean Johnson hauled in a 6-yard touchdown pass from Diego Pavia with 5:07 to play. we’d reached a “Let’s DoorDash Arby’s” level of hangover.
And yet, it still felt almost inevitable that Alabama would find a way — just as it had a week ago, behind quarterback Jalen Milroe‘s arm and wide receiver Ryan Williams‘ magic.
Then Pavia threw a 19-yard completion.
Then Sedrick Alexander ran for 13 yards through the teeth of Alabama’s flummoxed defense.
Then Pavia scrambled for 8 yards and a first down with 1:10 to play — and all Vandy had to do was take a knee to secure its first win over a top-five opponent in 60 tries and leave the bachelorette parties downtown squealing and whooping incoherently (though that last part might have been unrelated).
It was the type of mythical David-over-Goliath win they write songs about, if only Nashville had any songwriters.
For the Commodores, there were so many small storylines that felt, in retrospect, like genuine foreshadowing. There was coach Clark Lea’s promise in the summer of 2022 that Vandy would one day be the best program in the country. He might as well have told the assembled masses at SEC media day that Saban was going to retire and start riding around in a van with his dog solving mysteries. It was nonsensical. And yet, here we are, witness to Vandy toppling the No. 1 team in the nation.
It was less than 11 months ago that Pavia and Jerry Kill led New Mexico State into Jordan-Hare Stadium and utterly embarrassed Auburn. Now, both are at Vandy — Pavia as QB, Kill as advisor to Lea — and they’ve beaten Bama too. Pavia yelled into a microphone on live television that Nashville would be “f—ing turnt,” and somehow that seemed a perfectly natural reaction — subdued, even — to what happened but also an earned celebration for a kid who grew up idolizing Johnny Manziel and dreaming of a moment like this. That Kill has helped turn around both New Mexico State and Vandy in consecutive years is probably enough evidence to warrant sandblasting Jefferson off Mount Rushmore and carving out Kill’s likeness instead.
In its opener this season, Vandy escaped Virginia Tech in part because it got a second chance after the Hokies inexplicably sent two players onto the field wearing the same jersey number during a Vanderbilt punt. The Commodores eventually turned that second chance into a touchdown in a game ultimately won by one possession. And on Saturday, the same thing happened. The difference between 3-2 Vandy with two epic wins and 1-4 Vandy being completely ignored on the national stage is literally another team’s laundry.
It was another résumé win for a school whose résumé previously just read: “Technically a football team.” For virtually the entirety of its history, Vandy was essentially the SEC’s version of the dead body at the start of each episode of “Law & Order.” That’s essential to the plot of the show, but it isn’t supposed to have any dialogue and mostly exists to allow the stars to make a few dark jokes. And now the Commodores have wins over Virginia Tech and Alabama, a narrow defeat to a top-10 Missouri and a close loss to an unspecified team from Georgia. (Let them have their moment.)
What was most exhilarating and confounding, though, was that Vandy absolutely deserved this win. It had nine more first downs than the Tide. It ran for more yards, often straight up the gut against a Bama front that looked a shell of what we saw a week ago against Georgia. It refused to let drives die, converting 13 of 19 third- and fourth-down tries, and as a result, the Dores held the football for more than 42 minutes.
And when it was all over, Vandy not only rushed the field, not only celebrated with its fans and basked in the win and cursed on live TV, but it had the gumption to stick it to Bama’s former coach, replaying a Saban sound bite in which he said the only easy venue in the SEC was at Vanderbilt.
NO WAY#Vandy played this quote from Nick Saban after the upset over Alabama:
“The only place that’s not hard to play in the SEC is Vanderbilt.” pic.twitter.com/QDfGufSQol
— Billy Derrick (@billyderrick10) October 5, 2024
Whichever staffer on Vanderbilt’s stadium ops crew dug up that clip in advance of the win needs to be carried down Broadway like a conquering hero.
It is fair to suggest this isn’t your father’s Vandy team (or, more accurately, the Vandy team from the last time you wore that sport coat hanging in your closet). Lea has these Dores playing good football. Pavia is a swashbuckling underdog who’s entirely deserving of Manziel’s mantle. And as is required by federal law to note in situations like this, there are no easy weeks in the SEC, despite Saban’s now-infamous hot take.
But make no mistake, this was a genuine one-in-a-million outcome — not because Vandy is bad or Alabama is preordained or because this weekend seemed so entirely fluke-proof. All of those things could be true and they still wouldn’t capture the magnitude of what happened.
This was an outcome that a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters for a thousand years couldn’t script on accident because things like this simply don’t happen. It was the Washington Generals toppling the Harlem Globetrotters, Charlie Brown kicking the football and Dabo Swinney taking a transfer all rolled into one.
In other words, things like this don’t happen in any universe. None but this one, on this beautiful blue marble on this particular Saturday on a field in Nashville that even Saban didn’t take seriously.
Lucky for us, it’s the universe we’re all living in, and we get to go along for the ride.
Jump to:
Tennessee tumbles
Miami survives again
ACC troubles
Army/Navy 5-0
Gift trash talking
Vibe shifts
Under the radar
Heisman
Down go the Vols
The SEC opened Saturday with four undefeated teams and ended it with just one.
This wasn’t the week for No. 4 Tennessee to lay an egg against Arkansas, because it really opened the door to some jokes from its in-state neighbors who toppled Alabama earlier in the day.
Vanderbilt fans watching Tennessee struggle with Arkansas pic.twitter.com/lVLpJXqrI6
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) October 6, 2024
Tennessee couldn’t do anything in the passing game, with hyped quarterback Nico Iamaleava completing just 17 of 29 throws for 158 yards. Arkansas got plenty of QB Taylen Green, but he left with an injury in the fourth quarter, putting backup Malachi Singleton in position to play hero.
Singleton had a 13-yard completion and an 11-yard touchdown run on the game-winning drive, scoring with 1:17 to play.
It was proof of the important lesson offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino had taught this Arkansas team: When you fall off your bike — then get fired under embarrassing circumstances, spend a decade bouncing around various jobs then help Jimbo Fisher get fired at Texas A&M — you always get back up on that bike and sooner or later, all will be forgiven.
Miami escapes again
The Bermuda Triangle of college football chaos exists in Berkeley, California.
On one leg of the triangle is Coastal chaos. On another is “Pac-12 After Dark.” And on the third, ACC officiating. Mix them all together and what you get is the utter insanity that was Miami–Cal.
The Golden Bears hosted “College GameDay” based on the strength of their darkly subversive Twitter presence and a deeply talented defense, and both showed out early. Jaydn Ott scored two first-half touchdowns, making his case for what the Calgorithm calls the Heisperson Trophy, while the Bears’ D utterly frustrated Cam Ward and the Canes’ offense. By the time Cal kicker Ryan Coe drilled a 37-yard field goal with 14:13 left in the game, Miami was down by 20 points and its No. 8 ranking — and playoff hopes — seemed on shaky ground.
That’s when Ward came to life.
In the fourth quarter, he completed 15 of 22 passes for 238 yards, ran for another 39 yards and accounted for three touchdowns.
0:27
Cam Ward gives Miami late hope with resilient 24-yard score
Cam Ward keeps Miami within striking distance of Cal after powering into the end zone on a 24-yard rush late in the fourth quarter.
And yet the game was not without controversy. Trailing by six points, Miami looked to force a Cal punt with 1:50 to play, but linebacker Wesley Bissainthe collided with Cal’s Fernando Mendoza on the tackle, smacking helmets along the way.
Replay looked to show a clear targeting, but no flag was thrown on the field. The booth reviewed the play, but allowed the non-call to stand, despite what looked like clear evidence of a launch and a hit with the crown of the helmet.
This follows a similar incident last week in which Miami prevailed only after review overturned a Hail Mary touchdown by Virginia Tech, despite minimal video evidence.
A targeting call would’ve almost certainly won the game for Cal, but instead, a punt followed and Ward delivered a 77-yard connection with Xavier Restrepo on the next offensive play.
Cal fans were rightly furious. Unfortunately, no one in Berkeley knew a good way to signal their disapproval of a decision made by a more authoritative enemy.
Miami still tried to upend its own good fortune with an atrocious unsportsmanlike penalty in the red zone. But Ward delivered a checkdown throw just inches from crossing the line of scrimmage that picked up a key first down, and he then hit Elijah Arroyo for the go-ahead touchdown.
The result: Miami is 6-0, the ACC review booth is 2-0 and Cal is going to invent an app that somehow brings down the entire college football industrial complex as punishment.
Other ACC powers struggling
Louisville’s defense couldn’t find a solution for Kevin Jennings and SMU on Saturday, falling 34-27. Meanwhile, Boston College got its starting QB, Thomas Castellanos, back from injury but blew a 14-0 lead and lost to Virginia 24-14. Wake Forest managed its first ACC win of the year, erasing a 10-point deficit to beat NC State 34-30.
And then there’s Florida State, a school whose fans are going through some things right now.
— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) October 6, 2024
In the Billable Hours Bowl, the two teams suing to leave the ACC faced off in Tallahassee, and while FSU occasionally showed signs of life with Brock Glenn at QB, the end result was still the same.
In fact, here’s a quick recap of what happened in the game.
Clemson: Hey, the SEC’s on the phone. They said they’re ready to expand.
Florida State: Really?
Clemson: No. They said they don’t need you. They have Vandy.
With the Tigers’ victory, Dabo Swinney became the winningest coach in ACC history, passing Bobby Bowden on the field that bears his name. Swinney did it, too, by taking the same number of transfers as Bowden.
Also Cade Klubnik threw for two touchdowns and Phil Mafah ran for 154 yards in what was an appropriately ugly 29-13 decision.
So, to recap where the ACC stands: Florida State, NC State, Virginia Tech, North Carolina and Louisville all have multiple losses already and sport a combined record of 13-16.
Meanwhile Pitt, Virginia, Syracuse and SMU are a combined 18-3.
You can take the Coastal out of the ACC, but you can’t take the ACC away from the chaos.
Sluggish day for the top teams
No. 3 Ohio State: Had little trouble swatting away Iowa 35-7. Still, it had to feel like a loss for the Buckeyes, who are the first ranked team to allow points to Iowa’s offense since Michigan surrendered two touchdowns in a win over the Hawkeyes in Week 5 of 2022.
No. 5 Georgia: Responded to last week’s loss to Alabama with an entirely reasonable 31-13 win over Auburn. Carson Beck was 23-of-28 passing, and Trevor Etienne scored twice, and yet it was hardly the offensive performance that offered significant reassurance this uneven start to the season is insignificant. More than anything, Georgia wore down Auburn rather than delivering any sort of statement. If anything, it was a bit embarrassing not to get a single Payton Thorne interception. Typically, Auburn is giving those away with the purchase of any large soft drink.
No. 6 Oregon: Beat Michigan State 31-10 on Friday, despite two red zone picks by Dillon Gabriel. It was another utterly dispassionate performance from the 5-0 Ducks, who’ve basically become college football’s version of “According to Jim” — on every week, with roughly the same plot, perfectly successful without a single memorable storyline.
No. 12 Ole Miss: Cruised past South Carolina 27-3, but those third-down woes that cost the Rebels last week against Kentucky were still on display Saturday. Ole Miss was 3-of-13 on third down (and 1-of-3 on fourth) against the Gamecocks, and Jaxson Dart went without a touchdown pass against an unranked team for the first time in two years. It was entirely meh.
No. 16 Iowa State: Flirted with disaster against Baylor, but because Matt Campbell is a nice guy, the Cyclones ripped out Dave Aranda’s heart by late in the third quarter rather than waiting until the final moments of the game. Rocco Becht remains the sport’s best player named Rocco, throwing for 277 yards and two touchdowns in a 43-21 win.
The end result: Few top teams looked good, but at least these guys got to have a good laugh at Alabama’s expense anyway.
Army, Navy 5-0
In the fall of 1945, Army and Navy defeated fascism then both started 5-0 on the football field.
That was the Greatest Generation.
In the fall of 2024, Army and Navy are again 5-0 for the first time in 79 years, making this at least a pretty good generation despite otherwise being ruined by TikTok and avocado toast.
Navy demolished Air Force 34-7 on Saturday, with Blake Horvath rushing for 115 yards and two touchdowns and at least six good “zoomies” taunts at his opposition.
Not to be outdone, Army went to Tulsa and dominated 49-7 behind 250 combined passing and rushing yards and two touchdowns from Bryson Daily. Daily completed all five of his pass attempts, averaging 28 yards per throw, which served as a reminder to people in Michigan that it’s OK to employ the forward pass from time to time.
What does it mean that Army and Navy are off to their best combined start to the season since World War II in the larger scope of international diplomacy? It’s impossible to say at this point, but just to be safe, it’s probably a bad idea to invade Poland in the next few weeks.
A&M gets last laugh
Le’Veon Moss and Amari Daniels combined to run for 172 yards and five touchdowns on 21 carries as Texas A&M routed No. 9 Missouri 41-10 on Saturday.
Missouri QB Brady Cook completed just 13 of 31 passes, an ugly performance somewhat predicted by the gift wideout Theo Wease Jr. received in his hotel room upon arrival in College Station.
Mizzou WR Theo Wease Jr. received this message after arriving to the team hotel in College Station…
“Get used to this blanket … It will be real tomorrow.”
Texas A&M CB Will Lee III is officially the new king of trash talk pic.twitter.com/wVvoJp8zaa
— Unnecessary Roughness (@UnnecRoughness) October 5, 2024
Now, we should point out this is technically a throw, not a blanket. It says so right there on the label. And, as such, Wease did actually haul in Missouri’s only touchdown of the day. Next time, Will Lee III should consider a nice duvet cover.
Still, Lee’s gift was an undeniably great bit of smack talk, and we’d like to think more players will follow his lead by leaving gifts for the opposition before the game — a bag of potatoes with a note, “enjoy the sack; there’ll be plenty more tomorrow” or a box of Bisquick with the message “prepare to get pancaked” or a bag of those hint-of-lime Tostitos. No note with that last one. Just impossible not to eat the whole bag, thus leaving your opponent listless and dehydrated for game day. Those are good chips.
Week 6 vibe shifts
Each week, there are big wins and painful losses that help shape the story of the season. But there also are more subtle shifts — small movements in the larger ecosystem that don’t garner headlines but can prove to be just as important. We work to capture them here.
Trending down: Billy Napier seat temperature
Florida is officially over .500, and it won’t finish as the worst Power Four team in the state. Given that the expectation for the Gators after an early loss to Miami involved a slew of defeats, a likely coaching change and a photo surfacing of a naked Napier hugging a shark on the back of a boat, this is nothing short of a massive success.
The Gators toppled UCF 24-13 on Saturday, giving Napier consecutive wins versus Power Four opponents for just the third time in his Florida tenure.
Graham Mertz and DJ Lagway were near flawless again, completing 23 of 28 passes for 229 yards. Over their past two games, they’ve tossed just six incompletions on 56 passes.
Honestly, what are the odds we could write that many consecutive positive things about the Gators this year?
Trending up: The apocalypse
It was 97 degrees at kickoff for Rutgers-Nebraska on Saturday, enough heat to make the corn in the stands go best with movie-theater butter.
It also was enough to stifle most of the offense. Neither team managed more than 264 yards, and Huskers QB Dylan Raiola was just 13-of-27 with a pick. But two Rutgers turnovers and a stout defensive performance from Nebraska secured an ugly 14-7 win.
Given the extreme temperatures and the fact that Nebraska won a one-score game (8-26 in games decided by a TD or less since 2019), coach Matt Rhule announced afterward that, in fact, the end times were upon us and we should seek shelter and hug our loved ones.
Holding steady: Hoosier State football
Indiana’s rollicking start to the 2024 season continued unabated Saturday, as the Hoosiers dismissed Northwestern 41-24 while also leaving a pretty unimaginative three-star review on the lakefront Airbnb where the Wildcats are playing this season.
If you had Indiana as the first team to qualify for bowl eligibility in 2024, congratulations. You’re a winner. After making just five bowls in the past 30 years, Indiana is now 6-0 and virtually guaranteed to beat Kentucky 12-9 in the ReliaQuest Bowl.
That hot start has to be frustrating for Purdue, which can usually count on Indiana to be so embarrassing no one notices how bad the Boilermakers are. Sadly, Purdue’s misery is on full display in 2024. On Saturday, the Boilermakers lost 52-6 to Wisconsin, mustering just 216 yards of offense and converting just 1 of 11 third-down tries. They’re 1-4 on the year, the lone win coming against Indiana State (which didn’t have Larry Bird so really never had a shot) and has now lost each of its four games by at least 17.
Trending up: QB changes in Ann Arbor
Michigan made its second QB change of the season, benching Alex Orji in favor of Jack Tuttle midway through its game against Washington. But the end result was the same: The passing game struggled, and a late pick proved the difference in a 27-17 Huskies win.
Tuttle threw for 98 yards, which believe it or not is the fourth most by a Michigan QB this season, but his interception with 3:24 to play allowed Washington to ice the game with a late field goal.
Michigan threw for just 113 yards in the game — 20 of which came on the final drive — its fourth straight with 134 or less through the air. The last time a top-20 team did that in four straight was Georgia Tech in 2014 and 2015 when it ran the triple option. That, by the way, might not be such a bad idea for the Wolverines moving forward.
Trending down: Lincoln Riley narratives
It’s not exactly Vandy-over-Bama weird, but USC’s defense has been good and the Trojans are struggling because they can’t score points.
USC was again reminded that football in the Big Ten is intended to be ugly and slow — and occasionally results in winning a trophy shaped like a jar of pickles or a bronze bedpan that once belonged to William Henry Harrison — falling at Minnesota 24-17 after turning the ball over three times.
The Golden Gophers scored on each of their final two drives, while USC wasted a 17-10 win with two picks and a three-and-out in their final three drives.
Honestly, Riley didn’t bolt Oklahoma to escape coaching in the SEC just so he could lose Big Ten games like this. Very disappointing.
Trending up: Last year’s new FBS teams
On Friday, Jacksonville State pulled a nifty trick in the second half of a 63-24 win over Kennesaw State.
The Gamecocks had just five possessions in the second half, and yet they scored a total of 42 points.
Some basic math would suggest that’s six touchdowns, which is accurate. Not only did Jacksonville State find the end zone on each of its five possessions, it also had a 30-yard pick-six.
It’s just the fourth time in the playoff era a team has scored 42 or more points with five or fewer drives in the second half of a game. Oddly, San Diego State did it earlier this season against FCS Texas A&M-Commerce but only scored four offensive touchdowns, adding two on defense.
Jacksonville State isn’t the only second-year FBS team to add a big win in Week 6 though. Sam Houston beat UTEP like it was former Ohio Sen. William Stanbery, 41-21. Sam Houston is now 5-1 on the season, with its only loss coming at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Or maybe UCF. We only skimmed the Sam Houston Wikipedia page.
Trending down: Dilfer’s dimes
Tulane hung seven dimes and a penny on Trent Dilfer’s UAB team Saturday with a 71-20 win that moves the Blazers to 1-4 on the season. They are just 5-12 under Dilfer, including eight losses by 20 or more. Only Temple and Kent State have more such defeats during that span.
Under-the-radar drive of the week
Normally, we don’t put a spotlight on a single drive in a game. But this week, we felt it necessary to highlight North Carolina’s slow decline.
Leading 7-3 against undefeated Pitt, the Heels ran 19 plays, including two fourth-down conversions, covering 81 yards and chewing up 9:03 of clock.
The result: Squat. Nada. Zilch.
A Jacolby Criswell throw on fourth-and-2 at the Pitt 9 fell incomplete, making it just the second drive of the season of 19 plays or more not to end with points. (Western Kentucky had a 21-play scoreless drive against Alabama, so at least UNC can say it has something in common with Alabama.)
The Tar Heels still had chances to win, but that only served to provide just enough hope to make the inevitable ending — a 34-24 Pitt win — all that much more infuriating for coach Mack Brown, who is approximately one more loss away from ripping off his shirt, shouting incoherently and running into the woods to live with a family of badgers.
On a more positive note, Pitt is 5-0 for the first time since 1991 — a time when Curtis Martin roamed the backfield, Pirates baseball wasn’t a national embarrassment and Barry Bonds’ head didn’t have its own satellites. And Eli Holstein is the first Pitt QB to win his first five career starts since Dan Marino, who would go on to have a successful career as a glove salesman.
Under-the-radar play of the week
Penn State continues to be the Big Ten team that wins every game against noncontending opponents in the least noteworthy way possible after Saturday’s 27-11 dispatching of UCLA. But while the bulk of this game could’ve been scripted in advance like a WWE match, there was one small wrinkle that made the whole affair worthwhile.
The Nittany Lions sent 350-pound offensive lineman Olaivavega Ioane in motion, and he delivered by possibly sending UCLA D-lineman Luke Schuermann backward in time.
An offensive lineman in motion is a scary sight 😳
Still not over this hit from @PennStateFball‘s Olaivavega Ioane 🥞😱 pic.twitter.com/M6NN7eoIqY
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 5, 2024
The first hit, of course, is monstrous, and that’s the point in which Schuermann’s buddies should be telling him, “Bro, just stay down.” Unfortunately, Schuermann ignored the fact that he has an entire family somewhere who cares about him, and he got back up for more.
This was, in many ways, a nice microcosm of UCLA’s shift to the Big Ten — a normal dude wrestling an F-350. The Bruins are 1-4 overall and 0-3 in conference, and they have led for a grand total of 2:16 this season — the final 56 seconds against Hawaii and for 80 seconds in the first half against LSU.
The takeaway: LSU is the worst team UCLA has played this year.
Under-the-radar game of the week
In most weeks, watching a game between UConn and Temple would be punishment for shoplifting in some more draconian jurisdictions. But on Saturday, it was actually pretty fun.
There were seven different lead changes in the game, including UConn going up 23-20 with 3:46 to play. Temple, however, had a shot to win it on a fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line and 3 seconds to play, but Tyler Douglas fumbled on an attempted “Brotherly Shove,” and UConn recovered for a scoop and score.
TEMPLE TRIED THE BROTHERLY SHOVE FOR THE WIN AND THE BALL POPS OUT!! UCONN SCOOP AND SCORE FOR THE WIN!! pic.twitter.com/QMNkSciLGA
— Sickos Committee (@SickosCommittee) October 5, 2024
This is a good reminder to the folks at Temple: While you are located in Philadelphia, you are not the Philadelphia Eag– what’s that? By 17 to the Bucs, you say? And they’ve lost seven of their past 10? Ah. Well then. Carry on, Temple.
Heisman Five
Consider Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia an honorary Heisman winner, regardless of his actual standing in the race. In fact, let’s just change the trophy to look like him yelling four-letter words into a microphone.
1. Colorado WR/CB Travis Hunter
Colorado was off in Week 6, though somehow Hunter still got 104 snaps.
2. Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty
Let’s check in on Jeanty’s first carry of the game against Utah State in Week 6.
ASHTON JEANTY’S FIRST CARRY TODAY 🔥 @BroncoSportsFB pic.twitter.com/utOfPL02gv
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 5, 2024
Honestly, it’s time teams consider just negotiating a deal with Boise State before kickoff. Just go ahead and assume Jeanty is going for 220 yards and four touchdowns, let him watch from the sideline to preserve everyone’s dignity and spot the Broncos 28 to open the game.
3. The ACC review booth — er, Miami QB Cam Ward
For the second week in a row, the ACC officials stole the storyline of an incredible ending, but also for the second straight week, Ward was a hero. He finished with 437 passing yards and three total touchdowns. It’s Ward’s seventh straight game — dating back to last season at Washington State — in which he threw for 300 yards and accounted for three touchdowns. Only WKU’s Bailey Zappe (8 straight) had a longer streak in the past 16 years. Assuming the ACC doesn’t review that, it’s a pretty impressive feat.
4 (tie). Army QB Bryson Daily and Navy QB Blake Horvath
Two weeks ago, an Army fan emailed us and made the case that Daily belonged on this list on account of his exceptional start to the season for the undefeated Black Knights, so we put him at No. 5 last week.
Then a Navy fan reached out and lambasted us for adding Daily while overlooking Horvath, whose numbers are even better for the undefeated Midshipmen.
Never let it be said we aren’t pushovers for peer pressure — particularly when that pressure comes from veterans.
Now, if anyone from the Merchant Marines wants to make the case for their QB, however, you’re going to need our Venmo to make it happen.
5. Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith
It’s not even clear Smith is the best freshman wide receiver in the country; Alabama’s Ryan Williams had another nice game Saturday. But one guy lost to Vandy and the other one did this.
UNREAL. JEREMIAH SMITH DID IT AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/dHHGgdfeG5
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) October 5, 2024
Once Urban Meyer stopped paying the coaching equivalent of Uncle Rico to oversee receivers, the Buckeyes have churned out one elite prospect after another, but there’s a real chance Smith ends up the best of the bunch.
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