From sketchbook to spotlight: The lifecycle of an Oregon uniform
EUGENE, Or. — Inside the Marcus Mariota Performance Center, history dangles from wire hangers.
The glitz and glamour surrounding Oregon football is not immediately apparent. This is a practical place — a dimly lit, long hallway inside the second floor of the equipment room furnished with gray built-in closets — created not as a way to showcase, but rather to store the very thing that has become synonymous with the Ducks: their vast array of fabrics, colors and prints.
Among a sea of roughly 800 jerseys, there’s nearly every shade of green — from neon to emerald to forest to army. Here, black or white never look boring, and the yellow used over the years ranges from a Gatorade-colored hue to Cal gold. Splashes of pink, gray, brown, orange, chrome and blue complete the synthetic rainbow.
On this Saturday afternoon following Oregon’s win over Oklahoma State, football equipment administrator Kenny Farr thumbs through pages of dri-fit material and mesh as if flipping through a scrapbook. Every jersey has a story, every color and design a reason for existing at the time as well as an inevitable association that depends on something the style cannot control.
“Some of our best uniforms we’ve ever worn, we lost the games,” Farr said. “It’s hard to mention those, because they looked good, but we didn’t win the game. So it kind of goes down as a jersey I’ll try to forget about and move on to the next.”
Farr isn’t the man behind the jerseys, the designs or even the final decisions of what combinations make it out onto the field. But over the past 15 years, Farr has become a key cog in the enterprise that is Oregon’s uniforms. His role is part manager, part craftsman, part custodian and collector, as well.
“Kenny is the Godfather of Oregon football uniforms,” said Quinn Van Horne, one of the senior designers of Oregon’s latest generation of uniforms.
Throughout the past two and a half decades, as Oregon has cycled through nine different versions of its uniforms, nearly 50 iterations and countless more combinations, the fascination over its attire and the ripple effects it has caused inside and outside the program continue. While some teams have rarely wavered from their classic designs and colors over the years, the Ducks have pushed the envelope, creating a unique energy around their ensembles that attracts players and prompts other schools to try and emulate them.
“We don’t have the tradition that Ohio State or USC or Notre Dame or some of those blue bloods have,” Farr said. “So how do you counteract that? Well, you just go full steam ahead the other direction. Our tradition is to be untraditional; we’re going to always push the edge.”
BEFORE THERE WERE so many permutations of Oregon jerseys, before the well-oiled system that produces at least one new uniform every season and a brand-new set of designs every three years was set in place, the concept began with a simple question.
“How do you make a duck look cool?”
Rick Bakas was working for Nike in the mid-to-late ’90s under a subdivision called Team Sports, dedicated to apparel for professional and college teams.
Bakas, alongside a team of fellow designers who were overseen by Nike creative director — and father of Quinn — Todd Van Horne, had just redesigned the Denver Broncos’ uniforms. The success of that redesign, as well as the momentum Oregon created after its appearances in the 1995 Rose Bowl and the 1996 Cotton Bowl (the first game in which Oregon wore all Nike) led to founder Phil Knight and a cadre of Oregon alumni, including longtime Nike designer Tinker Hatfield, tasking Van Horne and his team with a mission: remake the Oregon Ducks.
As he did nearly every year, Bakas attended the Detroit Auto Show in search of inspiration. There, painted across the chassis of a concept car, Bakas found the key that unlocked everything: a type of paint called ChromaFlair, which gave off a sheen that changed colors.
“I was eating a sandwich out there by the lake, and I was feeding some bread to a mallard out there,” Bakas said. “I was looking at its head, and I was like, ‘That paint looks like this mallard’s head.'”
Bakas brought some of those green swatches of the ChromaFlair paint back to Oregon, took them into a studio and pulled out the darkest and the lightest possible versions; those became the core colors of the concept he and the team presented to Knight.
“It’s amazing how much that helped keep that futuristic feel as we got into the ‘O’ design,” Bakas said. “The project really gave us a chance to marry the two together where we could think about the entire head to toe, how everything was going to look.”
Van Horne believes that even though the color-changing helmets were one of the most important elements of the redesign, they wouldn’t have been complete without the iconic “O” — its inner outline shaped to replicate Hayward Field, Oregon’s track and field stadium, and the outer one mimicking the outline of Autzen Stadium.
The creator of that “O” logo remains in dispute — Van Horne credits Hatfield with the idea, while Bakas says it was his own — but there is no debate about its impact. When the Ducks walked out onto the field to open the 1999 season sporting new colors, with the brand-new “O” on their green ChromaFlair helmets, the paradigm of uniforms shifted.
“The players loved it,” Bakas said. “They were coming from yellow and green with a duck on loose-fitting jerseys. What we gave them was super futuristic, and they absolutely ate it up.”
FARR’S OFFICE PHONE had been ringing. Oregon had just lost 42-20 to Ohio State in the 2014 national championship while wearing a uniform combination that had not yet been featured that season — white jersey, black numbers and lettering, gray pants and a white helmet with silver wings.
“It looked great, but we didn’t win the game,” Farr said. “I had about 15 voicemails on my line the next morning, the next couple of days, of people blaming me, ‘We should have worn green! Why didn’t we wear green?’ And in my mind, I’m thinking, ‘We could have worn any color. I don’t know if we were going to tackle Ezekiel Elliot any better.'”
While it was head coach Mike Bellotti who welcomed the original redesign, it was not until the arrival of Chip Kelly in the late 2000s and through 2012 that Oregon’s sartorial flair truly matched its fast and furious style of play. More uniform combos and a 46-7 record under Kelly supercharged a frenzy, not just around the team’s on-field success, but also around its next iterations of uniforms.
“Winning on a national stage helped so much,” Van Horne said. “That’s when we really dialed up the notion of looking different every game and different combinations and working with the athletes on scripting [uniforms] and even scripting the fans.” It all led to the notion of a uniform release as an event that both Oregon fans and even college football enthusiasts speculated about. The result was an insatiable desire for a wow factor to go with every drop.
“Fans’ expectations are so high for something new and cool, like you’re going to have some groundbreaking uniform that’s never been done before every single game,” Farr said. “But that’s not reality. I would say the last probably six or seven years is really where I got the sense of there’s some weeks where some fans are disappointed because they’re expecting us to have a helmet or a jersey with LED lights in it, and we didn’t do that.”
Farr has found that sometimes, more is less, and most Ducks fans will notice small splashes just as much as they will fixate on what they think of a certain jersey-pant combination.
Sometimes, the splash can be a custom cleat, like the Ducks did last season for the Rose Bowl, or what they’re doing against Penn State this week with exclusive glow-in-the-dark cleats, gloves and accessories. Often, Farr looks to the helmet — the only piece of the outfit he can customize on a weekly basis — as a way to add something new, even if it means an inordinate amount of work for his staff of one assistant and roughly 16 students.
Game 5 uniform for @oregonfootball: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕄𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕪’𝕤 ℝ𝕚𝕟𝕘𓂀💍
– ⚫️⚪️⚫️ for the 3rd year in a row, 6th time ever
– 2nd yr in a row that the black lids make their szn debut in week 5
– 1st 🦆 uni to 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 feature glow in the dark cleats, gloves, accessories#GoDucks pic.twitter.com/DbENrpW1Cv
— Jonah Henderson (@JonahNHenderson) September 25, 2025
When Oregon faced Wisconsin in the 2020 Rose Bowl, and Farr had to reuse a uniform combination, he opted to tweak the chrome helmets with green tonal wings that he painted on to match the face mask. As the famous San Gabriel mountain sunset struck its pose during the game, the helmets reflected it perfectly.
“It ended up being one of the best things I’ve ever done,” Farr said. “Then we won the game. So, it’s iconic right around here. But if we would’ve lost the game, people would be like, ‘Ah, we didn’t have a new uniform.'”
Farr is now used to that pressure, in large part, because he knows it’s not his vision that ultimately matters. In fact, Farr has, in the past, been overruled on a design he didn’t love only to see it shine.
“We wore one at Washington, I want to say four or five years ago, where it was a yellow helmet, yellow gloves and yellow cleats, but it was all white,” Farr said. And I was like, ‘This is looking stupid, and this is going to look terrible.’ We got on the field and people thought it looked great. So they like to give me a hard time about that.”
In the end, the final fit comes down to those who actually wear the jerseys.
TEZ JOHNSON WAS playing the part of lobbyist to no avail. The Oregon wide receiver, four of his teammates and Farr all gathered early last year to make the all-important decision: What were the Ducks going to wear for 2024, and when?
Farr had already received samples of every one of the five base uniforms that made up the “Generation O” class of kits from Van Horne Brands — helmets, jerseys, base layers, socks, cleats and gloves — and had them ready for players to see.
With five to pick from, players have to get creative. Farr does, too. When EA Sports’ college football game made its return last year, Farr was able to get EA to preload all of Oregon’s uniform combinations from its latest set onto the game so current players could try different blends they might be able to replicate in real life.
Johnson was adamant: Oregon should wear an all-black combination against Washington in the season finale. His teammates disagreed. The black getup was their best look of the year, and it should be worn earlier, specifically against Ohio State.
“It was very hotly debated for way too long,” Farr said. “The rest of the guys kind of overrode his vote. He was upset about it — I was like, ‘That’s all part of why you’re on the committee, but you’re only 20% of the vote, man.’ I totally leave it up to them.”
Farr has conducted this meeting for several years now, as a way to democratize the process. Every year, Farr selects a group of players, typically upperclassmen who have shown interest, to form a committee made up of an odd number so there’s never a tie. Over the course of two to three hours, players debate their choices, weighing things like opponent, where the game falls in their schedule and even weather.
“It’s got to be guys that are opinionated and not afraid to voice their opinions, because that’s what you want, you want a healthy dialogue,” Farr said. “For the players that are part of it, it’s kind of a badge of honor.”
Once players have finalized their choices with Farr’s assistance, he will lay out the scripting in a look book and show head coach Dan Lanning before the spring game for approval. Finalizing the looks well in advance of the season helps Farr organize the high volume of inventory he has to line up. Going off-script is rare, but not impossible. Two years ago, with undefeated Colorado visiting for a highly anticipated matchup, the Ducks changed to a different uniform combination.
Now, with the postseason potentially adding four extra games on top of the conference championship, Farr & Co. have to think beyond the regular season and a single bowl appearance. In the first season of the 12-team College Football Playoff last year, once Oregon knew whether it would be the away or home team, Farr texted committee members to get them thinking about their options for a quarterfinal look so Farr could get a combination set and organize the inventory in time
When you have one set of uniforms for three seasons of games, a repeat, especially in the playoffs, is almost inevitable. Even if players love a particular combination and want to run it back, Farr will always try to find a way to add a special twist.
“My whole argument is let’s not be different, just to be different,” Farr said. “We don’t have 12 helmets, 12 jerseys or 12 pairs of pants. It’s the different combinations and tweaks you can make that keep the looks unique.”
THE DUCKS MAY not have a different uniform for every game, but the fact that it feels like they do, or that it feels like they could if they wanted to, is a unique feature of Nike’s influence.
According to Farr, while Nike sponsors many programs across the country, it tiers schools, and that determines access to perks such as special releases and custom apparel, with Tier 1 being the highest — that is, unless you’re Oregon.
“[Nike] always told us,” Farr said, “we were Tier 0.”
“When I got to Oregon, I thought the practice jersey was the game jersey,” said wide receiver Evan Stewart, who transferred from Texas A&M. “It’s just different here. You look good, feel good, you play good.”
While players get to test upcoming fabrics and jersey materials that may not come out until 2028 (Oregon has been in the current Nike Fuse chassis that just came to the NFL since 2019), Nike gets to use Oregon athletes as wear test subjects (often it’s the uniform selection committee who gets first dibs) who provide feedback on the products. And while the Van Hornes and Nike are technically behind the designs, part of their process is getting input from players.
“Sometimes we don’t talk to players about what you want to look like,” Quinn Van Horne said. “It’s, ‘Hey if Oregon was a car, what kind of car would it be? What’s your favorite superhero movie? What kind of music are you listening to? When you walk out on the field, what do you see and what do you want to picture? What do you want to feel like?'”
It’s this system that will constantly evolve as players with different perspectives cycle in and out of the program that Todd Van Horne believes will keep Oregon’s well of uniform ideas stocked for years to come.
Perhaps nothing embodies that mindset more than the fact that Oregon commits to having at least one entirely new, never-before-seen uniform design each season.
Dubbed the “energy moment,” this sixth uniform combination has, over the years, run the gamut and largely been led by players. From a bright pink helmet with black jerseys in 2013, to a pan-Polynesian heritage-themed “Ohana” uniform in 2020, to a “Stomp Out Cancer” jersey in 2017 designed by cancer survivors as well as working on a “Heroes” bright yellow fit with Lanning’s wife Sauphia (who is eight years cancer-free after being diagnosed with osteosarcoma) last season, the energy moment jersey is where Oregon and Nike often flex their muscles. A Stormtrooper look? Yes. A Lewis-and-Clark-inspired combo? Why not?
“While we want to do some throwbacks and some throwbacks need to be done, it’s like, what’s the next thing?” Farr said. “How are we going to evolve?”
There’s another committee that Farr oversees of younger Oregon players who are part of the idea process for what the energy moment jersey will be in 2026 and 2027. This year’s edition had to be approved by Nike 18 months before it saw the field against Oregon State; it featured a charcoal black and gold look with white helmets dubbed “Shoe Duck” that honors Knight.
“We talk so much about when Oregon comes out with a really big uniform, we’re extra stressed,” Quinn Van Horne said. “We really want to make sure they win, because we know what a win does to cement a uniform and its foundation.”
For Farr, the Van Hornes and Bakas, being part of establishing or furthering Oregon’s aesthetic identity is important and an inextricable part of Nike’s history over the past 25 years. But the goal, from the beginning, has always gone beyond that.
“We intentionally said it, we’re doing all this to win a national title and the uniform [redesign] was part of that too,” Bakas said. “That’s the Nike mentality — you want to be the best. The goal was to win a national championship, and the wheels were set in motion back then. The intent was there, but I didn’t think it would take 30 years or 25 years to get to this point. I thought we would’ve won one by now.”
THE BUILDING THAT houses them may be named after him, but inside the hallway of hanging jerseys, you won’t find any sporting Mariota’s name.
Players who finish their senior season at the school are given a framed jersey before their last home game. Because the jerseys are technically state property, should a player want any of his other Oregon jerseys back, the price is $50 — plus shipping and handling.
Mariota bought all of his once he made it to the NFL. Not everyone else has, though. It’s why even though that closet holds close to 1,000 jerseys, there are still 600 to 800 more sitting in storage on the floor below.
“There’s guys that have left after their five years, and maybe your freshman year was the full reset, and then three years in you got another full reset,” Farr said. “So we’ve had guys that have, at the end of their career, had 40 or 50 jerseys.”
After years of simply taking old jerseys and selling them at a school surplus sale, Farr decided on a different approach. When the performance center was built in 2016, he took the jerseys from storage in rail cars to this room, where he organized them in alphabetical order. You never know who is going to swing through Eugene one of these days wanting to reunite with their polyester past.
“For every Marcus, there’s 119 other guys on that team that maybe weren’t the star player, or maybe when they graduated they couldn’t afford to buy all their jerseys,” Farr said. “So maybe they forgot about it or whatever the situation is, and they’ll come back and they’ll just ask me, and I get to tell them ‘Yeah, here they are.'”
Farr got to do just that as recently as the game against the Cowboys this season.
Cornerback Jaylin Davies was a freshman at Oregon in 2021 before transferring to UCLA for three seasons, eventually landing with Oklahoma State. Davies and Farr greeted each other after the game on the field. Though Davies had only recorded a few snaps as a freshman, he wanted his piece of Oregon history.
“You still have my jersey?” Davies asked Farr.
“I do,” Farr told him. “Call me after the season is over.”
Farr was happy to oblige. After all, that’s one more jersey he can take off a hanger and send on its way, just in time for another to take its place.
Sports
At a place known for Franco Harris and Saquon Barkley, RBs Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen doing record things
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Jake Trotter
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — On the field, Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen complement one another out of the Nittany Lions’ backfield like a scoop of cookies-n-cream from Penn State‘s Berkey Creamery.
Off the field, the star rushing duo and longtime roommates see few differences. They’re both quiet, soft-spoken and football junkies.
“He’s like my twin,” Allen said. “We down near like the same person, just in different bodies.”
In their final season together, the two seniors have an opportunity to make history — in multiple ways.
According to ESPN Research, Singleton and Allen are the first Power 4 running back duo to each rush for 750-plus yards in three consecutive seasons since at least 1996. (Indiana’s Antwaan Randle El and Levron Williams matched the feat from 1999-2001, but Randle El was a quarterback).
Singleton and Allen are well on their way to making it a fourth straight year.
Allen has rushed for 273 yards while averaging 8.0 yards per carry; Singleton is at 179 yards and 4.4. The two have combined for eight touchdowns.
Even more impressively, each is within striking distance of breaking Penn State’s career rushing record.
“Penn State’s got an unbelievable history at the running back position,” Nittany Lions coach James Franklin said of an illustrious alumni group that includes reigning NFL Offensive Player of the Year Saquon Barkley, Pro Football Hall of Famer Franco Harris and 1995 No. 1 draft pick Ki-Jana Carter. “Great, great players. And yet these guys have shared carries their entire careers. … So that’s a crazy stat.”
Evan Royster (2007-10) holds the record with 3,932 yards. Barkley is second at 3,843. Allen (3,150) and Singleton (3,091) are each within 900 yards of passing Royster with nine regular-season games left.
“Finishing 1 and 2 at Penn State would be crazy,” Singleton said. “We want to leave here with a legacy. But our [main] goal is to win a national championship.”
Penn State hasn’t won a national championship since 1986.
But with a backfield featuring Singleton, Allen and veteran quarterback Drew Allar, the Nittany Lions believe this is the year they can finally get over the hump.
On Saturday, with ESPN’s “College GameDay” in town, No. 3 Penn State faces sixth-ranked Oregon before a prime-time “White Out” crowd (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC) with a golden opportunity to jump-start its title quest.
“This is going to be a statement game for our season,” Allen said.
Statements have eluded the Nittany Lions in recent history. Singleton and Allen each rushed for more than 100 yards in last year’s Big Ten title game, but the Ducks prevailed 45-37.
The Nittany Lions still made the College Football Playoff.
But under Franklin, Penn State is 4-20 against AP top-10 opponents. Singleton and Allen have only two career wins against top-10 teams — Utah in the Rose Bowl following the 2022 season and Boise State in last year’s CFP quarterfinals.
After falling in the CFP semifinals on Notre Dame’s game-winning field goal to end their junior seasons, Singleton and Allen both considered leaving for the NFL draft. Multiple NFL scouts told ESPN last winter that they viewed the two backs as potential second- or third-round picks.
But neither wanted to end their college careers on such a crushing loss. They also wanted one more season playing and living alongside one another.
“We both came in together,” Singleton said. “Now, we want to finish this off the right way.”
Allen and Singleton first met during a recruiting visit in 2021 when Penn State played Auburn. Because neither talks much, it took time for them to get to know one another well. But while vying for carries as freshmen, the two developed a friendship — instead of a rivalry.
“It was never about trying to go against each other,” Allen said. “We were both trying to take advantage of our opportunities, helping each other out and pushing one another. That’s my brother. We’ve both just been trying to help each other reach our goals.”
When Singleton found a new two-bed apartment before their sophomore season, he asked Allen to room with him.
Now, the two are virtually inseparable.
They claim that they’ve never had a fight or argument. They’re both neat and so low-key, they never bother one another. They also share almost everything, including groceries.
“He’s such a humble guy, a really good roommate and an even better person,” Singleton said. “I can go talk to him about anything. … And he makes sure he does everything right.”
They’ve also made each other better players, keeping one another fresh late in games and late in the season. Combined, they’ve missed only one game – Singleton against UCLA last year.
“The season is long,” Singleton said. “A lot of running backs are getting 20-30 carries a game and they take a beating. We split carries and that keeps us healthy.”
Their complementary skill sets have also given Penn State one of the nation’s most effective rushing attacks. Since they arrived in 2022, the Nittany Lions rank ninth among Power 4 teams in rushing yards per game (190.6) and fourth in yards per rush after contact (3.07).
Singleton and Allen see themselves as college football’s version of Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery, who powered the Detroit Lions to a 15-2 record and top seed in the NFC last year.
Like Gibbs, Singleton brings the speed, with reliable hands to haul in passes out of the backfield. Like Montgomery, Allen brings the power, with the vision to exploit open running lanes between the tackles. Franklin said the “combination” of what they can do is what makes them “such a problem” for defenses.
“Nick has been one of the most consistent players in terms of his preparation that I’ve been around,” Franklin said. “Kaytron is faster, stronger and more explosive than he’s ever been.”
In turn, Singleton and Allen have given the Nittany Lions reason to believe this could finally be their season — and make this one final ride even more special.
“We ain’t never going to get this moment back,” Allen said. “So we’re just trying to make the most of it.”
One of the most anticipated weekends on the 2025 college football calendar is upon us.
The headliner comes Saturday night when No. 6 Oregon visits No. 3 Penn State. A potentially season-defining occasion, the clash of Big Ten powers, will test quarterbacks Drew Allar (Penn State) and Dante Moore (Oregon), Nittany Lions coach James Franklin and the Ducks’ backbone as they step into the hostile confines of Beaver Stadium in Week 5.
Elsewhere, eyes will fall on a trio of juicy SEC matchups: Alabama–Georgia, Auburn–Texas A&M and Ole Miss–LSU, all of which could hold significant implications for the conference title race and the College Football Playoff field.
Ahead of a series of high-level games, our college football reporters deliver their insights on keys to the weekend’s biggest matchups, five quarterbacks putting themselves on the map this fall and the best quotes so far from Week 5. — Eli Lederman
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Georgia-Alabama | Quarterbacks to know
Key conference matchups
Quotes of the Week
What does each team need to capitalize on to win?
Georgia: If the Bulldogs are going to defeat the Crimson Tide for only the second time in the past 11 meetings, they’ll have to avoid getting themselves in another big hole — and take advantage of playing Alabama at home for the first time in nearly 10 years.
In last season’s 41-34 loss in Tuscaloosa, the Bulldogs trailed by three touchdowns before the end of the first quarter and by 28 points less than 18 minutes into the game. Georgia put together a furious rally in the fourth quarter, scoring three straight touchdowns to grab a 34-33 lead.
The Crimson Tide won on Jalen Milroe‘s 75-yard scoring pass to Ryan Williams with 2:18 to go.
Georgia had a similar slow start in its 44-41 victory in overtime at Tennessee on Sept. 13. The Volunteers scored touchdowns on their first three possessions to take a 21-7 lead, and the Bulldogs had to come from behind on the road. They were fortunate that Tennessee missed a 43-yard field goal attempt to take the lead near the end of regulation.
The Bulldogs didn’t do a good job of containing Milroe last season. He threw for 374 yards with two touchdowns and ran for 117 yards with two scores, including several long runs to keep drives alive. New Tide quarterback Ty Simpson isn’t as fast as Milroe, but he also isn’t a statue standing in the pocket.
Williams burned Georgia’s secondary on some big plays last season, finishing with six catches for 177 yards. The Bulldogs had similar problems against Tennessee’s fast-paced offense, and they’ll have to shore up those mistakes and play better on the back end. Getting pressure on Simpson would also help; the Bulldogs had only four sacks in their first three games this season.
On offense, Georgia needs to do a better job of protecting quarterback Gunner Stockton, who took too many hits at Tennessee. The Bulldogs need to find more ways to get the ball into the hands of Zachariah Branch, and tight ends Oscar Delp and Lawson Luckie also need to get their share of touches. Shoring up the right side of the offensive line, which has been a trouble spot, will allow them to be more involved in the passing game. — Mark Schlabach
Alabama: It has not been pretty for Alabama on the road under Kalen DeBoer. Alabama is 2-4 since he became head coach, including a 31-17 loss to Florida State to open the season. In that loss, the Crimson Tide looked lethargic at times and ended up being beaten up front on both sides of the ball. So to give themselves any chance against Georgia, their first road game since Week 1, they simply must play better on the offensive and defensive lines. Getting defensive lineman Tim Keenan III back from an ankle injury will be huge in that respect. Alabama has struggled to rush the passer without him, and has only four sacks on the season. Georgia has done a nice job using Gunner Stockton in the run game when needed, so slowing him down is also going to be key. That is also an area in which Alabama struggled against the Seminoles.
On the other side of the ball, offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said it would continue to rotate its starting offensive line unit to find the right combination. Getting Jam Miller back at running back is also is a big addition, not only because of his running ability but his presence as a pass blocker in the backfield. But more than anything, defensive coordinator Kane Wommack said the team was eager to prove it has learned how to handle adversity in-game, something that cost it in the opener.
“There’s a difference when you have to go on the road, particularly in the SEC and in a hostile environment and respond to adversity,” Wommack said. “At times, we have been a team that has been reactionary to adversity, and we’ve got to be more responsive. It’s at the forefront of our minds, and I expect to see a very responsive football team on Saturday.” — Andrea Adelson
Five quarterbacks who are putting themselves on the map
Curt Cignetti found a gem via the transfer portal yet again. Mendoza was solid at Cal the past two years, but he was surrounded with little talent and playing in an offense that probably didn’t maximize his skill set. Turned loose at Indiana, he has looked like a genuine Heisman Trophy candidate, including a dominant five-touchdown performance in a win over Illinois. For the season, Mendoza has 14 touchdown passes without an interception.
When Castellanos talked smack about Alabama this summer, it became a national punchline. When he backed it up with a win over the Tide in Week 1, he had the last laugh. Through three games, Castellanos’ 91.6 Total QBR ranks third nationally, though he’ll be in for a test the next two weeks — a road trip to Virginia on Friday for what could be a shootout and then a showdown against rival Miami. If Castellanos takes down another top-five team, the Heisman might be his to lose.
A part of the same class as Drew Allar, Pribula wasn’t able to get onto the field with any regularity at Penn State. He entered the portal and landed at Missouri, but he didn’t win the starting job there until just before the opener. And yet, once he was given his chance to shine, Pribula has looked like a star. He has racked up 11 TDs so far this season and has the Tigers undefeated and trending up in the rankings.
The sixth-year senior has been through his share of growing pains. He was a well-regarded recruit at Colorado but was part of the brutal 2021 season that led to the arrival of coach Deion Sanders, then transferred to Nevada, where his team struggled again. Now he has found the right fit at Memphis, where he has the Tigers 4-0 and well positioned to snag the Group of 6’s playoff spot.
North Texas is 4-0 and Mestemaker has 10 TD passes and no picks. It’d be a great story if that was all there was to it. But this rags-to-riches tale goes much deeper. Mestemaker wasn’t even the starter at his high school and arrived at UNT as a walk-on. He got the start in last year’s bowl game after Chandler Morris entered the portal, then beat out Reese Poffenbarger for the starting job this fall. He has rewarded the Mean Green’s belief with a red-hot start to the season. — David Hale
Biggest things that need to happen in these matchups
Auburn-Texas A&M: This series has been a strange one since 2021. The Aggies won twice at home, both times by 17 points. Auburn won twice at home, by three in 2022 and then two last year, in a 43-41 upset in four overtimes. This game, in College Station, will be another interesting one. The Aggies are coming off a bye week after their upset of Notre Dame, their first nonconference road win against an AP top-10 team since 1979. Auburn lost 24-17 at Oklahoma and is 0-5 under Hugh Freeze against ranked teams on the road. For the Tigers, they’ll first need to shore up an offensive line that gave up eight sacks on Jackson Arnold from a standard pass rush. But Auburn will look to move the ball with its rushing attack (198 yards per game, 5.0 yards per carry) against the Aggies, who are giving up 139 yards per game on the ground and are 102nd nationally in scoring defense at 28.7 points. But if the Aggies can get Arnold into being one-dimensional and having to play from behind, that will give them an advantage. They can do so by utilizing the dynamic duo of Mario Craver, the SEC’s leading receiver with 443 yards, even with the bye week (he had seven catches for 207 yards against Notre Dame), and KC Concepcion, who had four catches for 82 yards against the Irish. — Dave Wilson
LSU-Ole Miss: Last season’s showdown went to overtime in Baton Rouge. Expect another tight battle that comes down to details and who capitalizes on opportunities. Third-down conversions are going to be essential. Ole Miss’ offense is 5-of-17 on third and medium (3 to 7 yards) this season, and LSU’s defense is getting stops on 14 of 22 chances in that spot. This is where Lane Kiffin’s decision at QB becomes even more critical. Trinidad Chambliss is averaging 12.3 yards per carry on third downs and has yet to take a third-down sack. Can he be efficient in those high-pressure moments against the best defense he has faced? For LSU’s offense, the big question is injured running back Caden Durham‘s availability and finding answers in the run game so Garrett Nussmeier isn’t frequently stuck in third-and-long. The Tigers’ average third-down distance this season has been 7.9 yards, which ranks 114th in FBS, according to ESPN Research. — Max Olson
Oregon-Penn State: Quarterback Drew Allar needs to be a reason — perhaps the reason — why the Nittany Lions notch a signature win in a game in which they have most of the advantages. Allar wasn’t overly sharp in his past two performances, completing fewer than 58% of his passes against both Villanova and Florida International. He will need to be sharper against a talented but quite young Oregon defense, and start to change his big-game rep. Oregon must show it can handle one of the toughest environments in college football, Beaver Stadium at night in a White Out. The game marks a big growth opportunity for Ducks quarterback Dante Moore, a first-year starter, and also promising young players such as wide receiver Dakorien Moore and defensive backs Brandon Finney Jr. and Aaron Flowers. The Ducks visited Michigan and Wisconsin in 2024, but they haven’t faced an elite Big Ten opponent on the road until now. — Adam Rittenberg
Quotes of the Week
“We need this place rocking,” Penn State coach James Franklin said ahead of the Nittany Lions’ White Out game against No. 6 Oregon. “Need to have a distinct home-field advantage. We always do, but I’m expecting this to be an environment like no one has ever seen.”
“We’ll do everything we can to be prepared for that environment for sure,” said Oregon’s Dan Lanning, who was also asked about the song “Mo Bamba”, which has become a fixture of No. 3 Penn State home games. “I don’t love that song.”
“I would say he’s probably the hottest quarterback right now in all of college football,” Georgia’s Kirby Smart said of Alabama’s Ty Simpson ahead of the Bulldogs’ Week 5 visit from the No. 17 Crimson Tide. “His two last outings, I don’t know [if] I’ve seen an incompletion. The ball does not hit the ground. He’s been accurate. He’s been quick with the ball. They’re really hard to defend because of their skill. They’ve got tremendous skill — receivers, backs, tight ends. But you got to have a trigger guy that can get those guys the ball and they do.”
“We ain’t with that get-back stuff,” Colorado’s Deion Sanders said as his team prepares to face No. 25 BYU nine months after the Cougars blew out the Buffaloes in the 2024 Valero Alamo Bowl. “I ain’t with that get-back stuff. I’m with that let’s-get-them stuff. They played their butts off, kicked our butts in the bowl game. Now we have a whole new team.”
“I always love when you guys say that, like, ‘Oh, OK, now we’ll go actually, like, try and game-plan really hard,” Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin said with the Rebels set to host No. 4 LSU on Saturday. “It’s OK. My boss says the same things when we play Arkansas. ‘Hey, I really need this one.’ Oh, OK, well then we’ll actually, like, try this week. We were just going to not try.”
“Is it hot in here or is it just me every week?” Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy speaking to reporters three days after the Cowboys 19-12 loss to Tulsa and less than 24 hours before he was fired Tuesday morning after his 21st season in charge of the program.
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