What’s changed since preseason for Texas, Clemson and the national title picture
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Bill Connelly
In Friday’s Week 4 preview I wrote that Saturday would basically close the book on the first act of the 2025 college football season. That’s basically what happened.
Some wobbly teams lost further ground and nearly eliminated themselves from playoff contention. Others seemed to right themselves with playoff hopes intact. Upstarts made statements — Indiana humiliated Illinois, Texas Tech won a Utah-as-hell game over Utah, Ole Miss once again hinted at spectacular upside and hierarchies were altered.
Next Saturday, we begin Act II with a loaded week and a pair of epic evening headliners — Oregon at Penn State and Alabama at Georgia. But before we dive into that, let’s take a look at what actually changed over the first four weeks of the season. Which races have been completely scrambled? Which haven’t really been altered all that much? And who in the world is going to step up in the Heisman race?
We have no national title favorite
One of the stories of the offseason was that it felt like the top of the sport was a bit more decentralized, that the best teams maybe weren’t quite as dominant and more teams had semi-legitimate national title shots.
As it turns out, we were underselling it. In the preseason, the Allstate Playoff Predictor gave Texas a 24.7% chance at the title, with four teams over 10% and 17 teams over 1%. Four weeks later, no one is over 12.5%, and 20 teams are at 1% or higher. Eight teams are within three points of No. 1 in FPI, and while Oregon has separated itself a bit in SP+, teams No. 2 through 14 are separated by less than a touchdown. Maybe the Ducks are indeed the best the sport has to offer this season; it’s hard to argue with a combined four-game scoreline of 203-37 (though Indiana‘s 219-33 scoreline is even more garish). But it feels like we know even less about the top of the sport now than we did four weeks ago, and that’s an incredible feeling.
Largest increase in national title odds since the preseason:
• Oregon +8.4% (to 12.3%)
• Indiana +7.3% (to 7.5%)
• Ole Miss +6.4% (to 8.5%)
• USC +4.7% (to 5.8%)
• Miami +3.3% (to 4.7%)
Hello there, Indiana. We live in a world in which Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers have better title odds than Alabama, Texas or Penn State. That’s how good they’ve looked this year, and that’s the level of statement they made in Saturday night’s 63-10 humiliation of Illinois.
It started in the trenches. The Indiana running back trio of Roman Hemby, Khobie Martin and Kaelon Black combined for 36 carries, 261 yards and 3 touchdowns, and the Hoosiers defense sacked Illinois’ Luke Altmyer seven times while limiting Illini RBs to 2.6 yards per carry. Illinois’ Collin Dixon sprang open for a 59-yard touchdown early in the game, but otherwise the visitors averaged 2.3 yards per play. I mentioned in my Friday preview that it was pretty confusing that Illinois was ranked 10 spots ahead of Indiana heading into the game. The Hoosiers evidently thought that was a little strange as well and did something about it.
Largest decrease in national title odds since the preseason:
• Texas -18.1% (to 6.6%)
• Penn State -5.7% (to 3.1%)
• Notre Dame -4.8% (to 0.3%)
• Alabama -3.6% (to 7.2%)
• South Carolina -2.4% (to 0.0%)
These teams landed on this list in five different ways. Texas lost to Ohio State and has watched its offense stutter and stumble all season. The Horns potentially took a solid step forward in Saturday’s 55-0 blowout of hapless Sam Houston, but they’re still only 44th in SP+, and a lot of margin for error has seeped away.
Penn State remains unbeaten but has seen its odds dinged both by a series of merely good performances against poor competition and the relative rise of upcoming opponents Oregon, Indiana and Ohio State. The road looks a little rockier.
Notre Dame lost two huge games to start the season, and while the computers still like the Irish reasonably well, they’ll have to win out and hope to get a decent strength-of-schedule boost along the way.
Alabama laid the biggest egg of Week 1 and saw its rating fall accordingly (before rebounding a bit in Weeks 2 and 3). And now six of their next seven games are against ranked opponents. That’s great for resume-building, but it’s not great for maintaining a playoff-worthy record.
South Carolina’s offense started the year in neutral, and when the Gamecocks finally got going a bit Saturday, their defense dropped the ball. They averaged 5.9 yards per play against a good Missouri defense but allowed 6.1 and fell to the Tigers 29-20. They’re now 0-2 in the SEC and 2-2 overall.
Clemson is toast
A new week, a new low. Saturday’s 34-21 home loss to Syracuse left Clemson coach Dabo Swinney without all of his typical defiance and defense mechanisms. The Tigers outgained the Orange by 70 yards with a far better success rate (48% to 36%), but big plays, a minus-2 turnover margin and an early surprise onside kick from Syracuse did them in. All of Clemson’s old bad habits (a lack of big plays, a defense less effective than the sum of its parts) have reemerged, and their typical saving graces (an efficient ground game, a masterful middle eight) haven’t saved them.
The Tigers are 1-3 for the first time since 2004. They’ve fallen behind 16-0, 13-0 and 24-7 in their past three games, and while they battled back (at least somewhat) each time, they’re giving themselves too much of a burden to overcome. They’re also 0-2 in ACC play, meaning that even if they turn it on and win out, they’ll still need some help getting to the conference title game.
This has rather predictably redefined the ACC title race. So has SMU‘s 2-2 start, even though both of the Mustangs’ losses were out of conference.
ACC preseason title odds per SP+: Clemson 18.8%, Miami 13.4%, SMU 10.4%, Louisville 8.7%, Florida State 5.8%, Virginia Tech 5.5%, NC State 5.0%
Current ACC title odds per SP+: Miami 26.3%, Georgia Tech 14.2%, Louisville 13.6%, Florida State 10.5%, Virginia 6.8%, Pitt 6.5%, SMU 5.5%, Syracuse 4.8%
Perhaps as you would have guessed, Miami now leads the way, and Louisville is rising, but Georgia Tech and Florida State have gone from also-rans to each having at least a 1-in-10 title chance. Miami knows as well as any team that the race is just beginning — the Hurricanes sure looked like favorites during a 9-0 start last season, too, especially during the first four games before their defense began to wobble. That they missed the title game altogether and lost three of their last four is a pretty clear reminder of how much work remains.
Still, they’ve done all they can through four games, especially on defense. They’ve allowed only one of four opponents to top five yards per play, and in Saturday evening’s methodical 26-7 shellacking of Florida, they hinted at having a lot of different ways to win a ballgame in 2025. They allowed just 4.7 yards per play with seven tackles for loss and eight three-and-outs. Against a dynamite Florida defense, Carson Beck threw for just 160 yards with a pick and a sack, but the duo of Mark Fletcher Jr. and Char’Mar Brown combined for 42 carries, 196 yards and 3 TDs. They had to get really physical to win, and they did so.
Other possible ACC contenders also looked the part this weekend. Florida State and Louisville beat overwhelmed MAC opponents by a combined 106-27, and unbeaten Georgia Tech handled a semi-spicy Temple team with relative ease. We’ll see who best takes advantage of Clemson’s early collapse (and who avoids a late-season collapse themselves).
Vanderbilt and Florida traded bodies (and so did Virginia and Virginia Tech)
It’s been a mixed bag for the teams atop this offseason’s returning production rankings. Clemson (No. 1 in returning production) has bombed, Arizona State (No. 2) started the season in second gear again, Illinois (No. 4) looked fine before getting crushed Saturday, and teams like Kennesaw State (No. 5), Rutgers (No. 8) and Baylor (No. 9) haven’t started this season any better than where they finished up.
Others, however, are still defending the honor of continuity. Oklahoma (No. 10) and Texas A&M (No. 7) are unbeaten, Texas Tech (No. 6) looks spectacular, and holy smokes, break up the Vanderbilt Commodores (No. 3)!
Clark Lea’s team is on a revenge tour at the moment. The Commodores pummeled South Carolina by a 31-7 margin last week (a 45-point reversal), and on Saturday against a Georgia State team that upset them 36-32 last September, they were ruthless, charging to a 42-9 halftime advantage and leading by as much as 55 in a 70-21 win. That’s a 53-point reversal. They’re now up to 16th in SP+ — the only time they’ve finished higher than that in the last 50 years: 2014 (14th) — and they have a 16% chance of finishing 10-2 or better, which is the approximate bar for getting into the CFP as an SEC team.
Some schedule strength differences aside, they’ve basically traded places with Florida.
Preseason SP+: Florida 16th (6.8 avg. wins, 5.3% chance of winning the SEC), Vanderbilt 54th (5.0 wins, 1.0% chance)
Week 5 SP+: Vanderbilt 16th (8.3 avg. wins, 5.6% chance of winning the SEC), Florida 40th (3.3 wins, 0.8% chance)
Up is down, left is right, and Vandy’s Florida now.
Meanwhile, back in the ACC, two rivals have traded places too.
Preseason SP+: Virginia Tech 42nd (7.0 avg. wins), Virginia 74th (5.4)
Week 5 SP+: Virginia 42nd (8.2 avg. wins), Virginia Tech 82nd (2.9)
Tech quickly fired Brent Pry after a dire 0-3 start — interim head coach Philip Montgomery led the Hokies to a 38-6 win over Wofford on Saturday — which made it pretty easy to forget that UVA’s Tony Elliott began the season with a seat even warmer than Pry’s. He loaded up with more than 30 transfers as an attempt to turn the tide, and damned if it hasn’t worked. Newcomers like quarterback Chandler Morris (North Texas), running backs J’Mari Taylor (NC Central) and Harrison Waylee (Wyoming), receiver Cam Ross (James Madison) and defensive ends Mitchell Melton (Ohio State) and Daniel Rickert (Tennessee Tech) have made an immediate impact.
After Saturday’s 48-20 thumping of Stanford, the Cavaliers are 3-1 with three wins by at least 27 points. They have a 14% chance of getting to 10-2 or better, and they’re now firmly in the “dark horse ACC contenders” group. Virginia! Contender! Granted, the thing about throwing a transfer Hail Mary is, once you’ve done it, you have to keep doing it every year. But for now, Elliott has transformed the Hoos’ trajectory.
Texas Tech’s transfer gambit was transformative
With the new most famous booster in the sport, Texas Tech didn’t load up with pure quantity in the transfer portal like Virginia did. But the Red Raiders got some of the biggest names in the portal in an attempt to transform themselves into Big 12 contenders. And my goodness, has it worked early on.
Tech overwhelmed three outmanned opponents by a combined 174-35 to start the season, but Saturday’s performance in Salt Lake City was a statement of a different kind. Against a Utah Utes team that has won plenty of battles of attrition over the years, the Red Raiders let the Utes define the terms of the game — lots of punts, lots of field position maneuvering, lots of popping pads, even an injured quarterback (not exactly uncommon in Utah games) — and blew them out all the same.
The Red Raiders lost quarterback Behren Morton to injury midway through the game, and backup Will Hammond came in and went 13-for-16 for 169 yards, with two touchdowns and a 32-yard run. They made Utah quarterback Devon Dampier‘s fundamentals disintegrate over time, and he finished with two interceptions and 3.9 yards per dropback. Their expensive new defensive front dominated Utah’s extremely well-regarded offensive line for most of 60 minutes.
New coordinator Shiel Wood — an acquisition as important as any that came from the transfer portal — has done an incredible job with an incredibly new unit. Of the 12 Red Raiders with at least eight tackles thus far, eight are transfers, including edge rushers Romello Height (Georgia Tech) and David Bailey (Stanford) and safety Cole Wisniewski (North Dakota State). Tech ranks 11th in points allowed per drive and ninth in yards allowed per play. They’ve finished in the defensive SP+ top 20 only once in 27 years, but they’re currently 22nd and rising.
The performance against Utah was a display of force we’re not used to seeing from this team. And it made the Red Raiders the new favorite in the Big 12 race.
Big 12 preseason title odds per SP+: Kansas State 14.4%, Utah 9.1%, Arizona State 8.8%, TCU 8.5%, BYU 6.4%, Baylor 6.0%, Colorado 5.0%
Current Big 12 title odds per SP+: Texas Tech 28.6% (up 20.7% from the preseason), Iowa State 9.4% (up 2.1%), Kansas 9.1% (up 4.7%), TCU 9.0% (up 0.5%), BYU 8.8% (up 2.4%), Arizona State 7.1% (down 1.7%), Utah 6.0% (down 3.1%), Arizona 5.2% (up 2.0%), Houston 4.9% (up 0.7%)
We can’t say that Tech is an overwhelming favorite by any means — a 29% title shot still means a 71% chance of not winning the title, after all, and TCU, BYU, Iowa State and Kansas have all shown hints of major upside. But Tech’s general approach in the new NIL world is to basically spend like a champion until you become one. And their odds of winning their first outright conference title in 70 years have more than tripled since August. That’s called return on investment right there.
It’s Memphis’ time
We’re going to Dyer’s Burgers! We’re getting a Diver at Silky O’Sullivan’s! We’re grabbing some Germantown Commissary BBQ on the way out of town! Memphis is now the Group of 5 team with the best odds of reaching the CFP!
As with Miami, of course, we’ve been here before. Ryan Silverfield’s Tigers began last season 3-0 with what felt like a massively important win over Florida State at the time, but a track-meet loss at Navy knocked them down a peg, and an early November loss at UTSA finished off their chances. Still, with Boise State getting its doors blown off by USF in Week 1, and USF (against Miami) and Tulane (against Ole Miss) doing the same in recent weeks, Memphis’ comeback win over Arkansas put the unbeaten Tigers back in prime position.
The Tigers showed some spectacular resilience against the Hogs. They allowed a wide-open 62-yard touchdown pass to Rohan Jones on the third play of the game, then fell behind 28-10 late in the first half. But they outscored Arkansas 22-3 from there, got a 64-yard touchdown run from Sutton Smith with 4:51 left, recovered a shocking Mike Washington Jr. fumble at their 7 with 1:18 remaining, then iced the game with a muscular third-down run by backup quarterback Arrington Maiden.
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Arkansas Razorbacks vs. Memphis Tigers: Full Highlights
Arkansas Razorbacks vs. Memphis Tigers: Full Highlights
This was a big one, both because of the obvious résumé-building effects of beating an SEC team — albeit one that seems to somehow blow games like this every week — and the fact that it basically bought them a mulligan. At this point, only two G5 teams have a greater than 16% chance of finishing the regular season 11-1 or better, per SP+, but Memphis is over 60%.
Odds of finishing the regular season 11-1 or better (Group of 5 teams)
• Memphis 60.6%
• North Texas 37.3%
• James Madison 15.7%
• UNLV 12.9%
• Fresno State 7.2%
• Navy 5.9%
• Texas State 5.2%
• Louisiana Tech 3.5%
• Boise State 2.2%
This is yet another race that is just beginning – among other things, the Tigers must still face fellow American Conference contenders USF, Tulane and Navy (albeit all at home), then maybe face the No. 2 team on the above list, a smoking hot North Texas team that just knocked off defending American champ Army at West Point.
Still, this race felt like Boise State vs. the field heading into Week 1, but after USF and Tulane both stumbled, Memphis enters Week 5 at the front of the line.
The September Heisman goes to … no one
It appears the Heisman race is every bit as blurry as the national title race.
Each week I include a “Who won the Heisman this week?” section near the end of this column, in which I dole out weekly points, F1-style (in this case, 10 points for first place, 9 for second, and so on). Last year at this time, Miami’s Cam Ward and Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty had already asserted themselves in the top two spots, with eventual winner Travis Hunter not far behind. Two years ago, Michael Penix Jr. and Caleb Williams led the way after four weeks. (LSU’s Jayden Daniels would soon take over.) The stars usually don’t take long to emerge from the pack.
This year, after four weeks, your points leaders are … two quarterbacks who have gone a combined 4-3. The guy in fourth place is a backup. We knew this could be a funky season with so few top teams boasting proven quarterbacks, but safe to say, we head into late September knowing very little about how this race will play out.
Before we get to the point totals, here’s this week’s Heisman top 10:
1. Fernando Mendoza, Indiana (21-of-23 passing for 267 yards and five touchdowns, plus 18 non-sack rushing yards against Illinois).
2. Demond Williams Jr., Washington (16-of-19 passing for 298 yards and four touchdowns, plus 111 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Washington State).
3. Eric McAlister, TCU (8 catches for 254 yards and 3 touchdowns against SMU).
4. Dylan Riley, Boise State (19 carries for 171 yards and four touchdowns, plus 84 receiving yards and a TD against Air Force).
5. Chandler Morris, Virginia (23-of-31 passing for 380 yards and four touchdowns, plus 23 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Stanford).
6. Jayden Maiava, USC (20-of-26 passing for 234 yards and three touchdowns, plus 31 rushing yards and two TDs against Michigan State).
7. Robert Henry Jr., UTSA (21 carries for 144 yards and a touchdown, plus 76 receiving yards and a TD against Colorado State).
8. Mac Harris, USF (10 tackles, 2.5 TFLs, 2 sacks, 1 forced fumble and a 93-yard pick-six against SC State).
9. Waymond Jordan, USC (18 carries for 157 yards, plus 25 receiving yards against Michigan State).
10. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss (17-of-27 passing for 307 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 113 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Tulane).
In his past two games, Fernando Mendoza has thrown nine touchdown passes to three incompletions. He’s gotten help from a relentless run game — four games, four 300-yard rushing totals — but I had to reward him for his near-perfection. Meanwhile, Demond Williams Jr. was nearly perfect in the Apple Cup, and current (Dylan Riley) and former (Eric McAlister) Boise State stars combined for 509 yards from scrimmage and eight touchdowns.
Honorable mention:
• Nnanna Anyanwu, UTSA (5 tackles, 4 TFLs, 3 sacks and a pass breakup against Colorado State).
• Cam Edwards, UConn (24 carries for 194 yards and 2 touchdowns against Ball State).
• Josh Hoover, TCU (22-of-40 passing for 379 yards, 5 TDs and an INT, plus 35 non-sack rushing yards against SMU).
• Jayden Jackson, Oklahoma (five tackles and 2.5 sacks against Auburn).
• Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt (18-of-24 passing for 245 yards and a touchdown, plus 86 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Georgia State).
• Jadarian Price, Notre Dame (9 carries for 74 yards and three touchdowns, plus a 98-yard kick return score against Purdue).
• Kaidon Salter, Colorado (18-of-28 passing for 304 yards and three touchdowns, plus 100 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Wyoming).
• Kenny Tracy, Miami-Ohio (16 carries for 104 yards, plus 84 receiving yards and two touchdowns against UNLV).
Through four weeks, here are your points leaders:
1T. Taylen Green, Arkansas; Ty Simpson, Alabama (15 points)
3. Jayden Maiava, USC (12 points)
4. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss (11 points)
5T. Jonah Coleman, Washington; Fernando Mendoza, Indiana; Sawyer Robertson, Baylor (10 points)
8T. Rocco Becht, Iowa State; Gunner Stockton, Georgia; Vicari Swain, South Carolina; Demond Williams Jr., Washington (9 points)
This race remains an absolute mystery. Oklahoma’s John Mateer is the betting favorite, and after a dire 8-for-19 start against Auburn, he completed 16 of his final 17 passes to lead a fourth-quarter comeback. He can score some style points with his legs, too. But he’s 36th in Total QBR, and OU’s defense has been by far the bigger driver in the Sooners’ 4-0 start.
Mateer has yet to show up in one of these weekly top-10 lists. Meanwhile, five guys have made the list twice, and I wouldn’t have predicted a single one of them: Simpson, Green, Maiava, Chambliss and Robert Henry Jr.
Honestly, I’d probably give the September Heisman to Maiava at this point. He’s No. 1 in Total QBR, he’s averaging a jaw-dropping 13.4 yards per dropback — only Florida State’s Tommy Castellanos can top him there, and Castellanos attempts far fewer passes — and USC’s offense has been absolutely dynamite during a 4-0 start.
I’d point out that Maiava is only the No. 11 betting favorite at the moment (+2200) and there might be some value there, but September Heismans don’t have the best track record of winning the actual Heisman, do they? I’ll do him a favor and award no September Heisman instead.
This week in SP+
The SP+ rankings have been updated for the week. Let’s take a look at the teams that saw the biggest change in their overall ratings.
Moving up
Here are the five teams that saw their ratings rise the most this week:
• Missouri State (up 6.9 adjusted points per game, ranking rose from 129th to 122nd)
• Delaware (up 6.5 points, ranking rose from 118th to 93rd)
• Vanderbilt (up 5.8 points, ranking rose from 28th to 16th)
• Utah State (up 5.8 points, ranking rose from 99th to 80th)
• Mississippi State (up 5.1 points, ranking rose from 47th to 29th)
With respect to the two rising FBS newcomers (Missouri State and Delaware) and a delightful Utah State team that has lost only to Texas A&M, we’re going to focus on the other two teams here. Vanderbilt is on a revenge tour at the moment, as mentioned above, and Mississippi State is one of eight teams to have overachieved against SP+ projections in every game this season. (The others: Arizona, Bowling Green, Florida State, Houston, Louisiana Tech, Mississippi State and Old Dominion.) The Bulldogs are 4-0 for the first since 2014, and after collapsing to 88th in SP+ last season, they’ve jumped back into the top 30. They remain under the radar in a loaded SEC, but upcoming games against Tennessee, Texas A&M, Florida and Texas will give them massive opportunities to prove themselves.
Moving down
Here are the five teams whose ratings fell the most:
• South Alabama (down 8.2 adjusted points per game, ranking fell from 78th to 110th)
• California (down 7.4 points, ranking fell from 54th to 72nd)
• West Virginia (down 7.2 points, ranking fell from 55th to 75th)
• Tulane (down 6.8 points, ranking fell from 49th to 66th)
• Illinois (down 5.6 points, ranking fell from 18th to 36th)
There were quite a few disappointing performances in Week 4, and these five teams certainly all did their share in that regard. But the two biggest eggs of the week, to me, were laid by Illinois and Cal. Illinois was a slight projected underdog against Indiana, and Cal was a nearly 10-point favorite against San Diego State. They lost by a combined 97-10.
My 10 favorite games of the weekend
3. North Texas 45, Army 38 (OT).
We’ll bunch the three of these together since, in about a 10-minute span early Saturday afternoon, all three featured catastrophic lost fumbles. The college football was almost too college football-like. At this point, Arkansas is going to have its own “devastating late turnovers” section in my year-end Top 100 Games of the Season list. For the second straight week, the Razorbacks were driving for the potential winning points when they lost a fumble. This one, from poor Mike Washington Jr., allowed Memphis to run the clock out after a game with three long touchdowns and an 18-point Memphis comeback.
Oof, Hogs
Meanwhile, UNLV somehow remained unbeaten despite trailing by 14 on three separate occasions and leading for just 15 seconds. As Miami’s Kenny Tracy was charging inside the UNLV 20 to set up the potential game-winning field goal, he lost the ball. UNLV recovered and drove 78 yards in 2:17 to set up Ramon Villela‘s 23-yarder for the win.
At West Point, Army also unleashed a fierce comeback after trailing 21-0 in the first quarter and 38-28 with less than three minutes left. Makenzie McGill II fumbled as UNT was trying to run out the clock, and Army sent the game to OT with a Dawson Jones field goal. But the Mean Green prevailed with a Caleb Hawkins touchdown and a stop in OT.
4. FCS: Campbell 50, Bryant 48 (2OT). FCS gave us quite a bit of overtime nonsense Saturday. In search of its first win of the season, Campbell tied the game with 2:58 left on a 77-yard Kamden Sixkiller-to-Randall King touchdown, then took the lead on another Sixkiller-to-King strike 103 seconds later. Bryant struck back with a 35-yard Aldrich Doe touchdown catch with six seconds left but played for OT instead of going for two points and the win. And in the second OT, they failed on a 2-pointer and Campbell survived.
5. FCS: No. 4 Illinois State 38, North Alabama 36 (2OT). A comfortable home favorite, ISU bolted to a 17-0 lead just six minutes in and led by 10 heading into the fourth quarter, but Ari Patu‘s 25-yard touchdown strike to KJ Fields with 33 seconds left sent the game to overtime. In the second OT, Daniel Sobkowicz caught his second touchdown pass and scored the 2-point conversion, and ISU’s defense stopped UNA’s 2-pointer to salvage the win.
6. No. 11 Oklahoma 24, No. 22 Auburn 17. Killer environment? Check. Wild number of sacks? Check. OU took former Sooner Jackson Arnold down 10 times but still trailed with five minutes left until John Mateer‘s short touchdown run and a safety-sack sealed the deal.
7. Arizona State 27, Baylor 24. Neither team led by more than seven in this one — Jordyn Tyson‘s 19-yard touchdown gave ASU a 24-17 lead with 5:29 left, but Baylor quickly struck back with a 33-yard score from Michael Trigg. A pair of third-down penalties helped ASU inch down the field on its final drive, however, and Jesus Gomez knocked in a 43-yard FG at the buzzer.
8. Troy 21, Buffalo 17. This one seemed pretty straight-forward for the home team: Buffalo took a 17-0 lead early in the fourth quarter. But Troy scored on drives of 75, 66 and 50 yards, and Tae Meadows‘ 20-yard touchdown with 45 seconds left sealed a stunning comeback win.
9. Division II: New Mexico Highlands 48, South Dakota Mines 42 (OT). Do you like track meets and wild comebacks? In front of 3,152 in Las Vegas, New Mexico, these teams combined for 1,063 yards and five TDs of 40-plus yards. That includes a 96-yard fumble return for Mines and a 99-yard score on the ensuing kickoff. S.D. Mines scored three times in the final 13 minutes to erase a 42-21 deficit and force overtime, but the Hardrockers (Hardrockers!) were stuffed on fourth-and-goal in OT, and Tevita Valeti’s 1-yard touchdown sealed a wild Cowboys win.
10. Division III: Coast Guard 92, Nichols 60. OK, but do you like track meets?? In front of 3,054 in New London, Connecticut, Coast Guard scored 64 points in the first half but kept having to score to assure an easy win in a game that featured nine touchdowns of at least 38 yards and 1,412 total yards. My goodness!
Honorable mention:
• D-III: Calvin 40, Heidelberg 37 (OT)
• Eastern Michigan 34, Louisiana 31
• No. 21 Michigan 30, Nebraska 27
• NAIA: Peru State 64, Central Methodist 43
• FCS: San Diego 42, Princeton 35
• San José State 31, Idaho 28
• UConn 31, Ball State 25
• FCS: No. 24 Youngstown State 31, Towson 28
Oh, and if you were curious about the Ferris State-Rio Grande game mentioned in Friday’s preview column, in which Ferris State was a projected 97.2-point favorite per SP+, the Bulldogs led 35-0 after 16 minutes before Tony Annese seemed to call off his dogs a bit. It finished a mere 76-0, and the only reason it probably even got that bad was that the Dawgs scored on a kick return, fumble return, interception return and missed field goal return.
MICHAEL JOHNSON WAS trying to find a way home.
In 2019, Johnson was the executive chef of the Seattle Seahawks, but he wanted to get back to Baton Rouge, where his children and their mother lived. One late night, Johnson dove into a job search that yielded a surprising result.
“I googled ‘executive chef Baton Rouge,’ and the first job that popped up was a listing for the executive chef of LSU Athletics,” Johnson said. “I like to tell people that God found me this job.”
Johnson had applied for a culinary position with LSU before where he would be working at Tiger Stadium, but LSU’s response was that he was overqualified.
This new gig looked perfect, but first, Johnson had to prove himself. As part of his interview, he cooked for 35 people — executives, dieticians and other high-ranking LSU officials. Johnson served up his best: a carved tenderloin and Carolina-style barbecue shrimp and grits with a tomato broth to show how he could make comfort foods a little healthier, plus several other dishes that were Louisiana-themed with a twist. The feedback came quickly.
“I remember [executive deputy AD] Verge Ausberry asking me questions like ‘Why did you hold back the salt on this?'” Johnson said. “It was an intense moment, but I just remember smiling all the way through it. Even when I was being grilled, I was so happy to be there and had all the confidence.”
Less than an hour after the demo, LSU offered Johnson the job.
In the six years since, Johnson has helped head up the LSU performance nutrition center, which opened in July 2019, has around 50 employees — 35 of them report to Johnson — and feeds athletes three meals, five days of the week. For the first three years of his time in Baton Rouge, Johnson also traveled with the football team to ensure quality control.
Now, Johnson stays back and helps manage the extensive operation, which is a collaborative effort among him, his four sous chefs and the four dieticians (one exclusively for football) on staff. Johnson’s job can also extend to include meals for recruiting visits and donor events, but his biggest task may be menu creation in a way that caters to everyone.
Johnson is one of a handful of executive chefs around the country who work directly with a college football team or athletic program. His headshot, along with the sous chefs’, is featured on the school’s athletic directory. A search through Power 4 school directories revealed that only 21 programs publicly feature a chef of some kind on their staff, and only 10 of those are in-house employees, including chefs at Colorado, Georgia, Clemson and Missouri.
Today I learned that LSU puts the team chefs on the athletics website like they’re on the team. And that’s why LSU athletics is one of our greatest national treasures https://t.co/a5MtULtYG7 pic.twitter.com/kxxtyKUame
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) June 5, 2024
“To be treated as an equal is everything,” Johnson said. “I’ve never felt like I wasn’t part of the team.”
What is largely a behind-the-scenes job, chefs at top-tier programs often work 10-12 hours a day, helping cook hundreds of meals while managing quality, a budget, evolving nutrition plans for athletes and the vexing challenge of pleasing people’s palates.
“I have gumbo on the menu every Monday, and it’s because I like my job,” said Johnson with a laugh. “It wasn’t an ask, it was a demand.”
CARL SOLOMON HAS worked in the restaurant business since he was 15 years old. He has cooked at fine-dining establishments from Portland, Oregon, to Denton, Texas, and his Instagram, which showcases the various farm-to-table dishes he crafts, is as clean as his plating. Yet nothing could have prepared him for becoming Deion Sanders’ personal chef.
That is not Solomon’s official title — that would be executive chef for Colorado Athletics — but it has become a part of his role. Their relationship is such that Solomon now makes Sanders’ meals two to three times a day.
“He comes into the kitchen daily, like hooting and hollering,” Solomon said. “He’s just an incredible human in every regard, and I get a lot of daily feedback and interaction from him.”
So what does Prime like to eat? Local, marinated roasted chicken. Well-done steak — high-quality New York strips that Solomon and his team cut and prepare in-house. Yellow rice, some broccoli, asparagus, watermelon and for dessert, a red velvet cake, cupcake or a chocolate chip cookie.
“He’s a man that knows what he wants,” Solomon said. “Which makes it a little easier for me to keep him happy.”
For a chef who had used the kitchen as a creative canvas, there was a learning curve for Solomon, who realized that variety and upscale were not always the goal when it came to Sanders. It’s emblematic of the progression Solomon has had to make over the past six years on the job as he orchestrates a system that produces roughly 800 meals a day for 330 student-athletes and about 250 athletics staff members, sometimes six days a week. The past five of those years for Solomon have come as an in-house Colorado employee — a change that he says made a dramatic difference.
“It’s huge, because I’m here every day, I’m serving the same folks every day,” Solomon said. “So I have accountability to these people I see, and my name is on this operation. That just creates this extra level of commitment and dedication you might not get otherwise.”
Solomon’s commitment and expertise can be seen in how he has set up every aspect of the dining experience. While others may gravitate toward a buffet setup, Solomon’s team cooks everything fresh and in smaller batches. The front-of-house staff Solomon manages serves the food banquet style, meaning each hot food plate is put together by a member of the team.
“I’m always on top of that, making sure we’re plating those plates nicely,” Solomon said. “I’m really proud of the fact that we bring all those fundamentals that a good restaurant has run on, we bring that to this setting.”
Then there’s the food itself. Solomon gets ample freedom to design his menus, which he crafts based on several factors, including locality, what’s in season and pricing. He also considers, as he puts it, the varying palettes and needs of a 300-pound football player versus a 100-pound track athlete.
“I’m looking for new stuff all the time,” Solomon said. “I’m very lucky in the sense that being able to do that in this setting is rare, and I take full advantage of that.”
The result is a bustling food hall with different daily options that get adjusted based on which sports are in season and which are not. And if an athlete isn’t feeling the taco bar on any given Tuesday, Solomon and his sous chefs are open to preparing them a made-to-order special item.
“We aren’t just putting out really high-quality food or great ingredients,” Solomon said. “We’re also tailoring it to specific athletes’ needs all day every day.”
Sanders’ arrival in Boulder three years ago and the attention it brought to the program trickled down to here, too, giving Solomon the kind of flexibility that allows him and his team to fabricate meats internally and source top-notch ingredients.
“That’s another big impact that we’ve seen since [Sanders] has been here — I have a lofty budget,” Solomon said. His team has grown from five cooks to 12 in the past few years.
(Clemson executive performance chef Dalton Ledford, estimated the food budget for a high-profile football program alone can range anywhere from $2 million to $3 million per year, if not more.)
The responsibility that comes with the extra resources is one Solomon cherishes and tries to pay forward with local businesses and vendors. Recently, he made a connection with a local mushroom farmer who grows “some of the best gourmet mushrooms in the state” out of a train car that he refurbished. Anything to make a dish, a meal and an entire operation just a little bit better.
“I think we put out great food, of course I’m biased, but I have been around the block, and I have done my research, and I go out to eat all the time myself,” Solomon said. “I’d put us right up there with any restaurant in the city.”
MONDAY NIGHTS IN Athens, Georgia, are reserved for victory meals.
Kirby Smart’s team gathers around as executive chef Brandi Allen and her staff go all out and treat the team to a feast that includes items such as ribeyes, lobster tails, lobster mac and cheese and often a special dessert.
“This is Georgia,” Allen said. “So we don’t lose a lot of games.”
Since 2021, the Bulldogs have lost a total of five regular-season games in five seasons, four of which have been to Alabama, which beat Georgia 24-21 earlier this season in Sanford Stadium. In the aftermath, Allen had no choice but to change up the plans for Monday’s meal.
“We just turned it into a grill day with a more chill, laid-back vibe,” Allen said. “It was a bad game, but it’s not the end of the world.”
Allen, who has a culinary school degree and a background in cooking competitions, has been working for Georgia in some capacity going on 14 years now. Until this June, she was working exclusively in general dining services before she was handpicked to cook for the football program after the previous chef moved on to a job in the NFL.
Though she didn’t have a background in nutrition or working with athletes, Allen jumped into the job with eagerness. She took time to research what went into being a performance chef, met with the program’s culinary manager and team dietician, and most importantly, spoke with the players. If she was going to revamp the entire menu and program, she needed to know what her audience needed and wanted to eat.
“These are 18- to 20-year-old kids, honestly. It’s never a good idea to go too fancy — you gotta keep it simple, but also delicious,” Allen said. “So it’s figuring out ways to incorporate that into the diet so it’s beneficial to them and that they enjoy eating it.”
Allen tried to make sure players’ input was heard and that they knew what they were going to be eating and why. It helped that the feedback she received was easy to incorporate — after all, her background and specialty was in exactly the kind of cuisine more players were requesting. As Allen puts it: “comforting food for the soul.”
“We have a lot of Southern boys on our team and that is their background as well with comfort foods and Southern cuisine that their parents cook for them,” Allen said. “A lot of them miss home and they miss their parents’ cooking. We try to give them a home away from home.”
Football players, she says, are not “vegetable kids,” so she gets creative with meals, adding peas, green beans, broccolis and carrots to carbs as opposed to having them by themselves. Allen also divides the entire team into three buckets: those who need to lose weight, those who need to maintain weight and those who need to gain weight, providing different protein options for all of them.
After discussing with the team dietician, who is in contact with Smart about the cadence of any given practice week, Allen landed on a four-week cycle of different menus specifically crafted for the team. Then, she pays close attention to what players like and don’t like in order to adjust.
“It’s one of the biggest reasons why I kind of sit with them and ask them what it is that they would want to see on the menu,” Allen said. “That way I can try to make it more appealing to them so that they come and eat with us versus eating out.”
Allen knows she can’t please them all as she tries to make food for about 150 people a day, including staff and coaches, but she tries. So far, her jalapeño ranch fried chicken wing has been a runaway winner.
“It’s a hit, they love it,” Allen said. And the Georgia coaching staff? “They say it’s the best chicken in town.”
DALTON LEDFORD HAS been the executive performance chef at Clemson for three years. He has fed hundreds of players, seen many go on to the NFL, been part of two ACC titles and one College Football Playoff appearance. But his greatest accomplishment?
“It’s getting Coach [Dabo] Swinney to not eat a well-done steak,” Ledford said. “I finally talked him into eating a medium steak and he said, ‘Hey, it wasn’t leathery!'”
A lifelong Clemson fan, Ledford grew up working at Sticky Fingers, his dad’s rib joint in Fountain Inn, South Carolina. He went on to serve $300 plates at a five-star resort in Colorado Springs, Colorado, before landing back in his home state, where his excitement about the fact that he gets to cook for Swinney and the football team he roots for on Saturdays is palpable.
“Tajh Boyd is my favorite player ever,” Ledford said. “I remember fourth-and-16 like it was yesterday.”
When the previous executive chef left the program in 2023, Ledford. who was then working as a sous chef, but not in-house, volunteered to come up with menus for fall camp. One day, Swinney asked to talk to him. A scared Ledford thought his food had gotten someone sick and he was in trouble. He wasn’t. Swinney wanted to know if he’d be interested in the executive chef position. Ledford balked — he hadn’t attended culinary school and didn’t have a degree in nutrition. He told Swinney that he didn’t feel qualified.
“And the exact words Coach told me was, ‘Do you think I was qualified to take over the head coach job when I did?'” Ledford said. “He said, ‘I was young, I didn’t understand all of it yet, but I was given an opportunity and I was going to try my best in that opportunity to do everything I can for this program. You’ll figure it out. I trust you.'”
Like Allen at Georgia, Ledford works hand-in-hand with team dieticians to cater specifically to the football team and staff in the football operations building. Every player has access to an app called Notemeal, which Ledford uses to input the daily menu and macronutrients for each meal, and it allows players to order lunch in between classes or meetings.
But Ledford wanted to go beyond simply feeding the players; he wanted them to learn how to feed themselves, too. In the football facility kitchen, Ledford began hosting three-hour cooking demos once a month, showing players how to make everything from pizza to sushi to hibachi to grilling on a Blackstone.
“It’s a skill these guys are learning, but also for those that do get to go on to the next level, they already kind of have a base,” Ledford said. “If you’re a late-round pick, you really don’t have the money after taxes and depending on what state you live in and stuff like that, you don’t always have that available to you to be able to hire a chef and a nutritionist.”
At first, only 10 players participated. Now, attendance ranges from 60 to 70 players who take pride in showing Ledford a picture of a protein bowl or some other meal they made at home. It’s not just the players — coaches and staff members have wanted to get in on the experience, too.
“I did hibachi with the guys on Blackstone, and man, I had so many coaches come out and be like, ‘Yo, can I jump in with them and learn how to make this? I want to learn,'” Ledford said. “It ends up being a bonding moment between all of them.”
The demos, along with Ledford’s day-to-day food, also play a key role in recruiting. Ledford and his staff do all the food for recruiting events in-house, and when there is a player visiting campus with his parents, the recruiting staff has asked that Ledford meet with them to showcase their culinary experience.
“I always make the joke that Coach Swinney is going to make them into a man, and I’m going to feed ’em like it,” Ledford said. “A lot of these kids are coming from other states, across the country, across the world sometimes. As a parent, you want to know that you’ve got a group of people that are not just looking out for them on the field, but off the field, too.”
MISSOURI HEAD COACH Eli Drinkwitz does not have a difficult palate to please. But Joe Moroni, the Tigers’ executive performance chef, knows the one thing that Drinkwitz is particular about.
“He loves crispy bacon,” Moroni said.
Moroni knows all too well how things can get complicated inside a kitchen depending on who will be eating the meal he’s preparing. Moroni honed his craft in the Army as a cook and a staff sergeant for 11 years, eventually working his way up to the Pentagon, where he worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and concocted meals for an eclectic list of visitors including the New York Yankees, the Princess of Jordan and Robert De Niro.
After his stint in the Pentagon, Moroni was then selected as a general’s aid to four-star general Keith B. Alexander, whom he followed to the National Security Agency — where he cooked for Alexander and many foreign diplomats — until 2006, when Moroni moved back to Missouri.
Eventually, Moroni applied for a sous chef position in campus dining at Mizzou before ascending to his current position where he helped create a role that oversees all of athletic dining with an emphasis on football. Drinkwitz’s team gets an exclusive menu, meals six days a week and their own dining area on the south end of Faurot Field; it’s a nonstop affair and Moroni is right at the center of it.
“It’s a unique job. It’s one of those things that there’s just no schooling out there for it,” Moroni said, adding that his team is feeding someone at least 48 weeks out of the year. “I’ll tell you what, I had more days off at the Pentagon.”
Moroni now lives and dies with every Tigers football game, in part, because it determines what his job may look like on a given week. If Mizzou loses, the team usually gets a catered meal from an outside restaurant Sunday to avoid food fatigue. If they win, they get the catered meal plus a bonus — be it as extravagant as a filet mignon or as simple as a build-your-own nacho bar.
“We basically look at it like there’s 12 victories. So if those victories are victories, then we have 12 extravagant meals that they’re going to get,” Moroni said. “We all know that that doesn’t always happen. So if they don’t win, then we basically roll that victory menu to the next week, and we still feed them.”
Beyond the customary work with dieticians, Moroni, much like Allen at Georgia, takes pride in doing his research on the team ahead of a football season, talking to players about where they’re from and what foods they like. Whenever possible, he and his team will try to incorporate foods from specific regions of the country where a certain player may be from to provide a nostalgic meal.
“If I have somebody who’s coming from New Jersey, we might be trying to source something from the coast of New Jersey,” Moroni said. “Or if it’s someone from Texas and they’re looking for something like a specific type of way of cooking a brisket, we try to do those kinds of things.”
Moroni may no longer have the highest security clearance he once had in Washington D.C., or the chance to cook for dignitaries and celebrities. But in Columbia, he has witnessed firsthand how his cooking has brought teams and people from different parts of the country or the world together. Food is a love language for him just as it is for Solomon, Allen, Ledford and Johnson — the long hours they put in is in service of not just plying their craft, but creating those moments when a player sits down after a long day of practice and finds bliss in a bite of food.
“At the end of the day, we all want to feel loved, we all want to be warm, we all want a full belly,” Moroni said. “I never really got interactions with those particular celebrities. Whereas I cooked for [Mizzou QB] Brady Cook for four years, and I knew [linebacker] Nick Bolton and his mannerisms. And you get to know these people on a personal basis, you know what they like and don’t like, how they like to be, what their different mannerisms are when they win, how you help make them feel better if they drop that pass or had that fumble. So yeah, I like cooking for who I cook for right now.”
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Jorge Castillo
TORONTO — Bo Bichette, who has not played since spraining his left knee in early September, was added to the Toronto Blue Jays‘ roster for the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Blue Jays also included first baseman Ty France on their roster for the first time this postseason. Outfielder Joey Loperfido and right-handed reliever Yariel Rodriguez, who were on the American League Championship Series roster, were not included.
The question is how limited is Bichette.
A two-time All-Star shortstop, Bichette has not played in a game since injuring his knee in a collision with Yankees catcher Austin Wells on Sept. 6. He attempted to return in time for the AL Championship Series but could not run the bases without significant pain the day before the Blue Jays had to submit their roster.
Bichette worked out at second base and faced live pitching Wednesday and Thursday. Blue Jays manager John Schneider said Bichette could play second base, shortstop or serve as the team’s designated hitter. If he is the DH, George Springer would likely move to right field.
A free agent this winter, Bichette had a rebound season after posting a .598 OPS in 81 games in an injury-plagued 2024 campaign. The homegrown star, 27, finished second in the majors with a .311 batting average and hit 18 home runs with 94 RBI and an .840 OPS.
Without him, the Blue Jays have played Andres Gimenez, their regular second baseman, at shortstop in the postseason with Isiah Kiner-Falefa getting most of the starts at second base.
Los Angeles added right-handers Edgardo Henriquez and Will Klein while dropping lefty Alex Vesia and righty Ben Casparius. The Dodgers said Thursday that Vesia was not with the team in Toronto because of a family matter.
Former closer Tanner Scott was not added. The left-hander was dropped from the National League Division Series roster following surgery on Oct. 8 to remove of an abscess from an infection on his lower body.
Clayton Kershaw, who was left off the Dodgers’ wild-card series roster and did not pitch in the NL Championship Series, is on the World Series roster. Kershaw has said he plans to retire after this season.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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