Eight takeaways from an adventurous Week 3 in college football:
1. It’s getting late early for Billy Napier in Gainesville. Like, really late.
In a critical Year 3 for the embattled coach of the Florida Gators, Napier has now been walloped twice in The Swamp. The season-opening, 41–17 loss to the Miami Hurricanes was quite bad. The 33–20 loss Saturday to the Texas A&M Aggies was worse. The Aggies were forced to go with their backup quarterback, Marcel Reed, a redshirt freshman making his first college start, and still they dominated.
Napier might have reached his nadir when, amid a soaking rain, the Aggies marched 99 yards to score and take a 20–0 lead without completing a single pass on the drive. There simply was never much hope for the Gators in a home game against a team that is not expected to be among the SEC’s upper echelon.
This 1–2 start has accelerated the firing watch. On3 Sports’ Florida outlet, Gators Online, reported late Saturday night that a Florida board of trustees meeting has been called for Sunday. Earlier in the day, Napier didn’t sound like he could sufficiently defend his body of work.
“This is one of those places where there’s history and tradition and expectations,” Napier said afterward. “There’s been a lot of really good football teams that played in that stadium in the past, and when you play ugly ball, and maybe it doesn’t look quite like we all want it to, then hey, it comes with the territory. I probably would have done the same thing, truth be known.”
This is against the backdrop of a schedule that will only get harder, with five remaining opponents currently ranked in the AP top 16 and four of them in the top seven. Reaching bowl eligibility seems like an uphill climb. And Florida aspires to a lot more than bowl eligibility.
Would the school make a change this soon? That remains to be seen, but the school has a history of in-season firings. The last three full-time head coaches (Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain and Dan Mullen) all were sent packing with regular-season games still to play. The question is whether athletic director Scott Stricklin will be empowered to make a stay-or-go call on Napier, because his job could be on the line as well.
2. The potential Heisman Trophy frontrunner got injured Saturday. It might not matter.
Texas Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers, who had been masterful through the first nine quarters of the season, went down with what coach Steve Sarkisian said was a strained abdomen early in the second quarter of a routine walkover against the UTSA Roadrunners. While that is tough news for Ewers, it isn’t the cause for concern most programs would have if their star QB goes down.
The backup goes by the name of Arch Manning. And let’s just say there have been some people excited to see him play meaningful snaps for the Longhorns.
The latest member of the acclaimed Manning quarterback family was the No. 1 recruit in the nation last year. He chose to patiently bide his time behind Ewers—but when called upon Saturday night, Manning looked ready for his moment.
With Texas up 14–0, Manning’s first pass went 19 yards for a touchdown. Three offensive snaps later, he sprinted 67 yards for a score. In the third quarter, Manning threw touchdown passes of 51 and 75 yards. On his first nine completed passes and three rushes, he produced 276 yards and five scores.
CAN'T TOUCH HIM 😮💨@ArchManning pic.twitter.com/65nR57qIR5
— Texas Football (@TexasFootball) September 15, 2024
It should be noted that the 51-yarder was a bubble screen to Isaiah Bond that he broke for six points. And the 75-yarder to Ryan Wingo was wide open after a coverage bust. But the numbers are outrageous.
With the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks and a miserable Mississippi State Bulldogs team all that stand between now and the Red River game against the Oklahoma Sooners on Oct. 12, Sarkisian shouldn’t be in a rush to get Ewers back in the lineup. But Ewers himself might feel some urgency—because as good as he is, you don’t want to be Wally Pipp’d by someone who is showing signs of a blossoming superstar.
3. There were two other major quarterback injuries Saturday.
The Wisconsin Badgers’ Tyler Van Dyke went down with a leg injury early in the game against the Alabama Crimson Tide and was taken to the locker room on a cart, scuttling whatever slim chances the Badgers had of pulling off a home upset. And the North Carolina State Wolfpack lost Grayson McCall in the first half of an eventual victory over the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs.
“I don’t think it looks real good for us, for him,” Badgers coach Luke Fickell said of the Van Dyke injury, adding that an MRI would have to be done before having a full picture of the situation. NC State coach Dave Doeren gave no update on McCall.
Neither transfer QB had played particularly well up to this point in the season, but they’re clearly their teams’ best options. Both begin conference play next—NC State at the Clemson Tigers next Saturday and Wisconsin at the USC Trojans on Sept. 28.
4. The Mid-American Conference is acting up again.
One week after the Northern Illinois Huskies shocked the nation by winning at the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, the Toledo Rockets completely dominated an SEC team. The Rockets, perennially the most solid program in the MAC, jumped up on Mississippi State, 28–3, at halftime, extended it to 35–3 early in the third quarter and coasted home in Starkville, Miss.
The MAC has a proud history of slaying giants, but rarely has it had back-to-back Saturdays like this. That 1–2 punch goes a long way toward debunking the popular narrative that mid-major teams can no longer compete because the power programs are taking all of their good players via the transfer portal and piles of NIL cash.
Toledo lost its veteran quarterback, Dequan Finn, to the Baylor Bears in the offseason. But the Rockets look better offensively now with his three-year backup, Tucker Gleason, in that starting role. Gleason came into the Mississippi State game with six touchdowns and zero interceptions, then threw three more TDs and no picks against the Bulldogs.
Dare to dream, but the Toledo–Northern Illinois game Oct. 19 could shape up as an improbable major matchup in terms of College Football Playoff implications.
5. Eli Holstein is college football’s new Captain Comeback.
The Pittsburgh Panthers freshman transferred from Alabama after not playing at all in 2023 and has become an instant Panthers hero. Holstein led a comeback from 21 points down last week at the Cincinnati Bearcats, with Pitt scoring on its final four possessions to win 28–27. Then this week, with the Panthers down 34–24 with fewer than five minutes left in the Backyard Brawl rivalry game against the West Virginia Mountaineers, Holstein led touchdown drives of 75 and 77 yards to pull out another one.
Holstein threw for 301 yards and three touchdowns and ran for another 59 against the Mountaineers. For the season, he has thrown for 939 yards and nine touchdowns, while running for 96 yards. Pitt is 3–0 for the first time since 2020, and should enter October and ACC play 4–0 after facing the Youngstown State Penguins next week.
6. What a week for Washington State.
The Cougars were discarded to the power-conference remainder bin along with the Oregon State Beavers when the Pac-12 collapsed last year. But an improbable revival is underway in Pullman.
The biggest news came off the field, with Wazzu and Oregon State coordinating with Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould to poach four schools from the Mountain West Conference—Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State—to join a refurbished Pac-12 in 2026. They will look to add at least two more schools soon.
That at least secures a viable future. But the present looks pretty great, too. Washington State upset bitter rival Washington on Saturday, 24–19, running its record to 3–0. That was especially sweet after the Huskies’ role in the demise of the Pac-12, and it adds to the joy of the week for the Cougars.
After losing star quarterback Cam Ward to the transfer portal, coach Jake Dickert turned to backup John Mateer and has gotten superb results. Mateer had 307 total yards and three touchdowns against the Huskies and has 11 total TDs on the season.
(Oregon State didn’t fare nearly as well in its rivalry game Saturday, getting blown out by the Oregon Ducks, 49–14. The Beavers can still ride the high of being part of a rebuilding conference, but they also know that the hated Ducks finally looked like the national contender they were billed to be this season.)
7. The SEC has brutalized the Big Ten in two Midwest showdowns.
Last week, Texas went into the Big House and laid a big beatdown on the defending national champion Michigan Wolverines, 31–12. This week, Alabama throttled Wisconsin, 42–10. Neither win was a surprise for the SEC visitors, but the margins were noteworthy—and could leave a mark when the CFP selection committee gets down to comparing teams for at-large selections in the new 12-team playoff later this season.
8. Mark Stoops’s punt will be second-guessed for a long time.
The Kentucky Wildcats bounced back from an ugly loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks to play the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs off their feet in Lexington, Ky., trailing by just a point with 3:01 left and in possession of the ball. The Wildcats faced a fourth-and-8 at the Georgia 47-yard line, needing just one first down to get in range for strong-legged kicker Alex Raynor.
And Stoops chose to punt the ball away.
That turned out the way most hyper-conservative decisions do. Georgia, with a potential No. 1 NFL draft pick at quarterback in Carson Beck, drove the ball into Kentucky territory and didn’t punt it back to the Wildcats until nine seconds remained. Kentucky’s best chance to win had come and gone by then, and the Bulldogs escaped with a 13–12 victory.
Stoops also played for field goals earlier in the game when a single touchdown might have won it. Kentucky played very well, but has to feel like it didn’t shoot its best shot by refusing to take a few more chances.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as College Football Week 3 Takeaways: Billy Napier’s Seat Gets Hotter.
