A roundup of major college football games from the weekend of Friday, Sept. 5, and Saturday, Sept. 6:
- Georgia 48, Tennessee Tech 3: Georgia quarterback Carson Beck threw five touchdown passes to five different players in this overwhelming result over visiting Tennessee Tech in Athens, Georgia.
Beck’s five-touchdown day ties a school record by several quarterbacks – Stetson Bennett did it in 2021, against Alabama-Birmingham.
This Saturday, coach Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs visit Kentucky, who lost overwhelmingly themselves, surprisingly, to South Carolina. Tech is off this Saturday, then hosts Tennessee State on Sept. 21.
Also for Georgia in the game, Trevor Etienne, the transfer from Florida, had 78 yards on five carries in his Bulldogs’ debut.
Beck, who went 18-of-25 for 242 yards and the five scores, came out in the third quarter. His TD passes went to Dillon Bell (22 yards), Colbie (6), Dominic Lovett (10), Arian Smith (50) and Lawson Luckie (37).
- Alabama 42, South Florida 16: If there were a game on the schedule this week whose final score was not indicative of the contest itself, it’d be this one.
For 3 ½ quarters, South Florida gave the Crimson Tide all it could handle, on the night that the University of Alabama officially renamed Bryant-Denny Stadium “Saban Field at Bryant Denny Stadium,” with Saban and his family on hand and honored.
Alabama led 21-16 with just over six minutes left, and then scored 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter. The Alabama offensive line had a woeful performance without starting left tackle Kadyn Proctor, which forced major reshuffling, and the penalties were just staggering – well over 20 combined flags on both teams, but an unreal amount of holding calls on Alabama’s line.
The Bulls (1-1) sacked Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe four times, and he lost a fumble inside USF’s 5-yard-line in the second half. Alabama also had fumbles by running backs and on a kick return.
The normally unflappable Milroe still had two touchdown runs and two touchdown passes (to Kobe Prentice and Ryan Williams), and steadied his team down the way.
Jamarion “Jam” Miller had a 56-yard touchdown run and Justice Haynes, a 29-yarder with just over three minutes left. Miller finished with 140 rushing yards and the score.
South Florida quarterback Byrum Brown was a thorn in the Tide’s side for most of the night – at least until they put a spy on him. He only threw for 103 yards, but ran for 108 on 23 carries, much of that in the first half.
The Bulls will be back on the road Saturday, at Southern Miss, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Alabama will play at Wisconsin.
- Nebraska 28, Colorado 10: Is Nebraska “back?” Or was the bandwagon that Colorado chartered last year just super premature?
It might be a little of both.
The Cornhuskers held Colorado’s offense in check, just 10 points, and sacked Shedeur Sanders five times and held them to 260 total yards. First downs were hard to come by, as well, with the Buffaloes not getting a first down until their fifth offensive possession.
Nebraska (2-0) led 28-0 at the half, so if there was a negative for the ‘Huskers, it’s that they didn’t score a second-half point.
Sanders, who many thought would be a Heisman Trophy contender this year, still could – but he had a rough night, completing 23-of-38 passes for 244 yards and an interception. And Colorado had no real running game to offset those issues.
Nebraska got a solid, but not overwhelmingly-great, day from its own QB, Dylan Raiola, who went for 185 yards passing and a score.
Dante Dowdell ran for 74 yards and two touchdowns, as well.
Colorado (1-1) will visit Colorado State this Saturday, a game that got very heated a year ago. The Buffaloes are now a member of the Big 12.
Nebraska will also be home again this Saturday, hosting Northern Iowa.
- Oklahoma 16, Houston 12: In Norman, Okla., the Sooners got to face a Big 12 Conference team they would’ve faced in a conference game – were they not now members of the Southeastern Conference.
And Houston didn’t just fade into the night, either.
They forced eight Sooners punts, and held OU’s offense to just 174 passing yards – although Jackson Arnold, a first-year starter for the Sooners, did have two touchdown passes. He went 19-of-32 for 174 yards, the two scores, and an interception, and ran for 40 yards. He was also sacked three times.
Houston’s Donovan Smith went 24-of-28 for 260 yards, a touchdown, and an interception late in the game by Robert Spears-Jennings.
OU also managed a safety by Gracen Halton.
The Sooners led 14-6 at the half, and their only score of the second half was that safety.
OU (2-0) hosts Tulane in a third straight home game to start the season this coming Saturday. Houston (1-1) will also be home, hosting Rice.
- LSU 44, Nicholls 21: LSU coach Brian Kelly didn’t have to pound his fist on the postgame desk after the game Saturday night here in Baton Rouge, like he did in Las Vegas after their opening-game loss to Southern Cal.
That’s because his team did the pounding on the field.
LSU got off to a slow start, and didn’t really begin to pull away from the Nicholls Colonels until the second half, but when they did – fireworks.
Garrett Nussmeier threw six touchdowns, tying former LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels (whom he was the back-up for a year ago) with six in a game, second-best among LSU quarterbacks in the program’s history. The best: Joe Burrow, of course, who had seven TD passes against Oklahoma in the 2019 season.
Nussmeier went 27-of-37 for 302 yards.
Still, Kelly wasn’t doing cartwheels after the performance.
“I’m happy we won the football game, but certainly there are a lot of things that I’m looking at, the things we have to do better,” he said. “We’re a team that was tired and didn’t play at its very best. It was a short week for us and it showed. We just didn’t have the same energy, the same snap, the same kind of physicality that we had against USC.”
Kyren Lacy had five catches for 65 yards and three of the TDs. Trey’Dez Green, Ju’Juan Johnson and Zavion Thomas each had a touchdown, as well, and C.J. Daniels had four catches for 71 yards.
For Nicholls (0-2), running back Collin Guggenheim had 145 yards and two scores on 25 carries, including a 67-yarder.
On the ground, though, LSU struggled: 64 rushing yards in the entire game.
And Kelly owned it.
“We have to look closely at what we are doing in the run game. The players are good enough. We got to coach better. That is on me,” he said.
The Tigers (1-1) visit South Carolina to open Southeastern Conference play on Saturday; Nicholls will be on the road again, headed to Sacramento State.
- Southern Cal 48, Utah State 0: Speaking of USC, it’s been their defense that was so criticized in recent years.
No one is criticizing it right now.
After causing problems for LSU last week, and now a shutout over Utah State, the Trojans (2-0) are rising steadily in the polls and on top of that, Miller Moss looks like a keeper at quarterback.
Moss threw for 229 yards and a score in limited action and Quinten Joyner ran for 84 yards and two TDs in a 48-0 win, USC’s first shutout since 2011.
The only other thing shut out: the lights. There was a second-half lighting issue that caused a delay briefly, but then the game re-started – likely to Utah State’s dismay.
Utah State was held to just 190 total yards, with 40 of those coming in the final two minutes.
Moss connected with Makai Lemon on the touchdown pass in the second quarter. Woody Marks had a touchdown and 103 yards rushing to go with a pass he caught for a 47th-straight game – believe it or not, that’s the longest active streak in FBS in the nation.
Utah State’s quarterback, Bryson Barnes, was a familiar face to USC and its fans: he helped Utah upset USC last year at the L.A. Coliseum, as the quarterback for Utah. But he transferred, and this one didn’t go as well. He only threw for 103 yards.
Utah State has an interim coach, Nate Dreiling, after Blake Anderson was dismissed just a couple of months ago.
The Aggies (1-1) get to host Barnes’ former team, the Utah Utes, on Saturday.
USC will be off this week, and then visit Michigan on Saturday, Sept. 21, the first Big Ten Conference game for the Trojans – as strange as that feels to write.
- Tennessee 51, North Carolina State 10: In Charlotte, N.C., in the Duke’s Mayo Classic, no one got mayonnaise poured over their head. But the North Carolina State Wolfpack did get something poured all over them.
Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava went 16-of-23 for 211 yards and two touchdowns (to Miles Kitselman and Holden Staes) and ran for 65 yards and a third score in this rout of the Wolfpack (1-1).
The Vols (2-0) got a 132-yard, two-touchdown performance from running back Dylan Sampson, ran up 460 yards of total offense, and held NC State to 143, including just 39 rushing yards.
Tennessee also had a pick-six, an 85-yard interception return for a touchdown, by former walk-on Will Brooks.
NC State’s only touchdown in the contest came the same way, a pick-six.
The Wolfpack will host Louisiana Tech on Saturday; the Vols will host Kent State.
- Clemson 66, Appalachian State 20: In the first game, against a very good Georgia team ranked No. 1 in both the AP and coaches polls, Clemson’s offense was stagnant – and that’s really almost being nice.
It wasn’t stagnant against the normally-strong Appalachian State program on Saturday.
Tigers quarterback Cade Klubnik had five touchdown passes – a 76-yarder to Bryant Wesco started the scoring – and finished with 378 yards, a career-best day, in the win. Klubnik only missed two attempts: 24-of-26. He also ran for touchdowns of 2 and 3 yards. Tight end Jake Briningstool had two touchdown receptions.
Phil Mafah had an 83-yard touchdown, as well.
The Tigers finished with 712 total yards, 525 at halftime.
Clemson (1-1) is off this Saturday at hosts North Carolina State on Saturday, Sept. 21, and Appalachian State plays at East Carolina this Saturday.
- Arizona State 30, Mississippi State 23: In Tempe, Ariz., late Saturday night, the Arizona State Sun Devils – one of several new programs coming over to the Big 12 Conference from the Pac 12 – hosted Mississippi State, and got a lot of help from Cam Skattebo to get the home win.
Skattebo ran for 262 yards and quarterback Sam Leavitt had two touchdowns to boot, as the Sun Devils beat State, 30-23.
The real story: State’s Bulldogs, under first-year head coach Jeff Lebby, darn near came all the way back from trailing 30-3 in the third quarter. Mississippi State scored with 5:27 left in the game, an 80-yard touchdown from Blake Shapen to Kevin Coleman Jr., to get within a touchdown (30-23).
But Arizona State got the ball back, and ran out what was left of the clock – Skattebo’s 39-yard run with just under two minutes left was enough to do it.
It was the first meeting ever between the two programs.
Shapen finished 18-of-28 for 268 yards and the touchdown to Coleman, and another touchdown to David Booth, earlier in the fourth quarter.
Sun Devils defensive lineman C.J. Fite had a fumble recovery for a touchdown, getting the ball just inside the pylon before he fell out of bounds.
Mississippi State (1-1) hosts Toledo Saturday night, and Arizona State (2-0) plays at Texas State, in San Marcos, near Austin.
- Oregon 37, Boise State 34: In Eugene, Oregon, the hometown Oregon Ducks had a tussle with visiting Boise State at home at Autzen Stadium, as the Broncos gave Oregon all it wanted – until the very end, when Oregon’s Atticus Sappington hit a 25-yard field goal as time expired to break a 34-all tie and give the Ducks the win.
Oregon (2-0) remains undefeated and plays at old rival Oregon State this Saturday. Boise State (1-1_ will host Portland State next Saturday, Sept. 21.
Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who is on his third stop in college, threw two touchdowns: one to Evan Stewart for 67 yards, and another in the second half to Traeshon Holden, for 59 yards. The Ducks missed the extra point, though, leaving the game tied at 20.
Oregon got an 85-yard punt return from Tez Johnson to put the Ducks in front, 27-20, but Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty, who rushed for 192 yards and three touchdowns, tied it again on a 70-yard TD run (27-27).
Jeanty gave Boise a 34-27 lead with 10:15 left on an 8-yard run by Jeanty, and set up an incredible sequence: a 99-yard kick return by Noah Whittington, but a fumble recovery by Jayden Limar for the game-tying touchdown.
Oregon would get back in position to kick the field goal by Sappington as the clock struck zero – and the Ducks would take the win.
- Washington State 37, Texas Tech 16: In Pullman, Washington, in this battle of teams formerly coached by the late Mike Leach, Washington State quarterback John Mateer ran for 197 yards and a score, and threw for a touchdown as well.
Mateer set a school record for yards rushing by a quarterback, as the Cougars finished with 301 yards rushing in the game.
Djouvensky Schlenbaker also scored twice for State (2-0).
In the process, the Cougars were able to overcome a good performance by Tech quarterback Behren Morton, who passed for 323 yards and a score, but also threw two picks. Coy Eakin threw a touchdown pass, as well, to Cam’Ron Valdez for a score in the second quarter.
As for paying tribute to coach Leach, known as “The Pirate,” both wore pirate emblem-stickers on their helmets for the game, and Leach was honored at the half.
Tech (1-1) will host North Texas on Saturday. Washington State will play at Lumen Field in Seattle against Washington.
