If you were hibernating or were just plain busy over the last three days, playing golf or just had – you know – stuff to do besides football (shame on you), here’s what you missed in the college football world that DIDN’T involve teams that were ranked in the USA Today/ AFCA Coaches Top 25 poll.
North Texas 40, Louisiana Tech 37: Saturday night in Ruston, Louisiana, these two teams turned a rather blah first half into a fantastic finish.
Ultra-fast Tech receiver Smoke Harris looked to have given the Bulldogs a come-from-behind win when he scored on a 36-yard pass from Jacob Barnes with 1:04 left. But North Texas, who had led pretty much the entire game, was able to get kicker Noah Rauschenberg into range for a 31-yard field goal. Rauschenberg booted said field goal as time expired for the win, giving an American Athletic Conference team over the Conference USA in this one.
North Texas got its first win – the Mean Green are 1-2 on the season now. Chandler Rogers passed for 313 yards and two touchdowns. Ayo Adeyi had 148 yards rushing and a pair of TDs.
For Tech (2-2), Turner went 9-of-13 for 145 yards and the touchdown to Harris. Hank Bachmeier was hurt but also threw for two touchdowns. Tyre Shelton ran for 152 yards and a TD.
Ohio 10, Iowa State 7: Fans in Ames, Iowa are probably watching the San Francisco 49ers these days and longing for Brock Purdy to have a little more college eligibility.
The Cyclones, who forced a punt and got the ball back at Ohio with 2:21 left, trailing 10-7, just couldn’t pull off the magic trick. Ohio cornerback Roman Parodie batted a pass from Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht, and it was picked off by Rodney Mathews. The Bobcats were able to run out the clock and get the upset win, the first for Ohio – a Mid-American (MAC) Conference team over a Power-Five team since 2017 (Kansas).
For Ohio, a the scores were a 5-yard touchdown pass from Kurtis Rourke to Sam Wiglusz in the third quarter, and a 27-yard field goal by Gianni Spectic in the fourth. Iowa State got an 18-yard touchdown pass from Becht to Jayden Higgins with 4:15 left in the game.
The Cyclones fall to 1-2 with the loss.
Of interest was an incident that reportdly happened afterward between Iowa State coach Matt Campbell and an Iowa State fan. Caught on X/ Twitter and reported by Sports Illustrated (si.com), the footage shows a Cyclones fan behind a barricade telling Campbell he was “on the hot seat.” Campbell, several yards away, appears to try to get to the fan, but is separated by players and security.
Campbell’s Cyclones went 9-3 in 2020, but have gone 12-15 since then, including this year’s 1-2 record.
Auburn 45, Samford 13: Here at Jordan-Haire Stadium, it appears first-year Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze may have officially have his quarterback.
Payton Thorne, a graduate transfer from Michigan State who sounds like a character from the “Dynasty” series from the 1980s, threw for 282 yards and a score, and ran for 123 yards and two more TDs, this win over Samford on Saturday night. Samford is a university in Birmingham.
Auburn moves to 3-0 with the win, and makes the trip to Texas A&M (2-1, see below) next Saturday. Thorne did have a pair of interceptions in the game. He shared time at QB with Robby Ashford, last year’s starter on the Plains.
Auburn finished with 562 total yards.
Texas A&M 47, Louisiana Monroe 3: The Warhawks were in the wrong place, at the wrong time. And the Aggies took out their frustrations on them.
A week after falling to Miami in South Beach, the Aggies dropped a bomb, like the Gap Band, on ULM, 47-3 on Saturday at Kyle Field, in front of 93,000-plus.
A&M quarterback Conner Weigman, tuning up for Auburn and the Aggies’ Southeastern Conference opener, went 25-of-29 for 337 yards, a touchdown pass and a touchdown run.
The Texas A&M defense held ULM to 1-of-12 on third-down attempts.
Elsewhere in games that featured teams that weren’t ranked in the AFCA top 25 poll, or at least weren’t over the weekend when the games were played, Clemson hosted Florida Atlantic and won, 48-14; TCU got a 36-13 win in Houston; Texas State hosted former Deion Sanders-led Jackson State and won big, 77-34; Stanford, a Pac-12 school that once competed and defeated schools like USC and UCLA, was embarrassed by Sacramento State at home, 30-23; West Virginia won at home, 17-6, over Pittsburgh; New Mexico State beat New Mexico, 27-17; Kentucky beat Akron, 35-3; in a bit of a surprise, BYU went into Southeastern Conference country and came away with a 38-31 win over Arkansas; Syracuse got a 35-20 win at Purdue; Stony Brook was routed, 31-7, at Arkansas State; Toledo beat San Jose State, 21-17; James Madison remained undefeated by taking a 16-14 win at Troy; Southern Methodist University (better known to you as SMU) shut out Prairie View A&M, 69-0; Coastal Carolina beat Duquesne, 66-7; Rice blasted Texas Southern, 59-7; and Louisiana dealt the Trent Dilfer-coached Alabama Birmingham Blazers a 41-21 loss, their second of the season.
Continuing, Texas Tech routed Tarleton State, 41-3; Nebraska got the first win of the coach Matt Rhule era, beating Northern Illinois, 35-11; Vanderbilt continued to be the pride of the SEC – not – they lost at UNLV, 40-37; Miami (Ohio) dropped one-time College Football Playoff qualifier Cincinnati, 31-24, in Cincinnati; Middle Tennessee beat Murray State, 35-14; Tulane took down Southern Miss, 21-3; Central Florida scored 34 first-half points and whipped Villanova, 48-14; Cal almost doubled-up Idaho, 31-17; Rutgers remained unbeaten with a 35-16 win at Virginia Tech – the Scarlet Knights are 3-0, having won all three at home; Florida International kept UConn winless (0-3), dealing them a 24-17 loss at UConn; Appalachian State won their home game against East Carolina, 43-28; Ball State beat Indiana State, 47-7; North Carolina State beat VMI, 45-7; Boise State beat North Dakota, 42-18; Kent State topped Central Connecticut, 38-10; Wake Forest edged Old Dominion, 27-24; Liberty beat Buffalo, 55-27; Wisconsin topped Georgia Southern, 35-14; Baylor topped Long Island, 30-7; and Louisville beat Indiana, 21-14.
Of all of those programs, only one – Clemson – is ranked in the new coaches’ poll that was released on Sunday: Clemson, at number 23.
