Connect with us

Published

11 months ago

on

EYEWEAR USED TO be a kind of prison until glasses became cool. Around the time jocks who never needed prescriptions began flaunting designer frames as a declaration of style. Which was long after Eli Drinkwitz had been memorialized in pictures from his adolescence, dorked-out in big, round lenses he inherited from his older brother, Jeremy. The head football coach of the Missouri Tigers has been the victim of lousy vision his whole life, and in his early 40s now seems the kind of glasses-wearer who forsakes image in favor of comfort. His current pair being a good example: soft rectangular lenses with practically invisible frames.

Only it turns out that Drink doesn’t like his glasses at all. He doesn’t like how they make him look on the field. He doesn’t like how they make him look in the locker room. He doesn’t like that they feed into a perception straight out of the 1950s that people think he’s a nerd. Even though he has described himself publicly as “a 5-10 dorky white dude” and, in his first year, when the Tigers upset LSU, said aloud, “Let’s be honest, I have no business being a head coach.” Within him seems to be a more ambitious evaluation of himself and what he can achieve, that he can actually take Mizzou somewhere it has never been before in football: to an SEC championship or — also his words — to the College Football Playoff. And maybe his glasses muddle in his appearance the sort of aggression such winning seems to demand.

I LIKE THE guy. When he was introduced nearly five years ago and made his first public appearance with his wife and four daughters at the ceremony in Columbia, Marching Mizzou played the fight song to lead him through a shroud of fake smoke and he walked onto Faurot Field swiveling his head to look around. He stepped in front of the microphone and pulled a visor over his eyes and then took off his glasses, in a little preview of how he would curate his appearance on the sideline. Then he set them onto the podium for a minute before putting them back on so he could see the pages of a prepared speech. He said, “For me, this is the opportunity of a lifetime.” He mentioned Gary Pinkel, Mizzou’s most successful modern coach, who was in the audience. Drink was in such stark physical contrast to him and every other Missouri coach who came before that I — someone who never played football but has worn glasses since kindergarten — told my friends I could get behind what he was doing, before he said a word.

There was some of that outward self-deprecation mingled with the confidence to employ it. He purposefully pronounced the correct “Missour-ee” and then said “MizzurUH,” too, as a nod to the people like my dad who had grown up in the Show Me State yet mispronounced it his entire life. He had not only the semblance of a personality but also a kind of panache (the nickname of Faurot Field is The Zou, and he joked that going anywhere around Columbia with four young daughters, people would get to see the real zoo). He giggled when he slipped up in saying he wanted to “win the Sun Belt … uhh, sorry, the SEC East!” But his elocution was that of someone with an easy way about himself. He barely had a track record as a head coach, but he was 12-1 the previous year at Appalachian State, including wins at South Carolina and North Carolina.

As a Mizzou graduate and native of the Bootheel, I was fascinated by this person, this seemingly new type of coach for a program in need of a risk. And that was before he made fun of Kansas and Arkansas. Before he made fun of Dan Mullen by pulling his hoodie over his head and a light saber from behind the lectern after Mizzou beat the Gators and he said, “May the force be with you” and then took a sip of Diet Coke like a mic drop. That was before Mizzou went 11-2 last season and beat Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl and Drinkwitz became the unapologetic driver of a black-and-gold Maybach with rims.

Last August, the X account CFBTalkDaily asked college football fans to reply to a post with “One word to describe Eli Drinkwitz.” The picture they used showed Drink on the field in the middle of action, staring from under his visor. Some answers: Coach. Aura. Mid. Dork. Leader! Savior. King. Dork but we LOVE him in CoMo, it’s just part of his charm! Different. Smart. Strange.

Drink’s Tigers are 6-1 and wobble at 21 in the AP poll. Early this season the offense has struggled — it was supposed to be one of the best in the SEC, with veteran quarterback Brady Cook throwing to Luther Burden III, touted as one of the top players in college football after catching 86 passes for 1,212 yards and nine touchdowns last season. But then Boston College gave them a scare at home and Vanderbilt took them to OT, and they were defenestrated at Texas A&M, which cost Mizzou dearly in the respect department. The Vanderbilt win certainly looks better now than it did at the time, of course. The Commodores took down Alabama, who lost again last weekend to Tennessee. But the Tide remain firm in the sporting consciousness as a juggernaut, and juggernauts tend to get the benefit of the doubt. If Missouri is to beat them, Burden, who has yet to live up to those lofty expectations (partly because Mizzou has trouble getting him the ball), will have to come alive. Missouri’s defense looks good in statistical departments — ninth in the country in yards allowed and top 10 in both pass and scoring defense — but has given up a bunch of broken and big plays such as a 75-yard TD run to Texas A&M’s Le’Veon Moss that opened the third quarter and essentially buried the game at 31-0. The defense will have to have the type of game it played against Murray State and Buffalo to start the season.

Drink tells me he remembers unfondly when glasses used to be considered a weakness. “That was tough, growing up,” he says. “Those were some bad glasses. I guess I thought they were cool.” A literal magnification of his shortcomings when he was a teenager in west Arkansas, a diminutive linebacker playing football for a team that won two state championships at Alma High School in a town with a population smaller than its 6,200-seat stadium. When the Drinkwitz family crammed itself — two parents and six kids — into a doublewide trailer. When his haircut was doing him no favors, either.

“I think what Coach Drink represents, man, is that you can be who you are,” says Mizzou assistant head coach and cornerbacks coach Al Pogue, who has known Drink since they were in their 20s and in quality control at Auburn under offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn. “And if that person is lighthearted and [can] still be successful? He represents that. It’s OK to be who you are.” He is referring to instances when Drink leads off a team meeting with a dad joke. Or burbles, “That’s what she said” after an innocuous comment in the hallway because he can’t seem to help himself. When he hosts a get-together for coaches every Wednesday night over the fire pit in his backyard over Wendy’s hamburgers as part of a communion. When he tells coaches to come in later if they need to take their kids to school. “That’s something I had to learn. I thought I had to look mean. I thought I had to stand on the sideline always looking like I was angry. But I wasn’t really that person,” Pogue says. “If everyone says, ‘Hey, he is a nerd’ … well, that’s a guy who I want to be like.”

DRINK TAKES HIS glasses off before football games. Everyone calls him Drink, or Coach Drink; it’s what he seems to prefer. When the meetings and preparations end and there is no turning back before kickoff, he suctions contacts onto his eyeballs and stands before his coaches and players. As a head coach who never played college football (though he was class president at Arkansas Tech) he has been subject to scrutiny — if, for example, he doesn’t call a timeout and gets a delay penalty that backs his team up 5 yards against Kansas State at the end of the game, or gets blasted so badly at Texas A&M that it doesn’t even seem he was prepared.

It’s fairly easy to understand why one of the youngest Division I head coaches of an ascending team in the greatest football conference might project himself at his best, at his strongest, at his most commanding, by subtracting a perception of his vulnerability.

Drink has done a lot of celebrating at Missouri without his glasses. His most viral speeches about brotherhood and rallying cries and buzzwords such as “STP: something to prove” have been summoned with the team crowded around him, without the specs. He conducts his postgame news conferences without them. He knelt without them and rolled over onto his back in his droopy white T-shirt and chinos and flapped his arms and legs after Mizzou — with a smothering effort from a defense that lost five starters to the NFL and a huge pass from Cook to Burden in the fourth quarter, beat Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl — and he made angels out of the confetti on the fake green heaven of Jerry Jones’ field.

He goes back to them Sunday morning. For church or breakfast at Cafe Berlin in Columbia with his family, when a new week of football begins. When he is back on the fourth floor of the Mizzou South End Zone complex before anyone else arrives in the morning, with a life-size cardboard cutout of him taking a drink of Diet Coke in the hall, and “SOMETHING TO PROVE” written in gigantic letters down the hallway wall, taking out of his personalized Coach Drink mini-fridge his first of eight or nine 16-ounce Diet Coke bottles for the day.

“I tell people all the time, ‘Don’t let the glasses fool you,'” he says. “I think sometimes, for me, I’m perceived either more nerdy than I really am, or maybe not as masculine. And I think I’m just trying to make sure when I’m out there proving a point, I want people to really understand me, you know? It’s kinda like Superman. He had to take his glasses off to get after people.”

HE’S WEARING THEM in the evening. He sidles down the stairwell from the private room of donors at Chicken N Pickle, a Mizzou-friendly restaurant on the banks of the Missouri River in the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, where he has been taking pictures with fans all evening and glad-handing for help with Every True Tiger, the branding and NIL agency of Mizzou athletics, and a new $250 million addition to the football stadium that will enclose the North End Zone and hopefully entomb the program’s tortured past there. Hundreds of fans have gathered to hear him speak publicly for the first time since beating Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl, where he trumpeted a war cry on the victor’s stage, “We’re not blue bloods, we’re a dirty, hardworking brotherhood … M-I-Z!”

On this night, Drink could pass as a fan in the restaurant, so it’s hard to spot him at first. His brown hair is combed to the side and his long-sleeve shirt is tucked into black chinos as he stands off in the corner at various points, constantly checking his phone. He lacks any kind of security buffer or coterie to lead him through the crowd of Bud Light drinkers and nachos eaters, of kids with plush hats with tiger tails dangling from the ears shaking pom-poms, of Truman the Tiger standing by the side of a stage giving a curtsy to the coach, of older men and women in various shades of black and gold as hopeful for 2024 as for any season in the past. The dimples embedded into Drinkwitz’s freshly shaved face make him look younger than 41, the face of this now-relevant but historically misbegotten team.

Twice in my lifetime, in 2007 and 2013, Missouri was a half away from the national championship game. This was under Pinkel, the stoic former tight end who seemed to withhold any sense of humor but made up for his lack of personality by taking Missouri all the way to No. 1. But the Tigers lost in the 2007 Big 12 championship game when Sam Bradford and Oklahoma pulled away in the second half after a Chase Daniel interception, and in the 2013 SEC title showdown Malzahn and what seemed like an Auburn team of destiny road-graded Mizzou in the fourth quarter, for which I was, sadly, present. Both those nights spun endlessly nowhere after the final whistle for a childhood fan, for a native of the state, someone who understood the precedent of finally seeing the team at the threshold but unable to cross. Walking back to a car under a black sky that might as well have let history whisper through: Missouri wasn’t and isn’t going to ever get there.

Now, though, Drink is asking everyone to believe. The Tigers just went 11-2; why not? With him on stage are three players, Burden, safety Marvin Burks and a new transfer cornerback from Clemson, Toriano Pride Jr. Drink cracks a joke about their 40 times not being good enough. He believes the Tigers should be as talented on offense as anyone in the country. They did have to replace Cody Schrader, a walk-on running back who led the SEC in rushing in 2023 and was the best story in college football, and did so by signing two of the most sought-after senior running backs, Nate Noel and Marcus Carroll, from the transfer portal. Cook, a senior, should be a top SEC quarterback again if healthy. Drink tells the fans there’s no better wide receiver room in America, with Burden; Theo Wease Jr., a transfer from Oklahoma; and Mookie Cooper and Marquis Johnson. A look at the schedule and one figures: 11-1? Possible. Or 10-2 at the worst.

Drink floats atop all the morbid backstory exuding an enthusiastic charm and the temperament of someone christened as a winner, of someone whose salary will rise to $9 million next season and, at least for a while, make him bulletproof. He greets the crowd before him outside in plastic chairs and stands on a makeshift stage outside the restaurant, a few weeks before the team will be announced just outside the preseason top 10.

“I been coming to these events for four years,” he says. “I remember coming here and telling people all the things we believed we could do. We believed we could recruit elite players and we believed we could win at the biggest stage … and we’re not satisfied with where we’re at, we feel like we just realized our potential. Now it’s about continuing to push, but in order to do that, we need you.”

An older man named Rob stands up in the crowd and asks for the microphone.

“Coach, I live in Moscow Mills, Missouri,” he says, “and I’ve been a Tiger fan for a long time. Three years in my lifetime we flirted with being No. 1. The first time I remember was 1969 — we lost a heartbreaker in the Orange Bowl to Penn State. In 2007, we had a magical season with Chase Daniel and then 2013, that first SEC East championship. My question for you is, after each one of those seasons, expectations were sky-high for the following year. And we had good seasons the next year but fell short. Tell me why this season is going to be different … how are we going to take that next step and not fall back just a little bit?”

Drink is caught off guard by how deep and kind of unsettling this is. How tortured an ask. Though he has been the coach at Missouri going on five years, it is unclear if even now he fully understands the embedded self-hatred of Tigers fans, whose expectations, despite the winning, are that fate will intervene no matter his preparations and things will always go wrong.

“Well, I mean that’s the toughest question I’ve been asked in a while,” he says. “Um … there’s no way to know or predict what the future is going to be. I think our team is still extremely hungry. We want to win an SEC championship. We had six players drafted. Those guys were really good players. But if you look at the competitive depth on our team, we should be a more talented team this year. It’s really going to come down to the mindset of the coaches and players and I, and are they really hungry to reestablish their own identity? All I know is, the only thing that matters to us is being better today than we were yesterday. If you can do that continuously …” He might not always look the part, but all these gathered people are looking at him as the head football coach. And he sounds like a head football coach, relying on old-school phrases in the hope of winning people over. He trails off. The crowd applauds him.

“YOU’RE NOT A jock, Coach,” I say to him. Which is meant as a compliment, an affirmation of one of the ways he has described himself. Drink is on one of the morning walks he takes every weekday before practice begins, when he collects his thoughts and makes phone calls to donors and recruits, when he slips away for 40 minutes to an hour by himself. The compliment is a pledge of allegiance, me describing myself and pointing at my own glasses, the fact I, too, have always had to wear them; have always looked for ways to put them aside; have gone to lengths, even as a child, to hide that my vision was bad by either pretending to see the board or sitting in the front of the class. That I can’t wear contacts because of sensitivity, that I still take them off half the time my wife and I post pictures on Instagram because removing my glasses is a part of my life. There are four days before the 2024 season begins at home against Murray State, and he’s tracking his steps on an app and wearing a white safari hat that shades his face and the top of his head and the whistle around his neck. We follow his usual path from the auxiliary staircase of the South End Zone football complex past the indoor football training facility and down the walkway with huge painted tiger paws up the hill to the basketball arena. The light stands atop Faurot Field disappear behind us into pretty woodlands and a trail veined with cracked gravel and littered with leaves, chippering birds getting louder and the sound of the cars on Providence Road softening into a kind of faraway purr.

Drink does not like what I said, though. He shakes his head and says, “Well, all right,” and then, “Ah, OK,” but it is clear he does not want to be identified this way, that we are not on the same page. No matter what he has said about himself in public he will not be a member of my made-up club. “I’m a better athlete than you expect, but that’s OK,” he says, hardened by the comment and quieted by it, like it’s a lazy perpetuation of the image he has been up against since he was a senior in high school getting good grades and playing football and having to prove to people by force that the guy pictured in his yearbook wasn’t who he actually is, wasn’t all he is.

“I am probably more like Mike McDaniel than Dan Campbell,” he says. “I quit caring what people say. [Shutting people up] used to be a big motivation for me. And carrying this chip on my shoulder. But now I’ve come to realize that’s never going to quiet anybody. The only thing you have to prove is to the people who believed in you.”

I want to tell him I’m one of those people who believed, who believe. But he has me on the other side of the ledger at the moment. And from there, the “big motivation” seems like it’s not all the way in the past tense.

He walks past the quiet softball field and soccer field and over the covered bridge that leads back to the football complex where he and players enter on Saturdays before the games. Drink is the fourth of six children. He shared a room in the trailer with two brothers (his three sisters shared another) and was picked on by them. He rotated sleeping on different levels of a bunk bed at his brothers’ command.

His older brother Jeremy, the president of a hospital system in Southwest Missouri, calls him at least once a week and attends pretty much every home game. “He’s always been blind as a bat,” Jeremy says. “In all candor, we didn’t have much money, so those were the glasses given to him. Dad was a teacher and mom stayed home and took care of the kids. That’s why they were as big as his face when he took pictures. One of the funniest stories is that Mom once accidentally left him at the eye doctor. She had to take alllll these kids to school. She went and dropped him off before school, took everybody else, forgot to come back and get him.”

I ask him about Drink now, about what he sees in him. Jeremy keeps it simple. “I ask for his opinion about how to lead,” he says. “How do you motivate? How do you inspire people around you?”

ASK MALZAHN ABOUT Eli Drinkwitz and it’s like he’s talking about himself. Drink is his guy, shaped out of clay under Malzahn’s intense work schedule. He doesn’t get too deep about anything different about Drink, of course; why would he? “Well, he is unique … it’s hard to explain, it works to his advantage,” Malzahn says. But he wants to talk about Drink as a young linebacker in high school: “He’d knock your head off now. Knock your stinkin’ head off. He has those glasses and looks a certain way, don’t let the kinda whatever you call it, don’t let that kid you.” He wants to talk about him as someone willing to “grind” for $13,000 a year in the labyrinths of quality control, someone who never recoiled from the slog of watching film, as it was his job after every Auburn game to break down the tape through the eyes of an opponent, to self-scout the team and present a report to Malzahn as though Drink were the defensive coordinator. In their first year together, Auburn won the national title. Yes, Malzahn wants to talk about Drink’s leadership and communication skills, to tell me that Drink possesses an imperceptible gift of being able to be smart about football but also relate to anyone, that everyone at Auburn from the secretary to the equipment people knew him and liked him. A nerd? Hell no. Malzahn called Drink and Casey Woods, now the offensive coordinator at SMU, the Ryan Brothers, in homage to Rex and Rob. “That dude is a worker,” Malzahn says. “He’s earned everything to get where he’s at. At Arkansas State he’d get there at 6 in the morning and wouldn’t leave ’til midnight. He wouldn’t flinch. He gets crap done.”

This is kind of the way Cook wants to talk about Drink, too. In the irrevocable terms of what they’ve been through together, their relationship linked in that Drink will always be the coach who stuck by the player last season and even this one, when Cook was booed at home games and went on to be one of the best quarterbacks in the SEC. Cook being a Missouri kid, a St. Louisan who dreamed about playing for Mizzou when he was a child going to games, who last week brought Drink’s voice to quiver in the postgame news conference when he was injured early against Auburn and then returned from the hospital in the third quarter to lead Mizzou to 6-1. “What can I tell you about Drink?” Cook asks. “Like, he’s goofy and he has humor. But he’s cutthroat at the same time. He represents Missouri with a chip on his shoulder, a little swag. I used to think of him more of like as a nerd, kind of like that. That idea, ‘Ah, OK, this guy is really smart and has glasses but he’s probably not, like, swaggy.’ As time has gone on, it’s changed.”

Drink’s old coach in high school, Frank Vines, who led the Alma Airedales for more than 30 years and was a three-time state champion, now watches every Missouri game from the rocking chair in the living room of his house back in Alma. “I’m getting old and went through a lot of kids,” he says. “Eli was not a great athlete. But he was very smart, very dedicated, and those are the two things I think that have kind of stood out in his life. On our team he was like having a coach out on the field.”

Watching Drink now prowl the sidelines is watching someone with his own style but who exhibits an amalgamation of what he has learned at various stops: Arkansas State, Auburn, North Carolina State, App State. The intense game-planning in his office and rigorous schedule of watching film like Malzahn, even late at night with his feet propped up on the couch, at home, with his daughters. Vines was a yeller, a tough guy, “the bad guy,” he says to me, “I didn’t baby anybody around,” and that is one thing Drink must have decided he didn’t want to be; he doesn’t scream at players often, and at one point, as a student, he told Vines to his face that he didn’t like the way he said “Goddamn,” using the Lord’s name in vain. Drink, for example, sits quietly in the head chair of the staff meeting going around the room and letting position coaches talk about their observations, much more in the style of a listener than a dictator.

Zac Thomas, Drink’s quarterback for one glorious season at Appalachian State, laments what they could have done with an even better team had Drink not left for Missouri in 2019. “He does a really good job of relating to players,” Thomas says. “He’s one of the first coaches I had in that level where you could come to him with problems, he was a sounding board. The way he goes about himself, cracking jokes — yes, football is an intense game, and you go through a lot of hardships, but you also have to be able to have the laughter, bring joy to the locker room. He brings people on cookouts, paintball, skiing trips, fun activities, he does ways to reward you to keep you going. He’s not the coolest coach on the face of the planet, but he knows what he’s good at.”

VINCE LOMBARDI WORE glasses. The game of football actually seems built on those horned rims and the sport he was able to see through them that no one else could. A company in New York now sells replica frames called Vince, describing this era as an eyewear renaissance and the throwback of his championship look. Woody Hayes wore them, too, in a different way, a brutalist accentuation of the black hat yanked over his ears and his shoulders bursting through his button-up jacket, his eyes magnified through those lenses and the insatiable temper nearly popping them right out of his skull. Jim Harbaugh wears glasses like a Siberian prison wears the snow. Supposedly, he says, to honor three people: Hayes, Michael Douglas in “Falling Down,” and Malcolm X.

Drink is in his office, wearing glasses. His tennis shoes are propped up on a velvet couch. The view through his office window is of the north end zone of the stadium and a clear and inviolable sky. When the season began, the Tigers were picked by plenty of people to make the first-ever 12-team playoff; so many pundits picked them that it honestly seemed to diehard Missouri followers like a bad harbinger. Mizzou has never once been able to follow up a great season with an even better one. He shows me the customized Cuban cigar humidor in black and gold that he received as a gift for winning the Cotton Bowl. Some texts from the Chief, singer Eric Church himself, a big fan of Drink. The Cotton Bowl ring and football from the game on a stand. A dozen other trinkets from last season’s run, an actual Cotton Bowl throw rug, and this giant framed picture right outside his door that shows him wearing sunglasses and the microphone headset thing extending in front of his mouth as he stares off into the distance with a hard-won frown, as if he were Nick Saban.

The entire office wall is made of glass. The view is of the sky and the stadium bleachers and the goalposts and the grass berm and Mizzou’s “Rock M.” Beyond that Providence Road and the University Hospital, the brick dorms with the windows open, a view all the way toward the columns at Jesse Hall and the most underrated campus in the SEC. By the window, to preview this same view of the future, Drink has a poster board of what the north end zone will look like in two years. Multiple levels of luxury suites rising several stories above a shrunken Rock M, an expanded concourse, thousands of people milling about the unfamiliar edifice, new seats where most of the grass used to be. I tell Drink, who didn’t grow up in Missouri but whose parents took him to Branson a few times, that when I look out there, I don’t exactly see what he does: sunshine, sure, but there are darker implications. I look out there and see Charles Johnson pushing with the ball one more time on “fifth down” from the 1, and Colorado “winning” the national title though he still didn’t cross the goal line. I see Matt Davison in the cool night air from my vantage point in the bleachers as a 17-year-old shocked that Mizzou was about to beat No. 1 Nebraska, Davison’s gloved hands cradling a deflected pass from Scott Frost off the foot of a Husker receiver named Shevin Wiggins with no time left in regulation, as the fans begin to storm the field at Faurot but then have to pull back in stupor as the most dominant team of the 1990s miraculously ties the game and then goes on to beat the Tigers in overtime. This is known as the Flea Kicker. Drink doesn’t see the field goal attempt, like I do, hook right in double overtime to ruin an undefeated season against South Carolina in 2013. He doesn’t understand the bodies that are buried and how deep they go, and thankfully he doesn’t care. Last year, Harrison Mevis drilled a 61-yard field goal into that end zone and Mizzou beat Kansas State.

“Mizzou was a challenger brand,” he tells me. Of course, he knows it doesn’t have the cachet of Alabama, or even somewhere like Florida. Which is why he took the job thinking the state had untapped potential given the talent that St. Louis and Kansas City regularly produce but that usually goes elsewhere. NIL and Drinkwitz are changing this. He has signed three top-25 classes in his Missouri tenure and kept several of the state’s best players (and some best nationally) home, including five-star recruits such as Burden and Williams Nwaneri. The cachet thing still proves true, though, when the Tigers drop in the polls three times after victories against Boston College, Vanderbilt and Auburn. It will take forever to be seen as Alabama’s worthy opponent, even if they beat the Tide on Saturday.

“We wanted to create story and space because if you’re not a blue blood it’s hard to get written about or recognized,” Drink says. “But now we’re to the point where we’re there, and it needs to be a lot less about me and a lot more about Brady Cook and Luther and Theo Wease. Those guys are way more important to this than I am. But it took a little of me putting myself out there to get noticed. But now that they notice and know who we are, it doesn’t need to be about me. I was a lot more active on social media. When I was at SEC media days, I was a lot wittier and a lot further and willing to take shots at other people, maybe more antagonizing; this year’s approach to media days was much more calculated.” No one at Mizzou has ever spent so much time on his image or being mischievous. The Star Wars thing he did with Mullen. Taking a jab at Tennessee’s Josh Heupel by calling a timeout last year at the end of the game against Tennessee, the game well in hand. Heupel is known for running up the score and kicking onside kicks against lesser teams, and when the Tennessee kicker missed against Missouri, Drink deadpanned after, “We stand on business, Josh.” About the only opposing coach Drink has never been willing to tweak is Saban.

“I tried to avoid doing anything that would create a narrative or create a viral moment, because I wanted the focus to be on the team and the players. As great as Saban is, when he retired, they replaced him in 48 hours. And the story was no longer about him and Alabama, it was about who’s next. No matter how good you are, you’re always replaceable.”

I’D RATHER HAVE a nerd as a coach. I’d rather have this guy who cannonballs off the diving board into the backyard swimming pool at his daughters’ command. I’d rather have someone who is openly self-referential than some other kind of coach, or the idea of some other kind of coach. I’d rather have this guy who drives his daughters in the back of a golf cart through the neighborhood to the Phillips 66 to get them ice cream or cinnamon buns or Andy’s Frozen Custard. Who takes them fly-fishing in Montana and wears the little safari-style hat. This guy who once sang “Livin’ on a Prayer” in public at a Mexican resort. As someone posted on X in November, “He may be a nerd, but he’s our nerd.” At this point, after all, no one has led Mizzou all the way. Not Don Faurot, the immortal coach in statue outside the stadium and for whom it is still named. Not Dan Devine, who had an 11-win season six decades ago, walking the old sideline in a suit and tie and top hat before he went to coach the Packers. Not Pinkel. So why not this person? This history major; this occasional strummer of guitars (he has two in his office) and smoker of Cuban cigars; this lover of Wendy’s hamburgers, this doer of dishes on weeknights when he comes home from football, this guy who somehow managed to get his daughters into Taylor Swift concerts this year and last, who gets them coffee now when he takes them to school. This guy who makes opposing fans boil over simply because he is a singularity in the game. I’d really rather him change nothing about himself at all — nothing about the way he looks, about the way he speaks, about the way he seems to have gotten under Heupel’s skin. Look at him. Look at his aura. Mizzou has never had anyone like him.

THE PLAYERS GATHER around him. The light is heavy outside. The turf of the practice field steams. He has been watching from a distance and standing behind a machine that sends footballs into the air to mimic a punt. He has a microphone that he talks through and huge speakers on the side of the field project his voice so players in every position group can hear him. Earlier in the day, the first time they saw him he ran into the team meeting room with his arms waving in the air, clapping to get the team going, shouting expletives when talking about getting the football into the air against Murray State. But then later out on the turf, the players put their hands on each other’s shoulders as he speaks to them, lost in the group except for the sound of his voice. And to be fair to him, from a distance, in the middle of the field with the players and his staff, in a white hoodie in the noonday sun, nothing really stands out about him. He looks like any other coach. Except for two red indentions on the sides of his nose where his glasses used to be.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Sports

Tulsa tops OSU in Stillwater for 1st time since ’51

Published

3 hours ago

on

September 20, 2025

By

Tulsa tops OSU in Stillwater for 1st time since '51

  • ESPN News Services

Sep 20, 2025, 12:07 AM ET

STILLWATER, Okla. — Redshirt freshman Baylor Hayes threw for 219 yards and a touchdown and Seth Morgan kicked four field goals to help Tulsa defeat Oklahoma State 19-12 on Friday night for the first time in 27 years.

Hayes started his second straight game in place of Kirk Francis and completed 23 of 36 passes without an interception for Tulsa (2-2), which last beat Oklahoma State in 1998. It was the Golden Hurricane’s first win in Stillwater since Nov. 3, 1951, ending a streak of 23 consecutive losses there.

The loss leaves things from bad to worse for coach Mike Gundy and the Cowboys, who have won just one of their past 12 games dating to last season. They also fall to 0-9 when coming off a loss dating back to last season, their longest such streak in the AP Poll era (which dates to 1936).

“I thought (Tulsa) did a great job early in the game with some of the concepts that we hadn’t (anticipated) on defense,” Gundy said. “Really, through the first quarter, they outcoached us.

“I thought their quarterback played really well. He’s a good little operator. Made some plays and was able to run and scramble.”

Morgan kicked field goals of 27, 38 and 47 yards to give the Golden Hurricane a 16-3 halftime lead. He connected from 47 yards on Tulsa’s first drive of the third quarter to make it 19-3.

Oklahoma State (1-2) rallied after that behind Zane Flores, a third-year freshman making his second career start. Flores passed for 214 yards and rushed for 56, scoring on a 5-yard keeper to cut the deficit to 19-9 early in the fourth quarter.

Logan Ward‘s 49-yard field goal with 5:49 left in the quarter made it 19-12. The game ended when the Cowboys’ Gavin Freeman was pushed out of bounds at the Tulsa 10-yard line.

“I know we caught ’em at a bad time and they’re struggling right now, but it’s all about us right now,” Tulsa coach Tre Lamb said. “That’s a huge win for our program, that’s a statement win for me and our staff and our administration and I told the team new Tulsa’s back, and I told the ESPN guys that we don’t want to be on the second page of the paper.”

Oklahoma State was playing for the first time since a 69-3 loss to then-No. 6 Oregon on Sept. 6.

The Golden Hurricane rebounded in a big way following a 42-23 home loss to Navy. Tulsa’s defense held Oklahoma State to three points and 117 of its 403 total yards in the first half.

ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Sports

Week 4 preview: Key matchups, quarterbacks who aren’t meeting their preseason hype and more

Published

4 hours ago

on

September 20, 2025

By

Week 4 preview: Key matchups, quarterbacks who aren't meeting their preseason hype and more

Sep 18, 2025, 08:00 AM ET

If there’s an overriding storyline through three weeks, it has been about the winners and losers of some big bets on quarterbacks.

Miami bet on Carson Beck reviving his NFL prospects after a down year at Georgia. So far, he has delivered, averaging nearly 10 yards per pass with eight total touchdowns, and the Canes are ranked in the top five.

Oklahoma wagered Brent Venables’ future on John Mateer, and the Washington State transfer has been electric, leading the Sooners past Michigan in a Week 2 showdown and earning Heisman front-runner status.

Auburn felt sure former five-star recruit Jackson Arnold still had plenty of untapped potential, and through three weeks, he has looked like the superstar he once was, getting the Tigers to 3-0.

Ohio State, Georgia and Oregon all bet on in-house QBs rather than dipping into the transfer portal, and all have been rewarded.

Florida State, Indiana and Tulane hit pay dirt in the portal.

That’s the good news.

On the flip side, so many quarterbacks who were expected to provide massive dividends — Arch Manning, Cade Klubnik, DJ Lagway, Nico Iamaleava, LaNorris Sellers — have wavered between average or awful.

Week 4 offers some chances for redemption, with Lagway getting another big test against Miami, Klubnik hoping to right the ship against Syracuse and UNC‘s Gio Lopez going on the road against UCF in the Tar Heels’ first real test since a blowout loss to TCU.

Some of the nation’s most talented young players have a chance to break through, too. CJ Carr can earn win No. 1 against woeful Purdue. Michigan’s Bryce Underwood, coming off a strong performance against Central Michigan, has a much bigger test against Nebraska. Ole Miss’ Austin Simmons hopes to return from injury in time to make his mark in a showdown with Tulane.

The story is just beginning to be written, so there’s plenty of time for Manning, Klubnik and other preseason darlings to find their footing. But it has been a cold September for some of the nation’s most renowned passers, and Week 4 could be another opportunity for others to grab their share of the spotlight. — David Hale

Jump to:
Auburn-Oklahoma | Utah-Texas Tech
Quarterbacks who are falling short
Breakout players | Quotes of the week

What do each of these teams need to do to win?

Auburn: The Tigers have to disrupt Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer and make him pay for running the ball, and they have the ingredients to do so. Auburn is tied for sixth nationally in sacks per game (3.67) and tied for 12th in tackles for loss per game (8.7). Although Keldric Faulk is the headliner, Arkansas State transfer Keyron Crawford has been the team’s most disruptive pass rusher so far with three sacks and a forced fumble. The defense and run game, which ranks 16th nationally at 240 yards per game, ideally must reduce the pressure on quarterback Jackson Arnold in his highly anticipated return to Oklahoma. Arnold is completing nearly 70% of his passes, running the ball effectively and limiting mistakes, but the more Auburn’s other playmakers can take off his plate, the better the chances for a key road win. — Adam Rittenberg

Oklahoma: Arnold started nine games for the Sooners last fall. If anyone knows his weak spots, it’s Oklahoma coach Brent Venables. As Adam points out, Arnold (eight turnovers in 2024) has played efficient, mistake-free football in his first three games at Auburn. A Sooners defense that’s creating pressures on 44.6% of its snaps this season — 10th nationally, per ESPN Research — is built to change that and make Arnold uncomfortable, although Oklahoma will be without 2024 sack leader R Mason Thomas for the first half Saturday following a Week 3 targeting ejection. Mateer will have his own work cut out for him against the Tigers’ defensive front, but he should be able to find holes in a secondary that ranks 85th in yards allowed per game (220.0). The difference, ultimately, could come on the ground where a still-figuring-out Oklahoma rushing attack meets Auburn’s 10th-ranked run defense (67.0 yards per game) on Saturday. Freshman Tory Blaylock (5.4 yards per carry) has been the Sooners’ most effective running back through three games. — Eli Lederman

How do each of these quarterbacks need to perform?

Utah: Through three games a year ago, Utah had gone without a first down on nearly a quarter of its drives. This season, it has happened only three times in three games. The difference is Devon Dampier, who has looked as at ease running his brand of dual-threat football in a Power 4 backfield as he did a year ago at New Mexico. Dampier has racked up more than 800 yards of offense and accounted for eight touchdowns, and he has yet to turn the ball over. His skill set has made him particularly effective. He has already accumulated 80 yards on scramble plays, and three of his seven TD passes have come from outside the pocket. This will be his biggest test to date, but he’ll also be, by far, the biggest challenge for Texas Tech’s defense. — Hale

Texas Tech: Behren Morton hasn’t taken a snap after the third quarter across three straight 30-plus point victories to open the season. Still, Texas Tech’s senior quarterback enters Week 4 tied for No. 1 nationally in passing touchdowns (11) and ranks ninth in passing yards (923), leading the nation’s highest-scoring offense (58.0 PPG). Utah, with the nation’s 20th-ranked pass defense (134.0 yards per game), should present Morton with his toughest test yet in 2025. He’ll have to be accurate against an experienced Utes secondary, and Morton’s decision-making will be key, too, in the face of a Utah front seven that features the nation’s joint sack leader in John Henry Daley — five in three games — and blitzes on 42.6% of its snaps, the 10th-highest rate among FBS defenses, per ESPN Research. Most of all, Texas Tech will hope Morton’s experience (27 career starts) can keep its offense steady in the Red Raiders’ first visit to a notoriously hostile Rice-Eccles Stadium. — Eli Lederman

Three quarterbacks who aren’t meeting their preseason hype

1. Arch Manning

Anyone can have a rough outing in a Week 1 matchup against the defending champs, and Manning looked fine a week later against San José State. So, nothing to worry about, right? Ah, not so fast. A dismal first half against UTEP ignited a full-on inferno of criticism of the preseason Heisman favorite, and for good reason. Manning is completing just 55% of his throws and has turned the ball over three times, and Texas has gone without a first down on nearly a quarter of its drives so far. Add the sideline grimace that coach Steve Sarkisian chalked up to — well, we’re not quite sure — and it would be enough reason for concern even if Manning didn’t carry a legendary name and a ton of hype. That this all comes on the heels of such high expectations means Manning will be fighting critics for the foreseeable future.

2. Cade Klubnik

What’s wrong with Clemson‘s offense? The answers are everywhere, but none appear bigger than Klubnik, who has at times looked lost, frustrated or intimidated in the pocket. His 37.5 QBR through three games ranks 121st out of 136 FBS passers, and his miserable first-half performances — no passing touchdowns, two turnovers — have put Clemson in some early holes. Klubnik is completing less than 60% of his throws on the year, but the bigger issue is the number of open receivers he hasn’t even targeted in key moments. He has been sacked just three times this year, but he has gotten moved off his position too often, and abandoned ship even more frequently. So, what’s wrong with the Tigers? The better question is what’s wrong with the Tigers’ QB?

3. DJ Lagway

After last year’s hot finish, the assumption was that Lagway would take the next step in 2025 to becoming one of the best quarterbacks in the country. Through three weeks, he’s nowhere close. Not only is Florida off to a 1-2 start, Lagway has been the primary culprit. He’s completing 71% of his throws, but nearly one-third of his throws are behind the line of scrimmage. He has done nothing to extend the field, attempting just seven throws of 20 yards or more. On those throws, he has one completion and two picks. Lagway’s six interceptions overall are tied for the second most nationally through three games. If Florida wants to turn things around amid a brutal schedule, it has to start with Lagway looking more like the player he appeared to be down the stretch in 2024. — Hale

Five early breakout players

Rueben Bain Jr., DL, Miami: The 6-foot-3, 275-pound pass rusher is performing at an All-America level so far this season with 15 stops, 11 pressures, 2.5 TFLs, 1.5 sacks, an interception and a forced fumble through three games. Bain was a top-100 recruit and a Freshman All-American in 2023, so there’s nothing shocking about his rise, but he’s making the leap as a junior and proving he’s a no-doubt NFL draft first-round pick. As ESPN draft expert Jordan Reid put it, no other draft-eligible player in the sport is having a greater down-to-down impact than Bain.

Taylen Green, QB, Arkansas: Green is off to an incredible start to his second season under OC Bobby Petrino, leading the country in total offense with 866 passing yards, 307 rushing yards (most among all FBS QBs) and 13 total touchdowns. Last week against Ole Miss, he became the first QB in program history to surpass 300 passing yards and 100 rushing yards in a single game. The Razorbacks came up short in their SEC opener but have seven more top-25 opponents on the schedule, which should give Green every opportunity to play his way into Heisman contention.

Mario Craver, WR, Texas A&M: The Aggies faced Craver last year during his freshman season at Mississippi State and knew he could be a dangerous playmaker. He has been an absolute game changer for Marcel Reed and Texas A&M’s passing game with an FBS-leading 443 receiving yards and four TDs on just 20 receptions. The 5-foot-9, 165-pound wideout isn’t flying under the national radar anymore after burning Notre Dame’s secondary for a career-best 207 yards on seven catches, and his 279 yards after catch are nearly 100 more than any other pass catcher in the country.

Ahmad Hardy, RB, Missouri: Hardy had a prolific freshman season at UL Monroe and hasn’t slowed down one bit since making his move to the SEC. He’s now the second-leading rusher in the FBS with 462 yards and five TDs after a ridiculous 250-yard day against Louisiana last week. The sophomore has played in only 15 career games, yet he already has three 200-yard performances on his résumé, and he leads all FBS backs with 29 forced missed tackles, according to ESPN Research.

Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, QB, Cal: The true freshman from Hawaii was a late riser in the recruiting rankings as a high school senior, and we’re quickly learning why he became so coveted. Sagapolutele signed with Oregon but flipped back to Cal in early January, believing he’d have a chance to start right away for the Golden Bears. The 6-foot-3, 225-pound lefty has flashed big-time arm talent and exciting potential with 780 passing yards and seven total TDs while leading a 3-0 start. He’s becoming must-see TV on a Cal squad that looks poised to exceed expectations. — Max Olson

Quotes of the Week

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney on speculation about his job security:
“Hey, listen, if Clemson’s tired of winning, they can send me on my way. But I’m gonna go somewhere else and coach. I ain’t going to the beach. Hell, I’m 55. I’ve got a long way to go. Y’all are gonna have to deal with me for a while.”

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian on quarterback Arch Manning:
“Here’s a guy who’s had an awesome life, the way he’s grown up, the people he’s been surrounded by. I think you learn a lot about yourself through adversity and overcoming adversity. … When he gets on the other side of it, I think all of this is going to serve well not only for him, but for us as a team.”

LSU coach Brian Kelly:
“LSU won the football game, won the game. I don’t know what you want from me. What do you want? You want us to win 70-0 against Florida to keep you happy?”

Michigan fill-in coach Biff Poggi on Bryce Underwood:
“He might actually be Batman. We need to do a DNA test on him.”

Georgia Tech coach Brent Key addressing his team after beating Clemson:
“Enjoy the s— out of it, man. Guess what? Next week is going to be bigger.”

Continue Reading

Sports

The 34 college football games you need to keep an eye on this weekend

Published

4 hours ago

on

September 20, 2025

By

The 34 college football games you need to keep an eye on this weekend

  • Bill ConnellySep 19, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

    Close

      Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.

You could say that Saturday brings the first act of the 2025 college football season to a close.

Next week, we’ll get a couple of mammoth helmet games — Oregon at Penn State, Alabama at Georgia — and conference play will be fully underway. We’ll head into October talking a lot about playoff implications and the hierarchy among the sport’s top teams.

First, however, we have to tie up some loose ends. We get another week to figure out which of a large group of hyped-but-struggling quarterbacks — Texas’ Arch Manning, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik, Florida’s DJ Lagway, LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier — will steer out of a current skid. We get a huge Illinois-Indiana game (just an amazing combination of words there). We get a matchup of two of the Big 12’s best and meanest teams to date (Texas Tech at Utah). We get former Sooners quarterback Jackson Arnold and Auburn heading to Norman in a battle of SEC unbeatens. And we get another massive week in the Group of 5, with American Conference unbeatens Memphis and Tulane getting shots at SEC upsets and ambitious teams such as UNLV, North Texas and Boise State facing big road tests.

At the start of the college football season, 11 teams had at least a 2% chance of winning the national title, per the Allstate Playoff Predictor. Three weeks in, there are 13. Nothing has been even slightly decided through three weeks, and the door for chaos could open even further this weekend. Before we get to the second act of 2025, here’s everything you need to follow in a loaded Week 4.

All times Eastern.

Jump to a section:
Scuffling QBs | Indiana-Illinois
Big 12 headliner | SEC eliminators?
G5’s big weekend | Week 4 playlist
Small-school showcase

Which disappointing quarterback can rally?

Despite some chaotic undertones, the season has gone approximately as we thought it might. Among the top nine teams in the preseason SP+ rankings, six are still there, and the three others (Texas, Notre Dame, Michigan) haven’t exactly plummeted. Some teams have disappointed early on, but few seasons are completely lost.

For a quartet of quarterbacks, however, we’re approaching now-or-never territory: Either start looking like you were supposed to look or chalk up 2025 as a spectacular disappointment.

Florida at No. 4 Miami (7:30 p.m., ABC)

If DJ Lagway threw only three interceptions against LSU, the Gators might have scored an upset. That’s a positive, right? He instead threw five in a 20-10 loss, but the Florida defense still gave the Gators a chance. It has allowed only 38 points in three games.

The offense has scored only 26 in two FBS games. Opponents aren’t afraid of the run game, receivers aren’t getting open, and Lagway is developing some pretty extreme tendencies in passing to specific areas of the field (as evidenced by all the green “completion” dots along the right sideline on this chart):

Four of Lagway’s six 2025 interceptions have come on third-and-long, and a fifth came in a last-ditch drive against LSU. He’s trying desperately to make something happen, and it’s bringing out some terrible tendencies.

Miami quarterback Carson Beck has been good, and he has gotten the help Lagway hasn’t, from his offensive line and his receivers. But the Florida defense could make this one interesting if Lagway can take what he’s given by a Miami defense that ranks 83rd in yards allowed per dropback.

Current line: Miami -7.5 | SP+ projection: Miami by 10.6 | FPI projection: Miami by 7.2

Syracuse at Clemson (noon, ESPN)

Like Lagway, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik has performed far worse than expected and has gotten little help from his castmates. Syracuse has a history of overachieving against Clemson, but the Orange have the worst-rated FBS defense remaining on the Tigers’ schedule. If Clemson’s offense, currently 96th in points per drive, doesn’t get going now, when might that happen?

The Orange blitz a good amount, and blitzing has hurt Clemson because of a banged-up offensive line and a less-than-scary run game. Klubnik is getting hit a lot and throwing lots of passes short of the sticks. The timing of the offense is off, and the Tigers can’t afford to suffer another conference loss before they start to figure things out. The return of veteran receiver Antonio Williams, listed as probable for Saturday, can’t hurt.

Current line: Clemson -16.5 | SP+ projection: Clemson by 9.2 | FPI projection: Clemson by 9.6

Southeastern Louisiana at No. 3 LSU (7:45 p.m., SECN)

With all proper respect to Southeastern Louisiana — the Lions are seventh in FCS SP+ with a loss to only Louisiana Tech — I’m guessing that LSU remains unbeaten Saturday. Now’s a good time to start repairing an LSU offense that ranks just 112th in points per drive.

Garrett Nussmeier has the most tenable place on this list; his team is unbeaten, and he’s 37th in Total QBR — not what was expected but far higher than anyone else here. His main issue is that he’s playing it safe. The LSU run game might be even worse than it was last year, the offensive line is committing too many penalties, and Nussmeier is throwing mostly quick passes to keep the train moving. His 65% completion rate is solid, but his average yards per completion has fallen from 12.0 (pretty low) to 10.0 (terribly low).

LSU’s line should hold up against SELA — if it doesn’t, yikes — so it will be interesting to see if Nussmeier starts looking further downfield. Now’s the time to build some better habits.

SP+ projection: LSU by 33.0 | FPI projection: LSU by 34.9

Sam Houston at No. 8 Texas (8 p.m., ESPN+)

Going by projections, Texas has the easiest game on this list. But Arch Manning might also be the most broken QB. After showing potential progress in Week 2, Manning completed just 11 of 25 passes for 114 yards, a touchdown and an interception against UTEP. The Miners mostly rushed only four defenders and forced Manning to work through progressions; he took forever to throw and was frequently inaccurate.

Manning is 124th out of 136 QBs with a 55.3% completion rate, and he’s 133rd in average time to throw (3.28 seconds). Meanwhile, his 14 dropbacks against man coverage have netted 13 total yards. His running backs are hurt, his line isn’t great, his receivers aren’t getting open enough and he’s throwing inaccurate passes. If the Texas offense doesn’t get right against a dreadful Sam Houston defense, it might not happen.

Current line: Texas -39.5 (down from -41.5 on Sunday) | SP+ projection: Texas by 40.0 | FPI projection: Texas by 37.7

Shades of 1950 in Bloomington

No. 9 Illinois at No. 19 Indiana (7:30 p.m., NBC)

On Oct. 28, 1950, “Goodnight Irene,” performed by The Weavers, was dominating the airwaves. “All About Eve,” starring Bette Davis and featuring a young Marilyn Monroe, was in theaters. SMU was No. 1 in the country, Bear Bryant’s Kentucky was No. 4 and live college football wasn’t found on national television.

It was a long time ago, is what I’m saying. And it was the last time Illinois and Indiana met as ranked foes. In that game, the No. 12 Fighting Illini rode spectacular line play to a 20-0 win over the No. 19 Hoosiers. History hasn’t been kind to either program since. But that has shifted of late.

Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers and Bret Bielema’s Illini are a combined 27-5 since the start of 2024, and though neither has played an opponent ranked higher than 65th in SP+, both are in the top 15 in points and points allowed per drive this season. They’re treating iffy opposition like excellent teams are supposed to.

Both teams dominate in the Little Things department — red zone, field position, turnovers — and both boast efficient offenses with dominant receivers: Indiana’s Omar Cooper Jr. has 299 yards and four TDs, while Illinois’ Hank Beatty has caught 19 of 20 passes for 289 yards and a TD. Each defense has allowed a few big plays, but they’re both still giving up 4.6 or fewer yards per play.

We know that blue bloods get the best TV ratings, but these two teams have earned this prime-time slot. The computers and sportsbooks lean toward Indiana — and frankly, it’s odd that Illinois is ranked 10 spots higher in the polls — but it would be a surprise if this one didn’t go down to the wire.

Current line: Indiana -6.5 (up from -4.5) | SP+ projection: Indiana by 3.9 | FPI projection: Indiana by 3.1

A Big 12 headliner in Salt Lake City

No. 17 Texas Tech at No. 16 Utah (noon, Fox)

If you take preseason projections out of the equation — a terrible idea if you want predictive accuracy, but an intriguing way to look at performance to date — Texas Tech would be first in SP+ and Utah would be eighth. The Red Raiders have overwhelmed three bad opponents by an average score of 58-12, and the Utes lead the Big 12 in early overachievement, topping SP+ projections by an average of 13.7 points per game. On Saturday, one of these teams will score a huge early Big 12 win.

Tech’s defense gives up quite a few big plays, while Utah’s offense, as is customary, doesn’t make many. The Utes rank first in rushing success rate, but so does Tech’s defense. Defensive tackles A. J. Holmes Jr. and Skyler Gill-Howard have eaten up interior run blockers, but the Utah line is one of the most proven in the country, and quarterback Devon Dampier and RBs NaQuari Rogers and Wayshawn Parker keep Utah on schedule.

Even with huge leads in each game, Texas Tech has passed more than 35 times per game at a fast tempo. The Red Raiders are third in yards per dropback, and Behren Morton is completing 70% of his passes at 16.2 yards per completion. Receiver Coy Eakin‘s early numbers (245 yards at 20.4 per catch) are scary.

As you’d expect, however, Utah’s pass defense looks good, too: eighth in completion rate, ninth in interception rate, 24th in yards per dropback. The Utes have given up a few more third-and-long conversions than expected, and if that remains an issue, Tech might never give up the ball. Regardless, there are strength-versus-strength matchups everywhere. This game will be awfully fun.

Current line: Utah -3.5 | SP+ projection: Utah by 1.9 | FPI projection: Utah by 3.8

SEC elimination(ish) day

As with Indiana-Illinois in the Big Ten, the SEC has a couple of huge games among teams that aren’t necessarily conference title contenders — though, we don’t know for sure yet — but are jockeying for 10-2 records and potential CFP bids.

No. 22 Auburn at No. 11 Oklahoma (3:30 p.m., ABC)

Oklahoma’s ridiculously back-loaded schedule — six of its final seven opponents rank 17th or higher in SP+ — meant that the Sooners would need a fast start. So far, so good. They’re 3-0 with a win over Michigan despite an offense that remains a work in progress. Quarterback John Mateer might be the current Heisman betting favorite, but the run game averages just 4.3 yards per carry (not including sacks), and the Sooners have fumbled five times with lots of passes broken up. Their five turnovers (104th nationally) haven’t come from bad luck.

Still, Mateer is creating big plays with his arm, and four Sooner pass catchers are on pace for 50-plus receptions. Plus, the OU defense doesn’t need a ton of help — the Sooners rank fourth in points allowed per drive and third in yards allowed per play.

They’re also sixth in rushing success rate allowed, and that might be the most important number against Auburn. The Tigers are running the ball a ton, with the combo of running back Jeremiah Cobb and quarterback Jackson Arnold carrying a heavy load. They’re avoiding must-pass situations — which doomed Arnold as OU’s QB in 2024 — but they’ll likely face some Saturday afternoon, and we’ll learn if Arnold has improved a little or a lot from last year’s disastrous campaign.

Current line: OU -6.5 | SP+ projection: OU by 7.4 | FPI projection: OU by 3.8

South Carolina at No. 23 Missouri (7 p.m., ESPN)

Missouri is one of just 16 teams to overachieve against SP+ projections in all three games, and the Tigers are up to 11th in SP+ because of it. The offense looks great because of a trio of transfers: quarterback Beau Pribula (on pace for 3,100 passing yards), running back Ahmad Hardy (1,800 rushing yards), and receiver Kevin Coleman Jr. (1,000 receiving yards).

South Carolina has the first top-50 defense (per SP+) the Tigers have faced, though the Gamecocks got worked over by Vanderbilt’s efficient attack last week in a jarring 31-7 loss. They don’t give up many big plays, but they rank 73rd in success rate. Mizzou’s offense ranks 12th.

The South Carolina offense saw plenty of offseason hype, but it has been an absolute dud, scoring just five touchdowns in three games and ranking 123rd in points per drive. Receivers Nyck Harbor and Donovan Murph are averaging 21.6 yards per catch, but at only four catches per game. Quarterback LaNorris Sellers has become even more sack-prone — I probably should have put him on the disappointing QBs list above — and this week, he has had to work through concussion protocol while preparing to face a Mizzou defense that grades out as well as or better than Vandy’s.

Shane Beamer’s Gamecocks are projected favorites in only two more games this season. Either they get back on track immediately or 2025 veers into “Lost Season” territory.

Current line: Mizzou -10.5 (down from -12.5) | SP+ projection: Mizzou by 13.7 | FPI projection: Mizzou by 9.5

Another huge weekend for the Group of 5

The race for the Group of 5’s guaranteed playoff spot could see some twists this week, with two major hopefuls (Memphis and Tulane) getting shots at SEC upsets, and three others — UNLV, North Texas and Boise State — all facing tricky road trips.

Arkansas at Memphis (noon, ABC)

Memphis has looked awesome early and gets AAC opponents South Florida, Tulane and Navy at home. SP+ gives the Tigers a 36% chance of finishing 11-1 or better. Quarterback Brendon Lewis and running back Sutton Smith (in for the injured Greg Desrosiers Jr.) lead an efficient offense, and the defense has crushed bad offenses (including a Troy offense that lost its starting QB early on).

Arkansas’ offense, however, is as explosive as ever, thanks to quarterback Taylen Green, running back Mike Washington Jr. and receiver O’Mega Blake. The Razorbacks could be a permanent track-meet team thanks to a shaky defense, but Arkansas is capable of regularly winning those track meets, too.

Current line: Arkansas -7.5 | SP+ projection: Memphis by 0.5 | FPI projection: Arkansas by 2.4

Tulane at No. 13 Ole Miss (3:30 p.m., ESPN)

It’s hard to figure out how good Tulane actually is. The Green Wave made runs of 27-0 against South Alabama and 24-3 against Duke but let both opponents back into the game. Jake Retzlaff is 11th in Total QBR, but the run game moves backward a lot. The defense is a turnover machine, but it’s inefficient otherwise. Against whichever Ole Miss QB holds the reins — the injured Austin Simmons or backup Trinidad Chambliss, who destroyed Arkansas — the Green Wave will need far more stops than they’ve been making. Ole Miss’ run defense has been damningly bad, but the Rebels probably have too much firepower for Tulane to snag a third power-conference victory.

Current line: Ole Miss -13.5 | SP+ projection: Ole Miss by 17.5 | FPI projection: Ole Miss by 13.8

UNLV at Miami (Ohio) (noon, ESPNU)

After a rough start against Idaho State in Week 0, Dan Mullen’s UNLV has begun to look the part, and SP+ gives the Rebels a 14% chance of getting to 11-1 or better. Anthony Colandrea is fifth among G5 quarterbacks in Total QBR, both RB Jai’Den Thomas and WR Jaden Bradley are on pace for 1,000-yard seasons, and the defense has at least stabilized a bit.

Miami was outscored 62-17 by Wisconsin and Rutgers, but the RedHawks gave up almost no big plays, and with explosive quarterback Dequan Finn and receivers Keith Reynolds and Kam Perry on offense, they could make UNLV’s long road trip awkward.

Current line: UNLV -2.5 | SP+ projection: UNLV by 8.4 | FPI projection: UNLV by 3.3

North Texas at Army (noon, CBSSN)

In two home games, quarterback Drew Mestemaker and North Texas have overachieved against SP+ projections by a combined 77.6 points. In their lone road game, the Mean Green nearly lost to No. 122 Western Michigan. They’ll need to play far better in West Point against an Army team that sure looked like Army again in Week 2’s upset of Kansas State. Quarterback Cale Hellums rushed for 124 yards and led five drives of double-digit plays in Manhattan, Kansas, and if Hellums remains steady moving forward, Army will be a giant pain for any AAC team with CFP aspirations. Like North Texas.

Current line: North Texas -2.5 (flipped from Army -2.5) | SP+ projection: Army by 2.2 | FPI projection: UNT by 0.2

Boise State at Air Force (7 p.m., CBSSN)

Boise State’s season-opening faceplant at USF, combined with an upcoming trip to Notre Dame, removed all margin for error. The Broncos will likely have to sweep Mountain West play to have any hope of a CFP bid. Of course, they’re projected favorites in every MWC game, and they still have massive talent with running back Sire Gaines, defensive tackle David Latu, edge rusher Jayden Virgin-Morgan and safety Ty Benefield.

Air Force has been a pain for BSU plenty of times, and the Falcons still dominate the ball. But the defense got torched by Utah State last week. Not an encouraging sign.

Current line: BSU -10.5 | SP+ projection: BSU by 10.6 | FPI projection: BSU by 11.2

Week 4 chaos superfecta

We’re once again using this space to will chaos into existence, looking at four carefully curated games with pretty big point spreads and mashing them together into a much more upset-friendly number. Our winning streak ended last week when Miami, Ole Miss (barely), Alabama and Auburn all won. But we’re still 2-for-3 on the young year, and now it’s time to move to 3-for-4!

Sticking with this week’s “Anatomy of a mid-major upset” theme, SP+ says there’s only a 38% chance that Washington (88% win probability against Washington State), Cal (80% against San Diego State), Colorado (75% against Wyoming) and BYU (72% against East Carolina) all win. Let’s take down a power-conference team!

Week 4 playlist

Here are some more games you should follow if you want to get the absolute most out of the weekend, from both information and entertainment perspectives.

Friday evening

Iowa at Rutgers (8 p.m., Fox). In theory, few matchups scream “ROCK FIGHT!!” like Iowa-Rutgers, but Rutgers is ninth in points per possession and 83rd in points allowed per possession. Iowa has little big-play potential, but the Hawkeyes have moved the ball well against mortal defenses. So, maybe this one isn’t destined to finish 7-6 or 5-3 or something.

Current line: Iowa -2.5 | SP+ projection: Rutgers by 0.2 | FPI projection: Rutgers by 1.6

Tulsa at Oklahoma State (7:30 p.m., ESPN). At the moment, this is the last game in which OSU is a projected favorite. Either the Cowboys use this as a spectacular get-right game after their 66-point humiliation at Oregon in Week 2 — or there’s (more) pain on the horizon in Stillwater.

Current line: OSU -12.5 | SP+ projection: OSU by 9.8 | FPI projection: OSU by 11.0

Early Saturday

SMU at TCU (noon, ESPN2). The Battle for the Iron Skillet! Few teams have underachieved against SP+ projections more than SMU through three games; maybe a rivalry game will wake up the Mustangs. If not, TCU’s big-play offense could have a lot of fun against an SMU defense that has given up loads of chunk plays.

Current line: TCU -6.5 | SP+ projection: TCU by 7.4 | FPI projection: TCU by 4.7

UAB at No. 15 Tennessee (12:45 p.m., SECN). Trent Dilfer’s third UAB team has been the same “solid offense, no defense” squad as his past two. If Tennessee is still reeling from last week’s heartbreaker against Georgia, the Blazers might land a punch or two, but not 60 minutes’ worth.

Current line: Vols -38.5 | SP+ projection: Vols by 37.0 | FPI projection: Vols by 36.4

Maryland at Wisconsin (noon, NBC). Per SP+, Wisconsin has only a 26% chance of reaching bowl eligibility this season, thanks to a schedule that already featured one top opponent and has five more to go. Lose to Maryland, and those odds fall to basically nil. At least it sounds like injured quarterback Billy Edwards Jr. — formerly a Terrapin — could be ready to go.

Current line: Wisconsin -9.5 (up from -7.5) | SP+ projection: Wisconsin by 0.4 | FPI projection: Wisconsin by 5.1

Saturday afternoon

No. 21 Michigan at Nebraska (3:30 p.m., CBS). Two years ago, Nebraska was on the wrong end of a 45-7 blowout loss to Michigan at home. Now, on paper, the Huskers have basically a 50-50 shot at taking down the Wolverines and scoring their biggest win since, what, 2015 (39-38 over No. 7 Michigan State)?

Current line: Michigan -1.5 | SP+ projection: Nebraska by 1.1 | FPI projection: Nebraska by 0.1

Purdue at No. 24 Notre Dame (3:30 p.m., NBC). Well, Notre Dame, it’s time to start scoring some style points. After losses to Miami and Texas A&M, the Irish will have to win out to have serious hope of a CFP shot, and they might have only one more genuine marquee win opportunity — USC in Week 8, and that’s only if the Trojans maintain their current form. So, it’s time to wreck some opponents. (Purdue might have something to say about that. Especially if the Irish defense doesn’t start defending.)

Current line: ND -26.5 | SP+ projection: ND by 20.4 | FPI projection: ND by 20.3

NC State at Duke (4 p.m., ESPN2). Duke has allowed 18 gains of 20-plus yards (tied for 122nd nationally). NC State has given up eight of 30-plus (tied for 114th). With State’s Hollywood Smothers and Wesley Grimes and Duke’s Nate Sheppard and Cooper Barkate, this could be a great game to be an explosive skill corps guy.

Current line: Duke -3.5 | SP+ projection: NC State by 1.2 | FPI projection: NC State by 0.1

North Carolina at UCF (3:30 p.m., Fox). I have no idea about either of these teams. Bill Belichick’s UNC has collected itself since its embarrassing Week 1 loss to TCU, and UCF has been good enough in Scott Frost’s first two games back in town. But anything from a 35-point UNC win to a 35-point UCF win wouldn’t surprise me.

Current line: UCF -7.5 | SP+ projection: UCF by 7.0 | FPI projection: UCF by 11.2

Temple at No. 18 Georgia Tech (4:30 p.m., The CW). Temple can make some big plays and could make things messy if Georgia Tech lets its guard down after last week’s big win over Clemson. The Yellow Jackets haven’t given us any reason to think that’s possible, though. (By the way, they’re projected favorites in their next eight games.)

Current line: Tech -23.5 | SP+ projection: Tech by 21.6 | FPI projection: Tech by 18.9

Oregon State at No. 6 Oregon (3 p.m., BTN). Three weeks into the season, Oregon has risen from seventh to second in SP+ while OSU has fallen from 75th to 107th. We will need to conjure a lot of Weird Rivalry Magic to make this one interesting.

Current line: Oregon -34.5 | SP+ projection: Oregon by 40.1 | FPI projection: Oregon by 36.3

Saturday evening

Arizona State at Baylor (7:30 p.m., Fox). Arizona State finally checked into the 2025 season, putting away a spirited Texas State team with relative ease last week. Now, the close-game festival that is Big 12 Play begins against a Baylor team that might have transformed its season with Week 2’s wild comeback win over SMU.

Current line: Baylor -2.5 | SP+ projection: Baylor by 3.8 | FPI projection: Baylor by 0.8

West Virginia at Kansas (6 p.m., FS1). Kansas got a week to recover after a blown lead and a rivalry loss to Missouri; WVU is riding the crest of a big comeback and a rivalry win over Pitt. Who’s ready to move past the emotion and start the rest of their season? I’m pretty sure Kansas is still good, and WVU’s offense might have finally begun its season late against Pitt.

Current line: Kansas -13.5 | SP+ projection: Kansas by 7.1 | FPI projection: Kansas by 9.7

BYU at East Carolina (7:30 p.m., ESPN2). ECU has overachieved against SP+ projections by nearly three touchdowns per game. The Pirates could be good. And they get to give BYU’s freshman quarterback Bear Bachmeier his first big road test. But the Pirates will have to score on BYU’s defense, which is first in points per drive and yards per play.

Current line: BYU -6.5 | SP+ projection: BYU by 9.5 | FPI projection: BYU by 6.0

Washington at Washington State (7:30 p.m., CBS). Washington State was impressive in its 36-13 runaway win over San Diego State in Week 2. Then, the Cougs went to North Texas and got absolutely blasted 59-10. Week 2 Wazzu and a torrid Martin Stadium would make this awfully tricky for Washington. Week 3 Wazzu … would not.

Current line: UW -20.5 | SP+ projection: UW by 18.6 | FPI projection: UW by 21.0

Southern Miss at Louisiana Tech (7:30 p.m., ESPN+). From 2021 through 2024, each of these proud old mid-major programs went 14-35 with an SP+ ranking of about 112.5. Now, both are 2-1 with at least a 60% chance of bowl eligibility. Can Southern Miss quarterback Braylon Braxton engineer enough points on a Tech defense allowing 12.3 points per game?

Current line: Tech -3.5 | SP+ projection: Tech by 7.8 | FPI projection: Tech by 3.7

Late Saturday

Michigan State at No. 25 USC (11 p.m., Fox). A kickoff at 11 p.m. ET for a team based in Eastern Time? Cool. Makes perfect sense. Anyway, USC is averaging 55 points per game and 9.6 yards per play, and Michigan State has topped 40 points for two straight games. I don’t think the Spartans have the defense to make this a game for 60 minutes, but this could have Pac-12 After Dark vibes for a while.

Current line: USC -17.5 (up from -14.5) | SP+ projection: USC by 17.7 | FPI projection: USC by 24.2

California at San Diego State (10:30 p.m., CBSSN). Quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele and Cal are 3-0 and projected favorites in the next six games. But they’re 94th in third-down conversion rate, and SDSU’s defense ranks seventh. If the Aztecs can score a bit (not a given), they could make this one tricky.

Current line: Cal -12.5 | SP+ projection: Cal by 13.2 | FPI projection: Cal by 10.9

Smaller-school showcase

Let’s once again save a shout-out for the glorious lower levels of the sport. Here are three games you should track.

Division III: No. 16 Wisconsin-Whitewater at No. 6 Mary Hardin-Baylor (noon, local streaming). These programs lorded over Division III for nearly 15 years before getting surpassed by North Central. Both are still talented and dangerous, and they’re meeting for the seventh straight season (not including 2020). UWW has produced a 200-yard rusher in each of its first two games, but a third straight, against the Crusaders’ defense, would be a surprise.

SP+ projection: Whitewater by 1.2

Division III: No. 3 Johns Hopkins at No. 4 Susquehanna (1 p.m., FloFootball). The second D-III game on the list is even bigger: JHU backed up its top-five standing with a 27-13 win over No. 20 John Carroll last week and boasts the second-best defense in D-III, per SP+. Susquehanna, meanwhile, ranks fifth on offense. It might be North Central vs. The Field in D-III, but either of these teams could make a deep playoff run.

SP+ projection: Susquehanna by 0.3

FCS: No. 23 New Hampshire at Dartmouth (1 p.m., ESPN+). An incredibly interesting Ivy League season finally opens Saturday: The league champ will participate in the FCS playoffs for the first time, and at first glance, it looks like we have a three-team race among Harvard, Yale and a Dartmouth team that gets an immediate shot at a résumé win of sorts. UNH nearly beat Ball State last week — it was actually a bit of an upset that the Wildcats didn’t — and boasts one of the stingier defenses the Big Green attack will see all season.

SP+ projection: Dartmouth by 1.7

(One game you shouldn’t track? Rio Grande at Ferris State. That’s the second-worst team in NAIA, per SP+ — pronounced “Ry-Oh Grand” and located in the same Ohio town as the first Bob Evans restaurant — facing the class of Division II. SP+ projects Ferris State as a tidy 97.2-point favorite. The final score will be whatever the Bulldogs want it to be. If morbid curiosity gets the best of you, it kicks off at 3 p.m. on FloFootball.)

Continue Reading

Trending