CFB’s age of disruptors is here with Deion Sanders, Lane Kiffin and Curt Cignetti
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
There was a time, not all that long ago, when watching your favorite show meant planting yourself on your couch at some predetermined time; when hitching a ride with a complete stranger driving a 1993 Honda Civic with an industrial-strength air freshener hanging where the rearview mirror used to be would’ve seemed dangerous; when paying $36 for a guy to bring you a beef-and-cheese burrito and a 48-ounce Mountain Dew Baja Blast was little more than some madman’s fever dream.
But thankfully, times have changed. Brave geniuses have disrupted the marketplace, leveled sacred institutions, upended our expectations of what our lives can be.
And so it is that the age of the disruptors has come for college football, too.
There’s Lane Kiffin, who has been thumbing his nose at the powers-that-be, ruffling feathers and breaking the system since a time when we didn’t call people like him “disruptors.” Kiffin has forced his way into the most sacred corridors of power over the years, but he has done it as much through trolling coaches on social media as he has by actually beating them. But Saturday, Kiffin’s Ole Miss team killed one of the last true giants of the old guard, delivering a withering defensive performance that bruised, battered and confounded Georgia in a 28-10 Rebels win.
There’s Deion Sanders, so often viewed as a sideshow to the staid old guard who believed, like fools, that you had to leave your office to recruit and needed five functional offensive linemen to run an offense. Coach Prime has taken the hollowed-out husk of a program and, in less than two seasons, built Colorado into a legitimate playoff contender, one that held off Texas Tech 41-27 on Saturday to assume a commanding position in the crowded Big 12.
There’s Curt Cignetti, overlooked for years as little more than an FCS coach who has won a few games, a cute story hardly worthy of manning the Big Ten sidelines traversed by legends like Tim Beckman, Chris Ash or Darrell Hazell. In Week 11, Cignetti’s Indiana moved to 10-0, thwarting defending champion Michigan 20-15.
Kiffin, Prime, Cignetti — they’re not supposed to be here. For two decades, from Urban Meyer to Nick Saban to Kirby Smart, the blueprint for success at this level was clear. Coaches who won did it the old-fashioned way, ruling with an iron fist, refusing to give an inch in the quest for greatness, tormenting Jimbo Fisher for laughs. Even the few divergences from that blueprint at least had the roots of their DNA in a classical approach to team building, be it Dabo Swinney’s rah-rah optimism or Jim Harbaugh’s investment in a squirrelly underling wearing a fake mustache to steal signals.
But these guys are showing us a new path forward.
Kiffin has invested in the transfer portal like a tech bro buying crypto, stocking a once talent-bereft roster of upstarts with enough stars that Saturday’s win over Georgia barely registers as an upset. Ole Miss has been as explosive as anyone in college football this year, save a loss to Kentucky that we’re now fairly certain was just something we dreamed after eating some expired ham. Should we be surprised that Jaxson Dart out-dueled a flailing Carson Beck, who has been handing out interceptions like Oprah giving away cars? Is it a shock that the Ole Miss defense contained Georgia’s top skill players like Cash Jones, Dillon Bell and Lawson Luckie? Georgia’s depth chart reads like the cast of a teen drama. Meanwhile, Kiffin’s running wildcat with his 325-pound defensive lineman just because he can.
Kiffin’s disruptive impact on Ole Miss has been so profound that the Rebels’ students have even changed the game for goal-post removal.
They got both of them https://t.co/JmMxUkGqIM
— Oxford Police Dept (@OxfordPolice) November 10, 2024
If Kiffin is the OG of disruptors, however, Coach Prime is running the game today.
When he arrived in Boulder, the premise looked simple: Sanders would coach his two boys, be the center of attention at all turns, and if he won a few games, all the better. When Oregon‘s Dan Lanning lambasted Colorado as a team playing for clicks rather than wins last year, it felt like an appropriate measure of Prime’s priorities. And yet, here are the Buffs at 7-2, a mercenary group of transfers who other coaches dismissed as chasing NIL but who’ve emerged as arguably the hottest team in the country.
Shedeur Sanders threw for 291 yards and three touchdowns in the win over Texas Tech Red Raiders, while Travis Hunter caught nine balls for 99 yards and a touchdown, all with his pants loaded down by tortillas.
Travis Hunter just picked up a Tortilla on the field and put it in his pants 😅
Only in Lubbock 🤣 pic.twitter.com/fBTPLr53HK
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 9, 2024
Never mind that Colorado has little interest in running the football. Put Coach Prime, his son and Hunter on a field, spread the ball around to a deep cast of receivers and offer to repost a clip of the officiating crew’s side project as a barbershop quartet in exchange for a few soft calls, and the recipe comes out perfectly. And speaking of perfect recipes, try grilling a nice carne asada and pairing it with pickled onions and some fresh tortillas from Hunter’s pants.
And perhaps no one has done the impossible better than Cignetti. From 2021 through 2023, Michigan was 26-1 in Big Ten play. In that same time frame, Indiana was 3-24 against Big Ten competition.
But because Cignetti cares not about precedent, the Hoosiers were a 14.5-point favorite Saturday, and while they didn’t cover, they did walk away with a 10-0 record, the first 10-win season in school history. Kurtis Rourke threw for 206 yards and two touchdowns and the defense held Michigan to just 206 yards, the defense had eight pass breakups and the Hoosiers made Michigan look utterly lost (which, to be fair, is not uncommon for Michigan this year).
Indiana is now in position to reach the Big Ten title game and, likely a playoff bid, despite finishing 3-9 last year, starting a QB who transferred from the MAC and a head coach who brought a handful of starters from a Sun Belt team, which begs the question of why Big Ten football looks so hard for Lincoln Riley.
It’s true, of course, that delivery apps rarely turn a profit, and the biggest disruptors are also often megalomaniacs who are more style than substance, so perhaps it’s still a bit early to laud the conquests of college football’s new money.
But that’s the real takeaway from these disruptors — in Week 11, in 2024. Things we didn’t dream of just a few months ago — a 10-0 Indiana, a playoff-bound Colorado, an Ole Miss team capable of delivering a potentially fatal dagger to Georgia — aren’t just possible. They’re reality.
Who knows what comes next? The fate of a college football season, which for so much of the past two decades felt entirely predictable, now has myriad loose threads, dozens of potential realities, countless options for us to see something genuinely new and innovative and different.
Jump to:
Down goes Miami | Who controls the SEC?
Ewers hunts Gators | Oregon handles business
Gamecocks roll | Another FSU loss | Vibe shifts
Impressive turnarounds | Heisman five | Under the radar
In a rematch of last year’s miserable loss to Georgia Tech, the clock finally ran out on Miami’s undefeated season. The Canes fumbled their way through the first three quarters, and the ultimate 28-23 defeat must’ve felt like taking a knee to the gut.
Kneel to your King 👑 🐝 #StingEm pic.twitter.com/aVGsXqAUJz
— Georgia Tech (@GeorgiaTech) November 9, 2024
It’s the second year in a row Georgia Tech has delivered a dagger to Miami, and again, this year’s game turned on a late fumble when the Canes were simply trying to do too much. In this case, Cam Ward engineered one of his patented scrambles, hoping for something to open downfield, only to be caught from behind by Jordan van den Berg, coughing up the football down five with just 1:32 to play. Haynes King then converted a late third down, allowing Georgia Tech to kneel out the clock. Miami’s Mario Cristobal, certain that must be against the rules, challenged the play, but the officials assured him it is perfectly acceptable to take a knee to ensure a win.
Georgia Tech fans then stormed the field and tore down both goalposts, ultimately dumping them into the water, which is different from how this many engineers typically celebrate a big victory — with nachos at Dave & Busters before getting back to the office to code for a while.
#GaTech‘s goal posts have found their resting place.
So did Miami’s hopes of going undefeated pic.twitter.com/fJoOBzvDTA
— The Crowded Booth (@thecrowdedbooth) November 9, 2024
Miami had made a habit of falling behind big this season, but because Ward is a Jedi and the ACC review center is still using a 17-inch Zenith with a bunny ear antenna, the Canes were consistently able to escape trouble and emerge with a win. That luck ran out against the Yellow Jackets, who ran for 271 yards although their top three running backs were out with injuries and chewed up enough clock to keep Ward sidelined for long stretches. The maligned Miami D simply couldn’t get off the field — the Jackets were 9-of-14 on third down — and Ward and the offense couldn’t stay on the field (1-of-4 on fourth-down tries).
Georgia Tech, on the other hand, has made a habit of spoiling seasons for good teams. Since Brent Key became head coach before Week 5 in 2022, he’s 6-5 against AP-ranked foes, the most such wins by any ACC coach in that span (and more than all but nine coaches nationally), all while Georgia Tech was unranked.
By Saturday’s end, the SEC had 11 teams bowl eligible and eight with two or fewer conference losses, making for a massive jumble in the standings and a tight race — both for a trip to the title game and a path to the playoff.
Alabama stated its case in emphatic form, marching past LSU 42-13 behind four touchdown runs (and 185 rushing yards) from Jalen Milroe.
Seeing Brian Kelly, stoic and scowling, staring off into the middle distance amid the driving rain, it looked like a scene from a music video for some overly earnest ’90s Emo band. Kelly has always been the Morrissey of college football, but things are looking particularly bleak for the Bayou Bengals after back-to-back losses.
In fairness, this should’ve been expected once LSU opted to bring in an imposter tiger for Saturday’s game.
Frankly, this is a slap in the face to Mike the Tiger. It’s like when they changed Aunt Viv midway through “Fresh Prince” as if we’d just not notice it’s a completely different actor.
Meanwhile, Tennessee remains in control of its SEC destiny after cruising past Mississippi State. The Bulldogs threw for just 92 yards and tossed a pick in the loss, while Dylan Sampson continued his dominance for the Vols, rushing for 149 yards and a score.
The wild card in the SEC might be Missouri, which erased a late deficit then corralled a scoop-and-score in the final seconds Saturday to upend Oklahoma, 30-23. At halftime, the game’s leading passer was Sooners punter Luke Elzinga, but the two teams found their stride after the break, with Drew Pyne throwing three touchdowns in the win.
4 TDs in the final 200 seconds is a hell of a drug. 🤪 pic.twitter.com/lU6BNRWjMM
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) November 10, 2024
Missouri is now 4-0 in one-possession games this season, including an overtime win against Vanderbilt, a four-point win against Auburn on a touchdown with 46 seconds to play, and Saturday’s fumble recovery with 22 seconds to go.
Ewers hunts Gators
Texas QB Quinn Ewers put on a clinic in a 49-17 win over Florida on Saturday, throwing for 333 yards and five touchdowns and giving the crowd what it really wanted — a fourth quarter featuring Arch Manning.
Ewers had his best game of the season, averaging better than 12 yards per throw, while the Horns’ ground game rumbled for 210 yards and nearly 7 per touch.
For the Gators, it was a dismal performance that comes just days after head coach Billy Napier was given assurances he’d return in 2025, forcing AD Scott Stricklin to amend his previous support by adding, “Wait, no, you didn’t let us finish. What we were trying to say was Billy will be returning … his office keys, company car and that copy of Tom Petty’s ‘Greatest Hits’ I loaned him,” and indeed the job search begins shortly.
Ducks continue march to Big Ten title game
Since slumbering through the first two weeks of the season, Oregon has since become an unrelenting machine tasked only with delivering misery.
On Saturday, the Ducks demolished Maryland 39-18, as Dillon Gabriel threw three touchdowns and the D scored three takeaways in the win. Oregon is now 7-0 in Big Ten play, putting the Ducks one-quarter of the way to Maryland’s total Big Ten wins since joining the conference in 2014.
Oregon’s remaining schedule includes a trip to Wisconsin and a home game with former Pac-12 rival Washington. Neither figure to be much of an obstacle between the Ducks and their long, angry march toward a conference title. The bigger question may be whether it will be Indiana as the last team standing in their way or if Ohio State will get a rematch after losing by a point last month in Eugene.
Gamecocks roll again
Every guy has that one buddy who exists simply as an agent of chaos. He probably stole a police car in college, brought fireworks to your kid’s baptism and once referred to a hand grenade as “fishing gear.” He is the initiating force between five of your funniest stories and a dozen of your saddest.
In college football, this role is now being played by Shane Beamer.
South Carolina has no certifiable identity in 2024 beyond simply wrecking things. Each week, Beamer’s team is like letting a group of beavers loose in a Hobby Lobby. You have no idea what will happen, but it’s bound to be interesting. One week the Gamecocks are getting trounced by Ole Miss. The next, they’re taking Alabama to the wire. The next, they’re upending a top-10 Texas A&M. And on Saturday, they went to Nashville, became the first program in college football to make Diego Pavia sad, and walked away with a 28-7 win over Vanderbilt.
Is LaNorris Sellers a good quarterback? Who cares? Pass rushers bounce off him like he’s wearing one of those inflatable sumo wrestler suits. So what if the Gamecocks have only one real playmaker at the skill positions. “Rocket” Sanders racked up 178 yards and three touchdowns against Vandy, and if you said he also recorded a country version of “Sandstorm” afterward to celebrate the win, that’d be entirely believable. And the Gamecocks’ defense is so ridiculously frustrating, Hugh Freeze sent it a “thank you” note for trying to convince Pavia not to come back to college football for another year.
South Carolina is bowl eligible now, which surely means some poor team is going to lose the ReliaQuest Bowl after coughing up four safeties and a 98-yard touchdown run by Sellers in which he steamrolls all 11 defenders and two hot-dog vendors en route to the end zone.
South Carolina makes no sense, is palpably dangerous, and is willing to buy Jager shots for everyone who shows up to its Week 14 showdown with Clemson. It’s a thing of beauty.
Notre Dame walloped Florida State 52-3 on Saturday in a game in which the broadcast crew repeatedly used the phrase, “Stop, stop, they’re already dead.”
The Irish threw for 252 yards, ran for 201 yards and sacked FSU quarterbacks eight times. Unfortunately for FSU, those quarterbacks continued to get up and keep playing.
The Seminoles have now gone 12 straight games without topping 21 points, the longest streak by a Power 5 or BCS-conference team in at least 20 years.
Notre Dame is 4-0 against the ACC this year, with a home game against Virginia remaining on the docket. The Irish are now 40-5 against the ACC since the 2017 season. Notre Dame is also well positioned with three games left to make the College Football Playoff, while Florida State remains well positioned to be relegated to whatever conference Bishop Sycamore is in now.
Week 11 vibe check
Each week, big upsets and shocking results reshuffle the top 25, but there are more subtle changes in the college football landscape that we track here.
Trending down: Cyclones’ Big 12 title hopes
Two weeks ago, Iowa State was undefeated and lingering around the top 10. Now, the Cyclones’ Big 12 hopes are on life support, their spot in the top 25 is likely doomed and they’ve slipped into Texas’ old role as the Big 12 favorite who just lost to a bad Kansas team. Somewhere, Charlie Strong is nodding approvingly.
Kansas earned win No. 3 on the season with a 45-36 win over the Cyclones in Week 11 behind 116 yards and two touchdowns by Devin Neal. Kansas led 38-13 late in the third quarter, but Rocco Becht led a furious comeback attempt, finishing with 383 passing yards and three touchdowns, although it was too little, too late.
The Jayhawks, who opened the season in the top 25, started the year 1-5, with four losses by six points or less, but they’ve now won two of three — a two-point loss to Kansas State in between — and get a crack at the top two teams in the conference (BYU in Week 12, Colorado in Week 13) with a chance to be the ultimate spoiler.
Trending down: Multiple drives in a quarter
Army got QB Bryson Daily back from injury for Week 11, and the offense responded by delivering the most undeniably perfect drive of the season.
Up 7-3 midway through the third quarter over North Texas, Army drove 94 yards on 21 plays — 12 of which went for 4 yards or less — that lasted an astonishing 13 minutes, 54 seconds. Including a time out and a penalty, enough time passed before the Knights cashed in the drive for a touchdown that the players on the field for the entirety of the drive actually fulfilled their active duty requirements, and Daily was promoted to master sergeant after converting a third-and-3 early in the fourth quarter.
Baily finished with 36 carries for 153 yards and two touchdowns in the win. For the game, Army held the ball for 41:45, and most of North Texas’ offense left early to grab some BBQ.
Trending down: Gundy apologies
Last week, Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy apologized for calling fans “weak” amid criticism of a winless season in Big 12 play.
This follows a rich history of Gundy apologies that followed lambasting a reporter when he was 40, wearing a Newsmax t-shirt that angered his star tailback and, of course, that time he tried to hunt wild boar inside a Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Unfortunately, scuttling that controversy with a sincerely worded apology inspired by a fortune cookie he had once read wasn’t enough to turn the Pokes’ fortunes on the field. TCU stormed Oklahoma State 38-13, dropping the Cowboys to 0-7 in Big 12 play.
Trending up: Penn State playing mediocre teams
In a game no Penn State fans cared about after last week’s loss to Ohio State, the Nittany Lions ran for 266 yards and four touchdowns in a 35-6 stomping of Washington.
Drew Allar threw for 220 yards and a score, and the Penn State D held the Huskies to just 193 total yards — none of which does anything to change what happened against Ohio State.
Afterward, James Franklin perfected teleportation, saved several kittens stuck in a tree, and convinced the surviving members of Nirvana to go on tour with Taylor Swift on lead vocals, to which Penn State fans eagerly pointed out that he’d lost to Ohio State again this year.
Trending up: Touchdown records
Jeremiah Smith caught six balls for 87 yards in Ohio State’s 45-0 win over Purdue, including a 17-yard touchdown that set the Buckeyes’ TD record for freshmen, topping Cris Carter (and all he did, according to Buddy Ryan, was catch touchdowns).
Record reception 🙌
Jeremiah Smith’s 9️⃣th TD grab of the season breaks a tie with Cris Carter for the most by an @OhioStateFB true freshman.#B1GFootball on @CFBONFOX 📺 pic.twitter.com/s6UDp0l3oS
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) November 9, 2024
The Buckeyes were dominant, throwing for 260 yards, rushing for 173, holding Purdue to 206 total yards and nabbing two takeaways. Will Howard threw for 260 yards and three touchdowns and ran for a fourth in the win.
The Boilermakers fall to 1-8 and 0-6 in Big Ten play, and it’s the fourth time this season they’ve lost by at least 35 points. In the playoff era, the only other teams with four 35-point losses in their first nine games of the year are 2019 Rutgers and three different Kansas teams (2015, 2016, 2020). The last time a team lost five games in a season by at least 35 points was 2022 Colorado, so the lesson here is clear. All Purdue needs to do is hire Deion Sanders, turn over two-thirds of its roster, sign Travis Hunter and — boom — the Boilers will be above average by 2026.
Trending down: Running the ball
Cal QB Fernando Mendoza completed 30 passes in Saturday’s win against Wake Forest — in the first half! That’s more than 95 different teams have completed in a full game this year. Mendoza finished 40-of-56 for 385 yards and two touchdowns in the 46-36 Bears win, taking advantage of the fact that Wake Forest’s pass defense is actually just two scarecrows in the end zone and a sternly worded email insisting the other team stop throwing so much.
Trending up: Maalik Magic
Duke is now 7-3 after knocking off NC State 29-19 on Saturday behind 245 passing yards and three total touchdowns from QB Maalik Murphy.
The Blue Devils won despite mustering just 31 yards on the ground thanks in large part to another dominant defensive performance by Manny Diaz’s crew. Duke held the Wolfpack to just 268 yards of offense, forced two turnovers, recorded a safety and stifled NC State in the red zone, where six drives inside Duke’s 20 resulted in a touchdown, four field goals and a missed kick.
After the game, Duke students celebrated by learning for the first time that football season was still happening even though Cooper Flagg had already started playing.
Don’t look now, but …
Just because a team ends September riding an ugly losing streak with a highlight tape scored to “Yakety Sax” doesn’t mean it’s incapable of finishing on a high note (unless that team is Florida State). Indeed, a number of schools we wrote off after a rough start have engineered impressive turnarounds as we head into the season’s final stretch.
After a 1-5 start to the season in which the Bruins failed to crack 17 points in any game, DeShaun Foster’s crew embraced its new Big Ten identity and learned how to win without an actual offense. On Friday, UCLA pulled out Brian Ferentz’s old playbook to upend Iowa 20-17 in a game that included six turnovers, a 57-yard field goal and a season-low rushing tally from Kaleb Johnson (49 yards on 18 carries). After winning 19 games while scoring 20 or less in the four-team playoff era, Iowa is now 0-4 when failing to crack 20 this year. The Hawkeyes are like when Eddie Murphy decided in the mid-’80s he was going to be a singer, too, and started doing videos with Rick James and hasn’t been nearly as funny since. Never forget what got you to the top, Iowa.
UCLA, meanwhile, has now won three straight, all against Big Ten teams that entered their matchup with a winning record. It’s the first time in at least 20 years that a team with a losing record before each contest beat three straight Power 5 opponents with a winning record.
Perhaps no coaching job has been less appreciated than what Bronco Mendenhall has managed with the Lobos. Mendenhall had to completely rebuild a roster that added 43 new scholarship players — including 17 after spring ball — and lost its first four games of the year, including the opener to FCS Montana State. But New Mexico has turned a corner and has now won four of six after upending San Diego State 21-16 on Friday night behind 173 yards and two touchdowns from Eli Sanders. The Lobos are still likely a long shot for a bowl bid, but for a program that hasn’t won more than four games in a year since 2016, anything that doesn’t involve the quarterback playing with his hand stuck in a Pringles can feels like a massive step forward.
Rich Rodriguez’s crew opened the year 0-3 but has reeled off six straight victories, including a rollicking 44-37 overtime win against Louisiana Tech on Saturday.
Tre Stewart ran for 166 yards and two touchdowns, Cam Vaughn caught seven passes for 130 yards and two scores, and the Gamecocks moved to 5-0 in Conference USA.
Rodriguez is now 15-6 since JSU moved up to FBS, including an 11-2 mark in conference play. Meanwhile, Michigan just texted him with a “Hey, U Up?” note and is willing to suggest maybe it was as much to blame for their breakup as Rich Rod was.
Last year’s MAC champions opened the year 1-4, with their lone win coming against lowly UMass by 3. But the RedHawks figured things out, and they’ve now won four straight, including a 27-21 victory over Ball State on Tuesday. Miami is again tied atop the MAC (4-1 in conference play), which is enough to warrant overlooking the slow start and the fact that its mascot is using an umbrella and a poncho to avoid getting wet.
— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) November 6, 2024
In fairness, the strange old man who sold Miami the RedHawk costume did warn them not to get it wet or feed it after midnight. Western Kentucky ignored that advice, and now snipers with tranquilizer guns have to monitor Big Red at all times.
Heisman five
It’s largely a four-man race, though Jaxson Dart, Jalen Milroe and Quinn Ewers may be making a late run at things. Still, not much changed in Week 11 in our rankings.
1. Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty
In the past two weeks, Jeanty was held to just 91 yards on 30 carries without a touchdown in the first halves of games, thanks in large part to defenses putting 26 defenders in the box. This week, Jeanty found his groove again, rushing for 93 yards and a touchdown on Boise State’s first two drives. Jeanty finished with 34 carries for 209 yards and three scores. It was his fourth 200-yard rushing performance of the season and his fifth three-touchdown game. Jeanty needs just 266 yards on the ground the rest of the season to crack 2,000 on the year. Assuming Boise State plays for a Mountain West championship and a bowl or playoff game, he would need to average 179 yards per game the rest of the way to top Barry Sanders’ single-season record.
2. Colorado WR/CB Travis Hunter
Hunter caught nine balls for 99 yards, including a nifty touchdown run on a wide receiver screen, while also helping stifle the Texas Tech pass game and running a small Mexican restaurant in his pants. Next week, he’ll be aiming to top 100 receiving yards and while making a nice paella in his helmet.
The Canes’ defense finally cost Miami a game, as Georgia Tech dominated the clock and ran for 271 yards. Still, Miami had a chance to win, but for once, Ward’s magic wore off, and he fumbled deep in his own territory, allowing the Yellow Jackets to secure the game. Still, Ward was solid, throwing for 348 yards and three touchdowns, but as many QBs before him have noted, there is no amount of magic that can overcome Miami doing Miami things.
4. Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel
Gabriel only averaged 5.3 yards-per-pass and yet he still threw for three TDs in a blowout win. Gabriel is clearly positioned well to make a run at the Heisman, but the Big Ten doesn’t seem to be offering him enough of a challenge to really pad out the stats. He should be able to go play a few series for Oklahoma again after he finishes his games, just to make it a bit more fair.
5. Indiana QB Kurtis Rourke
Rourke threw two TD passes in Saturday’s win over Michigan, and through 11 weeks, he’s second in the country in Total QBR (88.6), fourth in completion percentage (71.8%) and he’s one of just two QBs (along with Dart) averaging a first down per throw. He’s also asserted himself as the most successful QB in Indiana program history, passing the previous title holder, a coat rack with a Hoosiers jersey hanging on it.
Under-the-radar play of the week
Prior to Saturday, Cade Klubnik‘s elusiveness had been limited to coming up with increasingly lame excuses for why he couldn’t make it to Dabo Swinney’s weekly “Grey’s Anatomy” watch parties. But against Virginia Tech, Klubnik took it to the next level.
0:29
‘What a time to be alive!’ Clemson’s Cade Klubnik works magic for a TD pass
Cade Klubnik makes an impressive 41-yard touchdown pass to T.J. Moore as Clemson takes the lead over Virginia Tech in the third quarter.
Klubnik finished the game with 241 total yards and three touchdowns as Clemson upended Virginia Tech 24-14, but unless he can convince Swinney that he’s the lead in his theater troupe’s reimagining of “Cats” that night, he’s on the hook to bring a casserole for this week’s episode and should refer to his coach as “Swinney McDreamy” throughout the evening.
Under-the-radar game of the week
Marcus Yarns ran for 174 yards and a touchdown, and FCS Delaware upended Rhode Island 24-21.
Why does this game matter so much? Rhode Island is the country’s smallest state. Delaware is the second smallest. It’s basically like watching Spud Webb and Muggsy Bogues play a game of one-on-one.
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David Hale
SOMEWHERE IN THE bustling metropolis of St. Louis, a mother and father watch in awe as their young son shows signs of … superpowers!
Here is Jeremiyah Love, age 4, scaling walls and swinging from the rooftops.
Here he is, an eighth grader, leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
Then a teenager in full command of his powers, torpedoing around enemies and through brick walls.
Yet, all around him, dark forces gather.
If his life were a comic book, like the project he has spent the past four years creating with his father, Jason, and a team of artists, this would be Jeremiyah’s origin story, one not all too far from reality for Notre Dame‘s star running back. He swung from moldings on the 10-foot ceilings above his living room as a toddler, developed into an all-sport star who could dunk a basketball in eighth grade and became one of the nation’s top recruits by his junior year on the football field at Christian Brothers College High School.
As the story goes, Love entered the opening game of the season against powerhouse East St. Louis still bothered by nagging injuries from the track season, and his coach, Scott Pingel, had no plans to let him play. But the starter and the backup went down, so in Love went, and on his first touch, he ran a counter to the right side and sprinted 80 yards to the end zone.
“He made everyone else on the field look stupid,” Pingel said. “He’s making big-time D-I recruits look silly. That’s when everything really took off for Jeremiyah.”
But no origin story is complete without conflict, and if Love’s legend was burnished on the football field, he hardly fit the image of the all-powerful superhero away from it. He was isolated and introverted. When he felt uncomfortable, he retreated into those superhero stories — comics, graphic novels and, especially, anime. The worlds of heroes and villains and adventure made sense in a way his real life often didn’t.
“People thought that I was weird,” Love said. “I didn’t really have friends. I didn’t like to talk to people. I liked to play by myself. I just preferred it this way.”
For a while, those urges to isolate himself seemed like the villain in Love’s story, the thing that set him apart, the battle he had to fight. What he has come to understand as his legend has grown at Notre Dame and as he has grappled with how to tell his story on the pages of his own comic, is that those things that made him different were actually the source of his strength.
“That’s the whole point of the comic, of the message we’re trying to put out,” Jason Love said. “Sometimes kids like Jeremiyah are labeled, but he reverses all those things — all the doubters and cynics. That’s his superpower.”
JEREMIYAH WAS 6 when he played his first football game in a county rec pee wee league. He took a handoff, cut and ran for 80 yards. He was a natural.
He ran track, too, and he was always the fastest kid on the squad.
It was basketball that Jeremiyah loved most, though, and on the court, he stunk.
“He lacked the coordination and rhythm,” Jason said.
So at 7 years old, determined to get better, he told his father he wanted to work with a trainer.
As a young boy, Jeremiyah was “a little daredevil,” Jason said. Jeremiyah was curious and intelligent, but in school, he was a bundle of energy, frustrating teachers as he struggled to follow lessons. Jason spent hours trying to force his son to sit still. They’d perch on chairs at the dining room table, and Jeremiyah would have to sit with his hands clasped without moving for 10 seconds. If he got agitated, they’d start again. It was a daily struggle.
“We wrestled with Jeremiyah being different for a long time,” Jason said. “It was a constant battle of redirection and refocusing and trying to see what works to make things more manageable for him.”
Jeremiyah has never been officially diagnosed, but Jason said he often displayed signs of ADHD or obsessive-compulsive disorders, and as Jeremiyah got older, the battles became more intense. If Jeremiyah misbehaved, Jason, an Army veteran, tried to discipline his son by putting him into “muscle failure positions,” like holding a pushup as long as possible, Jason said.
“He’s so bull-headed, he’d do it for 20, 25 minutes,” Jason said.
Eventually, Jeremiyah’s arms would quiver and sweat would drip from his forehead and, knowing his son wouldn’t submit, Jason would relent.
Then, something clicked for Jeremiyah’s parents. Their son didn’t see these acts as punishment. He saw them as a challenge, and Jeremiyah relished the challenge.
It was the same as his struggles with basketball. Jeremiyah could’ve stuck to football and track, but he embraced basketball because it was hard. He worked with a trainer, he got better and, by eighth grade, he was dunking.
Once Jason and Jeremiyah’s mother, L’Tyona, understood their son’s triggers and motivations, there was a blueprint for how to manage his energy. In a challenge, Jeremiyah found focus, and with focus, he found success.
“If you challenge his competitive nature, he turns into a different creature,” Jason said. “He wants to dominate.”
JASON REMEMBERS SITTING in his kitchen one afternoon and hearing a voice from another room speaking Japanese.
Who was in the house?
He rushed into the living room, and he found Jeremiyah, sitting alone in front of the television. He was watching anime — a Japanese animation style — and interacting with the characters on screen.
Jeremiyah was 10 years old, watching with subtitles, and he had picked up enough of the language to provide his own running dialogue.
“I just fell in love with it,” Jeremiyah said. “I stumbled upon it on Netflix when I was about 6. As a kid, I liked cartoons, and anime looks like cartoons but it’s not. I kept watching more and more, and I got addicted.”
Jason had always been a fan of traditional American comics — X-Men, Superman, Batman — and he’d watched popular Japanese series like “Dragon Ball Z,” so when his son showed interest, he saw it as a way to bond.
Jeremiyah grew up in the Walnut Park neighborhood of northwest St. Louis. It was “very dangerous,” as Jason put it, and Jeremiyah remembers a soundtrack of gunshots and police sirens in his youth.
The danger outside swallowed up its share of kids Jeremiyah knew back then, he said, but he spent most of his time playing in his backyard or suiting up for sports or perched in front of shows such as “Naruto” and “Xiaolin Chronicles.”
“It was his whole realm,” Jason said. “He was watching shows I didn’t know anything about, but it was a passion of his. And anything Jeremiyah is focused on, he’s all-in.”
Jeremiyah had been talkative and outgoing in his youth, but the older he got, the more he withdrew.
In anime and comics, however, Jeremiyah found a world where he could transform into someone else — or, perhaps, simply be the person he knew he was but wasn’t yet ready to show the real world.
“It was his chance to be in a different place, a different world, where he can release all of his powers,” Jason said.
Growing up, Jeremiyah said he hadn’t considered how much he struggled. It was “a challenge to push through,” he said, but he loved a challenge. Only now, as he has revisited his story in creating his comic, has it occurred to him how big those hurdles had been.
“As a kid, when you’d be ostracized or excluded — it doesn’t feel great,” Jeremiyah said. “But I’m thankful I was that way. I never got into the wrong things, never hung out with the wrong people. The way I was protected me from that. My parents did, too. I’m thankful for how I was raised and who I was as a person. It just goes to show, don’t be afraid to be yourself, because that’s the best thing you can be.”
THE FIRST IDEA for the comic involved Jeremiyah morphing into an animal. Something big, bombastic and strong, Jason said. They sketched out the whole book with artists’ mock-ups and a complete plot. Jason had invested thousands of dollars into the project.
Jeremiyah thumbed through it and delivered a verdict: He hated it.
“He killed the first project,” Jason said. “That broke my heart. We had to start all over. But he tells you when he likes or dislikes stuff, and there’s no misunderstanding. But it showed me he was dedicated to this process.”
It was Jason’s idea to make the comic. He had pitched it to Jeremiyah during his junior season, when he was skyrocketing up the recruiting rankings and blossoming into one of the most explosive backs in the country. Back then, neither had any idea how to make a comic, but Jason figured it was a good opportunity to tell his son’s story in a way Jeremiyah would connect with.
Nearly five years later, Jason and Jeremiyah are finally ready to deliver. “Jeremonstar” will be released publicly in late September.
“This is not a cash grab,” Jeremiyah said. “It’s something I want people to like and enjoy. I want to tap into this fan base, and I want to connect with different people who are kind of like me.”
That first idea, though, was too childish. Jeremiyah scoffs at anyone who chalks anime up as a kids show. It’s fantasy, yes, but it’s so much deeper, he said. And him turning into an animal? All wrong.
So the Loves went back to the drawing board — a massive project that included world-building, story arcs and character development.
“We’ve been through a lot,” Jeremiyah said. “It is not easy to come up with a compelling superhero story.”
But this wasn’t simply a superhero story. It was Jeremiyah’s story. It had to be perfect, and that’s where the Loves kept running into problems. They’d hire an artist, a writer or an agency, and after a few months of work, they’d realize the whole output was perfunctory. Most artists they talked to saw dollar signs because of Love’s football prowess, but Love needed the story to be personal.
In December 2024, they met Chris Walker, and finally, they felt a connection.
“Chris was Yoda for us,” Jason said.
Walker had spent a decade working with Marvel and DC Comics, had worked as a creative director at an agency and had even helped design the cover for a graphic novel by rapper Ghostface Killah. He now runs his own creative agency, Limited Edition, and he had recently found some success partnering with the Chicago Bulls and MLB Network on sports-related properties. He was hoping to grow that market when he reached out to Notre Dame’s NIL collective, which connected him with the Loves.
When Walker met Jeremiyah, he was sold instantly.
“He’s talkative, but you have to sit down with him for a while to get to that,” Walker said. “I’ve had friends like him, who don’t like to be the center of attention. I thought, here’s the No. 1 running back in the country, and the moment I met him, it was like being around family.”
Walker liked the pitch of an anime-styled comic. He worked with Buffalo Bills linebacker Larry Ogunjobi, who told him how anime helped him learn discipline, and he had read an interview with New Orleans Pelicans star Zion Williamson, who said 80% of the NBA were fans of anime. Clearly there was an untapped market.
The Loves also had a plan to grow their universe. Jeremiyah’s story would be the first volume in what they hoped could become a cultural touchpoint for athletes from all sports.
“Athletes aren’t telling their stories in a fun, interesting way that people are going to gravitate to,” Jeremiyah said. “We want to go far with this.”
Walker brought on industry veterans to help carry the project over the finish line, including an editor who worked with Marvel. The team worked with Jason, holding Zoom calls nearly daily to discuss the project’s next steps, and developed a timeline and marketing strategy for release.
At Notre Dame’s 2025 spring game, the group handed out bracelets with a QR code directing fans to a webpage promoting the comic. In the months since, Jeremiyah said he’s continually hearing from fans — through DMs and even kids at the barbershop — who want to know when it will be ready.
“People are going to read this and understand you can be more than a football player,” said Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman. “That’s a misconception that, if you want to be a great football player, all you can do is think about that sport. But it’s not true, and Jeremiyah is a perfect reflection of that.”
The summer retreat before Jeremiyah’s junior year in high school was held in a timeworn lodge with about 80 rooms owned by the Catholic Church. Pingel held the retreat each year as an opportunity for his team to bond before the season. This would be Jeremiyah’s first stay as a full-time member of the varsity squad, but Pingel had known him for years. Pingel’s son was a year younger than Jeremiyah, so he had seen Jeremiyah grow from a string-bean running back into a phenom.
On the first night of the retreat, Pingel had noticed a buzz among the players and heard music echoing through the hall. He meandered toward a crowd gathered around a piano, certain he’d find a handful of teammates clowning, but as Pingel edged his way to the front, he saw Jeremiyah.
“He was just tickling the ivories,” Pingel said. “And everyone’s around him singing.”
There are a lot of lessons Jason and Jeremiyah hope the comic conveys about perseverance and commitment, but because this is Jeremiyah’s story, the idea that no one needs to conform to an identity other than their own is key.
“There are tons of kids like me, and they feel down about who they are,” Jeremiyah said. “I want to communicate that it’s OK. There’s no problem with that. Be you, and big things can happen.”
JEREMIYAH STILL HAS his “quirks,” as Jason describes them. He insists on symmetry, like aligning his shoes just so, from left to right. He’s finicky about how his clothes fit. His belt buckle has to rest exactly right on the front of his pants. It’s habits that, years ago, might’ve frustrated Jason and L’Tyona. They see it differently now.
“We told him he’s the master of himself,” Jason said. “We told him he’s the greatest. And we just gave constant positive reinforcement.”
Pingel had always been struck by the contradiction of Jeremiyah Love, the football player, with the kid he’d gotten to know, reserved and occasionally distant, but curious and highly intelligent.
Jeremiyah is like a lot of comic-book heroes. By day, he shows one side of himself. Then he dons a uniform and becomes something else.
“The athlete needs to be an extrovert, going out there running over people and hurdling people,” Pingel said. “That’s kind of his alter ego.”
In the comic, Jeremiyah’s superpowers are derived from his real-life traits — speed and strength and willpower — but Pingel keeps thinking about that summer retreat when he truly understood Jeremiyah’s talent.
Football is where the alter ego can come out, where Jeremonstar is the effervescent star. But the real Jeremiyah is always in there, and, Pingel thinks, that’s the more interesting character.
Working together on the comic has been a cathartic experience, Jason said. For all the progress they have made with Jeremiyah over the years, Jason said he was never confident they’d have an overtly emotional bond. But like Pingel finding Jeremiyah at the piano, Jason keeps discovering new depths in his son.
“He’s come out of his shell now,” Jason said. “He’s more empathetic, more outgoing. I’ve learned a lot more and seen my son blossom into a young man.”
Jeremiyah burst into the national consciousness a year ago, accounting for more than 1,300 yards and 19 touchdowns, helping to lead Notre Dame to an appearance in the national championship game. By the time the Irish met Ohio State with a title on the line, however, Jeremiyah was nursing a knee injury. He managed just four carries for 3 yards in a 34-23 loss to the Buckeyes.
“I didn’t have all my superpowers,” he said. “I had the will, but sometimes, will isn’t enough.”
This offseason, Jeremiyah has worked to refine his superpowers. He better understands what it takes to stay healthy over the long haul. He’s trying to be less of a magician with the ball in his hands and focus more on his straight-line speed. But he insists he doesn’t have goals, just “things to work on,” nor is he haunted by last year’s disappointment.
“I just want to get to know myself better as a football player,” he said. “If that ends up us making it to the national championship again and winning it, great. If it doesn’t, that’s OK, too. I just want to make sure I’m the best me and the team is the best version of them.”
In high school, Pingel used to see his reluctant star endure autograph sessions, media appearances and countless conversations with recruiters, and he’d ask him: “Do you like being Jeremiyah Love?”
Pingel wanted to know if Jeremiyah was OK in the spotlight because it was never a role he relished, but it’s a question that might just as easily be asked in broader terms, too.
The answer, every time, was yes. Jeremiyah Love is completely happy being himself.
“He’s a warrior. He’s a fighter. He’s an introvert. He has his behavioral challenges, and he’s prevailed” Jason said. “Through hardship, you find yourself. And if you prevail, in my eyes, you’re a superhero.”
PASADENA, Calif. — By the time Nico Iamaleava stepped onto the field for his final drive of the night late in the fourth quarter of his much-anticipated debut as UCLA‘s quarterback, the Bruins were down 43-10 and the majority of the fans still left at the Rose Bowl were wearing red, chanting “Let’s go Utah!” as if the game were being held in Salt Lake City.
It was that kind of night for UCLA. The Bruins had come into the season with the promise of a new start, a new quarterback, a new offense and a reenergized culture in coach Deshaun Foster’s second season. Instead, they left their Week 1 matchup searching for answers, unable to avoid the reality of what had transpired.
“We got punched in the mouth,” Iamaleava said postgame.
After he transferred from Tennessee in the offseason in a surprising and controversial move, Iamaleava’s first snaps in blue and gold were not exactly what he or UCLA had in mind.
The 20-year-old quarterback struggled to engineer much success. Though he showed flashes of potential in a handful of pinpoint throws or scrambling runs, Iamaleava was pressured by Utah’s defense all night long and never found a rhythm. He finished with 11 completions on 22 pass attempts, 136 yards, 1 touchdown and 1 interception while adding a team-high 47 rushing yards.
“Nico is a competitor. He’s not going to quit. He kept playing hard,” Foster said. “We just gotta do a better job protecting him, keeping him upright.”
Iamaleava was sacked four times and pressured 10 times while the Bruins’ defense was far from helpful, allowing 493 total yards, a 14-of-16 conversion rate on third downs and four touchdown drives of nine plays or more. The Long Beach native, however, did not deflect the blame.
“I didn’t execute at a high level,” Iamaleava said. “I gotta be better. We all gotta be better.”
Earlier in the week, Iamaleava had said that up to 30 family members would be in attendance Saturday. While there may have been excitement about Iamaleava sparking a UCLA program in need of some buzz before the game began, it was quickly stifled by a Utah team that looked every bit the part of a Big 12 contender.
“We take this as a learning experience,” Iamaleava said. “We’re going to face many more tough opponents, and we gotta be ready.”
Foster said that even though little went right on the field Saturday, he was encouraged by the players’ attitude in the postgame locker room and their resolve to use the loss as a rock bottom they could rebound from. So did Iamaleava, who attempted to put his and UCLA’s sobering opener in perspective.
“Everything we want is still ahead of us. It’s Week 1,” he said. “Only way is up from here.”
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