No. 3 Oregon led Idaho by only three points halfway through the fourth quarter. No. 24 NC State trailed Western Carolina and UCLA trailed Hawaii heading into the fourth. Abilene Christian had a couple of chances to score and win against Texas Tech. Tennessee Tech led Middle Tennessee and Central Arkansas led Arkansas State in the final minute. Old Dominion led South Carolina with seven minutes left. Texas State (Lamar), Michigan State (Florida Atlantic) and Wisconsin (Western Michigan) couldn't shake heavy underdogs.
The main theme of Week 1 of the 2024 college football season: near-upsets. Sure, some favorites indeed fell -- namely, Virginia Tech against Vanderbilt -- but for the most part, the favorites survived. And some made pretty ferocious statements.
When we've been talking for eight months and we're desperate for something to react to, expected or unexpected, we have only one choice: We must overreact! There's nothing more fun than jumping to conclusions with a tiny sample size, especially when at least a few of these overreactions turn out to be correct. So here are seven bold (or bold-ish) statements after a controlled but entertaining Week 1.
Jump to a section:
Penn State will win Big Ten! | Trouble for Clemson!
Miami will win ACC! | OK State will win Big 12!
Buffs will disappoint everyone! | UNLV to the CFP!
Northwestern nailed it! | Biggest surprises
Heisman of the week | Top 10 games
Penn State is winning the Big Ten
No. 8 Penn State 34, West Virginia 12
No. 2 Ohio State began the season with a three-and-out and needed a good 25 minutes to distance itself from Akron in an eventual 52-6 win. No. 3 Oregon scored only two touchdowns in its first 10 drives against Idaho -- a good FCS team, but an FCS team all the same -- and led by only three until Tez Johnson's fourth-down touchdown catch built distance in a 24-14 win. Michigan gained just 269 total yards against Fresno State and led by only six with six minutes left until the one-two punch of a Colston Loveland touchdown catch and Will Johnson pick-six finished off a 30-10 win.
Of the Big Ten's four top-10 teams, only Penn State played what was supposed to be a challenging Week 1 game. And only Penn State finished Week 1 unchallenged. (OK, Ohio State wasn't challenged much either. But still: Akron.) After a sloppy first quarter in Morgantown, the Nittany Lions scored on Drew Allar touchdown passes of 50 (to Harrison Wallace) and 20 yards (Kaytron Allen). West Virginia labored to get within 13-6 late in the first half, but Allar hit Omari Evans for a 55-yard bomb, Wallace scored from 18 yards out and Penn State led by 14 at the half. After a lengthy weather delay, Nicholas Singleton landed the knockout blow with a 40-yard, Saquon Barkley-esque sprint.
PSU nearly doubled WVU's yardage (457-246), and Allar looked brilliant in his first game under new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, completing 11 of 17 passes for 216 yards and three scores, taking zero sacks and even rushing six times for 44 yards and four first downs (three coming on third down).
This was the best imaginable start for the Nittany Lions. In Friday's Week 1 mega-preview, I wrote, "Penn State could benefit as much as anyone from the playoff's expansion. Per ESPN Analytics, James Franklin's team enters 2024 with a 59% chance of dancing, the fifth best overall odds. ... The road to a huge win total looks relatively clear if two new coordinator hires -- Andy Kotelnicki on offense, Tom Allen on defense -- stick as well as most of Franklin's previous coordinator hires have. If there are any growing pains, however, 2024 could start on a pretty sour note."
There were no growing pains whatsoever. Kotelnicki immediately imbued Allar with both a confidence and an aggression he didn't seem to have last season, Singleton looked like the 2022 version of Singleton again (after a disappointing sophomore campaign), and Allen's defense held the Mountaineers to a below-average success rate (38%) with the same number of takeaways (three) as gains of more than 20 yards allowed. With Oregon and Michigan both looking like they were in second gear and Ohio State in third gear at best, Penn State was the class of the Big Ten's elite in Week 1. Now all it has to do is keep it up.
Clemson is going 7-5
No. 1 Georgia 34, No. 14 Clemson 3
"When you get beat like that," Clemson's Dabo Swinney told the media after Saturday's demoralizing loss to Georgia, "that's on the head coach." When he's right, he's right. And what lessons Swinney actually internalizes and acts on will determine the future of his program.
You know the story by now. As the winds of change have blown through college football, Swinney has resisted as much as possible. He proudly refuses to take in transfers, insisting he can get what he needs from the culture and development that brought his Tigers two national titles. And while he finally succumbed to the need to refresh his offense with outside ideas and brought in coordinator Garrett Riley last year, he insisted that Riley would be running the "Clemson offense" and wouldn't be changing all that much.
When this works, you call it consistency or sticking to your guns. When it doesn't, you call it stubbornness. On Saturday, Swinney's stubbornness helped produce Clemson's worst loss since 2013. The depth chart holes that began to appear in 2021 still haven't been addressed sufficiently, and the "Clemson offense" that has produced some of the fewest big plays in the country for years was almost completely incapable of damaging the Georgia defense, gaining just 188 yards in 52 snaps. Peter Woods and the Clemson defense tried their best, forcing either punts or field goals on Georgia's first five drives. But they couldn't stress quarterback Carson Beck much, and eventually a combination of Clemson demoralization and pure Georgia meanness set in: The Dawgs scored touchdowns on four of five drives in the second half.
Honestly, Georgia has provided the model for Clemson to follow. Kirby Smart only selectively uses the transfer portal, still relying on good, old-fashioned high school recruiting and development. The 2024 recruiting cycle was the first time he brought in more than four transfers, and of this year's new guys, only receiver London Humphreys, whose 40-yard catch and run with 10 minutes left officially put the game away, did much Saturday. (Running back Trevor Etienne, another transfer, will likely play a solid role but was out Saturday as a result of a DUI arrest this spring.) Meanwhile, when Smart succumbed to the need to upgrade his offense after a frustrating 2020 season, he didn't go full spread-and-tempo or anything; he found a coordinator in Todd Monken who could maintain power and physicality with a few more modern flourishes. Smart has stuck to his guns to a large degree, but he acknowledges when change is necessary.
We really don't know what the future of college football roster management holds. Scholarship counts are changing, rosters will be capped, and player compensation is being revamped. That Swinney would want to stick to his guns until these rounds of change are complete makes some sense. But while plenty of decent teams get thumped by Georgia, the Clemson we saw Saturday got obliterated. The Tigers not only looked like a team far from the standard of the top 10 or 15; they looked like a team that could lose quite a few more games this season. Granted, almost no one else in the ACC looks better -- aside from the one we're about to discuss next -- but it doesn't feel like much of an overreaction to think that a three-year slide at Clemson will continue apace into a fourth year.
Miami is winning the ACC
A college football head coach is required to be good at a number of things -- sales, politics, motivating men aged 18-22, detailed tactics, extreme adaptability (and now salary cap management) -- that conflict with one another. Being good at a couple of them likely means you have a personality type that makes you bad at others.
Mario Cristobal is one of the most extreme examples of this conflict. On one hand, he has been one of the best college football recruiters on the planet for a couple of decades and has signed top-six classes (with impressive transfer hauls) for two straight years at Miami. On the other hand, with natural-born confidence, conservatism and brute-force instincts when it comes to both sales and football, he has often proved to be strategically inflexible on the field.
Now in his 13th season as a head coach, his in-game management skills have not improved. He's 11-19 all time (and 1-5 at Miami) in one-score games against teams that finished the season over .500. Part of a coach's close-game record is based on bounces and randomness, but game management is a thing. After last season's devastating miscue against Georgia Tech, among others, Cristobal added what he called a "time management coach" this offseason to help address flaws in that regard.
That didn't stop Miami from suffering a familiar and potentially devastating sequence in the second quarter Saturday against Florida. Leading 17-3 with an offense that had scored three times in four possessions, Miami faced a fourth-and-1 from its 35 and lined up to punt before calling timeout. Reconsidering? Keeping the offense on the field and riding quarterback Cam Ward's hot hand? Nope. With Jimbo Fisher out of a job, Cristobal might be the most fourth-down resistant major college coach. After wasting the timeout, the Hurricanes still punted.
As a rueful nerd who hates when coaches overconsider "What happens if my smoking-hot offense can't gain a yard on fourth down" and underconsider "What happens if I voluntarily just give the ball to the other team?" I found myself hoping that this sequence would backfire dramatically. And within about 60 seconds of real time, it had. Chimere Dike returned the punt 17 yards to the Florida 29, preventing Miami from flipping the field, and on the first play of the Gators' ensuing drive, Montrell Johnson Jr. raced 71 yards down the left sideline to make the score 17-10 and potentially change the game. It felt like a Same Old Miami (or Same Old Mario) situation.
A funny thing happened after that, though. Miami carved its way right back down the field, capping an eight-play scoring drive with a 24-yard touchdown pass from Ward to Xavier Restrepo. Then the Canes went 75 yards in six plays and 86 yards in nine plays to extend the lead to 38-10 in the third quarter. The defense raised its level in response to the breakdown, and in what looked on paper to be one of the closer games of Week 1, Ward looked like a Heisman candidate, and Miami sent a message, more than doubling Florida's yardage (529-261) and rolling by 24.
One game in, it looks like Cristobal's natural strengths (talent compilation) have created enough of an advantage to overcome whatever natural weaknesses remain. In a season that has begun with both Florida State and Clemson laying eggs in their season openers, the Canes are suddenly well-positioned to take control of the ACC if they can continuously clear the bar they just set.
Oklahoma State is winning the Big 12
No. 17 Oklahoma State 44, South Dakota State 20
Now in his 20th season as Oklahoma State's head coach, Mike Gundy coaches like a man who has tenure and knows it. Sometimes he and his staff don't quite know what they have when a season starts, and it takes them a little while to figure it out. But there are minimal panic moves, only slow reassessment. And they usually find the answer eventually. In 2021, the Cowboys beat Missouri State, Tulsa and Boise State by a combined 13 points but soon found an identity around a physical and dynamic defense and less risk-tolerant offense; they hit the accelerator, came within inches of a Big 12 title and finished No. 7 in the AP poll.
Last year, things looked even bleaker at the start. Bouncing among three quarterbacks, OSU started 2-2 and suffered a humiliating 33-7 loss to South Alabama. But leaning on a newly discovered strength -- Ollie Gordon II and a dominant run game -- the Cowboys won eight of their last 10, reached the Big 12 championship game and beat Texas A&M to finish 10-4 and 16th in the poll.
Last year's Cowboys would have almost certainly lost a Week 1 battle with last year's South Dakota State, but with Gordon's return and one of the most experienced rosters in the country, OSU entered 2024 knowing itself pretty well. The Pokes gave a less experienced SDSU team no chance, building an early 10-0 lead, getting 146 combined scrimmage yards and three touchdowns from Gordon and holding the Jackrabbits to a combined 3-for-17 on third and fourth downs.
Plenty of other potential Big 12 contenders looked solid in Week 1. No. 12 Utah, No. 18 Kansas State and No. 22 Kansas beat their respective FCS opponents by a combined score of 138-9, Iowa State's defense looked the part in a 21-3 win over solid North Dakota and the offense for No. 21 Arizona was in fifth gear during a 61-39 win over New Mexico. (The Wildcats' defense, not so much.) But OSU doesn't tend to look its best until October or November, and if the Cowboys are already this solid, that spells trouble.
Colorado will disappoint supporters AND haters
Colorado 31, North Dakota State 26
With just about every radio hit I did this offseason, I quickly learned that there are basically two types of people in the college football universe: The people who think (probably just as they did last year) that Deion Sanders' Colorado team is star-studded and ready for a big breakthrough, and the people who think the Buffaloes are fraudulent, just as they were last season, and that betting the under on CU's win total (5.5) was like stealing money.
What we saw Thursday night suggests that from a results perspective, both parties will end up disappointed with what they see in 2024.
In a delightful contrast-of-styles affair, North Dakota State did its typical clock-eating things, generating 25 first downs, going 7-for-13 on third downs and eating up 36:44 of possession. Colorado, meanwhile, seemingly tried nothing but haymakers, landing enough for quarterback Shedeur Sanders to rack up 445 passing yards (17.1 per completion) and four touchdowns.
NDSU scored on its first four drives and built a 20-14 lead late in the second quarter, but the Bison had to settle for a couple of field goals and left the door open. Colorado went on a 17-0 second-half run to go up 31-20, but NDSU scored with 2:19 left, and after some iffy clock management decisions by the Buffaloes, the Bison got one last chance to win, eventually completing a Hail Mary but coming up 4 yards short.
The Colorado defensive front looked a bit improved, holding NDSU to 4.1 yards per (non-sack) carry and creating a decent seven tackles for loss. But the secondary got torched repeatedly, and for the most part it looked like the things the Buffaloes were good at (throwing) and bad at (rushing, defending) in 2023 might be about the same in 2024. We'll find out more next week when CU visits Nebraska, but if I had to guess, after Thursday's toss-up win it feels like Colorado's most likely record is about 6-6, enough to both fall far short of a breakthrough and lose all of those "under 5.5 wins" bets.
UNLV is going to the CFP
Last week, I took a look at the race for the Group of 5's automatic CFP bid, listing the top 10 teams per preseason SP+ projections, plus five high-upside dark horses. Because of an iffy 2023 defense, UNLV was listed merely in the dark horses category. But if the defense we saw Saturday in Houston sticks around for a while, the Rebels will quickly move to the top of the power ratings.
In what seemed it could be an even affair, UNLV outgained Houston 242-59 while building a 14-0 halftime lead, then stretched the lead to 24-0 on Texas transfer Jalen Catalon's 36-yard pick-six in the third quarter. A late, 90-yard drive finally put Houston on the board, but this one was over early.
Holy Cross transfer QB Matthew Sluka had a hit-and-miss debut for UNLV, going just 6-for-13 passing for 71 yards and an interception, but he threw two early touchdown passes to Jacob De Jesus and rushed for 62 non-sack yards, and the Rebels offense's main goal was just to get out of the way and kill clock in the second half. They didn't need much out of star receiver Ricky White III. (They will in the future.)
Most of the obvious preseason G5 contenders looked solid in Week 1. Memphis, App State and Tulane disposed of FCS opponents with little to no difficulty, James Madison scored the final 27 points in a 30-7 win over Charlotte, Boise State and UTSA suffered second-half hiccups but beat Georgia Southern and Kennesaw State, respectively, by double digits, and Fresno State had No. 9 Michigan on the ropes well into the fourth quarter. Liberty's defense showed familiar signs of frailty in a 41-24 win over Campbell, but only Troy (28-26 to Nevada) and Western Kentucky (63-0 to Bama) suffered damning losses. The list of contenders remains long, but no one produced a more provocative first-week win than UNLV.
Northwestern must cancel its stadium renovation
Northwestern 13, Miami (Ohio) 6
It was one of the more quirky stories of the offseason: While longtime home Ryan Field is undergoing a massive, two-year renovation, Northwestern needed a place to play its home games. Wrigley Field, delightful in its own right, will play the role a couple of times late this (and presumably next) season, but instead of pounding out a makeshift home schedule with whatever Chicago-area professional stadiums were available, the school decided to pound out a makeshift stadium right off Lake Michigan.
The story was great. But somehow the actual scene was even greater.
We didn't. https://t.co/AxKgTvCG2n pic.twitter.com/FuvpxStv4M
β Northwestern Athletics (@NU_Sports) August 31, 2024
The Wildcats inaugurated their new home with a peppy (and predictably defense-heavy) win over defending MAC champion Miami. Look, Northwestern. I know you've already broken ground on the new Ryan Field. I know you've already raised the $800 million, and I know millionaire donors tend to want what they want. I know the new stadium will look predictably glamorous and modern. I'm sure you'll get what you paid for, and I know that changing the plan at this point is unrealistic.
But I don't want "glamorous" or "realistic" from Northwestern football! I want nasty football that gets three times grosser when November winds start blowing off Lake Michigan. I want to see water on television during the entire football game. I want to see the wind blow a wayward punt into said water at some point. I regretfully inform you that, for the good of all of college football, you must scrap the good plan and instead plug some of that $800 million into making the on-the-water stadium permanent. Forget fancy, modern amenities. Embrace weirdness instead!
The five most surprising results
Here are the five results that were furthest away from their respective SP+ projections. Call them either surprises or bad projections, I guess. (Out of mercy, we'll omit the games where an FBS team blew out an FCS opponent by even more than projected. Not much fun in that.)
Arizona State 48, Wyoming 7 (projected margin: +6.5). An impressive statement from the Sun Devils to start Kenny Dillingham's second season in charge. Against a Wyoming team not built to play well from behind -- read: They want to run the ball and play plodding, physical ball -- ASU scored on a pick-six 41 seconds into the game and kept pouring it on from there. Total yardage: ASU 499, UW 118, and 50% of the Cowboys' yards came on a late garbage-time drive. Domination.
No. 3 Oregon 24, Idaho 14 (projected margin: +43.0). If you've been reading this column for a while, you know by now that Jason Eck's Idaho Vandals are the real deal at the FCS level. They're tough, they're fiery, they're athletic and they're good. But Oregon is supposed to be the real deal at the FBS level, right?
For now, I'm punting on a hot take here. Oregon's Dillon Gabriel did go 41-of-49 after all, and while Idaho limited big plays well, we'll see what happens with the Ducks next week against Boise State's defense (which gave up 465 yards to Georgia Southern) before we panic.
Texas Tech 52, Abilene Christian 51 (projected margin: +30.5). A Big 12 team was the biggest overachiever of the week, and another Big 12 team was the third-biggest underachiever. This was a little too Texas Tech, Texas Tech. (We'll get into this one more below.)
Sam Houston 34, Rice 14 (projected margin: -7.8). Since an 0-8 start last year in their FBS debut, K.C. Keeler's Bearkats have won four of five and are looking far more like the FCS power we thought was making the jump. Qua'Vez Humphreys' 67-yard touchdown catch, and David Fisher's pick-six 50 seconds later, gave Sam Houston an early 14-0 lead, and it led by double digits the rest of the way.
Coastal Carolina 55, Jacksonville State 27 (projected margin: +0.9). I was surprised Coastal ended up a betting underdog in this one, but I was still expecting a close game. The Chants had no interest in that. Against what was supposed to be about the third-best team in Conference USA, they rushed for 294 yards, threw for 258 and took a 31-3 second-quarter lead before hitting cruise control.
Who won the Heisman this week?
I am once again awarding the Heisman every single week of the season and doling out weekly points, F1-style (in this case, 10 points for first place, 9 for second, and so on). How will this Heisman race play out, and how different will the result be from the actual Heisman voting?
Here is this week's Heisman top 10. I'll update the running point total each week, and if anyone from Sunday night's USC-LSU game or Monday night's Florida State-Boston College game puts together a top-10 performance, I'll update the list.
1. Cam Ward, Miami (26-of-35 passing for 385 yards, 3 TDs and 1 INT, plus 36 non-sack rushing yards against Florida).
2. Miller Moss, USC (27-for-36 passing for 378 yards and one touchdown vs. LSU)
3. Ashton Jeanty, Boise State (20 carries for 267 yards and 6 touchdowns against Georgia Southern).
4. Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona (10 catches for 304 yards and 4 touchdowns against New Mexico).
5. Drew Allar, Penn State (11-of-17 passing for 216 yards and 3 touchdowns, plus 44 rushing yards against West Virginia).
6. Travis Hunter, Colorado (7 catches for 132 yards and 3 touchdowns, plus 3 tackles against North Dakota State).
7. Jalen Milroe, Alabama (7-of-9 passing for 200 yards and 3 touchdowns, plus 86 non-sack rushing yards and 2 TDs against Western Kentucky).
8. Carson Beck, Georgia (23-of-33 passing for 278 yards and 2 touchdowns against Clemson).
9. Kyle Kennard, South Carolina (4.5 tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks and 2 forced fumbles against Old Dominion).
10. Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss (22-of-27 passing for 418 yards and 5 touchdowns, plus 30 non-sack rushing yards and a touchdown against Furman).
I almost gave the top four all a tie for first. They were difficult to choose among -- Jeanty and McMillan both had basically perfect rushing and receiving lines, respectively -- but when in doubt, go with the quarterback. Ward strutted around the field, threw from about 17 different arm angles and looked like a player awfully interested in winning the Heisman this year. And his team certainly played with the same confidence. I'm intrigued, Miami. And while I'm still not totally sure about the defense, I'm intrigued about you as well, USC. Moss distributed the ball to 10 different receivers, four had at least 50 yards, Kyron Hudson made a couple of enormous catches, and the Trojans scored twice late to pull a huge win over USC. Hard to ask for much more than that.
Honorable mention (in alphabetical order):
Noah Fifita, Arizona (19-of-31 passing for 422 yards, 4 TDs and 1 INT against New Mexico).
Ethan Hampton, Northern Illinois (18-of-20 passing for 328 yards and 5 touchdowns against Western Illinois).
Jimmy Horn Jr., Colorado (7 catches for 198 yards and a touchdown against NDSU).
Cam Rising, Utah (10-of-15 passing for 254 yards and 5 touchdowns, plus 25 rushing yards against Southern Utah).
Malik Rutherford, Georgia Tech (11 catches for 197 yards and a touchdown against Georgia State).
Shedeur Sanders, Colorado (26-of-34 passing for 445 yards, 4 TDs and 1 INT against NDSU).
Anthony Tyus, Ohio (16 carries for 203 yards and 2 touchdowns against Syracuse).
Damon Ward Jr., North Texas (12 catches for 230 yards and 2 touchdowns against South Alabama).
My 10 favorite games of the weekend
1. Vanderbilt 34, Virginia Tech 27. I almost listed "Vanderbilt is going to be the most annoying 4-8 team ever" among the overreactions above. We'll see what kind of staying power the Commodores have this season now that there's film on what they want to do, but everything about their offseason changes -- most notably, bringing in former New Mexico State head coach Jerry Kill and a few of his favorite Aggies -- screamed "This team's going to be a giant pain in the butt at the beginning of the season." They certainly were in this game, bolting to a 17-3 lead before the Hokies' offense could wake up.
Vanderbilt stops Virginia Tech on fourth-and-11 to win 34-27 in overtime.
The Commodores' finish was even more impressive than their start. Tech seemingly seized the game with a 17-0 run, and the Dores looked dead on their feet. But crafty old Diego Pavia led a 70-yard touchdown drive, tied the game with an 8-yard touchdown pass to Sedrick Alexander, then scored the eventual game winner in overtime. With QB Kyron Drones suddenly suffering from cramps, Tech couldn't respond, and Vandy had its first nonconference win over a power-conference team since 2017.
2. Texas Tech 52, Abilene Christian 51. Nothing like a good West Texas track meet. Texas Tech scored on its first five possessions and finished with 539 yards, but ACU gained 615, scored 17 points in the fourth quarter, nearly won in regulation and gave the Red Raiders a massive scare before former Tech QB Maverick McIvor, after throwing for 506 yards and three scores, was sacked on a potential game-winning 2-point conversion in OT.
3. Colorado 31, North Dakota State 26. This one was exactly what we hoped it would be.
4. Arkansas State 34, Central Arkansas 31. As with the game in Lubbock, this matchup of FBS-FCS neighbors nearly went awry for the home team. Arkansas State took a 27-10 lead early in the fourth quarter, but Central Arkansas almost immediately scored twice, then took the lead on Darius Hale's short touchdown with 55 seconds left. Needing a touchdown to win, however, ASU drove 70 yards in 52 seconds, and Corey Rucker's 7-yard TD catch won it with three seconds left.
5. NAIA: No. 19 Benedictine 48, No. 10 Morningside 45. One of the few ranked-versus-ranked matchups at the smaller-school level produced one of the wildest track meets of the week. Benedictine broke out to a 28-3 lead in Sioux City -- the most dangerous lead in football! -- just 15:09 into the game, but Morningside, the 2018, 2019 and 2021 NAIA national champ responded. The Mustangs took a 45-41 lead with just 3:31 remaining, but Jackson Dooley found Jacob Gathright for a 29-yard score with 0:55 left. Morningside quickly drove the length of the field, but Lennx Brown was stuffed at the goal line as time expired.
6. Northwestern 13, Miami (Ohio) 6. There was no way this game was going to see many points, but the glorious locale and spirited defenses made it a delight all the same. Northwestern QB Mike Wright scored the game's only touchdown on a 13-yard burst early in the third quarter, but Miami drove to or past midfield in each of its final four drives. The RedHawks had to settle for a field goal after driving to the Northwestern 10 midway through the fourth quarter, and a last-minute drive ended with a Robert Fitzgerald interception at the NU 25.
7. Middle Tennessee 32, Tennessee Tech 25. Another near-upset for the FCS ranks and my favorite win probability chart of the week.
Middle Tennessee eased out to a 21-0 lead in the second quarter but shifted into cruise control far too early. Tennessee Tech went on a 25-3 run, capped by Jordan Yates' touchdown with 1:06 remaining, but the Blue Raiders finally awakened. Frank Peasant cut to his left and sprinted for a 30-yard TD with 16 seconds remaining for the winning score.
8. Nevada 28, Troy 26. Nevada threw a scare into SMU before succumbing in Week 0; the Wolf Pack followed that up with a lovely road upset of the two-time defending Sun Belt champ in Week 1. Color me intrigued. This one was a game of runs: 14-0 for Troy, then 28-3 for Nevada, then, late in the fourth quarter, 9-0 for Troy. But after Devonte Ross' 16-yard score brought the Trojans to within 2, they couldn't convert a desperate 2-point try to tie it.
Goose Crowder finds Devonte Ross for a late touchdown, but Troy cannot cash in the tying 2-point conversion.
9. UCLA 16, Hawai'i 13. Near-upsets were the theme of the week. After a run of early UCLA miscues (and a lovely Hawai'i fake punt), the Rainbow Warriors took a 10-0 lead into halftime, and while the Bruins fought back, it took them until the final minute to finally take the lead. Mateen Bhaghani's third field goal of the day made it 16-13, and Hawai'i's last-ditch comeback drive went nowhere.
10. FCS: Rhode Island 20, Holy Cross 17. You led by 10 heading into the fourth quarter against a team you hadn't beaten since 1977, and you just allowed two touchdowns to give up the lead. What do you do?
You win anyway.
πΎππππΎπ π
β FloFootball (@FloFootball) September 1, 2024
Rhode Island's Farrell connects with Harris to retake the lead late in the 4th! #CAAfb | @CAAfootball | @RhodyFootball pic.twitter.com/j5Ng106wS8