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    Dave Wilson

    ESPN Staff Writer

      Dave Wilson is an editor for ESPN.com since 2010. He previously worked at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun.

  • Ryan McGee

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    Ryan McGee

    ESPN Senior Writer

    • Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com
    • 2-time Sports Emmy winner
    • 2010, 2014 NMPA Writer of the Year

Nov 22, 2023, 06:45 AM ET

ON A WARM September night last year, after a 27-10 UCF win over Georgia Tech, the crowd hung around to see something that only happens at the Bounce House.

Shortly after the game ended, a SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center, about 35 miles due east from campus in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at NASA’s Launch Complex 39A.

Fans in the stadium got a perfect view of the launch because, by design, UCF’s 50-yard-line sits on the same latitude as the launch pad. As Elton John’s “Rocket Man” played over the stadium speakers, the video board showed a close-up of the spacecraft as it left the Earth’s atmosphere, with fans cheering along. Just another day at SpaceU.

UCF is all-in on space. Founded in 1963 as Florida Technological University with the motto “Reach For The Stars,” it opened in 1968 with an emphasis on providing talent for America’s ambitious space program. Now, with UCF grads making up about 30% of all Kennedy Space Center employees, the university is proudly touting its space connections.

To celebrate that legacy, the football team has played a wildly popular “Space Game” every year since 2017, featuring alternate uniforms with their own distinct color — called Canaveral Blue to reflect the coastal skies and water — and a small nod to the school’s original mascot, the Citronaut, a Florida orange wearing a space suit. It’s one of the coolest modern traditions in college football.

But it did raise the eyebrows of a new conference foe.

“Some blue unis … Some Space City thing,” Houston coach Dana Holgorsen said last week during his radio show. “I thought we were Space City.”

Houston, which is playing its first season in the Big 12 alongside UCF, represents a city that has long taken pride in its role as NASA’s nerve center at Johnson Space Center. Around the same time that UCF was being constructed, Houston was building the Astrodome, home to the Astros and another newfangled invention, Astroturf. (The Houston Rockets were actually named while the franchise was based in San Diego, oddly enough.)

So you’ll forgive Holgorsen if he needs to be educated when he’s told that UCF’s claim as a space hub is due to its proximity to NASA’s Launch Control Center, when Houston is home to Mission Control, the site of one of the most famous lines in the history of the space race.

“They don’t say ‘Orlando, we’ve got a problem,'” Holgorsen said.

With the upcoming departures of Texas and Oklahoma, two of the most storied teams in college football, the Big 12 is desperately in need of some new squabbles. Arizona and Arizona State will arrive next year with the Territorial Cup on the line. BYU, a new addition this year, will reunite with Utah next year in a rivalry that’s been played 101 times.

But while UCF and Houston might not ever become a heated rivalry due to their geographic separation on Earth, there’s a whole other frontier in the heavens. There is real school pride at stake. UCF fans are still rolling their eyes over the short-lived so-called “Civil ConFLiCT” that was forced upon them by UConn and essentially ended when the trophy went missing after two games.

While Houston and UCF have played each other 10 times, none before 2005, this one means something due to their connective tissue with the space program, not to mention they’re now conference opponents.

“We’re embracing it now,” UCF coach Gus Malzahn said earlier this year. “Every one of our roads on campus is named after a galaxy. The first month I got the job, I actually spoke to NASA on leadership and they had me Zoomed in to both groups [in Florida and Texas].”

And the eye in the sky is watching them as well.

“NASA has Space Act agreements with both schools,” said Wayne Saxer, the agency’s lead for sports engagement. “We work collaboratively with universities nationwide that bring innovative solutions and fresh perspectives to some of our biggest challenges.”

To celebrate both schools’ roles supporting America’s space agency, NASA flew a newly minted medallion featuring the logos of each school on opposing sides on CRS-29, a SpaceX mission to the International Space Station a couple of months ago.

Launched from Florida, guided by Houston, the medallion will come back to Earth, where it will be framed and presented to the winning team.

Welcome to the Space Wars.

THE TENSION BETWEEN the folks in Houston and Orlando nearly predates the cities themselves. It reaches back almost a century before the United States entered space with the launch of the Explorer I satellite on February 1, 1958, from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 26.

In 1865, Jules Verne published “From the Earth to the Moon”, a tale of post-Civil War Americans who construct a spacecraft and launching device to fling a trio of travelers off this mortal coil and toward our nearest celestial neighbor. The French novelist was renowned for his imagination, but also for the research that kept his stories rooted in fact. He always included just the right amount of actual science to make his fantastical fiction seem plausible.

The book’s 10th chapter is titled “Florida and Texas.” Why? Because Verne predicted that the best location for a launch site would be between the equator and the 28th parallel, keeping it best in line with the Moon’s orbital path. Plus, the launch site would need to be built alongside a large body of water, so that debris wouldn’t fall into populated areas in the case of an accident.

With all that in mind, Verne writes about sparring would-be locations in Galveston Bay and “Tampa Town,” complete with lobbying of the government to land the launch pad, protests and rallies in the streets and barbs publicly traded between the two states.

Verne imagined Florida newspapers writing of Texas: “A fine bay; half-choked with sand!” And Texas responding: “Choked yourselves!”

Everything Verne wrote from his home in northern France became a reality nearly 100 years later and 5,000 miles away. NASA was founded after that Explorer I launch and established its primary launch location at the Cape, where the first version of Mission Control was housed in bunkers around the spaceport.

“It was basically a bunch of monitors and microphones in a pillbox,” John Glenn, an original seven Mercury astronaut-turned-U.S. Senator, recalled in 2014. “When we were assigned to CapCom, to talk to our colleague inside the spacecraft, to be in there at the Cape and feel those rockets going up right there and then in front of you, it was remarkable on every level. But it was cramped for space. And yes, I realize the irony of using that word just now.”

On Sept. 12, 1962, John F. Kennedy doubled down on a challenge that he had first pitched to a joint session of Congress one year earlier, that an American should set foot on the Moon before decade’s end. He said those words — in Houston — while standing on the field at Rice Stadium, famously adding: “But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? … We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Once Kennedy announced his moonshot, a literal overnight fight began regarding the location of NASA’s new HQ, the spot for Mission Control. Those already living in Florida believed it should stay there — NASA could simply construct some new buildings — but they found themselves battling dozens of cities for NASA’s favor. Cities from St. Louis to Langley, Virginia, to San Francisco to Shreveport, Louisiana, submitted HQ proposals.

“My favorite was Bogalusa, Louisiana,” says Rick Houston, NASCAR sportswriter-turned-NASA historian and co-author of “Go, Flight! The Unsung Heroes of Mission Control.” “Can you imagine that one? ‘Bogalusa, we’ve have a problem.'”

As part of the region’s push to prove its worthiness, Florida governor Farris Bryant signed into law Senate Bill No. 125, creating a new state university in east central Florida with the goal of supporting the Cape. The school was named Florida Tech, and though it had no sports teams yet, it did have a mascot, a helmet-wearing Jetsons-inspired spaceman with a Florida orange for a body. They called him the Citronaut.

“I love the Citronaut,” confesses Tennessee athletic director Danny White, who served in the same capacity at the school Florida Tech became, UCF, from 2015 to 2021. White, who moved his office into the football stadium where he could watch rocket launches going up from the Cape, greenlit the Citronaut’s return for UCF’s first Space Games in 2018 and ’19. “The instant you see him, you feel like you’re back in the 1960’s Space Age.”

The end result was a punt. Launch operations would remain at the Cape and with it Launch Control at Kennedy Space Center. But that setup didn’t last for long. Beginning with the Gemini 4 flight of June 1965, communication and control shifted to Mission Control, located on the seemingly endless grounds of Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake, Texas, directly in between Houston and Jules Verne’s Galveston Bay. What made the shift happen? A lot of, well, space that was handed to NASA for free via a donation by the same school where JFK’s speech is still memorialized on a plaque that hangs in the stadium where JT Daniels will spend his weekend fighting for a sixth win and bowl eligibility against Florida Atlantic.

“I mean, I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade here, but if we are talking about space schools, then there’s really one, right?” astronaut Shannon Walker half-joked earlier this year. Walker is a Houston native who has spent 330 days in orbit and holds three degrees from Rice, one of the school’s 13 astronauts. “Go Owls.”

When asked if there is still beef between the Cape and Houston about the decision to move Mission Control west, Rick Houston audibly huffs. “When I was working on my book and interviewing all of the NASA legends, the Florida guys all said the same thing to me. ‘Now, when are you going to write a book about the real Mission Control?'”

HOUSTON, OF COURSE, has a problem with this.

For more than 50 years, the university system has partnered with NASA, including creating a campus in Clear Lake adjacent to Johnson Space Center since its opening in 1961 “to meet a vital demand for trained engineers, physicists and mathematicians to join the U.S. space program,” according to the university.

Last year, Houston chancellor Renu Khator signed an extension with NASA for all the system’s universities to extend a partnership to “advance human spaceflight.”

“Houston is ‘Space City,’ so it’s important for students and faculty in relevant disciplines across the UH system to have opportunities to engage in and be exposed to real-world space flight-related research and technology development with NASA,” Khator said.

Dr. Olga Bannova, formerly an architect in Moscow, is the director of Houston’s Sasakawa Center for Space Architecture, the only master’s level program of its kind in the world.

“It’s obviously about human spaceflight, but also about psychology,” Dr. Bannova said. “It’s about understanding human needs and providing and thinking about the ways how we can make a human life not only sustainable in space, but also really rewarding, you know?”

One of those ways, Bannova says, is to provide “a complementary countermeasure against all these negative effects on the human physiology and psychology that’s associated with microgravity conditions.”

For those of us who don’t speak scientist, basically that means one component is the possibility of sports in space.

Adam Doll, one of Bannova’s graduate students, is already an engineer for NASA in Houston who does astronaut training and when he’s not pondering spacesuit development, is working on his master’s thesis on the idea of collaborative sports in some interstellar habitat. Nothing too rowdy. Think a collaborative rock climbing-type course with an objective to complete it as fast as possible. Not a future Cougars-Knights battle in the cosmos.

“You don’t want the games to get too competitive in space,” Doll said.

But down here, it’s all fair game.

“I don’t even know where UCF is, to be honest. And we have the astronauts in Houston,” Doll said. “That’s a big thing. They live here and train here. They just go out there [to Florida] to launch. I mean, they only use that every once in a while. Mission Control is manned 24/7. We always have people monitoring the space station.”

That would explain why legendary NASA flight director Gene Kranz, who oversaw the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, including the first moon landing (and was portrayed by Ed Harris in “Apollo 13”), said the Florida-Texas grandstanding has evolved over the years.

“That may be a current-day rivalry, but that was not the case back through the programs that I supported,” Kranz, who is 90 and lives near Houston, said. “I think it may have come about once we started putting astronauts as center directors down at the Cape.”

No matter which side you’re on, the Knights are way ahead in embracing the SpaceU moniker. Every single sport at UCF has an alternate SpaceU/Citronauts jersey. And it’s good for business.

“Every year, people want to see when the first game is and then when the Space Game is,” said Jimmy Skiles, one of the senior athletic directors at UCF and the chief branding officer. “It’s become just this whole event in itself. I think we are the only college fan base in the country that is willing to accept an alternate mascot and alternate color and even an alternate name for the university — SpaceU — for a single game.”

It’s evident annually, seeing a split fan base wearing black and gold and another huge section of the stadium wearing blue, such as during the 45-3 upset of Oklahoma State two weeks ago.

“That’s never been one of our colors,” Skiles said. “It’s a color we created as part of our space brand. And yet we had 25,000 people wearing Canaveral Blue.” Skiles said eight of their top 10 best-selling merchandise items each year are all space-related.

The other thing fans love about the Space Game? UCF dominates every time. This year, a 4-5 UCF team that had just one Big 12 win crushed No. 15 OSU, moving to 7-0 all time in Space Games with a 202-point margin of victory. Fans switch from “Go Knights!” to “Go ‘Nauts!” for the annual event. It’s almost enough to start an identity crisis.

“Our whole fan base accepts the switch on the Space U/Citronauts thing, but so many people are like, ‘It’s time to rebrand to Citronauts full time,” Skiles said. “And then you have the Knights loyalists that are like, ‘Absolutely not, we are Knights. Our colors are black and gold.'”

Whatever they’re called, Houston isn’t giving up the Space City name, and UCF isn’t giving up the SpaceU name. And UCF is ready for Houston to hold up its end of the bargain in the burgeoning rivalry.

Skiles said in 2019, UCF approached UH to invite them to do their own alternate uniforms for UCFs’ Space Game when the Cougars visited Orlando. He knew he probably didn’t give Houston enough time to go all in, but he thought maybe they’d do a themed helmet, like UCF did with its hand-painted helmets resembling the moon’s dark and light sides, complete with craters.

“That was the 50th year of Apollo mission, the moon landing,” Skiles said. “We thought it’d be a really cool thing to have both of us do something. And it came game week and Houston didn’t do it.”

This time around, Houston is excited about visiting UCF as conference rivals, perhaps with a future trophy on the line.

“It is something we’re tracking on, trust me,” Houston athletic director Chris Pezman said. “It’s logical. It should have happened a long, long time ago. It’s something we’ve been working on for a few years. Now it’s time to get it going.”

Eric DeSalvo, UCF’s associate athletic director for content, remembers when he was a student at the school between 2005 and 2009 and could feel the ground rumble when space shuttles would launch at Canaveral. Seeing rockets launch from his own stadium never gets old, he said.

“It’s like a core memory you’ll always remember, being able to see a launch with thousands of your favorite fans,” DeSalvo said. “This season opener, we’re beating Kent State and right as the clock expired a [SpaceX] launch was going up. It’s so cool. It’s not every day you get to see that.”

So inside the building at UCF, they were excited to hear Holgorsen’s dig. It felt like liftoff for the two teams’ future in their own space race.

“Dana, where’s this been the whole time?” said Eric DeSalvo, UCF’s associate athletic director for content. “Why’d you wait until last week for that comment? We needed this.”

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Best of Week 12: Georgia returns to form, Oregon escapes and Travis Hunter takes control of the Heisman race

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November 17, 2024

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Best of Week 12: Georgia returns to form, Oregon escapes and Travis Hunter takes control of the Heisman race

  • David Hale, ESPN Staff WriterNov 17, 2024, 01:49 AM ET

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    • College football reporter.
    • Joined ESPN in 2012.
    • Graduate of the University of Delaware.

Georgia entered Week 12 in an unusual place. Coming off an emphatic loss to Ole Miss, the Bulldogs were scuffling, looking for answers, and if the season had ended on Tuesday with the College Football Playoff committee’s most recent rankings, they’d have been on the outside looking in.

We had become accustomed to Georgia’s dominance at all turns. The close games were more a product of boredom than any actual defect, and the losses, rare as they were, were offered as little more than tribute to Nick Saban, the man who had sent Kirby Smart to lead Georgia to the promised land.

But in 2024, even amid the wins, things have just felt … off.

There has been the familiar parade of players landing in legal hot water away from the field. There has been the rising frustration with offensive coordinator Mike Bobo. There’s the gut-wrenching losses to bitter rivals that seem destined to doom the Bulldogs to second-class status. If this were pro wrestling, the first notes of “Jesus, Take the Wheel” would begin playing and Mark Richt would emerge from the tunnel, revealing he had been in charge all along.

On Saturday, however, we got our reminder that this isn’t the Georgia of old, even if it’s not quite the Georgia of 2021 and 2022 either. In a game that felt almost algorithmically engineered to prove the Dawgs had addressed each of their most blatant faults, Carson Beck and crew devoured Tennessee 31-17 and reasserted dominion over college football — if not officially in the standings, then certainly in the hearts and minds of every team that might have the misfortune of drawing the Dawgs in the playoff.

Beck, who had thrown 12 interceptions in his past six games, was nearly flawless Saturday. He threw for 346 yards and totaled three touchdowns, but more importantly, he looked supremely confident with each fastball he delivered downfield.

The offensive line, which handed out party favors to Ole Miss pass rushers en route to he backfield last week, held its own against one of the most ferocious defensive fronts in the country. Beck wasn’t sacked, and Tennessee managed just two tackles for loss in the game.

The ground game, scrambling for answers and without injured starter Trevor Etienne, turned to Nate Frazier and, in so many critical moments, Beck to provide the spark. They delivered a pair of rushing touchdowns as proof of life for a backfield that had so often looked dormant.

So it is, too, that Georgia has life in the crowded SEC.

Certainly SEC fans are too modest to say it, but the fact its, the league is pretty good this year. We entered Week 12 with a logjam of teams with a loss or two or three, but a résumé warranting real playoff consideration. The depth of talent threatened to overwhelm the conference, however, with the committee inserting four Big Ten teams in the top five and leaving Saban to lament to Pat McAfee that the committee can’t “just look at the record,” echoing Greg Sankey’s long-held belief that wins are an overrated metric compared to things such as revenue, attendance or prevalence of cowbells.

But Saturday proved to be something of a palette cleanser for the SEC — like the white bread that comes with Dreamland ribs. While a handful of teams took a mental health day — Alabama, Auburn, Texas A&M and Kentucky all played lower-tier competition and won by a combined 154 points — the rest of the slate helped clarify something akin to a pecking order.

In Gainesville, the Billy Napier redemption tour continued, with DJ Lagway and Elijhah Badger leading the Florida charge on a 27-16 win over LSU. After the game, Napier celebrated the Gators’ fifth win of the season by calling human resources at Zaxby’s and letting them know he won’t be able to start on Dec. 1 as previously promised, now needing just a win over either Ole Miss or (more likely) Florida State to secure a bowl.

LSU, meanwhile, is effectively cooked in the chase for the playoff after the loss, and it’s possible Brian Kelly’s anger management classes are no longer covered by his insurance.

After the game, Kelly lambasted the team asking of his players, “Do you want to fight or not?” It was not immediately clear if he meant in LSU’s remaining games or in the parking lot out back as soon as his press conference was over. Either way, things are bleak in Baton Rouge. It’s sad to see a situation where everyone felt like faaaamily devolve into something completely inauthentic.

If LSU is tumbling in the SEC standings, however, Saturday was South Carolina‘s time to shine against Missouri.

LaNorris Sellers threw for 353 yards and five touchdowns and continued to treat pass rushers like softballs bouncing off a fungo.

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Highlight: South Carolina wins fourth-quarter thriller behind Sellers’ heroics

No. 23 Missouri comes roaring back in the final frame only to be stomped out by LaNorris Sellers as the No. 21 Gamecocks escape with a 34-30 victory.

What started as a defensive tussle ended with four touchdowns — two by each offense — in the game’s final 9:12. The Gamecocks took a 27-22 lead with 5:04 to play on Sellers’ fourth TD pass of the game, only to see Brady Cook and Luther Burden III hook up on a gorgeous 37-yard bomb to regain the lead with just over a minute to go.

But South Carolina had an answer, marching 70 yards on six plays in just 47 seconds, culminating with a 15-yard touchdown run by Raheim “Rocket” Sanders to secure the win. That Shane Beamer didn’t celebrate by head-butting a player still wearing his helmet really shows how far he has come as a coach this season.

So here’s where things stand amid the rubble of another Saturday in the SEC: Texas and Texas A&M are atop the standings at 5-1, but they’ll play each other in Week 14. Georgia, Tennessee, Ole Miss and Alabama all have two losses, but each have secured a win versus at least one of the other tied teams, leaving their fate to the SEC’s arcane tie-breaker policies which involve opponent records, scoring differentials and a pie-eating contest between Lane Kiffin and Josh Heupel. And, of course, there’s still South Carolina, looming on the fringes of the playoff debate at 7-3.

The case for the SEC’s supremacy is clear. With seven teams playing such high-level football, all losses come with an asterisk and all wins feel epic. In that case, Georgia’s two losses and occasionally confounding struggles will pale in comparison to the immense talent on the roster, and this win over Tennessee will be Exhibit A for why the road to the national championship still runs through Athens.

But the path toward the SEC’s demise is also clear: Either the committee fails to reward depth or, more likely, in a fit of rage, Kelly uses a flamethrower he bought on the dark web to burn the entire conference to the ground.

Jump to:
Ducks hold off Badgers | Hunter’s Heisman case
Big 12 drama | Klubnik delivers late
USC finds a spark | Irish roll
Tulane capsizes Navy | Lobos rally | Week 12 trends
Heisman five | Under the radar

Ducks D plays big

The College Football Playoff committee is going to have to take a hard look at Wisconsin this week. With a three-point loss to No. 1 Oregon, the Badgers now have a top-five résumé.

More importantly, the committee won’t have to select a new No. 1, as Oregon’s defense came up big in a grueling 16-13 win.

Dillon Gabriel finished with 218 passing yards and an interception, just the second time in 60 career starts that he threw a pick without also throwing a touchdown. Instead, the Ducks relied on tailback Jordan James to lead a second-half comeback after falling behind 13-6. James finished with 25 carries for 121 yards and a game-tying TD with 13:14 to go in the fourth quarter.

It was Matayo Uiagalelei who sealed the win, however. Wisconsin got the ball at its own 17 with 1:26 to play, but Jamaree Caldwell tipped a Braedyn Locke pass, and Uiagalelei caught the carom for the game-sealing INT. (Note to Florida State fans: It is possible for the words “Uiagalelei” and “interception” to appear in a sentence not involving a brutal loss.)

The win keeps Oregon undefeated and headed toward a Big Ten title game berth, but it’s not without some red flags. Wisconsin held the Ducks to just 354 total yards — a week after Oregon mustered just 363 against Maryland. That’s the first time Oregon has had back-to-back games with fewer than 400 yards of offense since 2020.

On the other hand, winning games while accumulating a frustratingly limited number of yards and relying on a power run game and a stout defense suggests Oregon has acclimated nicely into the Big Ten’s way of life.

Hunter states Heisman case

Colorado is still coming, according to Deion Sanders, but according to the Big 12 standings, the Buffaloes are already there.

Coach Prime lamented a less-than-exceptional performance by his Buffs in a 49-24 win over Utah, and yet there’s little other than platitudes in the aftermath. Colorado is tied for No. 1 in the Big 12, and if it wins out against Kansas and Oklahoma State, a date in the conference title game is assured.

Shedeur Sanders struggled early against the Utes’ defense, but he ultimately finished with 340 yards passing and three touchdowns in Colorado’s usual demoralizing fashion.

Meanwhile, after a season-ending injury to Brandon Rose, Utah turned to Isaac Wilson, who is actually just an AI-generated representation of what a Utah QB might be after feeding Rose, Nate Johnson, Bryson Barnes, Charlie Brewer and Jake Bentley into the algorithm. The important takeaway here, however, is he’s not Cam Rising, so of course, Utah struggled. Wilson lost a fumble and threw three interceptions in the game, including one to Travis Hunter, who struck a Heisman pose afterward.

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1:12

Travis Hunter stakes Heisman claim after great plays on both sides of ball

Colorado’s Travis Hunter makes a nice interception off a deflection in the first quarter, followed by an incredible first-down catch in the second quarter vs. Utah.

Hunter caught five passes for 55 yards, and after Coach Prime checked the rule book and learned his team was also allowed to run the ball, Hunter got a carry that also went for a 5-yard touchdown. On the downside, Hunter did allow his first TD of the season in coverage, a 40-yard dart to Dorian Singer in the third quarter.

With the win, Colorado moves to 8-2 — just the second eight-win season for the program in the past 20 years, making it likely other teams will attempt to copy Sanders’ program-building blueprint of bringing in a whole bunch of transfers, at least one of whom is the best player in the country.

BYU falls, Sun Devils rise

BYU’s perfect season came to an end with a tackle at the 6-yard line on fourth down against Kansas, and thanks to Utah AD Mark Harlan, no one at Big 12 headquarters buzzed down to the officials to have them throw a random flag for excessive playing of “Carry On My Wayward Son.”

Kansas walked off with a 17-13 win after recovering a muffed punt deep in BYU territory that the Jayhawks turned into the game-winning touchdown. BYU still had a chance to win, driving into the red zone but coming up empty on four tries inside the Kansas 15.

Devin Neal became the first player in Kansas history with 4,000 career rushing yards, racking up 52 yards and two TDs in the win Saturday.

Meanwhile, Arizona State remains alive to be the Big 12’s Cinderella team, shocking Kansas State 24-14 behind a three-touchdown performance from QB Sam Leavitt.

Sun Devils’ head coach Kenny Dillingham’s reputation as a QB whisperer is going strong with Leavitt. After Dillingham helped shape Jordan Travis and resurrect Bo Nix, Leavitt has blossomed after transferring from Michigan State and has Arizona State riding high at 7-2.

The Sun Devils take on BYU next week, with the winner gaining the inside track on a trip to the Big 12 title game. BYU would clinch with a win and a loss by either Colorado or Iowa State, who toppled Cincinnati 34-17 behind a pair of Rocco Becht touchdowns.

The Cyclones (5-2) remain alive, too, along with Colorado (6-1) as the Big 12 works to adopt a full ACC coastal approach to this season.

Klubnik delivers late win

Pitt hosted Clemson on Saturday in a game that figured to settle any debate over who was the third-best team in the ACC, which is like RC Cola and Shasta getting into a slap fight over cola rankings.

The results often looked like two teams who didn’t exactly warrant their space on the playoff periphery, too.

Indeed, Pitt followed up that defensive series with one of the most mind-numbing offensive stretches possible. The officials missed a clear false start on second-and-goal, but Pitt was stuffed. Pitt called a timeout to avoid a delay of game, then was flagged for an illegal formation, then was flagged for a delay of game, then topped the whole thing off with a penalty for a false start before ultimately kicking a field goal.

Could those four points Pitt left on the field have helped?

The Panthers actually erased a 17-7 deficit in the fourth quarter to take a 20-17 lead, but on a second-and-3, Clemson QB Cade Klubnik took a QB sneak up the middle and scrambled virtually untouched for 50 yards and a score. Pitt’s last-gasp drive stalled at the Tigers’ 26, and Clemson held on for a 24-20 win that was marked by abysmal O-line play, missed opportunities and some astonishingly questionable officiating.

Afterward, Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi summed up the game by utilizing all seven of George Carlin’s words you can’t say on TV and also making up several new ones.

USC finds a spark

After climbing to No. 11 in the AP poll in September, USC entered Week 12 losers of five of its past seven, with all five losses coming by a touchdown or less.

After opening the season 5-1, Nebraska entered Week 12 losers of three straight, two by a touchdown or less.

USC made a QB change, giving UNLV transfer Jayden Maiava the start. Nebraska made a change at offensive playcaller, with Dana Holgorsen emerging from his basement to see daylight for the first time in 11 months and recoiling in horror.

Both teams were in desperate straits, and they met at the Coliseum on Saturday to chase something approaching credibility like two pigeons fighting for half a discarded baloney sandwich.

The game didn’t disappoint.

USC led 14-7, Nebraska charged back to take a 17-14 lead, USC scored to jump ahead by a point, then found the end zone again on a 2-yard Maiava TD run with 2:45 to play.

The game was in Holgorsen’s hands from there.

After being fired despite what he had called “an impossible buyout” at Houston last year, Holgorsen had largely disappeared from the public eye, focusing instead on the finer things in life. But Saturday was like the montage scene in any ’80s movie where the down-and-out character resolves to get his life together, showers, shaves and puts on a new suit, emerging like a conquering hero. Only Holgorsen didn’t shower or shave and may have been wearing a Nebraska hoodie that Mike Riley left in a desk drawer 10 years ago after splilling some spaghetti on it.

But there was still a little Holgo magic left, and Dylan Raiola and the Huskers marched to the USC 14 with 5 seconds to play and a chance to tie the game.

But we know how this story ends. It always ends this way for the Huskers.

USC prevailed 28-20. Nebraska has now lost 38 one-possession games since the start of the 2017 season — 10 more than any other Power 4 school. After getting to win No. 5 in each of the past two seasons, it has subsequently lost a combined eight straight, seven of them by one-possession.

Dante’s ninth circle of hell is called “treachery.” Then there are like 14 more he didn’t write about, one of which involves being really into downloading bootleg Nickelback live shows, and then you finally reach something approaching where Nebraska fans are at right now.

Leonard, Irish roll

In 2014, Notre Dame and the ACC entered into a scheduling agreement in which the Irish promised five matchups per year against the conference in exchange for a home for their non-football programs. Since then, Notre Dame has effectively been Biff from “Back to the Future” to the ACC’s McFly family. They roll into the house unannounced, raid the fridge and eat Wake Forest’s leftover chicken and then take Georgia Tech’s car without asking.

And so it was that the Irish throttled Virginia 35-14 on Saturday behind Riley Leonard‘s three touchdown throws. Jeremiyah Love ran for 137 and the defense picked off Anthony Colandrea three times. Notre Dame finishes 5-0 against the ACC, the sixth time in 11 years the Irish have gone undefeated against the conference in the regular season. Overall, Notre Dame is 50-9 in the regular season against the ACC since 2014, including a 9-0 record as a full member in 2020, and somewhere Jack Swarbrick is inviting his buddies to crash at John Swofford’s beach house for the entire summer again.

The rigging was set, the masts were raised, ye old Navy set sail for a win. But before it had reached shore, the Green Wave climbed all aboard, and plundered its gold and its gin.

Yo ho, yo ho, to the league championship game they go.

If Tulane ain’t the best on all seven seas, certainly it’s tops on at least five. And before it was done, it had won 35 to none, keeping their playoff hopes still alive.

Yo ho, yo ho, to the league championship game they go.

He threw for two scores and ran for one more, Darian Mensah did everything right. The corners and pass blockers, put Navy in Davy Jones locker, now the Wave turn attention to the Army Black Knights.

Yo ho, yo ho, to the league championship game they go.

The steely men of fair Tulane, a right fine crew be they. They fight and they tussle, they’re all brawn and muscle, and they’ll earn their way back to the SEC one day.

Yo ho, yo ho, to the league championship game they go.

Lobos rally for win

A month into the season, Bronco Mendenhall’s New Mexico team was 0-4 and appeared destined for a lost season amid a massive rebuild that included turning over more than half the scholarship roster this past offseason.

After Week 12, the Lobos are 5-6, and just secured their first win over a ranked foe in 21 years, toppling No. 18 Washington State 38-35.

New Mexico’s Devon Dampier and Wazzu’s John Mateer put on an absolute clinic at QB throughout the game.

Mateer accounted for 443 yards and five touchdowns, including a 37-yard bullet to Kyle Williams that gave Washington State a four-point lead with 3:12 to play. Dampier answered with 366 yards and three touchdowns of his own, including a 1-yard scamper with 21 seconds to play that secured the biggest win for New Mexico since toppling a ranked Utah team in 2003.

New Mexico now needs only a Week 14 win over Hawai’i to secure bowl eligibility.

Mateer, meanwhile, will remain college football’s most interesting man. This was his fourth game with four passing TDs and one rushing score of the season — the most by any QB since 2018, all while also doing battle with the Joker to keep the citizens of Gotham safe.

Week 12 vibe shifts

Each week, the Top 25 endures major shake-ups that transform the college football landscape. But there are more subtle changes every Saturday, too, and we capture those here.

Trending down: Noon kickoffs

Ohio State fans are frustrated with so many noon kickoffs this year, noting that only farmers and nerds wake up before 11 a.m. As it turned out Saturday, it was Northwestern who was still asleep at kickoff.

Northwestern somehow held the ball for 32 minutes but managed just 251 yards, spending most of its time on offense working out the details of this year’s team Secret Santa program. Thankfully, the game was played at Wrigley Field, and the Cubs’ bullpen coughed up 31 points in the middle quarters, with Carnell Tate starring. He hauled in four catches for 52 yards and two touchdowns.

Northwestern is the sixth opponent this season Ohio State has held to single digits. Only Oregon has topped 20 against the Buckeyes.

Trending up: Narrow Texas wins

Quinn Ewers tossed two touchdown passes — including a 1-yarder with 9:05 to play that effectively sealed a 20-10 win over Arkansas — but he averaged just 5.5 yards per pass, and the Horns had just 315 yards of total offense, their second-lowest production in a game, trailing only the loss to Georgia.

Texas has now played three bowl-eligible teams this season, and the results have been pretty meh. The Horns were stampeded by Georgia, escaped Vanderbilt by 3 and now struggled offensively against Arkansas in a 10-point win.

The answer here is clear: more Arch Manning. Play him at receiver. Have him provide pre-drive inspiration by reenacting famous motivational scenes from movies such as “Braveheart” or “Weekend at Bernie’s,” have him challenge Bevo to a foot race at halftime. Whatever it takes to get more Arch on the field, Texas needs to make it happen.

Trending up: ACC irony

SMU held off Boston College 38-28 to move to 6-0 in ACC play, all but assuring the Mustangs of a trip to the ACC championship game in their first season in the league. Kevin Jennings threw for 298 yards and three touchdowns, and Brashard Smith ran for 120 yards and a score.

It’s worth noting as SMU moves toward a conference title game appearance, that the only reason it’s in the ACC is because NC State changed its vote to approve expansion last year. NC State, in its 72nd season in the ACC, has never played in the ACC championship game, though it has heard it’s not that great anyway. Plus, it had plans, like catching up on the new season of “Only Murders in the Building.” And maybe a Home Depot trip. And it’s just nice to have a staycation after a busy football season. Really, don’t worry about NC State. It’s doing just fine, and it definitely didn’t just DoorDash six pints of Jeni’s ice cream.

Trending up: The smell at the Brown residence

LeQuint Allen ran for 109 yards and two touchdowns, Kyle McCord threw for 323 yards and a score, and both will be getting a nice gift basket from Fran Brown’s wife this week after they lifted Syracuse to a 33-25 win over Cal.

Brown will presumably wait to shower until the team returns to Syracuse, so everyone on the plane can still enjoy the smell of victory.

On the flip side, Cal lost its fifth one-possession game of the season — one that would’ve had the Bears bowl eligible — and Cal coach Justin Wilcox decided he’s boycotting cutting his toe nails, he’ll be blasting Smash Mouth’s “I’m a Believer” cover on repeat at practice and he won’t be throwing away that old tuna sandwich that has been in the office refrigerator until the Bears get win No. 6. Honestly, he had forgotten about the sandwich weeks ago, so this was really just a convenient excuse.

Trending down: Hot seats

Florida already announced Billy Napier would be back next year, and after Saturday’s 49-35 win over West Virginia, Baylor decided Dave Aranda will also be back for 2024.

If Sam Pittman survives at Arkansas, too, it’ll be a remarkable turn for coaches who entered the season on the hottest of seats, and will allow boosters to use all that money typically reserved for buyouts on something more useful, such as building a water slide on the moon.

Aranda now has Baylor set for a bowl game, too, after winning four straight. Baylor’s offense, in particular, has been a revelation, topping 38 in each of the past four.

Meanwhile at Auburn, boosters have scheduled a meeting at their secret hideout behind the Jimmy John’s, and are just going type in Bobby Petrino’s cell number but won’t press send until at least halftime of the Iron Bowl.

Trending up: Big man TDs

Southern demolished Arkansas-Pine Bluff 31-9 on Saturday, and senior defensive tackle Willie Miles delivered a play for the ages in the process.

Miles, who according to Southern’s media guide checks in at 5-foot-9 and a gentlemanly 350 pounds, picked up a loose ball after a DJ Stevenson fumble, and set his sights on the end zone. A Golden Lions lineman appeared to have him corralled at the 5, but Miles had ice water in his veins. He pulled loose from the tackle attempt, spun, gathered his balance, and sprinted for the end zone — running through the back and around to the sideline where his teammate wisely opted against lifting him into the air “Dirty Dancing” style.

This was a fitting highlight in what was Miles’ final home game at Southern.

Trending up: Air mail

At the Utah High School state championships Saturday, a fight for the football happened after a football was dropped from a helicopter hovering over the field.

Though in the long run it did not actually replace the coin toss, it should be implemented as such immediately at all levels of football. However, some schools may not have easy access to a helicopter, so we would also accept wrestling a bear for possession of the football, a wing-eating contest, a breakdancing competition, a series of “Yo Mama” jokes or, if absolutely necessary and only for Ivy League games, a race to see which team can solve the equation from “Good Will Hunting” first.

Trending up: Classy coaches

A week ago, Kennesaw State fired its only coach in program history, Brian Bohannon. First, the school said he resigned. He denied it, and the school relented.

If he’s angry at his former employer though, he’s sure not taking it out on his players.

Kennesaw State played one of its better games in Bohannon’s absence on the sideline, falling to Sam Houston 23-17 in overtime. But what’ll be remembered by most Owls fans is their former coach making a classy gesture in the aftermath of a brutal week. Either that or his moving van has been stuck in traffic on I-75 since Monday.

Heisman five

It’s really a three-man race for the Heisman now, unless you want to count offensive Travis Hunter and defensive Travis Hunter as separate players, in which case he’s going to need to buy another suit for the ceremony.

1. Colorado WR/CB Travis Hunter

Hunter Week 12 touchdown count: 1 scored, 1 allowed.

He should be ashamed of himself, giving up a touchdown like that. It’s the type of performance that would get one of Deion Sanders’ kids docked three spots on his child ranking list.

2. Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty

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Ashton Jeanty seals Boise State’s win with 3rd TD of the night

Ashton Jeanty is the first player to record 26 rushing touchdowns in his first 10 games of a season since Ricky Williams in 1998.

Boise State fell behind San José State 14-0 before somebody remembered to wake Jeanty up and tell him to go smash things. He finished the Broncos’ 42-21 win with 32 carries for 159 yards and three touchdowns, putting Jeanty now just 107 rushing yards shy of 2,000 on the season. Jeanty has also eclipsed 30 carries in five straight games, just the third player of the playoff era to do so.

3. Miami QB Cam Ward

The Hurricanes were off Saturday, giving Ward more time to stew over the loss to Georgia Tech. He has called Brent Key’s house 23 times already this week to ask if his refrigerator is running.

4. Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel

Any chance of Gabriel making a real run at the Heisman probably evaporated Saturday in Madison, as he failed to throw a touchdown pass and the Ducks’ offense struggled. Only a home game against Washington and the Big Ten title game remain before voting commences. The good news is, after 23 seasons of college football, Gabriel will still be a favorite to take home a lifetime achievement award.

5. Penn State TE Tyler Warren

In Saturday’s 49-10 win over Purdue, Warren had eight catches for 127 yards and a touchdown and three carries for 63 yards and a score. All season, he has been Penn State’s do-it-all guy, so long as “all” doesn’t also include beating Ohio State. He’s the first Big Ten non-QB to account for at least 10 touchdowns in a season — at least one each passing, rushing and receiving — since 2017, when another Nittany Lion, Saquon Barkley, did it.

Under-the-radar play of the week

Liberty‘s kicker was pretty, pretty … pretty good in overtime of Saturday’s 35-34 win over UMass.

Normally, UMass is an easy win, but this one seemed destined to go down like a dry scone. UMass jumped out to a 20-7 halftime lead, with the majority of Liberty’s offense coming from pity points. Losing to UMass, of course, is one of the most humiliating things a man can experience along with trying on pants.

But the Flames pulled the old chat-and-cut in the second half, tying the game at 28 with 3:49 to play and forcing overtime. UMass scored first in OT, but kicker Jacob Lurie, who we assume doesn’t respect wood, missed his PAT try. Liberty then matched the touchdown and sent Colin Karhu in to win the game with the extra point — and to stare down the legend, Larry David.

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Liberty hits winning extra point despite Larry David scoreboard distraction

Quinton Cooley rushes in for a 5-yard Liberty touchdown and hit the winning extra point despite a Larry David distraction on the videoboard.

From there, the scoreboard flickered to the actual final score — 35-34 Liberty — which feels offensive. They could’ve at least lied to UMass. A lie is a gesture, it’s a courtesy, it’s a little respect. This was very disrespectful.

Under-the-radar game of the week

Louisville technically joined the ACC in 2014, but it wasn’t until Saturday that the Cardinals truly hit the type of rock bottom misery the ACC foists upon all who approach it.

Louisville, which figured to win easily since it has many Cardinals, whereas Stanford is just one Cardinal, cruised early and led by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. But Stanford scored on a 25-yard touchdown pass with 45 seconds left to tie the game at 35, forced a Louisville turnover on downs after the Cards ran seven plays in just 35 seconds and Stanford got the ball back with 10 seconds to play at its own 45. That should’ve meant overtime, but Louisville committed an unsportsmanlike penalty, setting up Stanford for a 57-yard field goal try. Quincy Riley then was flagged for being offsides, shaving another 5 yards off the kick, and Emmet Kenney delivered from 52 yards out for the win.

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Emmet Kenney’s 52-yard FG gives Stanford the upset over Louisville

Emmet Kenney’s kick is true as his 52-yard field goal seals an upset victory for Stanford over Louisville.

With one minute to play in the game, ESPN gave Louisville a 90% win probability. With 15 seconds left it was still a coin flip. And with no time left on the clock, it was a full-on #goacc for the ages.

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Jeanty bolsters Heisman case, sets school record

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November 17, 2024

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Jeanty bolsters Heisman case, sets school record

  • Kyle Bonagura, ESPN Staff WriterNov 17, 2024, 12:31 AM ET

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    • Covers college football.
    • Joined ESPN in 2014.
    • Attended Washington State University.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty bolstered his Heisman Trophy résumé Saturday night by breaking the single-season school rushing record in a 42-21 win against San José State.

Jeanty rushed for 159 yards on 32 carries with three touchdowns to up his season total to 1,893 yards through 10 games. He broke the school record set by Jay Ajayi, who ran for 1,823 yards in 14 games in 2014.

“He’s the best football player in the country,” Boise State coach Spencer Danielson said. “He is also a big-time leader and an elite human being.”

The win guaranteed the Broncos, ranked No. 13 in the College Football Playoff rankings, a spot in the Mountain West championship game, which means Jeanty is on pace to rush for over 2,400 yards by the time the Heisman Trophy ballots must be submitted. With a bowl game or an appearance in the playoff, Jeanty could challenge Barry Sanders’ single-season FBS rushing record of 2,628 yards set in 1988.

“It means a lot,” Jeanty said of the school record. “All the past running backs are great and amazing, but to keep the legacy going, the tradition of great running backs at Boise State, I think is a big deal to me.”

Things did not start well for the Broncos and Jeanty against San José State. He was limited to 19 yards on his first nine carries as Boise State fell behind 14-0. But after the Spartans failed to convert on fourth-and-goal to go up 21-0, the Broncos started to find their way.

Jeanty keyed a strong drive to finish the half, which he capped with a 2-yard score to tie the game with 38 seconds before halftime.

“[The challenge] every week is wearing the defense down,” Jeanty said. “We got 8-men boxes, 9-man boxes, so not as many big runs, but over the course of the game, if we’re able to grind them down, get ’em tired, those big runs will come.”

That’s what happened against SJSU. In the second half, Jeanty had runs of 36, 12, 13 and 11 yards, and the Spartans couldn’t keep pace, despite 446 yards passing from quarterback Walker Eget.

Boise State (9-1, 6-0 MW) travels to Wyoming next week before ending the regular season at home against Oregon State on Nov. 29.

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No. 1 Ducks finish strong, outlast pesky Badgers

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November 17, 2024

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No. 1 Ducks finish strong, outlast pesky Badgers

  • Jake Trotter, ESPN Senior WriterNov 17, 2024, 12:44 AM ET

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      Jake Trotter covers college football for ESPN. He joined ESPN in 2011. Before that, he worked at The Oklahoman, Austin American-Statesman and Middletown (Ohio) Journal newspapers. You can follow him @Jake_Trotter.

MADISON, Wis. — Oregon had yet to score a touchdown when “Jump Around” blared throughout Camp Randall Stadium, signaling the start of the fourth quarter in Wisconsin.

The top-ranked Ducks trailed and faced fourth-and-nine. Oregon coach Dan Lanning considered taking a delay of game and punting. Instead, he put his trust in quarterback Dillon Gabriel. And once again, the Heisman Trophy contender delivered.

Unable to find an open receiver, Gabriel scrambled left before threading a pass through a trio of Wisconsin defenders into the chest of tight end Terrance Ferguson for the first down. Three plays later, the Ducks scored their only touchdown of the night.

That was all need they needed. Oregon survived Saturday night with a 16-13 victory over Wisconsin to remain unbeaten.

According to ESPN Research, the Ducks are the only team in the country to win three times this season after trailing by at least six points in the fourth quarter. They’re also just the seventh team in the AP Poll era (since 1936) to start 11-0 with three wins by three or fewer points. Oregon also rallied for wins against Boise State and Ohio State by a combined margin of four points.

“It’s hard to win,” said Gabriel, who passed for 219 yards. “Big plays need to happen in big moments. … winning games are hard, and we have a team that knows how to win. That just speaks volumes about the guys we have.”

The Ducks didn’t make it easy.

Oregon twice settled for field goals in the first half after promising drives. Gabriel also had a pass tipped and intercepted on first-and-goal.

With Oregon’s offense scuffling, the Badgers gradually took control with a methodical rushing attack led by Tawee Walker, who finished with 97 yards.

The Badgers led 13-6 to begin the fourth quarter and seemed headed for their first win over a No. 1 team since toppling Ohio State in 2010.

But momentum swung back in Oregon’s favor after “Jump Around,” Wisconsin’s famed tradition. The Ducks played the song all week during practice to prepare them for the road trip.

To begin the fourth quarter, Lanning told Gabriel to take the delay of game if the Badgers showed zone coverage against Oregon’s triple slant play.

“(They) were in the look that we liked and then they actually checked out of that look,” Lanning said. “But our guys did a good job of executing the scramble drill. … we probably had a little good luck there — and an impressive play by Dillon to keep it alive and find somebody down the field.”

Two possessions later, the Ducks later added the game-winning field goal. Gabriel’s eight-yard scramble on third down helped set up the chip-shot, 24-yard attempt for Atticus Sappington, who nailed the kick with just over 2 minutes to play.

Oregon’s defense did the rest, forcing a turnover on downs, then a tipped interception on Wisconsin’s final drive.

The Ducks will have a bye before facing Washington in the regular-season finale. If they win, they’ll have a chance to secure the No. 1 overall seed in the playoffs with another victory in the Big Ten championship game.

“We can handle critical moments,” Lanning said. “We can handle when it’s tough and at some point, that experience is going to pay off for us. It certainly paid off for us tonight.”

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